Adventures-In-Mommy-Land: September 2012

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Hey Mom, Look What I Did (#51)

Welcome to the 51st edition of

Hey Mom, Look What I Did!!!

here's a look at my faves from this week...

Turtle Fun

(lots of fun turtle ideas)

Tape and Sticker Resist

(always love doing this...fun!)

Homemade Playdough

(my boys love playing with playdough)

Make Your Own Book About Fall

(such a clever idea...)

As a reminder....tomorrow we will be running fun giveaways all month long to celebrate the One Year Anniversary of Hey Mom, Look What I Did - so be sure to check back and see what fun stuff we will be giving away!!

Now, it's your turn to show us what you've been working on this week and I can't wait to see it!!

Please share your craft projects, baking activities and other fun kid friendly adventures. Grab the link button and put it on your blog, if you like, so that others can find us and share in the fun too.

There are no requirements, but I would love if you would follow this blog via GFC.

I also would like to invite you to come hang out with me on facebook and twitter, where I feature and share some your fabulous projects during the week.

Thanks for joining us....Hope to see you again soon!!

Friday, September 28, 2012

Crappy Vending Machine Food

In my previous life, you know before Nutrisystem ;) I lived for vending machines!

Granted, they were kind of like another little lie I would tell myself (or others if there were people in the room), my favorite lie I told myself was "I only eat junk food while I'm here at work....I don't eat like this at home."

ppffftttt....yeahhhhhh right!

One of my favorite things about Nutrisystem is the convenience. The meals are already made, so all you have to do is reach in the freezer or cabinet and grab something, then microwave it....easy peasy! For me, the hardest part is choosing which meal I'm going to eat that day.

On the days that I have class, this is the best thing ever. I pack my lunch, because I am at school all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I usually pack a cheese stick, a piece of fruit and a can of soup or a pasta bowl. One day, I forgot my lunch. Not only was I freaking out, because I forgot my lunch, but I also only took enough money for parking that day. Thursdays are my long day too, meaning I'm at school for two extra hours, getting home around dinner time.

So here I was starving with no real money to eat at any of the food areas at school. Scrunching through my bag I found some change and headed to the vending machine, hoping to at least find some pretzels. What I saw was 8 different candy bars, 8 bags of chips (no pretzels) crackers, peanuts, rice krispie treats, and about 3 different varieties of pop tarts....yuck.

Before Nutrisystem I would have been loving it and having a hard time deciding on what to eat...not because I didn't like the choices (as is the case now), but because I would have had a hard time choosing between which candy bar I loved more.

This time, however, I couldn't decide...nothing really looked appetizing to me nor was there anything I would have considered nutritious in the slightest bit.

I went with the peanuts and what I considered the lesser of all the evils, the crackers - not that the crackers were anywhere healthy, but they did have peanut butter in them and even though the pb was probably laden in sugar, I could still count it as a protein and the crackers while not whole grain (in the slightest) could be considered a carb, not a smart carb, but a carb no less. The peanuts of course were protein and they were fine to eat....even though the serving size was way off.

So ended my love affair with the vending machines.

I wish I could say that since I started this diet/lifestyle change that I never strayed or cheated on it...But I can't. And I don't really consider that a horrible thing. One candy bar in five months time, isn't that big of a deal, at least not to me. It means that I now have a healthier attitude towards food. I don't look at junk food and think of it as food...or make up silly ideals and say "well chocolate is technically a bean, so....". To me, it's junk - plain and simple.

I don't need it
I don't want it
I don't crave it

I don't tell myself little lies about it anymore either. Do I think one little candy bar is going to hurt my chances of losing weight for that week? Nope! (and it didn't by the way). Did I beat myself up and throw a pity party for my lack of self control? Nope! I wanted some chocolate, so I grabbed the candy and I ate it. Did I think it tasted horrible? Nope! (it was pretty DAMN good lol)....it satisfied that little bit of chocolate I was craving. End of story. It's all good!

I realize that alot of the junky food I ate was crap and to me actually tastes like crap and I don't want to eat it....but there are a few things out there that I do still like and as long I have a healthy attitude about it, I can handle eating it. It was when I was unhealthy that I couldn't deal with it, that guilty feeling and that constant gnawing, knowing I shouldn't have because....that made me want it even more. Now, I know I can eat one once in a blue moon and the sky isn't going to fall down around me. I have learned the fine art of moderation.

And WOW have I come a long way.....

It's not just about the food....it's about the attitude!

My Stats

4/27/12 - 180 (starting weight)

5/04/12 - 175 (week one)

5/11/12 - 174 (week two)

5/18/12 - 172 (week three)

5/25/12 - 170 (week four)

6/01/12 - 169 (week five)

6/08/12 - 169 (week six)

6/15/12 - 168 (week seven)

6/22/12 - 166 (week eight)

6/29/12 - 166 (week nine)

7/06/12 - 166 (week ten)

7/13/12 - 164 (week eleven)

7/20/12 - 164 (week twelve)

7/27/12 - 165 (week thirteen)

8/03/12 - 163 (week fourteen)

8/10/12 - 160 (week fifteen)

8/17/12 - 160 (week sixteen)

8/24/12 - 160 (week seventeen)

8/31/12 - 159 (week eighteen)

9/07/12 - 159 (week nineteen)

9/14/12 - 157 (week twenty)

9/21/12 - 155 (week twenty one)

9/28/12 - 155 (week twenty two)

Do you want to lose weight and get healthy on Nutrisystem? Join today by calling 1-888-853-4689 or by visiting http://www.nutrisystem.com/nsblog

*Disclosure ~ I am receiving access to the website and food in exchange for reviewing the diet plan. All opinions herein are my own and were not influenced by Nutrisystem.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Hey Mom, Look What I Did (#50)

Welcome to the 50th edition of

Hey Mom, Look What I Did!!!

Next month, we are going to celebrate our first year anniversary, with some fun giveaways.

If you would like to sponsor a prize, you can read all about it HERE.

In the meantime, here's a look at some of my faves from this week...

Pirate Treasure Hunt

(these kids are way too cute to be pirates!)

Simple Fairy Crown

(she looks like she is having a blast)

Banana Split on a Stick

(super clever and double yummy idea!!)

A House for Hermit Crab

(some fun crafts to go with a fabulous book)

Nathan's craft.....Nuts to You!

Now, it's your turn to show us what you've been working on this week and I can't wait to see it!!

There are no requirements, but I would love if you would follow this blog via GFC.

I also would like to invite you to come hang out with me on facebook and twitter, where I feature and share some your fabulous projects during the week.

Thanks for joining us....Hope to see you again soon!!

Nuts to You!

In celebration of fall, Nathan and I read the book Nuts to You! by Lois Ehlert.

Nuts to You! is a cute rhyming story about a squirrel who likes to hide and climb and eat nuts and seeds. The sneaky squirrel gets inside a child's house through a hole in their screen and the child tricks the squirrel back outside with nuts. It's a cute little story that was actually inspired by an experience that the author had with a squirrel in her own neighborhood.

We went for a walk one evening and as we were walking we saw acorns in a tree...so we picked some, hopefully we didn't make any squirrels mad at us for stealing their food :)

We shoved them in my jacket pocket where they stayed for a week...I kept forgetting they were in there. You should have seen the faces on the people sitting next to me in class when I pulled them out of my pocket as I was digging in there for a pen Ha!

I finally took them out and we did a little art project using them as inspiration.

I cut out some acorn shapes using white paper. We also used glue, cinnamon and oats.

Nathan brushed glue all over the acorn and then sprinkled (more like dumped) cinnamon on the bottom part of the acorn and oats on the top part.

He also painted a squirrel picture.

We chose the perfect fallish day for this project and as we were doing this craft we saw a little squirrel sitting on the bench on our porch. Hope it wasn't the same squirrel who's nuts we stole ;)

Calling All Friends....

Starting next month, I am going to be doing weekly giveaways all month long to celebrate the

one year anniversary

Hey Mom, Look What I Did

I have plenty of fun stuff to giveaway, but I thought it might be fun to see if anyone else who participates would like to giveaway something as well...to make it even more fun and exciting.

This could be free ad space on your blog, or getting together with another friend or two and purchasing a gift card to the dollar store or an etsy shop that you love and think is kid related.

While I love all the different varieties of prizes...I'd like to keep this as "kid related" as possible. So for example, I like to buy craft supplies at the dollar tree, so a $10 gc to that store would be an excellent prize to help restock some supplies. Or maybe gathering some of your own favorite supplies to use and putting them in a nice little basket or box (stuff like construction paper, kid scissors, glue, google eyes, foam board, paint, etc.). Or maybe you like to spend time in the kitchen baking with your child(ren), so a fun prize for you would be a cupcake kit or new cookie cutters. Or maybe a fun holiday candy mold and some meltable chocolates, etc.

You get the idea.

I will gladly promote your prize, along with your etsy shop or blog, what have you, here on my blog in exchange, if you like through a blog post.

If you are interested in getting in on the fun and sponsoring a prize or know of someone who might be interested just send me an email....at jfamilyofeight (AT) hotmail (DOT) com and let me know.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Nutrisystem week 21

Today wraps up my 21st week on Nutrisystem.

I lost another 2 pounds this week...for a total of 25 pounds, so far!

YAY Me!!

I still have a long way to go til I reach my healthy bmi, but I'm getting there.

Just wanted to address something quickly, I have been getting alot of emails and messages that I don't really share here or anywhere. Most of them are positive and that's really awesome! But some of them are a little...ummm, let's just use the word negative. The positive messages are wonderful and I appreciate them, I do read them all. I try to reply to most of them. I've been told that I've inspired them to lose weight, to exercise and more. And that's super awesome!! I want people to feel great about themselves and to be more active and happy...for me, losing weight is a healthy choice.

I'm not doing this so that I can be sexy (although that would be a nice side effect ;p)...I'm not doing this to wear a bikini...trust me I have way to many stretch marks for that to EVER happen. I'm not doing this to "show off". But I am loving the results, so pardon me if I do show off a bit by posting a pic or two.

What I am doing this for.....and what I've been saying all along is, so that I can be healthy. I want to be able to walk up the stairs all day at school and not be out of breath. I want to sleep at night knowing that I don't need the help of a machine to breath. I want to play with my kids instead of watching them from the sidelines. I want to play with my kids and not be out of breath. I don't want to be dependant on medication or insulin. I don't want to have to take an elevator instead of the stairs. I don't want to tell my kids that we can't walk to the playground because I'm too tired to do it. I don't want to have to drag around an oxygen tank. I don't want to be unhappy (and being unhealthy was making me depressed). I haven't had to take a single antidepressant in months! I have a natural high now that I have lost weight. I am happy (not because I think I look great), because frankly what they say about endorphins and exercise is the truth. The more you exercise, the happier you get...it's almost addicting. And I don't know about you, but I'd much rather be addicted to exercise than drugs, alcohol or FOOD!

When those folks on The Biggest Loser or any talk show you see talk about how ashamed they were when they were fat and eating in their cars...it's true. I can't tell you how many times I would buy a big bag of chips and a candy bar for breakfast and lie to the cashier when I was doing it...."oh I'm just buying this to go with my lunch later..." Um, no what was really happening was that I was going to go home now that the kids were in school and Rich wasn't there and I was going to stuff my face with chips and candy all morning and then wonder why I was hungry an hour later....and do it all over again. I'm not joking here....that is exactly what I used to do. I'm not saying all overweight people act like this, but I am saying that most of us do.

I'm posting this because I would really appreciate it if you could just leave me positive notes, words of encouragement and happy thoughts. I don't like seeing messages from people saying "you look great, but you're gonna gain it all back and then some." or "you aren't learning how to eat right, so you are going to have a hard time maintaining all that weight loss." I mean I am a big girl and I can handle the negative comments once in a while, but I try hard not to rain on your parade, so why do you have to rain on mine?!

Ok, so that was a little longer than I intended....my point is, we all lose weight differently...what works for some, may not work for others. I tried other diets and doing it on my own too...they didn't work for me...this is working. We all have different taste buds....so while something might taste like cardboard to you, might taste fabulous to me....Doesn't mean I'm wrong or you're wrong, we just like different things. I don't like seafood, never did....doesn't mean I'm going to tell you not to eat it, because it's nasty. We all see things differently as well and while our intentions may have been good when we said what we did, it doesn't mean the other person is going to see it that way.

I'm not saying we need to be happy, slappy people all the time and can't voice our opinions...I'm just saying how about we support each other for our accomplishments...and not tear each other down with our words. That's all.

Peace out!

My Stats

4/27/12 - 180 (starting weight)

5/04/12 - 175 (week one)

5/11/12 - 174 (week two)

5/18/12 - 172 (week three)

5/25/12 - 170 (week four)

6/01/12 - 169 (week five)

6/08/12 - 169 (week six)

6/15/12 - 168 (week seven)

6/22/12 - 166 (week eight)

6/29/12 - 166 (week nine)

7/06/12 - 166 (week ten)

7/13/12 - 164 (week eleven)

7/20/12 - 164 (week twelve)

7/27/12 - 165 (week thirteen)

8/03/12 - 163 (week fourteen)

8/10/12 - 160 (week fifteen)

8/17/12 - 160 (week sixteen)

8/24/12 - 160 (week seventeen)

8/31/12 - 159 (week eighteen)

9/07/12 - 159 (week nineteen)

9/14/12 - 157 (week twenty)

9/21/12 - 155 (week twenty one)

Do you want to lose weight and get healthy on Nutrisystem? Join today by calling 1-888-853-4689 or by visiting http://www.nutrisystem.com/nsblog

*Disclosure ~ I am receiving access to the website and food in exchange for reviewing the diet plan. All opinions herein are my own and were not influenced by Nutrisystem.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Hey Mom, Look What I Did (#49)

Welcome to the 49th edition of

Hey Mom, Look What I Did!!!

Can you believe it's been almost a year, since I started this linky?

Wow!!!!

I think this is going to be cause for celebration...maybe some fun giveaways, what do you think?

here's a look at some of my favorites this week.....

Painting and Printing with Styrofoam

(I love using and painting with different materials...this one makes a cool effect)

Autumn Scavenger Hunt for Toddlers

(even older kids would love this idea!)

Autumn Window Decoration

(I love these types of crafts)

Chocolate Playdough and Bakery Pretend Play

(you had me at chocolate........)

Nathan's Nature Painting

Now, it's your turn to show us what you've been working on this week and I can't wait to see it!!

There are no requirements, but I would love if you would follow this blog via GFC.

I also would like to invite you to come hang out with me on facebook and twitter, where I feature and share some your fabulous projects during the week.

Thanks for joining us....Hope to see you again soon!!

Nathan's Nature Painting

A friend of mine at school was telling me about one of her art classes. Her teacher wanted the class to go out into nature and find things that they could paint with such as a rock attached to a stick and then paint a picture with it.

I thought it sounded like a pretty cool idea, so Nathan and I set off on a little nature walk of our own this afternoon. We collected sticks, leaves, ferns, some kind of nut (walnut maybe, I don't know) some bark, weeds, pinecones and more.

Then we used the different implements and painted some pretty awesome pictures.

One of my favorites was the pine needle branch...cool effect!

the fern was a fun one too!

Also the "queen anne's lace" made a cool design too!

Another one we liked was the pinecone.

Definitely a fun project and it reminded us of the time we used fruit and veggies as stencil stamps too.

What are some fun and different things that you like to use to paint with?

Friday, September 14, 2012

Nutrisystem Week 20

Today wraps up my 20th week (yep, it's been FIVE months) on Nutrisystem.

(me at 157)

I have come a long way....sometimes you need a visual of something before you can actually "see" things for yourself. I know deep down that 20 pounds is A LOT to lose, but when you lose it gradually you don't really realize how much that actually is.

I recently had to attend a health fair at college for credit. I wasn't even going to go, until one of my professors told us we had to for class credit. So, I went thinking it would be just a bunch of booths with people talking about condoms and safe sex and date rape and all that - I mean it is a college campus after all.

But there were alot more booths than that...they had one that talked about the rec center that had a walking program we could sign up for, blood pressure and glucose testing booths (check, check, check). The one booth that stuck out the most to me (and I almost missed it) was a nutrition booth. They had these vials of actual body fat, a "calf muscle" that weighed seven pounds and a fat suit/vest that weighed 20 pounds. I was floored when the woman told me it weighed 20 pounds.

I was kicking myself in the butt for not taking my camera with me...would have been an awesome pic, don't you think?

At any rate, when she told me that it weighed 20 pounds, I excitedly told her that I recently lost 20 pounds with Nutrisystem. I told her all about the program and she was thrilled by how many people/bloggers that were losing weight through the Nutrisystem's Blogger Nation program. I wanted to try that vest on, just to give myself a "visual" if you will of what that extra 20 pounds would feel like, but I couldn't even lift it off the table. I almost cried right there in front of all those people. I really have come a long way and I couldn't be happier. Seeing that fat suit really hit me...it gave me the motivation to keep going and keep trying and never give up. It was awesome! I'm so glad I was made to go for that class credit.

Sometimes, I sit and think about how much time I wasted being so heavy and missing out on life....Why did I wait so long! Please, if you are like me and wanting to lose weight....don't wait, call Nutrisystem and get on the program. They have a seriously awesome deal going on right now.....

Nutrisystem's 40% on every order deal

So many people say that they can't afford it.....then just keep track of what you are eating and start moving. Sitting on the couch isn't going to help you lose weight. I used to love watching the biggest loser (I still do), but while I was watching I was sitting there with a big ol' bowl of buttery popcorn and a coke, wishing how I could get on there and lose weight too. It's really not rocket science....it only seems hard til you actually start....and then if you're anything like me, you wonder what the hell took you so long. Get up and move people! And remember you didn't put all that weight on overnight, it takes time to gain all that weight...and it will take time to lose it too. Don't lose hope. Just keep going.

Do you want to lose weight and get healthy on Nutrisystem? Join today by calling 1-888-853-4689 or by visiting http://www.nutrisystem.com/nsblog

My Stats

4/27/12 - 180 (starting weight)

5/04/12 - 175 (week one)

5/11/12 - 174 (week two)

5/18/12 - 172 (week three)

5/25/12 - 170 (week four)

6/01/12 - 169 (week five)

6/08/12 - 169 (week six)

6/15/12 - 168 (week seven)

6/22/12 - 166 (week eight)

6/29/12 - 166 (week nine)

7/06/12 - 166 (week ten)

7/13/12 - 164 (week eleven)

7/20/12 - 164 (week twelve)

7/27/12 - 165 (week thirteen)

8/03/12 - 163 (week fourteen)

8/10/12 - 160 (week fifteen)

8/17/12 - 160 (week sixteen)

8/24/12 - 160 (week seventeen)

8/31/12 - 159 (week eighteen)

9/07/12 - 159 (week nineteen)

9/14/12 - 157 (week twenty)

*Disclosure ~ I am receiving access to the website and food in exchange for reviewing the diet plan. All opinions herein are my own and were not influenced by Nutrisystem.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Hey Mom, Look What I Did (#48)

Welcome to the 48th edition of

Hey Mom, Look What I Did

here's a look at some of my favorites from this week....

Tissue Paper "Stained Glass" Window

(Such an awesome idea...I love it)

Autumn Colored Rice

(rainbow rice has been on my to do list for a while now...seriously, I have a 5 pound bag of rice in the pantry now just waiting on the day)

Apple Unit

(tons of activites using apples)

Tips for Reading to Your Child

(great tips!)

And of course, Nathan and Nicholas made handprint trees

Now, it's your turn to show us what you've been working on this week and I can't wait to see it!!

There are no requirements, but I would love if you would follow this blog via GFC.

I also would like to invite you to come hang out with me on facebook and twitter, where I feature and share some your fabulous projects during the week.

Thanks for joining us....Hope to see you again soon!!