tainted muffins

In order to get my kids to eat healthy, I sometimes have to be sneaky about it.  In fact, sometimes I flat out lie to them about what ingredients are in their food and why their food sometimes might look different.  And, you know what?  I have no problems lying about this. 

After reading over at Premeditated Leftovers about how ground flax seed could easily be substituted for eggs and/or vegetable oil, I decided to try it and see if I could sneak it into my kids diet.   I first tried Blueberry Muffins.  Well...these weren't a hit with my kids.  Not because they didn't like the way that they taste, BUT...because they didn't like the way that they taste.  Turns out that they just don't like Blueberry Muffins.  Well, my husband and I love Blueberry Muffins so we were happy to eat them.

I remembered that my kids LOVE Chocolate Chip Muffins. I made these next.  I turned these into a healthier version by substituting the 3 Tablespoons of oil with 6 Tablespoons of ground flax seeds.  My oldest son asked why they were darker than normal and I said that they are made with some whole grains.  (The flax will make the batter a little bit darker making it look wheat instead of white.) They LOVED these muffins!

So - In the future, I will continue to taint our muffins and will be branching out to cupcakes and cookies and anything else I think I might be able to sneak a spoonful of flax into!  Try it for yourself if you haven't already...you're in for a treat!

Food Waste Friday

In an conscious attempt to keep food waste to a minimum, I join The Frugal Girl and many other bloggers each week and participate in Food Waste Friday. I clean out my refrigerator, line up any waste on the counter, (usually) take a picture and post it on my blog. After doing this for a while, I can honestly say that I work throughout the week to eat (or feed my children) what's in the fridge so that I don't have it to post on Fridays!

When my in laws came to visit last week they packed a cooler with sandwiches and drinks for their 11 hour car ride to get here.  I think this is a great idea!  When they got here they had sandwiches left over and put them in the fridge.  Six days later they left to head back home, taking with them the same bag of (leftover) sandwiches to eat on the way home.


What do you think?  Would you eat six day old sandwiches to avoid wasting them?

things to do

Today is a boring post...I know.  I've got lots to do today, so I'm posting my list to motivate and encourage me to get it all done by 2:20 when I get the boys from school.

Take tent to friends house
Go to Home Depot to order screen door for my pantry (another story for another post!)
Check out Weight Watcher times/meetings
Call for kennel/trainer for our dog during June
Get 3 poster boards to paint sample wall colors on
Log spending
Send card to my grandmother
Write cards for kids Sunday School teachers (Sunday is teacher appreciation day)
Laundry - wash son's baseball uniform for tonight
Clean/Clorox boys bathroom
Vacuum upstairs
make fruit tray for...
son's class play at 9:30
baseball camp info - send $ to MIL
sign up for youngest Adventure Camp
sign both up for football camp

Operation Jiggly Bits - FINAL summary

Today is my final summary for Operation Jiggly Bits (a bit of a repeat from last week...sorry!).  Thank you Carla for creating this challenge and keeping us motivated and holding us accountable.  I think accountability counts for so much when working towards meeting my goals!  I must say that I didn't rise to the challenge as much as I thought I would when OJB began, but here are several changes that I've made that I plan to continue even though the challenge is over.


Drinking more water.
Before OJB there would be days that I would go without drinking water. Drinking Diet Cokes has always been a bad habit with me and I would tend to only drink my water when I was playing tennis. However, there were many days when I'd show up to the tennis court with a Diet Coke in my hand. Not good...I know. Now I'm trying to only drink my Diet Cokes first thing in the morning and switch to water for lunch, afternoons and with dinner. When I'm really craving a soda in the afternoons, I've found a natural diet soda...Zevia that I will drink instead. Zevias are sweetened with Stevia instead of artificial sweeteners AND they are caffeine free. My goal is to eventually stop drinking Diet Cokes and switch to Zevias when I want a soft drink.

Drinking less wine.
Instead of sharing an entire bottle of wine each week night with my DH, we are drinking only ONE glass of wine after we put the kids to bed.

Veggies & Fruit.
Unless I could count my wine as a fruit, before OJB I was definitely not getting in my fruits and veggies most days of the week. I think out what I'm going to eat throughout the day and if I don't have enough fruits/veggies incorporated in my meals, I'll make myself a Green Monster. With the Green Monsters I can load all my F&V's into one drink.

Exercise.
I am working on this still. I play a lot of tennis...about 8 hours a week. And while it's great cardio and I know it's good for my body, I need something more than this to lose weight. I really need to be running and lifting weights as well. I'm still working on incorporating this in my daily/weekly routines!

Clean Eating.
Before OJB I hadn't heard too much about eating "clean". In the past 6 weeks though I've done my research and realize just how easy it is to eat clean. This is definitely an area that I've opened my eyes to and am slowing weeding out processed and man-made foods and adding more and more clean foods. I look forward to getting to where we're eating the majority of our meals and snacks as clean foods.

The bottom line.
More than anything else, over the last 6 weeks I've developed a new attitude. One where I realize when I'm making healthy choices, and one where I realize when I'm making choices that if I made even the slightest change, I would greatly benefit from it.

Here are my final, final numbers...

Weight: 142....141
Chest: 37.5....37
Waist: 31.5....30.5
@belly button: 34.5....32
Hips: 39....38.5
Thighs: 22.3....21
Biceps: 12.25....11.5

I haven't said goodbye to all of my jiggly bits, but at least to 6+ inches of them!  Thanks again Carla...it was a FUN challenge!

planning for guests

One my list of 210 Things to Do I challenged myself to plan ahead for guests and to not only know what I was going to feed to them each and every meal, but to also have all the ingredients on hand beforehand.   Failing to have a plan before guests arrived set us up to spend more time and money deciding what we wanted to eat and by eating out meals that we could have had at home.

My in-laws arrived last night for a 5 night stay.  I'm pleased to tell you that I have each meal planned and almost all of the ingredients on hand before they got here.  The only thing I'll need to purchase is fresh bread and fresh veggies for a couple of weekend meals.  While I like having a plan, we're always flexible to go out to eat if that's what everyone wants to do.  My in-laws aren't big eaters and normally only eat 2 meals per day (max...), so something light for breakfast and lunch is all they want.  If I make too much food it'll just go to waste.

Here's what we've got planned:

Last night:  They got in late, so we had soup, salad, bread

Today
Breakfast: fruit, muffins
Lunch: turkey sandwiches (smoked the turkey yesterday), chips, fruit
Dinner: crock-pot spaghetti, salad, bread

Friday
Breakfast: Grandparents Day Breakfast at the school
Lunch: turkey sandwiches for my FIL.  I'm planning on taking my MIL to lunch at a tea room
Dinner:  Lasagna, mushrooms, salad, bread

Saturday
Breakfast:  fruit, cinnamon rolls
Lunch: Leftovers or Sandwiches
Dinner:  Steaks, sweet potatoes, asparagus

Sunday
Breakfast: fruit, breakfast bread
Lunch: at the golf club for Mother's Day
Dinner: Hamburgers & Hotdogs, potato salad, beans, chips, fruit

Monday:
Breakfast: I'm not sure if they'll want to eat before they leave, but I'll have same type of light morning food ready for them.

mother's day gifts

I'm curious to know what kinds of gifts you give your mother's and MIL's for Mother's Day?

I always try to find things and give things that I would enjoy receiving as a gift, and things that are fairly inexpensive because we don't budget a whole lot for gifts.  Our gifts for our moms this year are Janie's Cakes.  And they are delicious!  But I kind of feel guilty that I'm not buying something expensive because I know many people who give their moms very nice and very expensive gifts.  It makes me wonder if I'm in the minority on what people spend on their mothers.

I'd love your input.  What do you give your mom for Mother's Day?

operation jiggly bits - check in

We're in our last week for OJB!  I must say that I haven't risen to the challenge as much as I thought I would 6 weeks ago.  But here are several changes that I've made that I plan to continue even after the challenge is over.

Drinking more water. 
Before OJB there would be days that I would go without drinking water.  Drinking Diet Cokes has always been a bad habit with me and I would tend to only drink my water when I was playing tennis.  However, there were many days when I'd show up to the tennis court with a Diet Coke in my hand.  Not good...I know.  Now I'm trying to only drink my Diet Cokes first thing in the morning and switch to water for lunch, afternoons and with dinner.  When I'm really craving a soda in the afternoons, I've found a natural diet soda...Zevia that I will drink instead.  Zevias are sweetened with Stevia instead of artificial sweeteners AND they are caffeine free.  My goal is to eventually stop drinking Diet Cokes and switch to Zevias when I want a soft drink.

Drinking less wine
Instead of sharing an entire bottle of wine each week night with my DH, we are drinking only ONE glass of wine after we put the kids to bed. 

Veggies & Fruit
Unless I could count my wine as a fruit, before OJB I was definitely not getting in my fruits and veggies most days of the week.  I think out what I'm going to eat throughout the day and if I don't have enough fruits/veggies incorporated in my meals, I'll make myself a Green Monster.  With the Green Monsters I can load all my F&V's into one drink.

Exercise
I am working on this still.  I play a lot of tennis...about 9 hours a week.  And while it's great cardio and I know it's good for my body, I need something more than this to lose weight.  I really need to be running and lifting weights as well.  I'm still working on incorporating this in my daily/weekly routines!

Clean Eating
Before OJB I hadn't heard too much about eating "clean".  In the past 6 weeks though I've done my research and realize just how easy it is to eat clean.  This is definitely an area that I've opened my eyes to and am slowing weeding out processed and man-made foods and adding more and more clean foods.  I look forward to getting to where we're eating the majority of our meals and snacks as clean foods.

More than anything else, over the last 6 weeks I've developed a new attitude.  One where I realize when I'm making healthy choices, and one where I realize when I'm making choices that if I made even the slightest change, I would greatly benefit from it. 

Now - I'm not sure if today ends the challenge or if next week is the end of the challenge.  So, I'm going to post below my beginning numbers (from March 22) and my numbers from this morning.

Weight: 142....142
Chest:  37.5....37
Waist:  31.5....31
@belly button:  34.5....32.5
Hips:  39....38.5
Thighs:  22.3....22
Biceps:  12.25....11.5

I haven't said goodbye to all of my jiggly bits, but certainly to some of them!!!