New and Exciting Things Coming in 2013

We are still here!  Were you starting to wonder??  Aacckk!  How has it been so long since I blogged??!!  So sad!  We are just coming out of our Christmas vacation.  We did lots of fun things while we were all on break.  The holidays were wonderful!  Lots of time with family!  Gotta love that!  Jadon was really excited to see Santa this year!  It was adorable!

After the holiday craziness was over we spent several fun days on road trips...  On Wednesday, Dec. 26th we hit the road to visit Long Lane Honey Bee Farm just past Champaign.  Turned out that they were not in the office that day which was a bummer because we had a lot of questions for them but we did make the best of the trip by stopping at a few antique shops we had seen on the drive over.  Woohoo!  I love to hunt for Pyrex!  I found a couple good ones too!  

On Thursday the hubby turned 40!  He got to pick what he wanted to do that day.  He chose the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago followed up with dinner at the Weber Grill Restaurant in downtown Chicago.  Yum!

And just because two days in the car was just not quite enough we decided to drive almost all the way over to  Iowa to another place that sells beehives and beekeeping equipment hoping to talk to someone and get some help deciding what equipment to buy so we can start a new exciting chapter of our lives!  We were in luck this day because we found a wonderful gentleman that helped us pick out all the stuff we needed and gave us a lot of good tips about beekeeping also.  We were pretty excited to bring home those boxed and build our new beehives!

They are all built now and as of yesterday are painted!  All ready to go!  We can't wait to get our bees in the spring and start this adventure!  Mmmm..I can taste the honey now!!   For the second year in a row I was busy making a lot of my Christmas gifts!  The difference this year is that I also sold a few signs to other people who wanted to give them as gifts also.  It was pretty fun and now I want to continue to sell the things I love to make.  Here are a few of the things I made recently.

Keep your eyes open for these items for sale on this blog VERY soon!!  Happy New Year Everyone!  

Focusing On Me

Apparently I can't blog and take care of me at the same time. There have been lots of changes of here lately. I am in my 8th (or 9th...lost track) early morning workouts 4 days a week. It has now gone from something I had to drag myself out of bed for to just part of my routine. I love that! I feel great afterwards even though during some of these workouts I have been pretty sure I am going to die! I love that the workout changes everyday and it is never the same thing each day. Just when I think "Oh yeah...I got this" she has us do things that push us beyond our comfort zones. That is good though! I took a Nutrition 101 seminar a few weeks ago. It was done by a local OB/GYN. I brought home a lot of good tips and advice. One thing she said that stuck with me was that when women come to her and say that they are eating well and exercising but the weight is not coming off she asks them how much sleep they are getting. She said that your body needs at least 7 hours of sleep each night to repair and heal properly. So much to my husbands dismay we are going to bed earlier or as he says "when old people do". To get 7 hours of sleep on the night before a workout I need to be in bed by 9:30. We usually head that way around 9. That is pretty much an hour (at least) less then time in the evening than what we had before....so some things have fallen by the waste side....like blogging. I would much rather spend time watching a show with my husband than waiting for pics to upload and thanks to our slower than molasses internet I can't watch Netflix and upload pics at the same time. The funny thing is that since we implemented the earlier bedtime we find ourselves heading to bed early even on the evening we do not need to. Our teenagers think we are crazy! I do feel better in the mornings. I am trying to be more active in the evenings after dinner. If we have nothing else going on I try to take a walk or do a run. I like when my husband joins me because his legs are so much longer than mine I practically have to jog to keep up with him. I am really trying to create a more active lifestyle for all of us because if things go back to the way they were I feel like I am more likely to go back to the way I was. I have been doing way to much sitting around on my laptop seeing what everyone else is up to when I should be out taking care of myself! Each night I have been making a concous effort to get off my laptop and do something else. I have stacks and stacks of books I have picked up from garage sales or paperbackswap.com that I have never read because I have not been making the time. Starting now I am going to stay off my laptop after dinner and read more. Reading makes me happy and FB does not. That is one thing I am learning about myself. More often than not I leave Facebook frustrated and cranky. There is way to much whining and complaining! I just don't want to deal with it anymore but I do like keeping up to date with what family members and good friends are up to. So I am going to check in a few times a day but from dinner on I am going to be done. I need to be up and about moving or doing something that fills my tank up and does not empty it. The teenagers are doing less complaining about the lack of certain processed foods and more fruit/veggies lately. I have not bought any cold cereals except for cherrios in a few weeks. My oldest has started taking large containers of cut up fruit with her to eat on the bus every morning and I love that! I plan on making some homemade granola in the next few days. Took me awhile to find some natural shredded coconut for the recipe I was using. Finally found it at Kroger. We are still not loving brown rice but continue to give it a try. For stir fry nights I am making both brown and white to give the kids the option. I am just living with brown rice. I was really happy to find whole wheat egg noodles for my hamburger corn casserole (a family favorite). I had not seen it before. I started buying unsweetened vanilla almond milk for our smoothies. It is only 35 calories a cup so it decreases the calories of a smoothie big time when compared to milk. One other things I took away from the Nutrition Seminar I took was the advice to take liquid fish oil. It is great for your cardiovascular system, lungs, skin, AND when paired with exercise increases fat loss! It sounds gross but is comes in lemon and orange flavor and I just take it straight and I have had not problems with any fish taste. I have also noticed that I am not burping up fish taste like I have in the paste with fish oil pills. I feel like it is improving my dry heals and I have also noticed less water retention and swelling in my hands and feet since I started taking it. Not sure if that is the cause or just a coincidence. I am proud to say that I have lost 15 pounds to date! I keep checking each week to see if my wedding ring fits! That is going to be one of my biggest rewards the day that happens! I have not been able to wear my wedding ring in years. So sad! Clothes are definitely fitting differently. I have some "fat" jeans that I can't wear anymore because they are falling down. I also have other pairs that are getting loose. I have had to buy new workout clothes because some of the ones I was wearing started getting too loose! Woot woot! I am happy with the changes I am making. I feel better than I have in a long time and I know that the more weight comes off the better I will feel. I love the new friends I have made in my exercise class. It is an incredibly positive and supportive atmosphere. I look forward to walking in the doors every morning. I feel so lucky to have found this group of girls. I love how strong I am getting! We have done two intense cardio recently that I am pretty sure I could not have kept up with when I first started the class. I loved the feeling of accomplishment I had at the end when I realized I did every set without stopping before it was over. It was not easy but I did it! I want to continue to post of meal plans for the week on here so I am going to make an effort to be better about that. I am also going to post updates when I can, but I am not going to go crazy and stress about not posting daily. I need to step away from my laptop. Need to focus on myself and my family. When you make time for workouts and getting healthy something has to give and my family is of course not an option. I am not superwoman and have not desire to try to be!

You Can Find Us Outside!

Sorry! No blogging lately! It has been 80 degrees here in our neck of the woods for 8 days straight! It's March! We are enjoying it to the fullest!

At the playground......

 My handsome young man.

 Jake took his remote control car to the park one day and Jadon had fun chasing it.

 Jadon can finally to this ladder!  It is straight up and down so it was hard for him.  It still takes a lot of work but he can do it!

 We raced hotwheels down the slots in the slide today!

 Love this pic because Righty is holding a car!

 We finally have our fish tank all set up!  I love it!  It is so relaxing to watch the fish!  So glad we got a tank again!

Oh What A Beautiful Day!!

The weather was amazing in our neck of the woods this weekend and today we enjoyed every minute of it!  The kids spent the entire morning outside doing yard chores....well the older kids did chores.....Jadon played like crazy. 

After lunch I did my very first Couch to 5K run/walk.  This first run was for 20 minutes with different intervals of running then walking.  I will do this same run two more times then next week it will be just a little harder.  I got new running shoes yesterday.  Aren't they cute??!!  Super comfy too!

When I got back from my run which I think was about 1 1/2 miles since my average time was a 13 minute mile Matt said that he wanted to take Jadon and go for a hike.  I said that I would go with them.  I love taking hikes in the woods.  We made Shelby join us too.  Jake was at Grandma Cindy's doing yard work for her. 

That hike ended up being about 2 1/2 miles so I ended up doing a total of 4 miles today!  Hope I can walk tomorrow!! 

For dinner we enjoyed a smoked turkey breast, some turnip greens, and sweet potato fries!  Yum!