The day I realized I couldn't blame my muffin top on a baby anymore.

I've always been thin. Someone who doesn't have to think a lot about what they eat. A girl who loves going to the gym, playing sports, and being active. A person that loves spending hours preparing fresh, healthy food.

And then I had a baby.



You always hear people rave about the weight you lose while breastfeeding- this was not the case for me. I ate well after my son was born (except for the addiction to 'cook and serve' chocolate pudding. And processed junk that could be quickly microwaved and consumed with one hand), but he HATED the stroller, so I couldn't take long walks with him. He was a clingy little guy, so the hours I used to spend preparing fantastic meals now took the form of a frazzled mama holding a fussing baby in one arm and popping a frozen lasagna into the oven with the other.

I finally lost all the weight (and then some! I ended up a Skinny Minnie, finally. Thanks after all, nursing!) once he was a year old. I could feel a shift in my body; I think it *was* hormonal (though I could have still made a bit of progress earlier, had I tried), and suddenly my body realized that it *didn't* need to cling to extra pounds to ensure there was enough milk for the little nursling. But, finally, I was thin again....and I felt great!



And then....I had another baby. A big, fat 9 lb baby.




So, again, I used the 'I *just* had a baby! And my body hates to lose weight while nursing!" excuses. I accepted that I'd stay...erm...chubby until she was close to a year, and then the weight would fall off. She is now almost 15 months old. The chubbiness remains.


I believe what holds me back the most are those excuses. "I don't have time to work out! It's biological- I can't help it! It's too hard to cook healthy foods while watching two kids!" Add to that the little things- eating what Sammy leaves behind on her tray, rationalizing that I "deserve" a treat because I had a rough day...it all adds up and the scale stays where it is. Also, I sometimes wonder if I'd have more motivation if I had a LOT to lose? I'm 5'11" and 142. I know that's not catastrophic, but I'm not happy with it. I don't feel energetic or healthy. Or cute (and let's be honest...cuteness makes you feel good, too.) And so, the rationalizations stop now. (I realize that if I had a lot to lose, I would then be complaining that it's simply too large of an endeavor, so why bother? See how good some of us are at rationalizing?)

I've got two kids who LOVE to play outside and it is FINALLY spring here. They're both at an age that I actually have a few minutes to cook something fresh rather than resort to pasta, etc. that I'd cooked and frozen ahead of time. And we're living in the darn heartland of the country- fresh produce is cheap and abundant!

As a jump-start, I'd like to show a few of my favorite healthy treats. Obviously, I'm no expert, but I do know that when you have kids and you're on the run all the time, it's hard to always plan what you will eat ahead of time. And, I've learned that if you're really craving a treat, if you don't cave in a sensible way, then you'll hide the PS3 controller until your husband finally agrees to run to the gas station to get you a Snickers. Not that I've ever done that...ahem.

I used to start my days with Chai. This Tazo stuff is essentially what Starbucks uses, and it's sugary. And amazing. And did I mention sugary?


I've replaced it with some coffee with a bit of milk and sugar-free syrup (my fave is vanilla, right now). I don't get that horrible crash from the sugar and I get an energy boost from the caffeine.

I looooove Starbucks, so when I'm out and about and want some, I've traded this:
(A delicious white chocolate mocha, with gobs of whipped cream, 510 calories)


For this:
(delicious iced coffee with milk and sugar free syrup, 190 calories)


That saves 320 calories!! Not to mention the fact that I feel energized after the iced coffee, and was just sluggish after the sugary mocha wore off.

If I want something sweet, I can eat an ENTIRE pineapple, for just 230 calories.
(You don't wanna eat it all in one sitting. Trust me. I was told raw pineapple would send me into labor, and at 10 days overdue with Miss Samantha, I tried it. I had sores on my tongue from the acid, but no baby.)

On the run? Try a fruit and yogurt parfait from McDonald's (160 calories) and a 4 piece McNugget (190 calories). Proof that even McDonald's can work in a diet!

What's that? People over the age of 13 aren't supposed to enjoy Nuggets? Don't judge. They're delicious "food".

And, when I'm craving ice cream? Can't go wrong with Skinny Cow ice cream. The are amazing. And huge.

And so, I am getting honest with myself about what really goes into my body. And I am working towards the Skinny Minnie version of myself again (or at least Thin Lynn...Non-fat Pat?).

I'd love links, tips, and success stories from you!

The day we played in the mud.

Today was supposed to be rainy and gloomy, but were happy to wake up to sunshine instead! We took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed to the park.

Cal practiced riding his bike (and was well-prepared for any fires that may have sprouted up, apparently). He got tired of pedaling after a while and enjoyed pushing the bike instead.

We walked around the lake, watched some geese, and then stopped at the playground. I love watching the kids play together- they enjoy each others company so much...I hope they are always this close!

Samantha is so brave- I find myself chasing her all over the place, making sure she doesn't throw herself down slides or climb to the top of the jungle gym.

After we played a while, we walked through the grass, looking for worms. Then we spotted this...
A puddle! Cal tested it first...then Sammy got into the action, too.
We got a little carried away...

with that wonderful feeling of mud squishing in your shoes...

with the summery scent of new, green grass...

and the satisfaction that comes from being covered in mud, sides hurting from laughing so hard.

Do ya know a good indicator of how successful a trip to the park was?

The number of layers of wet, muddy clothes you have to strip off before you get strapped into your carseat, of course!

The day I wished I lived on a farm.

I have always been so envious of farm kids. I grew up in a small-ish town and went to school with lots of kids that lived on farms. My mom grew up on a pony farm, I went to University of Illinois (which has a large agricultural program), and my husband grew up in a rural area, with lots of family that still farms (I will have you know that you are reading the blog of the wife of the guy who is the ex-vice president of his school's Future Farmers of America chapter. Ha!)

Anyway, I always thought it'd be fun, but it wasn't until I had my own kids that I decided I MUST LIVE ON A FARM. When we lived in Colorado, we had lots of friends that owned huge ranches. We would drive along winding roads and drool over the orchards and vineyards that dot the countryside in Western Colorado. And when we owned our first home, I loved that I could stand in the front yard and see corn fields in every direction (our town had a whopping 1000 people in it and was surrounded by cornfields).

So now that we're back in the Midwest, we're renting while we figure out the details of where we'd like to live, as we plan to make our next home our 'forever' home. I surprised my husband when I announced that I was craving country living. Baaaaad. I want to be like The Pioneer Woman, just (unfortunately) with a lot less Le Creuset.

Sure, chickens would be fun. And horses, of course. Maybe even a llama or a pig. But what I really, really, REALLY want?


A goat! Or two! Or twelve! I just think they are so darling! A trip to the zoo last week
enforced this. We spent an hour in the petting zoo area, especially feeding these goats. Again, aren't they darling?!?!

Cal loved feeding them, and still talks about this little guy, who sneezed on him.






















One thing we will definitely not have is an emu. There is an area at the zoo where you can walk around with the emu and wallaby, who are not in cages. You have to stay on the path, but sometimes they get brave and get near you. This emu didn't seem too thrilled to have us there, so we kept our distance, which meant we had a stare-down with him for 5 minutes until he finally let us pass...Emus are kinda scary!
But, because Cal is Cal, his favorite thing to watch at the zoo wasn't a lion or the monkeys...It was a big, loud, yellow beast....

A Caterpillar excavator.

The day I decided to flaunt my organized home.

I love Kelly's Korner (Kellyskornerblog.com, in case you are unfamiliar) and can finally take part in one of her 'Show Us Your Life' posts. Ok, so I'm a few days late...and I can see the irony of being late with a post about organization. Har har. *But*...better late then never, right?

I used to go back and forth between someone with a cluttered, kinda-messy house to someone who had so neurotically organized everything that it would last a few days and then was impossible to keep up with. Any mom knows that adding a baby to the mix causes total chaos- along with those sweet bundles of joy comes more JUNK then you ever thought possible. Twelve thousand toys, seventeen trillion articles of too-cute clothing, and a creature that demands you focus all of your energy on their sweet little faces, rather than running your home like a well-oiled machine.

Well, now that I have two bundles of joy, I've finally gotten it down to a system. I've learned what works and what doesn't and for the next 10 minutes, until one of the kids enters a new phase that completely wreaks havoc on my 'system', I will show you what works for us!


First, let's talk about the battle that always ensues when you need to get everyone out the door. You can't find your keys, someone's missing a shoe, someone stuck gum in their sister's hair (ok, sorry, can't help with that one)...Having one place that holds all your 'stuff' right by the front door helps tremendously!

For us, this place is these shelves and baskets. I've seen others use a bench or a longer table, but our nook is just the right size for these shelves. There's a bit of space on either side to put things like our pool bag in the summer or plastic tray-like containers to put snow boots in in the winter (I like to fold up a towel and lay it in a plastic dishpan to avoid a snowy mess all over the floor!) The hubby and I get the top baskets- one is for the one pair of running shoes the hubs wears most days and one is for the two pairs of shoes I wear most. All others (dress shoes, running shoes, etc.) are kept in our closets. The yellow baskets are for our daughter- one for the shoes she wears most, and the other for the rest of them, as well as a small pouch for her hats (hey, a girl has to accessorize!). The green baskets are for Cal, who is able to pull them out, find his shoes, and start to put them on by himself. He can also take his shoes off and return them to his basket as soon as he walks in the door. So, not only does it keep things tidy, but also gives him a 'job' that he is responsible for.



Now is the time I must confess my love for these little guys: the moss bunnies from Pier 1 that you might have spotted hiding in the yellow flowers. Seriously, y'all, how cute are these things? I'm so sad Easter is over...how long do you think I can keep them up under the guise of just being spring decorations? Hmm...






Now, on to the toy room/Cal's room. The annoying dilemma that toys present (especially those belongings to boys and featuring wheels) is that they are oddly shaped and hard to stick neatly on a shelf or in a toy box. I am in LOVE with this wire shelving from Target. First, I don't worry that anyone will pull it down on themselves like they could do with a bookshelf. Secondly, it's totally flexible. I've ziptied extra metal pieces inside the cubes to create half-sized cubes. I've put multiple sets of cubes together to line two walls in his room with them (they are supposed to be 3x2 cubes, but can be connected together to make whatever dimensions you want). Also, The papers on the front of the bins can be changed whenever our toy distribution changes (like the shunning of baby toys, which disappeared a year ago only to be brought back with the arrival of Samantha). I used to laminate the papers, but now just use page protectors so I can change them easily. Also, I put a picture and label, in hopes that it will encourage reading skills.

You might notice that one of the pages is blank. When Cal is playing with lots of different things and either I'm too tired or too busy to put them all in their proper bins, we can still throw everything into one bin, so the room is still picked up and tidy. Then, later, we can make sure everything is in its correct place.

This is a great example of things being TIDY, but NOT PERFECT. Previously, there would be toys on the floor and it would be bedtime or we'd need to rush out somewhere and I just couldn't put everything back where it belonged, so on the floor it stayed. And once things get a bit out of control, they snowball. Coming home or waking up to a clutter-free home sets the tone for the rest of the day, so you've got to find ways to assign each thing in your home a place, but that putting things away isn't so labor-intense that you simply can't keep up.






I throw all his puzzle pieces in a basket. It's easier than trying to keep them all sorted appropriately and pulling out the correct pieces is an exercise in sorting anyway!









A close-up of a bin.




Other examples:
Cal loves his Play-Doh and all the gadgets that come along with it...I have a pretty basket in the pantry that holds all of the Play-Doh accessories. When he's done playing, we scoop them all into the basket and put it on the shelf.

Another tip I love is to really look around your house at your trouble spots. For me, it was the random things you plan on doing 'soon', and just languish on your kitchen table or counter until that day comes. Biggies: library books, all those random things you intend to take back to Target or drop off at Goodwill, and magazines/catalogs I haven't yet looked through. I have cubbies in my pantry to deal with such things. Each category gets a bin, and it gets those things out of my way, but still in a place that I'm trained to check when I'm leaving the house. No more scrounging under the couch for a lost library book or working around that bag of toys you keep meaning to donate. And, no huge stack of magazines and Pottery Barn catalogs from 2009 that you will never get around to reading. I put new reading materials in their bin and get to them when I can. After they're read, I can either tear out recipes I'd like to try and then recycle the rest of the magazine, or keep it. However, I only let myself keep 2 cardboard magazine holders worth of them. If I want to keep one, I've got to throw out another. Limiting yourself really shows you how unimportant things are. Now I look at a magazine I've read and think "Why would I need to keep this?!", when before, I was convinced that I'd wish I could read it as soon as it was gone.

Running your house is a full-time job, for sure. So whatever help you can get is wonderful! Even though Cal is just 3.5 years old, he has his jobs for the day. They may not be very time-consuming, and really, it makes more work for me in the end because I have to help him and supervise what he's doing. But it gives him a sense of responsibility and sets the tone for when he's older and will be able to do bigger jobs independently. We don't pay him, though I'm not sure how we'll feel about allowances later in his life. For right now, though, he does the jobs because that's what he should do to help out around the house.

The most important thing for me to remember is that it doesn't even matter how well he does something. I don't care if he does something well, what's important to me is how HE thinks he did. If he hurries through something and doesn't put forth much effort, then he's required to do it over. But, if he helps me sweep the kitchen floor and really focuses, I don't demand that every crumb is swept into the dustpan...if he has put forth his best effort and believes he's done a good job, then it's good enough for me. He's just 3.5 and my goal isn't to make him an expert housekeeper, it's to make him responsible and to take pride in completing tasks.

Same with making his bed. I don't require hospital corners, he's just gotta pull his blanket up and put his pillow at the head of the bed. But he takes his job seriously and, to him, he's just accomplished an important task and done it well!

Here is his current chore chart. We switch this up often, as he grows and as our routine changes.

And, that's it! Can't wait til next week, which is 'how you met your spouse'...that's an interesting story, for sure!

The day spring sprang, hopes fizzled, and Cal channeled Elliot Spitzer.

When we first made the decision to move to Colorado, so many of our friends and family said "But the winters are so harsh!!!" Midwesterners picture Colorado as a cold, snowy place where mothers stare longingly out the window much of the year, pining for the days they can turn their kids loose in the yard and get a break from the doldrums otherwise known as the dreaded 'cabin fever.'

What I never understood until I left the Midwest, however, is that this really, truly is as bad as it gets. While I assume that there are rare exceptions (Alaska, Siberia, Pluto), the Midwest suffers from the worst of Mother Nature's wrath. We got more snow this year than we would have in Colorado, just a short drive from Aspen. The wind chills here reached 25 below at points this season. The howling winds created snow drifts so deep that Chris's 4-wheel drive truck couldn't even attempt to get out of the drive way. The sun disappears for months on end. When I think back to those sunny Colorado winters with little wind, where I'd rely on a fleece instead of a parka....I guess I didn't know how good I had it!!

But now, at last, the cruel winter is over. SPRING HAS SPRUNG! We've had a few nice days so far, but it wasn't until today that buds appeared on the trees, I can finally feel safe packing away our winter gear, and birds are out in full force, chirping as they hop through the newly green grass.

I'm always amazed at how energetic you feel when you wake up to the sunshine and a promise of warm weather. The awakening of a new season always gives me inspiration- the feeling that everything will align and you'll check off every task on your to-do list. That *this* is *your* day and today you will be....Supermom!

We woke up nice and early, smiles on our faces. The house was peaceful and quiet (well, until World War III broke out over Sam's toy shopping cart). We sat around the table and enjoyed some pleasant conversations over a nutritious breakfast (ok, PopTarts). The usual chaos ensued while trying to get everyone dressed and in the car, but a breath of the fresh spring air reinvigorated me.

Cal found a part of a game in the closet and had carried it around with him all morning. It was a small metal rod-like thing that curved on the end. He called it his 'hooker thing' and was having lots of fun hanging his jacket on the hook or poking his toys with it. He got upset when I told him to leave it at home but I let him take it with us, planning on "leaving" it in the car when we returned. Sure enough, I was able to distract him as I took him out the car and the hook was left behind. Another crises averted.

The lady at the bank had given me two suckers, which I used for bribery in the store. The kids looked so adorable and fresh-faced (erm, except for the blue sucker goo that was now covering Cal's face. And hands. And is in Sam's hair?!). Yes, Samantha knocked a glass bottle of salad dressing onto the floor, and YES, I may have accidentally rammed Cal into some metal shelving as he hitched a ride on the side of the cart, but boys are tough (and he still had his sucker in his mouth, so the crying was muffled. I keed! I keed!).

There is a point in each day when your confidence that THIS is YOUR day starts to waver, but you still naively cling to the idea that things can continue smoothly. This was that point. In between repeating what seem to be my catch-phrases ("Don't step on the bread! Stop licking your sister's hairbow! No, I don't know what kind of dinosaur you are. Oh, a Velociraptor? Of course! Now, seriously, stop licking her bow....") and attempting to throw enough produce into our cart to ensure we wouldn't need to make another of such trips anytime in the near future...somewhere in that mess, Cal realized his beloved toy was gone and the kid gasped and SHOUTED "HEY!!!! WHERE'S...MY...HOOKER?!?!?!?!?!"


And that was when any false hope of appearing to be Supermom pretty much faded for the day.

The rest of the day didn't fare much better. I rejoiced at the convenience of a drive-through ink cartridge-filling store, then forgot to pick up the cartridge I'd dropped off. I made a blackberry pie, but it ended up a bit too runny. We went to the park and took a long walk around the duck pond, in turn losing track of which lot our car was parked in. I even BBQ'ed chicken on the grill and the propane tank ran out of gas in the middle of cooking!

But the ink cartridge will be there tomorrow (and will save us a few dollars over buying a new one), the pie was delicious with ice cream, the long walk in search of the car was great exercise, and dinner ended up tasting delightfully summery once it was finally cooked. It's days like these, days when all my best laid plans fall apart (and an entire store is left wondering exactly who my son is entertaining in his playroom), when I realize that my aim, like most moms, is often a bit misguided.



A true Supermom is the woman who gets to see her baby girl's face light up as she re-discovers grass or watch her Spiderman-emulating boy scale a playground like he's done it a million times before. Supermom greets her family with a smile, and not necessarily a gourmet meal, and sits on the muddy ground with her brood to poke at a bug with sticks rather than worrying about how dirty their matchy clothes might get.







Supermom doesn't fret about a fussing baby as she's trying to bake- she just finds a convenient place to store her sweet babe and a glob of pie crust dough to entertain her.


And so I resolve to wake up with the same spring in my step as I felt today, and I promise to jump out in the world with a smiling face and some perfectly color-coordinated kiddos, but that smile won't fade when my plans go awry. I'll be the Supermom diggin' in the dirt, taking it all in stride.

The day I started a blog.

It's been brought to my attention that the Internets are completely void of blogs written by moms, for mom, and about moms. Oh, wait...that's not true? Well, I hear there's an opening in the 'blogs with pictures of cute kids' genre. No? Hmph. Well, there may be roughly 4382904230 'mommy bloggers' already in the game, but one more can't hurt (too much).

I'm Jessica, a proud mama of two kids-






Cal: 3.5 years old, loves broccoli, energy level of a caffeine-chugging chimpanzee















and Samantha: 13 months, happy flower child, likes to change her clothes every 10 minutes.







I'm a SAHM, married to my love (who I met at a red light, as unbelievable as it sounds!) for 5 years.







The hubs and I were both born and raised in the Midwest, but we traded the cornfields for the mountains and had some amazing adventures in Colorful Colorado.

It was an amazing experience in an amazing place, but now we're back in the Midwest so our kids can be near their grandparents and enjoy all that Middle America has to offer (think: county fairs, lightning bugs, pork tenderloin sandwiches, in no particular order.)


I've learned, unfortunately,that days fly by, memories fade a bit, and that these are truly the days to be cherished, so I hope that I can use this blog to keep a record of life with my loves and the fun things we do along the way!