Feels a little like fall!

Seems like a good day to put steel cut oats in the crock pot! 

Food prep Sundays

This is what I do all day Sunday so I don't have to do it all week! 

Day 2

So I have a terrible relationship with food. I eat for no reason. Today I thought about giving up. Not because this is impossible (it's supposed to be hard, it's a challenge) but because I just want to eat. Not because I'm hungry; because I'm used to just eating. What a stupid reason to give up. On day two. 

That's WHY I'm not giving up. Because I don't have a good reason to quit, but a million to keep going. 

Tonight while checking over my screenshot of the program I discovered that my morning snack was Apple/pear/berries AND 12 unsalted almonds. I thought it was OR. So imagine my delight to find that I can have both! It's the little things. 

My legs are sore from Day 1, and today has squats. Yikes! I felt more confident in the gym today because I knew how to do all the exercises without watching the videos. And, because day 2 has no abs. 

Body Forward Challenge : Prep work

So last week I decided to make a few changes even before I decided to do the Body Forward Challenge. Little things, like upping my water intake and working on portion control. I went to the gym during my lunch just to get in some light mileage on the elliptical and inch towards fitness. I got in a good sweat, got my heart rate up and was excited to start making these changes.

That's ultimately when I realized I needed The Plan. The all-encompassing to-do list that would put me on the track to success. So I bit the bullet, signed up for Body Forward and waited for my products to arrive, which they did on Friday!

This HUGE box arrived via UPS and I couldn't wait to dig into it. 30 days worth of stuff was a LOT. Two flavors of protein shakes, boxes of packets and containers of powder. A shaker with a bright green top for said shakes, which was currently packed with a sample of five different Isagenix add-ons.

Time out. Why Isagenix? I asked myself, I asked Val and did a little research. Could you do the 30 day challenge without Isagenix? The answer was no. In order to really track your diet and make sure your body was getting the exercise it needed along with nutrition, you needed the products. It's a CHALLENGE, meant to expose you to new ways of eating, thinking, planning and exercising. I was intimidated. I mean, what if I hated them? Don't you get tired of drinking your meals? Why can't I just eat a sensible breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks? I knew my answer to that one immediately...if I could do it on my own, I would have and would have already done it. Val answered all of my questions (plant-based nutrition, tastes great, perfect for on-the-go moms, high protein, soy and gluten free, some dairy free options).

Back to the box. It was also full of bottles of powders to mix with water (for cleansing, mental clarity), bottles of pills (natural accelerator), something called "Snacks" (which looked nothing like the snacks I know), a training manual and CDs and a measuring tape.

I got an email with instructions on how to set up my Trainerize app, PDFs of the calendar I need, the recipes, the plan itself (checklists! oh how I love a checklist!) and the workouts.

I had all the things I needed to get me started and to be successful, and for once, I was really excited about doing something hard, something different, something new.

On Saturday I decided I needed to test out one of the shakes to make sure I could even stomach it. I went with the Natural Berry (dairy free) one and mixed it up with 8 oz of cold water. I immediately realized that it would need to be colder. The taste wasn't bad, but I like stuff COLD. So my first plan: put my water in my shaker cup the night before and refrigerate. I read over the plan, looked at some of the recipes and had them in my head when we went grocery shopping.

Since the plan includes shakes for breakfast and lunch and only cooking dinner, I actually spent less at the grocery store than I usually do! I mentally purchased lean proteins, veggies and fruits with the stuff I normally buy; the only real addition was nonfat greek yogurt (plain) that I can mix with fruit and oatmeal and call "dessert".

My second "aha" moment was that I had chosen the beginner at-home workout, and that would allow me to make room for excuses once I got home. No no, you're doing this Jessica. So I asked Erica to switch me to the gym workout. When I reloaded the app, I noticed I had the Intermediate Gym workout. Hmm. I looked through it and was immediately intimidated. I couldn't do this stuff! And it was 5-day gym instead of 3-day like beginner. I thought. I thought some more. Maybe I should do the intermediate? Maybe I should REALLY challenge myself with this. Then I kept it real. I need to set myself up for SUCCESS and starting with a plan that I know I can't maintain is not the way to do it. I emailed Erica again (already getting my money's worth out of the Fitness Coach part of this challenge!) and asked her to correct the mistake. Once the beginner workout loaded, I skimmed it and knew THIS was my ticket to success.

I should have spent all day Sunday poring over the workout plan, the diet plan, and really digging into what I would be doing for 30 days. But I'll be honest: it was Mother's Day. I didn't want to. I read just enough to get me started on Monday and decided Day 1 is more important than Day Zero, and really just hoped I could get it together and not let myself down. By far, the worst thing ever was taking my "before" pics on Day Zero and seeing myself in a sports bra. And then I had to take them again, because they didn't upload to the app the first time. My second round of before pics were post-Mother's Day- lunch, which involved two glasses of wine, Caesar salad and lobster ravioli. Doh.

I went to sleep feeling discouraged, hating that I let myself get so unhealthy, terrified of the next 30 days.

New food

So I went to the grocery store on a mission yesterday. I've found that breakfast is my Achilles heel - if I start the day off well, I feel better, I have more energy, I *want* to eat better. But let's face it. Sometimes, it's hard enough to get two dressed, clean, fed kids out the door by 645am and a biscuit on the way is just easier. But it's terrible for you when you make a habit of it. So this weekend I decided to make a plan. I had seen recipes for breakfast burritos you can freeze on Pinterest ages ago. I pulled up my Pinterest and decided to make a shopping list based on some foods I could feel good about eating, and feeding my kids. I stuck to mostly the "outside" of the store, because as you get closer the food becomes less real. When I went to check out, I was pleasantly surprised that 95% of my cart was fruit, veggie, whole grain and protein. Let's be honest, Hayden had to have chocolate syrup.

First up was the burritos. I LOVE eggs. And in the morning, that's what I'm craving, the protein. The bacon and eggs, not the biscuit itself. Eggs were on sale and I picked up some bacon, spinach and mushrooms. I figure I need to mix it up a little, so I went with a bacon egg & cheese version on whole wheat, and spinach, mushroom & egg on low carb tortilla with some Skinny Cow sun-dried tomato basil mozzarella cheese (man what a mouthful!). I made five of each, which gives me two full weeks of breakfast.

I also picked up the stuff to make carrot zucchini bars, which I'm hoping Lila will eat as well. She's been anti-green veggie lately so I'm trying to make it more fun. Anything she can feed herself is generally approved. I also made some homemade apple chips while the burritos were in the works. Couldn't be easier! I love dried fruit but it's stupid expensive. So I got two Red Delicious apples, cored and sliced, sprinkled with cinnamon and baked on parchment paper at 275 for two hours, turning after an hour. Voila, healthy snack! Next up will be the banana chips, but those jokers take FOUR hours.

I have the ingredients for zucchini boats (like a twice baked potato but minus the carbs) that I hope to prep tonight and cook one night this week. The recipe says they are best right out of the oven, so I may just cook one a night. I know Jay won't eat them, but Lila might! Hayden is definitely in an "I only like five things" phase so we'll just keep those in the rotation. Chicken was also on sale, so I'll be grilling up a week's worth of chicken to go with either brown rice or sweet potatoes, and my salad at lunch. I find when I have it ready to go in the fridge, I'll take my lunch and save money and not eat like crap. So here's to new food and preparation!

And I finally broke down and bought the Peace, Love & Low Carb cookbook on e-book when it was on sale this week. I can't wait to try out all the recipes!

Baby food!

We were going to wait until 6 months to start Lila on solids, just like we did with Hayden. But if the last five months have taught me anything, it's that babies are all different from one another. Lila sits in her high chair while we eat dinner, and she's absolutely obsessed with everything we put in our mouths. She watches every bite, every sip, and reaches to grab anything in her path. So we decided to try a little baby oatmeal and see how she felt about it.

She was a little suspicious at first, having spent her whole life so far on a liquid diet. But she got the hang of it pretty quickly, and seemed to like eating a little something at the table like us. Babies have a tendency to push stuff out of their mouths, so it's a fully focused affair to try to get about a tablespoon of oatmeal in her mouth at one sitting. But what a fun adventure!

Not bad for our first try! With the help of some friends and a few good websites, I've started making her baby food. I've only tried squash so far, but it was so quick and easy that I hope to make all of her food. We spend time at the local farmer's market every weekend, so I'm excited to pick some local produce to steam and puree, feed and freeze. I'm also excited to try some "out of the box" foods that Gerber doesn't make...like avocado, melons, beans and mango. The sky's the limit, right?

A visit to see some friends

On Christmas Eve-eve, as people are fond of calling it, I headed up the road to Charlotte to visit some friends. My college friend Stephanie gave birth to a premature baby girl in October, and she is still in the NICU. I left Hayden at home with Jay so I could go visit her in the hospital! But her sister had a fever, which kept her mom at home so I went to visit Stephanie and Lily at home instead. Lily is so fun to be around because she is so different from Hayden. She's a girl and younger than Hayden, so she's small and still more of a baby than a toddler, and sometimes you forget what that age is like! We had a good time hanging out and catching up before I had to get on the road again.

My good friend Liz from college lives in Washington state, but was on the east coast for a visit. Her family is in Clover, SC so I drove down to see her. Two hours is nothing when the other option is a four hour flight to see her! I had a great afternoon spending time with her and her family and eating a ton of great food. The thing that sucks about growing up is that we're all so far apart. But every once in awhile, the planets align and we get to be in the (relatively) same place and time.

Growing, growing...

My new favorite thing is to watch Hayden eat. He has developed this amazing independence which will not allow me to feed him anything other than yogurt or the occasional apple sauce for breakfast. All other meals are nearly impossible to get through without a spoon in his wee little hand. Meal times are now mess times and require more constant bathing, but I love it! He has gone from this a baby to this assertive, confident little boy who wants to do things for himself. He loves the spoon, and requires it for all food, even bread. However, when eating rice he holds the spoon in one hand and eats his rice with the other hand. I love this developmental stage and I love watching him be so proud of himself when he can do it all on his own.

He is also starting to enjoy coloring. He does pretend to eat the crayon about every 30 seconds so that I'll say excitedly, "Don't do it!". Then he giggles, colors a little more and then repeats the process. I love watching his little hands move, and the fascination on his face when he's created something. I'm not one of those parents that sees his first drawing and declares him Picasso, but I gotta tell ya...it melts my heart to see little scribbles on a piece of paper courtesy of my very own probably-left-handed baby boy.

He is also terrible smitten with his dog as of late. He wants to hug him and hold him and lay on him, none of which are much fun for Oscar. He takes it in stride, but I find myself having to separate them at least once a day by putting Oscar on the other side of the baby gate to get a break. Hayden means well but sometimes Oscar can't take all the poking, prodding and pulling. He's a good sport.

A good day

There are good days and bad days during a deployment. Yesterday appeared to be a bad one. Nothing earth-shattering, just one of those days. I left my house at 10:15am and it takes about 12 minutes to get to work. So imagine my surprise when I was still sitting at the gate to get on post at 10:55 am. I finally got through the lights, the gate and was headed to work when I realized there was NO parking. Anywhere. Not close to, not far away from the bank. Not ANYWHERE. I drove around post for another 10 minutes before I finally found a spot outside of a maintenance bay that's about a 4 minute walk from the bank. Of all days, this is when I decided not to be a slave to the snow and wear cute shoes. An unfortunate decision, since I had to walk four minutes in the snow to get to work. And it turned out to be unfortunate again when that afternoon I had to walk QUICKLY to my car to avoid towing. It may have been an idle threat from the MPs, but I definitely did not need to deal with that. I had a parking ticket, which we don't pay for if it's on post; it just goes to our commander. I called Staff Duty to give them a heads up on the ticket, and to protest its validity. Situation is as of yet unresolved.

It had been a long day, but I did have a fun evening to look forward to. I made a cheesecake Monday night and before I left for work, I put a spinach lasagne in the crock pot. I came home to a delightful smelling stairwell and a silly baby boy. A few girls from work came over and Erica brought a fabulous strawberry-spinach salad with her homemade dressing, and we were in heaven. After dinner we played a few rounds of Scattergories with some hilarious results, and started to teach some of the girls to play Spades. Our game was interrupted by an unexpected phone call from Jay, which was awesome! I hadn't talked to him in a week or so, and it was really nice to hear his voice. Hayden woke up to play with the girls for a few minutes, and was in a super snuggly mood. It's amazing how quickly a day can turn around thanks to good friends, great food and a wonderful family.

Trucking along

This week at work was a lot of fun, as I got to learn tons of new stuff. I'm feeling a little more comfortable with what I'm doing and am ready to get into the groove of how I do things. Everyone has a different way, and I'm hoping I can figure it out soon!

Hayden is still enjoying our current situation. He gets to play with Cassandra a few hours a day and get a break from me, and we still have our time in the mornings and evenings. So far, this could not work out any better! We are still on the waiting list for childcare and unfortunately have moved back DOWN the list. When families register that are single or dual military, they bump us so we are back to 6. There are TEN spaces for all kids ages 6 weeks-18 months in this community of several thousand people. It's frustrating because they encourage spouses to be employed and volunteer, especially when the soldier is deployed. But when we DO get jobs, there's no childcare available! We have been so lucky to have great friends that are willing to help us out but it's still frustrating.

Hayden and I are both battling colds, so there is a lot of snot in this house! Hayden seems to be feeling much better and mine peaked on Friday so this weekend has been a relaxed one. Friday when I got off work I ran a few errands and then came home to my little buddy. He was running a low-grade fever so we opted out of our dinner plans and hung out together. Just when we get him back on schedule, the cold rears its ugly head and a stuffy nose interrupts his sweet baby sleep. Ugh! Saturday was a particularly fun day though. Hayden went to daycare on post for Super Saturday and I got to scrap with the girls for a few hours! We put all the kids in and brought food over to Kelly's and got down to business. It was nice to have a little me-time after these crazy two weeks of being back at work.

Today we are playing catch-up on housework and hopefully staying in the house...it's cold out there! The high has been in the mid-20s this weekend and it is just bitterly cold out there. This week we have a few fun things planned and will be preparing for my week of training the first of February. Today is the two-month mark in our deployment, so we are moving right along! Missing Jay a lot but staying busy and making as many trips to the post office as possible to make things easier for him. I also decided to try out my new polish pottery pie plate, and made my first apple pie. It was a success! This week also marked Hayden's FIFTH haircut...we almost can't keep up with all his hair!

Tradition

As I worked on our Thanksgiving meal prep today, I thought a lot about tradition. As I poured corn syrup over beans and added brown sugar and minced onion, I thought how many times I watched my mom do the same thing as a child. I also thought about that small pan of baked beans that's always at my Mamaw's house because my mom doesn't eat green beans like the rest of us. I thought how funny it is that I'm making a cheesecake because Jay loves it and doesn't eat pumpkin pie. I thought about all the times I watched my Pawpaw carve the turkey when he was still with us, and how my mom always snuck a few pieces despite Mamaw's exasperation.


I'm sure tomorrow when I'm working on the stuffing, I'll think about the pan of stuffing at my other Mamaw's that's spicy, and the small pan for those of us that don't like the heat. And when I use the buttermilk to make my mashed potatoes, I'll think about how I never understood why Cotton would drink it and actually like it.


I hope in 27 years, Hayden looks back and thinks about the things that were always the same at our house during the holidays. No matter where we were in the world or who sat down at the table with us, or even if some holidays we didn't get to be a whole family, there were some things that remained the same. And hopefully, he won't remember that Boston Market made the gravy and mom didn't :-)

Eating machine

I'm alway so excited when Hayden likes new foods. Truth be told, we haven't found much that he DOESN'T like. Today when I picked him up from daycare so I could get a little gym time, the teachers are always so surprised at how much he eats. On today's menu? Broccoli lasagna! He's never had broccoli before and isn't likely to have much at home since neither Jay nor I eat it, but I'm determined to work on it. He loves spinach and I'm a big fan of that so we'll be getting in a lot of that but I will really have to work with broccoli. We've been archenemies for many years but we're learning to get along.

Last night Hayden woke up while we were still awake so I heated up some milk and discovered that he finally likes it! I don't know if it's because we just kept giving it to him or that I finally got the temperature right, but he gobbled it right down. It's so much fun to see him morph from a baby to a boy right in front of our eyes. Unfortunately our picture-taking has drastically slowed since Hayden's first birthday, but the holidays are right around the corner and we'll have plenty to share. Hopefully soon we can get some steps on video as well!

Updates

Well Hayden is one, and big things are happening! He took his first steps for Jay on November 9, but is far from actually "walking". He will get into a groove, taking a few steps back and forth between Jay and I. It's a lot of fun to watch, and he is definitely more interested in walking when dad is around. Crawling is just so fast, so he seems to prefer that. He has also turned into our little climber and therefore our little daredevil. He can now get up and down the couch in no time, and has a blast climbing over anything in his way. Sometimes that happens to be Oscar, which does not please Oscar but he deals with it.


We started giving Hayden milk in his sippy cup about two weeks ago to mixed results. After a few tries, he definitely prefers whole milk once it's been warmed. He's still not in love with it, but he is making excellent progress. As a result, we're washing and packing up the bottles this week because he is no longer interested in them! This was a huge relief, as the bottle seemed to be a great source of comfort to him for a long time. I guess he's ready to move on to bigger and better things!

Food is a ton of fun for little Mr. Hayden. He loves to eat whatever we eat, which can include Thai food, avocadoes, whole wheat banana bread, pasta salad, anything on our plates he seems to think is fair game. He is such a good eater and is surprisingly on the "skinny" side for his size, but he burns a ton of calories with all that playing! He is having a blast with all his new birthday toys, and we're going to have to clean out some of the old ones to make room. I still owe you a blog about Austria; I got a little behind there for awhile but we're working on getting caught up!

Food for thought

Life has suddenly gotten more interesting as Hayden is now eating table food. He still has his bottles, since babies are supposed to get the bulk of their nutrition from formula or breast milk for the first year. But now when we eat, Hayden eats with us. Most mornings he still eats baby fruit or yogurt mixed with oatmeal since he can't have whole milk or eggs just yet, but sometimes he gets a bite of french toast or sausage. Lunch has gotten way more fun, since I can just cook up some pasta or veggies and feed it to him, or let him feed himself. I've found he is very tricky when it comes to food. Sometimes he won't take anything I try to feed him because he wants to do it himself. That's fine with some things, but pasta with sauce only works with naked babies! If he's eating dinner with us, he'll let me feed him but only off of my fork. Doesn't matter what I'm feeding him as long as it's off of my fork. Apparently the baby spoon isn't grown up enough for "dinner with dad".

Fruits are still a little tricky since he can't chew most of them, so he's still hanging out with the pureed fruit mixed with oatmeal. We did try a banana the other day, and found that he wants nothing to do with the slimy slices but will happily bite into a half banana that he can hold. He still prefers his food spiced up (not that I blame him, we go through more garlic than an Italian family of 5) but doesn't really care about temperature.

Out of the blue he started enjoying the cup, which means he's getting a lot more juice and water than the two sips I used to fight him for. He gets very excited when he sees his cup and knows the "good stuff" is in there. Eating out is also more fun, since I can share what I'm eating with Hayden. We went out for chinese food recently and I'm pretty sure Hayden had more chicken and noodles than I did! It's fun to see him experiments with new tastes, textures and types of food.

We've been busy!

I just realized how long it's been since we've blogged! Life gets busy when we're back to normal. We're back to our routine of Jay working during the week, family time on the weekends, scrapbooking and new adventures!

Food has become a lot of fun these days. Hayden is getting better at using his teeth and jaws, so he's enjoying a variety of food these days. He is also in LOVE with YoBaby yogurt. I can't feed it to him fast enough! He's finally started eating his oatmeal, but only if I mix it with his fruit. I read a great article on food a few weeks ago, and it solved our dilemma of sudden dislike of certain foods. Apparently he needed a little more flavor to those bland green beans and chicken noodle dinner. So we added a little garlic, sometimes some paprika and he loves it! Since he's getting stronger motor skills, we've added Yogurt Melts and Lil' Crunchies from Gerber, and he gobbles those up as well. We're still fighting the cup (Hayden just wants to bang on his high chair with it) but we're making a little progress when we put formula in it. He's also getting better with the spoon, but we aren't brave enough yet to let him feed himself fully. We have started to feed him little bits of what we're eating, and he's much more interested in those than what comes from a jar. I'm amazed at how quickly he changes, and how much he looks like a little boy instead of a baby!

We've been BBQing and celebrating with friends for the past few weeks and it keeps us on the go. Hayden is a champ, napping in his stroller and playing with the other kids. He's also very agreeable to being passed around to our friends; he's such a social baby! Wonder where he gets that from...

Life is completely different with a crawler! He wants to explore everything and doesn't care for being "restrained" in the playpen or his jumperoo. He'll allow it for about 15 minutes, but after that he wants to get out! Hayden's friend Gavin is 2 now, so he gave us lots of his old toys since he's a big boy. Hayden has tested most of them out, and loves them, but his current favorite toy is a racquetball. It's so bouncy, so all he has to do is drop it and it's a fun game for several minutes. He loves for mommy and daddy to get down on the floor to play with him, and we're happy to oblige! He's starting to be more interested in his books as well, and loves his photo album with pictures of him with mommy and daddy. He has a ton of fun "cruising" around, using the furniture to help him walk. His legs and back are getting so strong, and I think standing on his own is just around the corner!

The weekend is here!

We have more fun with this baby than just about anything...free entertainment, all day long! He's becoming very vocal, and his curiosity is overwhelming. He wants to touch and see everything, and of course, taste it!

Tonight we went to dinner and decided to partake in some good old fashioned parent torture of our baby. Good natured of course! You know that fun face babies make when you give them a lemon or a pickle? Well I've been waiting for that face for months. We got our chance tonight at The Stables, a greek restaurant we love. We tested out the tzaziki sauce, which is a little tangy. Hayden gobbled it right up, without a funny face. Bummer. We moved on to the lemon, which I was SURE would get us a reaction. Well it did, but not the one we were expecting! Hayden licked it, pulled back and then launched forward to taste it again. He LOVED it. No squish face, no sour pucker. Finally we tried the vinegar-based dressing on our salad and were again disappointed. But only slightly!

Hayden also sat up for the first time all on his own today. He's been sitting up well for a few weeks, when we put him upright. He can move from his belly to a sort-of sitting position, but today he got all the way up. Our baby is growing up!

This weekend we hope to do some fun things while Jay is gone for a little while on Saturday, and we can't wait to celebrate Jay's first Father's Day!

You can take the girl out of the south...

There's a lot of advice out there. A million books, websites, weekly emails. Everyone around me has had kids. Anywhere I turn, I can get words of wisdom, suggestions and anecdotes.

But I'm learning that the best advice comes from listening to my own body. I know I need to eat, I know I need to eat things that are good for me, but sometimes my body is just not interested in whole grains and baby spinach. So tonight I gave into the guilt for a dose of home, with oven-fried chicken and mashed potatoes. And for the first time in several days, I had a full meal! Looks like it's back to my roots (and the butter) for awhile. Thank God for Paula Deen...

Jay is a fan!

Jay has decided he really likes Pregnant Jessica. Apparently I'm more direct, better at making decisions and less apologetic at making those decisions that are good for my family. I have less tolerance for attitude and co-dependence. I am much more focused. I guess I just realized I've been taking care of other people for a really long time, and now it's my turn to focus on my family. I love my family, and my friends, but I'm a little more cautious about what I offer to do. I mean if there ever is a time to be selfish, I feel like this is it!

Do you know how hard it is to get 35 grams of fiber daily?? Yesterday I actually consciously thought about every single thing I ate, and tried to count up the fiber. Good thing I had a late-night bowl of cereal, otherwise I wouldn't have made it! Still not much in the way of cravings, not any more than usual that is. I'm really hoping not to turn into a beast. Only time will tell :-)