The camera adds how much?

Out first family photo was taken by a friend tonight, and I cannot believe how big I am!! The camera didn't add 10 lbs lol I felt like it added 30!! I am beyond tired of being fat!

So here is my goal for the next few days log all my food intake online and eat 100% clean. Then I'll make a small not too intense workout goal once I'm not eating enough to gag a large bear!

It's bad enough having to buy bigger clothes and pull out my "fat" clothes, but seeing it is a whole other story! I love the picture, but that is not the example I want to be to my kids! JUST SAY NO to the cookies and treats! Put down the second and third helping! I can do this!

So the picture of the drink, is an awesome pumpkin pie smoothie I concocted. My almost 2 year old is sooo picky since she is teething and loves this! It's about 1/2 cup pumpkin (Libby's canned pure pumpkin, not the pumpkin pie mix), 2 tbs whole fat Greek yogurt, 3/4 to 1 cup milk of your choice, 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1 carrrot washed but no need to peel, about 1tbs agave, and as much ice as you want. Just blend it up! It's delicious!!

Braving the madness!

I've come to realization that if I ever want to get out of the house for more than 20 minutes (which is usually rushed) I have to take at least one kid with me. If my husband is working I have to take all three of my own, and if I'm babysitting the other two kids, it pretty much isn't worth even trying. Ever since I knew the twins were okay to be around more germs (after their firs shots) I started braving the madness of taking two infants and my young toddler to the store (not much else to do here in the winter). I look at juggling my three in a total different way now. I think of my friend with twin girls who takes them and her older child to Target or anywhere she needs to go. I also think of another mom of multiples that has four children and just had twins, and then I live my life knowing that if someone else can do it, so can I. If I don't try, I will just be stuck at home and miserable waiting for someone to help me. So if my day is crazy and I need to get out of the house or go to the store, I load up my three kids and go! They are all so much happier when they aren't in the house and so am I! Yesterday I sent my older daughter (almost 2 years old) to her grandmas and just had my twins and the 10 month old I babysit, so I loaded all three up in the stroller (one in the front pack) and went for a walk. All three of my lovely children are teething so its a bit of a mad house here right now. My daughter Olivia woke up screaming at 3 am, then at 5:30 my twin girl Jordan woke up screaming waking Olivia again, then they took turns waking each other up, so I took Jordan out the living room. Later when Olivia woke up all she did was grab on my legs and then asked for "cancakes and juice" which I gave her, and she started screaming because she didn't want pancakes and juice. I told her to eat the pancakes, to which she replies "No Mommy!" Then they took turns crying. When one stopped, another started. It was just so pleasant! I'm still waiting a little longer before I start working out, but I'm really looking forward to the alone time! Pic of me with my twins and the 10 month old out on a walk. My little man Corbin eating homemade sweet potato baby food My little girl Jordan eating the same homemade sweet potato baby food My oldest Olivia holding her little brother Corbin

An update and getting started

Life has been pretty crazy the last year since finding out I was expecting twins! We've gone through the hardships of finding out our baby girl would have a Congenital Heart Defect and me having to stay in Seattle, over a thousand miles from home, to have the twins. Then going through her surgery at 3 weeks old, and the amazing whirlwind of her fast recovery and change of diagnosis. She has done so well since being born due to all of the prayers from all of our family and friends. We were able to come home when the twins were four weeks old. Jordan (the baby girl) will be followed by a cardiologist for life, and we will know as she grows if she will need more surgery or a procedure in the cath lab. My son Corbin had eye surgery a couple weeks ago because of having cross eyes, and will need at least one more in June. We go to Anchorage (5 to 6 hour drive) about once a month for doctor appointments for one or both of them, they are also following Corbin's kidneys because they are bigger than normal. I have also started babysitting the girl I was babysitting before and her 10 month old sister, so I have 5 kids under 2 and a half here most days! I have a hard enough time trying to keep up with kiddos and house work that I don't get much time to blog, but I'm going to try to take the effort to do it once a week. My twins are 6 months old and starting to eat solids, so since I am breast feeding, I can finally start working out again in a couple weeks and not worry about my milk supply so much. My plan of attack will be eating clean and keeping track of my calories on myfitnesspal since I have to eat at least 3000 calories to breast feed the twins and drink about 115 oz of water a day! I'll have to make a real post later, since the twins just woke up! So wish me luck! I'm going to need it, the twins and my almost 2 year old keep me busy!

Hanging in there...

Exhaustion is one of those things that I'm slowly getting used to. It comes hand in hand with have three kids under two. My life is full of adventure and excitement even though we rarely leave the house. We have started potty training my 20 month old daughter and she has successfully used the potty 8 times, so that is going fairly well. She responds so well to verbal praise but also gets to put a sticker on her "chart" each time she goes. It is very time consuming, but totally worth it. She has also been moved out of her crib and into a toddler bed, which has been an adventure in itself the last few days. Eating clean has been going well, and my husband is eating clean too. He has lost about 10 pounds in less than a week! It makes me so jealous that men lose weight so much easier than women. I've been doing so well and haven't lost any weight in the last few weeks because I haven't been able to work out. I ordered Turbo Fire so I'm really looking forward to trying the workouts and I'm going to attempt to do them when my older daughter is awake and she can do them with me. I also really want to make it to Zumba on Mondays and Tuesdays, but it hasn't been working out very well. No matter the obstacles I will lose this weight, even if it takes me another year or two. I will continue to eat clean and workout when I can, and as the twins get older leaving them with my husband will be a lot easier, and I can do a lot more with them outside this summer too.

Slow but steady...

Life as a mom of three under 2 is craziness, especially having twins. Everyone tells me how great I am doing and how I'm a super mom, but I honestly don't feel like it. I feel like I'm lucky to survive the day. My living room always looks like a 19 month tornado has torn it apart, I only get to shower once a week LOL twice if I'm lucky because sleeping at night sounds better than a midnight shower, as soon as my laundry is folded and put away there is a huge pile waiting to be done again, and I hardly ever remember we own dogs, let alone remember to let them out! It may be hectic and crazy, but I wouldn't trade my babies (even the forgotten fur babies) for anything. I'm so glad I'm eating clean and showing my children how to eat healthy and be active, even if it only means doing 10 minutes on the elliptical machine. My daughter (almost 20 months) has been eating more and more clean foods now, which is awesome cause she doesn't eat much, now if I could only get my husband to get back to completely eating clean. He loves his Diet Pepsi. I was so excited to go back to Zumba cardio dance party on Monday, and I am so amazed how out of shape I am, but that's to be expected after being on modified bedrest, and then recovering from a c section for 6 weeks. I just hope my endurance gets better soon. I barely made it through the whole class. I will get back in shape soon, I just have to keep going and take everything life throws at me one day at a time. I'm going to start posting recipes (unless I really don't know what I put in it) or links to the recipes for the pics I post of my clean eats. I hope that will be more helpful, and if I get enough of a following (once my babies are a bit older) I'll find someone to help me organize my blog better so you guys can look up recipes and workouts and links. SPAGHETTI PIE http://weelicious.com/2010/08/31/spaghetti-pie/ I made this and it was delicious, my measurements were a bit different and I didnt have a pie plate, but it turned out great. I just used two small casserole dishes. SPAGHETTI PIE WITH ZUCCHINI COINS http://weelicious.com/2010/06/15/baked-zucchini-coins/ I love the zucchini coins, I just need to figure out how to coat them better and use whole wheat bread crumbs or make my own. COTTAGE CHEESE PANCAKES http://weelicious.com/2010/10/05/cottage-cheese-pancakes/ These are so freaking good!! Even my husband who hates pancakes loves them and so did my daughter.

I Feel LikeI Live in a Baby Zoo

My life has been a whirl wind of craziness the last 6 months, finding out that we were having twins, having our twin daughter Jordan have open heart surgery at 3 weeks old, and having to be out of Alaska in Seattle to have the babies so they could be near the medical care they needed, then a month after having them being able to come home was an answer to so many prayers. Now we are home, my twins Corbin (the boy) and Jordan (the girl) are 10 weeks old tomorrow, and my daughter Olivia is now 19 months old, I live in a mad house! Olivia is learning new words every day and refuses to eat more than a bite or two at any meal and likes to steal pacifiers, blankets, toys, bouncers, and bottles from the babies all day long as well as try to sit on them in the process. Corbin (my little man) only ever wants to be held, and is my semi mellow, extra cuddly baby that likes to over eat at one point in almost every day and massively spit up all over me, which is awesome. Then there is Jordan who loves to smile at me a lot through out the day now, she is my amazing little fighter heart baby, but of course she has to be colicky so she loves to cry inconsolably every night before bed and off an on through out the day. So you can say my life is a bit crazy now. I have started eating clean again now that I'm not pregnant anymore and am trying to go to Zumba when I can. I also plan to workout at home, I just need to get a schedule figured out or do it at 5 am when I know everyone will stay asleep, but we will see how that pans out. I'm also breastfeeding my twins and working up to not having to supplement with formula at all, so on top of eating clean I have to make sure I eat close to 3000 calories a day, YUCK, for clean eating that is a lot of food, so I'm just adding lots of avacado, extra smoothies, peanut butter, and other good fats to my diet and not being as afraid of cheese so I don't have to count calories. I won't be posting every day or not even every week sometimes because of my crazy life, but I will post when I can and give you tips on losing weight or my experience with losing weight with 3 under 2 years old. I'll also be sharing a lot more about my daily life dealing with twins and a toddler. Last night I was so excited to take a shower, since I hadn't showered in like 5 days. My husband had Olivia in bed at 7:45pm and the twins were in my bed and asleep a little before 9:00pm and I was ready to take my time in the shower. Here I am shaving my legs for the first time in like a month or a bit longer, just as I'm about 3/4 of the way done with my first leg Corbin starts crying! So I'm sitting here typing this with one hairy leg and one almost completely shaved leg. Maybe Monday night after Zumba I'll get luckier and be able to finish both legs while my husband watches the kids. My goal for today is to make sure the twins get a bath, they haven't had one in a few days either, so I'm going to attempt bathing them while I'm alone today at some point. Hopefully it happens, if not I have a babysitter/helper coming tomorrow at 11:00am to help me. I'm looking forward to sharing my life and more of my weight loss journey with everyone.

Taking advantage of the sunshine!

Today has been such a nice day. I'm very thankful for the sunshine, because it was supposed to rain. We had great weather yesterday too. I'll be 16 weeks into my pregnancy tomorrow, and its going by fairly quickly. Here is a pic of me at 15 weeks

Pic of me today (almost 16 weeks) I think I look smaller in this one for some reason.


My morning sickness is gone for the most part, I've had a couple days in the last two weeks that I've gotten sick or had a really bad day. Well half of the day was bad, but other than not being interested in food at all, I've felt great. I've been walking and going for bike rides on days its nice out and take the girls with me in their chariot stroller when I'm babysitting. I also bought some flowers and replanted them to put on our porch and stairs, it makes the house look a little nicer even though we are doing some work to our yard and house.

This last winter hit us really hard with wind and knocked down our fence in several places, then hit us harder with tons and tons of snow, so we have to fix the damage from that too. So we are redoing our fence, fixing our roof, putting new windows in and I'm going to work on fixing our flower bed out front that was taken out by the guy who was plowing our snow. So the flowers are to distract from the chaos in our yard. I hope it helps.

I've been trying really hard to be more creative in the food department for my daughter and the girl I babysit. I've gotten a lot of ideas from pinterest and I'm going to try to document some of the meals I give my daughter so I can help anyone else that may be in a rut like I am. She is only 13 months old, so she can't eat everything yet, but we are working up to it .

Here are a couple simple ideas, some of these aren't "clean whole foods" but we are seeing what she likes and can handle for now.

Make a batch of whole wheat pancakes and freeze them for a quick breakfast later on.
 


My daughter loves to eat watermelon like this, it feels great on her molars that are coming in.


Subway cheese pizza was her first pizza slice by her self. She was so excited about it, she had fresh fruit too.
 

Natural Peanut Butter and honey sandwich, grapes, and string cheese. 
 

Natural Peanut butter and jelly sandwich (normal jam), and grapes. We have to eat the grapes before they go bad.
 

My clean lunch. Sandwich, Ezekiel bread, veganaise, mustard, avacado, a little havarti, tomato, and sprouts. It would have been better with some red onion. Served with some cottage cheese.


We spent a lot of time outside today, and most of our time inside was spent practicing walking, she's so close to being able to walk more than 7 or so steps. Its exciting. We also went to tot swim for the first time in months which was fun, we'll have to go more once I get my swimsuit in. Well, its my bedtime, so of to bed I go. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and week.