21 Day Fix (but really 30 days)

September was a big month for Ian and I. We signed up together for a 30 day Beachbody challenge group. The program we used is called the 21 Day Fix with Autumn Calabrese. The program gave us 7 different workouts for each day of the week, plus a meal plan with portion containers and a 30 day supply of Shakeology protein shake mix. Even though the title of the program says 21 days our group did the challenge for 30 days. It was hard, but really great for us to do together. 

I am SO proud of us for completing the challenge without a single missed workout (6 days a week for 4 weeks). Most days we got up at 6am and did our workout together. I loved having Ian to keep me accountable and push me when I did not want to get out of bed. I definitely got stronger throughout the month. By the end I could do almost every move for the full time, which is pretty good considering how I looked the first week or two. lol

Now let's talk about the food. This was really the hardest part by far. I have been consistently active for a few years now. The workouts did push me, but the hardest part was resetting our diet. What I love about the 21 Day Fix meal plan is that you can eat whatever you want to make within your portions and from the list of approved foods. The approved foods are pretty broad, including cheese, oils, dressings, bread, rice, potatoes, lean meats and, of course, fruits and veggies. I like that we could still eat what we wanted. It was most challenging to cut out all the processed food and sugar. We weren't perfect on the meal plan, but we were really good and made a lot of healthy changes. One of my splurges was buying myself an air popcorn popper. The kids love it too! Here are a few of my favorite 21 Day Fix meals that I will be including in our regular rotation of meals.

This was my favorite 21 Day Fix recipe. These enchiladas are delicious, easy and healthy!

Another favorite was this pork carnitas. So delicious. I love being able to cook a whole bunch and freeze bags for a quickie meal another day. I was going to use a pork loin, but ended up finding a package labeled as "carnitas" so I got that instead. Worked great. :)

My favorite breakfast...spinach and feta omelet with chocolate Shakeology.

This meal was amazing. Ian's fabulous grilled chicken with these delicious ricotta, bacon, spinach stuffed peppers, salad and fruit.

 In my opinion dinners were the most difficult to plan. Especially dinners the kids would eat, but we managed with only a few nights of making sandwiches or hot dogs for the kids. :) Thank goodness for Pinterest. I scoured Pinterest for 21 Day Fix recipes and tried a bunch. The ones above were my favorites, but none of them were really bad. Some were just more bland or less of a hit with the kids.

Lunch for me was usually a salad with some kind of protein (grilled chicken or ground turkey), a lettuce wrap (my favorite was a Greek version with grilled chicken, cucumber and feta), or corn tortilla tacos (if I needed some carbs at lunch). Breakfast was almost always Shakeology with either eggs or steel cut oats. We finished up our challenge group the first weekend in October, but we are starting another round next week.

Results. I am not posting our before and after pictures or measurements because I'm still just not that confident about my body in a sports bra, but we did see some good results. I lost 5 pounds and 3 inches. Ian lost 15 pounds and 6 inches. Go team! If you are interested in the program odds are you know someone on Facebook who is a Beachbody coach, but if not I'm happy to refer you to our friends who coached us.

Beckett Turns 3!

September brought a birthday to our house! Beckett turned 3 years old. I can't believe my baby is really really not a baby anymore. Also, I'm pretty sure I will say that every year when he gets older. He's still super adorable and sweet and says the cutest, funniest things. We all adore our sweet Beckett. He had a very fun birthday this year. Started off with some Lucky Charms (aka marshmallows for breakfast) and cards from his big brothers. I was impressed with Davin's drawing of elephants on the card he made for Beckett. Weston made Beck a little coupon book with things like piggy back rides, reading a story, and playing elephants. I pretty much just said yes all day. He watched shows, went to the farm, picked out our lunch (quesadillas from Del Taco), and then had a fun little family party.

The Curnow's joined us for dinner at In N Out. Then we went back to the house to open presents, sing Happy Birthday, and eat birthday donuts. When I asked Beckett what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday he said he didn't want cake. I asked about cupcakes or ice cream but he said he didn't want a treat. Finally I suggested donuts and that was the winner. :) Bonus, I didn't have to make anything! Ian picked up the donuts on his way home from work! Beckett was spoiled with lots of fun gifts from his family. He got lots of How to Train Your Dragon toys, a cute book with his name in it (which he loves and calls his "little boy book"), an alphabet puzzle, new jammies, a couple new shirts, his own football, and some birthday money.

Beckett took his birthday dollars to the dollar store and picked out a pack of dinosaur eggs (those little capsules you put in hot water and they have shaped sponges inside). He was so excited to hatch them himself. He did them one at a time and spent a few hours hatching all of his dino eggs. It was adorable. Love this kid! He also spent some of his birthday money going to the zoo during Fall Break and picking out a giraffe toy in the gift shop.

Being 3 is pretty great. Beckett is pretty much all the way potty trained, is loving his joy school preschool, and is just a really fun kid. He still loves elephants and trains, but really just loves all animals. He keeps a hoard of loveys on his bed and sleeps with no less than 6 at a time right next to him. He loves reading books and going to the farm. He also loves his mommy. Every time I leave Ian says his reaction is pretty sad. He just crumples and gets sad when he finds out mommy isn't home. Gotta get it on video one of these days. Anyway, we couldn't be happier to have Beckett in our family. Happy Birthday buddy!

August 2015

Summer slowed down quite a bit when August hit. All the family visitors went home and we just spent time enjoying the last long days of summer before school started. We did manage to squeeze in a few little activities, but school starting combined with me getting sick for 3 weeks meant we kept things very low key. I was feeling pretty bad about the end of summer being so boring, but after going back and blogging June and July I'm ditching the guilt. We did lots of fun things this summer. :)

The first weekend in August Brad and Mel moved into a new apartment in Orem. Ian had taken the big boys backpacking that weekend so he wasn't able to help them move, but I babysat Wilson for most of the day and it was great! We took him with us to the farm and rode ponies and the wagon and saw all of the animals. After the farm I fed all three little ones lunch and they all took good naps! Yay for the farm wearing them out. Haha. When they woke up I took Wilson down to the new apartment. It's really cute and closer to me than their old place, so I'm really excited!

Ian and the boys had a great time backpacking with Ben Rollins and his boys. Davin even wrote on a school assignment that backpacking was his favorite thing he did this summer. :)

Lego's were, of course, a big hit this summer. They were especially a favorite during the last couple weeks when we had lots of down time. We finally used our subscription to Netbricks that the Henshaw's had given the boys for Christmas. They each got to pick out a few sets to rent from the Netbricks website. It was really exciting for them to build different sets. The only sad part was when it was time to break them up and send them back. Davin didn't like not getting to keep them. Weston picked two big architecture sets. He did the Eiffel Tower and then the White House. Davin picked mostly Chima sets. I found a fun tutorial on how to build a Lego candy dispenser for the boys to do too. It was pretty much the coolest since it combined their two all time favorite things, Lego's and CANDY! I thought it was pretty cool that it worked and everything.

We played outside quite a bit. I'm so grateful we have a swing set in our backyard. Beckett loves to swing and so does Talia. The best thing about this summer is that Talia finally learned to pump! No more whining about being pushed! The kids like to help me water the garden plants and get misted from the hose. They like bubbles and chalk and all kinds of backyard stuff. We got lots of Slurpees in August! Everyone loves them. :)

Playing with friends is a favorite low key summer activity too. Weston and Davin just take off to play with friends almost every afternoon. Talia and Beckett always want to play with friends too. It's a little harder to set up for them since they are so young, but the Steel boys are some of their favorite buddies. Talia and Cameron get along really well. I thought they looked so cute sitting out on the back porch eating their snack together. Davin sometimes doesn't want to run out and play, so I played a board game with him one afternoon when everyone else was asleep or at friends' houses. Sure love my Dav man!

We also snuggled and watched shows and movies. It's a favorite. I got sick the week before school started, which was no fun at all. Beckett caught it too. We had to take a few sick days doing very little and watching lots of TV. I am still not quite all the way better. Boo.

Beckett begs me to "play elephants" with him every single day. Multiple times a day. It's really pretty adorable, but sometimes I just don't have the patience or time to sit and play. I try to say yes and play elephants with him once a day. When I wasn't feeling good I had Tal and Beck bring their lovey game to me on my bed. It was perfect. I didn't have to get up but we got to play and they had a blast. I love my cute elephant boy. Beckett finally watched Dumbo for the first time in August. He wanted to watch it over and over again. He sat in the living room playing with his elephants and watching the DVD menu for an hour the first day. Haha. Love that boy.

A family trip to Cabela's made for a good Friday night activity. Ian had to get some fuel to replace what he had borrowed for the backpacking trip and the kids loved looking at the fish and all the other animals.

School started for Weston and Davin on August 19th (which happens to be my sister, Joy's birthday too)! The night before school started we had a pizza picnic in the living room and watched American Ninja Warrior. Pretty fun! Weston is in 4th grade and Davin is in 2nd grade this year. They were both ready to start, but Davin was the most excited. He couldn't wait to go to school! They have good teachers and friends in their classes. I think they are going to have a great school year!

Now that school is going I have a little more down time during the day. The littles and I have been running errands and doing some activities. We went to the farm with friends one morning. That was a fun outing. Mel and Wilson went with us to the Bean Museum and Krispy Kreme. We are excited to get to hang out with them more often! I babysat a whole bunch of neighbor friends at once last week. It was kind of nutty. Gotta build up my babysitting karma. :)

Talia and I both got some new clothes this month. I ordered Tal a few new blue church dresses from Carters. They are adorable. I took Talia with me to one of my old young womans' wedding reception. She was so excited to dress up fancy with jewelry and everything. She cracked me up when she blinked in a pic, looked at it and wanted to re-take it, but overcorrected in trying to not blink. I can't stop laughing at these pictures of her! I went to a fun boutique warehouse sale with Mel and got a couple of new skirts a cute dolman tops. I also got a whole outfit from LuLaRoe. It's like Carter's for adults! Anyway, Tal and I were both wearing new clothes to church last week and had to get a pic.

The week school started I got to go on a super fun "sister date" with Mel. We met up at Trafalga to play mini golf. We are such goofs. It was fun to hang out with her and catch up and be silly. We got the most amazing candy bar dippin' dots and talked until late. I love having my sister nearby!!!

I just started potty training Beckett for real this week. He ran around in his underwear the other night and the next morning agreed to wear underwear during the day. He has been doing awesome. He's had two accidents in the last two days. He likes being a big boy and know that pee and poop go in the potty. I'm excited to be done with diapers and be done potty training kids! Go Beckett!

As I worked on some organizing projects I came across one of Weston's journals from school last year. I read through it and laughed and took pics of all my favorite pages. This one topped my list of favorites. Weston is such a funny kid.

Before school started and before I got sick I managed to get my workouts in almost every day. It felt great! This post workout selfie was right after a particularly fun morning at Zumba. I am sad that I haven't been healthy enough to go to Zumba since this day. I'm pretty weak too. I'm going to really have to push to get back to it!

Last week I took Talia and Beckett to get their preschool haircuts. They both needed it pretty bad. I love their fresh new looks! And they loved going to Cookie Cutters and getting balloons and suckers! Win win.

Random firsts. I tried my first "hippie headband" hairstyle. I wrapped my hair around the back on the headband. I thought it turned out pretty cute. I couldn't wear it all day though because it made my head too hot! When I'm not feeling great it's hard for me to cook, so we ended up eating out way too much in August. In N Out is our go to family dinner. Everyone likes it and will eat. Davin got his first double double after claiming to be starving. He only was able to finish half though, so he decided he will stick with a regular cheeseburger in the future. Haha. In N Out is the best. Yum.

With summer pretty much over I am excited for Fall. The cooler weather, the pretty leaves, the routine, the baking. You get the idea. It's weird how fast another summer has come and gone. We will have one last hurrah at the pool over Labor Day weekend then preschool will start! Hooray! I'll keep you posted on all our September fun next month!