Molars, Vegetables, & Healthier Living!

My littlest is getting THREE molars! I didn't even notice until he had been wanting to nurse a LOT one day, so I decided to feel in there & one is already through! The other two you can feel and see but they haven't broken through the gums yet. I can't believe it! He's getting so big. He really hasn't been cranky and has had no problems sleeping.. just wanting to nurse more, which I'm sure is for comfort or because it feels good on his sore gums. I'm pretty sure he said "aunt" and "grandma" yesterday, and he also for sure said "truck" and "eat." His vocabulary just keeps increasing! He's also getting most animal sounds correct now.. He is one smart kid!

Silly Westen... We were cutting vegetables the other night and I picked up the onion, asking if he remembered it. He said, "Yes! That burns your eyes- I'm not looking, Mom!" hahaha! I told him that it's not looking at it that does, it's the smell. :) Later, we were munching on cold veggies & he told us how much he missed broccoli! He always makes me laugh.

We're still doing well on our new year's resolutions. It's amazing how your thinking can just change. I've learned so much since being at home. Our food choices have continued to change. We've been making better choices for quite some time, but we continue learning & finding new things all the time. We've been trying to stay away (as much as we can) from preservatives, artificial coloring, nitrites, and high fructose corn syrup. There's really easy changes anyone can make.. These are some of the things we've done (besides just making more homemade foods)...

-We stopped buying lunchables or any type of pre-made meal like that at all. They're full of bad stuff & to top it off, lunchables containers are made with BPA! There's actually a different brand at Hy-Vee that is in a non-bpa container, so we do get those occasionally. Along with this, we try to buy more fresh & frozen, instead of stuff in cans or plastics.

-We buy real cheese.. not cheese product or whatever other words they use to describe something that is NOT cheese.. Same goes with butter.

-We buy meat with no nitrites or preservatives. There's a kind that is in the sandwich meat section & it stays good for a long time, so I'm not even sure what the point is! Westen loves hot dogs too, unfortunately, but luckily for us there are some made without nitrites as well!

-There are actually really good veggie chips, teddy graham-like crackers, and even fruit snacks without any of the 'bad' stuff. I'm so happy we've found them!

-We buy ketchup with no high fructose corn syrup.. There are also little packets of cookies that come with none AND we tried the Simply cookies the other night & they were SO good!

-We always, always buy 100% juice. Luckily for me, Westen always got used to me adding water, so he even ASKS for me to add water now!

I'm sure there are many other changes that I'm not remembering.. We've bought whole wheat flour, we always buy wheat products & try to buy the freshly baked stuff, we of course buy everything we can from the farmer's market. This coming year, I hope to start a garden and I also hope to get more wooden toys (shying away from all the plastics..) and more organic clothing. Clothing is one thing I had not thought of. We already cloth diaper, and we do have some organic jammies for the kids, but I saw on The Talk the other day a guy talking about all the chemicals in our clothing & how it would take years of washing every single day to even start to get rid of them. I haven't seen many options for organic clothing, but those are just some of the goals I'm working toward!