Funny Kids and Laundry Detergent

I'm not really the kind of person who cares about celebrities.  However, when I was in late middle and high school I watched Days of Our Lives every day.  I would record it on VHS and come home from school to see what happened that day.  My mom even grounded me from it for a month once (but I would record it and watch it after she went to bed).  It was pretty much an obsession.  And of all the celebrities there were in the world, I really wanted to meet Drake Hogestyn and Deidre Hall (John and Marlena).  Like I would daydream about it while I was running.  And it's super embarrassing for me to confess this but I have a point.

A little while ago I told Morgan that we were going to go to Disneyland when it gets warm.  She was over the moon excited.  She talked about the princesses a little at first but she cannot stop talking about Lightning McQueen.  Out of the blue she will make a comment like, "I'm going to do a somersault for Lightning McQueen," or, "I'm going to sing We Are Never Getting Back Together to Lightning McQueen," or, "Lightning McQueen is a car.  He doesn't have pecs or boobies, huh mom?"  Hilariousness!  I know she's daydreaming about meeting Lightning McQueen.  She wakes up and asks if it's warm yet so we can go.

Speaking of kids (yes, complete change of subject coming).  They can get pretty messy and laundry detergent can get pricey.  I found this recipe for homemade laundry detergent at Being Creative.  It's pretty legit -- like it calls for Oxi Clean, the only thing that gets out that yellow baby poop.

I made some.  It's supposed to last at least 6 months and I'm all about that!  So far it has worked well for me so I thought I'd be a gem and share with you.  Go to Being Creative for the recipe.  Oh, and it only costs around $20 for the ingredients.

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Who Wants A House?

You know the saying "a picture's worth a thousand words?"  Well, I just want to ask what these pictures say to you?  This is a house we found online while "shopping."  The asking price is $599,000.  That's like 3/5 of a million dollars and that's a lot for Utah right now.  Not my price range but Tom likes to see what's out there.  You would think they would all be pristine homes with fabulous pictures.  Now look:

Who's sold on how amazing this house is?  Come on... a show of hands.  Yeah, I'm not impressed either.  I mean, these people are asking basically $600,000 for their house and don't bother to take good pictures, let alone CLEAN the house.  Seriously.  If this is your house, at least put the crap under the bed and actually make the bed for the pictures!  If you have a real estate agent who doesn't tell you what I just told you, get a new one (I'll be available soon)!

And if any of you are planning on selling, let this be a lesson to you.  Make it look good and it will sell a lot faster for a higher price!

Baby-Weight Progress

My Friday weigh-in was weird.  I weighed myself like 15 times and kept getting 150.4 and 149.0.  My scale is funny.  I move it all over the floor to see if it is consistent.  It was, but on both numbers so I'm going to go with 149.0.  Yay, right!  In the 140's!  I don't think I'll hit my goal of 145 by next Sunday but at least I'm kind of close.

Our weather has been so crappy for weeks.  Like so cold and smoggy (inversion).  I took my girls to my parents' house for a couple of days last week for something different to do.  It was sub 20's when we left our house.  About half way there it was in the mid 30's and we were high enough that the air was clean and we could actually see the sky that we had been missing for weeks.  Then 30 minutes later, back in the inversion at my parents' house, it was 7 degrees and smoggy.

Driving toward the big wall of lung cancer (inversion).

By Saturday I was just done with this weather.  The inversion was supposed to clear out (and it did on Sunday) and the temp was like 37 degrees so couldn't take it anymore.  I had to run outside.  The air was horrible and my throat burned but I was happy to be outside!

Meanwhile, back at the gym the day before, I took pictures of my progress.  I'm still not "there" yet but it's getting better.

before

now

before

now

Starting weight on November 27-- 159.6
Total down: 10.6 lbs
Size: 10 jeans (although I can button up my 8's, but I would never wear them without Spanx)
Goal: 135 lbs, size 6 by March
Height: 5' 8"

Houses

Remember how we got the house shopping bug again?  So far we have made offers on two houses.  

This one.

And this one.

Our offer was rejected on the first one.  Rejected.  Not even countered.  We offered low and asked the agent to encourage the owners to counter.  I think they were actually offended by our offer.  Come on, people!  It's not like we're saying your kids are ugly!  We just want a house we love for a good price.  Is that too much to ask?  Gah!

The second house is a short sale and our offer was second in line.  I actually don't love this house.  I don't like the layout and it stinks like dog poo hoarder nastiness.  It's bad.  So we pulled our offer.  Now we don't have any houses in our finding pool.

Healthy, Yummy Dinners

Weigh-in was Friday and, yippee, I am down again.  150.4.  I'm hoping to be at 145 on Feb. 3 and 135ish by March.

I did some things differently last week.  First, I slept.  I tried to get 8 hours of sleep every night.  I think maybe with naps it all averaged to that.  I also didn't eat after 7 for 3 of the nights.  Last weekend I ate more calories than I had been.  So I'm not sure what helped: the sleep, not eating at night, or eating more so my body didn't think it was starving.  Maybe a combination of the three (or maybe the first two).

Starting weight on November 27-- 159.6
Total down: 9.2 lbs
Size: 30 (or 10, I think) jeans
Goal: 135 lbs, size 28 (or 6) by March
Height (because I know you want to know): 5' 8"

A lot of people are concerned that they will get bored eating healthy foods because there is no variety, especially at night.  That was my concern for my family.  I didn't want to make separate dinners for us so I did my best to make our dinners interesting, delicious and healthy.  Enter Pinterest (and follow me if you'd like).  I found these delicious recipes, changed them a little to make them more healthy (or low cal) and fed them to my fam.

First of all, you can follow the recipes on each site but just so you know, I did not add any oil or butter, even if it called for it.  

Mashed Cauliflower from What's For Dinner?: I used the cauliflower part instead of the potatoes.

Roasted Green Beans with Mushrooms from Kalyn's Kitchen: I added almond slivers and Chicken.

Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad from Nutmeg Notebook: With this one I substituted fat free Greek yogurt for the sour cream.

Canastitas Caprese from Hispanic Kitchen: Mine weren't this cute.

Chicken Sweet Potato Stir-Fry from Prevention: This recipe is on page 3.  I didn't love it.  It seemed a little too random.

I Love Us

I printed this "I Love Us" picture a while ago and put it in my bedroom but it looked kind of out of place since the bedroom was serene -- gray and white.  This is more fun so I decided to move it to the entrance of our house, at least for the season.  

I found the printable at eighteen25.  They didn't have this color so I just played with it in Picasa and turned it to this lovely shade of pink.  Then I had it printed at Walmart.  

There should be pink flowers in the pink vase but my little pink-loving girl stole them and I just found them yesterday in the closet under the stairs amid her toys.

So, if you like it and want to download one for yourself, just go to eighteen25.  I can't take credit for it except for the fact that you can change the color. 

Chores and Money

I have been thinking about how to teach Morgan about different aspects of money for weeks.  Things came to me little by little but I think I finally figured out something that will work for us.

I want her to learn how to work so I picked chores that a 3-4 year old can do.  I also want her to make money by commission and not by allowance (entitlement).  And we are teaching her about quarters, dimes and nickels.

Since it is so cold and we can't go outside I took her to IKEA to get some exercise in the play place while I sat on a couch and looked at Facebook on my phone fed the baby.  I had a few minutes to kill so I perused the downstairs stuff where there is always something I want.  This time I found some pink magnets -- perfect for my pink-loving girl.

When I got home I found pictures of each of the chores that she will be in charge of and printed them out.  I decoupaged them to the magnets but the magnets are so shiny smooth that they didn't stay so I fixed it with some double stick tape.

Some of the chores are bigger to do once a week and others are daily.  Tom helped me put a value to each chore.  For her to be able to know, I taped pictures of the money amount (ie 2 quarters and 2 dimes) next to the picture of the chore.  I also taped the days, mostly for my sake.  Here is her list:

• pick up toys - Daily (but I accidently only put M-F) 10 cents
• sort laundry - M. 70 cents.
• dust - T. 50 cents.
• clean sink - Daily. 5 cents.
• clean mirrors - T. 50 cents.
• make bed - Daily. 5 cents.
• load/unload dishwasher - M Th S. 30 cents.
• clean toilet (this is Morgan's favorite thing to do) - T. $1

When she is done with the chore she gets to move the magnet to the smiley face side.  I picked up a cookie sheet at the dollar store to use as the metal part.

She gets paid after each chore and she puts the money in a "commission" jar (label to be made).  At the end of the week (or when she is ready to spend some) she puts 10% in the tithing jar, 40% in the saving jar, and 50% in the spending jar.  She sometimes asks if she can go to McDonald's or Five Guys and I'm not big on taking her there more than once a week so now instead of plain old "no" I can say that if she doesn't have enough money, we can't go.  Plus she gets to learn the value of money.  It's pretty brilliant if you ask me! :)

Here she is hard at work cleaning the mirror.  Oh, and FYI, I don't let her do anything dangerous and I supervise all chores.

Workout January: Week 3

How was your weekend?  Mine was full of self pity eating since I didn't get any closer to my weight loss goal.  But I'm ready to go at it again and refocus this week.  Since I have been at it for 6 weeks I am ready to increase cardio and do more reps of lighter weights.  This will hopefully stimulate fat loss... hopefully.  It normally does, but I'm not really normal right now.  

There are often times when I (and many other people) can't make it to the gym but still need to do some resistance training to build my massive muscles.  This week is going to be one of them because of Tom's work schedule and me being with the kids.  Thankfully I have a treadmill for cardio.  I'm still not over how great it is!  If you don't have one, a friend of mine told me about a great app called Nike Training Club.  I've done some of the workouts and they are really awesome.  You can also find workout videos on Youtube.  Once I found a Jillian workout and did that.  So anyway, not being able to go to the gym is no excuse.  You can get a good workout in your living room.  

Since I can't go to the gym, I'm going to do these workouts (below).  If you can go to the gym and want to use one of the workouts I do, you can find them on my baby-weight loss list.  Good luck this week!

How do it: Perform this workout as a circuit, completing the prescribed number of repetitions of each exercise without resting. Once you've done one set of each exercise, rest for two minutes, then repeat the entire circuit two more times.

Day 1:
Bodyweight Squat -- 15-20
Incline Push-up -- 12-15
Hip Raises -- 10
Side Plank -- 30 seconds each side
Floor Y-T-I Raises -- 8-12 reps of each


Read more at Oprah.com and see how to do these.

Day 2:
Dumbbell (or soupcans?) Lunge and Rotation -- 20
Mountain Climber -- 20
Dumbbell Push Press -- to fatigue
Dumbbell Row -- to fatigue
Squat Thrusts -- 10


See how to do them here.


Day 3:
mini circuit 1:
Offset Reverse Dumbbell Lunge (Step Back with Right Leg) -- 20
Underhand Grip Rear Lateral Raise -- to fatigue
Offset Reverse Dumbbell Lunge (Step Back with Left Leg) -- 20
mini circuit 2:
Swiss Ball Dumbbell Chest Press (or pushups if you don't have dumbells) -- to fatigue
Goblet Squat -- 20
Dumbbell Row -- to fatigue
mini circuit 3:
Thrusters -- 20
Swiss Ball Hip Raise and Leg Curl (if you have a ball) -- 20 or fatigue
T-Stabilization -- 10/side


See how to do them here.


Also do 30-60 minutes of cardio 5-6 days this week.

Fitness Story: Megan

You guys, I weighed in and I haven't lost anything.  Not. An. Ounce.  Actually, if you want to get technical, I gained almost a pound this week.  I am so frustrated because I'm doing everything right -- unless by chance I'm not eating enough calories and my body is hanging on.  I've even been doing 2-a-days going to the gym in the morning and treadmill later in the day.  Apparently I don't lose extra weight by breastfeeding.  I'm just not that lucky and I kind of hate those who are.  It stinks because I normally can lose easily when I do it right.  Frustrating!  The good thing is that I have heard from a couple of you and you are losing so good job!  Keep it up.

I'm really excited for the guest post I have today.  I have been reading Megan's blog for a while and it's pretty much one of my faves.  She's funny and tells it like it is.  Her daughter is the same age as Morgan and she does a lot of DIY.  The other day I was reading her blog and Tom glanced at a picture of her and asked when I took that (he thought it was me) because she even kind of looks like me.  She also happens to have an incredible weight loss story and I asked her to share it with you.  So be sure to head over to Miss Madison's Charmed Life and leave her some comment love:

I'm so excited to be guesting for Kelli today!

My name is Megan and I blog over at Miss Madison's Charmed Life.

3.5 years ago I got pregnant with my first child, Madison.

I was 185 pounds.

9 months later I was 260.

Some things I learned from this:

1. Don't eat for 2.

2. working out is not dangerous for the baby {I quit the gym after my Dr expressed concern over getting my heart rate too high}

3. Peanut M&M's are not baby vitamins.

4. The weight will not 'fall' off even with breastfeeding. {unless your one of the lucky few}

After seeing one too many pictures that looked like this....

I decided to take charge of my weight and do something about it.

I joined Weight Watchers because honestly I needed structure on my eating.

 I also joined a boot camp even though I was scared. I was scared I wouldn't be able to keep up, that I would be the heaviest person there, or that I would make a complete fool of myself.

BUT I went anyways and you know what, I WAS the heaviest person, I WAS the slowest, and I could barely do half the stuff everyone else was doing.

I kept going back though, never missing a day. One day I decided to see if I could run a mile before class, I huffed and puffed and thought 'how in the hell does anyone enjoy running??' 

BUT I kept at it, walking\running and never missing a workout. Slowly it got better, my chest and ass finally stopped hurting from all the jiggling :)

I decided to run a half marathon even though I had never even run a 5k, I didn't follow a 'program' I just got my booty outside and ran at least 5 times a week.

I was about 175 pounds.

I almost died, my feet were killing me and I was chaffed in about 5 different spots, but I finished in 2:27!

It was amazing and I had never been more proud of myself. I was hooked.

I continued to watch what I ate {most of the time, I mean HELLO I didn't get fat because I hated food!}

I kept exercising {some would say I'm a gym rat now}

Getting healthy is not just for me, but to be a good role model for my baby girl.

She calls it my 'sweaty time'

It's something we can do as a family {the Husband is not quite as fanatic about it as I am though}

I finally hit 100 pounds lost and wore a bikini on vacation.

I may not have a perfect body but I sure worked my ASS off to get the one I got, so I'm gonna show it off!

I hit a plateau around 150 pounds that I was at for a year, but I did not let that stop me.

I decided if I couldn't lose pounds I would gain muscle!

Running is my passion, but weights are where the magic happens.

I make the time to work out, I make healthy choices on food. What makes me feel good is knowing I'm giving it my all.

We are currently trying for another baby, my goal is to learn from my past and have the healthiest pregnancy I can. One of my goals is to run a half while I'm pregnant!

Thanks for reading my story and be sure to stop by and say hi, I'd love to hear from you!

Buns!

I know I've said how much I love Pinterest before but seriously, I get so many ideas from that place.  People in this world are brilliant!  My latest trick is this bun... done with a sock!

Here's how it's done:

Source: img.pixbx.com

So now I can finally do a bun that is decent and not messy (although I love messy).  I actually did this for my impromptu date with my husband last night to the Jazz game.  Free 7th row tickets!

Balanced Meals

When I learned how to lose weight (fat) the right way I had been out of school (college) for a couple of years.  It's funny because I majored in exercise science, a pre-med major at BYU, and really didn't learn anything about weight loss.  I went to the gym but mostly did only cardio.  I ate fat free food because that's what I learned in the 90's.  It wasn't until I got a job as an exercise and nutrition consultant that I figured it out.  I had been married for about 6 months and was at the highest weight I had ever been.  When I started working as a consultant I also started a nutrition and exercise plan that my boss made for me.  I went from 150 lbs and 30% body fat to 131 lbs and 20% body fat in 12 weeks.  But let me tell you.  I was strict.  I did everything that my boss told me to do and I got amazing results.

Because I spent 12 weeks eating perfectly proportioned and balanced meals, I learned what to eat and how much of it I can eat.  I'll be honest, I measured everything during that time and I often measure my food now.  I usually don't add up my calories for the entire day because I eat 5-7 meals and I just can't be bothered with that.  Instead I count the calories for each meal.  I know that if I stay between 200-400 calories I will hit my caloric goal.  For example, if I want to eat 1400 calories I can eat seven 200 calorie meals/snacks or one 400 calorie, two 300 calorie and two 200 calorie meals.  That way I only have to know the calorie count of what I'm eating at the time.  It works for me.

Here is a list of the food that I eat.  I make sure to have protein at every meal.  I usually have something from the carb list, and I try to have at least 3 from the green veggie list every day.  At breakfast I have a protein and two carbs (1 egg, 1 extra egg white, 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1 apple).  If I have a late night snack it is usually just a low fat protein (like an egg white omelet with stuff from the green veggie list).


Protein
Peanut Butter
Cottage Cheese
Greek Yogurt
Deli Meat
Jerky
String Cheese/Low Fat Mozzarella
Turkey Pepperoni
Nuts
Hummus
Eggs
Protein Bar
Chicken Breast



Carbs
Fruit -- Apples, Bananas, Berries, Oranges, Grapefruit, etc.
Low Carb Tortillas
Reduced Fat Wheat Thins
Pitas
Sara Lee 45 Calorie Whole Wheat Bread
Oatmeal
Quinoa
Brown Rice
Sweet Potato
Low Sugar Cereal


Green Veggies
Spinach
Romaine Lettuce
Kale
Celery
Broccoli
Green Pepper
Green Beans

Work Out: January Week 2

I was perusing Bodybuilding.com... just kidding.  I was on Pinterest and I came across this story of how this girl went from unhealthy to super hot fitness model/body show competitor.  She gave an example of her workout so that is what I'm going to do this week... since I'm toying with the idea of doing a body show this summer.  Anyone want to do it with me?

Click on one of the pictures to read her story.

Oh, and since I didn't blog on Friday, my Friday weigh in was 152.8.  I mostly just stayed the same through Christmas and New Years.  

PS I'm switching day 3 and day 7.  I rest on Sundays.  You can do what you want.  Same results.

Day 1: AM Cardio, PM Shoulders/Abs

AM Cardio:

•  

  Elliptical Trainer, Stairmill, or Incline Treadmill

  45 min, fasted

PM Shoulders/Abs:

•  

  Side Lateral Raise

  3 sets of 8-12 reps
•  

  Front Dumbbell Raise

  3 sets of 8-12 reps
•  

  Reverse Machine Flyes

  3 sets of 8-12 reps
•  

  Crunches

  3 sets of 50 reps
•  

  Air Bike

  3 sets of 20 reps
•  

  Bent-Knee Hip Raise

  3 sets of 20 reps

Day 2: AM Cardio, PM Legs

AM Cardio:

•  

  Elliptical Trainer, Stairmill, or Incline Treadmill

  45 min, fasted

PM Legs:

•  

  Seated Leg Curl

  4 sets of 12-20 reps
•  

  Dumbbell Lunges

  4 sets of 15-25 reps
•  

  Barbell Squat

  4 sets of 15-20 reps
•  

  Barbell Deadlift

  4 sets of 20-25 reps
•  

  One-Legged Cable Kickback

  4 sets of 20 reps

Day 3: Rest

Day 4: AM Cardio, PM Chest/Triceps

AM Cardio:

•  

  Elliptical Trainer, Stairmill, or Incline Treadmill

  45 min, fasted

PM Chest/Triceps

•  

  Barbell Bench Press - Medium Grip

  3 sets of 10-15 reps
•  

  Incline Dumbbell Press

  3 sets of 12 reps
•  

  Pushups

  3 sets of 15-20 reps
•  

  Lying Triceps Press

  3 sets of 10-12 reps
•  

  Triceps Pushdown

  3 sets of 10-12 reps
•  

  Tricep Dumbbell Kickback

  3 sets of 10-12 reps
•  

  Bench Dips

  3 sets of 15-20 reps

Day 5: AM Cardio, PM Back/Biceps

AM Cardio:

•  

  Elliptical Trainer, Stairmill, or Incline Treadmill

  45 min, fasted

PM Back/Biceps

•  

  Pullups

  3 sets of 10-15 reps
•  

  Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown

  3 sets of 10-15 reps
•  

  Bent Over Barbell Row

  3 sets of 10-15 reps
•  

  Dumbbell Bicep Curl

  3 sets of 10-15 reps
•  

  Hammer Curls

  3 sets of 10-15 reps
•  

  Preacher Curl

  3 sets of 10-15 reps

Days 6 and 7: Cardio Only