January So Far

My mountains.  These always tell me I'm "home" and give me renewed energy and clarity.  Love love going home.

Yeesh!  I can't believe it is already the 16th of January!  Good thing "blogging more" is not one of my New Year's Resolutions.  But I realized I haven't written very much personal stuff lately.  I'm just staying afloat trying to put pictures of the kids and fun things about them.  But writing is therapeutic and I need to be doing it more!

Last year I really tried to focus on Alma 37:37 for the year.
"37:  Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night, lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."

And it literally changed my life.  This year, my focus is Matthew 22:37-39.
"37:  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38:  This is the first and great commandment.
39:  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

And wow!  The opportunities to serve the Lord and others(which go hand in hand!) in the last 16 days have astounded me.  This will be a great year, I think because Heavenly Father is teaching me by prompting these thoughts to forget about myself and focus on others.  When I'm thinking of other's needs and thinking less about me, I am just happier.  There is a line there, of course, but I'm letting Him guide me.  I'm also excited about watching the kids serve each other and others, too.
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Jared and I have always liked the challenge of doing fitness groups, new workouts, etc.  I've been wanting to try the paleo diet for a while, but lacked motivation.  My friend's Dr. has encouraged the paleo diet to her for several reasons, so I jumped on board with her so we could motivate each other.  And Jared is game for whatever I'm doing, so we've been following it for almost two weeks.  Holy cow!  The things I have learned and recipes we've concocted have been fun!  Not to mention that with that focus, I was able to shed my holiday weight in less than 10 days.

We are planning on doing hard core paleo for the month of January and then go from there.  But the more I learn and see the difference in my health and energy, the more I realize we needed to change a few things.  The biggest thing is that although we only eat whole wheat bread, rolls, tortillas, pasta and brown rice, we still can work on eating "cleaner", and a lot more fresh vegetables.  We do pretty well at eating lots of salad(our kids even love it!), but we have really broadened our horizons the last couple of weeks.  So we're just working toward more of a clean eating lifestyle, not filled with so many processed things.  The plan for February is modified paleo.

We still have 3 cheat meals a week, but we were laughing because what we had as our cheat meal Sunday night was a delicious grilled cheese sandwich.  Who knew we would crave sandwiches?!  Oh, and salad with some dressing?!  I couldn't get enough salad with ranch dressing on Sunday night, either!

I'll try to be better at sharing some of the recipes we've found!  These Teriyaki Sirloin Kabobs have been my favorite!  Seriously, Jared and I were licking our fingers and devoured so many.  I actually just roasted them in the oven, and I used red onions, red peppers, zucchini, mushrooms and the meat.  You probably already know this, but I learned that you should soak wooden skewers in water before using them so they do not burn while cooking.

Oh, and the leftover, marinated meat, I cooked up as an omelet the next morning and I could have eaten them all day, too!
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*WARNING* The next part of this post contains talk about pee, poop and pictures of cute little toddler bums.

Potty training.  Ugh.  Poor Briggs struggles with constipation, and while he was able to sit and pee on the toilet for months, pooping wasn't happening and it has been messing it all up.  So I haven't pushed it.  If he feels like it, we take off the diaper, and he goes.  But last week I woke up Monday and decided I was over it.  Funny how I have to decide to be committed before it can happen!  He is doing really well!  We have our moments and our days when I still get frustrated, but for the most part he has done great!

He doesn't do well when he has anything on his bum, though.  He just wets himself and doesn't seem to care.  So we are potty training bare-bummed.  It grosses some people out, but he is doing awesome(100% dry, no accidents with nothing on) at the moment, we'll work on the underwear and pants later. ;)

I walked into the room to see this happening while I was talking with my little brother on the phone.  I had to hurry and get off the phone so I could take the picture.  When I sent him the picture, he said, "That's not good blackmail, he'll just say it was Maddie."

So, being the awesome mom I am, I made sure to take a picture with his face about two seconds later.  Oh, and with Maddie sitting next to him, just to eliminate that factor. ;)

Watching the kindle on the potty.  This was weird.  But also adorable.  So glad they love each other.