Sunkist, You Demon

There is an almost full bottle of Sunkist just sitting in the door of our refrigerator staring a whole through me every time I open the door. It is on that shelf that just last week I forgot even existed, the one on the very bottom that I usually only use when I've run out of room every where else in the fridge. It is on the shelf that suddenly has become the most important shelf in our refrigerator. Oh, the temptation! Today is my 6th day with no soda and other than that terrible bottle of Sunkist and every single time I get in the car, I haven't been craving it all that much. Blugh.

It may be time to dump the bottle of Sunkist.

One thing I have learned since beginning this transformation process a few days ago is that talking about transforming is exhausting. I just do not know how I will be able to manage when I actually start this life overhaul. One day at a time I suppose.

We already fell off the menu plan bandwagon, but I am not completely giving up, just being flexible. We had a very, read extremely, busy few days with the 4th Annual BTSOP Alumni Lectureship that wrapped up yesterday afternoon, so I just wasn't able to find time to make what I had planned for yesterday and today. That is okay though, cause if there is one thing that every parent knows, it is how to be flexible.

I briefly stepped on the scales this morning and I haven't gained any, so that is a good thing. I need to figure out how often we will update on our weight loss goals and start doing that. Even if we are having a bad week it will probably help to write it down so that we will be holding each other accountable. We will do this! We may kill each other in the process, but we will definitely get healthy!

May I just say how much it means to me to have so many tell me that they are not only reading my silly writings, but also enjoy them! I really do appreciate it. It makes my day every time someone says something encouraging to me, you are all so very sweet! I am sure that I do not express my appreciation in person as well as I could, I communicate much better in printed form than verbal form. I also really enjoy the tips and ideas I have been given. During the lectureship I got to talk for a very quick minute about menu planning with an elder from a congregation nearby (thank you for supporting the lectures!!!), he said he is the chief cook and bottle washer in their home. That warms my heart.

So I know I am a little bit all over the place today. I guess that is a glimpse inside the workings of my warped mind.

Hope you are having a wonderful Sunday and that you will be sure to take time today to worship our Lord and Creator as He desires!

Off I go to rid this house of that terrible demon. I almost promise I won't drink it.

~Lisa

Menu Planning: What did I Get Myself Into?

Don't I already have enough on my plate? Figuratively speaking, of course. Well...

Please take a moment and join me in my food world, pre August 1st.

Breakfast: .....what's that?
Lunch: a frozen pizza
Dinner: Cheez-its
Random snacks: chocolate
Drinks: got sugar?

That pretty much sums it all up. See why I need to make a change? So I decided to immerse myself into menu planning almost a month ago. This is what I learned.

- It takes a lot of time. I am guessing the first month is probably the hardest and most time consuming.
- It takes planning. Duh. Right? It takes a lot more planning than I initially thought.
- It takes looking at a calendar. Especially when your family does a whole lot of traveling! What days will we actually be home this month?
- It takes a budget. This I have not decided on yet, should I buy everything I can at the beginning of the month or just grocery shop week to week. I am sure in time I will figure out what works best for our family.

For now I am just going to start with planning dinners, lunch and breakfast will have to come later on as I get a better hold on this. Here is the menu I came up with for August. Lots of repetition for now, but most of these are quite simple and that makes me happy.

How do you like that calendar? I found it here on No Ordinary Moments and here on Homeschool Creations. I have also bookmarked Homeschool Creations as it looks like a website that I will be visiting a lot in the future.

Now that I have a menu penned down it is time to start writing up that shopping list. That'll take another month.

Speaking of, where is your favorite place to shop for groceries? And by favorite I mean quality groceries that are fairly inexpensive.

~Lisa

Summer: Too Busy

Our summer has been busy busy, so far. Thankfully, it looks like the busiest part of it is behind us just in time for our life overhaul. When I thought we would make major changes in our home beginning August 1st I actually thought that meant I would have time to research, plan, and make smaller changes prior to August 1st. Instead we are 1 day away and the only thing I think we have done is... Okay, I can't think of anything.

Wait, I cleaned out his closet. That's something, right?

So here we are, 1 day away from starting homeschooling and we are not ready. Which is absolutely not a big deal, the girl is only 3 and at this age we do not need much. But I did want to be ready. What I have figured out is a make-shift plan and that I really could just have her watch Leap Frog videos on Netflix and call it a day. I am teasing. Sort of.

I have been working off and on, well thinking about working on a menu plan for weeks now. Yesterday I finally sat down and noted some easy-ish dinners and I am hoping that today I will be able to plan out the month and then plan a grocery shopping trip. Those are always fun. Side note: We bought a Boba carrier a little while back, and that thing is awesome! I get the most use out of it when grocery shopping. That way I can carry little one and the big 3 year old can sit in the shopping cart and I actually have a place to put groceries. I love it! End of side note.

The budget stuff that I planned to have ready will just have to wait until I am done with the menu planning. We do okay with a mental budget, but I really need it down in written form.

This past month has been trip after trip after trip for our family. The husband was gone a lot taking various out of town trips for work, Bible camp, and a dear friend's wedding. Then right after he was finished with his big trips, the girls and I left for a week visiting family with my parents. We saw family in Tennessee and Ohio. I got to meet my dad's biological mother for the very first time, which was pretty neat. Then we had an 18 hour drive home in one day. Can I just say how lucky I am to have 2 little girls that travel really well? Imagine 18 hours sitting in a car, now imagine being 6 months old and 3 years old and sitting in a car for 18 hours. They were rock stars! There was a little whimpering about 14 hours into it, but for the most part they were great. Come to think of it, the whimpering was probably from me.

So with 1 day left before I start forcing myself to make big changes, today I will just do little things and enjoy time with my girls. Starting with going back to bed. ;)

Hope you will enjoy your day too.

~Lisa

Weight For It

Oh the never ending battle with weight that most Americans are fighting. Too much yummy processed foods thrown in our faces and not near enough "time" to be physically active. As a part of our getting healthier plan, Sweet man and I have started the infamous 3 Day Diet this morning. After 3 days we will then, hopefully, start eating an overall healthier diet. We have all heard it a million times: It is not about dieting, it is about a life change. Change the foods we eat, change the level of our activity, and probably most important is to change our outlook on those two things. 

I mentioned to my husband that I was thinking about blogging on our weight loss goals and he was all for it. Let me just say though, that we are putting this out there for positive encouragement. We do not want that negative kind, you know what I am talking about. But if you are close to us and can offer an uplifting word every now and again, it would be much appreciated.

So the nitty gritty of it. The man's overall goal is to lose 162 pounds! This blows my mind because I have never seen him at his goal weight, but I am excited to help him reach that goal. My overall goal is to lose 25 pounds, this will put me below my 'pre-you babies made me gain weight' weight. My first goal will be the 15 pounds I need to lose to get to pre-baby #2. 

I am quite confident that just eating healthier will go a long ways in this struggle for both of us! When you really stop and think about all the junk we put in our bodies it should disgust us, but they make most of it taste so good that we don't think about the gross effect. Hmmm, so similar to the sin problem, isn't it?!? If sinful activity wasn't initially 'fun', most of us would not even come close to it. Just one little snippet about sin from the Bible:

Hebrews 11:24-26 (ESV) By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

If you care to follow along with us as we bumble along, I will try to occasionally update on our progress.

Have a fabulous day. If we cross paths soon and I seem grumpy, it is because I have not had any soda since July 29th. You've been warned.

~Lisa

New Beginnings

Come August 1st we will be attempting to make drastic changes around here. So much so that I have the feeling of a new beginning in the air for our family. As I have written about before, I am a mess. I honestly believe the only reason I can keep our children alive is because they cry when hungry. I have absolutely no idea how Fishy Baby the Red manages to stay alive, probably just pure stubbornness. And please, please don't ever buy me a plant, unless you enjoy the thought of a poor plant dying of starvation.

So August 1st will mean eating healthier, menu planning, budget keeping, ummm budget making, better housekeeping, and the official start of homeschooling (agh!). Feel free to join me in my journey of going from chaotic chaos to harmonious harmony. See what I did there? heehee Oh I should probably throw in there a more active lifestyle, you think?

Why August 1st? You ask. Because this month is just beyond crazy busy and I needed a deadline for my procrastination. Mainly the procrastination thing.

In the meantime I intend to start on the smaller aspects of the big picture and, if I think about it, I will attempt to entertain you with all the flops that are certain to happen. Maybe even the occasional success story.

Tomorrow I think I will work on a menu for August. Do you have any *easy* and healthy go-to meals you would like to share with me?

~Lisa

Lost in Oklahoma

“Hey honey, I’m thinking that the girls and I will go with you to Camp Lu-Jo next week, it isn’t very far is it?” says me. “No it isn’t far, maybe two and a half hours (2 ½). That would be great!” says he.

Now we travel a lot, and I do mean a lot. Our girls are car trip pros. So 2 ½ hours is like a drive around the block for us. We did not want to spend another day away from him after he was gone the whole week before at another camp, there was supposed to be fireworks at the end of the day, and air conditioned buildings. We were in!

We were in for a very (read: how in the world did a 2 ½ hour drive turn into that?!?) long day. Keep reading, this could be fun.

First, a brief recap of the morning as we got ready to leave: Chaos. As every single day is when we try to get all 4 of us out of the house at the same time. It is supposed to get easier as my three, I mean two, kids get older, but it seems to just get more difficult. Our almost 3 year old decides she can no longer dress herself, does not know where her shoes are, and just wants to be held. Our sweet almost 6 month old is, well, a baby, so she thinks she needs to nurse, have her diaper changed, and the girl still cannot dress herself. Then we have our almost 31 year old who cannot find his clothes and wants to insist that I must have done something with them. Finally we have everyone dressed, a bag packed for the girls, and the boy goes to start up the car and get the GPS rolling.

Oh, the GPS. The GPS that apparently had Camp Lu-Jo saved as a favorite at one point. The GPS that someone took and deleted that favorite location (hint: it was me). The GPS. 

He was not too happy when he could not find the camp saved as a favorite. So I am rushing to get the girls ready and out the door and he has to come back in to find an address. Camp Lu-Jo does not have a tangible, let’s plug this into the GPS, address. “Why did you delete the address?” says he. “I don’t know what you are talking about” says me. “Well, it isn’t in here anymore” says he. “Oh, ummm” says me. “Guess we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way” says he. Exit me. And the girls.

My Man and Our Oldest

Now we are all in the car, J.J. found some coordinates and plugs those in the GPS while stating, “this should get us close, at least.” Off we go. That is how our 2 ½ hour drive began. Of course behind schedule and with just a tad bit of tension in the air. That was just about 10:15 in the morning.

The drive was nice and smooth, we get into Oklahoma and onto the I-44 turnpike, we scrounge up $1.50 at the end of it, stop to get more cash at a gas station, and go to a McDonalds that I never want to go to again. Life is good and we are almost there.

Ha.

His Road Trip Snack

Off we go again. Our handy dandy GPS does what it was made to do and bosses us right along and at some point we end up in Lawton, OK. “Hey, don’t we know someone who lives or used to live in Lawton?” says me. “Yes, I wonder if that is the church he worked with,” says he. And we keep going. “Um, honey,does any of this look familiar to you?” says me. “Did you go through a Wildlife Refuge when you came up here last year?” says me.

It did not. He did not.

Yes, well, I guess this is pretty and a bonus. I was not expecting to drive through a wildlife refuge on our way to camp. Everything was still good at this point, now we were a bit confused, but it was still good. Then we see a bunch of cars stopped ahead of us and a huge black rock on the side of the road. Then that rock turned into a huge buffalo on the side of the road. Okay, so it was most likely already a buffalo. Anywho, the thing was huge. Monkey see, monkey do, so we also stop to take pictures. While he is trying to snap a shot this huge monstrosity starts kicking and nudging in the dirt and we are straight in its path. Now I am talking a small 2 lane road and he is on the shoulder of the other lane looking right at us. I am almost positive I even heard him think “Oh, look at that beautiful blue Highlander. I bet I can flip that. You all got your cameras ready?” I did not wait around to find out.

See? Right at us.

Off Road

Full of adrenaline, we keep plugging along. The next turn our nice GPS tells us to take is down a dirt road. He says he remembers dirt roads from last year, so we are not too concerned. Then we see this on our GPS: In 1.7 miles turn right onto Off Road. I am not feeling too good about this. 1.7 miles come and there is no road at Off Road, but there is a fence. Now it was at this point that our Australian accented direction giver starts talking to her British counterpart and I am certain the conversation went something akin to A: I just do not know where to take them next. B: That is hilarious! What are you going to do? A: Probably nothing. These poor American chumps. B & A: Haaahahahaha. 

Then the GPS quits even trying.

Well, we are just a little lost, we think. Surely, we are close by. How about we try to call someone at camp to see if they can help us out? No one answers. Okay, how about we reset the GPS? Now it says we are 4 hours away from our destination. What?!? Where are we?

He gives me some street names that should be near the camp. While I am plugging those into the GPS, he is messing with his phone trying to find some sort of directions. Hey look, this road ahead of us is paved and looks like a main road. “Go right” he says. 

I go left.

“Where are the directions you printed off?” says me. “I didn’t print any off” says he. “I thought you said we were going to do this the old fashioned way” says me. “Yeah, the directions are on my phone” says he. “That isn’t old fashioned, honey” says me. “Well, if you hadn’t deleted the saved address” says he. “But you should have planned ahead and known where we were going” says me. “I didn’t need to because I had it saved as a favorite from last year” says he. “Well, you should have printed off directions” says me. “Why would I when it was supposed to be saved? You were the one that deleted it” says he. “How could you not remember any of this?” says me. “You deleted it” says he. 

Notice he only had one point in his argument arsenal. :)

So off we go, left, on this road and we see a sign that says Lawton is ahead of us. “Yeah, this must be the right direction because the camp is south of Lawton. “ says he. I say nothing. Nothing. And he stays quiet on that point too. We are finally on the right path and get to the camp at about 4:00 p.m. Our 2 ½ hour drive only took almost 6 hours, not bad, right?

Me & My Girls

We had a great time at camp. Addie made some new friends, we got to visit with old friends, we heard a good lesson, and were able to see some neat fireworks. We left there at 10:30 p.m. and made it down the road about 20 minutes and got onto the I-44 Turnpike. We were only about 20 minutes away when we paid our toll on the way up! We made it home at 1:30 a.m., with a few stops for gas and food. That was 3 hours. ;)

On our way home, I feel it has been long enough since our discussion earlier that I could now ask him a question. “Hey, remember when we were talking while we were lost that you mentioned the camp was south of Lawton?” says me. “Yes. As soon as it came out of my mouth I realized what I had said” says he. 

What are your fun and funny "lost" stories?

~ Lisa

Bacon Flavored...

Formula.

Yes, that is right, bacon flavored baby formula courtesy of J&D's. What could one possibly say against something so delicious being made available for the toothless population of our society? Why would we be so selfish as to keep the yummy flavor of bacon all to ourselves? I am sure that is what was really going on in the minds of the inventors and creators of 'Bacon Baby'. You know that someone who loves bacon enough to make a business out of it would be kind-hearted enough to want to share that goodness with the most precious beings in our care.

Here is an excerpt from J&D's website explaining how they made the formula and the benefits that your baby may gain from their bacon formula:

So we consulted with pediatricians and began to experiment with drying and grinding bacon into a fine powder, then applying a patent-pending process to concentrate this powder into the most essential nutrients and ingredients for brain development. This potential infant superfood was then added to a test subject’s infant formula. 

The results were absolutely impressive.  By the age of 4 months, our test subject started to exhibit some amazing abilities including walking and talking. By 6 months of age, she could read and memorize her early stage children's books and showed an extreme level of coordination and balance – so much so that she was enrolled in gymnastics and ballet with children 5 years older than she was! At two years old, she read her first 300 page book, memorized the Declaration of Independence and (this is absolutely true) began composing her first symphony. And at three years old, on a secret test track in Beaverton, OR, she ran faster than a baby cheetah. Nike immediately signed her to a (very) long-term endorsement deal.

Before I blogged about this I really wanted to try it out on our newest addition. While she is already older than 4 months, I thought with such results if I started her on it now there is no telling what she might accomplish before her 2nd birthday. She could find the cure for all the cancers in the world, if I can just get my hands on this formula! But it looks like we are going to have to wait as they are currently sold out.

The more I think about all the benefits of this deliciousness, I do believe I am going to order a 1,000 cans of this powder formula and put my whole family on it. What better diet plan could there be than a controlled amount of bacon in a drink that indirectly promises to increase your IQ with the very first drink? J.J. would love it! I wouldn't have to cook anymore. Fewer dishes to clean. Life will be great. And think of all the crafts I could do with all the empty formula cans. I am getting giddy over here just thinking about it.

Are you on board as well? Go to their website and sign up for the waiting list. There is also a contest you can enter to win a free lifetime supply of Bacon Baby Formula.

(In the interest of full disclosure, you may want to also go to this link. Parenting.com writes what they discovered about Bacon Baby Formula. Okay, okay, spoiler alert, it is all a joke. A big, fat, bacon-y joke.)

May your day be bacon-licious!

~Lisa