So I decided today to start using all these Google tools more. The email, calendar and then I noticed a blog option! I must have looked into it at some point, because I had already named it; Back Where We Belong. At first, I was thinking I didn't like that name, I could come up with something more inventive. I had another name called mothering4achange, but then I realized that my mothering for a change in our lives is to get us back where we belong.  For the past two years, this journey to become healthier and happier as a family has progressed and occasionally we have to rewind and start fresh again. This is true in many areas in my life.

First and most important: My Spiritual Walk with God. Both my husband and I grew up in the church environment, accustomed to the thoughts, traditions and just general standards of what was taught and demonstrated to us. This is how we developed our own attitudes and beliefs about "What it means to be a Christian, what it looks like to live that Christian life, and what God looks like and wants from us today, as believers."  The problem is, that through those growing up years, both of us came to the realization that what Christians had demonstrated to us, the traditions that our communities held and even what we were taught to believe a passage meant in the bible, were misguided or just plain wrong! This was actually one of the things that brought my husband and I together initially; talking about faith and dreams, thoughts on God and His purpose for our lives. I'm sure 10 years later we are just now starting to seek out those thoughts/dreams we shared so long ago, but I'm excited to be on this journey with him.

Through this blog, you'll see how I/we am/are seeking the TRUTH and redefining who God is and what He wants for our lives...through Scripture and communication with the Holy Spirit.


Second:  My Marriage. We have been married now for 10 years, this March. We met on the internet and decided to meet in person in November 2002. Four months later, we were married and I immigrated to Canada! Those early years were wonderful; we spent a lot of time together, talking for hours and laughing. I couldn't work until my papers were approved, so for almost 2.5 years, I was in my element, as the nurturing, stay-at-home Christian wife, while my husband was in school and working full time as our fearless provider!  As time went on and full time work got in the way, we started to see less of each other. The days exhaustion led to nights of vegetation, instead of interaction.  We had an already expected run with infertility and treatments, which we together decided to end and moved on towards adoption. This is, of course, straining on any marriage. Then we adopted our first child, after seven and a half years into marriage, we bring home a 5 year old boy! Not only was he fully developed with a personality and vocabulary, but we were his 5th home, so the trust, respect and even love was not there. The constant disagreements on how to deal with issues and the lack of "us" time lead us down a dark path that threatened to end our marriage. Not on that day, nor in the years ahead, but we realized that more than anything, we needed to get back to where we belonged, by putting our marriage first! Date nights, talking to each other regularly in the evenings and working as a team in parenting. Most of all, giving our marriage to God and praying for each other and our family.

Through this blog, you'll see how we are working to make our marriage work and hopefully it will give you some good ideas to apply to yours as well.

Third: My Children, Our son is the greatest thing that ever happened to us! He's our greatest joy and was our greatest challenge. When we adopted him 2 years ago, we were told he had ADHD. After a month, we knew it was more. After a year of "hell", trying to blend as a family, as well as determine what was an acting out behavior or something he couldn't control, we got a diagnosis: Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). We needed to know what was going on with him and the truth really has set us free. We now know the tools and the strategies to help him make it through everyday life. We know what to concentrate on now with our parenting, rather than disciplining behaviors all the time. We know that he can do anything when he grows up and with our help, his SPD can and will be managed when he's older. My prayers for him is that he will find God early on and lean on Him for his strength and help through difficult times. We attempted Kindergarten and grade 1 in public school, but found that for our son, it was too distracting/overwhelming. He wasn't retaining as much as was being taught and the teachers weren't really challenging him, due to his constant distractions and behavior outbursts. We decided to make the sacrifice and I would stay home again and home school him.

Through this blog, you'll see how we working to manage and developed our son into a man, hopefully after God's own Heart! I'll help you see how we work with his "issues" to help him mature and manage them. Also, how, through education and perseverance, nothing can hold him back! I'll also be sure to share some awesome tips, ideas and likes I have with child rearing, home school and just mom stuff!

Fourth: My Health: I've been over weight most of my life, at least 20 lbs or more. Looking back, I can't remember any incidents, just that it happened. It definitely never led me to become anorexic or go on a fad diet. When we got married in 2002, I was the smallest I had been in years, both in weight # and jean size! I felt great. I was not much under 200 lbs, but for me that was great! Over the last 10 years, I saw the weight creep back on. When we adopted our son, we changed our diet drastically!!! Mostly, because we were going off of artificial stuff to help him be able to live without ADHD medications. We learned about the Feingold Diet, which isn't a diet at all, it's just telling you what to pay attention to and take out of your diet. I'll make a post on just that later with recipes. Within 6 months, my husband and I  had lost 35-40 lbs and we didn't even notice it, because we weren't working out, just eating better. Over the last year, we've learned a lot about Genetically Modified Products (GMO) like Soy and Corn, and cut those out of our diet. We even switched to only Grass Fed Beef for a while, but with my being home, it proved to be too expensive for our budget. So we try to buy antibiotic free and kosher instead now. We joined the YMCA recently, which has been a huge blessing for Kenny. We go swimming at least 3 times a week. Chris and I have yet to schedule in a real workout time ourselves, but I'm slowly losing weight, even with just the play swimming. So for me it's not about being vain, getting into a size 12, bringing my 'sexy back', or even what the scale says my weight is. It's about me feeling great and feeding my body and soul!

So through this blog, I hope you're inspired to get healthy, try out a few of the recipes and most of all see that it's EASY and CHEAPER than you think, to live a healthy lifestyle!

So welcome to my blog! I hope you it encourage and challenges you!