The hubs and I started the 28 day challenge last Tuesday. I had read about it in one of my favorite magazines, Whole Living. It's by Martha Stewart Productions. Who's surprised I like it?
Anyway, from about October 31st-ish until the end of December we consumed more sugar than we like, let our good habits take a vacation, and even, gasp, ate fast food more than our targeted once per month. So, rather than jumping on the resolution bandwagon or telling ourselves we'd hit "moderation" again, we're starting with a cleanse. Out with the bad, in with the good, and hellooooo 2011.
In the first week we could not eat eggs, wheat, soy, dairy, added sugar, processed foods, peanut products, alcohol, juice beverages, or caffeine. Are you wondering what we ate? Lots of people are.
We ate this:
And this:
Lots of this:
Isn't healthy food pretty? It's yummy too, I promise. We also ate lots of other recipes from the magazine website and from my new favorite cook book, Power Foods. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a chocolate meltdown or two where I felt like I needed one little bite. BUT I'd also be lying if I didn't say we felt great. So in addition to the food aspect we also did not watch t.v., severely limited our internet time, cleaned out some clutter, did yoga or back stretches, and read. It's been a great week. Nothing is ground breaking, it's not a diet, we aren't doing it for any promise of a better us or whatever, it's not even a forever thing. It's just a kick start to our new year....and we're liking it. If you want to take the challenge or read more about it, go here.
I'm packing away the last of the Christmas decorations, finally admitting that the hubs does have to work and can't permanently be on vacation, and doing a final Christmas dump on the ol' blog. After this, it's time to move on. If I don't the retail shops will have Easter out before I've even entered January.
Here's a few more shots from Christmas in Houston:
Cupcake had no problem opening gifts this year:
She also likes to be in charge. See her finger? She is saying "No, no doggy" Just like her Gigi, she runs a tight ship with the pets.
Luckily even with presents, relatives, trees, and more she still loves to "nuggle mommy" which means snuggle with mommy. :)
Pac-man went Santa Baby style
So did cupcake: When we came home we did our own family (meaning the three of us) Christmas. Even though cupcake had no problem opening gifts it was overwhelming everything beyond the first 2. We were thankful we had the foresight to stretch it out. Her surprise from Mommy and Daddy was a slide. I'm still not sure who the present was really for because said slide has also bought Mommy and Daddy time to cuddle on the couch, drink hot chocolate, and talk while cupcake fully exhausts herself going up and down, round and round, taking dolls and friends down too. It's a win-win.
On that note, Happy New Year to all!
We're a few days into our 28 Day Challenge which is NOT a New Year's resolution and is NOT a diet. It is a whole body cleanse. Chris keeps saying we are eating "garden-y" food but honestly we're all loving it. I sure miss cheese and chocolate but in 28 days I am guessing there will still be plenty of opportunities to eat either if I do so still desire. Bear with me in the coming days as I post a little on the challenge. I'm sure most of you don't care to see pictures of our "garden-y" food. But there are some that do and for those...I have something better coming down the pipe for you :)
I know most of you prefer cupcake driven posts but some of you have been anxious to see my Christmas "projects" which dominated my home rendering it unable to host friends for almost a week. Let's just say craft room is officially on my dream list....though highly unlikely given the layout of our home and our unwillingness to move anytime in the foreseeable future. This is why I said dream list and not wish list.
I got this beauty at a garage sale. For free. Because of a generous friend. It was in our garage for months though I knew the minute it was "mine" what I was going to do with it. It had pac-mans name all over it. Of course it is pink and princess-ey but that's what made it so *fUn* was telling people who saw it that I was giving it to my nephew :). Anyway, 4 short months later, about 10 yards of felt, 4 different colored spools of thread, some puffy paint (yep I went there), rick rack, fabric glue, 2 yards of doggy fabric, and lots of "workshop" time the finished product was indeed Pac-man appropriate:
Cupcake loved it too. Great for test market purposes. Heartbreaking for a mom to realize she has to tell her angel that the countless hours in making something she totally loves is not for her. This brings me to New Years resolution #1- Make more for cupcake. It seems she gets the left over ideas so for 2011 I'm starting on somethings special for her. I already have an idea for one. But like the princess castle, you'll have to wait. It won't be made of felt and I hope it doesn't take 4 months. Ultimately Pac-man loved it and that made my heart SOOOOOO happy. Check out his precious-ness. Then I just had to include my sissy in the fun! I figured she wouldn't have much time for a felt house of her own in 2011 since she is about to pop with baby girl but who doesn't love some fun decorations for their house that can interchange with the seasons. I started with these:
I ended with these. Click the picture for a better view.
I was jealous. Then I remembered I made them. New Years resolution #2: Make a set for me. Yay! A fun resolution that benefits me. Can that even count? Don't answer that.
I like being Santa's elf. I just think I should start earlier. New Years resolution #3: Start Christmas "projects" in October this year. Or earlier....but not likely. More on resolutions later if I'm feeling bold or have had a drink. Surely one of those will happen soon, right?!
The only explanation I can possibly come up with is that it only took a year for older cousin to not also mean bigger cousin. Here they are a year ago. Same couch. Matching p.j.s. Older cousin was bigger cousin. WAS.
Look at the first picture again. At least he's nice about it. Pac-man pats her knee as if to say "There, there cupcake. You had your year. Now I have forever more. There, there."
She'd better get used to it. She's about to loose her status of only walker and only girl as Pac-man is about to walk and his Mom is about to pop with baby girl.
It was a great Christmas otherwise. More posts to follow.
But since cupcake isn't much of a singer yet we've had to improvise. We went to our neighborhood's Christmas celebration which included a carriage ride and a chance to see Santa. Cupcake was so interested in the horses as the pictures relate. Really she loves all animals so it was a treat to enjoy a carriage ride.
Also, rather than having a candy filled advent calendar we opted for something a little more meaningful. Each day we read a Christmas story together and then do a craft or activity that correlates to the book we've read. Here are some of our favorites so far:
After reading Snowmen at Christmas we made this snowman. Cupcake loves to play with cotton balls. We also were able to find a few twigs around our one little tree for arms. The eyes and nose are very Picasso, don't you think?
We also read the book Olive the Other Reindeer a week or so ago. It is a silly one that Cupcake really enjoys. We just had to make a reindeer canvas after reading the book. The face is her foot and the antlers are her hands. It will be fun to compare her growth next year when we pull out the Christmas stories again. Our Christmas cards are finally ready to go and we have most of our shopping done. However, this elf needs about 2 more weeks to finish the Christmas projects part of Christmas. Sigh. It's tough having a head full of creative ideas and only limited time to do them. Guess I'll have to have a cup of peppermint hot chocolate and think about all those ideas. Oh WAIT...I mean get back to work on the ones I've already started :)
Bear with me as we get through the holidays and I'll get back on track with blogging.
I am so very behind on blogging it's just silly. The past 7 weeks have been non-stop visitors, travel, or back to back full weekends. While we've seen people we loved, experienced lots of firsts, and eaten lots of great food, it's time for a rest. And the need for that comes right in the midst of Christmas. Are you laughing? I am because laughing is better than cussing or giving up.
So here's a brief catch up of somethings:
Houston trip weekend of Nov 14th. Pac-man turned 1. What?! Where did that year go? More importantly, how did I come home without any pictures of the party? Maybe because of the craziness that ensues when you combine that many under 3 year old's and several grown men that act like 18 yr olds when together. (you know it's true S,K,and other guys who I can't remember). Anyway, I did walk away with a few shots of Cupcake's time with Gigi and Papa.
We went to the zoo for Gigi's birthday. I love this picture. In fact, this might be in my top 10 pictures for 2010. Why? Click the picture for larger view. First, my father is as close to smiling in a photo as he ever is and his close-to-smile smile for pictures is about as rare as snow in Texas. Second, my mother is in fact both picking the buggers of the monkey statue and laughing at herself for doing it. And finally....the grand finale....look closely at Cupcake's right hand. She is closely evaluating what Gigi is doing and calculating that it is funny and yep...starting to be infatuated with her own buggers. Of course I don't actually like that part but I like that I have pictorial proof of Gigi's influence over Cupcake.
It seemed appropriate for Gigi's 49th birthday to let her have a carousel ride. Cupcake agreed to ride with her. This picture is strikingly similar to the one with Nana (earlier post) that actually happened two weeks later. Perhaps it's an indication why Cupcake calls Nana "Nina" and lately has begun to call Gigi "Gaga" We're working on correcting the later of the two because I refuse for my family to have any correlation to Lady Gaga albeit the girl can rock some tunes.
Flash forward through Thanksgiving to the first weekend in December. Cupcake's Aunt Bobin and her boyfriend Car came for the weekend. (At least that's how cupcake said their names some of the time. We'll roll with it for now.) We were sooooo thrilled to have them here all the way from New Hampshire. We played with dolls, ate yummy food, went to the farmers market to buy more yummy food, went to the park, got a sitter and went down town adults only to eat doughnuts and then spent Sunday eating food and playing. It was way more fun and interesting than it sounds. I'm hoping Aunt Bobin will send me the picture of the doughnuts we ate...and we did eat dinner too but the doughnuts were the "big" hit of the night. Cupcake really loved Car. All 6"5 of him had no problem getting down on her level and playing dolls. What's not to love about that? Here's some sweet pictures from the weekend:
We loved having them here!
More updates coming soon....I will get caught up before the end of 2010. Right after I get our Christmas cards in the mail. Be warned, a pictures is worth 1,000 words.
Cupcake's Nana (the hub's mom) was here for Thanksgiving as well. Beyond our local meal we had so much fun being able to share the holiday with family. I was especially thankful to have her help in the kitchen. She taught me quite a few new things but my favorites were the pie crusts and honey whole wheat bread.
On Friday morning we went straight into Christmas mode by braving the Black Friday crowds with a tot in tow. We wanted a Christmas tree that would fit appropriately into our new home and the sales on that Friday were so darn good we figured three adults could handle one precious one and a 9 ft tree.
Cupcake was a little confused as to why a try suddenly appeared in our house (we put it up during nap) but after letting her get a closer look she accepted it. The following day when we put the ornament on during nap she came down thrilled to see that the tree was pretty and that the tree had toys. I'm proud that my cupcake likes pretty things and fun!!
Nana brought some presents so we could celebrate an early Christmas. This year Cupcake loves to open presents! We also made a trip to the Mall for some indoor fun on one of the cold days. Nana took Cupcake on a carousel ride. I'm not sure who had more fun....
It was really sweet for Nana to make another trip here so that we did not have to brave the crazy Thanksgiving travels. Cupcake had so much fun with her "Nina" On the day she left, Nina left a note for Cupcake explaining why she wasn't there anymore. Here's her video reaction:
