our recent pursuit of healthiness

After 2 pregnancy, of indulging my every desire for anything sweet, I found myself very addicted to sugar.  2pm would hit and I would need something sweet, STAT!  Little sweet munchies all day long would keep my cravings at bay.  I knew I needed to do something drastic.

That's when I came across this book, Trim Healthy Mama on this blog that I follow.  I was so intrigued by her article that I followed all the links, joined the facebook page and spent a whole nap time researching this new idea.  To my surprise, our library had a copy of the book and I quickly put in a request for it.

As I talked it up to Jason, he was intrigued too, a bit more skeptical, but intrigued.  This was a BIG step as he has never shown much interest in eating healthy.  He doesn't eat bad, he just doesn't go out of his way to eat healthy.

It took three weeks, but once I finally got the book, I ate it up - all 600+ pages of it.  It was such an easy read.  I learned so much.  Jason was such a good husband as he listened to me spout off new facts and information I was reading.  I couldn't wait to finish and get started with some healthy eating.  I new that's what my body needed.  I was tired of sugar headaches, and the terrible feeling that accompanies a poor diet.  Believe it not, Jason was on board with it too.  The books plan is very well rounded.  Nothing is really off limits except sugar and processed foods.  Fat his its place and carbs have their place.

(I'm not going to try to explain the plan here.  It took the author 600 pages to do it justice and there's no way I could.  If you are interested, I love to talk about, just ask my husband :) or see if you library has it.) 

Our plan was to forgo sugar for three weeks, follow the plan of eating variety of fuel types, and see how we felt at the end.  My goal was to NOT be addicted to sugar by the end of the three weeks.  Here's what we ate these last 6 weeks:

BREAKFAST:

Eggs - any and every kind

Bacon - just don't eat all that fat alongside a piece of toast

Cinnamon Muffins - recipe in the book

Pancakes - they have a fantastic recipe - egg whites, oats, cottage cheese, vanilla, sweetner

Smoothies - heavy cream, water, frozen berries, sweetner, flax seed - Amos loved these.

Overnight Oatmeal

Breakfast Burrito - low carb wrap, egg whites, peppers, onions, mushrooms - yum!

Protein muffins - eggs, leftover meat and veggies baked in muffin tins!

Greek yogurt with natural peanut butter, cinnamon, cut up apples & sweetner

LUNCH:

Grilled turkey and cheese sandwichs (using a "bread" recipe from the book)

Tortilla soup - I could eat this every day and it takes 3 minutes to make - no joke! recipe from the book

Southwestern chicken - recipe from the book - really good

PB & Jelly wraps

Chicken wraps

Baked Chicken salad

Fotato soup

Quesadilla - low carb wrap, turkey, cheese

Deli meat roll-up - the meat is the wrap

DINNER:

Moist Garlic Cheddar Chicken

Sweet & Spicy Asia Chicken Stir-fry - recipe in the book

Hamburgers

Rotisserie Chicken from Wal-mart - yes that's on the plan

Broccoli Chicken Bake

Pizza with a cauliflower crust - Jason didn't even know it was cauliflower - BOOM!

Breakfast for dinner (I try to do this once a week -normally Sunday evenings.  After cooking a big lunch, I don't feel like cooking again)

Alfredo crockpot chicken - just don't add the noodles

Peanut Chicken - recipe in the book

Ranch Chicken Casserole Foil pack - We thought we were camping, but ended up making them at home.  We will make these camping, they were so good!

Grilled Chicken

Cheeseburger Pie - Jason was very impressed by this one. - in the book

Kabobs

Taco Salad

These recipes look a lot like what we ate before, they are just the healthy version.  If they are full of fat, we don't eat them with carbs and if they have carbs, we don't eat much fat with them.

I suffered two days of headaches, but can say that I no longer have that draw for sugar at nap time!  Yes, I still like sugar, but I don't crave it like before.  None of the meals or snacks on plan have disappointed me.  The bad news is that EVERY dessert I've tried to make has.  Our taste buds like sugar.  The plan approved sweetner -stevia or Truvia (stevia and sugar alcohols combined) isn't too bad, but its not sugar.  I've like it in most of the things I bake, but brownies are the exception.  We've decided that we will not try to replicate our favorite desserts THM style.  We'll jut not eat them as often, but when we do, eat the real thing. 

We have definitely had cheat days, but as a whole, are eating much healthier as a family as we ever have.  The best part is that this way of eating is sustainable.  We've been doing it 6 weeks now and I don't see an end in sight!

A 24-hour Family Reunion

Even though we loaded everything up on Monday morning and were back home unloading by Tuesday afternoon, the 24 hour Family Reunion was worth it.

We've done this before, but never with kids.  Kids make everything a little more tricky.  However, the place (Cedar Crest Lodge, in Pleasanton, KS)  was just as beautiful and relaxing.  Due to a little change of plans, Jason and I even got our own room, without kids! What, what!

Monday afternoon was filled with good food, lots of catching up, and swimming.

 Amos was practicing his sharing skills!

 The non-swimmers.  I was part of this crowd.

 These two are a hoot.  They love each other.

 Can you believe it?  A smile on Silas' face while swimming!  I think its growing on him.

 Uncle Joe, showing off!

 Sibling love.

This little B&B served breakfast, lunch & dinner!  After dinner, we put the wee ones to bed and were able to enjoy a time of sharing and fellowship.  And for the night owls, (I was part of this group!?!) games.

We ended the time with a big, late breakfast and then large family photos!  It was quick, but it was definitely time well spent.

a taste of amos' july

silas john - week 40

Warning:  This post if filled with all kinds of cuteness.  Silas was a little ham for the camera this week (and Amos always is).

It's too hard for me to decide between one adorable picture and another.  Come on, I'm a mom!

Silas isn't a big fan of me switching up his place of sleeping.  At night, he's always in the crib, but I switch between the pack-n-play and crib for his nap.  He's had trouble falling asleep and I'm thinking this may be part of the reason.  Not sure what I'm going to do it about it yet.  I guess I'm still hoping he adjusts.

Silas started making the clicking noise with his tongue.  He loves it and does it all the time.  I remember when Amos started doing this.  It never ceases to amaze me how all babies are very different, but in some ways the same.

He's also does this.  And I love it.  Excuse the poor video.

On Wednesday, my wonderful husband gave me a Mom's Day Out.  He took care of the boys' breakfast while I slept in.  Then I spent the rest of the day out and about, taking my time going to all the places I wanted to go.  It was very refreshing.

Silas loves to eat.  He knows what his high chair means.  He knows what a bib means.  He knows what a snack box is.  And he's gets very excited.

 Amos loves to eat too, but you already knew that.

The highlight of our week was definitely Nana and Papa coming for a visit.  They got here Thursday night and didn't have to go home until Saturday evening.  That left lots of time for playing.

On Friday, we left the boys with Nana and Papa and headed to the river.  After a 4 year break, we were finally going kayaking together once again.  Babies have a way of doing that.  We couldn't have had a better day, or more beautiful float.  It was a total success.  We're already planning our next float.

Saturday was spent with Jason and Papa working in the garage getting it set up for coffee.  That left lots more time for coloring and cars with Nana.  Amos is hooked on coloring right now, and I love it.

We definitely enjoyed our time with Nana and Papa.  Can't wait to see them next.

 "Amos, smile."  This is what I get.

 Love seeing that little tooth!

 Luckily, I caught him laughing!

 Lots more pulling up this week.

 He also showed off his budding new skills of waving and clapping.  Nana and Papa got the first actual wave "bye bye" when they left.

Here's the Moose at the same age.

2-in-1

Two boys in one room!  That's right!  Last week we moved the boys into the same room.  If you think I'm crazy, you're probably right, but we had two good reasons for doing it.

The first:  we'd always planned for the boys to share rooms in the future, and had heard from several people that the early you do this, the easier it is.  Both boys are light sleepers, so I'm hoping this helps them learn to sleep through each other.

The second:  Coffee was taking over our house.  In case you don't know, we have started a coffee roasting company called, Flying Crow Coffee.  You should check it out on Facebook.  That meant that we had coffee stuff in the kitchen, on the table, in our bedroom and basically all over the house.  We needed a place to centralize everything.  An office sounded like the perfect idea.  By moving Silas into Amos' room we now have a guest room/office!

It's been quite exciting.  The first night I wanted to get them down earlier than normally because I expected some playing.  However, we had friends over to eat, so that didn't happen.  Instead they went down late. We'd already moved the crib, so we didn't have another option.

The first 45 minutes were spent by Amos running back and forth between his bed and Silas' crib, which resulted in Silas laughing his head off.  For 45 minutes.   Then Amos got the bright idea of giving (read: throwing) toys to Silas' and trying to climb into the crib himself.  I opened the door, and gave Amos some new rules:  #1 Nothing goes into Silas' crib #2 Including Amos.

I must have not been scary enough, because after a short respite, he started up again.  I knew it was  time to pull out the big guns.  Side note: Amos is very scared of the video monitor in his room.  For a while he didn't know it's name but would just stare at it cautiously.  He especially freaks out when I talk to him through the monitor.  Now he calls it 'camera' because we've tried and tried to explain that it wasn't scary, it is just a camera and Mom can talk through it like a phone.  Even with a name, it is still scary.  He tries to be nice to it by waving and praying for it at night, so that it won't leap off the wall and get him. All this to say that after talking to him directly didn't work, I spoke through the camera.  And it worked.

The bad news was that by this point, it was 9pm.  My boys go to bed around 7:30pm.  So a very tired Silas started crying.  When he finally quieted down, I thought that was the end.  The boys were asleep. That's when I heard it.  At first, a very quiet, "Si, guy."  It kept getting louder and louder.  Amos was still awake and wanted to make sure Silas was too.  I added a new rule over the monitor: #3 If Silas falls asleep, don't wake him up.  And that was the end of the night.

Every night since, has gotten better.  Our best night was about a week in when Silas was asleep by 7:45pm.  We now end our bedtime routine by restating the 3 rules for Amos.  So far so good.

As far as morning goes, Silas is normally the first one up.  He's content to sit for a little while, and then he gets to talking and promptly wakes Amos up.  We still nap them in separate rooms as Silas only naps for 2 hours and Amos for 3.

I'm loving having an office and re-organizing most of our house.  We are going to test the boys' skills at sleeping in the same room on Monday, as we spend the night away from home for a family reunion.  I'll let you know how it goes.