One month

Well, folks, we made it! One month ago today we started the paleo diet. I was very skeptical and reluctant, but we settled into our new routine quickly and it's still going great. Besides a complaint here and there from one of the boys, which happened quite often before this month anyway, we are all satisfied and not looking back. We think that we feel better overall, not so sluggish and tired as we used to be. I have definitely noticed that my hot, shaky feeling in between meals has gone away...even if I wait a long time to eat. Just in the last week I've noticed I feel more full between meals and I don't sit around craving sweets anymore. And speaking of sweets, it only takes the natural sweetness of fruit or a tiny amount of honey for something to taste really sweet to me now, whereas I used to be able to eat half a recipe of sugar-filled icing without batting an eye. I've lost a little weight too, which I don't really care about, but maybe people who are interested in losing weight would like to know that it happened within 2 weeks or so from starting the diet.

So this is our last month before school starts. We are going to the gym 3 mornings a week for kids' classes and I get to work out afterwards, which I haven't done regularly since before Julia was born. Matt is busy at work with maintaining and improving the business and keeping up with the house stuff. This week we got see some of the lot-clearing process and the boys were excited to watch an excavator loading up some logs. Now the basement work has begun and we're also trying to begin making some of the decisions about paint, counters, etc. We have also found out that our next door neighbors have two boys, ages 4 and 7, who are thrilled to have our boys to play with in a few months. Our neighborhood is small and apparently the only other kids are a few little girls. I sure was not expecting the boys to have friends there, especially their age and right next door! Looking forward to getting to know this family.

I think Joshua is both excited and nervous about kindergarten. He's been a bit of a challenge lately, going back to some of his old ways of struggling anytime the littlest thing isn't the way he wants it to be. Matt thinks he's just grasping for control of something, since so much of his world is out of his control right now. So I'm trying to find ways to let him have some control in his day-to-day life and today it helped a little bit, yet his constant pouting and rudeness is definitely trying my patience. I know this is just a stage, though, and I'm just praying I'll see how to help him get through it.

Gray is also having some issues with controlling his anger and frustration. He can be so sweet and pleasant one minute and screaming the next. His "teenage" attitude sometimes drives me crazy, but sometimes makes me want to laugh a little because it's hard to take him seriously with his sweet little chubby cheeks. Lately we've been spending some more time letting him learn and develop more of his skills, such as resuming our reading lessons. I also let him make a "flower snack" from an apple, almond butter, and berries today, looking at a picture in the cookbook and his was perfect--even better than Joshua's. I'm excited to see what things he likes to do and is good at.

Julia is still having a time sharing a room with her brothers and ends up spending half her day sleeping to catch up from the night before. She's so enjoying imitating and playing with her brothers these days. She follows them around and tries to do whatever they are doing and say whatever they are saying. I love when she said, "Aye aye, Captain!" She seems to be getting out of her stranger anxiety a little bit and isn't quite as hostile anymore. She is talking up a storm and saying little sentences now. It's so fun to watch her learn new phrases and the boys get a kick out of asking her to say things like, "potty." Speaking of which, she's still often telling me when she has a dirty diaper and she has sat on the potty a couple of times, just to get used to the idea. Hopefully when we move in our new house, we'll get her potty trained and not have so many stinky cloth diapers to deal with!

Well that is about all that's new with us. The boys learned how to use the camera today and have taken probably 50 pictures, so I'll have to post some of the beauties, particularly a few closeups of peoples' rear ends:)