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Wine is back on the Menu!

 

All good things must come to an end… My husband and I have decided to end the Whole 30 a few days early. We gave it a great run! He ended up losing 23 pounds and I lost 11 pounds. That is more than enough for both of us. That is not why we have chosen to end it though. We have gotten some sad news from his family and he needs to go out-of-town for a few days. We had been so looking forward to eating together at a restaurant for the first time together since this started, so we will just be doing that a little early. I will not go crazy with the food (or alcohol) while he is gone and I don’t believe he will either.

I believe the Whole 30 or 27 in our case was a great way for us to get a jumpstart on a healthier lifestyle. We learned a ton about cooking with fresh ingredients, we tried new foods and we experimented a lot in the kitchen. We both have talked about doing a “Whole 7” or a “Whole 10” once a month or once every couple of months for fun and just as a smaller reset of our food habits.

I will not be spending hours in the kitchen cooking – so I can finally get together my favorite Whole 30 recipes. I will get that up this week!

I have also been working on my home office and plan on posting some before and after pictures of that which I am really excited about. The office before was always where we stuffed any random junk in to get out of the way before company came over – NOT anymore. It’s so peaceful in there now.

 

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Whole 30 Day 1

So, today is officially Day 1 of our Whole 30 challenge. Basically if you haven’t heard of Whole 30, you go 30 days without eating sugar (including alcohol!), dairy, legumes, and grains- it’s a complete diet overhaul. After the 30 days is up, you slowly reintroduce foods into your diet to see if they’ve had any effects on your digestive system and/or energy levels. The added bonus is hopefully a few pounds lost.

My 16 year old daughter, myself and my husband are all giving this a shot from today until February 1st. Yesterday, I washed and chopped a bunch of fresh fruit and vegetables and meal prepped two meals. I made a breakfast casserole that we are going to use as breakfast and lunch and a beef stew for dinner tonight that is in the crock pot right now.

For week one, we spent $204 on groceries which included 3 boxes of kcups and some staples like almond butter, ghee and various oils and vinegars. Also, tons of fresh produce! My goal is to start posting some of our favorite recipes, especially those that were a hit with everyone.

Tomorrow, there will be more breakfast casserole. Thank goodness for that. Dinner will be grilled chicken and asparagus. I’m thinking about some sort of coconut milk, banana and almond milk smoothie for breakfast or lunch tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll mix my coffee in with that somehow. I’m just not sure yet. The Whole 30 program really does not encourage smoothies or snacks, but I’m still getting the hang of this program, and I’m not used to eating three meals a day anyways. I’m much more of a coffee with creamer kind of person and that’s the only thing I’m struggling with so far today.

Any advice? Words of encouragement? Whole 30 family friendly recipes so that I’m not making two meals?

 

 

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My last Christmas Post (I hope)

I hope if you are reading this you had a wonderful holiday – whatever you may celebrate in your home.

I get a little crazy over Christmas myself, so I’m going to try and wrap up all of my Christmas posts into one long one. One of my goals this year was to make as many homemade presents as I could. I wanted to make more than I did, but I did make more than I ever have in my life! I posted previously about a pillow and a cushion I was making for my aunt and uncle in-laws, I made my mom a pillow as well with the same fabric that I used for that pillow. I made this pillow for my mother-in-law:

 

 

 

 

 

 

This bib for my husband’s coworker:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this pillow for a friend of the family:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also made new tree skirts out of blankets for our Christmas Trees. Tree Skirts cost too much, and ours really needed replacing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, this about sums up my post right now. I think Santa dropped off the Grinch because my kids are at each other’s throats and making me crazy. I am going to say the “Serenity Prayer” (or at least the tiny bit I know of it) over and over in my head right now.

I sincerely hope both your holiday and winter break are going much better than mine!

 

 

 

 

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Kids are annoying…

Ever have one of those days where you are getting everything done for everyone but you? I had one of those days yesterday.

I printed out over 150 pictures at Walgreens to go through and send to my Mother in law, picked up the high schooler, made gingerbread houses with the second grader at school, got all of the girls beautified and took them to get their pictures taken with Santa, bought them all smoothies, found the perfect ornaments for teacher gifts to go along with the gift cards I had purchased, picked up pjs for Christmas Eve from Wal-Mart, honestly the list could go on and on.

I was doing all of these things for everyone else and then my kids started fighting with each other and acting like jerks!

Why? Why do they do that? It’s so annoying. I know it’s just because they are kids, but the whiny kid in me wants to say, “Hello? Don’t you see everything I’m doing for you and your dad and your teachers right now? Can’t you be nice if only for this reason???” Thankfully, my whiny kid can keep her mouth shut and use her parenting voice and just put the kids in time out when we got home. It is nice to vent though. Later on, when I was finishing up the rest of my presents for the in laws, my husband made sure to say thank you and that he appreciated my hard work. That is always nice to hear.

Presents for the in-laws are wrapped and sent, so I’m done with everyone besides immediate family!

How is your holiday prep coming? Kids making you crazy?

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ICE! at Gaylord Palms

We just went to ICE! at Gaylord Palms and saw the Christmas Around the World 2017 display. It was beautiful! I have wanted to go for years and we finally made it. ICE! is basically a room with sculptures made entirely of ice set to a theme and the room is kept at 9 degrees to keep everything from melting. It is a really “cool” experience, especially when you live in FL. The Gaylord Palms is a beautiful hotel as well. I had never been there before but the hotel itself is an experience – there is an atrium and there was a Christmas Tree display. It was just really cool. I am so excited we finally got to go!

Here are some pics from ICE!

Pictured above is a really fun ice slide that you can go down.

At the end there is this amazing nativity scene and angel: 

Random Pictures throughout the Gaylord Palms and their Christmas tree village:

If you ever have an opportunity to visit, I highly recommend it. My family and I had a great time. It really is a beautiful place.

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Elf on the Shelf “Car”

I mentioned that in my journey to “find myself,” I want to be a better overall person. For me, this includes (now) that on Saturday morning, while your husband is out golfing, when your seven year old wants to make your Elf on a Shelf a Car – that you will help and I mean really help. Not just point her to the hand me down Barbie car that we already own! I’m still learning how to craft, so it’s not the best, but all things considered, I think we did an ok job. The most important part is we had a good time doing it.

Here are our supplies:

Our spray painted pieces:

The finished product:

Rosy the Elf using the car! She seemed to like it at least, and it was nice bonding time with my seven year old.

Have you made anything cool for your elf?