100 Days of Real Food weekly challenge update

We finished week 1 (2 fruits and/or vegetables at each meal) on Sunday, and it was a good week!  We received half of a spaghetti squash from a friend on Wednesday (thanks, Kelly!), so we made a chicken/veggie dish with that and several other veggies we already had.  I thought it turned out fairly well considering I wasn't following a recipe!!  I'm not normally that adventurous, but I think it was good for me.

I know it's kind of stretching it, but supreme/deluxe pizza was two of our meals that weekend (Sunday School social night and a birthday party).  Hey, it has several different veggies on it, so it counts, right? :)

Week 2 was this week.  Week 2: “Real” beverages – Beverages will be limited to coffee, tea, water, and milk (only naturally sweetened with a little honey or 100% pure maple syrup). One cup of juice will be allowed throughout the week, and wine (preferably red) will be allowed in moderation (an average of one drink per day).

I'd say week 2 went well!  I drank a lot of water, some milk, and coffee with honey or maple syrup and some half and half.  I almost had coffee at MOPS on Wednesday morning, but changed my mind when I realized what sweetener and creamer options were available.  Daniel said I should start carrying little honey packets in my purse - not a bad idea!  I messed up last night at a party because I had sparkling pink lemonade without even thinking about it.  Oops!  Guess I should have tried the wine... (I'm not a wine person!)  The juice thing wasn't a big deal for us, because the kids don't drink it very often.  They didn't have any this week.  I occasionally buy V-8 Fusion and have a small glass with breakfast, but that wasn't hard for me to give up.  I just had water with lemon instead.

Week 3 starts in a couple days, and it's going to be a little harder for us.  Week 3: Meat – All meat consumed this week will be locally raised (within 100-miles of your hometown). Meat consumption will also be limited to 3 – 4 servings this week, and when it is eaten meat will not be presented as the “focal point” of the meal. Instead meat will be treated as a side item or simply used to help flavor a dish.

We normally have meat at least twice a day, and we always just buy it at the grocery store.  Who knows were those animals were raised?!  I figured the best place to find local meat would be at the farmers' market, so I took the kids this morning!  We bought ground beef, sausage, pork chops, honey, no sugar added grape jelly, eggplant, radishes, cucumber, lettuce and cilantro.  Total spent: $45.  Definitely more expensive than the grocery store, but it's all local, grass-fed, organic, etc. and the prices were too bad (especially the veggies which were all from World Hunger Relief here in Waco - thanks for the tip, Lizzie!).  Plus,the jelly and meat were all from Rockdale, my hubby's hometown!

Our Farmers' Market purchases 

One vendor was giving away free flowers to kids, so Emma and Andrew each got one.  Andrew's was destroyed by the time we got home - no surprise there! Emma's is in my new blue mason jar that I got last night (thanks, Brandi!) on our kitchen table.

If you have any recipes or meal ideas to get it through this week, let me know! :)

Halloween

I hope you all had a fun Halloween!  We sure did!  Emma got a goody bag at school, which she loved.  There's a little pumpkin toy in it that she's been carrying around (and sleeping with!) ever since.

That evening we went to the Harvest Hoedown at our church.  I discovered on the way there that the battery on our camera was completely dead!  So frustrating!  At least Daniel had his iPhone, so we were able to get a few pictures.  I don't have them on the computer yet, sorry.  We did the cake walk first, and Emma won!  She got to pick out her cake.  Despite Daddy encouraging her to select the pumpkin swirl cheesecake, she chose the little pumpkin shaped cake with Mr. Potato head embellishments.  Then we went upstairs to the games.  Fortunately, they have a little kid room that Emma enjoyed.  She did the bean bag toss, basketball toss, bounce house, hula hoop toss, lasso toss, and pumpkin sweep.  Andrew was not a fan of any of it, except the pumpkin sweep.  I think he was pretty overwhelmed with it all!  After Emma did the maze/slide twice (once with Daddy and once by herself), we decided to head home and go trick-r-treating at a few houses on our block.  Then we asked Emma if she wanted to hand out any candy, and she said yes, so we picked out a few things that the kids can't eat (like Jaw breakers).  We only had a couple kids come by since it was starting to get late, but fortunately, the first thing to go was the whistle that Emma got a church!  Woo hoo!!  Sorry to the parents of the child that got that!

Our sweet little princess

Our handsome sailor enjoying some cake

Making better food choices - one week at a time!

A friend of mine had mentioned the blog "100 Days of Real Food" to me a while back, but just recently I found it while looking for recipes on the internet the other day.  The idea of eating more real food has been on my mind for the past couple of years.  I'd love for our diet to look much more like food the way God created it, not the way it's been "created" in a plant. We've done better in some areas, but it's just kind of hard - processed foods are just so much easier, faster, and sometimes cheaper!  Plus, trying to get our kids (3 and 1) to just eat SOMETHING has been my goal as of late.

About two years ago, Daniel and I tried The Daniel Plan.  The food part of it is pretty similar - "real" food, less highly processed food products.  We went all out.  We trashed or gave away everything in the house that was on the avoid list.  For example, we got rid of anything that contained high fructose corn syrup... it was in a lot more products than I expected!  However, I've learned that the all-or-nothing approach to anything is a recipe for failure - for me at least!  I'll do great for a couple weeks, but then once I mess up and/or get lazy, it all goes out the window.  I think the root cause of this is my perfectionist tendencies. (Thank you to the FLY Lady for helping me figure this out! "To Mop or Not to Mop; But First")

So when I came across the mini-pledges on the 100 Days of Real Food blog, I was immediately interested!  Instead of going "cold turkey", you just tackle each challenge one week at a time, for 14 weeks.  Drastically changing our diet was (1) not going to last long (knowing myself), and (2) not going to go over well with the kiddos!  You have the option to build each week onto the next or just tackle each challenge one at a time.  My plan is just take them one at a time, but to try to incorporate what we learn each week into our normal routine.  Less pressure = more likely to succeed! :)

Each week's challenge/pledge will start on Monday mornings.  Since I decided on this during nap time yesterday afternoon (Monday) and hadn't talked to Daniel about it until he got home from work, we started with dinner last night.  So this will be a slightly shorter week.

Week 1 Pledge: Two fruits and/or vegetables at each meal - breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Dried fruits and fruit juices don't count.

Monday's dinner was a new recipe, Unstuffed Pasta Florentine.  It's basically 100% whole grain pasta with spinach, a creamy sauce and 3 types of cheese.  It was pretty good.  Emma did fair, but Andrew only took a bite or two.  We have a one-bite rule, so they have to at least try it!  We had fresh strawberries for dessert.  I couldn't find whole grain rigatoni (the only had the regular kind), so I substituted it for a box of 100% whole grain penne rigate pasta.

Tuesday:

• Breakfast for the adults was 2 eggs (omelet for Daniel, scrambled for me) with chopped green bell pepper, turkey sausage, cheese, and salsa.  I also added chopped tomato to mine.  The kids will eat some of my scrambled eggs, Emma especially, but she wasn't awake yet when I was eating this morning.  So this morning the kids had french toast sticks, banana and apple.  Neither of them were really in the mood to eat their fruit this morning, though.
• Lunch for the adults was leftovers from last night and fruit (grapes for me).  The kids had a homemade lunchable (lunch meat, string cheese, wheat crackers), grapes, and an orange.  They ate at school today, so I don't know how well Emma ate, but Andrew's daily report said he ate "all" of his lunch!  Probably because he was super hungry he didn't eat well this morning!
• Dinner: the plan for tonight is another new recipe, Sun Dried Tomato Grilled Chicken & Vegetables.  It uses a store-bought dressing as a marinade, which definitely does not follow the real food "rules", but the focus this week is just 2 fruits/veggies at each meal, so I'm not worrying about it.  I already had it in the fridge from another recipe, so I need to use it up anyway.  We're on a budget here, people! :)  It's got red and green bell peppers, so that could count as two different veggies, but we'll probably have strawberries after dinner again tonight.

Our fruit and vegetable bins are pretty full, so I plan to just figure out breakfasts and lunches as we go for the rest of the week.  I have dinner for the next two nights planned, but I'll need to figure something out for this weekend.  Wednesday night will be leftovers since we don't have much time for dinner because of church that evening.  And Thursday will be tacos with Easy Slow Cooker Refried Beans, cheese, sour cream, cilantro, and corn tortillas with kale chips on the side.  We'll probably include some onion or bell pepper in the tacos to increase our veggie count--and make it more like a fajita!

Any great recipes we should try this weekend?

Bad things come in 3s...

It seems like people always say that "bad things come in threes."  Well, we definitely experience that recently!

It all started 3 weeks ago when we were at H-E-B on a Saturday morning.  Emma tripped and hit her chin on the Buddy Bucks machine, biting her tongue in the process.  It was bad!  It started bleeding like crazy.  This was her first major injury, and it kind of freaked us all out!

The next week Andrew was fussy, but didn't have a fever or anything, so we didn't worry about it.  That Friday we took him to his 18 month check-up and found out that he had an ear infection!  Poor guy!

Then the next Friday Daniel hit his head on a piece of equipment at work.  He got a really bad cut from it and had to get 7 staples!

After 5 days

The GOOD news is that Emma tongue has healed beautiful, Andrew's ear infection went away after one round of antibiotics, and Daniel has experienced very little pain.  The cut has not gotten infected, and it is healing nicely.  He is very ready to have the staples removed on Tuesday, though!  They're driving him crazy.

I'm thankful for friends and family who prayed for us during all this craziness, for doctors and friends with experience and wisdom, and for pain medicine and antibiotics that help our illnesses and injuries.

Homemade vs. Store-Bought Cleaners

Lately I've been trying to make more things at home instead of buying them at the store.  Initially, I started this DIY kick with cleaning supplies.  I'd like to actually know/understand what is in the products I'm using, be more "green" and save money!  Cleaning supplies can be pretty expensive!

Here's a list of what I've been using lately:

• Homemade Dishwasher Detergent - I use the DIY Natural recipe and keep it in a plastic jar with a clamp lid.  To keep the detergent from clumping, I follow their advice and leave the mixture out on the counter and stir several times a day for a day or two before putting it under the kitchen sink.  The first time I made this recipe, they hadn't posted that tip yet, and eventually my detergent turned into a solid, useless mass that I had to attack with a knife or ice pick in order to use!  I had stored it in a glass jar, and the dumb thing broke while trying to get 1 T. of detergent out for my next load!  Hence why I use a plastic jar now!!
• Dishwasher Rinse Agent - white vinegar as suggested by DIY Natural
• All-Purpose Cleaner - I make Orange-Scented Vinegar Spray and use it around the kitchen. I can't remember which blog I originally found this idea from, but it's really pretty simple.  Just get a glass jar with a lid, and as you eat oranges, put the peels in the jar.  Fill the jar about 2/3 full with vinegar so that it won't over-flow as you add more orange peels.  Let it sit for a couple weeks until the vinegar turns to a nice dark, orange color.  Then put a 50/50 mixture of the orange vinegar and water in a spray bottle, and you're all set!  The orange scent helps makes the strong vinegar odor, but not completely.  Fortunately, it does a great job cleaning my counters and the vinegar smell goes away very quickly!
• Homemade Dish-Washing Liquid - I made DIY Natural's recipe recently, but it does not foam up much... hardly at all, actually!  They say that suds are not necessary to get things clean, and I think they may be right because it works pretty well.  But I don't like the lack of suds due to the fact that it makes it hard for me to tell where I've scrubbed and where I haven't and if I've truly gotten the dish clean.  Next time, I think I'll try this recipe if I can find a good deal on liquid castile soap.  I'll probably try this recipe with Ivory soap (even thought it calls for castile bar soap) since that's what I have on hand.

So obviously, my focus has been on kitchen cleaners lately.  I thought about doing laundry detergent, but I'm pretty happy the Ecos brand that we buy at Sam's.  It's all-natural, does a good job cleaning our clothes, and it's not very expensive (about 5.5 cents per load - comparable to DIY Natural's recipe).

What cleaning products do YOU make at home?

Hello!

Hi! I've decided to start a blog of my own since our family blog is under my husband's account, so it makes it difficult for me to post.  I plan on using this to post what's going on in my life and our family and to also talk about things that I like, recipes I've tried, etc.  Kind of a diary of sorts - feel free to listen in on my ramblings, if you'd like!