Victory!

Today is the end of my 21 day sugar detox!!!! It has been fantastic. I have went 20 and three quarters of a day completely sugar free! 

Explanation: Shannon is the Satan of Sweets. He has been a pretty good partner in this sugar detox, but occasionally he would try and get me to have candy or some treat. I didn't cave. EXCEPT the night that we planned the "gender reveal" I tried to get Shannon to agree to purchasing a baby gender appropriate outfit, wrapping it, and video us opening the outfit to send to my family. Satan of Sweets chose CUPCAKES! Due to videoing error, we ended up needing to reshoot 3 times and therefore we ate 2  cupcakes for the recording. Let me just tell you it was not worth it. I was SO sick. It's weird cause no sugar for 16 days straight and then 2 cupcakes that are heavily frosted= throw up! yuck!

So besides that little hiccup, I have done without honey, maple syrup, store-bought peanut butter, cow's milk, bread, oatmeal, pasta, pre-packaged seasonings, anything packaged or processed, ketchup, salad dressing, store-bought mayo, fruit (aside from one green banana or green apple/day), potatoes, and sugar for 20 and 3/4 days!!!!!! :)

I feel great and it really hasn't been hard. What do I look forward to tomorrow? Honey on my muffins for breakfast! They need a hint of sweetness! :) 

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Happy Thanksgiving! 

What am I thankful for? I've had a rough past week and my husband always looks for ways to cheer me up. He sent me the following in a text tonight that truly made me LAUGH OUT LOUD! I'm thankful for a hot husband! :)

The Name Game

What's in a name? Do you look for a name that's meaningful or unique? Trendy? Firm? Classic? Were you named after an ancestor or close family member? Or were you like me and named out of a baby names book because your awesome mama wanted it to be fun and different!? (I love you Mom AND my name! And thank you for not naming me Tamara or LaToya...they were in the front of my baby book as options.) If you've named a child before, did you take into consideration of how it will suit him or her when elderly? And I even go the other direction as well, there are some names I love for adults that do not seem to suit a child. At the end of the day, does any of this matter? Some say it does. I have actually never really thought about naming my children after someone that I love or have looked up to. I just always wanted my children's names to be different and unique. Hence Keshlyn and Kyden. (totally not good grandparent's names though...)

Their names do have meaning to me. Keshlyn is inspired from my name. Jolee is spelled that way because my middle name is Lee and I have always loved the French language. I took a couple years in college and would love to be fluent someday. Jolie means pretty. And I thought that was fitting for my pretty little girl.

Kyden has his name because I always thought the name Kye or Kai was a great boy's name. But I didn't want to just name him Kye. I am a nickname person or a name shortener...which to some may be annoying. I like to call people by shorter names (i.e. Jennifer = Jen, Jessica= Jess, Debbie= Debs etc.) I tacked on "den" to make it longer. And I wanted to spell his shortened name "Ky" because of my love for my home state of Kentucky.

So if you missed the news from my last blog post and video we are having a...

GIRL!

I like the idea of naming her after my two grandmothers. They were very influential to me growing up. Shannon loves the idea of naming her after someone we love but just doesn't like the sound of the name that I had picked out.  He vetoed me. 

SO.....needless to say I have no other ideas. I told him he is in charge of naming this little lady. He is taking on the challenge. He has offered 2 names. I like them but am unsure if  they're "it." I like having a few options though so we can decide when we see her cute little face.

Keshlyn has been very clear on her name choice. She says her sister is to be named "Cinderella." 

If you do not want my child to be named Cinderella or Kenya, please provide some name ideas for this lady in pink! :) 

Lame?

Gender Reveal Parties? Fun or lame? Well of course it's kind of lame and cheesy...but that's how I roll. I'm so glad that I had planned a tiny little reveal dinner party for tonight at a friend's house in Vegas, stayed up late to make a cute little "Bow or Beau" banner and cut out lots of mustaches and pink bows (Thanks, Collett for the help)...ONLY TO WAKE UP this morning to a Keshlyn with CONJUNCTIVITIS! 

Look at my sad, sweet girl! And then come to find out my friend Jennifer (host of the gender reveal event) was awakened by the same thing by her little boy this morning! Except her poor Cole had pink eye in both eyes. Needless to say, we had to cancel the night. I was super bummed (mainly because I needed some adult interaction).  

But I still wanted my family in Kentucky to receive the news in a fun way, so we decided to tell them with cupcakes and a video. We were super giggly because it took us THREE TRIES to get it right. (*ahem, we won't blame the operator at all....because she didn't have it recording the first time...lol). The frosting was so rich that it made us sick to eat it on the third take, so Shannon went with pretending. He's such a good actor. *cough* Take a gander. 

It's A.....

Sorry the video is so blurry...it was done on the phone.

Good advice...

I so needed to read this! Soon I will be a mother of 3! And to say that it FREAKS me out is an understatement. I had such a rough adjustment from 1 to 2 that it makes me feel incredibly inadequate to be a mother and anxiety certainly sets in if I let it. I realized just how easy it was to be a mom of one child...

and now I'm afraid I'm about to see how much easier it was to be a mom of 2 than 3! LOL :)

 I try to be pretty positive and push fear out of my mind. Sometimes that works and sometimes it fades back in...if you are a mother that's struggling with juggling children and especially if you are expecting, read this mother's (of 6) honest, truthful, and inspiring advice.

P.S. You know when I explained how clumsy I am and my little mishap with the homemade mayo? It splattered everywhere and I had to start over? Yeah...well....I was putting away my little mayo jar from using it and I dropped it it slipped from my hands, fell to the tile floor, and shattered. Glass flew... and consequently so did the mayo. Back to the drawing board...AGAIN! Grrr. Darn my clumsiness!

My Greatest Fear

At this point in my life, my greatest fear is that life won't get any better. I know fear itself can be debilitating but when you feel you're doing the best you can to make the best of a situation and see no results from it, fear sinks even deeper. You always hope change is for the better, but sometimes it just may be for the worse...

just my thoughts today.

P.S. Still doing great on the Sugar Detox! If you want to know more about it, go here.

Fa La La

Are you feeling the Holiday Spirit yet? I am already in Christmas mode because you see, I travel to Kentucky in the middle of December so I don't have as much time as most to get gifts ready for family and especially to prepare my advent calendar: Random Acts of Christmas Kindness. I talked about it last year in a post here. 

Would you like to keep Christmas centered more on Christ and living your month of December full of service like He did daily? If so, here are several ways you could create an advent calendar based around service. 


What I did was create tags and then we would hang them on the tree once the service was completed. I loved it because at the end of the season our tree was filled with "service." I put the date and the service to be performed on one side of the tag and then on the other side, a scripture about Christ and/or service that we would read in the morning when Keshlyn pulled out the tag for the day. It was like a quick little devotional.

Sorry for the cruddy pictures, but this is just to give you an idea of what I did. My tags were assorted green, red, and cream. Thank you Cricut for making cutting tags so fast and easy! A punch would work great too.

These tags are laminated so that I can use them year after year but the side with the service is taped on. This is so I can take it off and redo the services each year. I look forward to some new ones!




On to the calendar ideas...These links are not to "service calendars" but they're cute ways you could display a calendar with cards, tags, or slips of paper that list a service/Random Act of Christmas Kindness to be done that day. 

option 1.
Socks. This is the one I want to do...easy and cute. I am hoping to find enough before the first of December so that I can use this calendar.
http://www.marthastewart.com/270492/baby-sock-advent-calendar?czone=holiday/workshop-christmas/quick-and-easy-ideas&center=307034&gallery=856465&slide=170672

option 2.
This is the one I made last year because I was too crunched for time to go out and search for the socks...however this took much more time that I though it would due to all of the detailed scrapbooking. It requires a lot of scrapbooking embellishments/paper and may not be the best choice if you don't already have it on hand like I did or if you're looking for something quick and simple.
http://kimberlypetersen.typepad.com/photos/things_i_made/advent.html

option 3.
If you don't care what days you do what service...you could totally just do something cute and simple like this one. Make up all your service cards or tags (whatever you want to do) and put them in a glass jar to pull one each day until Christmas. I can't do something like this because I choose services on certain days for a reason (i.e. one that takes more time on the weekend, ones that I can do while in Kentucky, etc...) When you click on this link, you'll have to scroll down just a bit to see the jar display idea.
http://kindertastic.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=39

option 4.
This one is super cute and simple. Brown paper bags made cute with a little ribbon and cutesie numbers. (Psst. the numbers are printable from the site! So all you would have to do is get cardstock, make sure you have colored ink, and print them all out and attach to to the paper bag.)
http://bethproudfoot.blogspot.com/2010/11/countdown-to-christmas.html

option 5.
Another cute paper bag calendar idea. Read through this link because this is actually the site that helped me develop the whole thing last year. She actually provides a printable as well that I used. It is a card that you leave with your service or give to the person you're doing the random kindness for. It's really cute. You'll see what I mean.
http://tsjphotography.com/blog/random-acts-of-christmas-kindness-summary/

Sugar Detox Update

Day 6 here on sugar detox! Shannon and I are doing fabulous. It surprises me that I don't miss fruit. I mean REALLY surprises me since I am a fruit LOVER. Fruit is what I snack on all day long every day. But, because of this 21 day sugar detox, I am limited to 1 green-tipped banana or granny smith apple, and 1 sweet potato a day. I shockingly have not cheated. I thought I would end up eating more green apples a day, but I haven't. I have been forced to turn to more nuts for snacking as well as carrots, celery and almond butter (homemade), grape tomatoes, roasted veggies etc...

Have you ever tried jicama? It's a Mexican root vegetable that is slightly sweet and has the texture somewhere between that of a raw potato or apple. It is pretty good. I was surprised. It is a great pair for  homemade guacamole. Good snack.

I have always drank almond milk but when needing a snack at night or craving "milk" I had to have the real thing. I wonder why? Cow's milk is super sweet! I have been drinking almond milk exclusively and haven't missed cow's milk. I feel great. I don't feel deprived and I'm being honest. Because I'm eating more vegetables and protein, I feel satisfied after eating. And because I haven't been eating sugar, I don't crave or want sugar. It's been such a neat experience and shocking too. I really thought I would have a harder time not having anything sweet.  

I never realized how much sugar (even natural) is in EVERYTHING we eat (recipes) and buy. Here have been some of the shockers for me at the grocery store: some salsa, peppers in adobo sauce (extremely spicy...ticks me off they would put sugar in it!), most brands of chicken and beef broth, Lawry's Seasoning Salt, Cavender's seasoning (greek seasoning)... Prepackaged seasoning mixtures are almost always full of junk. So, I'm learning to make my own seasoning mixtures. 

I LOVE pork chops. Grilled or baked pork chops are the way to my heart. Seriously. And my favorite seasoning for them? Cavender's Greek Seasoning. Because I can't use it, I looked up a recipe to alter and make my own. 

2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1-1/2 teaspoons onion powder
1-1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

I splashed the pork with some beef broth (without any sugar!) and then sprinkled the mixture above on it. Baked it up and it was incredible. I served with roasted brussel sprouts, bacon, and apple tossed with red wine vinegar. Favorite meal this past week. 

For most people, breakfast includes something sweet. Most people don't do just eggs every morning. And I'm not different. We would usually have a fruit/spinach smoothie for breakfast because it is sweet. Breakfast has been the most difficult to get creative with but this morning was a definite success. Make these muffins as written and I bet they're delicious, but because I'm on this detox I altered it a little and ate it with warm coconut butter. 

• 1/2 cup mashed sweet potato
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup raisins (omit on sugar detox)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or almonds
• 1/4 cup honey (replace with 1 smashed green-tipped banana on sugar detox)
• 1/8 cup shredded carrot
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup almond flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder

I devoured 2 muffins right away. Favorite breakfast so far. 

On another note: happy day of voting...

Clumsy Feet

Picture challenge- November 2: shoes

These are our kicks for working out.
I do like my chucks even though I want to buy a pair of Inov-8's for workouts that involve any running.

Those feet cause me a lot of problems. You want to know one thing I really can't stand about myself? How clumsy I am!!!! It makes me angry and sometimes (like today) it makes me cry. I can try to be the most careful Keshia ever and sometimes it just doesn't pan out. I constantly drop things, run into walls, and stub my toe. Shannon says he "pulled a Keshia" whenever he does something clumsy. Good thing he's pretty...

Today I was making some homemade mayo and in transit of taking the food processor bowl off the machine I dropped it and it splatters everywhere. :( I had to start over. And if you've ever made mayo, it is a little tricky. It takes patience because you have to mix the oil and egg slowly to create an emulsion. If you go too quickly, it will never become the consistency of mayonnaise. I cried. At least it did turn out good in the end. It makes yummy egg salad...which we devoured at lunch time.

Why did I cry earlier because of my spill? Is it because I'm hormonal and pregnant? Maybe...but I doubt it because I cry every now and then when I'm clumsy and not pregnant. I cry because I'm angry with myself. Earlier this morning I made coconut flour muffins for breakfast and spilled coconut flour. Seriously! The powder flew. Ugh.

Oh well. The muffins were yummy with some coconut butter spread on top. If you've never experienced coconut butter you are missing out! (My mother-in-law loves this stuff! *wink wink)

Happy November 1st: Hello Sugar Detox

Happy November! 

I love this month. Normally, I have a little decorative tin can that sits out all month along with some little note cards for us to add something we're grateful for every time we walk by and think of something. Keshlyn even got into it last year. Then, on Thanksgiving night we read them all. It was quite rewarding last year. This year, my tin can is all packed up in storage. *tear. So, we'll just wing it. But, today, I'm grateful for my wonderful MIL allowing us to live in her home for free until we get into our rental in January. 

Normally, I don't do the whole picture a day thing, but my best gal, Jilly-o, challenged me to a picture a day with her this month. She text me the following: 

So here we are. Day 1. Picture of me...and my love. Isn't he so handsome? I just love his smile...and the scruff. I LOVE the scruff. 

Do you ever feel like your body is telling you something? Like you need more water? You need more sleep? You need more exercise? You need less sugar? 

I totally feel like I understand my body's needs. I'm a pretty healthy gal. We eat clean most every day. But, I also love to bake from scratch. So, that presents a problem once I get on a roll. The good thing is I bake, we test, and I give away. It's fun for me. This past month...it seems we have tested a lot of treats. My body is SO done! I need a break. 

I am always intrigued with reading about many things, but this is especially true with health and I am a FIRM believer in eating clean. There's some good info over at balancedbites.com about sugar and all of the different types you can find on a label in all of the processed, packaged foods as well as what it does to your body (there's a lot more symptoms besides just weight-gain, people.) I also LOVE the site paleomg.com. Julie Bauer is fun to follow. She's funny and inspiring. She recently did a 21 day sugar detox (did wonders for her her chronic acne...she also cut out nuts).  I bought the little booklet, read up and decided November 1st to Thanksgiving would be the perfect time to do it. Shannon was totally on board. My body is in desperate need of a detox right now. I'm following the detox pretty closely, but I'm not ruling out having a little more fruit like berries or an extra green apple if I feel like "the baby" I needs it. This sugar detox eliminates all sugar (artificial-which I would never use anymore. I have evolved from a couple years ago- and natural alike). No honey, no pure maple syrup, no carbs, no fruit! Ok, ok. It allows 1 green-tipped banana OR 1 green apple a day. That's it. Today Shannon and I did pretty good, but if we end up eating a little more fruit I won't mind. As long as we are eating clean and not doing any other "sweets." We started out with Pumpkin Pancakes (made from pumpkin and eggs and some spices), had a salad with homemade dressing and grilled chicken for lunch, carrots for a snack, garlic lemon chicken with steamed veggies for dinner and "chocolate pudding" for dessert... 

This chocolate pudding is actually pretty darn good. It's coconut milk, avocado, 1 green-tipped banana, pure cocoa powder, and pure vanilla all blended together. Then I froze it. YUM! Perfect treat while blogging.