Menu Monday - Trim Healthy Mama 2

Last week was our first full week trying to navigate doing all of our meals on the THM plan, and we had some really big wins. We loved several of the new recipes we tried, and feel really confident that we can make this plan work for us.

I did go through a little bit of detox being off of sugar and Splenda this last week, but I'm over the hump and moving on to greener pastures. It's hard to tell if that's the case because I also was dealing with some sinus issues and possibly some weather related headaches too -- so who knows, but all I know is that this morning I woke up and have been running all day.

I got up and immediately made breakfast -- Chocolate Waffles with Strawberries -- which meant that I ground some oatmeal into flour and used the waffle iron! Yay, ME! I put some mini chocolate chips and sliced strawberries on the boys' waffles, but for John and I - we just used the sliced strawberries and a 1/2 TBS of butter.

Tyler has fallen in love with some of these new foods -- which is amazing -- we are hoping to inch him onto the plan as well in a bit of a modified version. He LOVES the Strawberry Cheesecake Shake -- as you can tell -- since it is an afternoon snack everyday. I try to time it to be around his dinner time -- because they eat much earlier than Mom & Dad do. So we include it as a part of his dinner.

Have a great week and let me know if you're doing the THM plan too! I'd love to hear your favorite meal ideas!

International Boys

We've taken to liking some unconventional cartoons in our house -- thanks to YouTube! I'm not even sure how these two stumbled on these cartoons from other countries, but I know that they will watch them in English or any other language that they find... they just don't care. It's amazing. I think it would make me crazy to not know what they are saying.

Masha and the Bear was the first one that Tyler found, and loved it... and it was completely in Russian. I don't think to this date, we've found an episode of this one that has been translated to English.

Next up, we added in Ben & Holly as well as Peppa Pig - which is in English - but is more formal than what we have here in the US. So the boys started saying "quite" a bunch, and instead of vacation they would say "holiday." They also changed Santa's name to "Father Christmas" for a year or two. These boys crack me up!

Somewhere along the way they picked up Tayo the Little Bus from Korea, and literally for months that was all they would watch. It was cute, and had a lot of English episodes -- so they learned a bit by watching it about problem solving and being a good citizen & friend. Doesn't hurt that they are little buses and all sorts of other vehicles -- so it's perfect for a boy. They've also got an app or two that the boys were able to put on their iPads and enjoy.

Finally, we've added Pororo (which they say "Pododo") and they enjoy these cartoons so much too - I'd say it's our newest and most recent Korean cartoon love. These sometimes have some questionable content, but if you don't mind potty humor -- hello, we have two boys -- it's not that bad. Some of them are really cute and endearing. 

The most recent thing they've gotten is the Pororo Penquin Run app -- and I'm telling you these kids are hooked... well, lets be real - the 42 year old kid in the house is hooked too. It's their first real taste of a video game, and they love it. Thankfully, the game works on hearts that you earn over time... so they can play 6 times and then they have to wait about and hour or so before the hearts are fully restored again. So that does help with learning how to be patient. Although, John plays every night after they go to bed -- racks up about 30,000 or so coins, and within about an hour of them waking up -- they burn through all of the coins! It's a vicious cycle that plays out daily.

I'd like to think that these cartoons from all over the World gives the boys a bit of a worldview in learning different cultures, but really I'd just be happy if they learned some good citizenship skills from watching these.

Magic Schoolbus

Tyler tends to be a very quick study on things that he watches from different television shows -- like Octonauts, Wallykazam!, Word World, Bubble Guppies, and Super Why -- so I thought that for Christmas this year we would introduce him to a more science based show.

Yesterday he watched 1/2 of the first DVD in the series and loved it! It was actually really cute to watch how the explained things, and explored. They covered some of the solar system, the digestive system, and all about germs on the three he watched yesterday.

There are 52 episodes in total on the whole series, and I think that he is hooked. I'm excited to show him that Amazon also has a bunch of kits that you can buy to go along with the series and do your own learning experiments. In the meantime, we have a couple of dinosaur dig/experiment kits that I hope we will find time to work on this spring, and we still have our little gardens that the Easter Bunny brought last year that we need to set up.

It's an amazing privilege to get to be with them when they are learning and to see their minds working through things. It can also be extremely frustrating because I worry that they aren't picking up enough -- but that is just my worry and desire to do the best I can for them.

My only hope is that James will jump in and watch some of these along with Tyler at some point too. I know he is picking up things, but sometimes it's really hard to figure out what he knows and what he doesn't.

Menu Monday - Trim Healthy Mama 1

We decided to move up our plan to going full force this week -- so here is our menu plan -- lunches are blank for the first couple of days because I just wasn't ready to plan those quite yet. I'm struggling with figuring out what will make the best plan for lunches at least until we get some leftovers to rotate in for lunches. 

It'll be a bit of a work in progress for a few days/weeks while we get used to this... sort of like remembering to eat every 3-4 hours -- I'm just not normally that regimented -- so I'm going to have to adjust my way of thinking. For instance, I need to go eat a snack here immediately because I completely forgot. 

Part of that is because I feel like crud -- and have all weekend. I'll have to work through that before I gain full control over all of this.

I'm excited to try out some of these recipes this week though, and test out our alternative dessert snacks. They sound pretty good, and I'm also excited to see if I can fool Tyler with the Chocolate Zucchini Cake this weekend. 

I bought a TON of vegetables yesterday, but we load up on those in just about every meal - so I just hope that it was enough. 

I made sure to get some good quality cocoa powder. I've made the switch to Stevia instead of my old standby of Splenda. I'm so glad I did after reading what the worst sweetners for your body are. 8 Best and Worst Sweeteners for your health  -- sad that my old standby is the #2 worst for your health... and I always believed the absolute worst was Sweet 'n Low, but that's actually #3. Making the switch away from Splenda has been pretty easy for me - I got some H-E-B packets of Stevia which are approved for the THM plan and other than some small issues with getting it to dissolve -- it's been great. I will do my best to rid our house from the pink packets too -- but that might take a little longer.

Books by the Million

These are the books I got from the first two Christmases we celebrated with family. My people know me well, and I got three or four more before all of our celebrations were complete!

Last year, I started one of the Goodreads Reading Challenges -- with a goal of 25 books. Which I promptly forgot about until late September or early October. I'd read a few books in the early months of the year, but only maybe about 10 or 12 of them. I ended up finishing my challenge at 27 or 28 books for the year...

I thought maybe I'd tell you about some of my favorite books from my 2015 reading list.

All three of the books by Melanie Shankle were amazing reads. I read them in order Sparkly Green Earrings -- oh my stars... I've never laughed harder (or so I thought...)

Next was The Antelope in the Living Room -- Now I know I've never laughed so hard at a book in my life. Truly the funniest thing I've read EVER! It's a memoir about marriage, and seriously -- Melanie is my spirit animal. 

 Her latest book, Nobody's Cuter Than You -- is a beautiful portrait of true friendship mixed in with some hilarious stories. I just love the raw emotional journey of living life with these two ladies. I only wish that I find my Gulley one day!

After finishing those books, I read High Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond. (aka The Pioneer Woman) I loved this look at how she was set off to move to Chicago, and ended up falling in love with Marlboro Man. It's such an adorably romantic book and I just enjoyed it all the way through.

I finished out the year pouring through the Hannah Swensen series -- I'm on book 7 or 8 of the series, and I love them because each one picks up a couple of months after the previous one ended. So it's like you're living right along with them as their little town keeps trucking along. They are about a girl that owns a cookie shop in a small town, but she keeps being in the wrong place at the wrong time -- discovering dead bodies. They've started making these into movies on the Hallmark Channel as well -- but what's funny is that Alison Sweeney plays the lead character who in the book is a girl with frizzy red hair and is a little thicker around the middle.

These are a few of my favorites from 2015... and now I've got a goal of reading 35 books this year -- but with 12 more Hannah Swensen books at least and one of my all time favorites -- The Women's Murder Club coming out with the next installment in May... I feel like I'll be good on my goal and hopefully a bit over on those numbers. What are some of your favorites?

New Testament 90

I mentioned before that my sisters, Dad, and I are embarking on a shared reading plan this year where we are reading through the 27 books of the New Testament within the first 90 days of this year.

We read 3 chapters a day, and track them with an app called Bible Progress - it's on my iPhone, but I'd bet that there is a similar app for Android users too. For us, we started on January 1st, but you could jump in where ever works for you - dates don't really matter -- it's all about having some quiet time with the Lord and learning what he has to tell you each day.

It has already shown to be applicable at where I've been so far this year -- working through walking away from some things, and knowing that the most graceful thing you can do at times is walk away and not let things continue to cause you to act in ways that you don't like.

I take full responsibility for my actions, and I do my best in all things to act as best I can... sometimes though, life throws you curve balls and that is where you either stay on that wild ride or you hop off and try to be better. I'm learning that sometimes that IS the Godly way - to make sure that you don't fall into traps that repeatedly cause you to do things that are unpleasing to Him.

To say that I've failed and sinned sometimes is an understatement - I've allowed things to go on and for myself to react in ways that are not in line with my beliefs, but I strongly believe that being real and owning those things are the best way to show the world what a Godly person is like. Instead of acting like I've got it all together 100% of the time -- because I don't. I try and I fail, daily. I just pick myself up and try again the next day.

Every time I read the Bible -- even passages that I've read before -- they mean different things based on what is currently going on in my life. It's amazing how a book that is so very old can speak to us today as clearly as it did in the days it was written.

I also am reading this time around while the boys are awake - in years past I read when they were sleeping, but I think it's good for them to see me: A) reading anything, B) reading God's word, and C) using the words  to help guide our lives.

I hope that you'll jump off on a reading journey of your own -- it may not look like mine, and I'm not 100% sure what mine will look like after March -- I'm thinking of reading through Psalms and Proverbs -- then moving through the Old Testament.

Homeschool Update Kindergarten

These two jokers are doing so well with their Kindergarten year -- with the exception of wanting to do any writing at all. I'm trying not to freak out about that -- considering for James that he was still at a 7 month old's level for his fine motor skills a little over a year ago. Tyler is picking it up, but just doesn't have a whole lot of interest in it.

Thankfully, Momma has a summer full of supplemental work planned for these guys to make sure that we are on track for 1st grade in the fall.

They've done really well learning their math, and letters up to this point... so now we will move on to the second phase of Kindergarten. This is the first year that we've been able to stick with our schooling plan -- and we couldn't be more thrilled that it's going well. There are times that some might think it's not going -- or that they are delayed in certain areas... but I just trust in the Lord that they will catch up and thrive as they pick up more and more concepts over the next couple of years.

I use a really cool planning program (HomeschoolPlanet.com) to keep us on track and it helps keep up with grades and all of their transcripts in terms of days in school and things like that. We will expand what we track as time goes on, but this year it's really more of a pass/fail type of tracking for me... where they are doing their daily lessons and getting 100% for that. Next year we will start marking things incorrect and giving grades based on that, but also making sure that they go back and rework the things that are wrong. Naturally, John and I are the only ones that will see their grades at this point, but I want them to understand what it means to get graded based on the work you put in -- I think that is a positive lesson for kids to know that working hard and doing your best can be rewarded.

I'm just thrilled that this year is working out and meeting our expectations -- it was only 6 months ago that we started this year knowing that it was an important step in knowing whether we would be able to actually pull this homeschooling thing off, and for now -- it looks like we are on track to keep it up as long as they are happy and learning!

Friendship

In November & December, a friend of mine needed some prayer support from me on a situation... so we prayed through it and found a solution that worked for her. I mention this because it leads up to the bigger message I'm trying to portray.

Over the last couple of months, God really orchestrated a change in our relationship -- and while things were being worked out in her life -- we were being brought closer together. Have you ever just been able to sit back and watch God working in your life to bring about the best things that you couldn't even imagine you needed?

This has happened to me before, but it's been a good while since I've seen it so clearly. In this situation, we clearly had things shown to us that we never knew about each other before. I mean to say that we are two peas in a pod is such an understatement. There are so many parallels between us -- and we've known each other for around 10 years, but we've never been close in any way. Until now.

Things started changing for us last summer when we were thrown together in leadership roles in a homeschool group that we were both a part of, and it blossomed as that group was terminated... we formed another group together, but also both needed to take some time to heal the wounds from the mass chaos that we had just witnessed in the failed group.

God has since presented the opportunity for us to lean on each other in another situation, and I've noticed such a remarkable new friendship coming together. We've got shared goals for our relationships with God, homeschool group, our health, and our families. We are setting out to work together, and continue to see where our blossoming friendship will go. I can truly see God's hands all over it, and I'm so grateful that our father sees the importance of helping our friendship along and orchestrating the events that have transpired since last summer for the betterment of a much needed Godly friendship.

Speaking of our HS group:


Shortly before Christmas, a group of ladies in our homeschool group got together to have a night of fellowship & friends. We stayed in and had the option of bringing some projects that we needed to work on -- like gifts to wrap, Christmas cards to stuff, whatever you needed to get done. It was one of the best nights I'd shared with friends in a while. I truly loved it, and in the process we had a cookie swap too. In addition to this, we set up a secret snowman sister program -- where for the winter months, we each have a secret snowman that we will love on and support through notes and small gifts to help make her feel loved.

I can't wait to see where this group will take us, and where the friendships will flourish through like minded moms. I just know that I feel like God has finally put us in a place where we belong, and where we are loved on -- as well as able to love on others. Our next Mom's Night In event is at the end of this month where we will play games and have walking tacos -- and be able to pick up our first secret snowman gifts!

If you are in the Houston area, and are looking for a supportive group of homeschool families that would welcome you with open arms -- please let me know -- I would love to hook you up with our group.

New Year, New Me

This year, I've decided to try the Trim Healthy Mama Plan - and totally revamp the way that my family looks at food. For years we have done the no carb thing -- or left off some food group in the hope that we could get healthier. This year, I think I've found the secret that I've been looking for.

It's not about complete elimination of a food group all together, but just changing the way that you combine and fuel your body. This has amazing promise to help not only with trimming our waistlines, but also helping with lessening my chronic illnesses as well! So if you're out there wondering how to help reverse the insulin resistance or diabetes that is plaguing your body... I'm telling you that you owe it to yourself to check this book out and read it with a new outlook on eating.

There is still much to learn from this book in my journey, but we are starting this week with breakfasts and snacks -- then next week we will add in lunches, and finally in week 3 we will add in dinners... somewhere in there we will also add in exercise too.

I sat there over the weekend basically feeling completely overwhelmed by the meal planning aspect of this plan -- mainly because I want to make sure that we have everything we need on hand instead of being caught off-guard and needing to make bad choices just for the sake of serving a meal. When I finally found someone else's guide to starting the plan -- I found my saving grace. I was sitting there dumbfounded over needing to plan all of this out... but then I realized that it was going to be okay to just get one or 2 meals a day planned for this first week.

I'm also working on adding more water to my daily intake. I've cut WAY back on Cokes and Dr. Peppers -- but I want to get them completely gone again like they were at the end of the summer. I've only had one here any there since I quit them in July... but they really aren't good for you so I'd like to get them cut completely. If you're sitting there thinking that you can't possibly live without them -- just know that I was right there with you initially. I didn't think there was a world without having one every other day or so... but I'm here to tell you that I really don't miss them much at all when I'm not on them. I think I had one craving which is where I initially had one, but I really didn't enjoy it like I did before... so trust me there is a world afterwards.

I made this document for meal planning with Trim Healthy Mama -- so I'm going to add the image to this page, but if you find that it is not in a good printable format -- please contact me, and I'd be thrilled to share it with you! 

My other main addition for 2016 so far has been that I'm doing a Bible reading challenge with my family -- my sisters & Dad are on board with me -- and we are reading 3 chapters of the New Testament each day for 90 days -- which will get us from Matthew through Revelations by the end of March. We are only on day 4 -- so please feel free to jump in with us, and let me know that you're reading with us so that I can check in with you from time to time. We are using the Bible Progress app to track our progress -- it's a free Apple app -- but I'd bet there is one for Android phones as well.

My final 2016 goal for now to share with you... is that I'm going to do my level best to be back on this ol' blog of mine as much as possible. Right now my goal is to post at least every weekday, but I'd like to get back to doing it daily as part of my regular routine... so bare with me while I knock the old cob webs off this site, and my fingers... I hope that you'll like where our journey on this page is about to take us, and that you'll jump in to let me know that you're here with us!