YEEHAW! Goal accomplished time to have fun!

In order to bring awareness to our children about the sugar addiction we have as a nation and the problem of type 2 Diabetes, our family went on a 9 month sugar fast. We avoided sugar the entire time except for birthdays and holidays. It wasn't easy, but as a family we were able to accomplish this goal. Both grandmothers have type 2 Diabetes and so we spent some time educating the kids about this preventable disease during this time. We also discovered how our society associates love with gifts of sugar. Which is highly ironic since it can cause such a devastating illness.

As a reward for accomplishing this goal we spent two days in Branson and went to Silver Dollar City. We had a blast on our vacation. Here are a few pictures of the fun we had at an amesument park that is set around the year 1888 and hillbillies.

While in Branson, Jared and I were also able to go and watch the Haygoods perform and we throughly enjoyed watching an amazingly talented family.

Played Hookey and Went Camping with Pops and Nana!

This week we threw all caution to the wind and took the kids out of school to go camping with Jared's parents, Pops and Nana. Mike and Janell came up for Spring Break in Branson and then decided to go camping with us!

Were did we go camping? Roaring Rivers State Park in the Ozarks. Roaring Rivers is a trout hatchery and campground built around a large natural spring. We had a great time camping out. As for fishing, Emily caught a small trout and Pops caught the BIG one that got away.

We really enjoyed having a visit from family and camping. We don't normally camp out, but I foresee more camp outs in the future.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY X4

Every end of February we have FOUR birthdays in a row!

Happy Birthday Grant (4), Lori (36), Brittany (16), and Jared (39).

Grant had his first friend birthday party and it was a lot of fun.

Brittany had a friend party this year too. She hosted a Murder Mystery Party and Dinner for her sixteenth birthday party. All the guests came in costume and in character. There was a lot of laughter and great food made by chef Jared.

Great memories!

Arkansas is Bipolar!

We had about 20" of snow and -20 degrees windchill last week and then low 70's this week! Got to love Arkansas' bipolar weather! Of course the kids got out for 4 snow days from school. What did we do for 4 days surrounded by snow? The boys played in their indoor tent, the girls built tunnels in the snow, and Snickers loved jumping into the deep powder! We all had a lot of fun.

Snow Week!

This week we had one day of school! Why? Ice and snow and no snow plows.
Here are a few pictures of our winter fun this week. There is more snow on the way!








Brittany in deep snow by the local pond.






Grant all bundled up to play in the cold.






Enoch in a snow tunnel.






Emily, Meagan, Snickers, and Sarah after church. They got to walk in the snow to church today.






Nathanael learned to crawl!! But only backwards :)