Just Pictures :D

Soph's Valentine's Heart. After laboring over the colors and coloring, she has something she's quite proud of.

Mia and Sophie

Soph waiting patiently for her turn (sort of).

Soph can't stand it any longer and starts acting like a clown. Mia diligently working on solving her math skills.

Hero Day...finally! This is where I get to talk about Sophie & read stories to all the kids. (Frankly, I don't see hubby doing this :o/).

Starting line-up. Let's hear it for Sophie! Lot's of woohoo's and high 5's.

Soph has something nice to say about everyone in her class, including Savannah's great smile.

Laplander taking a lap around the block

Yes, my little Laplander. Sophie and her daddy are about to walk the doggies. Thank goodness the dogs don't care how she looks... or do they?

My little SI model cute as a lady bug

You might have noticed I haven't had as much to time to update the blog. Not nearly as much as I would like, even though I have a lot to say. I've just been so busy with life (which btw has been action-packed) and all of Soph's homework and projects. So here's a quick snapshot to show how we've been busy with life, especially where Soph is concerned.

She's so looking forward to being the "Everyday Hero" this Friday. They have been learning about patriotic symbols, learning about the flag, it's colors, stars and stripes and what it all represents. So we had to create a flag that represented Sophie on standard size paper. In a nutshell, this flag portrays Soph.

Everyday Hero

You may not be able to see everything, but the stripes represent her age. The pink and purple represent her two favorite colors. You'll see her favorite food is spaghetti and favorite dessert is yogurt. Her favorite shows are Dragon Tales, Kipper, Noddy, Berenstein Bears and the Goodnight Show. She wants to be an Artist and a Doctor when she grows up. She taught herself how to hula hoop when she was just 4 years old. Her two favorite princesses are Snow White and Aurora. Sophie is so proud the way her flag turned out and can't wait to share with everyone in her class.

100 Days

Soph's school is about to approach 100 days at school. The assignment for next week was to make a collection of 100 items... whether it be cheerios, marshmallows, stars, toothpicks, etc. We decided to use noodles... actually garlic, spinach fettuccine. And at the same time construct a house with it. Soph kept saying, "this isn't going to look good, I want to do a Christmas tree, this isn't going to look good, etc." Still, I had her color all the noodles and to her surprise, she ended up loving it and can't wait to bring it to school next week.

Switching gears, we went to Gymboree to buy another pair of jeans as she's growing like a weed, however this bathing suit was the highlight. Doesn't she look like a SI model?

My Little Lady Bug

Okay, okay maybe not.

Hope everyone's New Year is off to a good start!

One & only benefit to having allergies

As most of you know, I am an allergy sufferer. It's only been the last 7 years I've managed to keep my allergies... well, manageable. Even to the point, there are people who don't believe I suffer from allergies at all. It's one of those chronic conditions that'll be with you for your entire life. If you have allergies, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I wish I would have taken fish oils while pregnant with Sophie. Further research has shown fish oils to be beneficial to reducing the severity of allergies to actually eliminating them in kids. Nevertheless, I came across perhaps the one and only advantage to having allergies while learning about periodontal disease.

First let me say this, believe it or not periodontal disease is 2nd only to the common cold as the most prevalent infectious ailment in the U.S. After age 35, it affects approximately 75% of Americans. The rate of periodontal disease increases with age and is the major cause of adult tooth loss.

Now that you know this, the one advantage to having allergies is that people who suffer from allergies are less likely to lose teeth to periodontal disease. The reason apparently is that the allergy sufferer's overactive immune system is better at fighting off the bacteria that cause periodontal disease. I look at myself and hubby and can say, "yep, that's us alright." I don't have periodontal issues or have lost any of my teeth. Whereas, hubby does NOT have allergies and yes, he does have issues with pyorrhea or periodontitis.

But truth be known, I prefer Soph and I didn't have allergies in the first place :o/

Happy New Year - 2010

Hope everyone had a great New Year! Ours was quiet, calm and delicious. Just the way we like it :D

I believe hubby is going to refer to the new year as 2000, 10. Whereas, I'm probably going to refer to it as 20, 10. Kind of like where we reside. I always say 20, 13 instead of 2-0-1-3 or 2000, 13.

For our New Year's dinner, we had crab legs. Sophie can't stop talking about wanting more crabs (to eat) :o/ Two years ago, she was not fond of crabs, but now I find myself getting hungry 1 hour after eating because she ends up eating most of my crab legs. (I think I liked it better when she wasn't into crabs.) Anyway, as hubby learned yesterday, aside from sauerkraut and liver, shellfish is a good source of zinc.

I always keep a bottle of zinc in our health cupboard, either ionic or pill. As a word of caution, you do not want to take more than 100 milligrams of zinc daily. While daily doses of less than 100 milligrams boosts your immune response, doses more than 100 milligrams can actually depress the immune system.

Happy New Year! May you be happy, content, centered and healthy!!

Soph Singing French (Nuit de Folie)

Does it sound French? Well, maybe not.

Can she sing? Uhhhh, not really :o/

Soph listened to this song several times. I didn't know she was trying to learn the song until I played it again and this time she started singing the best she could for an English speaking, just turned 6 year old.

Christmas 2009

It's that time of year again, and as I was reading last year's Christmas letter, I was almost tempted to just change the date. Seriously, this year is very similar to last years.

We took two family vacations. 1) So. California in January to do some whale watching and visit theme parks. 2) Orlando in September where we did the whole Disney World, Epcot, Animal Kingdom park and beach tour. We had such a fabulous time, especially Sophie, that we're planning our next vacation to Orlando the first part of 2010.

Soph's Uncle Eric (from Belgium), was here in March. As usual we skied, played trivial pursuit (btw, Uncle Eric is such a good sport since these games are American geared), shopped and had stimulating conversations.

I got to see my brother Jim and his wife, Sandy in May as he had a meeting of all places in Draper, Utah. We saw them again in October for a quick visit and to spend precious time with mom. Of course, the saddest news of all and as most of you already know, my mom passed away mid-November. You can read my tribute of mom within this blog.

Aside from realizing how time flies by, I've created a public blogsite compared to the ones I created in the past. Knowing how fleeting life is, I really felt the need to stay-in-touch with family and friends the best way possible, especially because everyone is scattered all over creation. And at the same time, the blog provides a great deal of health-related matters I wish I knew when I was young that I can now pass on to Sophie at a much earlier age, or whomever else that's health minded.

Funny, I already see signs of Sophie eating healthier preferring grilled fish over fried chicken or dark chocolate versus milk chocolate, reminding me she needs to take her vitamins and other supplements so she can be healthy. It's hard to believe she will be 6 years old in 6 days. She's very mature for her age and to be quite honest reminds me of a 16 year old stuck in a 6 year old body.

Last year I volunteered at Soph's preschool and just showed up as scheduled. This year, I was relegated...lol... as a room mom for her kindergarten class planning the schedules, organizing class parties and field trips, enlisting as much help as I can from other moms, which isn't always swift and easy. Nevertheless, it's nice to have so many parents that are not only interested in their kids education but are "involved" in some form or fashion. I definitely have a greater appreciation for teachers and if there's any way I can help, I'm all for it.

Vince continues to enjoy and excel within his company. They say if you love and are passionate about something, you will succeed. Accordingly, he loves what he does and it shows, especially when the president of the company acknowledges his work in more ways than one. Yes, I'm a lucky girl :o) He travels weekly to Caremark in Arizona. I sometimes wonder why we moved to Utah?....lol. Yet, he prefers it this way as opposed to going in an office and commuting back and forth in never ending road construction traffic-ridden jams.

As you can see Vince isn't mainstream when it comes to work. I'm not mainstream when it comes to health and nutritional healing and Soph isn't a mainstream child. However, one thing that is mainstream is we wish we lived closer to family.

We want to wish everyone a very Happy Holiday filled with peace and harmony and everything pleasant and nice.

Love,

Vince, MaryAnne & Sophie