...often go awry. As you may recall, this weekend I was supposed to be helping to throw a couple's baby shower for our good friends. Well, as of last night the shower had to be cancelled. 🙁 My friend Angie went in for a check-up on Wednesday and her blood pressure was extremely high. She was then sent to the hospital for further monitoring, and after being there for 24 hours with various tests they diagnosed her with preeclampsia (high blood pressure in pregnant women) and she has been put on fairly strict bed rest. The baby is still healthy and everything is strong with its heartbeat, fluids, etc but she is only 33.5 weeks (36-37 is full term) and the high blood pressure could lead to a necessary early delivery. Due to all of this, we figured the shower would not be best to have this weekend, especially since Angie wouldn't be able to attend. Instead, I will cook them some dinner and gather gifts from the guests to bring over to them on Sunday. Please send prayers or positive vibes or whatever your thing is their way. Thanks!! 🙂

So, what to do today? I had planned on being in the kitchen all day and scrubbing the house down all day tomorrow. Instead, the M-ster and I are going to possibly head out to the park since it will be nice out. And then later hopefully return some of the loads of food I bought yesterday so it doesn't go to waste. And either today or tomorrow I still want to get in that cleaning. And I still have to work on Sunday's lesson. Hopefully there will be some relaxing with a book in there somewhere as well.

Basically, I will just be trying to go with the flow. If there is anything I have learned in my life, it is that plans will often change and there is nothing we can do about it, except make the best of it. Lots of things are out of our control, but for me, knowing that they are still in God's hands brings peace. My friends have been perfect examples of that to me the past couple of days. Their hope puts a lot in perspective for me and really makes me count my blessings. Consider all that you have today. What are some of your blessings today? Even little blessings count. For me the big ones are my family and friends and the way God provides for us. The little ones are things like fun packages in the mail and being able to enjoy them with my breakfast 😉 Thanks, Naomi!!!

Celestial Seasonings Giveaway Package I Won

Loads of Wellness & Grean Tea!

Blurry Cup of the basic Wellness Tea = yum!

About a week ago, the fine people over at Brother's All Natural products sent me a bunch of their all natural Fruit Crisps to try. I had no idea these were coming and was very excited upon their arrival. 😀

Box o' Goods

Over the past week, the baby girl and I have tried and enjoyed each flavor of the crisps. There were three all natural flavors in our box - Fuji Apple Crisps, Asian Pear Crisps, and Strawberry & Banana Crisps. Their website lists other fun flavors as well - like White & Yellow Peach and Pineapple. Gotta say I will look forward to searching those flavors out in the store as they sound delicious. 😀

Even better than all the flavors? All the nutritious facts about this product. No added sugar, no preservatives, and 100% fruit. See, check out the ingredients:

And the other varieties were the same sort of thing with their ingredients. I don't think you can get much simpler than that. You can even see that it looks like the actual fruit.

Strawberry & Banana

I also like their thought process on creating these crisps. Here's some info from their website:

Fruit Crisps are not baked – this causes the fruit to lose too much flavor! They are not dehydrated – this adds preservatives! They are not sweetened dried – this adds sugar! Fruit Crisps are 100% real fruit, 100% natural and certainly 100% delicious.

I enjoyed these fruit crisps in a few ways. I tried some of the Fuji Apple Crisps crumbled into a bowl of my oats for breakfast one morning.

crappy lighting and crappy picture, but definitely NOT crappy breakfast

I loved this flavor. It had sweetness but with a bit of a tart flavor as well, which I like. I also really enjoyed how it helped to bulk up my oatmeal even more than my favorite dried fruit and pb already do. 🙂

Other ways of enjoying this snack, were exactly that. As a snack. Munched straight out of the bag. While shopping, of course. Remember my Home Goods/TJ Maxx visit earlier this week?

Snack Attack

I had the Asian Pear flavor this time. Well, Makenzie ate most of it, but that was fine by me. I liked the Asian Pear flavor, but it was very subtle. It was my least favorite of the three, but still good. I also might have enjoyed it the least since I was eating them straight. They are pretty "airy" for lack of better description. So while they are tasty, they definitely are not filling and not a satisfying snack alone.

Which is why I did this to the Strawberry Banana flavor...

Greek Yogurt mixed with Crisps

Why does this remind me of red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting?

Okay! This was by FAR my favorite way to eat these things. They add the perfect slight crunch to the creaminess of the Greek Yogurt. They give some extra flavor and sweetness and just taste so dang good. Strawberry Banana was perfect with my Oikos. I will be enjoying this again soon.

My overall verdict: excellent to use as a mix in for foods. I bet they would be good added to muffins, cereal, banana soft serve, etc. And also the absolute perfect snack for a kiddo. They are easy to travel with, aren't messy (as long as you can keep the bag from being turned upside down - lesson learned), and something you can feel good handing over in a time crunch to your child. I will be looking for these in a store near me. And for a store near you, check here. 🙂