Saturday, May 30, 2015

E is Three!

I have a three year old and I still find that hard to believe. Three seems so much older than two. At three years old, E is wicked smart and has a very active imagination. The boy can talk and talk and talk. He's going to be a great story teller some day. The questions he asks and the things he remembers about his life amaze me. It's hard for me to believe he's only three.

His kindness just melts my heart. He dotes on his sister, calling her "Sweet Baby" and brings her toys when she first wakes up. Sometimes he brings her toys if she's playing with his toys and he doesn't like it. But the fact that he even thinks to bring her something in exchange is just a testament to how kind he is.

We had a great day celebrating E's third birthday. Just Grandmas and Grandpas and Auntie Andrea came to celebrate. We ordered pizza from Park Tavern and ate it off paper plates in the livingroom. We had construction birthday cake and ice cream for dessert. It was simple. The best part of the party was everyone sitting out in the yard on a beautiful evening watching E and Cora play so well together. There were no Pinterest decorations or fancy foods. In fact, I forgot to put out the watermelon but no one missed it. There was no stress making sure everyone was enjoying themselves or the food was done in time. The day was all about E and celebrating him turning three.

E's Birthday doughnut.

Opening his scooter from G&G McDonald

Birthday Construction Cake

Construction outfit from Auntie Andrea.

Friday, May 29, 2015

21 Day Fix, End of Round 1

I did it. I finished the 21 Day Fix. Part of me is surprised that I actually finished it and stuck with the plan. I did have one cheat day. On our anniversary I had a glass of wine and beer along with ribs. But I did swap out the fires for steamed veggies. Other than that, I stuck to the program and I'm pretty proud of myself.

I didn't take before and after pictures, nor did I take measurements. I did weigh myself at the beginning and end of the 21 days and I'm down 11 pounds. Mike was down 13. More importantly, I loved how I felt and that I can fit into jeans I haven't worn since before I was pregnant with Cora. That was my main goal, to not continue buying clothes in a bigger size because nothing I had fit.

All in all, I enjoyed the fix and I'm going to start Round 2 on June 12th. This will only be a 19 day fix because I'll end it on my birthday which is June 30th and then enjoy the 4th of July weekend and then most likely start Round 3 after the holiday.

In the meantime, I've learned that I still haven't developed enough will power when it comes to food. We had pizza from one of our favorite places for E's birthday. I ate it for the party and enjoyed it, however, I continued enjoying the leftovers so the pizza had to be thrown out. So after a five day hiatus from tracking and working out. I'm doing a modified version of the fix to get me through the next three days plus a week of vacation then it's onto Round 2!

My plan for the modified version is to continue tracking. Tracking helps me make sure I eat enough veggies which is a struggle and also help me monitor my carb intake. I'm not going to track my fruit because I love fruit. And let's be honest, am I really going to gain a bunch of weight by eating too much fruit? I'm also allowing myself two blues because I love both avocado and cheese and I was having a hard time choosing either or for the day. I don't have a fancy way of tracking, I just write out 6 G's, 4 P's, 5 R's, 4 Y's, 1 B, and 1 O for the day and cross them off after I eat a portion. It's much easier than WW.

Mike and I plan to continue the workouts during the hiatus because it's a quick 30 minutes and you do feel pretty good afterwards. While on vacation, we'll probably be more relaxed but since we're going to the mountains, I anticipate some pretty good hikes to keep us active. I don't plan on monitoring alcohol. It is vacation after all. But I do plan to be alcohol free until I get to the airport and have a Bloody Mary while I wait for my flight.




Saturday, May 16, 2015

Our Nightly Prayer

We thank God for all of our blessings.
We thank God for this day.
We pray for our house that keeps us safe and warm.
We pray for the food that fills our bellies.
We pray for our toys that are so much fun.
We pray for our health.
We pray for our friends and our family because they bring us so much love.
We pray for God to help us be brave.
We pray for God to help guide us through difficult situations.
We pray for people to be kind.
We pray for there to be peace.
And we pray for people who need help.
Amen.



Friday, May 15, 2015

21 Day Fix

Well, here I am trying yet another weight loss program. From Weight Watchers to Paleo to extreme exercising; I've tried many. But I'm 10 days into my 21 Day Fix and I must say, I'm not miserable and more importantly, I haven't given up.

I heard about the 21 Day Fix from several blogs that I follow and I became intrigued. The more I researched, the more I thought this might be a good fit for me. I liked the idea that it was only 21 days. You can do anything for 21 days. If I hated it, I would be off to have pizza and a Blizzard on day 22. I also liked that the premise was eating real food which is something that is important to me and I want to set that example for my kids. The downside was the exercise. In order for me to be successful, I would need to do a 30 minute at home workout everyday. Remember, I have an aversion to exercise, that "runner's high" everyone talks about doesn't exist for me. But again, I can do anything for 21 days and even if I half assed the workouts it would still be more than I was doing now. And they were at home so I could do them in the playroom while the kids played. Which actually didn't sound like a bad idea. It would get me out of doing yet another Paw Patrol mission.

I shared my research with Mike to see if he wanted to do it with me. I figured it would be easier if we did it together and I knew he wanted to drop some lbs as well. Sympathy pregnancy weight gain...it's a thing! Mike was on board so we started to game plan. Planning is an area where I've failed before. When trying other weight loss programs, I sign up on a whim and usually after a I've had several days of glutinous eating or have gone through my closet and determined nothing fits. WW is my default program. I've signed up more times than I can count and have seen some success, but I couldn't sustain it. I tend to think, oh I can never have a cookie or chips again and then I give up. Who wants to live life like that? I'll just be happy and fat. The 21 days was the real appeal to me. I can have cookies and chips again, just not for 21 days.

Once Mike and I both committed, I went to Amazon and made the purchase. Done. When the product arrived, the first thing I thought was that they had forgotten some of the food containers. Nope, they are just that small. Yikes! Mike was already second guessing this decision. We started reading through the literature to see what was on the food lists and how much we could eat. Once we calculated how many containers we could have each day we felt better. It looked like you got plenty of food. We also committed to no soda, no alcohol and only black coffee. No delicious creamer or half and half.

Now, when to start this 21 Day Fix? Easter was coming up along with Cora's birthday. Our anniversary and E's birthday followed shortly after. Yes, we wanted to enjoy food and adult beverages for these occasions so we wanted to work around those days. We decided to start May 1st which would be right after Cora's birthday and we would end right before our anniversary. But then Mike realized he had his NFL Draft boys' weekend at the beginning of May and wasn't about to participate in that without alcohol. So we decided May 6th was our start date and now here we are, 10 days later and we're still going strong.

Preparation has been key. I've always been pretty good at meal planning but now I'm strict about it. We stock up every Tuesday at Sam's Club so we have plenty of produce and sometimes make an extra run during the week. We do the workouts together with the kids hanging on us and it's turned into a family event. I love to see E get into it and am so proud we are setting good examples for our kids. I love to hear E say, "Exercise is fun!" The workouts do go pretty fast and they are tough. Yes, sometimes I half ass them, especially when it comes to push-ups. But I usually fight my way through. One alteration we did make was that we skip workouts on Sunday and Monday. With my work schedule, sleep is more important to me on those days.

I didn't take full body pictures of myself or measurements before I started the program. I didn't want this to be about weight loss. I wanted it to be about feeling better and creating healthy habits. I already do feel better and my pants aren't quite as tight which is a great feeling. I will weigh myself at the end just to see if I dropped some lbs. I'd be lying if I said it was easy. There's some days when I just want a Diet Coke so bad I can taste it. And on those beautiful spring afternoons we've been having, I'd love nothing more than to have a Sam Adams Porch Rocker while we play in the backyard. But I'm sticking with it and I feel proud of the commitment I've made. We'll see what happens when the 21 days end. Mike and I have already talked about modifying the plan a bit to keep these healthy habits going and if we feel we've gotten too laxed we'll start up again with another 21 Day Fix.  I'm so glad he's doing it with me, it's so much easier. And the lifestyle we're creating for our family is priceless.

My last meal, beer and glazed doughnut
 at 7am after work.

Here we go!

Sweaty workouts.

The kids love yoga!






Friday, May 1, 2015

Cora at 1 Year

Last week Cora turned one. This was one of the fastest years of my life. I feel Cora's first year went a lot faster than E's. Maybe it's because life was busier with two kids instead of just one and I wasn't constantly monitoring milestones. With Cora I was a lot more relaxed and didn't worry as much about doing everything "perfectly". There's something to be said for "second child syndrome".

We celebrated Cora's first birthday pretty low key and simple. On the actual day, April 21st, we headed out to one of our favorite ice cream shops, Adele's. We don't go there too often because it's kind of a drive but it's so good and near Lake Minnetonka so the scenery is great. Unfortunately, it was a rainy cold day so we just sat inside and ate our ice cream and went home.

The following weekend Cora was baptized (this was the rescheduled date since she was sick in January when we originally planned it) and after the service, had family over for lunch, cake and ice cream. The simplicity of Cora's birthday celebration was wonderful. So much less stress than E's parties. I truly enjoyed the day and wasn't worried about getting people fed or introducing different groups of friends and family to each other. Just the grandparents and Auntie and it was perfect!

At Cora's 12 month check-up, she weighed 19.6lbs and was 30 inches long. She isn't walking yet but she crawls everywhere including on the cement driveway. Nothing stops her. She loves being outside and digs in the dirt and sandbox right along with her brother. Mike and I got Cora her own pink and purple dump truck for her birthday so she doesn't have to borrow E's anymore.

She's a champion eater and I hope she keeps this up. She'll try anything and likes just about everything. Her favorite goods so far are grapes, scrambled eggs, chicken, and pizza! She doesn't like bananas or avocado. I guess I'll be the only avocado lover in the family.

Cora says a few words; Momma, Dadda, boat, book, bubble and hello. She knows how to tell us what she wants without words, she'll point and grunt until we figure it out. She's also a swatter when she doesn't want something. Don't try to help her with her bottle, she'll swat you away. Mike and I call her our wild woman.

Cora has always been a horrible sleeper and I was hoping with age she would get better. Nope, if anything she's regressed. She did sleep through the night for a few months but that was a while ago. She usually ends up in bed with Mike and me and she's such a light sleeper if you try to move her she's back up. We play musical beds in our family. For now it works and maybe someday I'll have the heart to let her cry it out.

That's my baby girl at 1 year old. Happy Birthday Cora Lee! You are the sweetest sassiest girl and I love bunches and bunches!