Hey, hey, hey, hey! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Tuesday!
We’ve had the most interesting weather here lately. Today it was 75 degrees, sunny and beautiful, however last Wednesday it SNOWED all day long! It was so crazy and felt like December.
I took this picture in the morning.
It continued to snow the rest of the day and I felt bad for our poor little garden. Thankfully, Kev had put some “Walls of Water” around all of the plants he put in the ground. We had several inches of snow by the evening…….and every bit of snow was gone the next day!
It was crazy.
Since it was a nice snowy April day, I decided to have a “stay home and be cozy day” with my 5 year old. We decided to make some Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. It was fun and the muffins hit the spot.
My cute kiddos enjoyed watching them cook in the oven. I’m sure it felt a lot like watching water boil. Ha ha.
I enjoyed one of the muffins for breakfast along with a veggie/egg scramble. It was just perfect.
These muffins are so good and all of my kids love them! They also freeze very well (I just put them in a gallon Ziploc bag) and they are the perfect thing to put in the kids lunch boxes. I just pull one out of the freezer, put it in their lunch box and it’s perfect by lunchtime.
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I’ve told you guys I’ve had a HUGE cleaning bug lately. I really want to clean every inch of my house and throw everything away, BUT I haven’t had a lot of time to do a whole lot and it’s frustrating. I did manage to de-junk my junk drawers last week and it made me happy!
The before…
There was no organization whatsoever in either of my drawers and I could barely even close the drawers most of the time! Soooo, I chucked all of the broken/crappy things, found “new homes” for many of the things and organized everything else!
This little cutie patootie helped me too. Ha ha.
And here’s the after…
Yay. It’s so nice to be able to find things and SHUT the drawers! I’ve threatened the children and told them the drawers HAVE to stay looking like this too!!
Soooo, it may take me a few weeks/months/YEARS to de-junk the rest of my house, but I’m going to do it!
I really hate living in chaos. But, I guess I DID decide to have six kids, so chaos is inevitable. Ha.
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I’ve still been doing well with my “reasonable healthy diet” and I love it. Just to recap; I’m staying away from obvious forms of sugar until my half marathon on May 16th. I’ve also been trying to load up on the fruits and veggies and other “real” food.
However, I haven’t been restricting my grains (other than white flour) and I’ve started to get a bit lax. Ya know, whenever I start a healthy goal, I seem to do very well for a week or two and THEN I always find some kind of loophole and then I abuse the crap out of that loophole!
So, this week I’ve been eating entirely too much bread and cereal! I know it’s not technically sugar, but I also know it’s not doing me any favors!
So, starting tomorrow I’m going to cut out bread and cereal too! I’ll still have oats, brown rice, quinoa, etc. I really think I should have done that from the beginning. Bread/cereal is almost as addicting as sugar to me!
I’ve learned that living and committing to a healthy lifestyle requires constant self-evaluation and adjusting. I’m always falling short somewhere and I’m constantly learning what works and what doesn’t. I don’t expect perfection from myself (ha ha!), but I do expect hard work, commitment and effort.
I know that healthy living is 100% MY responsibility and MY choice. Nobody is holding a gun to my head making me eat well and exercise…I have to chose to do it! Nobody is going to do it for me!
I’ve also decided to simplify my meals as much as possible. I’ve been trying to come up with simple dinners that don’t take me forever to make. I’m also trying to utilize leftovers.
For example, we had turkey meatloaf and baked potatoes (I had a sweet potato) for dinner last week…
A couple of days later, I made an unorthodox dinner that turned out pretty good! I cut up the leftover baked potatoes and cooked them up with some onions in a little bit of olive oil. I served them with scrambled eggs and cut up oranges.
The kids all agreed it was a weird dinner, but nobody complained! They all enjoyed it!
I’ve also been trying to load up on salads lately.
Salads hardly ever sound good to me, but they always taste good to me! When I make the effort to cut things up and assemble a salad, I’m ALWAYS glad I did!
I’m running low on produce at my house right now, so I’m hoping to make it over to Costco tomorrow to load up.
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I’ve been loving running lately! I wish I was faster, but I feel pretty good. My pace has been between 9:30-10:00. I don’t feel any sort of injuries and I’m happy ’bout that.
Tonight I went to a HIIT class at the gym (it kicked my butt) and then went on a 5 mile run with the baby in the jogger afterward. I was pretty tired, but was glad I got ‘er done.
I took a “beautiful” picture at the end of our run…
Yes, I look haggard AND I felt pretty haggard.
Kev and I went on a nine mile run on Saturday (it was our date night. Woo hoo.) It was actually quite fun! My body felt pretty good and strong, but I started to “feel it” the last mile or so. My feet and hip joints started to ache. It felt so good to get NINE miles in though! I don’t think I’ve run nine miles in YEARS. Yay.
We decided to drive far away, park the car and run home. I took a pic of us heading out…
We stopped mid-run to stretch for a minute, so I snapped another pic…
We look so “cute.” Ha ha. It was actually quite a peaceful run and I loved spending time with my favorite person in the world.
Ya know, exercise is TOUGH and I usually dread it, but afterward I LOVE it and always feel so great! I’ve never regretted a workout. Each week I like to PLAN my workouts and then I do my best to make sure they happen!
Well, it is getting late and I’m BEAT, so I’m going to go to bed! ‘Night! I love you all! xoxo
Not sure where you are at, but here in Utah yesterday was warm and sunny but it snowed all last Wednesday! Blizzard, white out conditions as I drove the munchkins to school. It really affected attendance at Zumba (just the die-hards made it in, I’m glad I live super close).
I can’t master the healthy eating – I love my sugar, chips and bread/cereals! I keep plugging away though!
I take pictures after I organize a drawer or cupboard – I like proof that at one point it WAS straight! 🙂
I’m in Utah too and that snowy day last week is what I was referencing. I’m just slow to post about it! Ha ha. I couldn’t believe the crazy weather! This whole winter has been so abnormal, but I’ve loved it.
Healthy eating is definitely the hardest part of healthy living! I do well sometimes, and struggle other times….but we just keep pluggin’ along, right?
I love to take pictures of clean things around my house too! It is so nice to remember it can actually look like that!!!
It’s so heartwarming that you call your hubby your favorite person in the world!
No wonder you have such a happy, sweet family.
I imagine the whole world would be a better place if more people had healthier relationships with their spouses!
Living in Florida, I really enjoyed the snow picture! (I always enjoy your photos!)
Awesome that you and Kevin ran together!!! I’m all about keeping the clutter to a minimum – I hate when drawers or anything else start to get junky looking!!
I always love it when we can run together! He’s a little bit faster than me right now, but it motivates me. 😉 I know, clutter drives me bananas and it’s been so frustrating because it seems like messes are made quicker than I can clean them! Ughh.
So great that you too are able to run together.
If you are so motivated to clean, how about you come to my place – I’ll watch the kids.
I love running with my husband so much! We can’t do it all the time because of the kiddos, but I’m always happy when we can make it work. Hey, I LOVE your cleaning idea! We could get both of our houses done together. Ha!
Ugh! Snow. We are supposed to get spring flurries tonight. Last week it was sooooo warm.
You did HIIT and then a 5k? What energy! Good luck on your training for the half and continued healthy eating 🙂
I actually didn’t mind the snow too much because I know it melts pretty quick this time of year. We’ve had the most mild winter ever, so it was so strange to have such a huge snowy day in APRIL! Thanks so much for your support Charlotte. You’re a sweetie. 😉
You are so right, I sometimes do not want to work out but after I do I am the happiest person ever! I bet it was so fun running with your hubby, I love how supportive he is. Also those muffins look so good, I need to try them!
I know whenever I don’t feel like working out (which is most of the time!), I just tell myself to do it anyway and I’ll love it once I start and certainly after I’m done. AND, that’s always right!
My husband and I “run” together too, but in our case it means we map out a course and each run at our own pace. Sometimes he’ll wait for me to catch up with him at regular intervals. Sometimes I’m motivated to keep up with him, but my normal pace is about a minute slower than yours so it’s rare that I’m that motivated.
Sounds like you’re on a good trajectory for your half marathon. Stay strong!
Kev’s usually faster than me too. He says he likes running slower sometimes too though. We went running with Kev’s brother and his wife the other day. Their speeds vary greatly, so Kev’s brother would turn around every once in a while and catch up with his wife and then run ahead for a little bit. I thought it worked out pretty well!
I LOVE making those dinners with all the left overs… THAT ACTUALLY TURN OUT DELICIOUSLY!!! I have been making a lot of those lately, I am trying to just clean EVERYTHING out of my pantries and fridge before I buy anything more – So far… I have done well, but I certainly have some things that need to go down the hatch 😉 Doesn’t help that my life revolves around eating out all the dang time! UGH! Not this evening though – woop woop!
I always feel so accomplished when I can use up the leftovers and produce before they die! Ha ha! That’s fun that your life revolves around eating out all the time!!!! I would love that, although I think I would gain 50 pounds too, lol!
I love your outlook on healthy eating and living in general. I feel totally overwhelmed with 4 kids, you are amazing!!! Have a great weekend 🙂
Thanks Jen! I am totally overwhelmed all the time too! I just try to cut out whatever I can in my life and prioritize the things that are most important to me. It’s so tough though and I have mini nervous breakdowns almost daily. Ha ha.
Definitely crazy weather ! In France we have had summer like weather for almost 3 weeks. It has been amazing.
Potatoes, scrambled eggs and oranges sounds good to me !
Good luck on your upcoming half marathon. Have fun !
Thanks so much Karen! That’s so nice you’re having summer weather there! It’s been in the 70s all week long here and I LOVE IT SO MUCH!
I love your blog! I love the fact that your family eat healthy and exercise. You rarely see a family that incorporates both of them. Best of luck to you on your health and fitness endeavors!
Thanks so much! It’s tough to teach kids about healthy living, but we do our best! Ha ha.
Your drawers look so good! I need to get some organization going in my drawers!
I can’t believe what crazy weather you have had. It is so weird being in Brazil. It is technically fall here but it is still pretty hot every day. I wear shorts most days. When it is in the 60s I act like it is cold. Haha!
Thanks Britt! My junk drawers had been bugging me for a while, so it feels so good to have something in my house organized now! I can’t imagine how the weather must be in Brazil. I imagine it would be quite humid and HOT! What a fun place to live!
WTG with finding your reasonably healthy diet and what works for you! I’m unusually hungry this morning so your muffins look exceptionally good 🙂
Have an awesome Wednesday Mel! XOXO
Thanks Jill! This diet plan is really working well for me. I’m sure I’ll tighten it up a bit from time to time, but I’m happy this plan is liveable…long term!