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...

Scattered bits, pieces, and random thoughts

Hello everyone. Sorry about the long break from blogging. We had a great trip to Arkansas to visit family. I was sick for my sister's baby shower, so I didn't get many pictures. It was great to see my family. I just wish I had felt like talking to them. My sister Leslie will have her C-section tomorrow and baby Lyric will begin to change our lives!
Other than that, here is a brief summary of what is going on in our lives:
Amanda:
Potty training is going great. We are having occasional accidents, but Amanda actually woke up dry this morning! Yeah! She has adjusted well to preschool. All night tonight she kept telling me she missed Megan. (Megan is her teacher.)
Clara:
Clara is as cute as ever. She just loves attention and really wants people to make eye contact with her and smile. She will do whatever it takes to get it too. She will be the clown in the family. She used the potty this morning too!
James:
Completed the FE exam this past weekend and will find out in 12 weeks if he passed. He says he will not be surprised if he passed.
Me:
Not much is new with me, so here are some of the things I have been thinking about...
Our small group at church is studying 1 John. Last night we talked about obedience. (1Jn 2:3-5 And by this we know that we have known Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, I have known Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His Word, truly in this one the love of God is perfected. By this we know that we are in Him. ) James has been talking to Amanda about obeying in her heart. Tonight she was not listening to me, and I asked her if she was going to obey me. When she heard the word obey, she smiled at me and said "Yes mommy, me obey!" She was so enthusiastic in her obedience. I hope that I will obey God with the same enthusiasm, so that the love of God can be perfected in me.

Potty Training Help Requested

I am tired of potty training. It seems we are getting nowhere. We have been potty training Amanda for almost a year now. We have mostly been pretty laid back about it, but I am tired of spending a fortune on diapers and, as Amanda's teacher and the director of the preschool reminded me, she can't move up with the 3 yr olds until she is potty trained. Moving up to the next class will also save additional money. She loves sitting on the potty and will ask to "potty train." Somewhere in the process I think we have lost the training part of it. It is more like alone time with mommy when she gets to sit on the potty while I talk, sing, read books... I think she knows when she needs to go and I think she does ask to go to the potty at that point, but I don't think she knows how to relax and let it out. She knows the rest of the process all of the way through always washing her hands. I have tried everything. We are using the cloth training pants at home so she can feel being wet. I have even broken my own rule that food should never be used as a reward or a punishment. She now knows she will get a "treat" (an M&M) when she actually uses the potty, and two treats if she has a bowel movement. I don't know what else to do. Does anyone have any good tips or resources you can recommend???

Thanks!

Home Again

I am not feeling great due to allergies, but I wanted to make a short post to let you all know that I am home again. We all made it through the week just fine. James probably paid the most because he had 4 tests last week. He thinks he did ok on 3 of them.

Thanks to all of you who prayed for us. I had a good safe trip. Attached are some of the pictures from my trip.

I was at College Station, TX on the campus of Texas A&M at Reed Arena. An emergecy shelter for people with special needs was set up here. The picture of the arena floor shows the cots for the patients. These were mostly full when I got there. They were rapidly discharged over the course of the week last week. I worked in the patient food service. The group photo shows a few of the people I worked with and there is a picture of me cleaning a cart we used to deliver patient's food. The other picture of cots shows our sleeping arrangements.

My next blog will show more exciting pictures of my kids, for now, I am off to take some Benedryl...

Prayers for our family are needed

I just wanted to let you all know that I probably won't be on-line for a while. I have been deployed to assist with the response to Hurricane Ike. I will be in College Station, TX.
Pray for James and the girls as they make it with out me around for a little while.

The good news is Amanda is doing better at daycare this week. Pray that she doesn't regress! Today when I went to pick her up at preschool, they were on the playground. The teacher said that she had been sitting by herself and she went over to check on her. She asked her what she was doing and she said, "praying." I had talked to her about praying to Jesus if she felt sad or lonely and he could help her heart feel better. I hope she will continue to pray next week when she misses her Mommy.