It has been a while since my last post. Things here have been so busy. School is winding down for the year and we are gearing up for summer!  There are tons of end of school activities.  Plans to  be made for summer.

What summer plans do you have?  We haven’t planned an official vacation but we are looking at some places. Where are you going this summer?  Natalie will be attending a summer day camp twice a week and Phoebe is going to VBS and church camp! She is really excited about church camp. It is only one night (for kindergarten and first graders) but the cool thing is, it is the camp I went to when I was a kid. I have heard it has changed and been updated. When I went we slept in modified barns, having to drape a sheet over the rafters to keep the bugs out. We did have running water for showers and toilets but we saw spiders the size of kittens…of course I haven’t told Phoebe about any of this or she would totally back out. Not a bug liking girl.

I really just want to relax this summer. I don’t want to have my days so planned out that there is no wiggle room. I want to be able to sleep in, rest, spend time with family and friends, enjoy our evenings grilling and just relax. Is that even possible? How do you plan on relaxing this summer?

I love to read. There is a group of gals that’s reading Growing Grateful Kids by Susie Larson.  It is really good and Susie has such a passion for Christ. We are reading 2 chapters a week and hopefully going to be able to meet throughout the summer to chat about what we are reading and learning. I have 6 more books in line to read (not all this summer) but I just placed a book on hold at our local library and can’t wait to get it this upcoming week. It is by the season 5 winner of The Biggest Loser, Ali Vincent. She wrote, Believe it, Be it. I enjoy Biggest Loser and have watched it since season 3.  I will let you know how the book is and be sure to watch the season finale of Biggest Loser Tuesday at 8pm.

Have a great weekend, throw out some tips on having a relaxing, fun summer!  What do you do to make summer memorable?

Tricia with Abby Rike

This morning I was surprised with breakfast in bed!  Yum, it was delicious and so very nice.  We attended church and heard a great sermon on beauty.   Gals, it is all about the beauty on the inside!  The most beautiful thing to God is Jesus.  God is more concerned about the condition of our heart, not what we are wearing or our hair style.  We have let society dictate what is beautiful and majority of the time their beautiful is photoshopped and touched up!  Let’s stand up and stand firm on God’s truth regarding beauty.  We are gorgeous to Christ!  He delights in us just as we are.  Now, I do believe we should treat our bodies as the temple they are, taking care of them but let’s claim our beauty in Christ!  

 We came home from church and dug in the dirt planting flowers and plants.  I think alot of families around here do this on Mother’s Day weekend.  It is the official, it’s okay to plant flowers, the weather is good now in KY. 

I pray that you have a wonderful mothers day!  I pray that you claim your beauty in Christ and pass this truth onto the girls in your circle! 

Here are my delights and my beauties!  I love them with my entire being. 

 HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!  GOD BLESS

I have some sad news to report.  A larger bird has eaten the beautiful eggs that I blogged about in my last post.  I was so upset when I pulled the curtains back to check on them and saw an empty nest.  Elliott went down to see if they had fallen onto the ground, but they hadn’t.  So the only thing we can conclude is that a bigger predator ate them.  The mama bird was extremely confused.  She would fly to the nest and fly away.  My heart broke for her. 

With summer staring us right in the eyes, I want to make some “good” changes with my eating.  I am reading “The Eat-Clean Diet” by Tosca Reno. Here is the link on the back of the book.  It is really insightful and makes total sense.  What changes do you need to make to fuel your body like it should be?  I have to drink more water.  Okay, so here is a debate.  I love iced tea.  I even drink decaf.  The only caffeine I consume is in my morning coffee.  So, is the iced tea considered water?  I mean it is basically flavored water. 

Here are a few pictures of this past weekend!  I hope wherever you are, you are experiencing abundant blessings from Jesus!  He is our hope, love and security!  I praise him for what he has done for me. 

Phoebe and Emma

Phoebe, Natalie, Emma

Natalie

We are well into the new year, 2010, can you believe it.  Where did the decade go?  I follow a few blogs and Kelly over at Kelly’s Korner is doing this fun Show Us How You Live topic.  This months topic is New Year Resolutions or what I like to call “goals”.  So let’s share!  You can click on the link above to get to Kelly’s blog. 

Five goals for 2010:

1.  Regular date nights with my hubby.  We have let this go and life get’s ahead of us.  You can get so wrapped up in the day to day stuff and before you know it another month, year or decade is gone. 

2.  Develop a quiet time.  This is an ongoing goal of mine.  I really want to cut out time to fellowship, praise and dig into God’s word.  I want to grow patience allowing God to stretch me in adventures that I believe he has for me.  I desire to follow God’s lead in my life, doing his will, being a faithful follower.  Be and have kindness and gentleness reside in my heart so I can model to my daughters what it means to have compassion towards others and teach Phoebe self control.

3.  Work out three times a week.  I am a mom of young children and I don’t want to place un-necessary pressure on myself.  As long as I am eating healthy and getting in my 3 workouts I am good with that. 

4.  I want to read more.  I love to read.  I don’t get the chance often but I want to start a book club or something.  This allows me to slow down and take some time to myself.  Plus it helps your kids.  When they see you reading you can tell them to go and get a book.  Reading is food for your brain!

5.  I want to discover me.  This is the biggest one for me.  Jesus made me like he wanted me and I have lived in bondage thinking I don’t measure up.  This is such a lie and I want to break free.  I want to see what I like and what I enjoy and be the true me.  I believe many gals have these chains because let’s be real..we all want others to like us and think we are special.  The one that I want to impress by being who he created me to be is Christ.  There is something in each of us that only we possess and we need to discover it, unlock it and use it so that we can work for God’s kingdom. 

6.  Okay I said to list five but I have another one.  I want to be a better mom.  I want to take the time out of my busy life to truly disciple my children.  Who else will do it and who else would I want to do it?  Once again it boils down to being disciplined with TIME.  Making sure we are not allowing BUSYto get us. You know the acronym for BUSY is: being under Satan’s yoke.  The evil one keeps us busy so we can’t develop our quiet time, spend time with our husband,  deepening our marriage, disciple our children according to God’s truth and not of this world, build friendships and on and on.  He likes to isolate us or keep us running all the time and than her has our minds for a playground and boy does he have fun!  Be aware of his schemes.  Be on the lookout! 

So there is my list for 2010.  What do you have on your’s?

I have had several friends and family ask me “so, what’s the secret for weight loss?”    Well here is the secret…there is no secret.  We Americans are a super size, quick fix society.  We want to take a pill or drink a “magic” shake to loose weight.  We don’t want to do anything that will cause us to be uncomfortable.  We don’t want to do the work.  Make things easy and don’t make us sweat.   Well loosing weight will take work.  The calculation is easy for weight loss.  Burn more calories than you eat.  We need to get up and get moving.  We need to change our eating habits.  Change our lifestyle.  Make living healthy a lifestyle!  I have had to make BIG changes.  I am more cautious of what I eat.  Whole grains, fruit, veggies, lean meats, chicken and now more fish.  I have cut out most processed foods.  I run 5 days a week and lift weights every other day.  I attend a fitness class that mixes it up.  We do kickboxing, boot camp, strength training. 

You see, you have to keep things fun.  Make your “workouts” fun.  Try a new class.  Ask a friend or spouse to join you.  Set some goals and strive for them. Have an accountability partner to keep you on track.   Have your kids help you grocery shop and explain why junk food is bad for you.  Have your family help you cook.  Use it as a teaching time.  We need to remember that we are setting examples for our kids.  They are our next generation and we want them to be healthy.  

Challenge yourself this week.  Start with small goals and see what happens when you achieve them!  Make the change….Live Healthy!!

Well summer is here!!  I am ready to relax and enjoy the outdoors.  I do have some questions that maybe some of you can help with.  We have an adorable daughter Natalie, who has a brain injury.  She is in a wheelchair and cannot talk, eat by herself, sit, crawl, basically she is full care.  Summer brings it’s own bag of difficulties to us.  When it’s hotter than 86-88 degrees she has a hard time being outside.  So we are trying to think of fun things to do this summer.  We do take her outside to sit on our deck, go for walks, get in the pool, until it get’s too warm.  We go to the Zoo, the Museum and sometimes to the movies.  Do any of you have any other ideas.  We usually take some wash clothes and get them wet, place them in a zip-lock bag with some ice and when she’s  hot we get the cloths out and wiper her face and neck.  It does seem to help.  We are looking into getting a canopy cover for her wheelchair so she doesn’t get cooked.  It’s  just  hard because our other daughter who will be 5 soon wants some attention and loves being outside.  We feel pulled and guilty.  Any tips would be greatly appreciated. 

Has anyone gone anywhere that would be accessible and fun for a family.  Obviously things like water sports, camping and skiing are out.  Just throw us some ideas.  Thanks so much. 

Okay now onto a different note.  So, how are you gonna either lose weight this summer or maintain?  I know for me I have set a goal to work out 3 times a week.  Hopefully this will maintain and help me stay in the routine.  Now that summer is here we are doing more grilling and eating more salads.  All the fresh markets have wonderful selections of veggies and fruits.  My husband just built me a herb/lettuce box.  It is really cool.  I placed some lettuce and herbs I had in it.  We spent all day yesterday putting in our garden.  I love gardening.  It is relaxing. 

herb/lettuce box

Cross Farm

Have a wonderful Memorial Day.  Say Thank You to someone who served or is serving our country.  They have paid and continue to pay a huge price for our freedom!!  We are blessed by them and their families for their commitment to our country!  God Bless! 

We are coming to the summer season.  Some of us are excited and some of us cringe thinking about shorts, tank tops and the dreaded swimsuits.  I know for me my weight loss journey has been an adventure. 

I have become addicted to the reality show, The Biggest Loser.  I think it’s such an inspiration to many people out there.  So who do you think is gonna win.  The final two are Helen and Tara.  America is going to decide who contestant #3 is.  It’s between the father-son team, Ron and Mike.  I think that America is going to pick Mike.  I also think that Helen could win this.  It is based off of percentage of weight loss, not pounds.  Who is your pick?

I was pretty thin and in shape when my hubby and I met.  Life was good, just he and I.  Than we got married.  No, no…that is great…but the weight began to creep on.  Little bit here, little bit there.  Than, baby #1.  I gained so much weight with my first child.  I was on bed rest for 10 weeks.   I got depressed, ate and than ate some more.  Well after you have a child you are so busy being the perfect mom to that baby, you yourself go out the window. 

Than my daughter suffered her injury and we lived in a hospital for 12 weeks.  Hospital cafeteria food is NOT healthy.  There I also was depressed (for a good reason if you need one to be depressed)  and I ate.  I came home with a severely disabled child and ate some more. 

Well over the years I have ping ponged with my weight but in 2006 I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease.  This is a disease of the intestines.  Things got bad.  Two hospital visits and stays.  I did loose weight with that but it was not a healthy way to do it and it came back.  In 2007 I had a bowel resection to fix complications with my Crohn’s disease.  I lost weight again only to put some of it back on.  I joined an aerobics class at our church called:

I began to loose weight and inches.  Tammy is the instructor and she has  a passion for fitness and nutrition.  She is adorable on the inside and out.  I contribute much of my weight loss to her.  Her classes are so much FUN!!  She encourages  women in her class to press on, work hard and have fun.  She is such an inspiration.  Tammy loves Jesus and shines for him.   She offers  cardio mix, cardio kick boxing, step aerobics, strength training and  some dance (similar to zumba).  I adore this class.  It is offered twice a week and has been a blessing.  She has really encouraged me, pushed me  and become a great friend. 

In April 2008 a friend of mine invited me to go to Weight Watchers.  I told her that I would go but I knew I would not do the program.  Well…once I got there and saw how inspiring and encouraging it was I decided to give it a whirl.  I joined and fell in love with the points program.  It became a game to me.  I would take my counter to the grocery and stand figuring out points.  I attended meetings and weight was coming off.  Two pounds here, three pounds the next week.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was loosing weight.  I knew I needed to be healthy to be able to care for Natalie.  I had to be in tip top shape.  This was crucial.  This was my new goal.

In August 2008 I became a lifetime member with Weight Watchers.  This was HUGE for me.  I set a goal and achieved it.  I have lost 30 pounds and feel great.  I did have to make some changes to my life and I will be blogging about that soon.  Take a look,  

Please feel free to share.  I would love to hear about books you have read.  Exercise routines you have tried and loved or not.  Recipes.  Anything that worked for you or didn’t work for you.    Looking forward to chatting about this for a few days.  Summer is right around the corner!!!  Oh, and go ahead and throw out who you think is gonna be the next Biggest Loser!!