Tree of Life Mothering

The above movie, Mr. Christmas, is reviewed here. Looks like a wholesome Christmas classic!

I hope you are done with your shopping and wrapping, so you can curl up with some cocoa, popcorn, and Christmas movies for a few nights this week and next. There’s no shame in watching Christmas shows after Christmas! Here are some of my favorites. Of course I am assuming you already know and watch It’s A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, the Grinch, and the George C. Scott and Albert Finney Christmas Carols. Let’s talk about lesser-known Christmas movies and TV specials!

OK, before I dive into describing some Christmas shows, watch the comedy sketch above by Studio C about what happens when a little boy gets too greedy for Santa. It’s a cross between Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. So funny!

Have you seen “The Walton’s Homecoming”? I watched this with my kids a few years ago and found it to be heartwarming. Now that I have adult children who have left home and come back for Christmas and other occasions, homecomings mean a lot more to me!

Maybe you have wondered about the story behind the song, “Silent Night.” A few yers ago, BYUTV made a movie about it. You can watch it here. It’s an amazing story about a priest who went against the grain to form a church choir full of outcasts, to sing a song in German instead of Latin. The trailer is above.

This current holiday season BYUTV released a new movie, Winter Thaw, based on Leo Tolstoy’s short story about a shoemaker named Martin. The short story is sometimes called “The Cobbler” or “Martin the Shoemaker.” The new movie stars John Rhys-Davies. You can watch it here. It’s a beautiful Christmas story about service and the transforming power that comes from the love of Jesus.

The Gift is an LDS produced video based on a short story by Pearl S. Buck. Read the picture book based on the story and then watch the video above. The picture book is illustrated by Mark Buehner. I love his pictures. He usually does more humorous picture books like  Fanny’s Dream and Balloon Farm, but with this book he shows a more subdued, yet still lovely style. This book makes me cry every time I read it. I always have to pause and regain my composure when I read it aloud to my kids. It is such a beautiful story of giving selflessly. It completely captures the love between parent and child, specifically, father and son. It shows that we can still give much-appreciated gifts, even if we don’t have money, if we just give it some thought and dedication.

I can’t forget Mr. Kruegar’s Christmas with the big name of Jimmy Stewart. Watching this Christmas special takes me back to the early 80s when the LDS Church first released it. It reminds me to look out for the lonely who just want some human interaction, the best gift of all.

Then we have The Other Wise Man, based on the short story by Henry Van Dyke.

Here’s one that looks adorable, Christmas Snow. I have not watched it yet but it seems promising. We will be watching it sometime soon! It features a very young Melissa Joan Hart as a little girl and Sid Caesar as a curmudgeon.

John Denver is one of my favorite singers and the Muppets are some of my favorite entertainers. I am still sad about John’s death. It happened right after my husband and I decided we would buy some John Denver concert tickets the next time we heard he was coming somewhat close to where we lived. The concert was canceled. So now we get to wait to get to heaven to hear him perform live, I hope.

Can you tell I am on a Muppet kick? I absolutely love this Muppet Family Christmas special. It’s so full of love and laughter. It really fills my heart. The Muppets bring back fond memories of my childhood.

OK, indulge me. A few more Muppet Christmas shows. The above video is a clip of Bert and Ernie in a story based on O.Henry’s The Gift of the Magi. It comes from the Sesame Street Christmas special below. I love, love, love, the song from it called “Keep Christmas With You All Through the Year.”

Two years ago the Muppets got to perform a Christmas concert with the MoTabs and Santino Fontana! Here they are singing that song, “Keep Christmas With You,” above. I got to be there with my dh and two kids for one of the live performances. It was truly magical. One of my homeschool mom friends sang/sings in the choir. You can get the full show here. Here are two videos about the backstage process for that event with some of the puppeteers.

Moving on from the Muppets…another year I got to go to the annual Christmas MoTab Christmas concert and see John Rhys-Davies (Gimli from the Lord of the Rings) perform “A Dickens Christmas” with them. That one was magical too! The video below shows a condensed version.

OK, I am done with music concerts and going back to drama. Here we have Samantha: An American Girl Holiday. It’s a great made-for-TV-movie about giving and thinking of others. This was one of AnnaSophia Robb’s first acting roles before she made it big.

Watching this movie takes me back to the first time it appeared on TV, the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving of 2004, when I sent everybody away but my 3 month old and did a ton of packing because we moved the day after Thanksgiving. I listened to this on TV while I packed (didn’t have time to watch much of it). Now that I think about it, that was the last time I listened to something on network TV, because after we moved, we only used our TV to watch DVDs or videos. (Except for the Olympics.)

I haven’t watched the above one yet, A Christmas Memory, but it looks good because it has Patty Duke. I was sad to hear about her death as well. I always thought she was a great actress.

These last two aren’t movies but I am still posting them just because they are so fun. Here’s a clip from the Andy Griffith Show Christmas episode. I can’t find the full one on Youtube this year, but maybe you will be more lucky. We watched it a few years ago as a family. Mayberry means a lot to me, because the real city that Mayberry is based on, Mt. Airy, North Carolina, is one of the places my firstborn labored in for his LDS mission.So he has pictures of the Andy Griffith musuem. OK, enough digression. Watch the clip of Andy singing Away in a Manger with Elinor Donahue above. So sweet!

I plan on watching the above TV special, The Sounds of Christmas, on my iPad with two of my favorite singers, Julie Andrews and John Denver while I finish baking tomorrow. It’s filmed on location in Salzburg with John Denver singing and skiing. Wow, I can’t wait!

OK, Christmas prep duties are calling, so I am going to have to stop, but there are a ton more out there on Youtube, especially from the Hallmark Channel. Just go here and you will see. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

The holidays are upon us! For those of us who are, ahem,  metabolically challenged, that is, insulin resistant, that means, weight gain is all around us when presented with the typical Standard American Diet of white flour and white sugar. The weight gain from this food is breathing down our necks, waiting to bite us and infect us with all the risks that come with increased weight gain like heart disease, diabetes, stroke, inflammation, arthritis, joint pain, and much more. Not fun.

What is a girl to do?

Get the Trim Healthy Mama books and learn how to “have your cake and eat it too”! As the authors of the Trim Healthy Mama diet know, the big “trick” to not gaining weight, and even losing weight, is to do these three things:

1. eat foods low on the glycemic index. In others words, no sugar, no grains, no high starchy foods like potatoes, and little fruit. When you do this, your body will be forced to burn  your fat. When you eat sugar, your blood sugar goes up, and your body produces insulin to get the blood sugar into your cells, and then your body is insulated with more fat. Insulin = insulated. The great news is that you can learn to make/find alternatives of all the traditional holiday favorites: cookies, pies, candy, potatoes, rolls, and stuffing in low glycemic form, so that your blood sugar stays low and your insulin levels stay low. Little insulin in your blood = little insulation, i.e. fat in your body. Many other authors teach the same trick, such as Dr. Furhman of the Eat to Live Diet and Dr. Fung, and Jonathan Bailor.

2. When you do eat carbs, even if they are complex carbs, limit how much fat you eat with them to 1 tsp and limit your carb serving to a palm-sized portion (unless it’s popcorn, then you can have 4 to 5 cups)

3. On the flip side, when you do eat fat, and please do eat fat, just make sure it’s God made fat, like butter, avocados, or coconut oil, limit the amount of carbs you eat with the fat to no grains or beans, and only 1 small piece of fruit or no more than 1/2 c to 1 c of berries.

With all of these meals eat protein.

Okay, plus….(and this is the biggest problem with the THM books is that they don’t address this) you do have to eat to barely full if you want to lose weight over the long haul. Learn to follow your hunger and fullness cues and do other things with your emotions instead of eating to medicate your stress. I like the hunger/fullness chart here. (You may need to balance your hormones with hormonal therapy as well because when you are overweight the receptors in your brain to the hormone leptin which signals fullness could be insensitive. It is not your fault that you have to eat three servings a meal to feel full! It is hormonal imbalance! That is another post for another day.)

So you can have chocolate, with high-fat, just be careful of what sweetener you combine the cocoa with. Here is Pearl’s recipe for healthful chocolates:

You can find a ton of recipes online that fit the bill for low glycemic foods. Just take whatever food you are looking at, and do a search with that food name plus the words “paleo” since paleo foods are no grain, no sugar, no fruit.

Another way to find alternative recipes is to use the letters “THM” for “Trim Healthy Mama” for any recipe you want. The Trim Healthy Diet was created by Serene Allison and Pearl Bennett, who are sisters and best friends. (Tangential note: they are also the daughters of aboverubies.org founder Nancy Campbell. I used to read Nancy’s newsletters when I was an exhausted young mom of 3 kids 4-and-under. Her words totally helped and inspired me.) THM recipes are low on the glycemic index, and many are grain free and gluten free.

The past month I have been reviewing their original book, which combines their diet plan with recipes, and the newer books that separate the plan into one book and the recipes into a cookbook.

Oh my, I have been having fun drooling over the photos in the cookbook and testing recipes.

Here are some highlights of a few of the fun THM recipes totally suitable for the holidays. Because of copyright restrictions I can’t post the recipes from the book, but you can watch the videos here in this blog post, get an idea for what yummy THM recipes await you and either buy the cookbook or do a Google search for “THM fill in the blank with the recipe you want” and find THM adapted recipes online. There are oodles of mommy bloggers out there posting THM-inspired recipes. Plus, I just found a PDF of holiday recipes from Serene and Pearl here. Some of the recipes are in the cookbook, and some are new, like the Twin Trixters candy bar, a THM version of the Twix candy bar. The PDF is 40 pages of recipes for drinks, side dishes, like green bean casserole, “faux”tatoes, stuffing, brined turkey, pot roast, salads, desserts, and ways to repurpose your meat leftovers. Yum!!! Thank you Serene and Pearl!

The video above of the two sisters features some of the following delectable delights from the THM cookbook:

-wassail. The THM wassail recipe is in the PDF I linked above and also here. It calls for cinnamon sticks and star anise. I was able to find both of those items in bulk bins at my local downscale grocery store (equivalent to the Reams store in Utah, for any of you long-time Utahns out there,  like Target or Walmart)

-chocolate truffle cake

-truffles

-chocolate berry wedding cheesecake

-lasagna. I have tried this recipe and love it! I even found the official THM recipe over here. It is gluten free because it uses spinach in place of the noodles. I love  it for dinner! My kids aren’t as wild about it as I am but they eat it. We always have it for leftovers for lunch the next day, which I love because it tastes even better after a night in the fridge and then warmed up. Much firmer that way.

I chuckled when I saw in the video that Serene says “Jesus ate meat and if it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.” Serene was vegan or vegetarian for years and learned it wasn’t good for her long-term, sustainable health, especially as a child-bearing mother.

One thing I noticed after studying the cookbook was that there were no pumpkin baked goods or gingerbread! That’s so sad!  Maybe because the authors grew up in New Zealand and didn’t live their formative years in America having pumpkin every Thanksgiving? Thank goodness for the Internet. I found the following THM-inspired pumpkin and ginger recipes:

-this huge list of 66 THM pumpkin recipes: cakes, bars, cookies, pie, bread, and more!

–pumpkin pie from Briana Thomas

–gingerbread cookies from mytableofthree.com

–cut-out gingerbread men from thelaundrymoms.com

The THM Holiday Recipe Collection PDF that I linked to above does have a pumpkin cheesecake recipe, that I guess Serene and Pearl figured out after the publication of their book.

You don’t have to have the THM Baking Blend to use these recipes. I have found numerous copycat recipes online, including one blogger who tried different combination of flours to imitate the THM baking blend. She decided that equal parts of almond flour and golden flax meal taste the best. That’s great news because you can find almond flour and golden flax meal/flour at Walmart and your local Kroger chain grocery store, if yours is like mine. I prefer to buy golden flax seeds and then grind them into flax meal and store in my fridge to slow down rancidity, as flaxmeal has delicate oils that aren’t shelf stable. (Thank you to my friend Darci who has a Blendtec blender so I could grind my current batch when my cheapo blender was broken! That Blendtec ground those seeds up in the blink of an eye!)

You guys, these THM brownies are the best gluten-free sugar-free brownies I have ever eaten! Even better than my gluten free recipe here on the blog that uses seed or nut butter. The THM brownies are called Cry No More brownies and are on page 314 of the THM Cookbook. They have an unusual ingredient: okra! If you blend the okra up super well you can’t even see the okra bits in the brownies. They taste much better after a day or two in the fridge to firm up, then left at room temperate for a day so they are not cold. They had more of that crystalline sugar brownie texture over my afore-mentioned brownie recipe that I remember from my youth. These brownies I remember from my youth with the crystalline texture are the BYU brownies with two layers of frosting: one chocolate and one peppermint. I remember eating these brownies from the pink boxes of BYU catering that would show up at parties  when my dad was a bishop of a BYU ward. So you have to try them! Here is a similar recipe and a video of a mom giving them a thumbs up.

Here’s another video inspired by the THM brownies by blogger Briana Thomas:

The jury is out for me still on how healthy the THM recommended sweeteners are, namely xylitol and erythritol, and white powdered stevia. The healthyhomeeconomist.com does not recommend the sugar alcohols (xylitol and erythritol).  For now I am experimenting and noticing any side effects. I prefer to use sweeteners that are more easily extracted from nature, such as honey, molasses, maple syrup, sucanat, stevia that is the powdered green leaf extract, and coconut sugar. I like the way that Kristen over here at foodrenegade.com defines what a natural sweetener is. As she puts it, “A natural sweetener is one that a person could reasonably expect to grow, harvest, and process themselves without the use of added chemicals, enzymes, or expensive machinery.”

Some moms have been able to lose weight the THM way using those more natural sweeteners. I have been experimenting with the THM brownie recipe with sucanat and am almost ready to post the perfected recipe. I did notice when I ate them to satiety I did not gain weight, I even lost 2 lbs by the next morning. Another day I ate the THM chocolate chip cookies and 2 lbs as well! I am not sure if I could eat the ones with sucanat every day and lose weight, sticking with the THM sweeteners might be better in the long run to lose weight but these THM approved sweeteners look and smell so fake to me. However, I do understand that some people are so addicted to sugar that they eat a ton every day. They need something to replace sugar with while they are on a healing/weight loss diet that is not as high on the glycemic index as honey, molasses, sucanat, etc.  If you do want to try erythritol and not wait to order the THM Gentle Sweet or Super Sweet blend you can find numerous copycat recipes online using eryhritol, xylitol, and stevia you buy at your local health food store. I have found Pyure from Walmart to be similar to the THM Gentle Sweet blend in sweetness when I do the recipes. And half as sweet as the Super Sweet blend. It is on the baking aisle with the sugar and cocoa.Except it did not work well in the skinny chocolate recipe. It would not mix in and turned as hard as mortar!

Another issue for me and the THM diet is that one of my children is allergic to almond and coconuts. All of the THM baked good recipes use the THM baking blend, which has almond flour and coconut flour. So I have to make two versions of holiday goodies, the ones that Mr. L., my son, can eat, and the ones that I prefer to eat to keep my weight down. I am at the point though when I can eat sucanat-sweetened desserts like my bread pudding, eat to satiety, and not gain weight, or even the the sucanat sweetened brownies, maybe because of the slimming effect of the okra? Hooray and yum!

Happy baking and eating everybody! You can “have your cake and eat it too”! Merry Christmas!

Oh my, between losing my iPhone and searching for hours to find it, homeschooling,  shopping, writing my missionary son, baking cookies for the neighbors, going to a “Journey to Bethlehem” simulation, mentoring, and having a Christmas party for our homeschool group, I have not had any time to blog!  Thank you icloud.com with the “find my iphone” feature and an honest little girl who found it on the side of the road and called me! (long story I will resist going into) I am feeling the effects of not blogging in over a week! Whenever I go too long between blog posts I start feeling clogged up and depressed. I have all these great ideas bursting forth to share all day every day! You don’t know how I have to restrain myself to discipline to stick to my homeschooling, motherly, and good neighbor duties! My big college kids are in town and off taking the littles Christmas shopping, so, yay, I can actually blog today!

First of all, if you haven’t been counting down to Christmas using the #lighttheworld initiative from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I encourage you to do so. The kids at home and I watch the video every morning and then I read the scripture and the suggested ideas that go with each challenge of service. My long-time Veggie Gal friend, Michelle W., combines this new tradition with her Elf on the Shelf. Every day she puts her elf, Markle, in a scenario in her house that shows Markle doing the thing that Jesus did that matches what the #lighttheworld challenge is. So she has had Markle doing things like family history research using familysearch.org, praying, singing hymns,  visiting lonely toys, or taking care of sick stuffed animals or feeding them. So cute!

Seeing her posts on Facebook every day with Markle following in the Savior’s example sure brings joy and light to my life! Maybe next year I will get an elf and do the same thing. I just love the #lighttheworld campaign, it is truly a way to stretch out the Christmas season and follow in the Savior’s path.

OK…so changing topics…every year I love bringing out my Christmas picture books and chapter books. I also get tons more from the library. Some years I have gone so far as to wrap the books up and have a child unwrap one a day as part of an Advent. OK, hardly ever…maybe one or two years long ago I bribed my college-attending daughter to do it, haha! This year I again just don’t choose to have the energy to do that so we just read whatever book my 7 year old picks out from my Christmas picture books.

This book pictured above is is in my personal collection thanks to my amazing brother-in-law who gave it to us. He wanted to capture and share the nostalgia of his childhood that he had with my brother and the other 7 siblings. So he bought a copy of this book for each sibling as a Christmas gift. They had a similar Richard Scarry book growing up, which included a darling story about grandfather monkey and yellow mittens. Unfortunately this  collection of Richard Scarry animal stories doesn’t have that particular story but it has a bunch of stories about animals having Christmas adventures with Richard Scarry’s inimitable, whimsical illustrations. My favorite is the story of the goat who played Santa Claus. So fun!

Here is a list that I’ve compiled over the years. I got a new list from Sarah Mackenzie over here and found some new favorites. For chapter books,  which I read when the kids are doing dishes (which we have been doing a lot of since the automatic dishwasher was broken for over a month) I am focusing on four specific books pictured in this blog post for our monthly reading: Holly Claus, Christmas Jars, and The Great Little Madison. Then in the car when we do errands and shopping we are listening to Skipping Christmas on CD. I just recently learned that that is one of Andrew Pudewa’s favorite read-alouds. (Andrew is the founder and owner of iew.com.) I read the book years ago and absolutely adored it! I have to confess, I have had the same thought as the main character, “Can we just skip Christmas this year?!” That’s my practicality coming out. This book helped me see why not. I love Christmas as much as the next Christian but sometimes I just want to save money and time and have a quick acknowledgement of the Savior’s birth without all the fanfare.)  It’s by John Grisham, master storyteller. It was made into a movie but I agree with Andrew that you can skip the movie, it’s not nearly as funny or as good as the book.

OK, so I know a book about Madison is not a Christmas book, but for our school theme for our Mastering Knighthood club this month we are learning about James Madison because he was an example of seeking knowledge. That’s why I am reading The Great Little Madison to my 7 and 12 year old boys. It’s great to learn about how James was so humble and servant minded in learning all he could about what makes good government so he could help start our nation’s government with limited powers.  My  15 year old son and 10 year old girl gets to listen in. Her girls’ club is learning about Lizzie Velasquez but the book hasn’t come through yet from interlibrary loan. Anyway, I hope you get some good ideas for what to read from these lists and suggestions I have shared. Just remember, you don’t have to finish any of the books by Christmas, just keep reading all through January to brighten up those blah days. Merry Christmas!

My fun friend Shauna has been enthusiastically sharing news about the Universal Model. This is a model for science developed by Dean Sessions. It allows for God and natural law, as well as Noah’s Flood. I just got wind from Shauna that Mr. Sessions is speaking tonight in Las Vegas and the speech will be broadcast on Facebook live. Listen to the new podcast just published today by Oak Norton of Agency-based Education and tune in tonight to the speech. Also, Oak Norton, the podcaster who interviewed Dean, has arranged with Dean for a coupon code for the book.

Here are details about the event tonight and the coupon code for the book, in Oak’s message below. Mr. Sessions will be speaking in Utah this week as well, and Shauna has arranged a coupon code for that too.

Here’s the message from Oak:

Hello friends,

Last week I attended a lecture on Friday night on something called the Universal Model. I am now confident this is about to create one of the greatest controversies ever seen in the world of science. Things are about to turn upside down. The reason this is called the Universal Model is because as soon as they discovered one truth about one system of science, it affected another system, and another, and another. Every field of science is affected by this “universal” and unified model. It even perfectly explains how a universal flood happened and covered all the mountains with water. I spoke with Dean last night and made it into a podcast which you can listen to here.

https://www.agencybasededucati on.org/universal-flood-univers al-model-science/

TIME SENSITIVE

On the podcast you’ll hear me mention this but I wanted to be sure you knew this right away. Wednesday night, 12/7, Dean is doing a presentation in Las Vegas at 7 PM PST, 8 PM MST. It will be streamed live over Facebook. Go to http://www.universalmodel.com and scroll to the bottom and click the Facebook link if you would like to tune in for free. Also notice at the bottom of the page, Dean will be in Sandy and Orem on Friday and Saturday nights to do presentations. Those will cost a little money to attend but may be something you want to go participate in.

DISCOUNT ON BOOK 1

Dean has also graciously created a discount code for me for Book 1 of his Universal Model. Three books will be released eventually. Book 1 can be purchased using “ABE” as a discount code for 25% off the digital edition (and in about a month you’ll be able to download an app for offline use). This is a time limited offer good for 30 days. If you want to get a copy of the book, do it now. I think it’s pretty amazing and should be available in every home. Physical editions of the book will be available next Spring.

Oak

Shauna has arranged a coupon code for that too. Here is her message:

Here’s a video of LaDawn Jacob talking about some of the fun family traditions from her book of the same title. This video is from the 2016 Latter-day Learning Retreat held at American Heritage School. I am not sure why it starts in the middle of her telling a story.

Then in the video below you will find her daughter in law, Angela Bigelow Jacob, sharing more about Christ-centered family traditions, with Angela’s sister, Rachel. I love the emphasis on family history!

Watch the videos, and get the digitized book about family traditions written by LaDawn from this page here. On that page you will also see links to other resources by or about LaDawn, including her compilations of scriptures and poems for memorization. Here’s to fun family traditions and memories all year round!

I wish I had thought to get that bottle of commercial ketchup off the table before we took the above picture, but…oh well! I love this picture of my family, anyway! This was our last evening dinner before sending off my second boy on a mission. It’s not picture perfect, because my husband isn’t smiling, the two older college kids are missing, and that durned bottle of ketchup mars the picture, but it works! And that’s how family traditions are. They don’t have to be picture perfect. They just have to work. They just need to help us feel loved and help us have “wholesome family recreation,” or fun, in plain terms. These traditions relieve the pressures and dreariness of live.

Here’s our absolute last meal together before he entered the MTC with Grandma. My oldest was able to be there on his lunch break from Familysearch but not my daughter.

This is such a wonderful time of year because of the opportunities of family togetherness. But let’s not forget to power of everyday moments all year round. As moms, do we realize the power we have in using family dinnertime and other traditions, for holidays and everyday, to bind our families to each other, to Christ, and to create desires in our children to go out and create goodness in the world?

Here are my three Black Friday gifts for all of you to aid you in those powers.

1. LaDawn Jacob’s Fun Family Traditions ebook. She gave me permission to share it online. Read here to know who LaDawn Jacob is. Here is the link to her ebook on my Google drive. It is full of fun ideas you can use all year round to make ordinary days and holidays special!

2. a link to the articles by Nancy Campbell about the power of family mealtime. Then over here is an article from Nancy’s magazine (pages 1 through 4, then continued at page 7) full of ideas of games for family gatherings. Nancy is the founder of aboverubies.org. This is a ministry devoted to strengthening women in their roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers. On top of that, Nancy is also the mother of the two authors of the Trim Healthy Mama books. Serene Allison and Pearl Barrett, who are sisters. So Nancy created  the family culture that fostered a love of learning and desires to serve God and mankind in the authors, Serene and Pearl. What will your children create because of the goodness fostered in them around the family dinner table?

3. This video below showing Nancy Campbell with her husband, and some of her children and grandchildren sharing dinner, meaningful conversation, and prayer for those who need help.

Wow, we recently came back from a whirlwind trip to Utah to take our 18 yr old son to the MTC in Provo so he can train as a missionary to preach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in Argentina. It all seems so surreal.  To quote the sentimental line from Fiddler on the Roof, “Is this the little boy I carried? When did he get to be a man?” I can’t believe 18 1/2 years have passed since he was this cute chubby boy who was so easy to care for. The picture below was when he was just a few days old, in my bedroom, where he was born. He was such a peaceful, happy, easy baby! He’s always been so adorable!

When you are a Latter-day Saint mom, when/if you give birth to a baby boy, it’s like  a time bomb is ticking. You know you have 18 to 19 years of time with your baby to prepare him. Then he hopefully might be gone for two whole years, on a proselyting mission, carrying a piece of your heart inside him as he shares the good news of Jesus Christ as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I hope and pray he will be safe and find hearts prepared to hear this good news. Here are some photos from our trip to say goodbye! My heart is tender as this is the first Thanksgiving and Christmas that I haven’t spent with my son.

Here we are in front of my childhood home.

Here he is with his foster parents, Don and Aneladee, in the picture below. They generously let him stay in their home after we moved to AZ. He wanted to stay in UT to finish his senior year of pre-college educational pursuits.

Here are some of his friends at his farewell.

The picture below shows Shauna, a dear family friend who I’ve known since Dallin and her son were both 1, through our group of friends known as Veggie Gals, talking to Aneladee and my second cousin Jorgina. Jorgina and I share a great-grandmother. Our grandmothers are sisters. We just discovered that about 2 years ago.

I asked Shauna to tell her sourdough bread toast on fire story. She really got Aneladee and Jorgina laughing!

Dallin’s cute third cousin, Lydia, is pictured below. She’s Jorgina’s daughter.

Some of Dallin’s awesome friends. The middle girl’s grandparents used to serve as the mission president of the mission where Dallin is going. She is also going to serve a mission in Argentina, but in a different mission.

More of Dallin’s many friends.

The next night we had a Family Home Evening with our extended family. Here he is with some of his cousins and his brother and sister.

These cousins enjoyed sharing stories about missionary work! They have served in North Carolina, Ecuador, Brazil, and Holland. One other is currently serving in Virginia. They will all be together again in two years! What a happy day that will be!

My mom prepared a special farewell dinner the last night he left. She’s wonderful that way. We also had a special dinner earlier that day with Dallin’s other grandmother. She’s awesome that way too.

Dallin with most of his siblings and half his cousins on my side. I am sad my older daughter was already back to Idaho for college.

Farewell Elder Shumway! We are rooting for you and are striving to live the three points that Elder Oaks shared in his recent General Conference talk for all members to help in missionary work.

1. Pray to have a desire to help with missionary work. (As Elder Bednar stated, the missionaries are ideally the teachers and the members are ideally the finders.)
2. Live the 10 Commandments.
3. Pray to know what God would have you do individually in your situation.

Did you know that cavities can be healed? You don’t have to resign yourself and your family to the cycle of drill, fill, and bill. Ramiel Nigel, the man featured in the video above tells you all about how to heal tooth decay in his book, Cure Tooth Decay.

His basic premise is that tooth decay comes from a lack of the right nutrition for teeth to remineralize, not from bacteria, as we have been led to believe. Give them the right nutrition (as outlined in his protocol) and the cavities will heal.  He condenses the information from the book into these videos so I hope you watch them right away, then order the book. I have been reading the book in Kindle format on my phone (so easy that way) and it is fascinating. I highly recommend it! Ramiel was inspired to find the cure for tooth decay when his toddler daughter had cavities and he didn’t want her to have to endure the drilling.

Ramiel’s book has 4.5 stars out of 5 on amazon.com. Here is quote copied from one of the reviewers:

My 8 year old daughter has been plagued her entire life by consistent tooth decay. By 8 years old she has had 19 fillings, 6 root canals with silver caps and 5 extractions. In May 2011, we went for her 3 month cleaning (we took her every 3 months). Big surprise, 3 more cavities. Only this time, something in me said no to fillings. She’d had enough. I went home and called my sister upset over the news. She said to me, you have to read this book. She ordered it for me off of Amazon that day. When it arrived I read it cover to cover, taking notes along the way. Then I did it. I changed everything. I threw out our toothpaste for fluoride free. I started buying raw milk from a local farm. I started buying only grass fed meats, cheese and eggs. I gave her the cod liver oil every day…I cut back on phytic acid rich foods like whole grains…I KNOW what you’re thinking…but if you only knew what those whole grains are doing. I began sprouting and fermenting my grains and legumes. Then in September, I went back. By now I was ready for the dentist to say to me…see I told you so. Only she didn’t. She paused. She looked at the xrays 3X and then looked at her teeth and then finally, at me. She sat up and said “I don’t understand…her cavities have hardened over…this is impossible.” I began shaking…I really did. I was instantly as high as a kite. We discussed the new diet for 15 minutes as she took notes and then she said something she never thought she would say, “I don’t see a need to fill these cavities at this time.” The BIG bonus? I’ve lost 20 pounds while eating a ton of healthy, raw fats!! Who knew just switching from corn fed meat and dairy to grass fed would make such a difference on my waist!! But it was never about me…it was about saving my daughters smile. Thanks you to the moon and back for this book.

My girlfriend Caralee has a story about healing her tooth decay here. The protocol she followed is similar to Ramiel’s. They both use the cod liver oil and high vitamin butter oil.  You can get recipes from Caralee for raw milk cheese and yogurt here. Part of the protocol Ramiel recommends is to drink raw milk and consume cultured dairy products so that’s why I am sharing Caralee’s recommendations.