New “toy”!

After shopping at few stores and trying a few different brands, I finally bit the bullet and purchased some new shoes for x-bike. We went to Mike’s Bikes downtown. We received great customer service. They even noticed our stroller tire was about to come off the wheel and fixed it for us. We probably could have found a better deal online, but it was nice to support a local store. If you are in the market for a bike or bike accessories or need a repair, head over to Mike’s Bikes.

Here are my new shoes, and I can’t wait to try them out next week.

Recovery Drink

A few weeks ago I did a post about exercise and adding a recovery drink to my diet. After some research, I decided to go with a different drink than I originally posted. My instructor recommended the p90x recovery drink. I took a look at the website, and found it to be very expensive.

A search on Amazon (we are doing a TON of shopping on Amazon lately) led me to Mike’s Mix.

 

I looked at the ingredients and the nutritional content. They are pretty much identical. The only difference was that the P90x drink had some creatine. I really don’t want to ingest creatine, so that is actually a good thing for me. The biggest difference between the 2 drinks is the price. Mike’s Mix is less than half the cost of the other brand. It received great reviews on Amazon about its effectiveness and that it tasted great as well.

We ordered some of the chocolate flavor, and the reviews were correct about the taste. It tastes like a huge glass of chocolate milk (you can mix it with water or milk and I choose fat free milk). I do a half serving after my workouts. My workouts are never longer than an hour, so the half serving is sufficient.

After using it for about 3 weeks, I can actually feel a difference during my workouts and throughout the day. I have noticed that I am able to work harder during my spin classes, and use heavier weights in my strength training. I also notice that I feel like a could workout twice in a day. Whereas before, I felt like I could hardly move after my workouts and felt very fatigued throughout my day.

I am sold! I was a tad skeptical at first, but after reading the science behind it and trying it out for myself I really believe it helps. It looks like it is cheaper to buy it through the actual Mike’s Mix website. Even with shipping you pay about $.86/serving as opposed to $1.20/serving when purchased from Amazon with free shipping.

Give it a whirl and see what you think

DIY Play Kitchen-Finished Project

This post is long over due! My grandpa did an amazing job. The kids love playing with them.

Before:

After:

Sewing is on this week’s agenda

I have to get 3 sewing projects completed in about a week. 2 dresses (for Maggie and Bridget) for the 4th of July and 1 superhero cape for Parker. He requested a cape for his birthday.

Here is the cape tutorial I am going to use.

 

Here is the dress tutorial I am going to use. I am a little nervous about the dress for Bridget. I am going to have make adjustments because she is almost ten and needs a much bigger size. Hope it turns out

I am going to get to use my craft table for the first time. I will actually get to leave the sewing projects out and not have to clean them up every night.

This table is made from the same barn wood. It is super heavy duty. Perfect for my craft projects.

Parker wanted in the picture

Our “new” headboard

A few months back when my Grandpa and I were collecting wood from the collapsed barn we collected enough wood to make quite a few pieces of furniture. I think we made a total of 4 trips, and we came home with AMAZING wood. There are some HUGE beams left that are probably 10x10s or 12x12s. I am keeping my eye on them and trying to determine if we should go get them and just save them.

After the light fixture and coffee table were completed, we moved onto some headboards. One for our room and one for Maggie’s big girl bed that she will use down the road (no where near ready to let her out of a crib).

I found a few examples of barn wood headboards online and on Pinterest. This one was my favorite and it came with some pretty good instructions:

My Grandpa, Dad and I brainstormed. We chose our wood, and pieced it all together. My dad had the idea to use the two posts we had chosen and route out some grooves for the headboard to slip into. It worked out perfectly. My grandpa put it altogether, and then we gave it 3 coats of Minwax Polycrilic (Satin finish).

Here is our finished product. The pictures really don’t do it justice. It is beautiful!

Up close:

Post:

I am looking forward to using Maggie’s twin headboard. It turned out just as beautiful! The wood is simply amazing, and is a piece of art all by itself. We enjoyed changing the bedding and some decorations to compliment the new headboard. It really brightened up our room. A much needed redo of our room!

Fathers

This post is a day late, but I don’t want to let Father’s Day pass without mentioning the dads in our lives. This weekend we spent time with my grandpas, our dads, and our brothers. These men are not perfect and they would be the first to admit that fact. However, they are present. They play a role in their children’s lives. In this world, where so many men choose to leave off their responsibility as fathers we are truly blessed to have dads that have made the hard choice to stick it out and take up the responsibility of fatherhood. God bless them!

 

 

The greatest gift I ever had
Came from God; I call him Dad!
~Author Unknown

Featured!

 

Well, I received a a fun e-mail this morning. Knock-Off Décor is featuring our light fixture tomorrow evening. It is exciting!

I love this website and I am currently working on a project that was featured last week. Lots a great DIY ideas in one place. Really nice things that you can make at for the fraction of the price you would pay if you purchased it from the retailer. You should take a look!

Some things I want to remember

My kids are young. They are needy, whiny, naughty, very active, and pretty much all-consuming. Every day there are mountains to climb all day. It is hard to take care of them. Keeping track of their eating, safety, laundry, playing with them, educating them, teaching them about the things of God, disciplining them is exhausting.

However, the cute little things they do and say in a day are so rewarding and special. It keeps me going. It is so special to see how God designed them so differently and individually. It is fun to see them interact with one another.

It is amazing to me how much I don’t remember about when the kids were younger. I have a pretty good memory, but I am forgetting things. It makes me kind of sad. I want to be more deliberate about writing things down. I want to remember this really special, exhausting time of life. It really is so short! People say I will miss it. Right now I don’t feel like I will miss a lot of it, but they are probably correct.

Some things I want to remember:

• when Maggie and Parker get hurt, they immediately look for their blankies and run to be held
• Chase loves to count money
• Parker likes to have wooden gun with him when he watches Swiss Family Robinsons
• Helping me clean the fingerprints off the windows is a real treat. They like to spray the Windex.
• Maggie loves to smash her nose up against the shower door and smile. It shows her top 2 teeth and she looks like Mater from Cars
• The boys love for us too lay in bed with them at night and listen to music. They fight over who gets to lay with them.
• Maggie shows us her nose by crinkling and sniffing. Hilarious!
• Watering the plants and trees in the backyard is a huge treat
• They love chocolate milk
• Everything is a treasure-a rock, a nuts and bolts found on the ground, old soda bottles, etc.
• Chase loves to sort things by color or size
• Parker loves to change his clothes (I don’t think this is cute now, but someday I might )
• Maggie gives kisses and makes the “muah” sound. Abe takes her on the kissing tour at night where she gives each family member a kiss.
• The boys like to watch the same movie over and over.
• The boys like to wear just shorts and no shirts.
• Parker pronounces”th” as an “s” sound. Think sounds like “sink.”
• The boys think imaginary friends are called “ordinary” friends.
• Maggie loves to look at pictures.

I am sure there are more, but that is what I can remember now. My life is so blessed, even though my attitudes and thoughts don’t always show that. Thank you Lord!

Me and my loves!

Boy Subway Art

Here are some boy subway art printables that I created for some shower gifts. Happy printing!

This is the Navy/Green/Grey version. Please feel free to download here.

This is the Navy/Orange/Grey version. Please feel free to download here.

Last Day of School

Chase had his last day of school on Friday. They had a fun week which included some movie watching, school assembly, and a picnic. He is excited about Summer, but he told us that night that he misses school. He said he will miss his teacher and his friends. It is actually nice to hear that he enjoyed school.

Thankfully, some of his friends (especially his BFF Roberto Carlos) belong to the same gym. We are going to meet up for swimming and maybe some park dates. He really did enjoy meeting some new people, and I enjoyed getting to know their moms.

This year has brought about many changes in Chase. He is much more able to focus, he has learned some self control, and is just easier to be around in general. So grateful!

It was an emotional day for us-exciting and kind of sad. It is hard to have something come to an end. I went to thank Chase’s teacher and totally started crying. We both cried and hugged. She really was the perfect teacher for Chase. Strict and tender all at the same time. We are looking forward to wide open days that include lots of playing, movie watching, naps, swimming, crafts. That night we went to dinner and rented a movie in celebration of the beginning of Summer break.

Here are some pictures from the first and last day of school. Parker was being a punk, so I just used what we could get from him.

Comparison Pictures

The Big Boy

The kiddos with Daddy

Chase with Miss. H

Sick baby...

My view

I am writing this sitting in my recliner and snuggling my sick baby. After a great spin workout, I came home and heard Mags talking/complaining in her room. I opened the door and was smacked in the face with the awful, unmistakable smell of vomit.

That smell is something that I can't handle. I had to turn around and walk out of her room and go get my hubby. Abe is my hero when it comes to vomit clean up. He does an amazing job.
After he cleaned up her room, I started the laundry and got Chase ready for school. My mom called and offered to keep Parker for the morning. They picked him up from Abe's work. That left just me and Mags at home for the morning.

So I have been sitting in my gym clothes holding my sweet girl the whole morning. This is a rare treat because she is normally running around like a crazy woman, and I am usually very busy with the other kids and housework. Not how I planned my day, but I am grateful for my wonderful parents and husband who are bearing my burden with me. I am enjoying the peace and quiet and nursing my sweet girl back to health. So blessed!

Exercise and Fueling the Body

Exercise has been a priority in my life for a long time. It started with playing sports a young person. I loved the feeling of using my body and expending energy. A few knee injuries really limited my involvement in sports, and I had to find a new outlet. That is when I began to workout. I took some breaks, but overall I have pretty regularly included some sort of exercise in my schedule. I actually have some guilt when I don’t get it done. My mom thinks I am a nut, but it is the way I am made. I crave it!

With each child that we added to our family, it has been harder to maintain an exercise routine. I bounced back pretty quickly after Chase. It took a little long with Parker, but I was back at it in about 8 weeks. I tried after Maggie to get back into it, but it was really hit or miss during her first year. I did some home workouts when I could, but often a nap would trump a workout. I would try to go to the gym, but I would come home feeling fatigued and exhausted. Not ready and able to tackle the task of mothering 3 active kids. It was just too much for quite a while. It was hard for me to accept, but I gave my body time. I started up about 2 months ago making a concerted effort to exercise 4-5 days a week. I was able to stick to it, and cope for the rest of the day with my other responsibilities. So happy to be back into the routine. It is so exciting to see some changes in my body and feeling more like my younger self.

With my exercise and workouts, I have a few goals to accomplish. Make my body strong so I can be the best wife, mother, daughter, etc. It takes a lot of strength to lift kids, install car seats, fold and unfold strollers.

I want to have energy. Exercise energizes me for the day. The endorphins give me a boost and a feeling of well-being. I miss that so much when I skip a workout.

Lastly, I want to be able to wear my clothes, have them fit properly, and feel good about the way I look in the mirror. After going through the ups and downs of weight gain and weight loss with every baby, I am ready to just find my normal. I am realizing that my “normal” might have to be a “new normal.” It is not as easy to whip myself back into shape as it was 10 years ago or even just 5 years ago. It is hard!

I love group exercise classes. You don’t have to think. You just show up and follow along. Perfect for a tired mommy at 6:00 in the morning. The instructor of my Tuesday morning Group Strength Training (GST) class is 5 feet tall and ALL muscle. She is one strong lady. There is no jiggle anywhere near this lady, but she has maintained a feminine look. She is not too bulky but long and thin. She is in her forties, a mother of 4, and a grandmother. Quite the inspiration!

This morning she suggested drinking a muscle recovery drink within 30-60 minutes. She said it has helped her body definition and energy levels immensely. I think I might incorporate this into my diet and routine and see what happens. Hopefully, I will start to look a little my instructor

Knock Off Decor

I made my first submission to Knock Off Décor. It is a website where people submit their DIY versions of items from retailers such as Pottery Barn, Anthropologie, Crate & Barrel, etc. Often times the projects are completed for a much cheaper cost than what the retailer is selling them for.
People really can do some amazing things! It is fun and inspiring to see what other people are able to replicate. One of my friends encouraged me to submit my mason jar light fixture to the site. I forgot about it for a while, but I decided to give it a shot. We shall see if it actually gets posted

Giants Win!

We had a wonderful time on Friday at the Giant’s game. It was a little hectic getting ready to leave and coordinating with everyone’s schedules. There were 12 of us total at the game, and that can be a little complicated. It all worked out well!

We were able to get to SF by about 4:00. We ate dinner at our favorite burger joint-Holy Grill. We were able to park our car across the street from the restaurant, and walk to the ball park. It was about a mile walk, but well worth it. It can cost up to $30 to park near AT&T park.

It was a good game. The Giants scored early which was exciting! Madison Bumgarner pitched an excellent game. The score was 4-0 for most of the game. He got into trouble in the 8th inning, and the coach pulled him. The Cubs ended up hitting a 3 run homer. The Giants were able to hold them off and went on to win the game.

We enjoyed the walk back to the car after sitting for so long. We made a wrong turn, but our GPS on our phone got us back on course. It felt good to get back the car and turn on the heater. Some of snoozed on our way back to Sac. We pulled in around 12:00 AM.

My parents were troopers. They had 4 kids 5 and under their watch. The kids were thoroughly exhausted and slept in the next day! Thank you Mom and Dad.

Here are some pictures from our day:

Abe and Me

My brother and his wife

Ben and Tracey

Abe, Stacey, Nate, and Johnny

My friend in South Carolina was watching the game and posted this to my Facebook wall. Giants win!

Favorite Things!

I love reading other blogs where the writer recommends their favorite things. Helps give me new ideas or encourages me to try things I may not have thought of. Here are some of our favorite things at the moment:
This place is too much fun! We spend many afternoons here.

My new favorite exercise: x-bike. Some of the most difficult exercise I have ever done!



This is our favorite fruit at the moment. So sweet and makes the perfect dessert.

Last year I gave in to the spray on sunscreen and face stick fad. They are more expensive, but the convenience is worth the cost!

   

Saw my friend recommend these on her blog. I was somewhat skeptical, but I trusted Stef’s judgment. We bought some and they were AWESOME! We were so sick this past Winter/Spring. They really help get the goop off the kids noses without the extreme rubbing that it takes with a Kleenex or plain old wipe.