40 days!

It's so far past time for me to quit being lazy and get healthy. Far past time! So I'm working on it now, working hard!!

I just completed 40 days of a 500 calorie/day diet. UGH! and YAY!

Here's what I have to say about it:

#1 - I don't want to hear about how unhealthy it is/was. It can not be any more unhealthy than how I was eating previously (which was terrible and I mean terrible!) (And I can't believe how many people feel the need to rain on my parade and say something negative about all the positive changes I've made. "That's unhealthy" "You're going to gain it all back" "That will damage your organs" "You'll never be able to keep it up." Really?? How about. "Wow! You go girl!" (A special thanks to Chris, Mom and Renning who have been my cheerleaders every one of these 40 days.)

#2 - It. was. hard. One of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I learned that I can do REALLY, SERIOUSLY, HARD things. I cut out all starch, dairy, fat, sugar and caffeine in the same week. I thought I might not live through the first week and a half. I'm pretty sure my family didn't want me to. It was brutal. But for me, I needed something extreme like this to kick start this major change of mine. For a lot of people, maybe they wouldn't need to cut it all at once. For me, it worked.

#3 - I learned A LOT! We have made a ton of changes. My bad habits have been broken, the kids' bad habits have been broken. Some of Chris' bad habits have been broken. :-) We eat a TON of vegetables and lean proteins around here. We eat a ton less fast food. It's been weeks since Clare asked to have lunch at McDonald's. (She used to ask everyday - and most days I'd say yes.) I make healthier, lower calorie dinners for my family every night. I don't buy crap at the grocery store. If there are no chips and candy here, we don't eat it!!! I used to sit from 8-11 every night when I work and eat. the. whole. time. I don't eat at all while working now, and I don't need to! That's the most exciting thing! It's not in my head anymore, it's not a habit anymore.

#4 - Now? I'm on day 5 of a 6 week healthy 1800 cals/day maintenance. I'm still being careful with starch and sugar and actually having a hard time fitting that many calories into every day. But I'm loving eating a much more varied diet. When the maintenance weeks are over, I'm going to do a second round! Hopefully it's easier the second time! And since I'm not on 500 calories a day, I've added exercise! I'm not getting crazy or anything, but doing home workouts every day. I feel SOOOOOOOOOOOOO good.

#5 - So how did it go you ask?? I lost 23 pounds. It's not quite as much as I wanted. Days 34-40 I relaxed my vigilance a bit. But it's nothing to shake a stick at either!! I took before photos (which, I swear on all that is holy I will NEVER post on this blog. :-) but I compared them with some I took today, and it. is. awesome! I can totally see progress. Oh, and my clothes don't fit - hooray! And I'm wearing things I've had in bins for ages - hooray! And Chris gingerly informed me this weekend, afraid I'd be mad, that without even trying, he lost 10 pounds while I did this! I am jealous it was so easy for him but I was really, really happy -the changes I've made in what I'm doing, cooking and buying are helping my whole family!! :-)

I'm not there yet, about a third of the way to my goal, but I couldn't be happier with my progress, our new habits and what's going on around here. Here's to a successful maintenance month (no more than 2 pounds higher than today) and at least 25 or 26 more in round 2!!!!

Carrot stick anyone??? :-)

She's FOUR!

Happy Birthday my sweet princess. We love you so much. You make us smile every day. You are so sweet, so happy, so much fun, such a good big sister. I love spending my days with you little girl! Happy Happy Birthday.

This little girl is obsessed with princesses. I tried so hard to talk her out of another princess party. To no avail. However, thanks to Pinterest and Supermom's very cool Tangled party ideas we pulled off an AWESOME purple and yellow Rapunzel birthday for my little sweetheart.

The invites:
(I LOVED them. The tower! The window! The braid! So much fun!!)

The food:
The Tower! I LOVE how it turned out (even though Shea called it the "Leaning tower of Pizza" all day!! :-)

The cupcakes at the base of our tower:
The jello boats:
The snacks:
Purple grapes, purple yogurt covered pretzels and purple sixlets (they were the perfect purple, even though they look blue in this picture.)

The decor:
I LOVED the cute Rapunzel braid we made for the front door.
We made a Kingdom of the Sun banner and lots of cute yellow and purple tissue paper balls and cupcake liner balls. The picture does not do them justice. I can't bring myself to take it all down, but I strung the banner with leftover yellow yarn, it has stretched out so much that Chris and I can't cross into the family room now without beheading ourselves with the banner. I really should take it down. :-(

This adorable butterfly balloon doesn't have anything to do with the party theme, but you can't have a party without a couple of cool balloons. (And Fionn loved it!)
The games:
We played 'Pin the frying pan on Flynn Rider'. It was a hit.

We made princess crowns: So much glitter glue was used! So. much! :-)


We made Pascals with party blower tongues. So fun!

And then we blew out candles and opened presents!

(I don't know what this face it - she was happy, I promise!)
All the princesses in their princess dresses:
Our party favors were Rapunzel paints (we used these labels from Supermom and put Clarey's name in) - I forgot to take a picture of ours. And Clare and I made cute little purple bracelets for all the girls (that I stayed up way too late to finish and then forgot to put in the party bags and now have to go to all the houses - aggg!)
And I had to toss in this picture of my adorable little Fionn having fun with Uncle Tim. (Sorry Shea, were you at this party? I don't have a single picture of you. Too much squealing and giggling??)
Happy Birthday Clarey!
(And whew! I have a month off before I have to start planning the next party. Three birthdays in four months is exhausting!)

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!
We made homemade Valentines this year. WE LOVED IT! I will never go back to store bought again. We had sooooo much fun searching online for ideas and I will treasure the memories of sitting for two whole days with these two sweeties making their valentines. Happy Valentines Day indeed!!!




For Clarey we made little heart flowers with suckers in the middle:
For Shea, it was Star Wars all the way, with dollar store glow sticks. So fun!

They woke up to a heart attack. Trails of hearts leading them from their beds to the kitchen, where a valentine breakfast awaited.

I did heart pancakes with a little message and "heart" eggs, I saw on pinterest. The eggs weren't as "hearty" as I wanted, but they LOVED them!!

Lunch was fun too, We had heart everything: cucumbers, red peppers, strawberries, sandwiches, pretzels, cookies and even raspberries with white chocolate chips in the middle.

And after all that fun, they got to play with Uncle Tim and Chris and I got to go on a date! Hope your V day was as fun as ours!!

Awesome after school snack

This was everything I want in a snack:
Healthy (apples, peanut butter 4 mini-marshmallows). Easy-peasy. And most of all, FUN!
They LOVED them.
Thanks Pinterest!

The Peking Acrobats

Chris and I got to take Shea on a special outing last weekend. Shea's a bit obsessed with China. In Pre-K and K, there were lots of kids in his class from China, including his best little friend and the girl he was "going to marry" :-). His class learned a lot about China, several Chinese phrases and he really fell in love. So when I saw that the Peking Acrobats were in town, I had to get tickets!

It was the most incredible thing I've. ever. seen. EVER. I CAN NOT believe what those people's bodies can do. It was insane!! And so much fun. We haven't done anything alone with Shea Shea since before Clare was born, so it was so great to just take him and do something special. We loved every second of it.

(If the Peking Acrobats ever come to where you're at RUN! and I mean run, to get tickets. It was seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life!)



He got a $5 Chinese drum that he was thrilled with. (Love the gum hanging out? :-)
Love my boys!

Saturdays

This is what we do on Saturdays around here:

We give our brother sword hair cuts



We read to our little sister in a warm patch of sunlight






We give the baby his very first sucker!!



And then he shares. Ewwww!




We LOVE to hang out together!