What I ate

I have seen other bloggers out there do this, so I thought every so often I would share some of the things I've been eating lately. Especially since I'm trying to eat a little healthier! These are just the things I remembered to snap a photo of the past week.

While getting groceries this week, portobello mushrooms were on sale so I grabbed a package, not having any plans as to what I would make with them. When I decided to make them for lunch I searched a little online for a recipe and came across this one. It was a win-win because I had a bag of spinach that needed to be used up too! I didn't follow the directions exactly, I used the pre-packaged bacon because I didn't have any real bacon. But they turned out great! I would definitely make these again.

I was in the mood for eggs, and for some odd reason, this is what sounded good to use them for. Scrambled eggs with cottage cheese, in a whole wheat tortilla, with a few good shakes of Frank's Red Hot. It hit the spot.

Keeping on trend with the Frank's/buffalo theme, this is a creation of my own. It doesn't sound like it would be good together, but it actually is! I threw together a couple handfuls of coleslaw mix, tossed a leftover chicken breast with some Frank's (as much or as little as you like), and drizzled it with some Ranch dressing. Easy peasy. I've had this a few times in the past couple weeks. And yes, I do use one of my big tupperware bowls for salads! Fits more than the little cereal bowls and easier than a plate.  :)

I thought I would link up with Jenn @ Peas and Crayons, too. Be sure to check out the other links! And if that's you are coming from, thanks for visiting!

Weekly Weigh-In | 3

I have a few minutes before Paige wakes up from her nap so I thought I would get this typed out quick! This week was kind of a bust. I didn't put a whole lot of effort in, so I was surprised I was actually down a little. I guess it helped that I wore the lightest clothing I could to weigh-in... So in other words, this week I need to be a bit more careful if I want to keep the numbers going in the right direction.

Tuesday, January 28, 2013
Today's weight: 158.2
+/- from last week: -1.2
Total loss: -5

What I did well this week
- Not a whole lot.

What I did not do well this week
- Pizza. Burger. Lack of portion control. The worst part is that I felt crappy afterwards, like why the heck did I just eat that stinkin' much?
- Still no exercising.

 Goals for the coming week
- Work on portion control.
- Healthy snacks, try to cut out the granola bars..
- Again, hope to get a workout in.

Right Now Challenge | 7

I have sort of been neglecting to do these posts for the past couple months. For awhile I was still writing things down, just kept putting off typing them up. But I just looked and now the last thing I wrote in my notebook was on December 31st...whoops! Ha. So I thought I would back-track a bit and try to get caught up. From now on, I'm just going to do an update whenever, instead of weekly. Here goes!

11/18/13-11/24/13

- Me: "Levi, what's it doing outside?"
  Levi: "Snowing! It snowing. It help make me so happy!"
  (He was excited to go sledding.)

- Paige is army crawling all over.

- Coversation about tummies with Levi:
  "Paige jus' have her small tummy. My have my wittle tummy. You jus' have your big tummy. Daddy jus' have his hairy tummy." Bahaha OMG I about died.

11/25/13-12/1/13

- Levi's latest saying: "Oh Gosh!"

- Levi was being whiney and was saying "Mommy! Mommy!" so I said "What-ey? What-ey?" He got mad and I heard him say "That make me cry!" I asked him "What makes you cry?" "Your silly words make me cry." Oh boy, we sure have a dramatic one!

- Levi: "You join me read this book? You join me!"

12/2/13-12/8/13

- Vacuuming today: Levi gets into his usual corner on the couch and covers himself with pillows. Any time I stop the vacuum (turn it off), he says "Shew! My safe. Shew!"

- Eating breakfast at the table, Paige is crawling around on the floor next to us. She starts to scoot under the table, Levi tells her, "No, Paigey, you can't go unner there." I asked him, "Why can't she go under the table, you go under there all the time?" He replied, "It dangerous. Don't go unner there Paigey, it dangerous."

- As I try to take Levi's plate away from him after he takes the last bite of his hotdog, he pulls it back.
  Levi: "No, don't take it."
  Me: "Why not? Your hotdog is all gone."
  Levi: "There still ketchup on it."
  Me: "But your hotdog is gone, so you don't need it anymore."
  Levi: "That why I need to use my finger."

- Whining for one reason or another. Out of desperation to stop said whining, I offer Levi a fruit snack. His response: "Yeah. That going calm me down."

12/18/13

-Latest phrase that makes us laugh: "My got idea!" or "My got a plan!"

- After saying prayers at bedtime, Levi looks at me and says: "Sometimes my daddy pee outside." Umm. Ok. He is the king of random...

- "Don't 'get about me!" (Don't forget about me!)

12/20/13

- While driving around town looking at Christmas lights, Levi says, "My wish we got Cwistmas wights on our house."

12/31/13

- At the grocery store, Levi wanted to push a little cart. When we got to the aisle with the fruit snacks, he runs over to them, puts his arms out like he is pretending to hug them, and says, "Muh! Muh! My wuv you fwuit snacks! Muh! Muh!" (kissing sounds).

- After getting done at the grocery store, I asked Levi if he wanted to go to McDonalds for lunch to get some chicken nuggets. His response was, "Yeah! My do hawn (want) go Old MacDonald's!" Lol.

That's all until next time!

Paige's 6 month pics

FINALLY remembering to share these! Paige's 6 month pictures with Stephanie turned out SO cute! She did pretty well most of the time, but she was not impressed with the little romper I put on her. She's just like her brother and didn't want to just sit still! :)

These are just a few of my favorites!

Gotta admit, I had fun finding outfits for her! I already have ideas for her one year pics! (hint: lace leggings!!!)

Weekly Weigh In | 2

This week didn't go too bad. I still haven't had a chance to get in a work-out. I can give you plenty of excuses, but I'll spare you. Ha. Overall I was happy with my eating habits, except for yesterday when I couldn't resist the other half of the Twix bar that I bribed Levi with. Anyhoo..

I do not like tracking calories. I stink at it. I get breakfast, lunch and snacks in, then I am sick of it. It takes so much time to sit and put in recipes that we make for supper, which aren't complicated but it's time-consuming to try and enter it all. So I need to work on that.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Today's weight: 159.4
+/- from last week: -3.8
Total loss: -3.8

What I did well this week
- Watched what I ate pretty well. Avoided as much sugar as possible and tried not to over-do it with bread and carbs.
- Tried to drink plenty of water.

What I did not do well this week
- Still no working out.
- The Twix incident mentioned above.

Goals for the coming week
- Get a workout in at least once or twice.
- Track calories.
- Drink lots of water.

7 months!

Already a week late, but here is Paige's 7 month update!

Paige, at 7 months::

- Weighs right around 16 pounds.

- Still about 27 inches tall.

- Wearing size 4 dipes.

- Size 6-9 month clothing.

- Still waking up at night a couple times. Usually around 11 pm and then again around 3:30 or 4:00.

- I made a really tough decision to stop nursing. I had my heart set on nursing her until she was a year, but it just wasn't meant to be. I think I will just leave it at that. I started giving her bottles yesterday afternoon. I will probably nurse her a little bit at night for a few nights, but hopefully she will be totally on the bottle in a week or so. I sort of forgot how painful this was for me, both mentally and physically. OUCH.

- She is a picky eater. She doesn't want much of anything on a spoon. Some days she eats pretty good, and other days she won't want anything I put on her tray. Part of me wonders if she just doesn't like the high chair. Who knows. I am not going to worry too much, because if she was hungry she would eat.

- Just started climbing the stairs. All the way up. And makes a bee-line whenever it catches her eye. So I had to put the gate back up yesterday. She does the same thing Levi used to do and climbs up those first two stairs and stands up hanging on to the gate.

- She clicks her tongue now. Not really clicks I guess, but the same sort of motion. She makes that sound a lot now.

- No teeth yet. I think she is working on one, but nothing has popped through yet. I have a feeling that teething is going to be a whole new ballgame with her than it was with Levi.

Weekly Weigh-In

So, I guess you could say I am back at it. Losing this darn baby-weight, that is. Before I got pregnant with Paige, I was making pretty good progress and was getting close to my goal weight. I was doing Weight Watchers and I had started running. Actually starting to enjoy it too, something I never thought I would say. For most of my pregnancy I felt like I was doing good, not gaining too terrible much and feeling pretty confident. Then came the last trimester. And all I wanted was ice cream and chocolate. I ended up gaining about 35 lbs, which isn't bad. But I was sort of hoping that it would be easier to lose this time around. You know, just disappear. Welp, I was wrong. So very wrong.

What I didn't realize was that after a second baby, things would be, um, positioned, differently. I don't know if that is the word I am looking for, but basically my body is just different than it was after I had Levi. Let's just say muffin top is a problem. Moving on... I was also hoping that my second baby would be laid-back and easy-going, and I would be able to actually get something done around the house. HA! I love my kiddos more than anything and wouldn't change them for the world, but some days I feel like I am never going to catch up on anything, much less take time to worry about myself. After spending the day changing, chasing, feeding, playing, and picking up the entire box of legos just for Levi to dump them out again....I am tired and just sitting on the couch for a bit is nice. Knowing that I would get a full night's sleep would also be a plus, but we're not quite there. Hopefully soon.

I also have a hard time keeping motivated until I start to see results. I am realizing more and more that I am an instant satisfaction type of person. If something doesn't work out like I am expecting it to right away, I get frustrated and usually give up. So keeping accountable to only myself was not going to work. When I saw that our town was having a Biggest Loser Contest, I decided to join in. It cost $25 to participate, and if you win you get a cash prize. I am not terribly worried if I win or not, I just want to have something to keep my motivated and accountable. The first weigh in was on Tuesday. I am hoping from here on out I can get an update up on Tuesday or Wednesday, but we'll see how it goes. I think I'm going to sort of follow the same format I did when I started updates before I was pregnant. So, here goes I guess.

Tuesday, January 15, 2014
Starting weight: 163.2

What I did well this week
- I am trying really hard not to snack or graze too much. That is a big downfall for me.
- Didn't buy anything sweet when I got groceries and didn't bake anything this week. If it's not in the house, I can't eat it! Sweets are my other downfall.

What I did not do well this week
- I haven't started working out yet. I decided to try TurboFire, and it just came in the mail yesterday, so hoping to get started on that soon. I will keep you posted on how that goes.
- Not tracking my calories. Some days I try, and I get past lunch and that's the end of that. For some reason Weight Watchers points were easier to track than calories for me. I am mainly trying to just eat cleaner at this point.

Goals for the coming week
-  Start working out.
- Continue to watch what I am eating.

January photo update!

Sharing some pictures from the first couple weeks of January.

Miss Paige likes to climb on things now. She thinks she is pretty smart! It's hilarious to watch her get up on something and just smile because she is so proud of herself! Obviously it's nothing too far from the ground, and I am right there if she gets too close to the edge. Just today she scaled the stairs twice, and makes a beeline if she looks in that direction. So I put the gate back up. Womp, womp.

Not much needed for explanation here. My farmboys just checking out some tractors!

MUST GET ALL THE CORDS!! As you can imagine she needed some assistance getting out of there.

Thought we would end our weekend with some root beer floats. Paige was not impressed with me putting her down to take a picture, even if it was by daddy, and Levi was not about to distract his attention from his float. Meh, I'll take what I can get at this point.

Stinker butt. She climbs up on the far right side then crawls across to the other side. She does pretty good getting down since its on a few inches up.

And just a couple cute ones of Paige in her bibs, because who doesn't love babies in overalls?

Family Photo

Realized I never shared our family picture from this fall. Our happy little family! :)

Only Paige is a little bit bigger now!

Christmas 2014 | A few pics

Only a couple weeks behind with these! But I still wanted to share just a few highlights from Christmas. It seems like the holidays just flew by this year. I didn't get as many pictures as I normally do, mostly because I had two kids to wrangle instead of just one. And also because my camera battery died for one of our celebrations and I had the wrong charger along. Womp, womp.

But in all reality, I'm glad that I wasn't so worried about getting a ton of pictures, because I was able to focus on being with my kids and our family, and just enjoy the time with them instead of being behind a camera lens the entire time.

The weekend before Christmas day, we celebrated with my mom's side of the family. Saturday was our whole family at the farm, and Sunday was with just my parents, my sister and her family, and us. We dressed the kiddos up for church so when we got home we attempted to get a picture of them together in front of the tree. I would call this a success! All three looking in the same direction? Perfect! They are pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself. Levi loves his two girls!

Christmas Eve we went to church and then came home and let the kids open their presents from us after supper. My attempt at a picture of them alone was not working, but Paul snapped one of me with them since he was not willing to try and get a family one using the timer. (Yes, I had two Christmas dresses for Paige. I got one on sale so I couldn't resist!!)

After we opened gifts, the kids got their jammies on and we set out some cookies and milk for Santa. (I got a super cute, personalized plate for them to put the cookies on but forgot to snap a picture of it! I did take one using Instagram, so you might be able to see it if you click on one of the pictures in the side and go to my account.) We also laid stockings out so they were ready, too!

She's cute and she knows it.

Christmas morning, and Santa came! Levi was most intrigued that Santa ate his cookies and milk! To this day, if someone asks if Santa came to his house, he'll say, "He eat all the cookies! And the milk!" Haha, cutie. He loved his gifts, and had fun helping Paige open her gifts too. Once we finished up, we got everything ready and went up to Annandale to spend Christmas day with my dad's side of the family.

The weekend after Christmas, we celebrated with Paul's family. I didn't get any decent pics from that afternoon, though. I was busy trying to keep Paige away from all the loose paper, and his mom and dad's house is pretty small so I didn't have any good angles anyway. The kids all loved their gifts from everyone, and we had a fun time!

All in all, we are very blessed to have such wonderful families to spend our holiday with. Although it gets a bit tiring at times always being on the go with the kids during this time, I am thankful that we have families that love us as much as we love them, and I love spending time with everyone.

Exhausted

Exhausted. That is how I feel quite a bit lately. *sigh* All I want is a few uninterrupted hours of sleep. But, sadly, I haven't gotten that for a long time. And I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, either.

I took Paige to the doctor yesterday. After a few nights of waking up an hour or less after I put her down for bed and not napping for more than an hour at a time during the day, I figured it had to be something more than just resisting sleep. Turns out she had an ear infection. In the opposite ear as last time. Oh, yeah, I don't think I mentioned that here, but when she went for her 6 month check-up she had the start of one in her left ear. And now, less than a week after finishing those meds, the other ear is infected. Not fun.

So hopefully this medicine will help. Because she needs sleep. And so does mommy. I am just praying we don't have to go through what we did with Levi again.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the past couple weeks.