Just to clarify

A few were wondering about the previous post, so here it goes:

1. My loot doesn't always look like this each week. Sometimes it is chicken heavy (because that's the meat we eat around here) or produce heavy or just even amounts of every thing.

2. I don't buy only the processed foods. I buy organic and whole grain as well.

3. I always have enough produce to have a fruit and/or vegetable at every meal (yes, even breakfast).

4. I have been stockpiling (or in our church we call it food storage) for awhile now, so I already lots of beans, rice, pasta, spices, canned meats, fruits/veggies and other basic items.

5. Any other questions?

We are on a serious diet

Financial diet, that is.

$50 a week on everything except gas. Groceries, toilet paper, paper towels, hygiene items...everything.

Here is what I did for $27.58 last week,


but then went to Whole Foods to snag a few things like 8-pack of yogurt for $1, 2 bags of chips for $2.69 and 2 cereals for $3.

I have always been fairly good, but, now I am going to get really good. If we run out of something, I'll use my food storage and get creative. And now I am motivated to re-plant our garden.

Instead of this being stressful, I'll think of it as a competition - Me vs. Me. I have a pretty good chance of winning this one.

Training Module #3 - BodyCombat

This past weekend was an amazing training session for my 3rd LesMills program - BodyCombat. It is a mixed martial arts group exercise class. The goal is to make the class authentic as possible, so our technique has to be right on. We went through drills upon drills of an array of disciplines like boxing, karate, muay thai, kickboxing, MMA, taekwondo and others. Talk about sore shoulders, trapezoids, rhomboids and glutes.

I would love a group to practice on...anyone willing? Come on, we don't look scary.

While Ashlyn was snoozin'....

the rockstars were rockin'....

It's all Greek to Me

Okay, well not all...but Mediterranean nonetheless.

I love making fresh pita. It is versatile and yummy. We make (and devour) gyros, hummus or just plain tzatziki (love, love, love me some tzatziki!) with them.

Tonight I am going to try this Lebanese recipe. Who knows, maybe I will just lick the tzatziki sauce off the meatballs.

Little Man is 2!

(I am totally going out of chronological order in my catch up posts.)

This kid is a BLAST!

He loves to:
-wrestle,
-copy everything his sisters say and do,

-be with his sisters. If we ever keep him home alone, he is such a pill and wants us to be by his side the entire time. He cries if his sister(s) are not with him in KidZone.
-smile,
-say 'ba-ket-ball' for every type of ball,
-not listen and whine when he doesn't get his way. I know you are thinking, 'All kids do this', but he is extremely whiny when things don't go his way. It is hard to not cave.
-run and run FAST! He swings his arm so dang fast when he runs and seems as if only his knees down are moving as he sprints.
-snuggle while sucking on his thumb and tag of his blanket (it has to be the silky tag),
-eat. He finally will eat vegetables because we can now bribe him with treats and he understands what it means.
-walk down/up stairs by himself,
-collect money around the house,

(thanks Grandmas Johnson for the dollar!)
-chew/swallow gum and mints and
-play basketball, soccer, baseball, football, whatever-ball and he can throw!

He is growing up so fast. He is not our skinny, spitting up little baby anymore. We love him to pieces!

Tales of a Gecko

At the end of the school year, Kylie's teacher asked for volunteers to take home either the class gecko or bird. I knew the bird was out of the question, because David would go berserk with the chirping. But, I thought, hey, the gecko would be fun. The kids would love to see it prance around its tank, eat crickets and drink from the water bowl. We would only have to feed it and clean out the tank once a week. And the BEST thing? We wouldn't have to keep it forever.

No big deal, right? Only one BIG problem, we all strongly dislike handling reptiles of any kind. Well, we were going to conquer that fear.

Well, the first day was rough. It was the David was released from the hospital, so everything was crazy. And I was already stressed that I was going to kill this thing. What if it didn't have enough light? Enough water? Enough crickets?

The first day, 2 crickets got loose...there is no mercy for loose insects in this house...they got squashed. I was having to buy crickets 3xs a week because they kept dying on me. (I later realized it was because I was getting the non-chirping kind which die off faster). And I still hadn't gotten over my fear of holding it, so I enlisted help - my neighbor, a friend from church, my sister, it got ridiculous. I needed to fight my battle once and for all, so I did this:






Yep, I held him, double gloved and everything. The kids were cheering me on, but no way were they going to handle it.

As the summer progressed, things got better and we learned so much. We checked out a book about geckos, watched it shed and eat its skin twice

and saw it pounce on his food. Spencer would walk by the tank each day, puts his hands behind his back and say, 'Hi, Pots' over and over. It was a lot of fun to watch. And the BEST thing...it goes home tomorrow!