Hello blog, remember us? Its been too long.

So thats who the Wizard of Oz is....

We havent posted anything in a while (mostly being busy and running out of room where we keep our online photos - Picasa). I did want to share something I recently found out.

I was in Whole Foods about 4 months ago and was fixing my coffee, I was putting in my soy creamer and overheard these women saying "They should not have soy creamer, its bad for you". Another time I was getting a smoothie for Zoe, it was an Almond Butter, banana and soy milk smoothie. The guy who made it gave it to Zoe, smiled and went to work behind the counter. One of the women he worked with went over and chastised him for giving soy milk to a girl, or any woman for that fact, that it messes with their hormones. I have heard many slanders against soy milk, and always had it in the back of my head that these attacks must be coming from an organization, because some of them seemed downright silly, like this one claiming if your kid drinks soy milk it will turn them gay.

Well, I did a little googling and found the biggest culprit of the misinformation. They are the Weston A. Price Foundation. They promote the consumption of dairy and meat (funded by donations from dairy and meat farms). You can read more about them here:

http://www.care2.com/causes/health-policy/blog/who-is-the-weston-a-price-foundation/

I finally can put a name to the source of the misinformation, for some reason that make me feel a bit better. It makes sense though, if something like soymilk comes along and cuts into your profits, what do you do...scare people into not buying it.

As a side note, one of the big slanders they spread is that by drinking soy you are flooding your body with the female hormone estrogen. Estrogens in soy, phytoestrogens ("phyto" meaning "plant"), have been found to keep our (animal) estrogen levels under control. So if you decide to avoid estrogens by not drinking soy and going with milk, then consider that "Among the routes of human exposure to estrogens, we are mostly concerned about cow's milk, which contains considerable amounts of female sex hormones. Dairy accounts for 60 percent to 80 percent of estrogens consumed. Part of the problem seems to be milk from modern dairy farms, where cows are milked about 300 days a year. For much of that time, the cows are pregnant. The later in pregnancy a cow is, the more hormones appear in her milk.

This quote was taken from an article from Harvard University. So you cant avoid estrogen from drinking cows milk instead of soy, one thing that the Weston A. Price Foundation forgot to mention in their numerous articles denouncing soy milk.

Photos from this summer

Words!

Our little Paigey is talking! Here are the words that she uses regularly:

mama - pronounced MAMA!

dada - pronounced daDA

cat - pronounced cat (one of her first words)

yeah - pronounced YEAH!

another (as in "i'd like another cracker") - pronounced nudur

potty - pronounced PAA

ball - pronounced bal

mad - pronounced MAD! and used in the proper context (you go Paige!)

book - pronounced ba

milk - pronounced mil

mud - pronounced mau!

Paige is working on saying her name right now. It begins with Pa and then she experiments with lots of other sounds afterwards.

Zoe's word for everything she wanted to see or do was "dat" used with pointing to an object (like "that"). Paige's word for everything is "MAMA!".

home depot and creek

Photos from the past week or so

The new house so far

Here are some photos from the new house. The photo of Zoe walking on a trail is a nature trail we can walk to. We've been busy planting and slowly getting unpacked.

Zoe's Story

Zoe asked me to type this story as she told it. It's called "The Doodle Bug Cage Game"

zoe went home one day. and she came across a hat shop and her went inside it. and what did she see in there? a bee! and what did she see under the bee? a fly! and under the fly was a mosquito! and there was a tiger and a rabbit and a bug trainer. and the bug trainer is when they get bugs and put them on the train and takes the bugs for a ride. they went for a hide on a boat. and there's a little tiny doodle bug and it crawled into the ocean and the got it and put in a cage and they bring it home and decided to keep him as a pet. then he decided to eat some leaves. so zoe went out to get some leaves. then zoe put them in a cage and take a nap. but when zoe was about to get into bed she heard the doodle bug said "help, help!" and she looked in the cage and the doodle bug was sick. then she had a glass of water. the end.

Sparrow in the hands of Zoe

I was driving back home from picking up dinner this afternoon, going down a busy street (Guadalupe) during rush hour, with Zoe and Paige in the back. I was at a stoplight and I saw a small bird rolling around on the road, flapping around. The light turned green and cars started going, the bird rolled right in front of my car. I put on my hazards, got out and picked up the young sparrow in my right hand. I got back in the car and drove with my left hand. The bird was in shock for about 5 minutes. I called Nikki and asked her to meet me in front of the house with a cat carrier so we could put the sparrow in it. As I was coming down the street I noticed the sparrows look changed, it closed its beak, and her eyes became more alert and she started looking around. I arrived home and got out of the car. We all sat in the front yard and looked at the sparrow in my hand. Zoe asked to hold her so I gently placed the sparrow in her hands. I asked Nikki where the camera was. Zoe held the sparrow for about a minute when all of the sudden the sparrow flew off quickly into the sky. Nikki and I let out a visceral "Yay!" Zoe started to cry. We asked her what was wrong, she said "I wanted to keep her". We explained how it was a very good thing that the sparrow was ok and able to be free again. It took her a little bit but she understood. Now she is happy that she was able to hold a wild bird in her hand and watch it take off.

On a side note, I think people dont stop in traffic sometimes if they see and injured animal because they feel other people will get mad because they are being inconvenienced by having to pause for a minute. When I got out of the car and was coming back with the bird in my hand I glanced at the driver behind me. He was a middle aged bearded man, he looked at me and nodded with approval. I am very happy I stopped.

Photo of Paige taken on her 1st birthday!

Happy Birthday Paige!!!!! 1 year old!! We Love You!!!

Spring Photos

Hare Krishnas having fun at SXSW

Zoe's Story

I'm magic.

You can't see me.

I disappeared.

I went into a flower and turned into a bee.

I went far, far away to New York City and there are lots of flowers there.

...pause...

I sipped nectar from an orange flower.

I'm back.

Happy Birthday Nikki!!!!

We love you very much! Skip, Zoe, Paige, Miro and Sophie