Foods 
What are the benefits of honey? Let's take a closer look at this natural sweetener. Honey is sweet and wonderful and all the rage right now. Everyone I know has read some article about the wonderful health benefits of honey, but it can get a bit complicated. We're going to examine all of the benefits and drawbacks of using honey in this post. We'll sift the truth from the hype and also give you some pointers on how to substitute honey for sugar in your recipes. Health Benefits of Honey Honey has been used for generations and in many different cultures as a remedy for many health ailments. I heard ...Read More
Archives for 2012
Homeschooling Jamestown Settlement (Photo Blog)
Last week we also had a chance to get to Jamestown Settlement. Jamestown was America’s first permanent English colony, established 405 years ago in 1607, sponsored by the Virginia Company of London. Jamestown Settlement gives vistors a taste of earliest colonial life in Virginia as well as life in a 17th century Powhatan village. Driving into Jamestown we were greeted by the state flags (pictured below). ...Read More
Colonial Williamsburg (Photo Blog)
We spent parts of two days in Colonial Williamsburg. Many of the buildings are either restored colonial buildings or reconstructions. This former capital of Virginia brings the 18th century to life. The first thing we did was a Children's Orientation Walk (pictured below). Bradley (our 8-year-old) really enjoyed learning how to bow, how to dance, and how colonial slaves would work "in time." ...Read More
Bridges, Tunnels, and the Chesapeake Bay (Photo Blog)
Our first day in Eastern Virginia there was one thing we wanted to be sure our kids saw: the Atlantic Ocean. None of our kids had seen it before, so we decided to set out to the coast. We were not anticipating the adventure we had. We came to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. This bridge-tunnel is 17.6 miles shore to shore, connecting the mainland of Virginia to the Eastern Shore peninsula. Our kids loved watching the crashing waves from the bridges and then dipping down into the tunnel portions, dropping anywhere from 25 to 100 feet below water level. ...Read More
Preparing for Thanksgiving in Williamsburg
Nearly every Thanksgiving our family from Louisiana invites us to spend the holiday with them at their timeshare. We've been to places in Tennessee like Nashville (pretty fun) and Fairfield Glade (fairly boring), but this year we are headed to Williamsburg, Virginia. We are very excite about our trip because we see this as an opportunity to not only relax but teach our family something about our national heritage. The cities of Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown enjoy a rich history as some of our nations earliest settlements in the 17th century. In particular, we have been preparing our oldest two sons Bradley ...Read More
A Sweet Life: Sugar and Its (Lack of) Health Benefits
Sugar...we have a sweet, sweet love affair with you. You're in so much of our food. You taste so good, you make us feel good, we constantly seek you out. You must be good, right? Nope. Sugar has no nutritional value—there is nothing that your body needs that is found in sugar. There are no vitamins, minerals, or enzymes that can benefit your body in any way. Furthermore, sugar can wreck havoc on your body in many many ways. The consumption of sugar has been linked to a plethora of modern diseases: diabetes, obesity, cancer, hypertension, depression, headaches, acne, fatigue, hardening of the arteries, and high blood ...Read More
A Sweet Life: A blog series about sugar and sugar substitutes
Despite trying to follow a very low-carb ketogenic diet, I still have a sweet tooth. My kids do, too. I want to keep my insulin response low, lose weight, decrease the inflamation in my body, and be healthy, but I don't want to give up sweets completely. What's a girl to do? Whether or not you know it, there are a plethora of sugar substitutes on the market. Some taste better than others, some cause a greater insulin response, and some have health benefits you may not know about. In this series I'm going to be exploring the pros and cons of sugar and its alternatives. We'll discuss sugar, honey, maple syrup, sugar ...Read More
Natural Remedy for Mastitis
Fever, chills, aches, pains, a sore red breast. You guessed it, these are all classic symptoms of mastitis, a nasty breast infection. If you're a breastfeeding mama like me, you may have experienced how extraordinarily painful this can be. As if the breast soreness isn't enough, you probably feel as if you've been run over by a train and are running a fever to boot. After much research and reading I armed myself with a multi-faceted treatment approach should I come down with this nasty infection again. Read the rest of my guest post at The Organic Times Blog about natural remedy for mastitis... ...Read More
