Eating Real

I've been wanting to get our family to eat more healthy foods for a while, but I wasn't really truly invested in it until now, when I'm finding I have more time to do things.

I've learned more and more about processed foods, what they can do to you, and how bad they really are. We have decided that to cut out all processed foods from our diet. This isn't an easy thing to do, but it's doable with some extra work.

Making the change to eating real foods is starting small with our family, since I am not able to invest 100% yet.

For at least the last 6 weeks, I haven't bought ANY cereal. We stay more full after breakfast because unlike cereal, the food we've had for breakfast fills us up! I have to admit, it's hard to make breakfast every morning, but it's so much better! We eat oatmeal with cinnamon & bananas, scrambled eggs or whole wheat pancakes or waffles most mornings. I love that Ellie is taking to eating good food in the morning much better. She stays more full and is less cranky if we eat a good fulfilling breakfast.

Another change I've made is to use Whole Wheat flour MOST of the time. It's delicious, and Ellie actually eats the waffles and pancakes BETTER than when I would make them with white flour. Weird!

So far, I've made our own granola, bread, muffins and waffles & pancakes. I will start making bread on a regular basis soon, I hope! I'm hoping to make hummus regularly, too! I know in the long run we'll be healthier, happier and feeling a heck of a lot better without food that makes you feel sluggish and gross!

I'm getting most of my recipes from 100daysoffood.com and they are awesome! 

I am excited about this change, and also excited that soon it will be prime season for amazing fruits and veggies at the farmer's market! I'll have to share some pics and recipes soon.

Labor Day Fun!

As I mentioned earlier, we headed out to Roosevelt for Labor Day weekend!

In my family, we have this tradition of going "up the mountain" (as we call it) to Pole Creek (pronounced "crick") Cave on the Monday of LDay weekend. It has been a lot of fun every time I've gone & this year was NO exception.

Two of my brothers, Jason & Jared, my sister Tyra & their families were all there, in addition to my little family & parents. We were also joined by my Grandma Holman, Uncle Logan and his two kids Laurel & Drake. It was a nice big crowd, which makes things like this even MORE fun :D

We packed our vehicles & headed to Pole Creek with the hopeful idea that we'd be able to get inside the cave & that it WOULDN'T be full of water. We knew that since it was such a wet year, our chances were very slim.

Once we hiked down to the cave entrance, we quickly discovered that our plans were indeed thwarted by mother nature and the cave was full of water! Random fact about this cave, nobody has found an end to it, because you can only hike into it until you reach water...it would be interesting to send some kind of under water night vision camera to see if you could ever find the end...

Ready to hike down to the cave

Aunt Tyra playing with Ellie

Because we were in the most beautiful mountains in the world, we were able to still have a lot of fun! We hopped back into the vehicles & drove up to the Sinks. The Sinks are awesome. BEAUTIFUL waterfall & a pool of water that swirls around and disappears. Nobody knows where the water goes...it's been a mystery for who knows how long. Super cool!

Perhaps the BEST part of the Sinks are the wild Raspberry plants. They were loaded this year and SOOOO tasty!

Ellie really enjoyed the sinks because David took her by the waterfall & let her splash her hands in the water. It was super cute, & I believe my sister in-law has some pictures.

After we had our fill of picking Raspberries, we hiked back up to where all the cars were parked & had a picnic. We made a fire, roasted hot dogs & ate LOTS and LOTS of tasty food. The children played & the adults visited & told stories. It was a lot of fun and I love spending time in the beautiful outdoors! I especially loved this outing because it could be my last labor day spent with my family at Pole Creek & the Sinks, since we're not sure where we'll be moving in May!

Tyra & Ellie playing

The only bad part was that my mom was stuck on crutches & couldn't get up and walk around. But, that's another story...

More pictures to come when I get them from other people!

731 days of wedded bliss...

On Sunday, we had officially been married for 2 years! I asked David & he said it was a better 2 years than his mission (thank goodness :D :D)

We celebrated our 2nd anniversary first, by attending the Temple. What a great way to celebrate being married! We hadn't had the opportunity to go to the Temple since February, so it was GREAT to go.

The Friday before our actual anniversary, we went out to dinner without Ellie (Thanks again, Hillary!!!) to P.F. Chang's. I'm not HUGE into Chinese, but this was spectacular. Lettuce wraps. MMM I think I could eat those every day. After dinner, we ran home to grab a blanket & to leave our car at our apartment so we could walk to the Roof Top Concert Series. It was a blast & a nice low-key evening out with my sweet husband.

The only picture from that night. ha ha

I made David a gift basket full of fun things & he got me a couple cami's that I've been dying to buy for the last few months!

We headed to Roosevelt the next day for Labor Day weekend, & we had a fun time there. Post about that to come soon!

Some days it feels like we've been married for years and years, but at the same time it feels like we were just married yesterday! Marriage is my favorite thing ever & marrying David was the best decision I've ever made. The 2nd best decision was having Ellie :)

14 weeks

It's official! 1st trimester is OVER! That also means all the sickness should subside soon...and guess what? It's finally starting to! I'm so happy about this! I still have a hard time eating well, but at least I'm not gagging anymore :)

Let's see...not much to report here other than I'm still trying to gain weight. I'm down an additional pound from my 12 week appointment so hopefully I can gain weight and stop losing it.

I'm still having crazy dreams every night--mostly about finding out the sex of the baby and it's always a boy if anyone is wondering. I guess in 6 weeks, we'll find out if my dreams are trying to tell me something or not! The other recurring pregnancy dream I'm having is about having twins. I'm pretty convinced I am not, or else I think I'd be showing much more at this point. Another reassurance is that I've never heard a "shadow" heartbeat as they say sometimes happens when listening to the heart beat. Let's all cross our fingers that there's just one baby in there! :D

Life is great lately aside from the fact that I hardly see David because of school and work--but hey I'm still a happy camper!

This morning we had an adventure and picked up our first Bountiful Basket. SO awesome. Needless to say, my fridge is FULL of fresh fruit and veggies! I'm eating the watermelon right now and it's SO yummy. I'm thinking I won't be buying fruits and veggies @ the grocery store anymore. What's the bother when I can get so much for only $15???

This weekend is going to be a lot of fun! Tonight we're going to the Stadium of Fire for FREE '99. I love having connections/relatives that have connections! We're also seeing lots of friends and family and that will be fun as well!

That's all for now--I'll get some pictures up of our fun weekend...and MAYBE take a picture of my bump that I swear is showing--but hardly anyone agrees.

I like to cook, and I like food.

Ok, so this is SUPER random, and there is not much sense to this post other than the fact that the pictures are all yummy things I've made! I'll make it simple and just put what they are and you can get a hold of me for recipes!! Enjoy!

Today, I decided to try my hand at homemade tortillas. Hm...they tasted good, but looked awful!



Chicken Tacos on our Homemade tortillas!


On Valentine's Day, I made chocolate dipped strawberries! SOOOO Heavenly! YUM!
(just ignore the ugly ones and focus on the cute ones, k?)


These next pictures are just some of me making Roasted Tomato Basil Soup! SO GOOD!







Yummy South Beach Mango Chicken and Berry Salad! Oh, you must know that it's got a homemade raspberry vinaigrette for the dressing!


Great Mexican soup!


And, I make all these yummy things with my favorite thing ever....this cute apron!