Still Moving, Now Toning

You guys, I have used the treadmill for seven consecutive days and I'm amazed at how much of a hassle it hasn't been. It's been easy. I've been anticipating it each day, even.  The running, the walking- both have been... enjoyable.

That's a good thing because I'm about to add to my daily repituire.  Nothing crazy, just a few toning exercises three days a week.   On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week, when I'm usually sitting on the couch with my kids while they watch their 30-minute bedtime show, I will now be on the living room floor doing a few different ab exercises, a few different arm exercises, and a few different ass exercise.  Triple A, I'm calling it.  Because I'm incredibly cheesy like that.

For the abs, I'm thinking crunches, bicycles, pelvic lifts, and some planks. 

For arms, bicep curls, lateral raises, and triceps stretches. 

And for ass, hip abductions, squats, lunges, and bent knee hip extensions. 

I only have 30 minutes, so I plan on doing a few sets of two or three exercises for each targeted group.  However many I can do in ten minutes basically, then move on to the next group.  On paper it looks easy; we'll see what it's like for real :) 

Clean Eating: Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes

I had such success with making a large batch of french toast, and then freezing it for a quick breakfast option, that I used the same method for pancakes.

The pancakes are a bit more involved because the main part of the pancake isn't already made for us like the bread is for french toast, but that's ok because not only are these pancakes easy to make, but you get to control exactly what goes into them. 

In this recipe, traditional pancakes get a cleaner and healthier makeover by using whole-wheat flour instead of white, organic no-sugar-added applesauce in place of the oil, and bananas as opposed to sugar.

The result is delicious.

A couple tips:

Use the ripest bananas you can find. Over-ripe is perfect. They're sweeter, easier to mash, and the flavor is the most intense.

Mix your eggs right into your milk, then add the milk/egg mixture to the banana/applesauce mixture. That way you can be sure your eggs get nicely blended.

I like to add A LOT of cinnamon and vanilla, that way you can eat them without any added syrup because they're favorable enough by themselves.

This recipe makes 22 pancakes. So go ahead and freeze them! Pop them in the toaster when you're ready to eat. I usually put them through two toaster cycles so they're nice and warm.

Princess Party

My little girl got an invitation to her first party.

A princess party!

My dear friend Bonnie's daughter Amelia turned four. That's  her with the amazing smile front and center. 

The tiny princesses played games and ate cake and took turns at the pinata and got amazing goodie bags.

They were treated like, well, princesses.

We even got Abby, Olivia, Amelia and Emerson to pose for a picture.  Right now they have no idea that they're Delta Phi Epsilon legacy and that their moms were once wild & crazy college girls who bonded over beers, boys, and our beloved sorority.  Maybe we'll tell them some of our stories...

...someday.

Get Moving

Ok, so I feel very confident about the eating changes we've implemented in January. That was phase one of my new year's resolutions.  Phase two started February first.  They're both big changes and I wanted a whole month to get the first part right before moving on to the next part.

All of February I intend to be physical.  To get moving. To do some sort of exercise every. single. day. While still continuing to eat clean.  Both of these are changes I want to do for the rest of my life.  I am armed with spreadsheets and timelines and schedules and I feel 100% sure that I can do this.

It's perfect timing too, because we have a fitness challenge at work that started February first which involves doing some sort of physical activity for a minimum of 20 minutes every day for the entire month.  Two birds, one stone.

My personal plan is to get on my treadmill every morning when I wake up.  Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday I'm going to be following the Couch to 5K running plan. I've started this plan multiple times in the past and never made it past week two, which I'm not particularly proud to admit.  Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday I'm just going to do a moderate 20-minute walk. Something to get my heart pumping and blood flowing.  Easy peasy.  

I'm doing this to lose all the weight I put on during the holidays, but also because I want to be healthy.  I have had periods in my life where I was active but overall I'm pretty lazy. I get up, go to work, come home, then lay around with my family until it's time to go to bed. 

I want my kids to learn that eating right and having daily physical activity is a way of life. Hell, I want to learn that.  So here I go. Wish me luck :)

Cancel Valentine's Day!

Might as well cancel Valentine's Day, because ALL MY DECORATIONS ARE RUINED.  My heart is broken.  Crafts that I spent a lot of time making, art projects that my babies made, my 'Clay's Valentine' shirt that I had custom made in 2004 and have worn traditionally every Valentine's Day since... all ruined.  

Covered in mold and rot.  How could this have happened???  Well I know exactly how it happened- when our basement flooded last year.  I have each holiday's decorations in its own rubbermaid tub, color-coordinating, naturally.  I specifically remember having to buy a weird tub for the Valentine's Day decorations- with a lid I never could get perfectly snapped on - but I had to have it anyway because it was RED and Valentine's Day is red only now it's moldy green :(

Only two things survived: a red coffee mug and a hanging heart for the front door.  These lone survivors made it through only because they were nonchalantly thrown in a different tub, for whatever reason.

Emerson keeps saying, "it's no one's fault, mumma", while Narls is confidently telling me, "they're only things; it's no big deal."

And they're right.  It's just gonna take me a sec to realize that.