Family Dinner

With older kids and crazy schedules, we dont get around to being together much anymore.  Jeff and I talked about it, and we decided that we were going to have "Family Dinner" 2 times each month, so we could all be together.

We had a marinated flank steak, Lynsies "Garden of eatin"  which is quartered red potatoes and any other vegie mixed with a bit of olive oil, sprinkled with parmesan, sea salt and fresh ground pepper and oregano... ( tonight it was asparagus, fresh green beans, carrot, onion, mushrooms, and red pepper.  You roast in the oven until the vegies are golden and delicious. We also had a huge bowl of chopped apples and oranges.

We laughed, and visited...everyone showed up and we had a great time!  Jacey and Jordan were trying on my old cheerleading uniforms...was I really this tiny??

Man, I love my family!!

CONFESSION~

Hello friends...

It has been a while since I have blogged, and here is my confession...

1.  I started eating sugar on Easter and have not stopped since
2.  My motivation was lagging as the end of winter kept holding on to my favorite season of all, SPRING.
3.  I have been quite stressed at work
4.  I have been worried about my beautiful children and hoping they will all find their happy spot.

Whew...done!

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, let me tell you some amazing things...
1.  I have been going to a lunch-break class at my work.  I am lucky enough to have a Sports Training department downstairs in my very building.  They have 30 minute lunch classes.  They switch off between Circuit Training, Weight-Lifting and Spin.  I am getting stronger every day and kept up in the spin class this week.  It is hard work!  I go back to my office with a red face and out of breath, but oh it feels so good to get strong!

2.  Sammy my wonderful little niece has been teaching Lynsie and I, along with a few of our kiddies some incredible lessons each Sunday!  She is becoming a life coach of sorts, and she has been helping us tap into our potential.  I love getting to know myself better, my kids, Lyns and her kids as well, and Sam has been great!  We have made vision boards, written down what we really want in life and execute it, we have a little drawing we each made of our own body with enpowering words in there that I look at EVERY morning to get those in my head...holy cow, it works!  Guess what?  I AM AMAZING...crazy huh?

3.  We have been eating healthy meals around here.  It is hard to cook for just a few as Riley and Jocelyn are the only ones home right now, and Riley is only here 1/2 the time.  We make it a point to sit down and enjoy dinner and conversation.  If you are caught with your phone at the table it gets taken away!  For those of you who know me well, you know that I have an addiction to my Iphone...eek ( this is a confession post, right?)

4.  Alot of people have been complimenting me on my weight, telling me that they can tell I am losing. I dont care how many times a girl hears that, it DOES NOT GET OLD.

5.  Guess who is turning 47 tuesday?  ME!  and guess who is going to greet 48 at 130 pounds...you've got it...ME!  I will never be in the TERRIBLE TWO HUNDREDS AGAIN...ONEderland...here I come!

Goal for this week:  Eat clean, stay focused, exercise 6 times, love my family and myself~

Saturday Workout Madness...

I can't believe that I can type after the work out we had this morning!  We met at Amber and Steve's church gym and started with a run around to warm up.  We then split into 3 teams and did relay races with running, suicides, high skipping and alot of other crazy hard, but fun things.  We then did a boot-camp style work out with different stations to squat, run ladders, tension ropes, ab's with weights, free weights and step. WOW, Amber is amazing...talk about truly kicking my butt...thank-you!

My Weight for the week went DOWN 3.2 pounds!  I will take it:)

We had a great discussion on great things to eat and healthy cooking.  I will be posting some of my quick and easy recipes, but I do want to mention a great cereal that Lynsie told me about today.  It is Honeyville 9 grain cereal.  It has Red Wheat, White Wheat, Barley, Rye Oats, Corn, Buckwheat, Millet and Flax.  You can buy it at Good Earth for $22.99 for 50 pounds people!  She stirs it up into boiling water at night, covers it and it is the perfect them and nice and cooked by morning.  She chops a few almonds, half of an apple and puta a sprinkle of cinnamon and a drizzle of agave...guess what my family is eating for breakfast a few times this week:)

Sorry the pictures are  blurry and dark today...dang phone!

Popeye Soup

My sister Annette is one of my hero's when it come to being healthy.  She has always eaten well and exercised and taken good care of herself.  She made this incredible book up for me a few years ago that has charts and healthy ideas that I am using now that I am finally on my road to health.
One of her recipes is a "Popeye Soup".  This is a fresh, raw soup that has spinach, cucumber, avocado  red pepper, green onions and it is spiced so it almost tastes like a fresh guacamole.
I have to tell you a funny story about this soup...we had a sister week-end a few years back in Texas.  Annette, Val, Debi and I.  We took turns cooking for each other and Annette made this soup.  The rest of us had not had raw greens like that in our systems for a while, so we all got pretty sick to our stomachs...come to think of it, we were probably all detoxing and that is why we were sick.  Val had bad gas and they made me, the baby sister sleep in the one room with her!  Annette and Debi were crawling down the hall to come scare us, and they couldn't make it all the way into the room because of the thick air in there:).  Thanks guys!  The next day we were driving to the airport and I was in the back seat with Debi.  She got sick to her stomach and "lost" the green soup in her bag.  Instead of helping her I was screaming at Cheree, who was in the front with Val to trade places with me so I didn't have to sit by Deb when she was sick...so sorry Deb...I love ya!

I didn't dare eat the soup for a few years after that experience because I associated it with a sick tummy, but when I tried again, I was hooked!  I actually did a cleanse with the soup and had energy, stamina and felt great.  Thank you Netski

Family Workouts!

We have had two official family work-outs, and they have been a blast!  I was sooooo excited because I was able to go the Saturday a week and a day after Riley's surgery.  It was a welcome break, and I was SO excited because...I was down 5.9 pounds. OH YEAH BABY!

We did a killer circuit training both saturdays at the Junior High where my sister in law Sher teaches in Spanish Fork.
The first week we had a mini lesson from Amber that was great. She talked about childhood obesity and how important it is to have healthy children and the benefits.  ANIKA won the challenge, so she kicked our butts Biggest Loser style with push up's and these other crazy things I forgot the name of.  Then we pumped the music HIGH and rotated from upper to lower body weights then did a bit of aerobics in-between to keep our heart rates up.  We ended with a jog/walk around the halls of the school.
The second week we had an incredible mini-lesson by Sam on vision boards and our homework was to make one....SCORE!  Emily told a story about a guitar she put on hers before Christmas before she and will were dating.  She woke up on Christmas eve and decided to take HER guitar and play and sing at the mall.  In a few hours, she had made MORE than the 400.00 goal she had set...and got the guitar.  Put your vision board up!  Divide it into 9 squares, like a phone pad.  Dont worry about making it fancy.  Put it right where you can see it when you wake and when you go to bed.  Look at it straight on for a few minutes morning and night and visualize smells, sounds, tastes, feelings of obtaining what it on there for you.  I CANT WAIT TO ACHIEVE AND OBTAIN THE THINGS on my board.  I changed mine a bit after this lesson, because my 9 things were too general.  I put more specific goals and things.  I will post a pic soon:)  Steve won the challenge this time, and he kicked our trash with burbees.....UGH!  I felt them for days...that is a good thing, right?  Another killer curcuit work out:)  I am starting to feel muscles I didn't think I had.  WOOT WOOT!

I love this time with my family working out and getting strong!

New CONTEST!

On New Year's day, we met at Nathan and Kristen's house ( my nephew and his wife) to start our new 12 WEEK CHALLENGE!  This one is a family challenge and Steve and Amber ( other nephew and his wife) started a great new plan for us!

I am SO excited to be doing this with family...that is what it is all about, right?  This is a bonding thing as well as a great support system and healthy way of living.

That first meeting was fun.  We had computers set up and skyped in another nephew Will and his wife Anika, my sister Debi, and my daughter Jacey...They gave us the awesome guidelines and this is one I am a little bit more serious about...

There are quite a few of us in the family doing this...my niece Lynsie and her kids, the above mentioned family, my brother Craig and his wife Sher, my niece Amy and her kids will come for some of the challenges.  I am not sure who in my family will actually do it with me, but Riley and Jocelyn came to the first meeting too.  Nate and Kris have their kids joining in as well...I LOVE THIS!

We have a point system, where you get a point for eating 3 fruits,  points for eating 5 vegies, points for water, NO SUGAR,points for no fried foods, eating breakfast,1/2 of grains eaten are "whole grains",no soda, no eating ater 7 pm,   exercise (you can get up to 3 points) and sleep...what is that?  I am not very good at the sleep thing.  Part of that is Jeffrey's fault:)  He likes to have the TV on until 3:00 am and it is hard to sleep through that, so I take Ambien.  I know, bad!

Quite a few of us use the "My Fitness Tracker" to log our food and exercise.  It is a great and easy app you can download onto your smart phone.

We are going to divide into teams for challenges.  The winner of the biggest percentage of body fat lost gets to lead the rest of us in any workout they would like...aaahhhh. You have to do extra things if you dont lose and you are put on probation if it is a few weeks in a row.  The winning team gets to make the losers do something crazy like clean their house while they watch, do a play for their neighbors, go to the movie theater dressed as trolls.  Man I love this crazy family!

I am more committed to the NO SUGAR this time.

I hope my cooking well and eating well is a good example and motivation for my whole family.