ORLANDO

Again, I am a horrible blogger. But I there are times that Facebook just isn't ideal to write down everything I want to say. And I REALLY need to learn to fix my blog up all pretty and everything. One day. But today is not that day. So Sunday we came home from a week in Orlando. We went down on Sunday and came back the next Sunday. I can't really compare it to other vacations because Brad and I have been places alone, two years ago we went with Brad's family to Myrtle Beach and we only had Talan and Nehemiah and Nehemiah was just 6 months old. And now we have a 3, 2 and 1 year old. So I can't really compare it. But I LOVED IT! Brad's cousin has a timeshare there and there son and his wife were going and ended up not being able to go at the last minute. So they asked us if we wanted to. So a free 7 day, 7 night vacation besides expenses? Of course we went. It was a 2 bedroom so we asked Brad's mom and dad if the wanted to go too and they did. We originally planned on leaving our house at midnight and then we were going to have to load everthing up when we got to Brad's parents house. In the end it ended up being 3 AM when we officially hit the road. We all rode together in order to save on gas. We also found a luggage carrier for the van on the craigslist. So worth it!! We decided on leaving so early to try and make the ride better for the children. So they would have more sleeping time than having to sit through all that driving. It was about a ten hour drive, probably a little more. We also knew we would have to make several stops. So our first stop was Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Yummy! Love that place. After eating, dipaer changes and all that good stuff that stop ended up taking about an hour and half. We didn't stop again for a few more hours then we stopped for gas. There we of course did diaper changes, bathroom breaks, and fixed the children a snack. Off we go again. Then we were about an hour and half away from Orlando and decided to go ahead and stop for lunch. We pulled in to a Wendys. One of my favorite fast foods. It was DISGUSTING. It was gross, the prices were crazy and it was a pretty bad experience all together. The children were a little cranky and sleepy. Eli had been constipated earlier that day. Well I had taked Talan to the bathroom so Linda (Brad's mom) had moved over to Eli to try and get him to eat some more. She started to smell something and then investigates. Eli had exploded! So much so that it had shot out of his diaper and there was just this huge blob sitting next to him in the high chair. That was a fun experience. So probably 40 minutes later we finally get back on the road. We arrive at our destination and check in. The actual living room area was a little small but it wasn't too bad. Brad's dad had to go lay down when we got there and we had to go grocery shopping. So first we went and picked up some pizza, came back and ate and then Linda, Talan and I went grocery shopping while Brad took the boys swimming. He was going to take all of them but I couldn't find Talans bathing suit and was horrified I had forgotten it. So she went with us to go pick her one out. That trip to Walmart was an awful experience itself. That place was packed with rude people and it was just packed. And of course it wasn't anything like what we are used to so that trip probably took three hours if not more. So the next day I remember hearing the children wake up and Brad getting out of bed with them. But then the next thing I know I wake up and it is extremely quiet. And 11:00!!! I walk down to the pool where they are and after talking for a bit I end up going back to the room and making everybody sandwiches and putting on my bathing suit and going back to the pool with our lunch. We ate and then swam for a little bit more and then go put the children down for a nap. Brad ended up napping with them and again I had all this time to myself! It was probably maybe and hour or two but it was so nice. I watched tv, played on my phone and ended up sitting out on the balcony reading a book. After awhile we needed to go to Sams to get some more stuff. It had already closed by the time we went grocery shopping the day before. So Linda and I ended up doing that and going back to Walmart and it was again crazy and took hours. We ended up picking up chicken from the deli for supper that night and Brad took all the children swimming while we were gone. And now I think this post is long enough. And knowing me I may or may not come back with part 2 anytime soon. We shall see.

Start to Finish

Wow! I am a horrible blogger. I am so unconsistent in so many areas in my life. I was going to do the 31 day challenge of getting my home clean and record my progress through my blog. I don't even remember what day I got to. I have started on more than one occasion to blog about weight loss. I have now gotten so far off track I am only 2 pounds under what I started at.
There are so many factors for those things. The weight loss I was so tired and busy the week of Christmas that I quit working out and haven't started back yet. And now it's March. I do pretty ok about watching what I eat but I LOVE coke and Mt. Dew. Especially when I am extremely exhausted and I have a headache. Well this week along that has been 4 out of 5 days. :( So needless to say if I found a new habit I would definitley be better at losing weight.
And as far as getting my house clean I could just get sick to my stomach over that. We actually took some drastic measures which cost A LOT of money to get our house in order. After that it was WAY better starting out Friday afternoon. The cleanest my house has been in 10 months. Well then life happened. I have been so exhausted all week because I have been up and down all through the night with babies and then we have been waking up between 5 and 530 every morning and not getting in the bed until 11. So I have had no energy and have done nothing ot my house or laundry all week and it has fastly gotten worse and worse. And I'm still exhausted and I have no idea when I will have the energy or time to get it cleaned back up. So that's my life for the week. Even as typing I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open. On a good note my daugter is actually asking to go potty! All the time actually because she just wants to paly in the bathroom but we are on our way to being potty trained!

Sausage and Peppers

Sausage and Peppers

This was super easy, affordable and good.

Ingredients:
1 pkg sausage (Use what you like. I used what was on sale)
2-3 peppers cut in to chunks (Use what you like)
1 onion cut in to chunks
olive oil or cooking spray
1 pkg herb and garlic soup mix
1/8 tsp hot pepper sauce
1 cup water
Cooked rice

Directions:
In a large skillet, brown sausage in oil if needed over med-high heat. Remove with slotted spoon and keep warm. In the drippings, saute peppers and onion until crisp-tender.
In a bowl, combine the water and package of soup mix. Add soup mixture, hot sauce and sausage to the vegetables. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until the sauce has thickened up some. Serve over rice.

Asian Chicken

Super easy and really good! And this could be made in the oven or the crockpot. I made mine in the oven.
Ingredients:
Chicken breast - I had probably around 2 pounds
1 1/3 cup apricot preserves
2 packs Lipton onion soup mix (1 box)
1 cup of water

Directions:
Mix preserves, soup mix and water. Pour over chicken in casserole dish and bake at 350 for one hour. Or you can cook in the crockpot until the chicken is done. We ate this over rice. This is one of the simplest recipes I have ever made and it was really good.

31 Day Challenge

I purchased an ebook the other day that I am already in LOVE with.
It is a christian based book to help you get your house clean. It not only gives some helpful daily tasks but it also gives some scriptural insight on developing a heart to be a better keeper of the home. I have always been an absolute horrible housekeeper. Today is my second day on the challenge and once I got started on the challenge of the day I found myself not wanting to stop there. So I ended up vacuuming out my furniture which in my house was a big task. It had been way too long. I am now exhausted and while my house is still nowhere near close to being a "clean house" I feel confident that it is well on its way :)

5 years ago

Five years ago today would have been the eve of my wedding. And to be honest I have so many regrets when it comes to our actual wedding details and things like that. Thankfully the wedding and activites isn't what it's really all about. Sure we have the memories from those but then we have been making a whole lifetime of memories in the five years since then.
I have never been really close to my mom and after graduation I didn't have the option of living at home anymore. I had eventually found an apartment and that's where I lived when I met Brad. After we got engaged to help save money I gave up my apartment and lived at Brad's parents house in their computer room for a little over a month.
I had to give you that background to go with this story. So the day before the wedding. We had the rehearsal that night. That day I went to Huntsville to pick up my wedding dress and Brad's tuxedo. After the rehearsal dinner I had to find somewhere else to sleep so that we would not see each other on our wedding day. So I ended up staying the night with a girl who lived in the same apartment as me. We also worked together and she also happens to be who introduced me to Brad. We hung out a lot back then but once I got married I pretty much lost all friends I had at that time. I don't think we stayed up late. Her sister in law put some fake nails on for me and they turned out very pretty and that was about it. For some reason Brad decided we weren't even allowed to talk before the wedding so after midnight I wasn't even allowed to text him. He's pretty strange sometimes...haha. So tomorrow I will blog about our actual wedding day.
Since I have had kids I have a really hard time remembering a lot of things so I apologize now for my lack of details. I do remember that the night before I was very excited and anxious. The next day however was a completely differen story.....

One pound

One pound and unfortunately it was in the opposite direction. Yup, I gained one pound. But to be honest I really thought it was going to be more than that. I had a couple of days where I had headaches so I drank lots of caffeine (coke) and then halfway through the week I skipped one day in working out and then that was all she wrote as the saying goes. I haven't worked out since. I was hoping to REALLY get back on track this week but, I woke up with a headache again this morning. So not only am I not going to work out with a headache but I drank some coke and snacked on cheez-its with for breakfast. I am however going to have a healthy lunch. Supper will not be so healthy however. I am trying a new recipe for creamy enchiladas. If its good I will let you know.
So I'm obviously struggling with this weight loss thing. I know several people who are doing these Body by Vi shakes or something like that. But to be honest I really enjoy the herbalife shakes and it cost about a third of the body by vi shakes. But I also don't want to be doing shakes the rest of my life. That's why I am really trying to not necessarily diet but just making a whole lifestyle change. I realized this morning that even that area needs to be given over to God. The whole reason Im not losing weight has just been my inability to not give in to temptation or just doing what is easiest. So Im going to be praying that God shows me ways to be healthier and to overcome my temptations. I'm also praying for a complete healing from headaches. I have been struggling with these for about 7 or 8 years now. So I would appreciate prayers for that!

FAIL

Well one of my fears was putting my failures out there as far as this weight loss journey. But maybe if I put it out there it will help me try harder. Last week I took this quiz where my results were that I am an emotional eater. And that is so true. I'm sure I already knew that though.

It's just comforting to sit down and enjoy whatever your comfort food is after a stressful day. So with that being said it's only 1:30 on Tuesday afternoon and I wouldn't be surprised if I have gained my three pounds back. I have had some really stressful two days so far and I'm not really anticipating the week looking up at much. So I've just drank and ate whatever. The only good thing I did was work out yesterday. So I just wanted to share that with you so far. Hopefully tomorrow is a new day!

3 pounds

I actually keep debating whether or not to blog about this. Mainly because if I fell I don't want the world to know that I gave in to my temptations. But at the same time I am excited and even disappointed.
This past week I lost 3 pounds. And honestly it would have been even more but I had several days this week where I just did whatever. My official weigh day is Mondays but I have been getting on the scale every day. Which is good and not so good. It showed me where my days of just whatever hurt me but it also showed me that I was losing weight which encouraged me as well and even made me work harder.
And I have done this all on my own. I have really learned that a lot of my eating really is a mind over matter. I would get up every morning and feed the kids breakfast and then eat mine. Now I wait and eat when I'm actually hungry for breakfast. This I feel gives me less chance of wanting to snack before lunch. I've also been drinking lots more water and then just carefully watching what I eat except for supper. And then at supper I just find myself eating a little less than normal. I also started working out on Thursday and I haven't missed a day yet. Not that it won't happen but I really want to be committed to losing weight so I even stay up until 11 if that's what it takes to get a workout in. That is not always going to work though. I have set aside two days for sure that I will go to bed the same time as the rest of my family. Or as close to it as the baby will allow.
So I'm not really sure what my long term goal is. I know for now I'm focusing on the first ten pounds. Mainly I want to get rid of this "stuff" as I call it that I have left over from three pregnancies. So we shall see. I can already tell you that it is 8:00 on Monday morning and I am already finding it much harder this week so far.

Ladies, paint your nails!

This is my advice for the day. For four years now I can't even really remember a time where I've just felt pretty. I rarely ever dress up because I think nothing looks good. And to be honest I actually feel my best when I am in a t-shirt. I am much more comfortable and I honestly feel like it looks better.
So with that being said yesterday I painted my fingernails for the first time in almost three years. I'm not even sure why I did. And would you believe that something so small just put a little bit more "pep" in my feminine side? If that even makes sense. I have just caught myself taking notice in my fingernails all throughout the day. Whether it be typing on the computer, fixing a sippy cup or washing the dishes.
The same thing happened a couple of months ago when for a girls night out my sister and I went and got pedicures. I always wear flip flops and I just felt a little bit more confident with my pretty toes!
So that's my advice. If you want to feel a little boost in the appearance area just try giving your nails a good painting!

Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken

This was a simple and economic recipe. My husband didn't think it had a whole lot of flavor so maybe next time I will try and add a little more but I am positive I will be making this again.

1 1/2 pounds of chicken (I used half of a whole fryer chicken)
1 can of diced tomatoes with greenc chilis (I used tomatoes from the garden and a can of green chilis)
1 can of black beans
8 oz of frozen corn (I just used one can of corn)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 can fat free chicken broth
3 scallions, chopped
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper (I used half and thought this was pretty spicy but I'm a mild sauce girl)
1 tsp onion powder
salt to taste
Serve over rice
Combine all ingredients except chicken in the crock pot. Sprinkle chicken with salt and lay on top. Cook on low for ten hours or high for 6 hours. 30 minutes before serving shred chicken then put back in the pot. I actually got this looking for healthy recipes. It said a seving is 4 weight watcher points (1 cup) Except the rice would be extra points. We also added some cheese and sour cream to the top of ours.

Weigh In

I dread writing this post and frankly wasn't even going to. But since I'm writing about this weight loss journey I might as well just be completely honest. Last week I gained a little over a pound. I am not at all surprised however. Monday was a holiday with a family cookout, I think Tuesday I ended up not being at home and eating from a drive thru, I don't really remember Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday I had my nieces. So this past week I probably had maybe two smoothies the entire week along with two different pizza nights and bucket of chicken nights. But I expect this to be a long process and I want be perfect with trying to lose weight. In fact, I'm not really doing many other things besides the smoothies. My goal is to start getting some walking in this week. I would really love to start working out but until I can figure out what's wrong with my back I'm just not sure that is such a good idea. So until next time wish me luck on losing weight this week!

Also, could you please be in prayer that we will be able to find some answers tomorrow? I will be getting an x-ray done on my lower back to see if we can find a reason for all the pain I have been in and the multiple doctor visits not having fixed it yet.

Couponing

I have been studying on couponing for awhile now but I haven't really started the way I want to yet. But I did score some pretty decent deals at Publix that I wanted to share. If I knew where my camera was I would post a picture but I don't.

Aunt Jemima Pancakes 12 ct. $0.85 each

Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Pasta $0.45 each

Hellmans Easy Squeeze Mayo $1.75 each

Nestle Tollhouse Cookies $o.70 each (MY FAVORITE DEAL!)

Nestle Coffee Mate $0.78 each (I was able to get a variety of flavors of the liquid)

Country Crock Spread $0.55 each

I definitely learned a lot on this trip and expect a much better one next time.

Weight Loss

Well, it has now been almost four weeks since I had our baby boy and it is definitely time to try and shed some of this weight. I'm a little disappointed in starting out because after my last pregnancy I dropped 40 pounds almost like it was nothing. I have absolutley no idea how I lost so much weight so fast. But either way I am happy because that was such a relief.

About two weeks after the baby I had lost almost twenty pounds but then I ended up gaining almost four back. This past week I lost about 3 pounds. That's pretty good considering the only thing I started doing was drinking Herbalife smoothies for breakfast and lunch throughout the week. I kind of have a feeling this might be a yo-yo journey of weight loss. Only because during my pregnancy I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and so far I haven't stopped splurging on sweet tea among other things. I had said I wanted to continue with the diabetic lifestyle after the baby but that has definitely not happpened so far. And to be honest I'm not sure how much of it will actually happen. It is much cheaper for me to cook things like mashed potatotes and pasta both of which were things I hardly touched during the diabetes thing.

Anyways, as long as I continue to lose weight I'm happy. My next goal is to get to 150 which is what I was when I got pregnant. That is about 7.4 pounds to go. I weigh every Monday so wish me luck on this week!

New Survey Site

I've been signed up with this survey site for about as long as I've been signed up with the last one I blogged about. But I have wanted to wait until I redeemed my points for something and received the prize before I shared it with you. I started this survey site on January 28. On March 28 I redeemed my points for a $10 Amazon gift card. And I received the gift card code in my email a couple of days ago! That is the fastest I have ever received one of my rewards. Again, this is a survey site and not something you can just fly through. If I only did a survey every now and then it would still be worth it to me. I'm a stay at home mom and we live off of one income and are currently working towards becoming debt free. I have received several restaraunt and amazon gift cards. I recently decided to start using all of my points for Amazon gift cards to work faster towards buying something I might would really like to have but just wouldn't spend the money on normally. Plus we still have a couple of restaraunt gift cards and with the new baby due in a few weeks I don't see us having much chances of using them in the near future. ;) If you are interested in taking a look at this site just let me know and I will send you the email referral link.

Money from Home Part 2

I get so excited over legit websites that I have found. I found this one at the end of January but I wanted to wait until I tried to cash in my points before I talked about it. This website is strictly an all survey website. They send me emails to let me know when I have a new survey available. I signed up on Jan. 29 and on Feb. 28 I had enough points that I could redeem in for a $10 gift card which I redeemed for Carraba's restaraunt and I received it in the mail on Saturday. So it took me a month to get enough points for a $10 gift card. Please keep in mind that this does take time. And that's something I've had on my hands here lately with not being able to do much because of my back. You won't qualify for every survey but now you know there is another option out there if you have some free time or even while watching a movie you can sit down and take a survey to build up some points. Unfortunately right now the company is not doing any new member referrals so I actually have no idea if that means they aren't accepting new members or they just aren't going to give me the points for referring someone. But if you want to check it out it called MySurvey. On another note I also received a $20 gift card in the mail on Saturday for another rewards thing I did. Needless to say I was ecstatic about having $30 in gift cards in my mail over the weekend!

Life Changer

I am ready! There are so many thoughts running through my head right now. They are caused by moment after moment that just keeps building up. And here is the conclusion I have come to. I always want more in my walk with God. It will never be good enough until I no longer have the oppurtunity to make a difference.And then it still won't be good enough I just will no longer be able to change how I chose to live out this life. And the problem is that I have held back for too long. I don't care anymore about watching what I say so as not to offend anyone. Jesus comes right out and tells us that is exactly what is going to happen. Is a few not very filling friendships worth someone possbily not going to Heaven. I know I can't be the judge of who is and who isn't but I do know what the bible CLEARLY states will keep us from entering into Heaven. And to be honest, I am watching people I care about live these things out daily. So here it is. I am stepping up to the plate. I am giving it all to God because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no way I can do this in my own strength. I will lose friends, I will lose some relationships with family but I can no longer be worried about the things of this world. My ultimate goal is to live a life pleasing to God.

Change

There have been quite a few changes in our lives here lately and some getting ready to take place.

1. My husband started a new job. This was a MAJOR change in our life. Since we have been together he has been self-employed. Towards the end of last year things started going really slow and we began to struggle like we never have. We've always had struggles and plenty of them but we had gotten to the point we honestly didn't know how we were going to pay our bills. It took a lot of praying and getting up the courage for us to both be at peace with my husband going to work for someone else. While others would look at our complaints and basically just be like "Get over it. That's the real world" they dont understand that statement is completely untrue. It completely changed our world. My husband was able to have the most flexible schedule. If I or one of the kids had a doctors appointment he was able to always come with us. When I had our two kids he got to spend every single day and night with me in the hospital. A couple of times I have gotten really sick and he has been able to just come home and take care of the kids for me. Honestly, the list could go on and on and on. My husband also no longer gets to go to church on Sundays because of his job. He works 7 days a week every week. Do you know how many days there are in a week? That's right. 7. It's hard but the biggest positive outcome of him going to work for someone is we know that come this day he's getting a paycheck. And while we aren't worried how we are going to pay our next bill we are still living on an extremely tight budget because we had gotten pretty far behind. But I am hopeful that we will see some debt completely gone by the end of the year.

2. We have been trying to move for over a year now. I have now definitely come to the reality that it is not going to happen anytime soon. At least not for another year. This means we have got to get some major changes in our house. Not really in a construction way, just more organization and changing things around to fit our needs better.

3. I am almost 7 months pregnant. So in about 10 weeks we will have a brand new baby added to this family. This of course is a HUGE change. HUGE! And did I say H-U-G-E. I will then have a 2 year old, a 17 month old, and a newborn.

There are a few other things we are wanting to see changes in and I guess we will just have to wait and see. I have now hired someone to come in once a week and help me clean until the baby comes. Maybe a little bit afterwards too. That will start Monday so we will see how that goes.

Low Carb Chocolate Chip Cookes

While these aren't as good as my much more fattening chocolate chip cookie recipe they are still tasty and you don't have to feel as guilty for eating these.

Ingredients:
1/2 stick margarine, softened
1 1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup fat free milk
3/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl using an electric mixer cream together margarine and brown sugar. Add egg whites and vanilla to mixture. In another bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture to mix alternating with milk and ending with adding flour last. Stir in chocolate chips. Spoon onto greased baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes or until done.

Pesto Salmon

This is only the second time I have ever cooked salmon. I liked the first recipe but I just wanted to try something different. This could not have been any more easy. It won't sound the healthiest but as you can see all I had to go with it was steamed broccoli to help with that.

Ingredients
4 Salmon fillets
1/4 cup mayonnaise
3 Tbsp. prepared pesto
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Cook salmon. Preferably bake it or broil it. I broiled mine for about 4 -6 minutes on both sides. Meanwhile mix mayonnaise and pesto together in small bowl. Once salmon is cooked spoon pesto mixture onto salmon fillets and broil for one minute until hot and bubbly. Top with parmesan cheese (I used an italian mixture I had) if you want. This was very good if you like salmon. To me salmon is pretty strong and it actually lessened the fishy taste. The only thing I would change about this recipe is it made more of a mixture than I actually needed so I will probably just cut back on my amounts next time.