Team Smith

Dear Cassidy and future Baby Smith, I am sure that bloggers across the world are firing away about a news piece gone viral today. http://gma.yahoo.com/k-e-diet-brides-using-feeding-tubes-rapidly-080053646--abc-news-health.html In case this link is non-existent by the time you read this, long story short, people are using feeding tubes for rapid weight loss in a short amount of time. This is your mother talking. If for some reason this ridiculous trend is still around when you grow up, and you think about doing this to your self, please know that I will spank you and put you in timeout. You do not diet to fit into a dress, or suit. You pick an outfit that highlights your best attributes and get it tailored to fit your body, not the other way around. No matter what size you are, as long as your are healthy, not putting toxins into your body, and exercising, whatever size you are is beautiful and perfect in God's eyes because God does not make mistakes. There is a flattering de...

Have I mentioned that I LOVE getting pictures at work? After sifting through emails,it's nice to get a surprise peek at my family. Matt took this pic with his phone this morning. It all started a few months back when Cassidy started giving me grief getting in and out of her car seat. It was so frustrating and sometimes painful when she would squirm and kick! I had broached the topic of getting a different seat to make this an easier task and Matt at first did not believe it was in our budget. So our compromise was that he would always be the one to put her in the seat and we would rearrange our schedules as need be to minimize the number of encounters I had. I was good with taking her out of the seat though. This system was working well. Over the last couple of weeks Cass has experienced a serious growth spurt. She was between a 3T and 4T, then jumped to a 5T. My poor baby was not sleeping well and her eating was off. It was a rough one! But quick. Fast forward to last week... I n...

Brookfield Zoo is free to the public from January 1 to February 29th! Amazing. It's a beautiful zoo. The animals appear to be well taken care of and the zoo makes a solid attempt to recreate natural environments, provide enrichment opportunities and educate the public. I can't imagine how hard their job is, something tells me that giraffes are not meant to live in Chicago! The way I think about animals is ever evolving. This past semester I co-taught a class with Dean Alzada Tipton. She is fabulous! And quite possibly the biggest animal advocate I have ever met. Our class was on the relationship between animals and people. I think I may have mentioned it before. In short, we went over a vast amount of topics from factory farming to clothing to cock fighting to the Kentucky Derby. We discussed class systems, religion, food, the environment, science and medicine, the domestication of dogs, why frogs are important to mankind and more. This class was intense! Alzada pu...