Diet Tips

I am so glad to see that amazingly fit people have to start over sometimes. We all need to re-boot now and then, and it's a good thing, not something to get frustrated over. Think New Years Resolutions! It's great to try again to refine ourselves and become better.

So, Zuzka and diet... Z just started over in January with her exercise program and I'm excited to be one of her workout warriors and to be off to a new fresh start again - but working out isn't the hard part for me, it's food. But guess what - Z falls off her wagon now and then and has started over with her diet before, just like me, and that is ok! Isn't that nice to know? So I just started over (again) myself with diet and I feeling totally on my game right now, it's exciting. Mentally on my game and emotionally. Of course I'm only on diet day 2, but it's gonna be good.

Probably the biggest help for me this time around (working off baby weight from my 8th) was while watching Biggest Loser a few weeks ago... the nutritionist took them to the grocery store and told them all this:

When you go shopping, pretend your cart is your stomach. You want to fill it up first with fresh produce, your veggies and fruit, so put those in your cart first, then your proteins and healthy oils, and last the carbs.

(shopping basket if you're not feeding a big family)

That tip has totally helped me to stay on target when I go grocery shopping so I don't make things harder for myself here at home. Fill it with the produce first! Before I'd wait till the end to do that cause I don't want to squish the tomatoes or grapes, but that let me to overloading on unnecessary stuff - better to get the essential veggies and fruit first and really load up on them.


Another diet tip - You've got to create the right environment in your home/office if you want to lose weight. In my own words, here's great advice from Dr. Phil's book The Ultimate Weight Loss Solution


It's not about motivation or will power - you've got to create the right environment for yourself or you will not succeed. Make a Plan! Dr. Phil gives this example in his book: Imagine if you were traveling on a plane and the pilot suddenly passed out and YOU were the one who had to land the plane safely or you and everyone would die. You would be HIGHLY motivated and have a lot of "will" to want to land that plane, right? Yes. But without the proper skills and knowledge, that will power isn't going to get you there and you are going to crash and burn.

Same thing with diet.

You've got to have the skills and knowledge to succeed. One of those keys is ENVIRONMENT. You've got to have the right environment at home. Buy vegetables and buy fruit, buy healthy food and DON'T BUY THE JUNK food or things that you know you crave or are a weakness for you. I can resist the foods on the grocery shelf when I'm shopping much more than I can if it's in my pantry, so don't put it in your pantry!


You can make healthy food taste and look wonderful!

I just got the book South Beach Diet - I'd heard about it before and knew it was similar to Zuzka's recommendations. I'm not doing the diet recipes exactly as outlined in the book, but I'm eating more like Zuzka talked about once, where you can eat carbs before or after a workout, and then eat fruit, veggies, and protein for the rest of the day. It's working great so far, I just finished one week and I'm on my game right now. I have about 7 inches on my waist (abt 15 pounds) I'd like to lose.
abs 70 % diet 30% gym
Let's get that fat off. And remember, it's possible to get there with Z's intense 10-15 minute workouts, because:

Must Have Lego Book

The kids got this book for Christmas from Corey's parents, and I must say "It is AWESOOOME!" (see minute 5:23 - 5:28)


We have a small bedroom that is now known as the "Lego Room" and it's got 2 tables and 2 desks and a motherload of legos all scattered on the floor, and the kids go in there and just work work work now that they've got all these exciting new ideas in their heads from this book (mostly my kids ages 6 thru 11 ... Joe's starting to think himself too old for Legos... sad day)

But most of the other kids are doing all sorts of creative stuff like:

Mel made Wall-e (isn't he cute!) this was her own idea, but was inspired by the robot section in the book. I like the book cause it gives them ideas, and then I mostly like to see the stuff they make up on their own. Do you like the lego Family pictures Mel made for her girl's house below?

The wife and hubby kissing on the left there made me laugh. :)

Bedroom furniture with vanity! (This is Abi's with help from Mel)

Hyrum made Indiana Jones' office

This is Indy's living room - not sure if it's a tv or fireplace, but many valuable artifacts on the mantle there. So the book is great, keeps the kids going and going with lots of creative ideas and imagination.

Getting Our Stories Straight

I just listened to a talk called "Zoram and I: Getting Our Stories Straight" on tv and I LOVED IT, so I had to share. Read it here or watch it here or get the MP3 to listen here

I guess I loved the talk because it brought beautifully together many things I've been thinking about, such as Josh Powell and the story he believed and told himself (this article).

Also, Corey recently read a manuscript called "The Belief Window" for a book that Hyrum Smith is working on with Spencer Johnson (author of "Who Moved My Cheese") - and I love and totally believe the idea that we can change our attitude about our lives by changing how we view the story of what happened, or by changing what we believe as in the Belief Window or the Belief Box in our heads, which Virginia Pearce explains in this book "Through His Eyes":


This book is kind of like a little work book to get you to look inside your head about what you believe, and to only put things back in your head that you want there - I wrote in a journal as I read and I wrote out my beliefs and sorted them into these three three categories she suggests:

- not true at all -

(Lies we tell ourselves like "I'm a failure if my house is messy" and "If something goes wrong in my family, it's always my fault")

- true -

(with a small "t" like good advice, like "I believe I should make a contribution, be responsible, do my share of the work and a little bit more" or "I believe if you plan well and work your plan, you can be successful")

- True -

(with a capital T" - Eternal Truths that are true and always will be no matter the circumstance, such as "I am free to exercise my agency and I am accountable to God" and "I will not be here on this earth forever")

So the idea of a "Belief Box" from Virgina Pearce's book and the talk about Zoram and "getting our stories straight" went hand in hand I thought, so watch or read that talk, and then read the book too, it is excellent!

Pico De Gallo

I learned how to make this delicious little condiment during our time in Costa Rica. Our housekeeper/maid Shirley came and cleaned the house we rented several times a week and also cooked for us from time to time. Often when we'd eat the delicious food, we'd ask " Wow! How do you make this?!" or "What is in this?!" to which she'd reply "Limon y sal." Lime and salt. Oh. Well, wow! It's good! Same thing once in Brazil at a BBQ (aren't we such the travelers) the meat was amazing and we were asking "Wow! What did you put on this meat?!?!" The answer: salt. Well, hey, I can do that! And we haven't had it for a while, but I do cook up a pretty savory Brazilian steak, want to come over for a bbq?


Ok, so back to Pico de Gallo - I watched her make it a few times, no real recipe to follow, just chop up the stuff, squeeze in the lime, sprinkle on the salt. Here's how I usually make it:

4 tomatoes
2 limes
1 onion
1 bundle of cilantro
salt

I doubled this recipe as you can tell from the picture, minus I didn't have enough cilantro on hand, which I'm sure Ethan will be happy about because he "hates that stuff" (...not sure if he's really my child)


So chop it up, mix it all up, sprinkle on salt to taste, and enjoy it on your frijoles or deviled eggs, which is what is on our dinner menu tonight :)

13 Years

Today is our Anniversary. 13 years of wedded bliss. Yesterday Corey and I went skiing to celebrate - his parent's watched 7 kids, my parents watched Sophia. It was fun.

I told Corey to go easy on me, since it's been 2 years since I'd hit the slopes, and before that it had been 10 years since I'd skied. ...and this is where he led me to on our first run...

And this is now I looked for most of that run...
I told him I got to lead next time, and I did, and we followed the signs with arrows that pointed to the "Easiest way". It was much better that time. Much more fun to ski if you are able to stand on your two feet.

For dinner we went to a fancy restaurant where we went on our 1 year anniversary. We didn't make a reservation, but we will next time we go there on a weekend. Got there at 7:30, they had one reservation slot for 9, so we sat and talked and twiddled our thumbs and let Sophia suck Corey's fingers and I took lots of pictures of her, I kept thinking "Mel is going to love these pictures!!!! Sophia is so cute!!!!"

The food was amazing, desserts were wonderful, but my favorite part of the meal was these things.

I don't know what they were, but they were delicious! And I love Corey, looks like our "Happily ever after" is gonna work out!

Chore Boards

At a "service auction" in August, I auctioned off a service of making chore boards. Rachel won that auction bid, and even though it almost took me 6 months, I finally got it done. She has twin girls, Lacy and Claire, and she decided pink for Lacy, purple for Claire. Melodie helped me finish them and even donated the cute paper we used for the background, which I thought was perfect cause it helped tie them together even with different colored letters. I should have taken pictures of them with the ribbon, they were darn cute. I might ask for another paper like this from Mel for Sophia's board - the picture doesn't show it but the paper was glittery, very pretty.


As for my kids' chore boards, they are not used regularly for the Accountable Kids system right now with the kids in school, but the boards do serve as a holding place for their "paid chores" cards, which we started after reading the book "The Parenting Breakthrough" (to teach them how to manage money)-


Still figuring it out, but right now they earn 50 cents for practicing music for 30 minutes, 25 cents for 15 minutes of Spanish, and 25 cents for 15 minutes of work. It's kinda nice cause, as you can see from our December paid chores experiment, most of the kids are slackers (that's Joe's card on the left) so we didn't have to pay them much, and with the money they do have, they've paid for Christmas and birthday presents for friend's parties, bought their own shoes, Joe paid to go to Airborne with a friend, stuff like that, things that I would pay for for them before, now they are learning a little bit of money management - and they're learning the Circle of Fifth's at the same time! (Corey's such a great music teacher - the kids are doing awesome - Joe plays the clarinet, Mel plays the flute, Ethan and Hyrum the soprano sax, it's great)

Happy Anniversary

To Mom and Dad ~

Happy Anniversary!

Stinkin' Cute Wafee

Oh I love my Wafee

(aka Sophia)

Sophia was originally named "Sophia" by her parents, but they took after two year old Lily when she started calling Sophia "Fifi" which we all adored and thus mimicked, then when we all started calling Sophia "Fifi", Lily started calling her "Wafee" - We liked that pet name too so started calling her "Wafee"

- and then Lily started calling her "Sophia".


I usually call her Wafee if she's screaming her head off like she's being attacked by monsters (or the overly adoring 4 year old Abi.)


The kids feel so proud of themselves if they can get her to laugh - they squeal "SoFEEEa!" when they're playing with her and she's laughing or making raspberries.


And we call her "Pretty-pretty-pretty!" when she's looking up at us with those big baby eyes.


She is beauty and innocence squished together inside a wonderfully baby smelling chubby pink slobbery bundle of heaven on earth. I feel so lucky to have her. (what is that baby smell, it's like sweet milk and baby softness and something, I don't know what it is, but I love to bury my head in her neck and cheeks and just breath in her baby smell, love!)

Riding A Horsey

Abi was playing so sweetly with Lily last Friday - Usually she's in the older sibling mode of "my little sister is bugging me and messing up my stuff" but Friday she was being the motherly older sister and led out in playing a game, helped Lily get dressed, and spoke most every word in a sweet Cinderella princess voice, it was just cute.

And then they topped it off by making me laugh when I saw them in the backyard like this -


Ethan and Corey were the only ones home, so I called them to come see and went and grabbed my camera, Abi and Lily were riding the horsey (one of those wood deer thingys) in the backyard. Cute cute


Thanks for being such a nice big sister today Abi! Do it again tomorrow, k? It makes life just so much better all around.

Making Valentines

The kids made some Valentine Roses over at Corey's parent's house this weekend. They worked hard making roses. Melodie had worked on them during several visits and almost had enough for her whole class until she left them out on Monday morning where Lily and Abi discovered them and ate them while I took a bath. Foolish on my part to 1) attempt taking a bath while children are awake and 2) not put 2 and 2 together and realize that the only reason they were not pounding on the door to join me in the tub was because they were up to no good.

Anyway, the flowers turned out cute. Ethan made a bouquet for his teacher and made simple valentines for his class.


Joe donated his flowers to Melodie (such a gentleman).

Do you like Mel's and Ethan's new glasses? We all got two pairs at America's best, two pair plus a free eye exam for $69.95 or something, they were all over due for a check up. We got out eye exams done on the day of the Brian Regan show, I thought it was appropriate. (They don't call it a quiz...) and I was laughing as the eye doctor said "number 1... or number 2" with each of us.

One quick tutorial for how to make valentine roses here. :) We used 4x4 inch squares of cellophane wrap, and we also stabbed our kisses instead of wrapping them like they do at that link.


Joe stabbing his kisses with a thick wire above, then wrapping the cellophane shut with a smaller wire below

Then wrap it all with green floral tape.


This is why we almost ran out of chocolates as we made flowers...
Hope you all had a nice Valentine's day!