Our Family Stone

Preventing Injury Step One

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Ashley

We’re talking injury prevention over at the Kahootkids blog!

Preventing Injury Step One – Warm it up!

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I’m ambitious by nature. I dislike boredom, I dislike laziness even more and I firmly believe that if you want something to happen you have to GET UP AND DO IT! (sidenote: that is of course contingent on it being in God’s plan.) I don’t wait around to be handed things, I rarely if ever ask for help and I’d say it’s fair to call me “self-reliant”. Sometimes to a fault.

That being said, I often lack the self-esteem to follow that determination and self-reliance through when it comes to the dreams that involve the rest of the world. Instead of pushing hard for a dream to come true I will talk myself out of wanting it because the idea of failure is completely debilitating. I don’t want to be laughed at, turned down or looked at as a failure. Even when I know full well that the thing I’m dreaming of is something I’m good at.

It’s something I want to change about myself. There are things in life right now that I really want, things I think (I hope) that I’d be good at, things that I want to be able to do not only for me but for my family. I also want to set a better example for our girls. I want Bethany and Audrey to have the confidence to go after the things they dream for and know that they can achieve them, even when those dreams mean facing other people. I don’t know how I can truly teach them that without showing them myself.

The thing is, I’m not exactly sure how to achieve these dreams, even if I possessed the confidence blah, blah, blah I don’t know how to bring them to fruition. So, I’m gonna put it out there and maybe you guys can help. If I’ve learned one thing in the past 6 years (I’ve learned more than 1 thing…) it’s that the internet isn’t all bad. The people on it aren’t all creepy guys not wearing pants living in their mother’s basement and there is love, knowledge and resources to be found in the people behind the screen. Right now, as hard as it is for me, I’m asking for the help of those people…

Dream #1 – I want to set up a baking healthy business. I’ve Facebooked it a little bit over the past few weeks but in case we aren’t friends on Facebook (why aren’t we friends on Facebook? Really, why aren’t we FRIENDS?!) here’s what I want to do.

- I LOVE baking and cooking. I have spent the last year especially doing my homework of health, fitness and nutrition. What I’ve learned is we are eating a lot of chemicals we shouldn’t be eating. The “healthy” foods you think you’re feeding your family aren’t actually healthy, the labels lie and people are being lied to. I want to take the recipes I’ve perfect, the healthy food and create a baking business where people can pick up all the supplies of healthy lunches once a week from us. Cookies, brownies, bread, granola bars, breakfast calzones etc all customized to you and your family. It would be a way for people to really know what they were eating and for me to feed the passion I have. Right now, I bake until our freezer is full, gifts have been given and then when I get a few spare minutes (or an extra bag of stress arrives) and i have no more need to bake.

- What I need to know is how do I make this work? Would you be interested in it? If you live in the Chilliwack/Hope & surrounding area ARE you interested in this and would you come to a tasting to see what I’m offering?

Dream #2 – I want to write for a living. I love to write as much if not more than I love to bake. I know the internet and blogs have changed the dynamic and definition of an author. I know there are many, many talented people out there who want to write for a living and who do, and I know I don’t always compete. But I would love nothing more than to have a PAYING job writing for a living. A column on health and nutrition, or on family and the spiritual growth that comes with raising children. I don’t know what I want to write about but I do badly want to do it and be paid for it.

- I’ve had opportunities to write, most of them unpaid or small in revenue. I am so very grateful for those opportunities and I’m not at all turning my nose up to them but I’d like something that would help support us a little. Something that allows me the freedom to say what I want to say in a forum where I can be heard and where I can hear the voices of the readers back. I don’t even a little bit know where to begin to find that!

- If you have a job like that and know of someone hiring please let me know. If you have advice on how to get my feet wet and begin, or on how to pitch myself please, PLEASE let me know.

It’s not easy for me, asking for help but today I’m asking. These two dreams truly are things that I feel rumbling in my soul. I love that the past 5 years I’ve been able to work for my parents and take our girls to the office each day but it’s getting hard. (It’s a “thing” for another day) What I, we would ultimately like is for me to find a way to work from home, doing the things I love that I’m good at and still be the Mom my children need, the wife my husband deserves.

So, please friends share. Advice, in site, honest critiques, a writing contract , whatever you have to share I would so greatly appreciate it. If nothing else, please pray for us, I feel like there are big changes in the works, I just don’t know what they are.

Posted in Me, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

5 Random Things that Bug Me

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Ashley

Everybody has “stuff’ that is random and stupid but that totally drives them mental. I do and I know YOU do to (even if you’re hiding behind the ugly 80′s curtain of “Peace Man, I love everything”).

Here’s 5 of mine:

5. People who Chew with their mouths open: Seriously guys I don’t need to see your food being chewed. I also don’t need to see little food spit balls flying from your mouth or listen to the disgusting saliva sounds coming from your flapping gums. Close your trap, chew, swallow and then you may speak to me. Maybe.

4. The “Life is hard for me than you” game: Sometimes, life is hard. Period. It doesn’t matter if it’s you or me living that life, it’s hard. Hard is all relative – to the person, the situation, the emotions. Please don’t tell me that it’s harder for you to lose weight than it was for me, that it’s harder to live my life than it is yours or a plethora of other things. If it feels hard to you, it’s hard. Likewise if it is hard for me, it’s hard (and let me tell you that weight loss was/is HARD). Let’s just leave it at that.

3. People Who Move slowly: I don’t care if you’re walking, driving (under the speed limit) or unpacking your groceries, do it quickly/efficiently. Light a fire under it and LET’S GO!

2. The way certain men in my life eat fries: Their mouths are closed, it’s just a thing. It’s stupid but it bugs me – so I either sing to myself or turn the TV up.

1. Clothes made from seedy baby mustard poop yellow: Once you’ve seen it once ( or worn the baby version – it leaks everywhere!) you’ll never forget it. Every single time I see someone, usually a girl wearing that color all I can see is that nasty, ugly, SMELLY diaper and I’m appalled. Let’s just kill that color all together.

These aren’t the serious things in life that bug me, just the picky little tiny things. It’s also not the full list, but let’s not get too negative here.

Now that you know what bugs me. What bugs you?

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Take my Breath Away

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Ashley

Everyday, no matter how hard or how wonderful is laced with the silver lining of moments that take my breath away…

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Green Works Review & GIVEAWAY!

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Ashley

It’s not a secret that we are doing our very best to keep it “clean and green” around the Stone house. We are constantly making changes to the food we eat, the products we purchase and the chemicals being brought into our homes. The better it is for the planet and for our bodies, the happier I am.

That being said, we’ve also had to make sure these products work, especially the cleaning ones. With everything we’ve been through with Audrey it’s important the our home be clean and as germ free as possible. Sometimes all natural cleaners leave me feeling a little nervous, did they work enough?

Then I got the chance to try the line of Green Works products. They are made up of plant and mineral based cleaning ingredients, are biodegradable, naturally derived and never tested on animals. On top of all that the Green Works products clean with the same power we’ve come to expect from the people at Clorox!

We’ve given the dishwashing liquid, cleaning wipes, multi-surface cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, all-purpose cleaner and bathroom cleaner a try. They’ve all performed very well, but a few of them really stood out to me as exceptional.

Dishwashing Liquid: I always get super dry hands after I wash dishes. I have lotion by my sink, my chair, my bed and in my purse because my hands are always cracked. After doing a LARGE load of post baking dishes I was able to dry my hands and carry on with my evening – without lotion! My dishes were as clean as they always have been, the soap smelled lovely and my hands were soft and smooth.

Cleaning Wipes: I’m not really a fan of wipes, I feel like they add waste and are unnecessary. The Green Works wipes however are compostable so they won’t be clogging up our landfills and they surprised me with their power. After kneading a batch of whole wheat bread on my kitchen counter I had a bit of a mess to clean up. If you’ve ever baked bread from scratch you know that as you knead bits of dough dry and stick to the flour and counter. In the end you’re left scrapping the leftovers carefully from your counters and scrubbing away. It’s tedious and annoying, or it was until I pulled out my Clorox wipes. A few wipes of the counter and ALL THE DOUGH LIFTED OFF! I was completely amazed, and thrilled!

Toilet Bowl Cleaner: Most toilet bowl cleaners have a really strong odor. They make me weaze and always have me sending the girls from the bathroom to protect their lungs. The Green Works Toilet Bowl Cleaner was the opposite, it’s smell was quite pleasant and thick gel cleaned all the “left overs” on inside of my toilet bowl off before I even got to scrubbing them.

The Green Works products have been able to given us the best of both worlds. These products have given us the ability to kill the germs we are so desperately afraid of having in our home, while protecting our children and preserving our planet. I would without a second’s hesitation suggest that each and everyone of you run out a buy some!

WAIT! Before you run out the door I have two great opportunities to share with you!

The first is you could win your own Green Works Prize Pack! Enter on the Rafflecopter form below to win! Tell me what Your Favourite Green Works Product is or click the link and tell me What Green Works Product you can’t wait to try.

Then since I know you’re not going to wait to find out if you won to start using Green Works you need to take note of these excellent Green Works Deals:

Walmart:

April- Products available may vary by store.
o   Special 2-pack offer (All–Purpose Cleaner and Dish Soap) exclusively at Wal-mart for a great price!
o   Exclusive All-Purpose Cleaner refill only at Wal-mart location
o   April 14/15 Weekend – In-store educational demos. Learn more about the naturally-derived Green Works products in-store at participating Wal-mart locations.

Sobeys:

April – Products available may vary by store.
o Buy 2 Green Works products at Sobeys and receive 200 Sobeys Bonus points

London Drugs:

April – Products available may vary by store.
o Green Works will be hosting a twitter contest at London Drugs where customers can tweet their favourite Green Works Product to #WinWithGreenWorks to a chance to win 1 of 5 $500 London Drugs gift cards

And don’t forget to check out the Green Works Website for product information and money saving coupons!

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Helping Kids Try New Foods (and Adults too!)

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Ashley

Over at KahootKids I’m sharing some of the ways we encourage our girls to try new foods!

Just One Bite – Helping Kids Try New Foods

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Hair Days

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Ashley

I LOVE having little girls who let me do their hair. I was never the kind of girl who liked to sit still for my Mom to do fun things with my hair. In fact, I screamed bloody murder and swore that she was ripping the hair straight from my head….I’m still kind of like that. Don’t touch my head and if you value your manhood (or nose if you’re female) do NOT touch my back, I’m slightly sensitive.

Bethany and Audrey are nothing like me in that respect. The both adore an evening back rub and for the most part stand still while I do all sorts of fancy things with their beautiful locks.

B’s hair has grown way down her back, is thick and full of gorgeous highlights. Audrey’s is getting longer too, now that it’s stopped falling out it’s starting slowly to fill out. It too has beautiful highlights and while it’s got all sorts of different lengths (because she’s boycotting a haircut) I can play and have fun.

Whether it’s braiding it at night to have “curls” in the morning or crazy hair day for school there’s always something awesome happening in the hair department in this house. Now if only I had the patience and 3 extra hands to do those things to my own hair…

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On the day my world Exploded

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Ashley

One year ago today our world exploded. One year ago today we took Audrey to the hospital with yet another UTI and thought that a few antibiotics, maybe a little IV fluids and everything would be ok. One year ago today a doctor stood across from us, announced that we wouldn’t be leaving the hospital, our daughter’s hemoglobin was rock bottom and he thought she was bleeding internally. One year ago today, my chest got tight, my stomach lurched and I thought I was going to stop breath.

This has been one hell of a year for our family. While our Audrey is home with us, happy and growing (finally) – we still hold no more answers than we held one year ago. While I’ve taken more than one breath since that day, they’ve been laboured and pained. While they confirmed there was no major internal bleeding and her hemoglobin numbers have risen some, it’s not over, they aren’t normal and no one can tell us why.

April 19th we will be making yet another trip to Children’s Hospital to meet with new doctors. This time an Endocrinologist will be doing her best to dig into what’s happening in Audrey’s little body to give us some answers.

For one year I feel like I’ve been running a marathon with no finish line. Each time I get to the place where the ribbon should be, where I feel like things are looking up and are going to be ok, I trip and stumble and someone says “Keep Running”. It’s been long and I’m getting tired.

So today, one year later I’ve decided not to aim for the finish line any more. I’m going to keep running, I’m going to keep breathing and I’m heading straight for the water station that is April 19th. We won’t drive away with an answer that day but we’ll be one mile closer and I’m going to hang on to that.

Thank you so much to all of you who have walked/run this journey with us. Your prayers, you emails, your support and your love have meant more to us than we will ever be able to express. There are times I don’t think I could have kept going without knowing I’m not the only one bringing this little girl to feet of our Father in prayer.

We’re going to finish this marathon, one step at a time and we’re going to do it because of friends like you and God like Him.

Posted in Audrey | 5 Comments

Pride

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Ashley

This weekend we went home to Kelowna. It’s been months upon months since we made the trek back to the beautiful OK and it was time we did that. I spent all week a enormousness mess trying to get housework done, baking baked, worrying about travelling with AJ and watching the road/weather reports. This province has seen its fair share of winter and stupid weather way beyond our regular “season” so I was slightly paranoid that Friday would come and we’d be in the middle of a blizzard.

Friday came, I got up right at 5am to workout (as did Bethany because “I’m so excited Mommy, MY BRAIN CAN’T SLEEP!”), we packed, we dressed, I organized food (so I could eat at least a little bit while we were gone) and we loaded the van. Then there was the gassing of the van, the 3 trips to the potty, Corey came home and we were off.

The drive was beautiful! Sunshine and dry roads – thank you Jesus. We talked, we played and of course we had Starbucks – twice.

Our weekend, as always flew by in a blur. I didn’t remember to pull out my real camera even once, but my memory is full of wonderful moments (and Instagram caught a few shots at least).

We got to visit with Grandpa Bert Friday night, share an ice cream treat and hang out. The girls also got to exchange Christmas gifts with him that have been waiting since this year the Christmas season kinda of barfed chaos on this house and we hadn’t seen him yet. Audrey was over the moon when she opened her’s and found a “Mon-sir (monster) Truck” RC, and Bethany now has real, adult Walkie talkies – screeech!

Saturday was spent visiting the “Greats” grandparents and then handing out with Uncle Scott & Auntie Chelsea. The girls spent hours upon hours playing with Chloe, chasing, laughing and maybe hiding a little. (Audrey was tired and a little shy for some of the trip. When she was, she’d either snuggle on my lap or hide her face in Bethy’s shoulder.)

Then there was dinner with Uncle Wyatt, shopping on Sunday (we scored big time on kid clothes – I boycotted the effort to get ME to try things on. “Too Busy”, “No time”, “I have to pee”…), lunch and the long drive home.

These trips home are always busy. Jam packed full of new places, people to visit, new situations and long days. All the things that often make for grumpy kids, things that leave you expecting the inevitable meltdown – “the moments” that all kids had. We didn’t have even one of those this weekend.

Corey and I are so proud of the girls Bethany & Audrey are becoming. They have wonderful manners, they were patient and kind with Chloe, they ate their meals without any fuss and aside from Audrey asking me 493 time “What time is it?” the drive both to and from K-Town was wonderful. Their behaviour was impeccable and we couldn’t have been more happy!

God has given us beautiful, precious and flat out awesome little girls, ones who are quickly growing up. And while I really wish some days that they could stay small forever, this weekend proved that there is joy in their growing up too – they were so well behaved and we were so proud!

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It’s time you won Cash – Giveaway!

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Ashley

It’s Monday and I think what you need is a little bit of extra cash. How about $108 to be exact? How about it’s paid out with Paypal and can be won by anyone WORLDWIDE?! It could be YOU with that cash!

Stop jumping, hold on – you have to wait and see how to get it!

A group of excellent Canadian Bloggers – lead by the fantastic This Lil Piglet and Tales of a Ranting Ginger have decided to join together and give one of their readers $108 in Paypal Cash!

From April 2 – 9 2012 you’ve got the chance to enter and win! Nobody is excluded, no one will be left out, so check out the form, enter to win and share it with your friends (just tell them if they win you expect a really, REALLY nice present for telling them about it)!

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