8 Years Old

8 is a special birthday in our home.  It's a milestone year that comes with a baptism.  Mailaya turned 8 the second week of August and was baptised.  Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures of her baptism day.  It was such a wonderful day.  We let her pick out her own set of scriptures with her name engraved on them.  All of my family was able to attend and one of Brent's siblings, his brother Mike was there.  Mailaya planned the entire program from the songs that were song, prayers, and talks by her grandparents.  She asked every person on the program to participate by herself.  We were very proud of her! 

Unexpected

Sometimes things come in unexpected ways. I've been searching for some help for my son, Jacob, for a long time. Little things here and there come along but it's seems like the steps are so small that it's hard to notice. Some big helps have been the book, "Teaching Self Government," by Nicholeen Peck and finding out that he has trouble with gluten and taking it out of his diet. One of the biggest problems is that he is very impulsive and at the same time a perfectionist. It seems he is always fighting himself.
My oldest daughter, Kellie, was really sick and I was trying to figure out what I could do to help her. I was looking up some things on the Herbal Legacy website and came across an article about nettle tea and it's cleansing properties. Soon after that, Jacob had some food with gluten and I thought I'd try the tea. It worked brilliantly. The real test came not long after that when he had a cookie at church. The new Primary Presidency didn't realize how serious it was for Jacob to have gluten and he just can't say no. I ran him home as soon as I found out about the cookie and made the tea. It worked again. I then learned about red raspberry leaves and Lobelia. This is where it gets interesting. Red raspberry has some wonderful properties of nutrition and cleansing. Lobelia is an AMAZING herb. One of it's many properties is that it can relax the body. This intrigued me because Jacob has a high level of anxiety and I wondered if it would help. However, I was a little afraid of using Lobelia because in the back of my mind I remembered hearing something negative about it.
In the meantime, I got an Herbal Legacy email with an offer to take the Family Herbalist ckass for around $200. I thought it would be worth the money to learn more. I have always tried to do things as naturally as possible and this would aid me further. One of my sister's is a Master Herbalist and had good things to say about the program. Through this class I learned that lobelia is a very safe herb. That was enough to convince me to try it. I bought some herbs online from Mountain Rose Herbs and started making tea. I use 1 tsp. nettle, 1 tsp red raspberry leaves (I get these from my yard), 1/4 tsp lobelia and 1/2 tsp horsetail (good for calcium). Can I just say WOW! He's calmer, less impulsive, happier. It's been amazing. I'm hoping that this will work long term, for his sake. Even the first week of school went amazingly well and it was a tough week. I am now taking the Nutritional Herbalist course and hoping that I learn enough to help all three of my kids that have gluten issues.