My friend childhood friend, Natalie, is a photographer and she came and took pictures of us last month.  You’ve seen some of her images from our holiday card but I have a CD with over 300 photos that I FINALLY got downloaded onto my computer.  Natalie gives you the rights to all your images, so you pay for the session and the processing of the pictures and then she burns you a CD that is 100% yours.  She caught some AMAZING images of our family.

Has anyone heard the new Train song?  It makes me really happy.  I’ve had an extremely hard morning and that song came on and cheered me up.

Don’t get me wrong, everything is FINE, but I’ve had one of those mornings that you just want to crawl back into bed and start over after you’ve slept for a looooong time.  My sweet husband actually suggested that I turn right around and do just that. But! I’ve made the executive decision to put on my big girl pants and deal with my life.  It is a pretty damn good life.

I caught some pretty awesome father/daughter images this morning.

Yes, my Christmas decorations are still up.  They’re coming down tomorrow.

Daddy was brushing her hair.  

So, many of the issues from this morning have to do with my IBS. Last time it was this bad, I followed a very strict IBS diet and then did acupuncture to be able to add more food to my diet.  The IBS diet, in a word, is HARD. 

The basic principle are that I should avoid:

-Red Meat
-Poultry
-All dairy products
-Eggs
-Fried Foods
-Anything high in fat

So basically, a vegan diet with some fish and not much fat.  I did this for about a year in 2005 and it was the only thing that helped.  In fact, other than pregnancy, that was the only time that I didn’t have IBS issues.  Maybe I should just get pregnant again? LOL!

The good news? I know I CAN do it.  The bad news? It’s going to make cooking dinner more time consuming and interesting.  Well I guess the interesting part is a good thing 🙂

That’s how I woke up this morning when my alarm went off at 5:30.  I had accidently set the alarm to “beep” and not “radio” and I seriously thought something was majorly wrong. Thankfully, the only thing wrong was that I had to get up that early. I so didn’t want to. But, thankfully, I did!  Boot Camp was so much better this morning and I’m very glad I went. 

There was one problem with Boot Camp-the upper part of the teacher’s (extremely well defined) butt was showing almost the entire class.  She had rolled her pants down a little too far (well a lot too far actually).   All the guys in the class were drooling which made me feel like I should have said something.  I wanted to say something for her sake (and mine), but I also didn’t want to embarrass her.  I didn’t say anything. Should I have?  Would you have?

I have to say-it was an impressive butt.

Sadly, coffee was needed again this morning.

That’s my “tall” soy latte filled to the top of my 16 oz cup.

Besides going to the gym, I also fulfilled another 20+10 goal.  My gas gauge said this:

And so I went and filled up:

Shaun will be so proud. And? It only took me 3 minutes.

I’m really struggling in 3 areas of the 20+10 challenge:

1. Cutting out dairy.

2. Losing pounds/inches

3. Talking nice to myself

1 and 2 are completely related and came to a head yesterday.  I know that I’m not going to lose pounds/inches in a few days but I also know that I have to make good food choices in order to lose the pounds/inches.  I was doing really well until yesterday.  Yesterday was a big FAIL in the food and dairy department.  I ate a cookie and a brownie. *sigh* Today will be better-it has to be better-my tummy is really mad at me.

As for number 3, I’m having a hard time with this and, to be quite frank, it’s the one I care the most about.  If I talk down to myself, then I will, inevitably, pass that on to Lucy.  That’s my worst fear in the world.  I said something on Tuesday and Shaun got really mad at me.  He told me that I wasn’t following my challenge.  I said “Well, I don’t have to be 100% perfect, right out the gate-it’s a process.”

He agreed with me except for that one point.  He insisted that I be 100% perfect about talking nice to myself starting now. He told me, “No one is allowed to talk about my wife like that. No one.”

It is getting better though.  I thought something pretty mean this morning and immediately thought “Well, you’re doing something about it-focus on that.”  Let’s hope I can keep it up.

Lastly, I am so excited.  At lunch I’m sending ALL OF THIS STUFF out!

Well, except the cuties 😉 I LOVE giving gifts and today I get to give many. YIPPEE.

I hope you all have a BEAUTIFUL day!

Every entry had a 1 in 10 chance of winning!

I cracked up when John came up-he’s a great friend from DC that always makes me smile.  He was one of the few people that saw us get married in Jamaica!

Amy, John, Tasha, Laura, and Mel send me your address and I’ll get your booty mailed out!

…but I am having some tea this morning.  Today is a rest day and I slept in until 6:45-it was glorious!  Although Lu learned how to make one of her musical animals work.  She thought 6:15 was a good time for music.  Silly girl!

I made some juice this morning, using, what I thought, was a very strange ingredient 🙂

Baby bell peppers!  According to this those puppies have 4 times as much vitamin C as an orange! I also found that they are the base for paprika-who knew!

I did cut the tops off, but look at what a pretty glass it made:

I couldn’t taste the peppers at all.  Since drinking it, I have had some pepper aftertaste in my mouth though.

Random Blog Stuff

I made some updates to the blog yesterday by myself! Shaun was so proud! 

-I added a tagline that Mel came up with-“Live. Laugh. Love. Eat. Just Be.” Isn’t it perfect?!?!?!  Thank you Mel! Shaun will have to help me get it into the header, so stay tuned. I actually had him change the code when I set the blog up so that there wouldn’t be a tagline since I couldn’t think of one. Mel to the rescue!

-I added a “Subscribe” button.  I know many of you asked for this and so there it is on the sidebar.

-I added “Subscribe to Comments” ability on posts.  So if you are interested in the comments on a particular post you can get emails.  There are some interesting comments!  I even posted my schedule in the comments yesterday 🙂

-Lastly, the one I’m most excited about is that I made it so that the title of my post is in the URL.  Shaun thought that that was a hard thing to do but it turns out that it’s just a setting in WordPress.  I did the research and figured it out.  This is big, I usually let Shaun deal with the techy stuff.

-Have you seen the giveaway?  There’s still time to enter!

Beautiful Blogger Award

Both Amber and Tasha awarded me the Beautiful Blogger Award.  They said some of the nicest things about me too-both of them made me well up a little bit.  Thank you girls so much.

Amber and I met at the KERF meet-up in November and I’m so glad we did.  She is such a sweet soul and has some of the most amazing style EVER. Seriously. 

I found Tasha’s blog one day by putting in “Clean Eating, Gum” into Bing (Yes, Chelsea really does Bing!). She had a post about what she considers clean and I was hooked!  It turns out that her little boy, J, is just about a month younger than Lucy-so we have a lot in common!

So, here’s how it works: I have to tell you 7 random things about me, and then I choose 7 of YOU to do the same.

Random Things-these were hard!:

1. I like my shoelaces to be the exact same length and will re-lace my shoes if they are not.

2. I had severe dyslexia as a child-I still technically do.  With the help of the Irlen Clinic and colored lens therapy, I went from not being able to see vowels to a voracious reader and excellent student.  This meant that I had bright purple lenses in my glasses as a child-talk about mortifying.

3. I like to fall asleep with the light on.  This one actually has to do with the dyslexia.  I have scotopic sensitivity which means that lights actually make you sleepy.  A sure fire way for me to fall asleep is to turn a light on.  Weird.  Too bad someone else is in the room with me!

4. I’ve wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember.  When I was 18 my uterus would ache when I saw babies.  That aching didn’t go away until I got my own.

5. I loved being pregnant.  It was AMAZING.  Even though I felt like total crap for the first 13 weeks and was on bedrest at the end, the fact that I was growing a life and that she was with me at all times was indescribable.

6. I can’t to time math.  I have to count it out on my fingers.  I probably could do it, but I still count out time on my fingers.  For example, if I fall asleep at 10 and wake up at 5:30 (oof!) I have to count that out on my fingers to figure out it’s 7.5 hours of sleep. Even though it’s insanely easy math.

7. My hair is naturally curly.

But turned straight when I was pregnant.

And went back to curly when Lucy was about 8 months old.  I use a straightening iron every day.

Wasn’t that fun?

Now onto the 7 lovely ladies! Please don’t feel like you need to pass it on-No pressure-just fun! I wish I could pick ALL of you!

1. Mel-she is an amazing Mommy who is also incredibly talented.  She makes the most beautiful bows and other baby things.  She’s also one of the funniest people I know.

2. Ashley-another amazing Mommy who has some pretty lofty goals for 2010.  I still can’t get over number 1!

3. Amanda-again, a mommy (to beautiful Ava)! She’s doing a 365 project with photos-she’s truly an awesome photographer.

4. RhodeyGirl–Sabrina who WILL be a wonderful mommy someday 😉 We met at Calorie King and she inspires me all.the.time with all her hostessing abilities-she’s amazing.  Whenever I have people coming over, I always think, “What would Sabrina do?”

5. Monica-another fabulous mommy-I’m seeing a trend here!  We actually met on the interwebs a loooong time ago on Calorie King.  She’s been out to California numerous times and we always have fun together.

6. Lauren-A Louisiana girl who always makes me smile.  I couldn’t believe that she just turned 20! Happy birthday!

7. Tania-I miss you!  I hope all is well and maybe this will bring you out of your break.  Tania is a total foodie who is on a quest to lose weight the RIGHT WAY.  She makes the most delicious and beautiful food.  Her honesty is so inspiring.

Okay, work cropped up in the middle of that (WORK!) and that took way longer than expected.  Till later!

Did you see my giveaway? I can’t believe I’m parting with 5 jars of TJ’s pumpkin butter.

ANYWAY.

It was so hard to wake up this morning.  I desperately need to get to bed before 10:30!  To add injury to insult Boot Camp sucked a big one this morning.  The class was too full and the teacher (who’s normally AWESOME) kinda sucked today :(.  Oh well, I did it!

When I got home, I had this:

2 carrots, 1/2 of an apple, 4 leaves of kale, and a meyer lemon. It was tasty.

I promise I won’t post pictures of my juice every day but it’s just so FUN and novel right now.

Plus, I’ve been reading up on juicing and wanted to share the guidelines I’m following with you.  Since I’m trying to lose weight, I want to be smart about this and I think these will help.

1. Only drink 8 ounces of juice a day.

2. Only mix in 1/2 apple or lemon juice with my veggies.

3. Eat all my other fruits.

4. Only juice one root vegetable a day (they are more caloric).

5. Juice something green everyday.

6. Try to be as varied as possible (this one is hard since there are only so many veggies that will fit in my fridge!)

7. Only juice with organic produce and wash it well.

Today’s was so pretty in an unconventional way:

I followed that up with another latte from Starbucks.  I WILL NOT be getting a latte tomorrow.  My goal is to get enough sleep tonight that I don’t need caffeine.  Good thing Wednesday is my “sleep in” day. 

Starbuck tip! I’ve been using my insulated cup that I showed you yesterday. And no matter what size you order, they fill it to the top!  Yesterday I ordered a grande and it was full.  Today I ordered a tall and it was full-it’s a 16 ounce cup! I just need to remember that I got 16 ounces of a latte and not 12 ounces.

Last Night

Last night I made “burritos” for dinner.  When I made the meat for the lasagna on Sunday night, I browned double the amount and then saved it for last nights tacos.  When I got home, I reheated it in a pan and added taco spices.  In addition to the meat, I heated up a can of refried beans, grated some cheese (for Lu and Shaun), cut up veggies, had salsa, yogurt (for me), and sour cream (for Shaun), some Casa Sanchez (a local company) organic corn chips and OF COURSE Tapatio!  All three of us had a very different but delicious dinner.

Mine:

Lu’s-she ate almost all of this and a half a cucumber:

(love that plate-thanks Jocelyn!) She used her chips as a spoon-it was so cute.

And, Shaun’s:

(his is the ugliest!)

It was delish!

I finished off the night with my newest obsession.  I’ve heard about this a million times but have never tried it.  I was reading Gena’s blog and she actually had pictures that convinced me to give it a whirl (ah the power of pictures!). All you do is freeze a ripe banana and then throw it in the food processor for about 5 minutes.

At first it makes my Cuisinart almost jump off the counter and it’s LOUD but it is SO worth it.  Thank goodness for a baby that sleeps well!  It tastes better than any soy ice cream I have ever tried and it’s only banana. No sugar, no artificial stuff-just banana!

Gena recommends topping it with a chocolate sauce made of 1 part cocoa powder to 2 parts agave.  I tried that the first night and found that I much preferred the plain banana.

I wonder how long until I burn out on this one? Any guesses?

I bought 12, yes 12, jars of TJ’s pumpkin butter last year-I must’ve been nesting!  I’ve got five left (I like my pumpkin butter, as does Lucy!) and I want to share.  These puppies will be good for at least another year, BUT, I’ve got a freezer full of my own YUMMY pumpkin butter. So you get to enjoy the bounty!

If you’ve never had TJ’s Pumpkin Butter then you are really missing out.  It is A.MAZE.ING.

I’m so excited to get to share with you.  I love giving gifts and I noticed that after the holidays most of the giveaways disappeared.

There are 5 ways to enter!

1. Comment on this post.

2. Mention this on YOUR blog.

3. Tweet about this giveaway or Facebook it!

4. Add me to your blogroll.

5. Follow me on Twitter.

If you do 2-5, just leave a separate comment for each.

I’ll use a random integer generator to decide on the 5 winners! The giveaway is open until Wednesday, January 6th at 6 PM. NOW CLOSED I’ll announce the winner tomorrow night and I’ll be shipping everything on Thursday.

YAY Pumpkin butter!

I did eat a piece of sprouted grain bread with PB and jam before my workout but after my workout I had this:

(2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, and half an apple-I could really taste the celery)

Followed by this:

That’s a Grande Soy Latte in my new reusable Starbucks cup!

I needed the caffeine after my night last night . I couldn’t fall asleep and then when I did, I was up almost every hour.  Then Lucy woke up at 4:30 (which she HARDLY ever does).  I was in the middle of a nightmare and I went right into her thinking it was part of the nightmare (which if I just let her settle, she goes back to sleep and I don’t have to rock her).  She fell back to sleep around 4:45 but I was wide awake.  I got 4, maybe 5 hours of sleep last night 🙁

BUT, I got up and went to spinning.  It was a new instructor and I can tell that she was trained by the same guy that trained me.  She has some kinks to work out but she’s GOOD.  And?  She takes away my desire to start teaching again.  The old Monday teacher made me want to teach again because I didn’t like her style. But teaching spin, in addition to everything else on my plate, is not feasible right now or for a loooooong time.  Plus, you don’t get nearly the workout when you teach as compared to the workout you get when you actually take the class.

Yay for meeting a few of my goals this morning-I also folded last night AND got gas this morning (even though I SO did not want to).  Hooray for the year of 30 (Yo30).

Yesterday was a great last day of my vacation.  I went to brunch with some old friends.

At one time I worked with six of the people in that picture (the rest are significant others).  I now only work with 1 :(. One went to Thailand to teach English and travel and is now in school. Another left to go back to school is speech pathology and starts her new job as a speech therapist any day now, and 3 left to go get that start-up feeling back that we lost once we were bought by the man. I also went to college with five people in that picture.  Man, we’re getting old 😉

Lu was there too:

(Caption: “Who me?”)

And she was SUCH a good girl.  It didn’t hurt that Jesse played with her the entire time.  He is SO hired.  Jesse, we will GLADLY pay for your dinner (and Amanda’s too) anytime you want to come out with us.

She got some very fun pancakes:

And was still hungry for CRAYON:

I tried to get a picture of the blue crayon on her teeth with my P&S.

You can see it if you look really closely.

Alright, I need to face the music and actually look at how many emails I have after being out for almost 2 weeks. *GULP*

But first, did you see my challenge? I invite anyone to join.  No need to pick 30 goals but any goal/s would be fun.  And it’s always better with friends!

How is the first working day of the New Year treating you?

Until later!

I went to Crate and Barrel the other day to pick up some gifts and I found that CUTE bowl (and I only got one!) and I saw THE SPOON that I’ve been hearing about for years.  I decided to try it out.  I think I will use this spoon for what it was intended-appetizers.  It’s too small and too much of the nut butter comes off with the first bites.  I like my big spoon where I can control the distribution =D

It’s been over a week since I made some!

Lu LOVED it today.  She’s hit and miss on oatmeal.  Sometimes she thinks it’s great, other times, not so much.  She ate her portion and some of mine today.

I’m keeping breakfast pretty light because I’m going out for “brunch” today at 11 with a big group of friends-most from college!  I’ll be eating lunch and they’ll all be eating breakfast.

Guess what? I folded laundry when it came out of the dryer yesterday!!!  I never understood when people complained of static cling. Now I do!  We can’t use dryer sheets because we’re so sensitive. My Mom got us these dryer balls a few years back to use instead of dryer sheets.  They’re supposed to make clothes softer but it doesn’t say anything about static cling

We went to the bookstore yesterday and I finally found this:

I ordered a subscription on Amazon months ago and they said it would be up to 10 weeks. They were right! I’m excited to read it.

On my last day of vacation here’s what I have to do:

-Wrap presents
-Visit with friends (Yay!)
-Go grocery shopping
-Finish laundry
-REALLY take down Christmas decorations

Do you have to get back to real life tomorrow?  What’s on your to do list?

My friend Bethany is here visiting her grandparents and we got to go out to breakfast without our kiddos this morning.  It was FABULOUS.

We totally milked it for all it was worth and walked around after breakfast-we went to Starbucks and then to Molly Stone’s (kind of like a Whole Foods) to pick up the ingredients for dinner tonight.

A day late, but you won’t tell anyone, right?  I was excited to see that Boar’s Head sells half pounds of bacon. The perfect amount for what I’m making.  I inevitably end up throwing out bacon because I can never get through a package before it goes bad.  Not anymore!

I was also excited to see fresh Black Eyed Peas.  So much easier and faster.

They were on a super sale too.  $1.99 per 11 ounce container. Score!

When I got home, it was evident that Daddy and Lucy had had a good time while Mommy was away.

My parents got Lucy that tunnel for Christmas and she LOVES it.  She actually loves every single toy she got this year.

Speaking of which, I need to go through her toys and give away the stuff that she no longer uses.  Maybe that’ll be my next task?