Happy Chinese New Year!

To ring in the year of the Tiger, I thought it might be fun to see if there is any significance to the Chinese animal signs that correlate to the years my family were born.

How appropriate to start with our own Tiger. Rachel was born 12 years ago in the previous year of the Tiger. According to Chinese Zodiac lore: Tiger's are short-tempered, suspicious, adventurious, sensitive, emotional and risk-taking. Compatible with: Dogs, Horses. AVOID: MONKEYS
Paul and Ben and Brig were all born in the year of the Sheep/Ram. Sheep are wise, gentle, compassionate, charming, elegant(i'm not making this stuff up), slightly materialistic, quick to complain, shy, and pessimistic. Sheep are also compatible with Dogs, and Rabbits.
Next we come to the family Dog: Me, I'm sure you can see the resemblance.
(I look sad because I'm on a diet) Dogs are honest, faithful, loyal, trust-worthy, worrisome, and sharp-tongued. Luckily, Dogs are compatible with just about everyone. That would bring us to the last member of the family...

Monkeys are intelligent, clever, popular, judgemental and have good memorys. Dogs can tolerate them, Rams want to head-butt them, and Tiger's should avoid them entirely! I'm sure that any correlation to actual personalities is purely coincidental, but the fact that Monkeys tend to stir things up is no ancient Chinese secret!

Hi-Ya

Just a little sampling of things to come. Karate class x3. Jake will be in the little ninja class while Ben and Brig will be in the Jrs. class. Which means I will be in the car...a lot.

Things Have GOT to Change!

I remember being so excited every Christmas to get a little, individual box of "sugary" cold cereal in my stocking. That was the one time a year that my mom let that kind of garbage into the house. She did a really great job making sure that her family ate healthy meals. Look at my pantry...

Yup, 10 boxes of junky cereal that I let my kids eat before I send them off to public school. (Make sure you spell my name correctly when you nominate me for mother of the year.) Well, things are gonna change baby. I had a great talk with Melissa today, and she has inspired me to eat better. She gave me a lot of great ideas and recipes that I can't wait to try. Rachel helped me make the most wonderful salad for dinner tonight to kick off our goal to eat more fruits and veg and less (way less) sugar! I told everyone at the dinner table that I will no longer be buying sugar cereal. There was some moaning, but in general everyone is willing to take part in our healthy eating program. Now all I need is the ability to withstand the begging on the cereal aisle at the grocery store.