Spray Bottles

Today when I got home from grocery shopping the kids were running around with spray bottles with water in them. Jordan's happened to be blue and Lizzy's happened to be pink. I use these to spray Lizzy's hair when I brush it, or to wet something when I iron it.

I got a box of raspberry filled powdered donuts and we went outside and sat on the grass to eat them. We had to tell the kids that they had to stop spraying each other and us until they were done eating their donuts. Jordan is a much faster eater than Lizzy, so when Lizzy still had quite a handful of donut left they were already chasing each other around with the spray bottles.

Morgan and I were relaxing on the grass and Jordan came and laid down in between us. It was as if he thought he was safe! But Lizzy came up behind him and started spraying him in the back. (He was really wet.) He got up and ran away. Morgan noticed that Jordan spends more time running away than spraying Lizzy. So next time he plopped down in between Morgan and me, I helped him position his spray bottle and we got Lizzy next time she came near! Jordan thought it was so funny to be in a trench spraying Lizzy. Soon Jordan bonked Morgan on the nose and it was getting dark so we came in.

The kids went into the bathtub. Some days are good when washing Lizzy's hair, some days are not. Today she did a nervous laugh while I was rinsing her hair. She also does this when she watches the scary beginning of Monsters Inc.

Me: Lizzy you did such a good job washing your hair today! You didn't cry! (Or wail, or thrash, or scream.)

Lizzy: Haha, yeah! I was happy! (Followed by that nervous laugh)

While the kids were splashing around playing in the tub Lizzy told me she was Izzy. Izzy is the girl character on Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

Me: Oh good! So is Jordan Cubby? And Matthew is Jake?

Lizzy: No, Jordan is Captain Hook.

Imagine little Jordan being Captain Hook. I thought it was funny that Jordan got to be the villian.

After this the kids each got a banana and we had family story time. Each kid had one hand holding the peel and the other hand holding some of the banana that had fallen off. They were both sitting on Morgan's lap while he read a book about space. I couldn't find my camera. It was a cute banana moment.

Morgan:  Do you know why the sky is blue?

Lizzy: Well……….   (really long and drawn out as if preceding a detailed explanation)

Cookie

Whenever Jordan sees something sweet he says, "Coookieee!" Today during church Morgan pulled out some healthy crackers and Jordan goes, "Coookieee!" When I got an ice cream cake for my birthday, Jordan goes, "Coookieee!" 

Here we are swimming at the hotel pool in St. George:

Emergency in my Room

Lizzy learned the word, "emergency" from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. She often looks for her pixy dust, too. If you have seen the show, you know what I mean. At night time she comes into our room and says, "there's an emergency in my room."

At church I tell Lizzy to sit down. She says to me, "I can't. I'm working." 

At preschool Lizzy's new teacher asks, "How are you?" Lizzy responds, "I'm better." I think she learned this one from Doc McStuffins. It's a really cute show about a little girl who is a toy doctor on disney.com

While playing Lizzy yells, "Hey guys what's going on?" She learned that one from me. What a sponge. 

Here she is playing tea party. She loves to do this:

Julie's friend Cyrena came to visit for a weekend and she brought gifts! Filipino food and cute towels for the kids:

We went to St. George with Julie to see Grandma Edy. Here we are in our hotel room:

Here we are in the hotel lobby taking pictures: 

St. George was fabulous except that it was so blood suckingly hot. We knew it would be. But we went anyway. We wanted to see Edy and Julie would be starting school soon. It was fun to see Edy.

Plant Based Whole Foods

Since January and our firm determination to eat healthier, I have lost 23 pounds! It has taken 7 months. It seems painfully slow but it's nice now to have a nice solid number to claim as a defeated foe. Morgan has also lost some weight and has a couple of pants that are a bit too big on him. (Shesh… 10 pounds and he needs new clothes. Me, 23 pounds and I look the same) ;-P

Above is our new food processor! My birthday present from my mom. Here you can see our creamiest batch of hummus ever made in this house! Hummus is a regular in our house now. I make it with no oil. There's peanut butter (instead of tahini) in it, so don't worry, we are still getting plenty of fat. I make it with olives. yumm!!

This all originated because I'm tired of being constantly sick. I want to feel healthier and have more energy. I can report that I feel much better now. I don't have my daily tummy aches anymore and I'm not constantly tired anymore. I think that milk and bread have been hurting me for a while. Once I stopped having milk and bread I felt much better.

We were inspired by watching these movies: (all available on Netflix, and some for free on hulu.com) I highly recommend them. They are life-changing movies.

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (90 min)
Forks over Knives (90 min)
Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue (60 min)

From watching these movies we have adopted these habits, with lots of exceptions:
-(Mostly) No processed foods
-Lots of plant based whole foods including veggies, fruits, legumes, nuts, grains
-Grains: Lots of oatmeal. Love steal-cut. This allows whole wheat bread, but I personally limit it because I suspect my tummy doesn't appreciate it. We like black bean burgers and veggie burgers so I use the tiny little multi grain buns at Costco
-No processed sugar (except special occasions)
-Smoothies packed with spinach and fresh veggie juices are had daily. We LOVE this part!
-This means no meat or animal products. I drink rice milk or almond milk but Morgan and the kids still drink their 2%. Lizzy calls my milk "medicine milk." We all miss cheese.

Morgan and I still enjoy the occasional eat-out. We LOVE this sandwich place near our house. They have a sandwich with pastrami AND beef brisket. Holy cow. And they have a $2 option for double meat. Heavenly. And there's CHEESE. So anyways, we allow ourselves to eat something out of our diet occasionally and love it. I'm not ready to completely give up these joys. But for the most part we eat healthy now. =)

The trick for me has been to only buy what I should be eating. If there is something in the house like brownies or treats, I tend to wolf those down. So I just don't buy them anymore. They are usually expensive anyway. So I buy the much cheaper produce.  And I feel much better, so it's been all worth it.

Lizzy's dirty room

Last night in the middle of the night Lizzy comes into our room where we are sleeping.

Lizzy: Mommy, my room is dirty.

Me: Do you want to go clean it?

Lizzy: No, Mommy and Daddy want to go clean it.

Me: Let's clean it tomorrow, okay?

Lizzy: Okay.

Me: Goodnight, Lizzy.

Lizzy: Goodnight. (goes back into her room.)