Adventures of April

We began April with an April Fool's Day joke on the kids.....we figure we'll trick them as long as we can before they begin to trick us!

Nathan chewed on a Tootsie Roll, and then stuck it to the back of the rim on the toilet. He then called Lincoln in, asking Lincoln about it (making Lincoln think he didn't "clean up" good enough after going to the washroom....)

Lincoln walked in, took one look and said, "Eek!!". He then said "eek" two more times, just standing there. He instantly felt bad but you could see the confusion on his face as he was trying to figure out how that got there as he was pretty sure he hadn't used that bathroom, yet he was ready to take the full responsibility of that "mess".

He then watched in horror as Nathan picked it up and brought it to his mouth...

Needless to say, once we told him what it was, he thought that was pretty hilarious! Keziah was gone to a birthday party when Nathan did this to Lincoln. Lincoln thought it would be so funny to do the same trick on Keziah, so we did. Just look at the disgust look on her face :D

She even thought it smelled!! hahaha!! Oh, girl. Never short on the dramatics!!

We all had a good chuckle that morning! Even now as I type this up, I am howling with tears in my eyes. Their reactions were just so priceless!! Sorry if that all grossed you out.....but if you are ever looking for an April Fool's joke, try it! You'll be sure to be left in stitches!

Anyway, onto more serious stuff :) Nathan and I also started Whole30 again - no joke. We did this last May for 30 days (see here as to what we did last May). This time, we committed to 15 days as opposed to 30 days. With teaching and all, I just couldn't commit to the 30 days - that thought overwhelmed me. But in the end, we actually did almost 30 days! This has helped us to get back on track with our eating - enjoying whole foods rather than "convenient" foods.....to grab for that banana rather than that granola bar. We always feel so much better.

We enjoyed some very yummy recipes, quiche, BBQ chicken with a very tasty sauce, sausage and shrimp...just to name a few.

 

We did take one day off for Easter.....we just couldn't say no to this caramel skor chocolate cake I baked. Good thing we shared it with friends!!

Speaking of Easter, we spent Good Friday with Jenn and Jay, where the 4 of us went mountain biking. It has been years, and I mean, years!! since we've gone the 4 of us - it was so much fun!! I got to try out my new mountain bike....only for it to completely snap on the trail, so I had to walk back. It was fun nonetheless!!

We did get some white stuff in April.....(I've even heard we may get some again this Sunday.....no!!!)

Thankfully it didn't stick around much and before we knew it we were enjoying some mighty fine and sunny weather

 

 

 

We started renovating our basement at the beginning of April. All it's been the last 10 years is cement blocks and concrete. The offices for the business used to be down there, but that all moved out once they built new offices. Then water moved in and so everything was ripped out and then fixed so water couldn't come in again. And then, the basement just sat there.....so much space yet not really usable. I can't wait for it to be done!!

Of course, with renos comes findings that need to be fixed that you weren't counting on. One of those things was a pipe going to our sewage tank. The kids were very excited that daddy needed help to dig to the pipe. I love this - seeing their eager hard-working spirits, and then later seeing their digger and shovels. Seeing stuff like that makes me all sentimental....

 

We went through a week where we thought we could open up a petting zoo! First, I woke up on a Monday morning to do my early morning workout routine, only to find a RABBIT in my hallway!!! I called Nathan (who was already working in the office) and we spent a good 15 minutes looking for it again. It was getting to the point where Nathan was seriously doubting my sanity....and then we found it under the bookshelf. We were able to catch it and bring it back outside - just in time before Keziah, the rabbit-lover, woke up. Phew!!

Then the next day, we discovered a few nests around our home....not so unusual is this one, a mourning dove nest

......but a mallard duck nest?! 10 feet from our back door?! With 13 eggs in it??!! Not something we see everyday, that's for sure!

Then later on in the week, Lincoln and Keziah were playing outside, and just beside our deck, Lincoln found this itty-bitty creature....

A teeny-tiny painted turtle!! So cute!!!

 

We placed it on a rock by our pond. A few hours later, it was gone. We are just going to assume that it found its way into the pond and is living happily ever after......

Quite the adventurous week of animals!

One other interesting thing we found was this - 4 dandelions all in one. Never saw that before either, but Keziah found that also in our backyard.

 

Keziah had Open House at school, on a day when I wasn't teaching. That meant I could just go as a mom, not a teacher.

 

Just before the month was over, Nathan, Jay, and Jenn ran a 4 km race at Dundas Valley. It was a good introduction to the running season. No, I didn't run.......who would have taken pictures then?!

Keziah decided to set her own challenge - building ramps and biking over them without falling.

The last day of April, this man celebrated his 65th birthday.

He is one of the most unique-beat-to-his-own-drum man, yet one I am so proud to call "dad".

Another month completed. I actually am really enjoying these monthly updates....makes me reflect on the past month and see God's goodness in our lives. Sometimes we can get caught up with whatever that isn't fruitful, day to day, yet when we take the overview of the month, we can't help see that God has blessed us yet again, and is with us each and every day, through the tough days and through the good days.

See you later, and enjoy the month of May and what it all has to offer....so far it's been rain, rain, rain, but in all honesty, it hasn't rained for 40 days and 40 nights yet, so we are good :)

Whole 30 Review and Results

So I promised to write a review of how our 30 days went of eating

Well, as expected, it was H.A.R.D.

It was hard to say no to so many things and to say it so often.

It was hard to see that despite thinking we ate quite well before we did this, we weren't doing as great as we thought we were.

It was hard to deal with the withdrawals.

It was hard to swallow how much money we spent (no pun intended....)

It was hard to be in the grocery store every 3-4 days.

It was hard to have to cook every.single.day and every.single.meal from scratch.

It was hard on our social life. The past long weekend we weren't very busy at all. Partly because we didn't want to book it up with BBQs and having to face one temptation after another.

It was hard to bake and not have a single lick of the beater...or the spoon...or from the bowl. Do you *know* how yummy cookie dough is?! Do you KNOW how YUMMY a fresh and warm homemade chocolate cookie is?!?!?

 

But, it wasn't all hard. It was also amazing!

It was amazing to come face to face with foods that we could actually have, foods that have been around all this time for us to eat!

It was amazing to fight through each temptation and challenge, succeeding!

It was amazing to see how blessed we were with such an abundance of healthy food at our fingertips.

It was amazing to see the changes in our bodies as the days went by.

It was amazing to see how fast a week goes by.

It was amazing to see how long an evening can feel when you can't eat anything.

It was amazing to work together as a team, tackling each and every day.

So, the review? Yup, it's hard, don't fool yourselves. But it is also amazing!

Now as for the results.

Nathan's results:

• lost 8 pounds
• the whites of his eyes have never been whiter or brighter
• lots of energy
• proud of himself for achieving the goal of eating like this for 30 days
• feels great about himself

My results:

• lost 5 pounds
• face is clearer
• sleep at night is waaaaayyyy better
• more energy
• no bloating (flatulence was at an all-time low......pretty much non-existent)
• proud of myself for actually doing this, the cooking, the shopping etc.

We have been off of this now for 3 days. We are loving the lack of rigidity of it all but are still pretty much eating the same as we have been the last 30 days. Because I did this for 30 days, my instinct is there to pack a lunch, including healthy snacks, as opposed to slapping a sandwich together with peanut butter (that's a "healthy" protein, right?! HA), with a container of greek yogurt (15 grams of sugar, people!!!) and a granola bar......what? It's got dark chocolate on it. That's the "good" chocolate, no?

Actually, what's really been neat is that all that stuff we've been craving for 30 days? Yeah, now that we are allowed to have it, we don't want it!! Murphy's Law, eh?! But seriously, the first thing we ate that was off limits before was that homemade chocolate chip cookie we were drooling over a few days earlier. It was rather a letdown - not nearly as tasty as our minds had made them out to be.

Are we glad we did it? Yup! I am!! It felt good to be given a challenge, meet it head on and successfully complete it.

But if you ask Nathan if he would do it again, his response is: I will never, ever do this in my life again.

We shall see, we shall see.

Me? Well, I would do it again.....but for now I am enjoying not having to live in a grocery store for awhile. And I better wait until my debit card has some time to cool down. :)

Finished!!!!! Well, Almost.....

Do you know what day it is today?

DO YOU KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS TODAY???!?!?!

It is May 30th. So, what's the big deal you say?

That means it is the 30th day of our Whole 30. There are 3 hours left of this 30th day; 3 more hours and this eating whole foods for 30 days will be OVER!!

30 days without sugar, grains/wheat or dairy.

And we did it!!! We did it!!!!!

When I heard about this Whole 30 stuff, I honestly didn't think I'd ever take up that challenge ever in my life. But alas, 30 days ago we did.

Let me show you a few more food pictures of what we ate that did not contain sugar, grains, and dairy.

Coco-Curry Pork on Cauliflower Rice:

Sloppy Joes on a bed of lettuce and tomato:

Basil Chicken on Sweet Potato Mash:

 

This was a meal I made when I didn't feel like cooking something elaborate: chicken, roasted potatoes and green beans, using proper spices and clarified butter/coconut oil:

Lunch: Spinach, Strawberry, Avocado and Pine Nut Salad:

Shepherd's Pie, using pureed cauliflower instead of potato:

Homemade hamburgers on portobella mushroom as a bun:

Spaghetti using spaghetti squash for noodles:

 

 

Paleo Pizza using butternut squash as a "crust" (the ones with cheese are for the kids):

So as you can see, we enjoyed some scrumptious food. In fact, I will continue to make most of these recipes again as we loved them so much.

Next time I will write about how we felt the challenge went for us, any changes we noticed or didn't notice, what we missed, what was the hardest and if we would do this again.

But right now, we are going to go to bed as we don't want to be tired tomorrow for the celebration! :)

So How's that Whole 30 Thing Going Anyway?!

So, if you were a betting person (which I really hope you are not).....what would you wager that our Whole 30 turned into a Whole 10? Let me give you a little peek into my week last week: Nathan was at a two-day trade show (i.e. lots of chocolates, candies etc. everywhere), we celebrated Mother's Day with both sides of the families, and then I ended up teaching Gr. 7 a few days, plus was my regular E.A. on the other days, and Nathan and I skipped out of town for two nights to do a bit of relaxing.

Now, knowing those details, that amongst other things, I was crazy-busy PLUS we went on a mini-vacay, I'll ask you again: what would you bet that our clean eating for 30 days turned into clean eating for 10 days?

Well, believe it or not, I learned last week that it *is* possible to have family celebrations, teach 29 fun-loving tweens (albeit stinky at times :o) ) AND eat out for a couple of days and stay on Whole 30!!!

That's right, our Whole 30 is still in full force. In fact, we are just completing Day 16. We are halfway through! I accept your applause graciously :o)

Oh, don't get me wrong. There were (and continue to be) some very, very hard moments, where the temptations to grab some crackers, or a handful of chocolate chips (to, you know, clean my palette), enjoy a sip of milk or a chunk of cheese have left us salivating to the point we almost need to wear bibs, but through each and every temptation, we fought and are fighting through it! Barely at times, but we're doing it!

Although we've had our tough moments, we most certainly have been enjoying some very yummy meals, thanks again to my friend's sister who set this all up. Mmmmmm, we have not been disappointed! The flavours are amazing and I am really enjoying cooking all these new recipes. Here, let me show you some of the meals. Pictures of food aren't always appealing so you'll have to take my word for it - it is very delicious!

We've been enjoying for breakfast some Sweet Potato (with seasonings) topped with hamburger:

If I am not making the potato hash stuff, I am making omelettes (or just fried eggs etc.)

For lunches, we either finish off the leftovers from the night before, or have salads, or have tuna on salad leaves:

Despite teaching so many days last week, I was shown that I don't need to grab a pizza from the freezer, or do a "convenient" meal. The suppers on this Whole 30 are easy to make and result in some very tasty meals. Some of our dinners have been Spicy Almond Pork - scrumptious!!!

So, I mentioned that Nathan and I went away for a few days and still managed to stay on Whole 30. How, you ask? Well, we just let the waitress know our "needs" and we learned that there are some very tasty things on the menu that we would never have chosen if we weren't doing Whole 30.

Our first night we enjoyed shrimp and steak at this place.....a place you don't go to too often due to the impact on the pocketbook.

 We just asked them to hold the bread, and asked to have extra vegetables (sauteed in oil rather than butter) instead of the potato or rice. Yes, we can have potato, but how tasty would a baked potato be without cheese, butter, sour cream and bacon bits?! Yeah, not very tasty. So we passed on the potato. Our meal did not leave us disappointed!!

 

Our next supper out was also incredibly good, thanks to the cooks and great waitress here:

Again, we asked them to keep the "complimentary" bread in the kitchen (we did mourn it, but got over it quickly :o) ). We ordered a salad with avocado, pine nuts, tomotoes and sauteed mushrooms. Due to the avocado spread throughout, there was no need for dressing. No picture as we gobbled it up so quickly!

Then we ordered a pistachio crusted salmon, again asking for more veggies instead of rice or potato. Are you drooling yet?!

For breakfasts out, we had omelettes and lots of fruit. We ate breakfast late, which meant we didn't need a big lunch. I had taken a little cooler of fruits, veggies and nuts for us to munch on during the day.

Overall, we were so proud of ourselves for sticking to it and recognized actually how easy it was to order "special". We were not lacking for anything. Well, maybe a dessert, but still, we survived :o)

As for what we did for the family gatherings, we just brought our own food (leftovers from the week before). We really didn't feel bad or "embarrassed" as really, all we are doing is eating only real food. How can people make you feel guilty for that?! Well, they can.....but I must say, our families were receptive.

If we managed to tackle what last week all involved, we can DO this for 14 more days!! But honestly, we can't wait for the 15th day from now as well. :o)

PS. And yes, our kids are eating all the same dinners as us and are also loving it! That makes it easier as well.

PSS. or is it PPS.? Anyway, you honestly thought my blog was quiet due to the fact that I just had no energy to update, didn't you?! I mean, no refined sugars, grains or dairy? The thought of us wasting away and no longer breathing even crossed your mind, didn't it? Well, shame on you! :o) We are alive and well, enjoying some results already - more energy, clearer skin and a overall great feeling!