LINK TO OUR JOURNEY TO JILLIANA

LINK TO OUR JOURNEY TO JILLIANA
CLICK ON JILLIANA'S PHOTO TO FOLLOW OUR JOURNEY TO CHINA

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Dear Easter Bunny, Egg Drop, and day 55!!!!

Getting ready for the launch.
Emma and Meilynn had an egg drop experiment for school.  Unfortunately they started early so I missed Emma's egg drop.
The assignment was to come up with some design, by yourself to protect an egg from the janitor dropping it off the roof of the school.  Emma took an oatmeal carton and filled it with those soft plastic bags filled with air that you get in boxes in the mail.  Of course I get a lot of those from Zulily.  Most of the girls clothes lately have been coming from there.  She practiced at home dropping it from upstairs to downstairs and it made it every time.  However, when they did it on this day it broke.

Meilynn chose a parachute design and it was successful.  They didn't get graded on whether the egg made it or not.  The grade was how well they could tell the class about their idea and how they came up with it.  Both girls got A's!
Taking flight

Looking good

Success!!!

Emma after her launch, still smiling


Friday was a minimum day for school.  Lily's class was going to do an egg hunt at 9:30 and Jilliana's  class was doing an egg hunt too.  We knew that it was going to be really hard for Jilliana with our 100 day pledge to eat real food on this day.  The class was going to have a party and frost carrot cake muffins and then have a big Easter Egg Hunt.  I actually volunteered to make the muffins since I had a no sugar recipe using "real" foods.  So that was going to be ok.  But the more I thought about the egg hunt I knew that it wasn't a good idea.  So we gave the girls the choice of going to school or going motorcycle riding with Mike.  They all chose to go riding.  Which means I got a whole day to go shopping!  I hadn't been in so long.  First I dropped the muffins off at Jilliana's school and then I went to Target, Cost Plus, DSW.  Then I drove 45 minutes away to our nicest mall.  I spent a lot of time in Macy's and Bath and Body works.  I even found a place that sells a green juice!

The girls had a great time and I had some much needed time alone.

Daddy teaching hem the importance of taking care of their things.

So cute!  They love spending time with Daddy

Then the girls got cleaned up.  I made pizza, and we began decorating the eggs.  Aunt Julie dropped by and Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Debbie came over to help decorate.  This year I remembered which eggs I had dyed and which were still raw:)  (Last year I some how got them all mixed up and we had some raw eggs and some hard boiled eggs.  We found this out when Jilliana dropped one on the floor.) It was easy to tell since our organic eggs are brown and the ones we dyed were white.
Jilliana deciding what she is going to do with her egg.
Emma
Lily
Meilynn



















I found a recipe for "Cadbury cream filled eggs" using only "real" ingredients and no sugar.  I didn't have egg molds so I used heart. This is the first chocolate thing we have had since we started our plan.  It was made with Cacao powder which is one of the "Super Foods", coconut butter, pure maple syrup and vanilla.  The cream frosting had cashews, coconut butter, maple syrup, and vanilla.  They are not low calorie at all, but they use real foods and follow the rules of our 100 day pledge to only eat real foods.  It is funny, how one was more than enough.  We are not used to something so rich.  The only sad thing is that we all tasted it and were so excited to have chocolate for the first time that I felt bad for Emma.  She does not like chocolate in any form.  I wish that I had something new for her to try too.  Mike gave her a little piece of banana bread and she was fine, but we have banana bread all of the time.



And last, the Easter Bunny letter that Emma wrote:

Dear Easter Bunny,
We are not eating any food with sugar in it.  That means no candy.  We can have other things.  I have been pretty good.  This is my Easter List.
1. a coloring book
2. a note pad
3. What Ever After, Sink or Swim.
4. a box of crayons
5. brand new scissors
6. a brand new REAL TAIRA! (tiara)
7. a new ruler
8. New books Level: 4.0-4.9 (Brown)
9. New tape
10. construction paper and my own glue (3)
Many people don't believe in you.  I believe in you.  You have a big job.  Happy Easter!
Love and Thank you,
Emma Sophia Mingjing
age 7.
Umm.  With a list like that you would think it is Christmas.  Isn't she just the cutest thing?

Meilynn also wrote a letter.

Dear Easter bunny,
Our family can not have any processed food that means candy.  We can not have processed food because we took a 100 day pledge to not eat processed food.  Love the Poma family

Meilynn's wish list
1. make up
2. Jewelry
3. rainbow markers
4. crayons pencils
5. colored paper
6. princess coloring book
7. princess crown and princess things.
8. Hello Kitty things
9. and any other things.
Love Meilynn
I love stickers too.

I am proud of them with how they are taking our pledge so seriously.  Their replacements for the little bit of candy that they normally get are hilarious.  I think the bunny may deliver on a few of those things:)

My girls really do know the real reason for the season.  Their prayers are so sweet and heartfelt. Our family has been so blessed.  We hope that you all enjoy this very special day with your family. We will go to church tomorrow.  All four girls are singing in the choir tomorrow for Easter and then everyone will come over for lunch after church.  We will miss Kami, she is still in Barcelona, but she is on our hearts and it is only 72 days until we will see her.  We are excited that Meghan, Nick and our grand daughter Natalie will be here tomorrow as well as my sister, Debbie and her boyfriend Tom, my sister Julie and her boys Frankie and Nicky, and my Mom and Dad and Aunt Claudia.
Happy Easter!
 He is risen!!!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Day 42!!!! and the end of spring break!




Spring Break is over!  I will really miss it.  I love having my girls home.  I love not having to run around like crazy to all of the activities and school.  It was a bit more challenging being away from home on our 100 Days of eating real food, but we did it.  We found a couple of places to eat out, but we also brought all of our things to make bread, granola, and our other favorites.

I took the girls to see OZ without even reading anything about it.  It was a little grown up for them and I don't really think it was all that good.  It was interesting since it was about before the Wizard of Oz that we know.  We brought our own popcorn since we cannot have refined oils and we were just as satisfied.

We went for a rock hunting/shell hunting walk on the beach.
Emma
Bright Sun

Jilliana

Meilynn






These two just love each other

Some yummy whole wheat pizzas I made



A recipe I found for no sugar cookies.  I thought they were really good, but if I had tasted them the first week that we had been doing this I probably would not have liked them.  They are not very sweet. 


And what do you think this is?  If you guessed the ingredients for a salad you would be wrong.  After watching the video, "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, I went out and bought a juicer.  This is the ingredients for my juice.  This makes one big glass of juice.

I decided to go on a juice fast at the end of the spring break.

This is what it looks like.  This one was not one of my favorites.  But the morning juices are, since they are all fruit.
This one was much better.  It had honeydew melon in it.  My favorite one in the morning has strawberry, apple, and oranges in it.  It looks really pretty too.

 Today we planted a little container garden.  Jilliana and Meilynn helped me plant.  Meilynn, my mommy's little helper went to buy the plants and seeds with me.

Our finished gardens.  We are hoping to have tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, onions, cilantro, radishes, and sweet basil.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Honda Girls!



Looking a little unsure
Mike has a friend that teaches at the Honda Riding School.  He had a family cancel and asked Mike if the girls would like to come out and take a class.  I was all for this.  Since the girls are riding I think it is important that they at least learn to ride as safely as possible.  Here they are just after they got their gear on.  The riding clothes didn't come small enough for Emma and Meilynn so they had to fold the pants down.  Also, the boots didn't come that small so they had to use their own.  Jilliana was too young.  You have to be at least 6, but she went along to help her Daddy take pictures.
Getting introduced to the bike and it's controls
Getting on the bikes
Listening to instruction
A little help

Learning to stop


Learning to turn
Playing in the sand





Becoming more confident



Graduates!