Thankfulness {Day 22} Family and Healthy Tuesday

Thankfulness {Day 22} Extended Family

I am so very thankful for my family. Not just the people who live in my house (I have already mentioned that I adore them), but even my extended family. My family is complicated. It would be easy to let time and distance be the wall that separates. I have been fighting this. I love my family and I do not want to be one of those people who looks back with regrets. I want my daughters to love their Aunts and Uncles (even the greats). I want my daughters to adore their cousins.

So why we may not see each other as often as my heart desires, I do the one thing I can do on a daily basis. I pray for them. I enter the King's throne room on their behalf and I pray for my loved ones. I encourage my daughters to pray for their grandparents, great grandparents, great aunts and great uncles, aunts, uncles and cousins.

So thank You, Lord for my family. They are not perfect, but they are perfect for me and I love them!

{Healthy Tuesday}

My daughter is hooked on medicine. She was sick for a few weeks in a row and now she thinks she needs a little shot of something in order to go to bed each night. As a parent, I have to choose the battles that I will fight and this is not one of them. So we give her a placebo - grape juice. Since she has only ever had watered-down fruit juice (I do not think children need to drink that much sugar, even if it does come from fruit), the powerful flavor of grape juice does taste like modern day children's medicine - sort of.

So last week I purchased an individual serving size of grape juice. She only gets a teaspoon (medicine dosage) at night. I grabbed a popular name brand that said grape juice and didn't think twice...until last night (the first night she asked for it since I bought it).

It occurred to me that I did not read the label (which is very odd) and I was shocked when I finally read the ingredient list:

filtered water, corn syrup, grape juice concentrate, fumaric and citric acid (for tartness), ascorbic acid (vitamin C), sodium citrate, red 40 (color), natural and artificial flavor.

OH MY!!! Where to begin?

- Grape Juice Concentrate is third on the list, AFTER corn syrup?

- Red 40? Corn Syrup? Natural and Artificial Flavors? Fumaric and Citric Acids? Why do they need all this additional stuff when grape juice is such a powerful flavor?

Oh, now I see it - this is only 10% juice.

No wonder our children are obese and suffering from ADHD! Remember the adage? You are what you eat!

After her one teaspoon (I don't think one teaspoon will damage her for life), this was dumped down the drain.

I encourage you to read your food labels!



I linked up at Day2DayJoys