An Exciting New Venture

About a month ago, Michael was reading a leadership book for one of his seminary classes.  In the book the author kept mentioning a company that his wife was involved with as an example of great qualities of leadership.  This peaked Michael's interest, so he went online to check them out, came and found me, and was really excited about the company.  The company, he told me, was Juice Plus and after looking at their web page and watching a video about their product something from my college days started to ring a bell.  My friend Sarah and her family were big Juice Plus advocates, I remembered.

Simultaneously to Michael's discovery of Juice Plus we had also started talking about and trying to take some step to getting "healthier." After our 4 kids in 5 years, I was ready to start really trying to get my body back into pre-baby shape, and Michael, after his yearly physical, had a slight raise in his cholesterol this year.  The men on his side of the family are notorious for bad health and even dying at a younger age, so this in particular started me wanting our family as a whole to start taking our nutrition seriously.

Enter, Juice Plus...My interest was intrigued from watching this video




Honestly, I was a little skeptical at first.  I have always loved fruits and vegetables since I was a child, I really try to make sure we have a vegetable at most meals and snack on fruits and veggies, and my kids, to the surprise of most people LOVE and ask for them.  I was shocked though that the recommendation for the daily intake of fresh fruits and veggies is now 7-13 servings a day, I had always heard "5 a Day", and that's what I strove for.  I did some research myself and found this from WebMD,

"The new slogan replaces the old "5 a Day" campaign, which dates back to the early '90s. The reason? Under the U.S. government's latest food guidelines, five servings of fruits and vegetables may not be enough. Adults need anywhere from 7-13 cups of produce daily to get all the health benefits of fruits and vegetables -- including possible protection against obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer."

Realistically, there are very few days when I get that much produce into my diet, and I don't think Michael's ever eaten that much in one day!  One day of produce for our family alone (not including Jack Housley) would be a minimum of 25 cups of fruits and vegetables based on these recommendations!

So, after reading that I got really excited about Juice Plus and the potential health benefits for our family, especially hearing some of our kids would qualify to get Juice Plus for free through their Children's Health Study.

 I called up my friend Sarah to ask her if she still sold Juice Plus and we ended up talking for about an hour about the product and the business as well.  We were so impressed with the quality of the products and the integrity of the company it didn't take us long after talking it over and praying about it to decide to sign on and start our own Juice Plus business.  The amazing thing was that just the night before Sarah and her finance had been praying for some more people to join their team! We've always kept our eyes and ears open to the Lord providing us something that I could "work on" from home without it taking time away from the family.  This appeared to be God's answer.  We are really excited about the provision of this opportunity and can't wait to see how He continues to guide and direct it!

Our first Healthy Living Seminar is on October 24th from 7:00-8:30 pm at our home if anyone is interested in more information or you can check out my new website http://mfrantz.juiceplus.com or email me personally mariahfrantz@gmail.com.

Mississippi Trip

We made another trip to Mississippi for a few days in September and it was crammed packed with lots of fun things!  Our first stop was Vardaman to see Mamps and Granne.  It was an extra special trip because my cousin, Jennifer's kiddos were there as well, and all the kids had so much fun together! We swung with Granne, picked veggies in Mamps' garden, and ate fried chicken.

 

 We of course had so much fun at Papa's and Marmie's.  We enjoyed our last little bit of summer in the swimming pool and sand box.

 It was also a fun trip because we all got to go to one of Papa's football games and cheer on the Falcons! We all got decked out in our purple and gold. It was kindof funny because they were playing my highschool alma mater, and its the first game I've been to since graduating, but we had to cheer for Papa. The Falcon's won so that was extra fun!

First Day of School Pics

Well we've kicked off our second official year of homeschooling. It's in full blast, which is why I haven't blogged for a while... and am setting aside my "free time" on this Saturday to catch up :)

I know I'm biased, but I think she's the most lovely 5 year old around!

 

And Silly

Rivers really wanted his own sign to hold, but that morning
wasn't too thrilled about pics

But in his world Maddie can make everything better! 

Here's to another fun, adventurous, crazy year at our little School House!

4 Months

 I can't believe you are 4 months old!  How can that be possible?  This month you've started using the bouncer because you love to be standing up on your feet.  You you love bath time (yes, even in a pink bath tub :)

We made another trip to Mississippi and you were the perfect little traveler.  You made your first trip to Mamps and Granne's in Vardaman.

 Dressed for your first UK vs UL game

You've been working on rolling over all month and are getting closer and closer!

3 months

 Sweet boy, you have made adding another child to our family as easy as it could possibly be!  You are the most laid back, most content, happiest baby. I'm not sure to attribute this to your being a 4th child, your personality, or a little bit of both.  Even on an overnight camping trip you were happy to just be with our family and watch the world around you.

This month you have definitely become a smiley guy.  Just in saying your name you and engaging you, you willingly give this huge smile... and you smile as much with your eyes as your mouth.  You bring so much joy to others with this huge smile.  One of my favorite things about Sunday mornings is all of the older ladies at church coming up to see you and you just lighting up, in return making them feel so special.

 This guy loves some brother time, and I pray you two will be life long buds! You're looking more and more like him.

 I think you've been to the zoo more times than any other 3 month old probably because it's one of your sister and brothers favorite places to be. This trip we went with lots of cousins.

You have found your hands, and they are often in your mouth.  Somehow you can manage to get your whole fist in there.

Again, that smile!  You melt my heart! You've also started babbling a ton and I love having little baby conversations with you!

How have 3 months flown by so quickly?

2 Months

So it's catch up time for Jack Housley!  Here's our little fella at 2 months old...

 This month he's started sleeping in his crib, instead of in the bassinet in our room.  He likes to sleep swaddled like this, but most mornings wakes up with at least one arm that has wiggled up by his face. By 8 weeks old he was sleeping between 7-8 hours a night!

 Oh those kissable cheeks... and they get kissed constantly.

 This girl loves him so much!

 This month he's started giving us glimmers of smiles, and remains such a happy and content little guy.

 Getting bigger and stronger day by day.

 I'm trying to soak up these sweet newborn snuggles as much as possible.

 He's become quite the pro of car seat napping being the 4th child and is so flexible with our out and about activities.  

What a blessing this baby boy is and how we all adore him!

Fourth of July

Ok... Let's back up just a bit to July 4th.  This year it was a rainy and cold 4th, so we spontaneously decided to go up to Cincinnati to the aquarium.  A lot of other people must have had our idea because it was packed, but it was a fun and memorable day for sure.

waiting under cover while daddy
waited in line in the pouring rain for tickets

petting some sting rays

admiring the fish

Otters

Fascination!

Rivers' favorite by Far

petting sharks

The next day was beautiful so we went out to Bryant's Blueberry Farm and picked 11 pounds of blueberries.  I think Maddie just may have eaten as many as she picked and as a result literally made herself sick.  Needless to say we've been enjoying lots of blueberries this past month.