Campbell’s to the Rescue for Dinner? New! Slow Cooker Sauce: Mexican Red Chili Taco

Couldn’t wait to share that Campbell’s gets an A+++ on their NEW Slow Cooker Sauce that makes delicious tacos!  I was skeptical when purchasing because a) I have very picky eaters in my house.  We can’t have things too spicy or too sweet. b) I have hypoglycemia and wondered if I would have any type of reaction to the ingredients.  c) It just seemed too good to be true.  Really? All I had to do was add the beef and I was a good to go?

I was courageous enough to buy it because NO MSG was in the package and only 2 g of sugar was listed.  I was craving tacos and hoping my family could handle something new.

I tried it last night.  At 10 a.m. yesterday morning, my kids were hollering about something and I had no time to thaw my meat.  So I dumped it in frozen and set it in with the sauce.  The only thing I did add, was some corn and black beans – per suggestion on the back of the bag about 10 minutes before serving.  When dinner arrived, I cut up some tomatoes, set out the sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese and announce it was dinner.

THEY LOVED IT.  Even my pickiest eater.  I was SO HAPPY.  I then chowed down my tacos.  I would say they are as good as the fajitas at Chili.  The only thing I would do differ would be to cut up the meat into large chunks before cooking for extra tender meat.

Oh wow.  Thank you LORD that I have a new meal that I can use it in my dinner rotations.

 

My Natural Medicine Cabinet

Tags

healing, Natural medicine cabinet, shaklee

Previously, I discussed that our family’s only chance of overcoming sickness quickly on our vaction in Florida, was my natural medicine cabinet that I brought with us.  Below are the products that I am thankful were packed in my travel bag for both adults and children. A little homeopathy also helped us recover and is listed below with an (*).  I will be real folks, that this illness was so bad I even resorted to taking Mucinex along with below arsenal. Usually at home, I would have had my entire get better center.   I was afraid we would miss our flight home if I didn’t do something available at drugstore too.

Adults:

Vita-Lea with Iron: Instead of Centrum or Costco brands

This multi-vitamin is an activator of new cells (it is included in the Vitalizer 30 day supply pack, but you can buy it individually as well). It is whole, concentrated food grown organically. It is proven to increase bone density. Has no added preservatives, artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners. 100% of RDA of biotin.  Makes protein more

 

efficient with 29 vitamins and minerals to activate body cells to rebuild and be strong and healthy.

Garlic: (Instead of Sudafed)

• I’m not talking about the garlic you find at your local grocery store.  Not only is it powerful, but is so warming on your chest when swallowed because of the spearmint oil and rosemary extract it contains.  I can’t live without this if I feel I’m getting sick in the least, and especially – as was the case for us – if a cough is coming on.
• Did you know that garlic is sometimes referred to as “Nature’s Wonder Drug?” It is a powerful antibiotic that fights off bacteria, parasites, fungi, and viruses.  Studies have even shown it is more effective than penicillin in some cases.  It offers aid as a decongestant and expectorant and as an anti-diarrheal.

Instead of Airborne, Cold Eeze 

• Active Ingredients:  Echinacea to take care of bacteria and Larch tree extract to attack viruses
• Use as a preventative when flying or in large gatherings of people during cold and flu season or anytime you come in contact with allergy activators

Sustained Release Vita-C:

Shaklee Sustained Release Vitamin C has a patented release system on it so that it releases C slowly over a period of 6 hours so that your body can absorb and utilize all of it.  In other words, it is like eating 1 1/2 oranges every hour for 6 hours!!!  That is some good immune boosting!!

You can get the Sustained Release Vitamin C individually (I have a bottle on hand at all times).  I just learned that whenever sickness is coming on, taking 2 every 2 hours till it passes, will quickly heal.  Or you can also get it in a foundational nutrition pack that is a 30 day supply of all the Vitamins and Minerals you need called Vitalizer.  There is Vitalizer for men, women, and 50+.

Children:

Incredivites: 

Shakleekids Incredivites™ is the first kids’ chewable multivitamin in the U.S. to feature lactoferrin, a scientifically backed, immune-supporting nutrient present in breast milk and researched for its role in activating components of the immune system. (Stay tuned for more on this amazing nutrient and how studies are revealing more about the benefits of lactoferrin for adults too!)

Chewable Vita-C:

Both my 1-year-old and my 7-year-old take these Chewable Vita-C. We love them!

• • Important Note:  Vitamin C cannot be made or stored by the body.  It is a water soluble vitamin, which means you need to get it every day and in the right amount.  A cheap vitamin brand will boast of large quantities of vitamin C per tablet, but the problem is that your body can only absorb so much C at a time (you can “train” it to absorb more and more at a time the longer you take it).  This means that when you take these type of vitamins, you are getting a little of the C, but the rest is passing right through, unabsorbed.  So basically you are paying for really expensive urine!

Adults and Children:

Defend and Resist: Instead of Airborne, Cold-Eeze

• Every person in my family took this from my 1-year old to my husband.  Great for that first tickle.  Elderberry and zinc are both present to knock the germs out.
• Active Ingredients:  Echinacea to take care of bacteria and Larch tree extract to attack viruses.
• Use as a preventative when flying or in large gatherings of people during cold and flu season or anytime you come in contact with allergy activators.

Zinc: Instead of Cold-Eeze

• For most of my life in the winter, I had woken up every morning with a sore throat, as a result of congestion.  However, I learned how to eliminate this and nearly the ability to avoid sickness by simply crushing up the zinc tablet and placing it in a spoonful of honey every night before I go to bed.  The tablet is easily swallowed whole, however I have found that the crushed up version leaves a thin coating of protection on my throat so that I wake up without any sore throat or drainage problems at all.

• Zinc is involved in the production of every hormone in the body.  This is another reason why I take zinc every night.  It aids the body in fighting auto-immune disorders, such as my underactive thryoid disease, Hashimoto’s.

Vita-D3 – Instead of Costco or Walmart Vitamin D

• Study after study has shown that Vitamin D is not only necessary, but it only works at its optimum when presented as cholicalciferol, as Shaklee does.  My own testimony with Vitamin D is that I took the Costco brand and was finding no improvement in my bloodwork to move to the normal range.  Within 2 weeks on Shaklee Vita-D3, my numbers moved to normal.
• Further studies have shown that Vita-D3 also plays a role preventing the flu and may be as effective as receiving a flu vaccine.
• Children may also take this by simply smashing it into a powder and put in applesauce.

*Homeopathy also helped us recover.  For a sore throat where the pain is felt in the ears, Boiron’s Roxalia Tablets help.  For our 1-year-old, I had not packed anything at all and used Hyland’s Baby Cough Syrup. I was very pleased at how it worked.

What is the Shaklee difference?

Here’s a 2-minute video explaining how our products compare:

You can feel comfortable giving these products to your children. Because for over 50 years, generations of families have counted on us to do what no other company can do quite like Shaklee–made products that are naturally safe AND proven effective.

Now, is the BEST time ever to become a Shaklee member!

Any person who joins by February 28th, 2014 with an order of 50 PV or more not only gets their membership fee waived ($19.95 value) but also receives a free can of smoothee ($45 retail value!).

Simply go to my store below:
grasp.thewholedeel.com

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OFFER DETAILS

Offer valid through Feb. 28, 2014. An order with 50 PV (Point Value) must be placed at the time you join. Applies to join orders placed online and at the Shaklee Sales and Training Center in Los Angeles, CA. Join orders placed through the call center. This offer is not retroactive. Free product available while supplies last. Free product subject to change without notice.

 

God Intended It For Good.

Just look at the lush ocean and peaceful scenery of the picture above.  Looks relaxing, huh?  That’s what I thought too when we arrived in sunny Florida a week ago.  2013 was a year that I will treasure in a lot of ways, but by the end of the year, I could tell both my husband and I were really exhausted and we needed a break.  We both did everything we could to prepare for this trip.  I made sure the kids were healthy.  We took all our vitamins.  I secured every last detail to make sure my kids would absorb the excitement of Disney World.  And yet… we got sick.  My poor husband had been at a business conference the week before and picked up a horrible coughing/fever illness… that he came down with the very first day of our trip.  As I looked at him rapidly deteriorating at Animal Kingdom on this day, I managed to remain cool.  He was going to go back to the hotel and rest and he’d be okay.  This was not a problem. Just a setback.  We’d all be just fine.

Well… I was sort of right.  I was able to have a nice day swimming with the kids while I let him get better at the hotel the next day.  But then the most dreaded thing happened – our 21 month old son came down with the same fever and coughing that evening.  Now I was mad.  How could this be?  I did EVERYTHING right to protect him.  We were all COMPLETELY healthy before we left.  All. Doing. Great.  Then my husband saw me losing it and reminded me to remain calm.  (This is why I married him, folks!)

All seemed manageable and we still had 5 days left of our vacation.  Maybe something could change, right?  Not.  I, too, came down with the same fever/cough symptoms.  I was thankful that I did pack my Shaklee medicine cabinet to get each of us better quickly.  But the timing of us all dropping like flies, one by one… it was REALLY a bummer.

Genesis 50:20 in the Bible speaks about how Joseph had been betrayed by his brothers who sold him into slavery.  He had endured so much trouble, that when his brothers learned that he was alive and had the power to inflict revenge on them, he told them, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.”

I am convinced that this was one experience that The Enemy had intended to completely ruin us for the whole year.  To tear us apart in arguments as a family.  To leave us sulking and dwelling on the vacation “we could have had.”  Instead, God was SO FAITHFUL to us.  It was a time to teach our daughter that everything happens for a reason.  Do we know why God allows some events to happen in our lives?  No.  Does the fact that we experience these things make Him a liar and that He will not fulfill His promises in our lives?  No.  Even a television show came on in our hotel room where another family went on vacation and they had some pitfalls and learned that these things can become “problem-tunities.”  That is, a problem + opportunity = opportunities to solve the problem.

Make no mistake of it.  The Enemy is out to kill and destroy us.  I was so impressed by my husband who told our daughter that maybe God was protecting us from something worse.

As a matter of fact, throughout the generations of my family, Satan thought he was doing pretty great job in stopping my family from becoming what God intended.  All of my grandparents were taken way before their time was ready.  Some people might say that we’ll never understand why God chose “their time.”  It wasn’t their time.  At all.  It was Satan trying to rip our family apart down through generations to come… and hoping we’d blame it on God.  He crossed a line that threw us for a loop and led me to a battle of depression in college.  He filled my mind with lies I would never succeed in life.

Stop the Burglar in his tracks.

How can we stop this theft, you ask?  We serve Christ, the Redeemer.  He is not only fixes what was lost, he RESTORES us to a place that is even better than before the problem happened.  I am so thankful for where God has brought me today.  I am in a better place than when our family tragedies happened.

But did you know the Bible promises, that when something is stolen from us, it must be repaid:  SEVENFOLD?

People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he is starving. 31 Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold, though it costs him all the wealth of his house. ~Proverbs 6:30-31

My friend, Lynn, brought this verse to my attention today and here’s what she says she’s doing about theft in her family line.  She shows us in her post, “I am Taking the Devil to Court,” that ‘God’s heavenly courts are open for us to petition and demand justice.’ [We can] petition [our] Righteous Father to restore to [us] the years stolen and the pain of this loss.”

[We can] ask the Lord to replace those lost years by restoring health to others here on earth now. I want to see people, even terminal, healed and whole in Jesus name.

In Jesus name.

So many of my friends are experiencing sickness and death of loved ones, that it makes my crazy vacation seem like nothing.  So I’ve decided, I will pray with you.  Please let me know how I can pray with you!

Most of all, Don’t be afraid.  He has already redeemed your situation by His blood on the cross.  You belong to Him.

Have Faith.  Trust that the Lord will make good what was intended to harm you.

It’s okay to be mad.  But not for long.  Be so mad that you can ‘look the devil in the eye and say, “Game on.  My God is so much bigger than you’ll ever be.”  (findingheaventoday.com)

Trust.  That He IS ALREADY avenging on your behalf.

What has been stolen from you?  What are you going to do about it?

Valentine’s Day and 100th Day of School Celebration

Whew!  Today was a relaxing sort of day… but with a lot of extra fun!  Little Miss and Little Mister enjoyed a fun Valentine’s Day/100th Day of School Party at home while it snowed the most gigantic flakes outside I have seen in awhile.  Here’s how it played out:

We woke up and both kids enjoyed their very own breakfast in the shape of “100.”

Then at Little Mister’s naptime, we had some extra fun girl bonding by making our own chocolate fudge (from a box – I promise, Aunt Gladys, I will get our actual family recipe down before too long!).  I think the heart molds came out the best, but we also made animal-shaped fudge.  I had a bunch of little heart molds that I had thought would be fun to make 100 of… but it didn’t look good enough to spend our afternoon down that road.  And, of course, Valentine’s Day is not complete without Chocolate Covered Strawberries!  Let me tell you… yum!

My favorite part of the day came next.  Little Miss sat at her desk and drew a picture of her as a 7-year-old and a picture of her when she will be 100 years old (in the year 2106.. actually, mom made an error that it would actually be 2107).  I find it hilarious that the old version of herself still has brown hair.  She informed me that, even at 100, she will still be coloring her hair.  She is not a girl who wants to go gray

 

While she drew her pictures, we read on Wikipedia about what happened 100 years ago in our world.  We discovered that in 1914, President Woodraw Wilson issued the first official Mother’s Day in America.  This was also the first year that World War I was declared in the world.  Automobile workers were paid a daily wage of $5 daily (that is not per hour!).

We then read through some names of famous people who were born in 1914.  Amazingly, a few of them are still alive and about to turn 100!  The person who interested us most is a man named Karl Otto Gotz. He will turn 100 on February 22nd! A German, Gotz loved drawing while he was still in school.  His gift began making abstract paintings… which were banned in Nazi Germany from being displayed.  So, to survive as a professional artist, he was only permitted to paint landscapes.  His work transformed to spreading thick paint and then raking it off.  He was also known for enlarging computer images to the point of only seeing pixels, then hand painting the pixels to make a giant mosaic.

We thought this was cool, so I showed Little Miss what pixels are on Adobe Photoshop.  She thought it was neat that pictures on computers are nothing more than pixels up close and, how, when zoomed out.. they become a normal looking picture.  This was a great opportunity to explain to her that pixels are a lot like our lives.  That each decision we make in life is like a pixel.  We can’t see the big picture until after we’ve lived our life and can see what God did with our lives.  Sometimes we can’t even understand our lives until we are 100!  I didn’t even know if she could grasp this concept, but sure enough later she told my mom all about what she learned on the phone.  Here is her pixelated drawing she made on Paint.

Math was a continuation of adding numbers over 100.  And to end the day, we co-authored a story of her choosing that was 100 sentences long.

I had no idea we’d learn so much today and have so much fun.  What was your 100th day of school and/or Valentine’s Day like?