5

Five.

Jakob is five years old today.

What a blessing he is and

how we love him so!

I've been reading more and more about how crummy high fructose corn syrup is. While I can't recall every nit-picky detail, I do recall it affects our liver differently than regular sugar and contributes more rapidly to a thicker midline... big surprise! Well I received this information today from my fellow health-savvy sister-in-law, who received it from a nutritionist in our community. This is what she had to share:

"I wanted to share some true and disturbing information with you. I'm also very disappointed, that as a clinical nutritionist, I have not discovered this information sooner. Less than two weeks ago, I was invited to have dinner with 25 doctors in the st. louis area that practice integrative medicine, and my jaw was on the floor the entire evening. What is happening in medicine and agriculture in america is SICK SICK SICK, and that is why we are so sick. Several of the doctors informed me that the way high fructose corn syrup is made is by injecting mercury into the corn plant. Apparantly this was mainstream and on the news just about 3 weeks ago. So, I've been doing some research and found it to be so true it's sick. They found that one in three products containing HFCS has mercury. Please share this with your friends and family.

The list of products that I'm including came right off of: www.webmd.comhere's the list: Quaker Oatmeal to Go Bars, Jack Daniel's BBQ Sauce3, Hershey's chocolate syrup, Kraft original BBQ sauce, Nutri-Grain strawberry cereal bars, Manwich Gold Sloppy Joe, Market pantry grape jelly, Smucker's strawberry jelly, Pop-Tarts frosted blueberry, Hunt's tomato ketchup, Wish-Bone western sweet & smooth dressing, coca-cola, yoplait strawberry yogurt, minute maid berry punch, yoo-hoo chocolate drink, nesquik chocolate milk, kemps fat free chocolate milk. Mercury exposure can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system."

Yikes! Well at least nothing I planned to eat for dinner is on this list.

Roller skating... we went and survived! As we left for the party today, Jim said "Who has a roller skating party for four year olds? I told him *S* was five now... and as I later found out even owns his own skates! After a few spills, Jakob was ready to throw the towel in, but I already strapped on my $3.50 rental pair and wasn't going to let him feel defeated that fast. In a manner so unlike me, I pulled his gripping hands away from the wall and put him on the rink far enough from the wall that he had no choice. By the end of the 2-1/2 hours the daredevil even tried to jump with his skates on. I'm not sure even a toothpick would have fit between the wheels and the floor, but nonetheless, I witnessed both skates coming off the ground and landing without injury. I was so proud of him! As you can see, we really enjoyed ourselves!

A Prairie Dog family we will be... Much to our complete and utter surprise, Jakob was accepted into the Immaculate Conception School family! The letter was beautiful and started out,

"After much thought, prayer, and discernment, we are happy to inform you that your child has been accepted in to the kindergarten program at Immaculate Conception Catholic School."

Later it states, "We hope that you will read this letter with a sense of thanksgiving to God and perhaps a sigh of relief. As you may understand, others will be receiving a letter that will cause disappointment and hurt. We hope that your sense of gratitude to God will also turn into a prayer of petition for those families whose children we were not able to accept into the program for the upcoming school year."

This is the part is why I keep saying, "I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED!" 136 families applied for 90 positions. Families with siblings took the first 55 positions. Jakob is one of only 35 children without a sibling already in attendance that will be going, and 46 families were turned away. This is a place that historically children are on the waiting list from birth... Jakob's time on the waiting list has been so brief, it would be obscene to actually say it outloud.

So happy, so excited, thrilled to be the mom of an aspiring Prairie Dog!

This picture should be considered recent, but here it's still winter... this was from our vacation in Florida. Fortunately the weather is to warm up in the coming days. Perhaps it will melt away the yucky, dirty snow left from the plows. The ten-day forecast still calls for snow. It is just the beginning of February I suppose.

Jakob is doing great. He still enjoys attending preschool three days a week and is lucky enough to spend the other two days with his cousin Jack and his cousin Claire. Today he told me his Auntie Trisha makes all his FAVORITE food! A lucky, lucky boy he is. Kindergarten registration is underway at many schools and we will soon know where he will attend.

We took advantage of the sunshine and warmer temperature today. We stopped by Dairy Queen for ice cream cones and then spent a few minutes playing at playground at my school.

My 34th birthday was great! Jakob and Jim made me birthday cards and suprised me with a Wii Fit! We've been having a lot of fun with it! Jakob continues to out-bowl each of us in Wii bowling.

With any luck my next post won't take 5-6 months!