DC pictures

I had the privilege of visiting our nations capital this week.



Due to it being a work related trip I didn't have a lot of time for sight seeing. On Wednesday I attended the launch of a new curriculum developed by the National Institutes of Health titled "Health is Life in Balance." It was developed for American Indian kids K-12. It was a big event at the Smithsonian Museum - National Museum of the American Indian. We had a walk on the national mall in the afternoon. During the walk, a couple of friends and I skipped out and headed over the the Holocaust Museum. I don't have the words to describe the emotions and thoughts from viewing the horrific events filling these years. I don't think I ever really grasped the short amount of time it took for Hitler to warp people's minds. I want to go back when my kids are older to see this again. I would like to take more time going through next time. If I have time, and if I am able to gather my thoughts in a concise manner, I will try to post more about this later.

Thursday and Friday I attended meetings held in my hotel. I had the choice between attending Grant Management trainings that covered much of what I have been doing for the last 4 years or attending the Tribal Leaders Diabetes Committee meeting. I bounced back and forth between the rooms, but the TLDC meeting was by far the more interesting of the two. It was very interesting to watch the process the committee goes through to determine how our Special Diabetes Program for Indians grant money is divided. I developed a great deal of respect for the members of this committee and now have a greater understanding of what happens after congress appropriates our funding. The picture above is me with our poster displaying what our program has been doing here at Haskell. Just to brag for a minute about our program- we have about 94 participants who have graduated from our program in the last 3 years. Only 2 of those have gone on to develop type 2 diabetes. This is much better than statistics would suggest for people w/ prediabetes not attending a lifestyle change program. In fact, it is 5 times better than for those who were in the orginal DPP research study. Improving nutrition and increasing physical activity really DO work!!!

One evening we walked by the White House. I wish I could take better night pictures. This is pretty blurry, buy you can still tell that it is really pretty at night!

Fun times painting

Tonight we painted... It was fun... And messy...

A late halloween post

We had minimal plans for Halloween. The girls were going to "dress up" in their baseball player pjs my mom gave them this summer. Then last Wednesday Amanda started talking about "dress up Halloween."

What??? Where did that come from? We hadn't talked about it. It was then I realized that she goes to preschool and, well, Halloween is a big deal to most of the kids there. All of a sudden I felt a panic and realized that I couldn't just send them to preschool in their pjs. So, I called the preschool to find out the Halloween plan. No big deal really, they were just planning on putting the kids in their Halloween costumes at 3 PM, having a parade in the parking lot and a few parents were going to come to let them trick-or-treat out of their car trunks. They would also have a party with food, but other parents had already signed up to bring the food, so they just needed treats to pass out.

My first deli ma was to find costumes. We were pretty broke after our trip to Arkansas last month, so I had to find things we could do without purchasing too much. My first thought was make Clara a cat. She could wear her black sweatsuit and we could make a little headband with ears, paint whiskers on her and stick a tail on her sweatpants. Then I thought of one of Amanda's dresses that looks very princess like. If I could find a crown, wand, and some glitter make-up, we would have a complete little princess.

Thursday on my lunch break I had limited time to find the needed items. Luckily I found a little princess set at Bargain Depot for 1.75 (***not pictured, it broke and I had to make an emergency Wal-Mart trip on my lunch break Friday) and slippers and glitter make up at the Family Dollar Store. I also found a pumpkin costume for Clara for $6. Of course it was 12-18 months, a little too small, but it was only for one night. Do you like the Japanimation pumpkin look?

Halloween puts a dietitian in an awkward position. It is actually a pretty big deal to me to NOT make a big deal out of food around the kids. It is pretty common for dietitians kids to end up with eating disorders, so I am pretty careful to just have healthy food around the house most of the time, and then on occasions when other stuff is around, I just let it go. Everything in moderation, right? On the other hand, what I feel I shouldn't be the one offering the junk food, so my treats had to be different. So it was time to search of healthy, prepackaged, affordable snacks. First I bought little boxes of raisins. We feed the girls raisins and they love them, but technically they are considered a chocking hazard, and for good reason. So I thought I would keep those and hand them out to older kids who came to our house to trick-or-treat, and find some stickers for preschool. Have you ever tried to find Halloween stickers the day before Halloween? There were no cute little pumpkin or fat bat stickers to be found - just ghost, skeletons, and vampires. (Additional things I don't really want to promote...) So I ended up purchasing 3 boxes of full sized Oatmeal raisin granola bars (not supper healthy, but at least more nutritious than chocolate...) and 2 bags of small little bottles of bubbles.

Halloween day turned out to be lots of fun for everyone. Amanda loved being a princess, Clara started the day as a Arkansas Razorback cheerleader, because the outfit fit and was really cute! Amanda really enjoyed the party. She ate way too much food... See that plate, she ate it all!

In the evening we went trick-or-treating to a few houses on our street. The first house we went to was an elderly couple who live behind us. They love to see the girls. As soon as Doris opened the door with candy Amanda walked right past her and made herself at home. When we tried to explain trick-or-treating, Amanda started picking up items around the house and putting them in her bucket.

Next we went to our friend Randy, Allison and Rachel's house. The girls had fun playing in the backyard before heading out to a few more houses for trick-or-treating. This is Rachel, the giraffe, Randy and Clara the pumpkin.

We had a great time and the girls were worn out.

James promises he will take care of the candy for me, I don't need to worry about it...