JANUARY 2020 RECAP

A few months ago I mentioned I needed to find a new blush and bronzer because the ones I had been using contained talc. Go to my Talc highlight to hear why Talc is a big no-no for me.

I started using Young Living’s blush, which I love and this is the bronzer I landed on. It’s EWG verified & is talc free! It stays on during my workouts & a little goes a long way so this will last me a long time.

Whole Foods sells Mineral Fusion makeup so that’s where I found this. 👍🏼

It has been a minute since I’ve talked about anything Young Living. I’m unboxing my monthly order in stories today! I’ve been so lazy lately and haven’t been posting but I want to tell you about my this new granola tonight.

This Einkorn granola was a new item for me last month and I think it will be a routinely ordered item now. Corey has requested it from now on. 😀 I think we’ll eat it on it’s own or as a cereal alternative.

Most granolas and cereals are full of refined sugars, natural and artificial flavors, artificial colors and corn syrup amongst other things. It actually makes me sad because cereal is so heavily marketed towards kids and it’s mostly all full of junk.

This granola consists of oats, sunflower oil, syrup, einkorn flour (not enriched flour containing folic acid which is awesome for my fellow MTHFR people), sunflower seeds, coconut sugar, cranberries, almonds, wolfberries (great antioxidants!), walnuts, pecans, cocoa nibs, vanilla extract, sea salt and cinnamon.

Einkorn is easier to digest and lower in gluten. 👍🏼 This stuff is great on its own but can also be used in yogurt or as a cereal replacement!

Baby 💙BOY💙 Poydock coming in July!

We are thrilled to be welcoming our double rainbow baby this year. The last two years have been heartbreaking with the loss of our first two babies but we are so thankful for this little boy. We do not take this blessing for granted and we realize how fortunate we are to be where we’re at. Thank you to everyone has been praying for us through this. I have had so many women specifically reach out to me and offer encouragement and prayers and it has meant so much to us. We would definitely love continued prayers for a healthy baby.

I know what it’s like to be on the other end of a pregnancy announcement and I know the sting it can cause. I very openly talk about miscarriage here which has led some of you to message me. It hurts me to know that this will not be a happy post for some of you. I do pray and will continue to do so for all of you. Please don’t lose hope! I don’t know all of your in-depth stories but I do know God has you in His hands.

A few years ago I got Daily Harvest smoothies then we sold our house in Fort Worth and were in a transition to Houston so I canceled it. I recently subscribed again and I want to tell you about them!

Daily Harvest is a subscription service that sends you frozen pre-made smoothies. They do have other newer items too like harvest bowls, soups, bites, oat bowls, chia bowls and lattes but so far I’ve only done the smoothies. They are made with all organic ingredients which I absolutely love! 🙌🏻 Once you get them you store them in your freezer and just add your liquid and blend whenever you want one.

Right now I need to take extra magnesium powder, wheat grass, flax seed and spinach so an easy way for me to get those in is to add to a smoothie so these are great for me.

I like these smoothies because I can have a different flavor each day so it saves me from having to buy a whole bunch of ingredients each week. I like the variety! You can customize how often you want to get them- I get them weekly.

Some of these do still have a good amount of sugar so of course watch that but I think these are so delicious and I love that I can add my additional nutrients to them without a bad taste. I mean wheat grass smells like straight up fresh grass so I need that hidden!

What is a missed miscarriage? It’s when a miscarriage occurs because a baby is no longer alive but your body doesn’t recognize the loss. Since your body doesn’t recognize it your placenta may still continue to release hormones so you continue to experience the signs of pregnancy.

Why am I telling you this? Because until I experienced it for myself I had no clue what it was. I think it’s important to share our experiences to help others. Before I went through this I thought having a miscarriage meant you went to the bathroom and all the sudden started bleeding profusely or even had any bleeding at all. While that certainly can be the case I’ve learned now that missed miscarriages can also be extremely common.

Both of my losses were missed miscarriages, which is why we were blindsided by them. I assumed that if I hadn’t had any bleeding then the baby was in there growing just fine. I was naïve to the fact that anything bad could happen without obvious bleeding. My body didn’t want to let our sweet babies go which meant I had to go through surgery—a topic for a different post.

I don’t know why some losses happen this way and others happen through a more stereotypical way with bleeding. Everybody has a different body so I suppose that’s why.

I’d be lying if I said I still didn’t have anxiety about this happening again. Now that I know what can happen I live with daily fear that our little boy has all the sudden stopped growing. I’ve really had to pray through that fear and just trust that the Lord has his life in His hands but it definitely isn’t easy.

I don’t want to scare anyone with this post but I do want to spread awareness about miscarriage and this is just part of that reality. Through all of this I’ve had so many women reach out to me so I wanted to share this as some of you might not know what it was. & also— horrible picture. I definitely didn’t take this in the right lighting.

I feel like gut health is such a popular topic these days and for good reason. Your gut health is so incredibly important. Most people need extra help in this area, which is where probiotics come in.

Over the years I have tried MANY different probiotics. Some I liked, some I didn’t. I’d take them for a while and never reorder or some would really upset my stomach so I’d stop right then.

I was pleasantly surprised when my birth center welcome packet listed Young Living’s Life 9 probiotics as a good choice for me to take during my pregnancy. Ironically I had just gotten these for free in one of my monthly orders so I actually had them on hand. I’m still getting into the routine of taking it every night- I just forget to take it sometimes because I’m not used to it yet! So far so good though. It hasn’t caused me any stomach issues, which is a typical complaint with probiotics.

It is very important for my gut health to be on par right now as I’m supporting another life. This probiotic combines 17 billion live cultures from 9 bacteria strains. If you are in need of a probiotics give this one a try! I believe everybody’s body is different so you have to try things out to see if they work for you but I highly recommend this one if you need one to start with. These days every one of us should be taking a daily probiotic especially when antibiotics are used so often these days.

Back in June I took some time and wrote out our fertility journey up to that point. I wasn’t pregnant but I didn’t want to forget our journey- not knowing how it would end or how long it would be- so I didn’t want to forget details.

So many women have shared their stories of infertility and miscarriage and I found them to be so helpful. Even just hearing other women’s experiences with certain drugs or procedures was so beneficial because it gave me a resource to ask questions. I hope to be a resource for others who will unfortunately face this struggle in the future.

If you’d like to read you can go to the link in my profile and hit the blog button or just go to www.thetoxinfreetexan.com. 💗

Last weekend I went to Trader Joes and picked up a few things. I used to go to TJ all the time when I lived closer to one but now it’s like a longer drive so I don’t go as often.

I asked for recommendations on here and I went to the store & just walked up and down each aisle and picked things up.

I realized that when I used to go there all the time I was definitely NOT buying clean ingredient foods at all. 😳 In fact this time when I went I picked up some of my old favorites like the dark chocolate covered pretzels, dark chocolate almonds, mac n cheese and individual packaged nuts I looked at the ingredients and put them back! Full of yucky ingredients unfortunately.

I did find these two items. One is clean- the other, not quite but I did want to go ahead and post about them both. Keeping it real here! I’m not a perfect eater.

First up this beef sirloin roast. Super clean! It just contains grass fed beef sirloin, salt and pepper. This was actually a pretty big hit for us. I just had to pop it in the oven and heat it up.

We paired it with these mashed potatoes. These aren’t typical clean ingredient potatoes as they have some unwanted chemicals in them BUT for a quick meal it was nice to just throw these on the stove and heat up. They were pretty delicious.

In the future it would be better to pair the meat with some organic veggies or homemade mashed potatoes but I for sure recommend this for a quick roast when you need an easy meal!

There are many ways to write this. You have Western/traditional/pharmaceutical based vs. holistic/natural/functional medicine.. among others.

I follow a lot of medical professionals as well as other people in the health and wellness space & what drive me crazy is when people on the more traditional side act like anyone who tries to care for themselves more naturally is some crazy person. Alternatively, I hate when people who are more on the holistic side act like traditional doctors and medicines are evil and should be avoided at all costs.

I wish the two could coexist more. 🤷🏻‍♀️ My philosophy is that both are needed and can both be utilized depending on the situation.

For my day-to-day life I try to do things naturally. If I have a headache I reach for peppermint essential oil, not Tylenol. However if I am in a car wreck and am in bad shape the only thing I want is to be taken straight to a hospital where an anesthesiologist and an experienced surgeon work on me. Does that make sense? I do tend to seek help from more holistic type doctors/midwives but I also currently see a hematologist so I think both serve a time and place and I’m thankful for both.

I’m part of a lot of crunchy groups and I’ve seen women post that they absolutely want to try anything to avoid antibiotics at ALL costs for their kids and yet sometimes they truly are necessary. These moms beat themselves up for having to take their kids to get antibiotics that are vital in some cases. I’ve also been on the opposite end myself and went through a period of life where I was being prescribed antibiotics and looking back that was completely unnecessary and only perpetuated issues I was having and destroyed my gut. I do think antibiotics are overprescribed. I wish I knew what I knew now back when I was dealing with certain issues so I could have avoided antibiotic overuse.

For my two D&C’s I was so thankful to have an experienced obgyn working on me. (Looking back I now wish I would have opted not to have these because the procedures aren’t without risk but that’s a different topic.) continued in next pictures because of length...

Apparently yesterday was #nationalpizzaday so I figured I’d tell ya about one of my favorite pizza brands. 🍕🍕Sometimes I make a pizza on weekends when I don’t feel like cooking lunch.

Cappellos pizzas are certified gluten free and a much “cleaner” grocery store pizza compared to others. I love the italian sausage and the uncured pepperoni flavors.

These pizzas are on the smaller side so you definitely need more than one if you’re going to be feeding more than one person. They are grain free, gluten free, soy free and yeast free.

They also sell the pizza crust alone if you want to add your own toppings. I find these at Whole Foods.

The majority of non-toxic things I see focus on women’s products but men need this as well! 👦🏻When you’re cleaning up your household products it affects the whole family, not just us ladies.

I’ve said this before but Corey has been so good about switching things over in our home. I hadn’t really bought him anything super male specific though so I recently bought this 3-in-1 men’s wash for him. This was formulated specifically for men and it’s infused with essential oils that don’t strip your skin from moisture.

When we first got this I tried it first as a body wash and I wanted to keep using it myself because I liked the smell so much! It’s free of sulfates, parabens, phthalates, synthetic fragrances and colorants.