Back to Life..back to reality!

How many of you are now singing that song?  Sorry, I am too!

Getting back into the swing of things after being gone on the most awesome family vacation in the world is SOOOOOO hard!  My laundry pile will take me about 15 days to get through and trying to get back to cooking healthy meals and not eating ice cream every single day will take my family like 15 days to get used to (I'm ready for some good healthy homecooked food again!) and getting back into the everyday routine of waking up early and having to go to school instead of a theme park and then come home and do homework instead of going out to eat and play or back to a theme park will be a challenge but in the end it was 100% worth it!  It took us a long time to save for this vacation and pick the perfect time to go but we finally did and all 4 of us had 6 full days of magic and fun! 


Everytime I see these guys (and many many others) I will smile bigger and shed a tear of happiness because of all the new memories I now have of the totally awesome Walt Disney World!  There is nothing like taking your 8 year old son, 6 year old daughter and 42 year old husband to the happiest place on earth for the first time and experiencing it all over again!  I was fortunate to go once as a kid and once as an adult (when hubby and I were dating) and have awesome memories of those vacations as well but as a parent, its a whole new world (no pun intended :)  Thanks Walt...I know you didn't live long enough to know how happy you were going to make people but you sure came up with a fabulous idea for families for MANY years to come!

And to all you Disney characters....thanks for making my little girl smile OVER and OVER and OVER again!  your hugs, your signatures and your demeanor were a big part of her happiness! 

And to your roller coaster designers... my boy thanks you :)  Space mountain is SO awesome!  yes, that was his favorite part but he enjoyed all the little things as well.

And to every single person that works in and around Disneyworld...you are amazing!  You know how to treat each and every guest like they are special.  Never once did we feel rushed, never once did we feel silly for asking how to get somewhere (even if it was 10 feet from where we were standing) and never once did we ever feel like we weren't supposed to enjoy every freaking second that we were there, no matter if we were walking, standing, talking, waiting, singing, dancing, or eating.  Disneyworld has the best customer service in the world...something I never noticed before but have definitely learned from.  I think everyone could learn a thing or 2 from them, no joke!  And finally, to all those people who sweep up the popcorn and clean the bathrooms.  I have never seen such a crowded place that was sparkling clean ALL THE TIME!  In the rain or the sun, it didn't matter, the bathrooms were always clean and there was never a drop of garbage on the ground. 

Yes, I took it in from all aspects this time around.  It was a very busy trip and I may need a week or 2 to recover from the long days we kept, but boy did we all have fun...I hope we all remember this trip for the rest of our lives.  I know I will :)

Eating carrots=getting tan?!

I needed to share this because I have been getting the comment over and over...."wow, you're tan, you must have been somewhere warm."  No, I wish!  Or...wow, you look tan!  You get my point.  NO...I WISH I was somewhere warm!  I've been stuck in the cold, dreary, snowy, rainy sunless state of WI for months (with a couple quick trips to central IL...pretty sure that didn't do it!)  After many of these comments I finally said, wow, everyone keeps saying that to me.   Some of those days I have a tiny bit of makeup on that might be a little darker than my natural skin color but its nothing new so I thought, no, can't be my makeup.  Couldn't possibly be hanging outside at 3:30 in the winter with the kids for 30 min when half those days are not sunny or the sun is going down!  How the heck do I look tan? 

Until yesterday...when finally a couple people said it to me again and I said, no haven't been on vacation but everyone keeps asking me and one lady said...have you been eating a lot of carrots?  DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  YES!!  I've been eating a ridiculously large amount of carrots lately...and sweet potatoes and squash and spinach and kale and peppers and tomatoes....Carotenoids!!!  Foods rich in carotenoids help make your skin pigment darker, NATURALLY!!!  Apparently it takes a couple months before you notice a change and that is exactly what happened to me.

Now, while I should have blogged about my journey all along, I kept it to myself and just shared with a few friends.  I changed my way of eating to more of a "clean eating" philosophy.  Cut out a lot of foods and feel unbelievably great when I eat exactly what I should.  I've been following this hard core for nearly 2 months, but had increased my vegetable consumption many months before that.  Carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, kale and spinach just happen to be the ones I have in the last 2 months consumed an increasing amount of!  Basically I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and chicken...yes, there are a lot of other foods but those are the main staples of my diet!  So...not surprising, I know have glowing skin...who knew?

I'm kind of embarrased to say that I didn't even think of that with my health background and my knowledge of healthy foods, but I guess it just never dawned on me and the fact that I look at myself every day so I don't really think my skin tone has changed.  I guess its kind of cool and by no means do I have that summer tan look, but I guess my skin in a little darker and it does look pretty healthy.  Now hopefully that can help protect me against getting burned in the warm summer sun.  I am no fool though... I will continue to buy stock in sunscreen...better safe than sorry!

I highly recommend trying it!  I mean the worst that could happen is you don't quite change your skin tone...the best...you lose a few pounds (I did!!) and get healthier in the process.  Just make sure you are substituting all those veggies for some unhealthy choices!  My favorite go to snack...carrots (and whatever other chopped veggies I have) and hummus!!!!  low cal, high fiber, filling, delicious and full of carotenoids :)

To My Kiddos...I love you to the moon and back...

I am guessing many people feel the same way I do right now, but I am just sick.  Sick over the trajedy that struck friday in CT.  I can not shake the awful feeling that came over me as I saw the coverage on tv as I was preparing for Christmas.  Yes, I had to be so extra thankful my kids were safe at their school and there when I picked them up on friday.  They had no idea why their mom had tears in their eyes the moment I saw them.  This morning was probably worse as I watched all those pictures scroll across the screen...my thoughts and prayers are with all those families that were affected with this awful awful event.  I can not begin to imagine what they are going through, no do I ever want to but its hard not to just feel sick and SO SO angry and not be able to answer the question...why?  Why a bunch of innocent kids?  There are so many more things I could say about this but I will leave it be.  It's just an event that will go down in history and not in a good way and certainly at an even harder time of year. 

I did just want to touch on something that may have helped me a little bit yesterday.  At church, our awesome Father Charlie centered his homily on this event without saying it directly.  He called all the kids up to the alter (which he does a couple times a year) to read them a book.   This was the book, a family favorite to us and I'm sure many others:

He proceeded to read the book to the kids and very well I might add :)  And if you are not familiar, the book talks about a parent loving a child more and more.  The very end of the book says I love you to the moon and back.  He reitterated to the kids that their parents love them to the moon and back and that Jesus loves them all the way to Heaven and back.  After he was finished he told the kids to give their parents a hug when they returned to their seats.  My eyes were so full of tears and I could not resist hugging those kids.  What a perfect way to touch on the subject without saying anything!  He did add a few additional prayers as well that were also perfectly worded so that you knew what we were praying for without the kids asking tons of questions.  Well done Father Charlie and thank you! 

So all day yesterday and all day today all that is going through my head is this:

I am now thinking that we might have to get a print like this and hang it in our house as it is said enough around here, especially lately!  I think we may have to read that book more too...it has not been in the rotation since the kids are reading more "grown up" books now but it is one that probably should be read and remembered.  I am so thankful for all my blessings and its so awful that it takes a trajedy to realize how thankful sometimes.

Sorry for the sad post but as much as I would love to talk about Christmas fun, I think I needed to stop and think about those people in CT that really need prayers right now.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Happy Halloween Everyone!  While we have pretty much celebrated everything there is about halloween already, I still have a few tricks and treats up my sleeve for my kiddos!!  Everyone went dressed up in their black and orange today and us girls have our halloween socks on too!  We've got our semi traditional dinner planned tonight...Kraft pumpkin shaped mac and cheese (thanks Aunt Laura!) and mummy dogs!  The kids are super excited!  Not often they get boxed mac and cheese and hot dogs on the same night!  And carrots...because they're orange and we must have a little something healthy!  I did my usual peanut butter/jelly sandwiches stamped with the bat cookie cutter for one half and a pumpkin for the other.  Sure hope it makes my kiddos smile at lunch time.  Oh...and I threw in a little candy pumpkin for their dessert...that I am SURE will make them smile!

And because their parties were last week I asked both of their teachers if I could make a fun treat for today and they both agreed.  So...to the 3rd graders went Candy Corn M&M blondies (I omitted the oil and used another stick of butter instead and spread them into a 13x9 pan instead of cookies to save time :) and to the kindergarteners went rice krispie treats with pumpkins on top!  Pumpkins picked straight out of here:

I may indulge in a few pieces of this bag today...after all it IS Halloween!  Even though we trick or treated and collected more candy than we can possibly eat and had our halloween parties, we can still enjoy a little bit of fun today....you all know I love my themes and there's not much not to love about  a fun holiday like Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN....have a Spooktacular day!

Yet another year older...

Yep, today's my birthday.  I love birthdays, not only mine but everyone's birthday.  Its a day to celebrate and have a party and just be fun...what's not to love.  I know not everyone does, but I do so I celebrated...by going to work!  boo!  Oh well, such is life when you are 37...not that I remember but my kids told me and everyone else I saw today that that's my age.  If I ever lose my memory I have a couple back ups :)

Anyway, what I wanted to share is that because of our crazy day that is always a weekday, I had to cook and if I wanted a cake that I could actually eat, I had to make it.  Hubby's late day at work today, busy after school and the kids insisted we had to have cake and/or ice cream for my birthday.  I have pretty much cut out cake and ice cream and I don't do well together on a regular basis so I have been very much cutting back on that too so I really was fine just making my shrimp and chicken stiry fry and having a quiet night on the couch.  BUT....I didn't want to disappoint my sugar seeking children so I compromised and made this cake.  I had to add about 3 T maple syrup to make it taste like a cake to me but otherwise it was pretty good.  I was pleasantly surprised.  The frosting (which I added like 1-2 T honey too but probably didn't have to) was delish!  Could've just eaten an entire bowl of that stuff no problem.  Anyway, served it up with some all natural vanilla ice cream and the kids thought it was some great stuff!  It would have never been my choice for a birthday cake...I am NOT a chocolate cake gal at all, but it was a nice treat and it won't leave me feeling sick tomorrow (I don't think!) which was a good bonus.  And I feel better that I gave my family a healthy treat yet still a treat.  I know some people think that's weird, that you can indulge once in a while.  And I agree, indulge once in a while but today was not the day I felt like indulging, so I skipped it.  I will indulge on a different day and let's face it people...halloween is so close that those kids can miss the sugar and make up for it soon!

I do have to say that I share a birthday with a little girl in my daughter's class so I gave her a balloon today and wrote a note saying that I was so happy that I shared my birthday with a sweet little girl and put a bag of these delicious m&m's (like a handful in a ziploc bag to use as a weight) attached to her balloon.  But..I had to try just 2 as they have been eyeing me up all fall here.  Then I let the kids each have 2.  Yep, 2.  That's it and I seriously never heard a word about it.  That's how we roll around here!

 

 

 

 



Go ahead try a couple..its worth it!!

It's October...or ROCKTOBER!

Why do I say Rocktober?  Only because I've seen that everywhere lately for all different reasons.  I think its appropriate given that October is by far my FAVORITE month!  There really isn't much I don't like about this month.  Let me tell you why in case you may have forgotten!

-My birthday!!!  Yes, I'm turning 37 this year and still LOVE to celebrate my birthday.  Heck, I love to celebrate anyone's birthday.  There's just something fun about having a day that is special for you (even if there are a million people that share that day)

-Halloween!  What is NOT to love about Halloween?!  I do know some people that don't love it, but I can not comprehend.  You can dress up and be someone else or something else for a day and you get candy, and lots of it, for free!!  Hello?!  Now grant it, I don't love candy as much as I used to but the idea still thrills me and well, my kiddos can hardly stand that they have to wait almost 4 more weeks for trick or treat!

-Beautiful colors!  I LOVE fall colors.  Every day that I watch my tree change colors makes me smile.  I love watching the yellows, oranges and reds all over the place.  Makes me happy happy happy!  And on the halloween note...I love ORANGE!  We were decorating for Halloween yesterday and pulled out the purple lights and orange lights and my little girlie got all excited.  Excited because she loves holiday decorating like her mama but she loves purple!  And I said to her, this is the best holiday ever!  We get to decorate with purple and orange (and black)  I love orange and you love purple!  And that put a big fat smile on her adorable face!  She is definitely my daughter!

-The weather!  I love myself some 60's.  Don't get me wrong, I love summer!  LOVE summer!  I love to be warm and not cold.  But, I also love to wear hooded sweatshirts, jeans and fun sweaters.  So, as long as we don't dip much below 50-55, I love October weather.  Cool nights, comfortable sunny days. 

-The food!  I gave into fall food last week when we had a few dips in temps.  That and I could hardly stand staring at squash at the farmer's market anymore and not buying it!  Then, at Sam's club I saw the 3 pack of pumpkin and well, that was it!  I mean I had to buy it, what if we had a shortage again?!  That would be tragic!  Pumpkin anything rocks!  Then, I pulled out the pumpkin blondie recipe.  I tried to make it twice and had to keep reminding myself I was out of a couple of the key ingredients.  But everyone loves those so I can't wait to make those soon!  Yesterday I made some coconut pumpkin bread, nut free cherry chocolate chip granola bars for the kids (that's a secret recipe for now as I created it and I'm not sure when I want to share it), and spiced sweet potato blondies as a little treat for the family but still somewhat healthy.  Yes, I was a baking machine yesterday.  But in fall, on Sundays, I often bake, make and create for the week so we have lots of healthy alternatives to grab for snacks, breakfasts or pre and post sport meals.  I also made some sweet potato hummus last week that was AWESOME!  so I will share that with you soon.  Oh and finally, apple butter...tried that for the first time ever.  Wow!  fun stuff!  See...I love fall food!

-Apple Picking!  Although the apple crop is super slim this year, we still managed to fit in some apple picking.  A little pricey but man did we have fun!  Its a tradition that my parents started with us when we were little and I hope to keep it going for many many years.  We always have fun and what's not to love about a fresh apple!  I only love apples for about 3 months out of the year, then they aren't as good anymore.

-Pumpkin patches and harvest festivals.  Only in October should you go to a pumpkin patch (in my opinion anyway)  Its something we always reserve for a weekend day.  I love to look at all the shapes and sizes and take fun pictures.  I can't wait to go this year!  Seriously, I can't wait! 

-Football!  Yes, football starts in September but I kind of half watch it the first few weeks.  For some reason when sports overlap (baseball and football) I can't quite get into one until the other is over.  Well, last year we had baseball quite a bit into October but this year our poor Brewers will end their season this week and while that makes me very sad as I love myself some baseball, I can now actually sit and watch a Packer game rather than also worrying if the Brewers are winning or not.  I'm not a guy, I can't do multiple sports and remember every single thing I want to remember.  My hubby on the other hand can remember every stat of every player or every sport that day.  Weird.  Maybe they can multi task?  Oh no, they can't.  They can only multi watch!

-Finally, Breast Cancer awareness month.  Now, this maybe isn't something to get super excited about but there are so many great fundraisers this month and actually a lot of fun things associated with raising money for an extremely important organization!  Well and everything turns pink.  I love pink.  Not as much as orange, but I love pink!  I also made a few important decisions this month.  My doctor recommended that I get a baseline mammogram sometime this year and I decided that October was the perfect month for that so I have that coming up (and honestly I'm not really dreading it, I'm looking at it as a healthy decision and maybe something I can do for myself in this important month) and I have been needing some new running shoes and have tried on a few different pairs.  Well, I made my decison based on something rather unique.  Yes, I was price shopping as I usually do, but I have been debating between a couple pairs that are similar in price.  Then I saw that finish line was donating $10 of every pair of these shoes sold to Susan G Komen and that was it, sign me up.  So these babies are on their way to my house soon!  And I've never had pink running shoes before so I'm pretty excited. These are a brand new shoe by Asics, first of its kind.  They are revamping their running shoe line so this shoe is supposed to be very similar to a shoe I have worn in the past and really like so I'm excited to see if it holds to be true.  But even if I don't love them I'll still keep them for bumming around and know that I donated to a good cause by purchasing them.  (oh and don't worry, I didn't pay full price, I had a coupon :)

So that's about it I think.  All the reasons why this is going to be ROCKTOBER!  I hope you all enjoy this time of year as well!  We had a very busy and sort of rough September so my mood already changed this morning when I realized it was a new month and my favorite month at that.  Time to re-focus and enjoy all those fun things I mentioned already! 

Now tell me...what is your favorite part of October? 

Hey, look who's back...and candy corn season has started

This is the time of year where so much fun stuff happens and I think to write about it all the time so finally I just said, do it!  There have been so many things going on and so many changes in my life since last I wrote that I will eventually uncover through various posts but today I wanted to share something COMPLETELY UNHEALTHY but oh so festive and oh so me :) 

See...I discovered these last week on the news while I was working out and promptly finished my workout and RAN to our front desk to share the news with 2 of my co-workers who I knew would be just as excited as I was...and they were.

Then, a couple days ago I got a text from one of those gals saying, I got a present for you at target today, guess what it is.  I knew immediately!!  And then today, she brought them in...and shared them with everyone and the package disappeared in minutes, literally.  It was fall candy sugar heaven all poured into one delicious cookie!  Oh the sweet creations I can make with these bad boys!

They taste like candy corn, they smell like candy corn and to anyone who really knows me they probably scream my name!!  Rest assured everyone, I have tried them and they are delish...almost too sweet (perish the thought!) as I have not been eating many sweets lately, but still too fun to ignore!

 

One last thing I will share as I was talking to my co-worker today is that for those that do indeed love candy corn we decided its only this time of year that we love it and that it is so irresistable for some unknown reason and SO SO good but for 2 months only, then it wears off and the craving doesn't hit again until september.  Is there something in the "fall air" that causes candy corn cravings?  I don't know but I am trying SO hard to ignore mine!  I at least make myself wait until October and this year it may even be til my birthday so as to avoid the ugly sugar high I don't need or want and to protect my poor body from such damage.  I don't think I can let them go completely...it'll be a true test of will power!