Yes, I’m ALIVE!

I’m so sorry to leave y’all with nothing but the sound of crickets on my blog the past several days.  We’ve been runnin’ around like crazy and also enjoyed a fun holiday weekend!

I did pretty well with my “One Week Health Challenge” thing.  I ate a TON of fruits, veggies, real whole grains, chicken, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.  I also stayed away from cruddy food, except for one small indulgence on the 4th and a few fries on Saturday night.  I must say that those fries made me SO sick the rest of the weekend.  Blah.

I’m always so amazed by how well my body feels when I eat well!  I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s really eye-opening to me how vastly different I feel when I fuel my body well as opposed to feeding it full of crap.

It also seems like I need to learn that lesson over and over again.

I felt really, really good all week long.  I had more energy and my body just felt more vibrant and healthy (go figure.)  I had some major sugar cravings on day 3 and 4, but I stayed strong!

On Saturday night, Kev and I went to see the movie, The Fault in Our Stars.

It was a really good, thought-provoking show.  However, it’s also a very heavy, sad story. 🙁  I teared up several times throughout the movie and one time I wanted to full-on sob out loud, but I sucked it up and went to my “happy place,” lol.

When the movie ended, I leaned over to Kev and said, “Now that was a crappy show.”

It was actually a very GOOD show, but it just made me feel very vulnerable and afraid of what trials might come my way.  I also told Kev, “Why in the world did I choose to have six kids, marry a wonderful man and have the best dog in the world because they all might get sick and die one day and abolutely rip my heart out and leave me in a vegetative state!??!”

That’s truly how I felt/feel.  I feel so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life, but it scares me how much I LOVE them and NEED them.  I’m already preparing for the day my sweet doggie dies and he’s only three years old.

Yes, I think I’m a bit of a basket case.

Anyway, I digress…

We were in a hurry to get to the movie on time and we were also STARVING, so we decided to buy some food at the theater.  There aren’t too many healthy choices there though (shocker.)  I ordered a sandwich wrap with a side of fry/chip things.  I know it wasn’t the best choice, but it tasted good to me.  HOWEVER, I felt so sick the rest of the night and all day on Sunday.

I just had mega, mega indigestion and felt so so gross.  I know pregnancy made it a lot worse too.  I only ate about half the fries too!  It made me realize (for the gazillionth time!) that my body does not like cheap, fried food, dang it.  Lesson learned.  Although, I’m sure I’ll have to learn that lesson again!

On a brighter note, here are some of the YUMMY, healthy things I enjoyed last week!

Leftover chicken, brown rice and salad topped with Tzatziki.  I actually had this several times and it always tasted AMAZING!

I made tacos for dinner one night and this is how I made mine…

I usually skip the tortilla, but I decided to use ONE and make it into a tostada type salad.  It was phenomenal!  I topped it with fat-free refried beans, turkey taco meat, lettuce, tomato, olives, green onion, cheese, salsa and plain Greek yogurt.

I think I’ll make it again this week.  Yum.

I enjoyed Chocolate Protein Pudding a couple of times and it always hits the spot.

I made Blueberry Pancakes for the kids one morning and Kev made us some KILLER omelets.

The omelets were made of one egg, 3-4 egg whites and all the veggies we had on hand (peppers, green onions, olives and spinach.)  I topped mine with a little all-natural ketchup.  Kev also put a little cheddar AND Feta cheese in my omelet and I loved it.  Seriously, Feta cheese makes an omelet SO SO good!

I snagged ONE pancake and topped it with a little sugar-free syrup.  Absolute heaven.

I enjoyed a bunch of other healthy things last week, but I didn’t take any more pics. 🙁

I also did pretty well on the exercise front.  I walked three times; three miles each time.  I’ve really enjoyed reading a book while walking on my treadmill.

It’s nice because the book takes my mind off of HOW LONG it takes to WALK three miles!!!  I am not a patient walker, btw.  I really want to RUN and get it over with quickly, but my body cannot physically run right now.  Seriously.  Walking is just about all I can do.

Yes, it’s sad.

I also went to the gym once last week and got some great strength training in.  I also snapped this CUTE picture on my way out…

Eeeeee, yikes.  I think I’m the weirdest pregnant lady ever.  My tummy stays pretty small, but the rest of me looks like someone tried to blow me up with an air hose!  It seriously feels like someone decided to see how much poof they could fit inside my body before it explodes.

It’s so much fun.

I also decided I might be retiring from the gym until this baby gets here.  I think I’ll just stick to my walking and weight lifting at home.  We’ll see how it goes.

A Great 4th of July!

We had such a fun holiday weekend!  I love the 4th of July SO MUCH!  It is the epitome of summer!!!!

On July 2nd, we took the kids to our City Carnival.  Our two biggest kids were gone, so we just took the three little ones and we all had a ball.

Kev tried to take my 10 year old around on a bunch of rides, but sadly they wouldn’t let him go on most of them because of his cast. 🙁  He was so so sad, but he did find ONE ride that allowed him to go.

Kev and two of my boys are on the far left.  This ride went up and around different directions and they all loved it!  I was worried my 6 year old would freak out, but he loved it and wanted to go again and again!

I took the two littlest ones on several of the kiddie rides too.

I even went on the Merry-go-Round with my kiddos.  Yay.

That was the extent of my ride going experience. 🙁

We had a great night.

On the Fourth of July, Kev’s brother and his family, who live in Idaho, decided to come down and spend the holiday with us.  We had a yummy BBQ dinner…

We made chicken and veggie kabobs, brown rice, salad and fruit….

We also had hot dogs and chips for the kids.

I told you guys I also had one indulgence.  I really, really, really wanted to make a festive Fruit Pizza, so I DID!

It was so yummy and WORTH the indulgence.  I will share the recipe in a different post since this one is already long enough.

After our BBQ, we chatted for a bit and then headed over to see our City Firework show.

Here we are waiting for the show to begin….

The kids had fun with the glow bracelets I bought at the dollar store…

The firework show was PHENOMENAL and we had a great spot to see them (Kev dropped off some blankets to save our spot earlier in the day.)

Well that pretty much sums up the past several days in a nutshell.  Sorry for the gargantuan post!  I’ll try to be a better blogger this week.

I hope you all had a fabulous 4th and for those of you outside of the USA, I hope you’re having a fabulous summer!

Questions for Y’all….

• What did you do for the holiday??
• What’s your favorite BBQ food?
• Do you enjoy fireworks?
• Have you seen The Fault in Our Stars?  If so, what did ya think?