It has begun!

BRAKING GROUND!

 



Having a ball watching the hole get bigger and bigger! (Even though Will could not look less amused!) 

 

Watching from inside the house too. She wasn't happy that Dad and Will went outside again without her... poor girl.

 

They ALMOST got the whole thing dug in one day. See something funny?? Will had more than a little fun climbing that mountain of dirt. I think he will have a lot of dirty clothes for the next few months.

 

He made it!!

 

Doesn't this look like a boys dream?! Maybe he's practicing to run the next rugged maniac with me. (not saying I'm going to run another!) He wanted to that day. 

 

Lillian wanted to help Dad.

 

Day 3 (day 2 got rained out but they finished digging that day) They set and pored the footings in the house.



 

A little better view of the basement.

 

I'll take you along our jurney if you wish to come along. I'm sure the most enjoyable part of this whole thing will be watching the kids try to help Dad as much as possible. Day 4, or later on today, Will may get to stay home from daycare to help set the forms for the walls.



Rugged Maniac

Thanks to these two who ran (or climbed) it with me. Not sure what I was thinking other than "It's only a 5k, I can do that no problem!" Well... I've never done a 5k, UP HILL. When I say up hill, I mean, this was at a ski resort, so up hill really means a 45 or more degree angle up hill. That is definetly what sucked about the race. I was worried about the ice cold water but it wasn't too bad.

 



Crawling Tunnels- This one we went down a tunnel into a mud pond that we had to crawl in because there was barb wire above us. Then we had to crawl back up the tunnel. Luckly there was a rope to help us, not sure I could have made it with out the rope.

 

Balancing Maniac- This one we walked over a pool of water balancing on a 2x8. Jason had a mis hap with this one and was cleaned off for just a minute or two.

 

Cargo Climb- This was climbing over a cargo net. It was pretty tall but it was easy enough.

 

Manic Baracades- There were several of these. Most were pretty easy but there were two that if we didn't have Jason to pull us up to the top, not sure I would have made it. It was jumping on top a 4x4 and balancing enough to grab the top of the baracade. I couldn't balance without the help.

 

Tire Jungle- Pretty easy, running in tires on the ground while dodging tires swinging.

 

Prometheus Leap- This was jumping over the fire. We thought about hanging out there for a bit to warm up.

 

Rugged Rope Ascent- We could only get over that hill by pulling ourselves up with a rope.

 

There were several more, mostly more baracades and lots of crawling in mud, some with water waste deep and others just enough water to made it so muddy you got stuck with every step. 

My battle wounds. They don't look so bad in the picture but they are even swollen. They will be really pretty in a day or two. I didn't even know I had bruises until I went to Mom and Dad's to pick the kids up and thought, "my shins hurt"... There'd be a reason!

 

It was a fun day but if I ever think I want to do it again, someone remind me that it needs to be in Western Kansas!!!!

Pumpkin Patch

This is the pumpkin patch near Hiawatha. It's much more geared toward littler kids but they have a lot less than good ol' Renyers. So, both are good, just different stuff at each of them. The kids love this little air plain but by the time Lillian got on it, they left.


Since the Will is old enough to kinda do his own thing as long as someone is keeping an eye on him, I stayed with Lillian... This is why most of my pictures are of her. Sorry Will!


Logan and Will.


This girl, loves to color. She sat there painting that pumpkin for well over an hour. AND.... SHE SPEAKS! I asked her to repeat me with the colors and she said, yellow, blue, and green. I couldn't get her to say red but I was floored she said that many words!


Painting a goat. I'm sure most of them were half yellow by the time Lillian was done with them!


I love the colors of peacocks. They are so gorgeous!


Feeding the ducks... See those green buckets? I think the ducks got 4 bucket fulls of corn! There good for a week!




This boy, could play on this for an hour! Especially if he had a dump truck...



These are just from this week, she found this outfit I have gotten for pictures, that I have yet to take her 18 month pictures (and she's well over 19 months now) and she wanted to wear it! So she did.



I thought this was her own doing. After I took the picture, Will advised me that it was him to blame for this. God bless washable markers!


And I only got one word on video so proof she speaks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVUB9XLgJek

Hi there!

Here's a fact... I don't blog when I'm in a bummed out mood...

Might be why I haven't had a blog post for a month! Sorry about that. October is even my favorite month out of the year! It's just been kinda bla. I didn't have much to say at the end of September and then October came and my Grandpa Strahm died. He got an infection and after a week and a half took him off of everything to see how he would do and he passed that night. That certainly doesn't make people in a good mood now does it?! So, I thought I'd just drop by and say HI! I haven't forgotten about you and I will post more in the coming weeks. I promise! Until then, here's my adorable matching children the day of the funeral. Since they were dressed so cute and matched, I tried my best at getting a picture of them. They were not enthused about it, but we got a few smiles.

What a cool day!

Literally, it was a beautiful day but really, we got to do something really cool! One of my co-workers, works full time at Forbs Field in Topeka and he offered to give us a tour AND a ride in a fire truck!



Will got to wear his helmet. I think it fits!

This is the truck we got to take a ride in. This truck is their new truck that helps with plane crashes. It was really cool to see everything in there and Will got to talk to Larry though the head phones like a real fire man. He always tells me, "Logan, Brogan and me are fire men, and Kenna is a fire girl" (all daycare kids) So he got to be like a REAL fire man! 

Larry and Will! The sun was in his eyes so I didn't get a real good picture but it was great!

 

While we were there, there were these two fighter jets making a stop. Not every day you get to see those! 

Will wanted to ride in each and every fire truck. He got to sit in this one.

Fighter jets taking off!

 

Thanks again Larry! Will and I both loved it and it was really fun to see everything! I of course enjoyed seeing the behind the scenes since I work where I work. :)



When it's 105 on September 8th

You have pop cycles before supper.

 

 

And it melts before you get it eaten!

 

 

Food Prep 101

And by 101 I mean, 101! I am leaning so much about nutrition and foods right now that I am FAR from being an expert. Let me tell you though, I have a good system down right now. As long as I know the macro-nutrients of the foods, I'm doing okay. I've screwed up a bunch the last few weeks and I'll delve into that in a minute. For right now, I want to show you how easy it is to prep for a few days so that you can ensure you are eating the right foods. First, let me say that you need to know your own macro-nutrient needs for your own personal goals. Do not use the macros I use. With that being said, here we go.

I weigh out all my food. I know the exact measurements but don't want to bore you with that. Lining the pans with tin foil and drawing boxes on them is a trick an online friend gave me and I love it! With things like sweet potatoes, you can't cut the exact amount of potatoes each time so cutting into smaller pieces and just pile them up in that box works great! I always put a lemon pepper seasoning on my fish. It's yummy and I stick to what's good. The potatoes I did spray with spray butter, more for it not drying out than any other reason. I'm fine with plain ol' potatoes but it gets tough sometimes when baking them.

Once baked, you put those little boxes worth of food into some Tupperware. And this is truly about it. If I had more time, I would have made a few more just so I don't have to do it again in 3 days but time with the kids is few and far between so I voted to do it again later.

Eight meals that will last me two training days. It's not much but 8 meals of the same thing, you get tired of it by the 6th or 7th meal so it's time to mix it up anyway.

Only thing missing is my fat intake.

I measure these out what I need and it's easy to just grab a bag with the meal and go. (Yes, boss man, I checked, same as plain almonds :)) BUT, with the meal I just prepped, I like to have almond or peanut butter on my sweet potatoes... Have you tried it?? You should, you'll be introduced to a little piece of Heaven!!

So I have my MEASURED out peanut butter on my sweet potato and enjoy!

With all this being said, I'm going to jump up on a soap box for a minute. "Eating healthy is sooo expensive!" Ya, I've said it too. Problem is, 1.) I was buying the wrong things. 2.) I didn't do the math!

Well, with what little spare time I had today, I did the math.

Peanut Butter- Has 26-8g of fat portions for me... that = $0.13 per meal (sometimes I have 16g and so $0.26, still don't see a problem do you?)

Those SO expensive almonds- $0.39 a meal. Ya, it's worth the splurge.

I haven't checked almond butter but I'm guessing, I could say it's worth it too. BECAUSE IT SO IS!

Fish- at about $1 a fillet (I think it was $2.89 a pound) and using less than 1 fillet per meal, I'm GUESSING it's about $0.75 per meal. I did get the tilapia on sale, but even if it wasn't on sale, it's still not that bad.

Don't like fish? Chicken- at $5.99 per bag (on sale but you can get it for $4.99) and 12 servings in a bag, your looking at $0.50 a meal.

Sweet potatoes, I didn't know the exact price so I was over guessing at $1.29, I know I've gotten it for like $0.69 a lb. But going with the higher price, that makes it $0.66 per meal.

Another healthy option, brown rice. $0.75 a BAG! That makes 6 meals at $0.13 per meal!!!

So this meal I just showed you that I'm eating for the next several days totals to be $1.54 per meal, times that by 5 (not counting a no-carb meal) and you get $7.70. If you think that's expensive, then go for the cheaper options, brown rice, chicken and peanut butter, $0.76 a meal, times by five, $3.80 a DAY.

Don't tell me that eating healthy is expensive. No, I don't eat many veggies or fruit. Sure they are a bit more, but if your measuring out the right amount of carbs for your activity level then my guess is, it's not much more. So sure, splurge on an apple or grapes if you want, just count the carbs and do the math, it's not that much!!! No, these prices do not count the seasonings or the price of the electricity to bake them but your going to have to use those anyway to eat whatever else you would have eaten.

Now, getting off that soap box, I want to explain why I say I am so very new at this and leaning sooo much myself. I had no idea that ground turkey was the same % of fat as ground beef!!! That is, unless you buy the specified 99% or 93% or whatever lean ground turkey. So for the last several weeks, I have been eating twice the amount of fat I was supposed to. This I believe, is 100% the reason I didn't see the results I was hoping to for the last 3 weeks. Now that I know, I'm doing it right and I'm excited to see the results again. There is so much about nutrition that I don't know but I'm leaning and love learning about it. Just wish I learned before I did!!!

I hope you enjoyed this and I REALLY hope it will help someone else with their personal nutritional goals. It is so much easier to eat healthy and not snack on the wrong foods when you have meals ready and waiting for you in the refrigerator.  Trust me, I still fail. Mac and cheese is still one of my biggest enemies and what did I make for the kids the other night??  Luckily, one bite won't hurt too much of progress but it was still one bite and I knew better.