Sacred Influence

I just finished reading "Sacred Influence: How God Uses Wives to Shape the Souls of Their Husbands" by Gary Thomas. I am not much of a reader-haven't been since junior high, but I am trying to change that. I have read three books in the last 3 months and have four more waiting on me.

So back to Sacred Influence. I think all couples should read this book. It has great spiritual insight on the role a woman plays in marriage. It describes the woman's role as a helper to her husband to encourage him and support him. In doing so actually helps her marriage and herself in the process. I learned a lot from this book and although I would love to pass it on to a friend I think I'm going to hang onto it to read again someday.

Looking Great in 2008

I did manage to brave the scale this morning and am logging a 1 pound gain. One pound is not bad considering the last four days! YIKES! I don't even want to think about the calories that have gone into my mouth the last four days! I am starting fresh tomorrow and hope to get as close as I can to my goal before Tuesday-the first of January. I still have a long way to go before I reach my goal weight-but I am on my way. Of course with the new year comes the custom new years resolution to exercise more-which will surely help in my weight loss. I have got to get into a good exercise routine.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas-we sure enjoyed ours. Hope to see less of each of you in the new year-myself included!

Tales from the Scales-Looking great in 2008

Well it isn't Wednesday-but I am down a pound so I wanted to document it. I am 14 pounds away from my initial goal and ten pounds away from my "revised" goal. Hopefully if I don't overdue it the next few days, and I really step it up the days between Christmas and New Year's-maybe, maybe, maybe I can still lose 10 pounds before the end of the year.

Hope everyone enjoys spending time with friends and family this Christmas!

Christmas Festivities

The Christmas festivities have started at our home. My Aunt and Uncle came into town Thursday and we had a good visit. We opened presents from them Thursday night-and I guess that got J interested in the presents under the tree-he has opened three since then. There have been presents under our tree for two weeks and he hasn't touched them. So I guess opening presents the other night sparked his interest.

I left J upstairs playing yesterday while I was cleaning the kitchen. I walked upstairs to find him asleep on the floor with one of my uncle's gifts open. My uncles gifts were in the rocker where he had left them the night before, J had pulled it out of the chair and opened the box. It was a fish for the hitch on his truck. So cute and so sneaky!

So we will be busy the next few days!! Merry Christmas to all!

Looking Great in 2008 weigh in #13

Seems I always end up going to dinner with my husband on the night before weigh-in. We ate at Logan's last night with his parents and it was wonderful. But I paid for it today. The scale showed no gain but not loss either. I really should not have been surprised, I haven't been eating well lately. Not getting my fruits and veggies in, haven't been exercising and certainly not getting my water in. I have done better today with the water.

So with all that said this next week I am not going to worry about weight loss, however, I am not going to over do it. I have a family gathering Saturday, another get together on Sunday to make Christmas sweets and treats, Christmas at my in laws on Christmas Eve and then Christmas with my family Christmas day. So 4 days of Christmas activities filled with plenty of sweets, treats and lots of other fattening foods.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Christmas. Remember the true meaning of Christmas and be thankful.

Weigh In #12

Well I have been on the scale this morning and was up a little-but I haven't nursed yet. So I will wait until late morning to do my "official" weigh in. I won't be surprised to see no loss this week-after the chocolate chip cookies and dinner out last night! Gotta get to it though-only three more weeks left in the year and I really want to lose 10 more pounds before January 1st. I know I can do it I just have to get back to eating fruits and veggies and drinking water.

So for this week my goal is to drink nothing but water. Even though I drink diet sodas I am sure cutting those out will help tremendously. I also need to exercise. My three year old son and I did Taebo one day last week. It was very tiring but also fun. I use to love doing Taebo many years ago. So I plan on getting that out and doing it again this week. I'd really like to start running-I actually enjoyed that during high school. I was never fast but I did enjoy it. So I plan on running at least twice this week and Taebo at least twice. Hopefully that will be enough to get me where I need to be to finish off the year 10 pounds lighter!

Good luck to everyone through the holidays-I know this is a tough time to stick to a healthy diet.

Weigh In #11 12/4

WOOHOO! Two more pounds down! I weighed Tuesday and was down two more pounds!! (I also weighed Wednesday morning but after eating close to a dozen chocolate chip cookies on Tuesday I was no longer down 2 pounds-so I opted to go with Tuesday's weigh in!). Up until Tuesday, I was making much better food choices and had exercised once. Not nearly exercising enough but still working on that. At this rate I still won't meet my original goal but I hope to lose at least 10 more pounds before the end of the year.

My husband says it's cheating to go by Tuesday's weigh in-but I don't care. I'm countin it!!

Good luck to everyone in the coming week.

Menu Plan Monday 12/3

Well we have eaten out more this week than we have in a while. So I really need to stick to the menu this week if I want to have a nice loss on weigh in day. These one pound losses each week are driving me crazy. I'd like to lose ten more pounds before the end of the year-won't meet my original goal (seventeen pounds to go for that)but I'll just have to set a new goal. I did much better sticking with the menu last week so hopefully I'll do the same this week as well.

We tried a few new recipes from the Weight Watchers 5 Ingredient 15 Minute Cookbook last week. The 'grilled honey balsamic salmon' wasn't my favorite. Maybe I cooked it too long but it wasn't nearly as good as the Orange glazed salmon recipe I tried a few weeks ago. The Philly steak and cheese sandwhiches were really good. We will have to do that again. The terriyaki pork loin and terriyaki chicken I have cooked before and again they were good.

This weekend I sat down and planned my menus for the month-don't gasp yet it may seem organized and it'd be great if I'd follow my monthly menu for a full month but I never do. But I still sit down at the first of every month, plan my menus for five days a week, and even make out a grocery list for each week. Then every weekend I'll check the menu for that week and see what we already have and add the items we need to the main grocery list which is on the fridge. But there are days we might eat out or eat elsewhere, or there may be days I forget to defrost the meat and the menu gets a little jumbled. But I enjoy planning and even if I don't follow it perfectly it is much better than not having a plan at all.

Monday: Baked potatoes and salads (back to my easy Monday menus)
Tuesday: Tex Mex Pepper Steak
Wednesday: Skillet Ziti & veggies
Thursday: BBQ meatloaf-never made meatloaf before so we'll see how we like it
Friday: Taco Chicken tortilla wraps

All the menus are from the Weight Watchers 5 Ingredient 15 Minute Cookbook. I cannot rave enough about this cookbook. I just love it! I've been using a lot of recipes from it the last few months. I borrowed it from my mom, and she had borrowed it from someone else. So I will have to return it someday. I am hoping to get one for Christmas!! *hint* *hint*

Hope everyone has a great week and happy planning!

Teresa McFayden

I ran across the blog of Teresa McFayden on Today's Creative Blog. And I fell in love with her calendar. She suggests getting a group together to make them and swap numbers with friends to mix it up a bit. Now I am not a crafty person by any stretch of the imagination but I am just dying to try this. So that is my goal for this weekend to make one for myself. Then I'll see if any of my crafty friends want to get together and make them.

You should check out both these blogs: Today's Creative Blog and Teresa McFayden's blog My Minutia for many great crafty ideas.

Christmas Crafts

Well I felt a little crafty yesterday and while at Walmart I bought a little kit to make these adorable ginger bread men/women, candy canes and candy. Everything is cut all you have to do is glue the pieces together and you can attach a pin or magnet to the back. For $5 I think it was great entertainment for little J who is now 3 years old! He loved working with the glue (he has had a little practice when helping his dad put together rockets). So we made a few and we'll save the rest for Sunday lunch at my in laws-my six nieces and nephews will be there too so that will give them all something to create and make a big mess with.

Since J is not in daycare I feel like he is missing out on a lot of crafty things and probably on a lot of educational things. So I am really trying to figure out a routine to include some "school work" and craft time. I've got a schedule all figured out, now only if my 4 month old and J would allow me to follow the schedule and if I was disciplined enough to follow one myself-we'd could get a lot of stuff done!

Weigh In #10

Well I lost another pound. I should be excited about losing a pound especially during the holidays but I won't reach my goal by the end of the year at this rate. I know I can do better if I'd keep up with my water intake and add some exercise to my routine. I need to get my fruits and veggies back into my diet also.

My goals for the next week: drink 8 glasses of water a day, exercise 3 days and have at least 3 servings of fruits and veggies a day.

Potty Training 101 ?!?!

Yikes. I have always heard potty training boys was difficult, but nobody ever said it was down right impossible!! My dear son just turned three. He has never really showed any interest in potty training-no matter what technique I use..bribery, cool potty seats, big boy underwear with this favorite characters-the boy has 12 pairs of underwear sporting Spider man, Thomas the train, Nemo and after Christmas will have Diego underwear. But still no interest in "going" in the potty. After changing him the eight time today I decided to put a diaper on him-not sure who more excited about it, me or him. Maybe we'll try again tomorrow, maybe not. We will see.

I have heard many myths that you can't potty train during the winter. Not exactly sure why. Someone suggested it was because you couldn't let them run around in just underwear during the winter months-but DS was just fine running around in underwear and a t-shirt today. So that can't be it.

I did see a little potty today at the store. I might go back and pick it up I just hate the thought of having to clean that thing out after every use-DISGUSTING! But if it'll help him get the idea it'll be money well spent.

Menu Plan Monday 11/26

We had lots of leftovers from Thanksgiving, so much that I opted to put them in the freezer for Christmas instead of eating leftovers by myself this week. Dh doesn't care for a lot of the holiday casseroles and I really don't need to be eating them since I am trying to lose weight. So into the freezer they went. So we have a small pan of dressing, sweet potatoes, lima beans, and dressing. Plus I had prepared two large pans of mac & cheese, one for Wednesday dinner with my in-laws and one for Thanksgiving day with my family. We only ate half a pan on Wednesday so we just used the leftovers for Thursday and put the full pan in the freezer. And a friend made us a HUGE pan of dressing and we halved it and only cooked half of it Thanksgiving day and put the other pan in the freezer (and ended up only eating about half of the dressing anyway). So that is a lot of cooking already taken care of for Christmas-hopefully they will all freeze well and recook well. Will see.

As for this week of meal planning, I am doing my best not to have to make a grocery run. I might have to make a run for milk and sprites but that will hopefully be it. Tonight we tried Philly steak and cheese sandwiches. They turned out very tasty. Wal-mart sells a small box of thinly slice meat in the freezer department, saw it the other day and thought I'd try it out. I pulled a few pieces of green and red bell pepper from the freezer (that I had previously cut up and placed in freezer bags) and stir fried them with the meat. Placed them on tasted buns with shredded mozzarella cheese-delish! This was a recipe from Weight Watchers 5 Ingredient 15 Minute Cookbook Everything on the menu this week comes from this cookbook- I JUST LOVE THIS COOKBOOK!! I will let you know how everything turns out. I am not a fan of salmon-but I did cook it several weeks ago using a recipe from this book and it was WONDERFUL! So I cannot wait to try it again!

Monday: Philly steak & cheese sandwiches, w/apple slices and chips
Tuesday: Terriyaki Pork Loin
Wednesday: Grilled Honey Balsamic Salmon w/veggies and baked fries
Thursday: Terriyaki Grilled Chicken
Friday: Roast w/mashed potatoes and corn

Worn Out

Little boy was playing away while baby sister napped in her pack n play and I napped on the couch. I woke up to find him asleep in his sisters bouncy car. So adorable!

Weigh In #9

Well after two birthday parties, two nights of eating out and one night of pizza...I was not surprised not to see the scale go down this week. Actually it was up about .2 pounds-but I'm not counting that since I had only nursed once this morning and had about 40 ounces to drink already. I usually weigh in after I nurse the baby for the second time-but lately she has been sleeping until about 8:30-9am so I only get one feeding in before breakfast. Which is just fine by me!

I am hoping for better results next week. Which means I really need to watch what I eat at our two Thanksgiving dinners this week. Dinner tonight and tomorrow night will have plenty of non figure friendly foods-including macaroni and cheese-my most favorite holiday dish! Although I am making it this year so it probably won't be as good. Need to make sure my mom makes at least one pan of it in case mine is a bust! It just isn't Thanksgiving without that mac and cheese.

So here is to drinking more water and getting some exercise this week to offset all the good food we'll be eating.

I did get out yesterday and take the kids to the park. J and I played a little soccer. Of course I was carrying the baby in the sling so I couldn't do a lot of "running around" but I did work up a sweat. I sure miss playing soccer. I am looking forward to getting back into shape so maybe this summer I can plan on an adult league and/or coach J's team if he is old enough to play next year.

Good luck to everyone! And Happy Thanksgiving!

Something you don't see everyday

Our neighbor knocked on our door the other day to inform us that the HUGE oak tree in their backyard was split down the middle. She said she was having someone come out to give an estimate on what it would cost to remove the tree. She wanted us to be aware although she didn't think it would fall.

Two days later a ladder truck showed up and began cutting the branches off the big oak tree. It took them 2.5 days to get the tree down. Near the end of the second day they had completed removing all the limbs and began cutting the trunk piece by piece. When the first piece hit the ground I had just run upstairs to retrieve J's shoes and when it hit the ground it shook the entire house. J responded "mommy you scared me!". I had to explain it wasn't mommy that made the house shake, it was the tree trunk. And then another piece fell as we left the house.

It was interesting to watch them cut it down. I wish I would have thought about it and gotten out the video camera or even set up the digital camera to take still shots. Think it would have made for a cute video on u-tube in fast forward. Kinda like the lady that took pictures of herself everyday of her pregnancy or the person that lost weight. Cool videos.

anyway-here are a few photos I snapped of the tree removal.

Menu Plan Monday 11/19

We have two Thanksgiving dinners this week, plus I meet with my Bunco group tonight so the menu is very easy to plan this week! We have Thanksgiving dinner at the in laws Wednesday evening and then again with my family Thursday evening. Since my family is coming in Wednesday I will prepare taco soup in the crockpot-so that will be very easy. I am planning on leftovers for the rest of the week. So I really only need to plan for two menus outside of Thanksgiving dinner.

As far as the weight loss-I haven't been doing as well as I would like. I am not getting my water in nor am I getting my fruits and veggies. Gotta work on that!! Especially if I don't want to come to a screeching hault during the holidays. I also need to get back on the stair stepper and get started running.

I did come across a blog last night that really got me inspired to get on my bike again. While Dh and I were dating we would ride a lot. We had cheapo bikes but we knew we probably wouldn't stick with it so we didn't want to purchase expensive bikes. Good choice since they have been steadily rusting away in the storage shed. But I would like to get them out and see if they are ridable. Especially since J is getting his first "big boy" bike this Christmas. I have very fond memories of riding bikes through the neighborhood with my family when we were in kindergarten. It would be great exercise and great quality time together as a family. So we will see how that goes!

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Monday: Mommy has bunco-nothing planned
Tuesday: Philly steak sandwiches-a new recipes I'll be trying from the WW cookbook
Wednesday: Crock pot Taco soup
Thursday: Thanksgiving dinner!!
Friday: Leftovers!

Looking Great in 2008 Weigh In #8

Well I have lost another pound-unbelievable! We went to dinner last night at Outback-YUM! I couldn't resist those cheese fries. Thought I'd pay for it today-but looks like the scale loves me today. I would normally be disgusted with just a 1 pound loss-but I really haven't been getting in my water nor exercising so I am really happy with any kind of loss today. That puts me at a grand total of 22 pounds lost-still want to lose 18 pounds before the end of the year-doubt it will happen-but will see how close I can get.

This weekend is my son's third birthday party and then next week is Thanksgiving-YIKES! I really need to get back on the wagon so I don't get into a gaining mode for the holidays.

Well baby is up and crying-so that is all the blogging for now. Good luck to everyone!

Creative Blogs

I love visiting this site: Creative Blogs. This site lists several blogs of crafty and interesting people. It is full of so many ideas for decorating, scrapbooking, any just about anything you can think of! I love visiting this site-it give me such great inspiration! I only wish I could be half as creative as some of the bloggers showcased.

Family Pics

We gathered with my husband's family on Sunday for a big family picture that will be used for a Christmas card. We didn't take nearly as many shots as we did last year but I think we got a few good ones. Here is one of our family.