Meal Planning With MOMables

Recently I was contacted by MOMables to see if I would be interested in working with them to help share their online school lunch meal planning service. I immediately jumped at the opportunity to let someone else do a little of the meal planning for me because right now I am in a rut! Meal planning is typically an everyday thing for me, but ever since summer break started I have slacked off because I was starting to get tired of planning out every step or bite I took. I wanted to be able to go with the flow and be footloose and fancy free for a few weeks. So go ahead and ask me how that worked out! Not good. Not good at all my friends. I was stuck eating anything I could find that was "safe" for me to eat. That meant there were many days I was eating plain chicken hot dogs, hard boiled eggs, and canned green beans. It wasn't pretty and I wasn't excited about eating and the only thing that got me a little excited about eating most days was a piece of bacon and a fresh smoothie. 

It's so funny that they contacted me this week because I have been scouring Pinterest for new recipes and had just gotten my meal planning calendar out so I can get back into my routine before school starts again. I know I know you are all yelling at me that school doesn't start for another 6 weeks, but I need to get my butt into gear and get back into my meal planning habits before it gets to close or I will panic and just start throwing things into lunch boxes because there will be so much going on! Remember not only will I be starting a new school year, but my baby girl will also be going to school (sniff sniff)! I also have her birthday coming up and this year not only are we having a Thomas The Train Birthday, but we are having  a joint Thomas The Train Birthday with Mckinley's BFF and future husband Noah! So I need to get into tip top shape before all of this biznass goes down! 

Here is where MOMables comes in. They have sent me a 3 month subscription to try and in return I am going to give my honest opinion about their program and I am also going to giveaway away a 3 month subscription and a $15 Amazon Giftcard so you can buy all of the fun accessories you will need to go along with your MOMables Subscription! MOMables is also offering a free week meal plan when you sign up for their weekly newsletter. Just think mom's 3 months of school lunches planned out for you! They even send you a shopping list for 5 meals which means 5 fewer meals you  have to think about and plan! You buy the ingredients and follow the directions and then you can sit back and relax and wonder why you ever stressed about packing lunches!

MOMables offers vegetarian, gluten free and nut free options so no matter what your needs are you can adapt every plan to fit your family. I definitely understand what it takes to plan out every bite you eat because of my dietary restrictions so I am excited to show how I make this program work for us by showing you how I make simple exchanges to make it safe for us to eat. For example this upcoming week there is a recipe for a delicious strawberry kiwi wafflewich so I will be making my homemade almond flower waffles which we can eat for breakfast and then I can use the same waffles for our sandwiches. So whatever the dietary needs are you can make any of these recipes work for your family.

All you need to do is fill out these few simple Rafflecopter entries and you can win a 3 Month MOMables Subscription and a $15 Amazon Giftcard to help make this upcoming school year a little less painful.

Goodluck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Summer Weeks 1 & 2

The first two weeks of our summer were mostly spent in or around the pool. We signed Mckinley up for a two week intensive swim class and boy am I glad we did. She is so much more comfortable in the water and I am much happier knowing that if heaven forbid something ever happens she has the basic skills to save herself.

 We tried to get out of the house as much as we could in between random downpours every single day. The most exciting day had to be during week two when we met a our friend Heather and her littles at the Botanic Gardens. We had a blast feeding ducks and playing in the dirt and we were just about to make our way to eat some lunch when someone missed a step off of a bridge and slammed her head on the concrete. Let's just say I have never kicked off  flip flops and run as fast as I did when I saw my baby fall head first off of a bridge. We had to keep a close eye on her for 24 hours, but thankfully everything turned out ok.

The rest of our time we spent outside playing with bubbles, having floor picnics, painting, dressing up like pirates and princesses, and whatever else we could find to entertain ourselves. Not pictured is the amount of time we spent watching movies. I am and never will be the perfect craft everyday mom kind of mom and some days I get tired of reading the same books over and over again and dancing to the same song while putting together the same Llama Llama puzzle so we watched movies. Our latest favorites are Free Birds, Mulan and Mulan II, and Any movie with puppies in it (Air Bud or anything with Dalmations). I have also been binge watching tv shows on Netflix. I just finished Breaking Bad and have now moved onto Scandal. Don't you worry I will quickly start Orange Is The New Black once I finish up with Olivia Pope.

Now enjoy yourself and take in our summer via a collage of pictures of my child getting really dirty and eating a bunch of food.

Next week I want to try to get outside some more even though the temps have steadily been rising (Welcome to the South and it's amazing humidity). There is an awesome park I have wanted to visit for a few weeks so my plan is to scrounge up some crusty bread (that's not easy in this house) and take the girl to go feed some scary geese that will attack you if you get too close. 

I am all about making memories here people!

Summer Week 3

We are officially three weeks into summer break and we are already starting to plan some more fun for the next six weeks. After two weeks of gloomy, rainy, swim lesson filled days we finally have some sunshine and some freedom to move around a little more. So far this summer we have swam, sewn, made crafts, painted, watched a lot of movies, eaten a ton of watermelon, and done a lot of cooking. I have been trying out new recipes that will be awesome for meal planning once school starts again. I have also tried quite a few donut recipes since I just had to try out my donut pan Brent and Mckinley gave me for mother's day.

We celebrated Father's Day this past weekend with a pizza extravaganza and I can thankfully say besides a slight upset tummy from the cheese I did not have an allergic reaction to my Gourmet White gluten free pizza from Mellow Mushroom. Now that I think about it I am not sure if it was the cheese or the fact that I ate an entire 12" pizza between the hours of 4 and 9, but it was worth it. 

We started to get a little stir crazy those first two weeks because of the crazy pop up downpours every few hours. I think the weathermen just kind of gave up after a few days. There were a few days we were able to get out in our awesome pool, but those darn storms chased us in every single day. Thanks to my awesome mom and dad I got a little break this past weekend when they took Mckinley to spend the night at their house Sunday evening and then my mom kept her ALL day Monday! I didn't know what to do with myself. My house was clean, I only had a few errands, to run, and I had already worked out. I don't do relaxing very well so I was happy to pick up my girl that evening.

On Tuesday we had a go with the flow day. We had planned to check out a story hour at a local bookstore, but that plan quickly went out the window after a visit to the park right down the street from our house turned into a two hour visit to school. We swung by to visit friends at summer camp and ended up having so much fun we couldn't leave. After that we took an exciting trip to the grocery store and before we knew it it was lunch time and nap time.

Wednesday we had a playdate with our friends Heather, Conner, and Hayden at the Children's Museum. We LOVE the Children's Museum and I was so excited to get to meet the CEO and learn all about the new updates they are planning for the toddler area.

Wednesday night I went with my sister, aunt, and a few of her coworkers to see Ceelo Green and Lionel Richie.

It was a blast and made me want to go buy every Lionel Richie album so Mckinley and I could dance around the den especially to ballerina girl since she is now obsessed with this tutu.

Thursday we spent the day up at school filling in at summer camp for a teacher who was out of town. We weren't too helpful since one class had 2 kids out sick so Mckinley spent the day playing in one of the kindergarten classrooms while I got a bunch of work done for the upcoming school year (It is impossible for me to turn off my teacher brain!) We will have another relaxing day today with a visit to the park and later we will run by school to hang out while a few of the teachers take their lunch breaks. Later this evening Mckinley will be heading to Nonni and Car Car's house, I will be helping at a friends son's rehearsal dinner, and Brent will get to chill at home with no crazy women bossing him around.

So far our summer has been pretty relaxing and fun and I can't wait to see what the next few weeks have in store for us.

Swimming Swimming In The Swimming Hole

I am not sure why this day is always so difficult for me every year. I know it is coming and I should be better prepared for it, but it still always sends a little panic through my heart when I wake up in the morning and still think I should be getting ready to go to work. Nothing is layed out! No lunches are packed! Nothing is ready to go! And then it hits me that I am not going to work today and I won't be going back to work for 10 weeks! 

Then the panic really sets in because I know I set my alarm for 5:00 a.m. for some reason! Ahhhhh!! I have to be at Boot camp at 5:30!! Thank the lord I set out my work out clothes and baked some egg, sausage, and spinach "muffins" last night. So there I go running out the door to do some sweating and then it's back home again.  Now it's time to wake the morning monster and get her fed and rolling before we head out the door for our first day of swim class. I will definitely be writing a full post on our swim class experience because it should be interesting. We have taken a class before, but it was just an introduction to the water and I stayed in the water with her. This class however is a little different because parents are not allowed in the class except for the first day and on Fridays to see what they have learned. This kid of mine is definitely a little fish and loves the water, but we shall see how it all goes when we get to the drop off point. I think it will be a good thing because for such a free spirited kid someone has a little bit of an attachment issue when it comes to her Mama. 

As you see even though I am not teaching there is still something to do every single day. We have our swim lessons every day Monday-Friday for the next two weeks, lots of play dates scheduled, and swim dates at Ya Ya and Papa's house so I still need to make sure I am prepared  for everything we have planned for the next day.

I do know however that when it is time for to relax we will definitely be doing it up right. I have been working on getting our backyard ready for some serious summer fun! We have our playhouse and slide, a water table, lots of dirt to roll in, our wireless speaker to jam to all of our favorite Disney tunes, and now we have an appropriate pool to stay cool in.

We started our love affair with the water in this perfect little baby pool and it has done the job for the past 3 years. 

But we have moved on to bigger and better things! Thanks to Backyard Ocean we now get to enjoy the hot and humid southern summer in this glorious piece of aquatic equipment! 

I was so excited when I was contacted by Backyard Ocean to help promote their Summer Sweepstakes because we love any company that sells products promoting family togetherness. Now that I am home with the wild child everyday we will definitely be spending the majority of our time outside and it gets hot down here so we will need a way to stay cool.

Our Deluxe Square Party Pool  arrived on our doorstep after just a few days of being contacted by Backyard Ocean. We didn't get to set up our pool right away because of too much fun at a super muddy Italian Fest, but after a fun day at church we decided to go ahead and get things set up for our first week of summer break.  First things first was to get our pool out of the box and of course I injured myself or I guess you could say I re-injured myself by dropping the box on my foot on the exact spot my sandals rubbed a huge gash the night before. Thankfully my wonderful husband helped me pull it out and he carried it out to the carport for me since our inflator can only be used when hooked up to a car. I wanted to give a good set up time frame for our pool so I set the stop watch on my phone after figuring out which inflator hose and pieces I needed to get started. Thankfully I didn't start the timer until I got all of this figured out because no one would want to know how long this actually took me. 25 minutes later I started my timer and got inflating. finally started inflating.

The Deluxe Square Party Pool has 4 sections to inflate including 3 rings making up the outside of the pool and an inflatable bench around one side of the bottom of the pool. It took me a little over 17 minutes to fill up the whole entire pool! If you have small children and you tell them you are going to blow up a pool for them to swim in it better not take a long time and if my child could patiently make it through this you know it was super easy.

Funny thing is this small bench took the longest to inflate. The 3 large rings around the side actually had your everyday run of the mill blowup ports, but they also have 3 extra ports with a acre off top and a small black plug for letting out the air that made it much easier and faster to inflate. I used one of my smaller inflator needles to fill up the bench which took a little longer. 

After I got everything blown up Brent helped me carry it back into the backyard and we grabbed a hose and started filling up. Someone loves helping me use the hose to water our vegetables and flowers so you can imagine the pure joy when I let her help fill up her new pool.

It took about 30-35 minutes to fill up the pool a little under the top of the inflatable bench which was just enough water for us today. I didn't want to fill it up too full to see how comfortable the wild child was before going all the way. She of course loved it and I will be filling it up the rest of the way tomorrow so she can show us what she learned in swim class.

Hopefully this is the face she has tomorrow swimming in the big pool! Wish us luck!

My Whole30 Journey

Let's go back to the very beginning of this journey and where everything began. A little over a year ago I decided to start following a Paleo diet because I needed a change somewhere in my life to help me feel better and get healthier. I started at the beginning of 2013 and right away started losing weight and feeling better. I was following an 80/20 Paleo diet where I would eat Paleo all week and on the weekends if I wanted a splurge I would go ahead and have a little splurge. I was sleeping better, I wasn't having awful sinus issues anymore and I was just feeling better about myself in general. Then all of a sudden after a sudden loss of a dear friend I went spiraling out of control and started becoming very sick. All of the lymph nodes in my head and neck were very swollen and I could barely turn my head, I was breaking out in hives all over my body and scalp, my eyes were swelling, and I was constantly very sick. I finally visited my Dr. and after a many blood tests, a round of very strong antibiotics and a discussion of concern since swollen lymph nodes are a main sign of Lymphoma (scariest day of my life and thank the lord for clear blood tests) I still wasn't feeling any better. Thankfully my Dr. is amazing and she wanted to figure out what was going on with me so we sat and talked for quite a while about all of the changes in my life recently and in passing I mentioned that I had been following a Paleo Diet for the past few months and had just recently stopped. All of a sudden it was like a light bulb turned on over her head and she said she was almost 95% sure this all stemmed from something dietary. Before running any expensive inconclusive tests she suggested I go back to a very strict Gluten Free diet. I immediately started freaking out because I didn't know what to eat or what to do (mind you I had been living gluten free for the past 3 months so I am not sure why not being able to eat bread sent me into a panic). I of course first turned to anything and everything labeled "Gluten Free" (breads, crackers, cookies, baking mixes, pasta, etc) and initially I lost a ton of weight (best side affect ever). After a while I stopped losing weight and actually started gaining everything back plus some which just goes to show you that just because something is gluten free doesn't mean it is healthy.

After a few months I was feeling a little better and not having as many reactions, but something still wasn't right. It wasn't until right before Christmas 2013 when I had an extremely bad reaction where I broke out in hives all over my face (there is nothing like face hives during your class Christmas Program and every single parents asking you what is wrong with your face) that I was sent to see an allergist. Come to find out I not only have issues with gluten sensitivities, but I am also allergic to black and white pepper (my body doesn't discriminate), and oranges. I thought ok I can live without these things. No biggie. This won't be any more difficult then what I was already living without. So once again I rearranged my diet and stopped using anything with pepper and oranges, but something still wasn't right. Living gluten free these days isn't as difficult as it used to be. There is so much information out there these days about living without gluten, my grocery store offers at least 3-4 brands that are great gluten free replacements for most foods, and most restaurants also offer a few selections that are gluten free these days so you can almost live a normal life even if you are living with celiac or a gluten sensitivity. Sadly there is not a lot of information out there for my awesomely weird allergies. I should have know I was in trouble when my allergist walked in to check my tests and said "Well........This is a surprise! I have never had anyone allergic to pepper before". Thanks doc you are making this so much easier! When I got home that day I tried to find as much research as I could find and became a super label checker and after many more allergic reactions and a few long talks with my sweet husband while he was scratching my back because I was so itchy we both decided that I needed to stay away from anything labeled with spices, citric acid, citric fiber or natural flavors in it. That basically meant no more processed foods especially anything labeled Gluten Free since these foods had so many extra ingredients to make you feel like you are kind of sort of eating something that tastes like real bread.

And this super long story you just read is what lead me to complete my first Whole30.

I knew I needed something to retrain my mind and my body to eat real food and to get rid of any old cravings that might be lingering. Basically Whole30 is Paleo on steroids so no grains, no beans, no sugar, no dairy and no alcohol. Sounds awesome right?  Well it is and I am planning on completing another Whole30 sometime soon. I am so proud of myself for sticking with it and I can honestly say I am a completely different person than I was when all of this allergy mess began a year ago. I now stick to a 95% Paleo diet and I feel amazing! It is always so funny when I tell people why I can't or don't eat something because they always get this sad look on their face and tell me how much that would suck or how they could never live without eating or drinking such-n-such. I just flash my pearly whites and go back to drinking my spinach, banana, spinach smoothie and think how lucky I am that I am still on this journey and how much better not just my life, but my whole families lives are because I can't eat such-n-such. You may not think there any medicine for what I have (Except Benadryl. Lots and Lots of Benadryl!), but I think I might have discovered a cure all.