We have a walker!

Tuesday was an exciting day for our little girl, at least in my eyes. Not only did she get to go on her first fishing trip with Grandpa, eat pine needles, and come back reeking of fish; she also started walking! She's been cruising for a long time, and I knew it was coming but I was still pretty surprised when she stood up from the middle of the floor and walked across the room to me. I guess I'm really in trouble now.

Please sign this

I know many of you may have differing opinions about the vaccinations topic. However, I also believe that people should be informed about the things they are 'supporting' with their purchases and that is not something that is happening with this company. I also believe people should be allowed to make their own decisions regarding their health and that of their families and not have things forced upon them. Because of this I signed the petition "BAN PAMPERS PRODUCTS". I'm asking you to sign this petition to help reach the goal of 10,000 signatures. I care deeply about this cause. I urge you to view this link, read the description of the petition, and if you are at all concerned about what the government is trying to do with regards to eliminating our choices for health, please sign the petition. Thank you!

If you've got time

This is worth watching if you've got 40 minutes to kill and have a high speed line to watch it. It's totally heartbreaking but eye opening for sure. It seems no matter how many times you see this sort of thing it always hurts. It's unbelievable to see how we as humans are capable of conducting ourselves but it's also amazing to see the transformation of an individual when shown the truth.
I still stand firm in being a carnivore, because it's next to impossible to get the nutrition I need for myself and Kaylee when we can't have soy, most nuts and she has issues with beans to frequently. We bought a cow last month from J's aunt and uncle who had raised him on grass. It was a little bit difficult saying good bye to him as we had gone to visit him many times the past year but he will feed us for at least the rest of the year and he lived a very good life. It's amazing to me every time I go out to the grocery store to see what people walk out of there with. I'm going to try next year to make trips to the store only once a month or so for our grains (and maybe fish - trout can get old), as that's all we ever get there anyway. As soon as we can afford to join a CFA we'll do that for veggies, so that will cut that part of the trip out and reduce the journeys to the farmers markets. I realize that I am just one person (actually, I guess we are three as J and Kaylee are with me on this journey) and the reduction of our part is minimal, but I choose to believe that it does make a small difference. And maybe through my actions I can be an influence to others, I guess we'll see.

Happy Birthday Kaylee

I know I'm a little late in getting this post up but it's been busy. We were in San Diego, CA for a friend's wedding during Kaylee's first birthday. But we did our best to still make our little girl feel special for her big day. I made her a Kaylee safe birthday cake and our amazing friends shared their wedding celebration by having every one there sing happy birthday. Here's a picture of Kaylee eating her birthday cake. We also got to take her to the beach on the trip, and see the water and people surfing. She enjoyed the water but isn't a big fan of the sand. I guess we don't have to worry about getting a sand box any time soon. Kaylee has grown so much and is doing amazing. She's starting to talk and has about 9 recognizable words now and 4 signs that she uses consistently. She's standing on her own very well and can walk across the room if she's holding on to something, but unaided can only go a step right now. It seems that her physical abilities change daily though, she's doing new things and climbing to new heights (literally) every day. She is also amazingly smart, identifying things in pictures when asked, stacking, sorting, using utensils and all kinds of other fun things. I'm just blown away at how many changes take place in such a short amount of time. It was not that long ago she was completely helpless. Now her independence is increasing and she is growing so much. It scares me a little, I'm don't really feel like I am ready for all of this yet.

Picture of Happiness

My FIL visited recently and he just sent some pictures from his visit, and I had to share this one. It was so cool and eye opening to me to see a picture of myself with my amazing family. I am happy in this stage of my life, in the roles that I currently fill; as I have never experienced at any other point in my life. I experienced such joy in seeing that it shows to other people as well. How amazing to be filled with love and to shine, as God created me. I'm getting there.

Expelled

We finally got a 'date night' thanks to an awesome friend who was willing to watch Kaylee for awhile. So on our date we got to go see Expelled, and since I mentioned it before I figured I'd give you my post movie reaction. I still think everyone should see this movie! The saddest thing was that there were only about a dozen people in our theater, granted it was 5:30 on a week night, but still. It was awesome, the cinematography was fantastic as was the editing. I think they did a fantastic job at presenting the subject matter without any slants and presenting both sides of the issue. I love Ben Stein, he's amazing to have taken on such an issue and presented it to the world with no fear whatsoever. Great movie... go see it before it's gone, just like our freedom.

A lack of time?

I've had tons to say lately but it seems no time to share all of my thoughts. I think the most amazing thing is that the more you learn and in turn grow, the more you think, and if you apply it you can use your knowledge to teach others and continue enacting a ripple effect in your world. I feel like I keep learning so much each day and that the syncronicity in everything I come across is just amazing. I'm sure there is some scientific term for rapidly moving towards a particular state of mind or being, where knowledge is abundant, but I'm not sure what that is. However if there is such a term I see it not only applicable to my own life, but also to the world at large. It's beautiful!
There are many things inspiring me in my life right now; besides getting Big Mouth Foods off the ground and moving forward professionally; I've been growing a lot spiritually, and feel so blessed and grateful for those who are walking this journey with me. I feel like there are so many things going on right now in the world (not that I'm aware of the majority of them) there is no way you can not get fired up or be in some way passionate about one area or another. Here are some of the things rocking my world lately that I'm loving/passionately upset about.

• With Earth Day tomorrow and "green" living being such a hot topic lately I'm sure I am just one of the masses being bombarded with articles and advertisements about stuff that is somehow related (or sometimes not) to the environment. I feel like we're somehow ahead of the game or something since everything these articles keep saying that you should do are things we already do, but that's beside the point. I think because J works in the renewable energy industry people are always asking us about different energy sources and what we think of them etc. I find some of the things amusing that people think are "green" or helpful to the earth when in fact they don't make the slightest difference. I also find the discrepancy of people's behavior more than amusing. How in one area of their life they do something they see as good (using a cloth grocery bag) while in many others they don't even think about the damage they are doing to themselves or the planet (using paper cups for endless cups of coffee at Starbucks; pumping themselves full of drugs that will soon turn up in our water supply; or using chemical filled soap and cleaners to 'clean' themselves and their houses only further polluting our water.) Okay off the eco soap box.
  
• A movie I haven't even seen yet (but hope to as soon as I can find someone to watch the baby for a few hours) I believe is long overdue in coming out and am excited as anything to see: Expelled I'm not sure how people who are passionate about their beliefs, whatever they may be, wouldn't be outraged about such censorship of knowledge.
• King Corn - I also have not seen this yet, but am very excited to. Even though we've been avoiding corn for close to a year now the essence of this film still hits home very strongly for me. Along the same lines as The Future of Food and Supersize Me (both of which I strongly recommend seeing if you have not already), I think this will continue to open people's eyes to the greed and gluttony in this country and what we have done to a once reasonably healthy grain. Corn produced in Mexico can have as much as 13% fiber and so many more slow carbs than the yellow corn (dent) that is grown here to be processed into corn syrup etc. It's sad how we've (collective) modified and 'engineered' what was a beautiful healthy food into something that may serve the 'needs' of the populous but at the same time is killing us with every ounce of consumption. It's true too how extremely difficult it is to avoid corn as it's processed and added to nearly everything imaginable. I hope that people actually see this film and from it see that they, the consumer, need to choose wisely between whole grain products and overly processed or treated foods. If more people would choose the whole corn products, grass fed animals, and slower carb products that are made by more natural processes the rate of disease in this country would fall. This would give them so much less to complain about which leads me to my next point...
• A Complaint Free World - I'm almost done with the book but still find myself restarting the challenge every day. I was at a friend's house when her room mate came home and declared that she was on day five, and showed me her bracelet. I inquired about what she was doing and found myself leaving their house that night with a bracelet, book, and a mission to change my world. I'm very excited about the potential that this challenge holds and the amazing transformation that can come from it. It can impact every area of life and leave you seeing the world in a totally different light.
• This is pretty unrelated, but it's something that I am highly amused by. Individuals who become vegetarians because of the unethical treatment of animals yet continue to eat commercially produced eggs, and dairy products with out a second thought. Often they don't even buy the 'cage free' or organic varieties. This is something I really don't understand. Just one of those hmm things... I guess I have a lot of those though. I also find their argument about the environmental impact of the animals interesting while they turn to soy as their protein alternative which in itself brings on massive environmental destruction itself through rain forest clear cutting, pesticide usage, oil transport of the soy. Along with the fact that most soybeans are GMO at this point makes soy a difficult alternative to justify. (Side note, I support and agree with what they're doing by not eating beef/chicken/fish whatever in many aspects, the environmental and animal cruelty arguments are definitely well founded, but I wont be going veggie anytime soon. We buy only local free range grass fed animals and their products, so I feel justified in eating them and supporting local farmers. Essentially we're doing the 100 mile diet minus a few things that I deem essentials - rice, mangoes, coconut, wild caught salmon, etc.)