Please think about our environment.

Everyone on earth should see this. It's that important. And please pass it on- You can link back to here, post it on your own blog or pass it on in an email.
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/MULTIMEDIA02/80505016
Once in the slideshow, use the scroll bar on the right side of the screen to scroll through.
Thanks to Mom for sending it to me!

Wade and I have, for the most part, been plastic bag free for about 9 months now.
Our grocery store has nice sturdy cardboard boxes you can buy for .99 and every time you use them you get a .10 discount for each one. We also bought two of the .99 re-usable bags that the grocery stores have. The only time we've used plastic bags is when we bought so many grocerys that we needed a few, or have run to the store when we don't have the boxes/bags with us.

This is a great website: http://www.reusablebags.com/
It's where we've gotten Jessi's Kleen Kanteen (It's awsome and the most leak-proof sippy that we've found.) I refuse to get her any sippy's that have BPA in them.
That website is also where Jessi & Wade are getting their "Christmas presents" from. (shhh... ;) )

Anyways, that's my earth-friendly update for today ;)

High-Fructose corn syrup

When Mom was here, she was wondering about HFCS. I wasn't able to answer all the questions, so I've been looking it up.

Here's some links I found and a few quotes that I thought might answer some of her questions. ;)

"There is a correlation between the rise of obesity in the U.S. and the use of HFCS for sweetening beverages and foods. While HFCS is not toxic, it is the bodies' reaction to this particular sugar that raises questions of its safety. HFCS is not recognized by the body in the same way natural fruit and cane sugars are recognized; triggering an enzyme that gives the feeling of "fullness". As a result, a person can consume a much larger amount of calories without satisfaction. Obesity Rates have increased in the United States (the world's largest consumer of HFCS) since the introduction of this sweetener. Critics of HFCS point out the direct correlation between percentages of increased usage of HFCS in foods and obesity rates in the United States over three decades."

"HFCS has the exact same sweetness and taste as an equal amount of sucrose from cane or beet sugar but it is obviously much more complicated to make, involving vats of murky fermenting liquid, fungus and chemical tweaking, all of which take place in one of 16 chemical plants located in the Corn Belt. Yet in spite of all the special enzymes required, HFCS is actually cheaper than sugar. It is also very easy to transport--it's just piped into tanker trucks. This translates into lower costs and higher profits for food producers."

"Sucrose is composed of glucose and fructose. When sugar is given to rats in high amounts, the rats develop multiple health problems, especially when the rats were deficient in certain nutrients, such as copper. The researchers wanted to know whether it was the fructose or the glucose moiety that was causing the problems. So they repeated their studies with two groups of rats, one given high amounts of glucose and one given high amounts of fructose. The glucose group was unaffected but the fructose group had disastrous results. The male rats did not reach adulthood. They had anemia, high cholesterol and heart hypertrophy--that means that their hearts enlarged until they exploded. They also had delayed testicular development. Dr. Field explains that fructose in combination with copper deficiency in the growing animal interferes with collagen production. (Copper deficiency, by the way, is widespread in America.) In a nutshell, the little bodies of the rats just fell apart. The females were not so affected, but they were unable to produce live young."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup

http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html

http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/highfructose.html

So there you have it. If you care to read it. :)

HFCS is everywhere. Not just soda and juice, but also Ketchup, cereal's, Jams, bread, etc.

If people had a minute, I'm wondering if you'd go through your kitchens and find how many things you had that has HFCS in it, and let me know. It'd be intresting.
Then again, I wouldn't be suprised if some people hardly had any, especially those that make alot of their own stuff.

The Man Song

;-)

Silly girl & new baby pictures

A few weeks ago after we got the hats and gloves out.. She wanted to wear them ALL the time!

Meeting Wyatt James for the first time!

Informing everybody that Wyatt is HER baby! Lol!

I just had to post this one... Baby's first cloth diaper! ;D

Jessi putting her baby "Nigh-night". I love the dirty dishtowel for the blanket. :-P

Tell me...

Tell me if you get where I'm going with this........ ;)

(This is a billboard we go by every day)

I find it kind of funny, but not really.

What we did Thanksgiving weekend

I don't have much pictures of our actual Thanksgiving weekend, but if you want to see some you can look at Moms Blog (Because I spent the whole weekend using her camera instead of mine. Hehe.)

Dad & Mom came up and brought Meshayla, Morgen, Kara & Kaela. Our first family company in our house :)

Jon & Sara come over for dinner on Thanksgiving, then we all just hung around while mom cleaned up. (Hey, it was her idea.) Then we all went to Dave & Becky Birchill's and played basketball and had supper there.

On Friday we had the brilliant idea to go shopping. We knew it was going to be horrible, but it was the only day we had since Dad & Mom were leaving on Sat. We met up with Sara who got off work early and went to Kohls and Joann's fabric, but didn't buy anything there because the lines were so long. Then we went to Pout Baby Boutique and Jessi got a new puzzle (She LOVES puzzles) from Daddy and a big flower for her headbands from Papa & Grammy.

After that we went to Jonny Carino's for lunch. (YUM!)

Then we headed to the Home depot to buy the paint for Jessi's room!! Dad is a really good painter and we had talked him into doing it for us ;) Good thing, because he had it all done in the amount of time that I would have had it all taped and drop clothed.

We got home in time to watch the Husker game! What a good game it was!! While I would have loved us to just smash Colorado, A close game is always exciting. I really wanted Jessi's room done so I helped Dad part of the time, but we had turned the radio on in there so I didn't miss any :)

So we had a good weekend :) Here's some pictures of Miss Jessi's room.

Before:

After the paint:

And after putting the stuff on her walls. Everything in her room is petty special.

The rocking horse down in the bottom was made by Wade's grandpa.

Picture frame from Lanae :) This picture was when Jessi was 2 days old.

The slip on the wall was from Jessi's Auntie Laura. I had a slip just like this and had my pictures taken in it.

Picture frame from Roxie. Picture of Jessi at 8 weeks, Papa (McKnight) was holding her.

Afghan on the crib was made by Laura. It was the inspiration for the paint colors. It was one of my favorite gifts and Jessi sleeps with it on her every night.

Close up of the letters. I made these. That makes them special, right?? :D

Jessi kept trying to sneak upstairs to watch/help Papa paint. She thought it looked like so much fun. Sunday she got ahold of a paint brush and was trying to paint stuff.

And just because I have to. Lol. Jessi got in trouble on Saturday, so she got stood in the corner.

She was just bawling because of it. But when she got done she went and gave her Daddy a hug. All was forgiven. :)

I have pictures!!

Since I got the new blog up and running, I haven't posted any (new) pictures of Jessi.

Well, I now have pictures!!

But you're going to have to wait untill tomorrow because I forgot my camera.

Haha.

So here's another post with out pictures.