Adventures in Whole30

April 16 - May 15, 2018
I kind of got on a health kick and convinced Juan (and Lynsey and Cassandra) to do a "Whole30" with me.  Lynsey bought the book It Starts With Food and that was really motivating to stick to the program.  I liked learning the science behind why the people who developed the program chose to eliminate certain foods (dairy, legumes, all grains, all sugars other than naturally occurring in fruit, alcohol).  It was not very fun to avoid some (most) of those things, but for me at least it was easier than I thought it would be.  Having friends do it helped, too.  I always like the idea of eating "real" food that didn't come from a box, bag, or aluminum can and on Whole30 you pretty much have to make everything from scratch.  We even made our own mayo!
This was my stock up shopping at Trader Joe's.  They have lots of things that were compliant.  (Ummm, side note, that glass of wine was not compliant, but this was they day before we started and I had to finish it off!)

And this was my shopping cart at Winco.  Basically nothing but produce!

I did a lot of planning and prepping, pretty sure I would not have been successful if I hadn't!  Although I wasn't as good at the prepping toward the end.  Plus I'd found that sometimes we'd have more leftovers than I expected and I didn't need to make things I'd planned for the end of the week, so it didn't make sense to prep everything the Sunday prior.
The first week though, Lynsey and I spend all day Sunday cooking and chopping and making things.  We both boiled a whole chicken, took the meat off to use in chicken salad etc, then put the carcass back in the pot to make chicken stock.  We both got about 4 quarts.

Sheet Pan Chicken Fajita & Veggies

We celebrated Week 1 with a snack and fancy drinks (flavored sparkling water and fresh pressed fruit juice).

One of my favorite meals... Copy-cat Chick-fil-A Chicken Strips and Dipping Sauce, sweet potatoes fries and roasted asparagus.

Cassandra and I put this calendar on the bulletin at work.

I made us all a countdown calendar to have at home.

Sheet Pan Lemon Chicken, Potatoes, and Brussels Sprouts

Lynsey made delish lettuce wraps!

These potatoes were so good!  And the "Colada Elixer" which I just happened to see in a magazine didn't have any non-compliant ingredients so that was my treat on Mother's Day.  Claire calls it the "life elixer" and it's really yummy.

 FINISHED!

May 15 was our official end date of Whole30.  We followed the recommended introduction plan for the most part.  That took another couple weeks.  Now we can technically eat whatever we want but we're still being pretty good for the most part.  I am not as good as Juan.  The hardest part is still the planning and I need to get back into prepping things!

Cinnamon Rolls | Dec 24

After taking a couple years off I decided to make cinnamon rolls for Christmas again this year.  Claire was a great helper!  The recipe makes a lot so we gave pans to our neighbors and had a couple to save for ourselves.  We polished one pan off on Christmas morning and the other is in the freezer to have as a treat on another day.

Christmas Cookies

Gingerbread Houses & Treat Making

Last weekend we went to the neighbors and all the kids decorated gingerbread houses.  And ate lots of candy of course.

We've been busy this week making treats for a bake sale for Claire's school PTA, treats for the neighbors and my co-workers.  Yum!

Peaches, Parents, Pool

My parents came to visit over Labor Day weekend.  I had two boxes of peaches that had to be canned before they were too ripe so guess who got to help!  Anyone willing to!  This year we did one box of J.H. Hale peaches and the other was O'Henry.  The Hales were the easiest to peel and pit!

We had a little early birthday celebration for the September kids complete with chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

We even lucked out and had weather warm enough to enjoy one of the last days before the pool closed for the season.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

And it should because Christmas is almost here!  Here are some of the things that have been going on around here to get ready for the holiday...

Aunt Judy sent us home from Thanksgiving with giant gingerbread men for the kids to decorate.  We had a little decorating... and eating... party one evening.

We've had a snowy December!  Back on the December 7th we got several inches of snow and the temperature has barely made it above freezing since then so we still have snow!  Claire had outgrown her boots and snow pants so we had to do a little shopping, and good thing because it snowed again.

It snowed more this weekend so now everything is white and clean again!  Claire was pretty excited that she got to do a little sledding this time.  The temperature wasn't quite as frigid either this time so Bryce got to come out and play, too.  He didn't really want to wear his gloves which was a bad choice on his part.  I finally got them on him but he wasn't happy about it!

We were so thankful that Auntie Andrea helped us go get a real Christmas tree!  Claire was in charge of the decorating and it is so beautiful.

And we've been making lots of cookies!  We made gingersnaps and sugar cookies.  Elle came over to help Claire with the decorating on Friday afternoon.

Auntie Bhu was here for a visit and so the kids got to open a couple gifts with her.  We were glad to get to spend a couple days with her since she won't be here on Christmas!

And I'm finally done making cinnamon rolls!  I can't wait to eat one... but we're going to wait until Christmas.  The recipe makes so many.  We are giving them to our neighbors as gifts and still have a ton left to eat at home!  Happy Holidays!

Another Happy Halloween

Another successful Halloween in the books.  On Tuesday night Cole and Claire did some pumpkin carving and designing.  They turned out really good.  Bryce didn't participate but he can say "pumpkin" now!

On Halloween day Claire got to wear her costume to school and they had a little parade and party.  Later that afternoon we went in to my office so she and Bryce could trick-or-treat my co-workers.  Claire was a Rainbow Trout and Bryce was a Fisherman.  One of my co-workers had gummy worms for the Trout and Swedish Fish for the Fisherman - how cute is that!  

So Claire came up with the idea to be a Rainbow Trout and I thought it was hilarious so totally encouraged it.  There were a few moments where I was afraid I had bitten off more than I could chew in making the costume but it turned out exactly how I had hoped!  There was a last minute addition of some velcro so that we could bustle up her tail fin so it wouldn't drag on the ground.

Definitely the cutest Rainbow Trout I've ever seen!

Our neighbor, Elle, was Velma from Scooby-Doo.  Her little sister was Scooby and her parents were Fred and Daphne at a party they went to last weekend.

We had dinner down at Ty & Dawn's house.  Dawn made "mummy dogs" for the kids and there were satsuma orange pumpkins and some other fun treats, too.  The kids rushed through dinner because people here seem to think you should start trick-or-treating 2 hours before it gets dark.  As soon as the kids saw that they thought if they didn't start too they wouldn't get any candy.

Cole and Charlie were Mario and Luigi and super cute.  Charlie has a great Italian accent and kept saying "It's a me... Mario!" over and over and over.

This little Fisherman refused to wear his hat.  He took a late nap and was just waking up when the big kids were starting to trick-or-treat.  He only went to a couple of the neighbors houses and we called it good!

Our across the street neighbor had his amazing and spooky Halloween display out as usual.  The kids were all super brave... the full-size candy bars don't hurt either!

Andrea and Jade came over to hang out with us, too, and Jade helped take the kids trick-or-treating.  It was a fun night!