is weight loss during pregnancy dangerous | Toddler twin must haves 2yo to 3yo

is weight loss during pregnancy dangerous

Our toddlers are days away from turning three-years old which means it is time for another must-have list! :) What are the things that have made this past year with toddler twins just that much easier? I have found that as our twins get older, it is becoming much less about finding things that work for twins and more about finding things that work for having three children. Most of these things are applicable to making life easier with three young children, not twin specific.

Side note: I cant believe that my next must-have list will probably be for the youngest of four children-- newborn things again! This pregnancy is flying by; Im already in the third trimester!

1. The Aqueduck Faucet Extender

Without the Aqueduck, reaching for the water flow

With the Aqueduck, standing flat footed on the stool

Not sure what the silly face is for, but using the Aqueduck

This is seriously a parenting must-have, twins or not. I cant believe I didnt own this when our oldest was small. This makes washing little hands so.much.easier, even with a stool boosting them up. The Aqueduck moves the water flow closer to them and is easy to take on and off, which is useful when you have guests using the bathroom or if you want to bring it with you on a family vacation. I know this will be coming on our next timeshare trip.

2. Lunch containers

All these are from-- where else?-- Target

I dont have a specific lunch container that I highly recommend... Instead, this is much more about just having a lunch container that suits your needs. I love how these lunch containers from Target dont have fancy lids to open or lots of compartments to keep clean. I can take the lids off and let the boys finish their picnic lunches in their carseats. They are small enough to easily fit in their laps and hold the perfect portions for our almost three-year olds and five-year old. We pack a lot of lunches and so having containers for each of them is very useful. I also have water bottles that I refill for them and bring with us. Again, I dont have a brand that I am in love with. I tend to prefer water bottles that dont have a lot of small parts and no valves. Easy to clean is a must!

3. Thirty-One Picnic Thermal Tote

I do have a lunch pail that I absolutely love for heading out with all four of us-- me and the boys-- and the times when my husband goes out with us too: the Thirty-One Picnic Thermal Tote. I love this lunch pail. It fits us perfect for our park trips, afternoons out running errands, and when Im bringing snacks to our oldest sons little sports games. I use this thing almost every day. I can also fit my water bottle in here along with our lunches. This lunch pail is not too big and not too small. It is also soft so I can shove it underneath our stroller. The handle is adjustable so I can hang it over the handlebar of our stroller. I bought this lunch pail because I was out with one of my girlfriends and she had packed her lunch in it. I absolutely loved it and how well everything fit inside! I went home and told my Thirty-One consultant that I wanted one and promptly placed an order. :)

5. Croc-like shoes

Putting his Crocs on all by himself

Putting his Skechers on all by himself

I know what you are thinking: CROCS?! Yeah, Crocs. When you have three kids, it is really (really, really, really) annoying to help get three sets of shoes on six feet, tie six shoes, and then-- Lord forbid-- we go somewhere where they have to take their shoes off. Or their shoes get wet. So Crocs, or Croc like shoes, are just the ticket. The little boys can put their Crocs on and off by themselves. If they get wet while we are out, they dry quickly, unlike canvas sneakers. They breathe. They work like flip flops and protect their toes like sneakers. When we go to the spray park, they can wear their Crocs in the sprinklers. I let the Crocs dry and then they wear their Crocs over to the playground. Love a multi-purpose shoe! Their feet have grown again and it was time to buy shoes for this summer. A friend tipped me off to the Skechers Boys Guzman Seeperz. They have all the convenience of Crocs without that oh-so-stylish Crocs look. I loved the price tag-- I bought all 3 boys a pair at the outlet mall for just under $50 compared to one pair of Crocs at $29.99-- but for our oldest they have been a little disappointing. The shoes are still intact, but the white on the toes start chipping almost the same day we brought them home. Little kids are quite hard on play shoes, although they havent chipped near so bad for our toddlers.

6. Baby-sitter

In my blog post "0-2 year old twin must-haves," I said drop-in childcare and a baby-sitter were a must. Sadly we have moved from North Carolina to South Carolina and we no longer have a drop-in childcare place (believe me-- I have looked!). Being a military family, we move a lot. We are probably only going to be living in South Carolina for another year. When our oldest was a baby, I never had a baby-sitter I hired. I never even looked. I would ask my girlfriends in the FRG or I would reschedule whatever I had planned. My husband was always underway or working. I had a sling and our son went everywhere that I went. Having three kids with a fourth on the way changes that a little bit... I kind of need a baby-sitter for a lot of things, like my OBGyn has a no kids in the exam room policy. Actually, my last OBGyn had that policy when I was pregnant with our twins, but it was much easier to drag one fairly well-behaved toddler with me than a preschooler and two toddlers-- its slightly more distracting. Also, with three kids and our fourth on the way, we like getting out every now and then. My hubby and I want to use a baby-sitter to go birthday shopping for our toddlers. Not a very fancy date, but it sure is nice to get out without three kids in tow and chat as a couple. With a busy family, it is good for our marriage to take advantage of those little opportunities to get out by ourselves.

I know what a lot of my military wife readers are thinking, "But where do I find a baby-sitter?!" I dont really know. One of my best friends has found their baby-sitters (2 different duty stations) on sittercity.com. It is free for military families: Sittercity Military Program. My sister has even used a baby-sitting site like that, for her daughter and also to find a pet sitter for her cat. One of my really good girlfriends used to baby-sit for those sites before she had kids; I would definitely hire her to watch my kids (and I often do abandon my kids at her house-- haha!). I didnt have good luck finding a sitter on those sites when we first moved here. I get really nervous leaving our asthmatic toddler with people I dont know. Im going to have to give them a try again when we move next time; I dont know if well move somewhere with such an awesome neighborhood as we have here. I found our current sitter by word of mouth from my neighbors. I do know that I didnt just have a baby-sitter fall into our lap when we moved to South Carolina, away from our awesome baby-sitters in North Carolina. We found our baby-sitter here by asking people about baby-sitters. I messaged people. I posted jobs on baby-sitting sites. I met up with people. I actively searched for a baby-sitter and, after a couple weeks, I found the perfect match for us-- a fabulous Navy wife who also happens to have asthma (makes me much happier finding someone who understands asthma to watch our boys!). It takes patience. It is hard as a military family, moving to a new state and finding someone you trust to watch your kids, especially when you dont know anyone. Give it time. Keep looking. It can happen!

7. Our Baby Jogger City Select with a Second Seat

Well, you knew this would make the list. Read my previous blog posts about it here:

• "0-2 year old twin must-haves"
  This post includes pictures of our toddlers at two-years old using our stroller.
• "I love my stroller"
  The original post about our stroller.

Most of the time, now, I only put one seat in the stroller. There are still times when I put in both seats. Yesterday at the park I put in both seats because the boys played at the playground for an hour or two, ate lunch, and then played at the splash pad for another hour or two. I was very worried they would be tired on the way back to the car and wanted the toddlers to have somewhere to sit (at 28 weeks pregnant carrying two toddlers and all our gear isnt an option for me). A lot of times when I only have one seat in, one toddler will sit in the seat and the other toddler will sit on the foot rest. Not the best picture, but here is a picture of them doing that when we looked at Christmas lights this past December:

I put one seat in most of the time because only one of our toddlers really ever wants to ride in the stroller anymore. The other prefers walking. When baby #4 comes along, Im going to put our glider board back on our stroller. That way I will have the glider board for one toddler, a seat for the other toddler, and the infant car seat adapter for baby #4. For times when we are going to the park and hanging out for a long period of time, I love having the stroller with me to help carry all our stuff.

8. Responsibility

This is the age where our toddlers want to help with e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. They want to help unload the dishwasher, clean the bathtub, fold the laundry, pick up toys, carry in the groceries... but they dont really want to follow through with all of it or do any of it exceptionally well (well, the way I would do it if I didnt have "help"). Today when I cleaned the bathtub, I let one of our toddlers help me scrub. No need to worry; I used baking soda to clean the tub so it was entirely safe. I just gave him an extra scrub brush. (Read "Homemade household cleaners.") In my blog post "Domestic goddess," I talk about our cleaning schedule. They love helping me clean. I give them rags to dust with and dole out small tasks for them to help with. Today I gave one of our toddlers one piece of laundry at a time to put in the laundry hamper as I folded clothes. I like encouraging them to help because Ive seen how awesome it can be-- our five-year old is an exceptionally good help. Hes even started washing dishes lately! Yeah, awesome help. Encourage it while they are interested. :)

The other thing they love is having little things that they can do by themselves. Our boys love coloring. I put the crayons and the paper on a shelf that they can reach. This took time-- we didnt start out with the crayons within reach. They have learned that if they want the privilege of using the crayons whenever they want to, they need to use them at the table. They feel like big kids getting the crayons out whenever the urge to color strikes them. Having these little independent activities that they can do by themselves helps them start understanding responsibility and following instructions. These types of things are much easier when you are delegating to the youngest age. When we had these types of responsibilities for our oldest and our twins were around 18-months, we had to set him up in an area that wasnt accessible to his younger brothers who were not old enough to understand what he was doing and why they couldnt participate. Now that they are almost three, they understand when we tell them that their older brother is working in the office and they need to stay out. We can usually distract them with an activity of their own at the kitchen table. We have designated areas for all these types of activities/responsibilities. Our office is transitioned to a KNex/Lego workspace for our oldest (right now my hubby and our five-year old are building a 3D Star Wars puzzle in there). Most of our toddlers activities are at the kitchen table so we can keep a close eye on them and make sure they get properly cleaned up when they are finished.

9. Olivers Labels Safety Wristbands

This one is identical twin specific. We bought these wristbands when our twins were born. They were much too big for newborns, but we started using them after we found our first baby-sitters in North Carolina, before our sitters could tell our identical twins apart, or when we would drop them off in a childcare situation (drop-in childcare, church nursery, etc.). These are very useful when we have new baby-sitters (our new baby-sitter here in South Carolina now can tell our boys apart) or when we have friends/neighbors watching the boys. Now that weve been making all new friends, these have been quite useful again, especially since our toddlers dont like being called by the wrong name. "That not me! That my brother!" These are also super handy when you have a lot of extended family visiting or out of town guests that arent used to interacting with your twins. Our boys have such different personalities (and look different now that they are toddlers and not newborns) that it only takes people a little while to identify them. As I said, we bought each of our boys a pack when they were born. They are turning three in a few days and we are still using the same pack. When we had family in town for a couple days, I usually just kept the same wristband on them the whole weekend. These wristbands are very durable and did well through bath times and daily wear and tear for those long weekends.

(I am avoiding saying "knowing who is who" because I seriously do hate the "who is who" game. Read my blog post "Identical brothers.")

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weight loss during pregnancy due to morning sickness | Taking it easy while pregnant with baby 4

weight loss during pregnancy due to morning sickness

I hear this all the time lately, "Take it easy."

"Just be sure to take it easy."

"Take it as easy as you can."

"You just really need to take it easy."

I am just over 30 weeks pregnant. I stay at home with our 5 and a half year old, whom we homeschool in preschool, and our 3-year old toddler twins. We have a dog. My husband is in the Navy which, of course, means we live next door to my parents (not).

How do I take it easy?

We went through this when I was pregnant with our identical twins. I was on modified bedrest and had multiple ultrasound appointments and an OB appointment each week. It was exhausting. When I was pregnant with twins, we lived in a small apartment with one toddler; I left the housework to my hubby. It was a small amount of housework and got done whenever he got around to it. (Sometimes in a frustrating amount of time.) But it all worked out.

How did I stay at home and take care of a toddler by myself every day then?

1. Netflix Instant Queue
I never had to get up to change a DVD. I could add shows to our queue from my computer and either watch them on our laptop or from our Blu-Ray player.

2. Toddler Look and Find books
I know I say this all the time, but I seriously loved these. I could sit and do these with our toddlers while I was laid out on the couch and later when I was feeding 2 newborns. There is so much to talk about in these books, from finding his favorite Disney characters to making up stories about what they are doing. These were a huge source of entertainment to us.

3. Melissa and Doug box puzzles
I love these puzzles. There are 4 puzzles in one box. He would drag this puzzle over to me and we could sit and do 4 puzzles without having to get up. We could do the puzzle on the couch because you assemble the puzzle on the lid of the box. Fantastic. We bought several of these during my pregnancy and in the early "twinfant" stages.

Things are different this time around. I dont have one toddler bumming to go to the park when I need to be resting. I cant turn on a show and take a cat nap while he plays quietly on the family room floor. As I write this blog post, Im propped up on the couch enjoying Braxton Hicks while our 3 boys bounce wildly around the playroom. Our house is always loud. Someone is always getting hurt. One day of skipping tidying up and the toys start taking over all our living spaces (a bit hazardous for me since I can barely see my feet!). So what am I doing this time around?

First of all, we have a very different living situation this time around. We dont have a small, quiet apartment to take care of. My husband is working much longer hours and when hes home he takes care of the kids and does a few small chores. He doesnt have time to do all the housework. We dont have a housekeeper helping us out like we did in North Carolina. Instead, I rely a lot on doing small tasks each day. I dont have one big day of housecleaning. We tidy as we go and I accomplish one area of housecleaning earlier in the day when my energy is at its peak. (For our cleaning schedule, check out my blog post, "Domestic goddess.") I also prioritize our house chores. I dont waste my energy doing things that dont need to be done right then or dont need to be done by me. For instance, heavier kitchen appliances that go in awkward cabinets will sit on our kitchen counter all day until my husband gets home to put them away. When I make a huge Costco run, I stack things in my vehicle so when I get home I can unload the freezer/fridge items and leave the rest for when my husband gets home. There is no need to tire myself out doing things that dont have to get done right then. These are small examples, but they add up. Sometimes I look around the house and think, "Man, we need to sweep the floors!" But we dont have company coming over and I already cleaned the bathrooms that day, so I put it off until the following day. Or, lately, I ask our oldest son if he wants to do it. Surprisingly, 9 times out of 10 he enthusiastically says yes; he absolutely loves helping his momma, as he calls it. One of the hardest things for me to do, oddly enough, is pick up toys. The constant bending over to pick up toys from the floor really inflames my round ligaments, not to mention sometimes making me very lightheaded (the joys of pregnancy-- Im anemic too, of course). I never spend time picking up toys anymore. I have the boys pick up their toys throughout the day, but my husband has them clean everything up each night when he gets home. I posted as a Facebook status the other day, "How do you guys get it all done?" My favorite response: "I dont." That really is the answer. I dont get it all done; I dont try to and I dont pretend to. I do what I can.

The number and ages of our children are also different. I was pregnant with our twins when our oldest had just turned 2-years old and then was months shy of turning 3-years old when they were born. I have been pregnant this time with a 5-year old (now 5 and a half year old) and 2.5-years old, just turned 3-years old toddler twins-- 3 kids at busy ages! While we have to sometimes, our kids go nuts staying home all day. They want to ride bikes, play outside, run in circles, and experiment. Homeschooling has been a huge blessing because we are always looking for activities. As this pregnancy has progressed, Ive set guidelines for myself when scheduling our days. I dont do activities that require walking or standing around; I must be able to sit. I dont over schedule our days (well, I really try not to... I accidentally overbooked yesterday). I stick to one or two activities, including errands and bigger chores. I have fun things for our boys to do in our front and back yard. My husband makes sure our outdoor spaces are usable for us. Hes always picking up our back porch so I can sit out there with the boys and watch them play. He keeps our garage organized so all I have to do is open up the garage and pull out our nice, sturdy folding chairs and watch the boys play. I love being able to let them run wild right outside of our house. We have tons of outdoors toys-- a water table, bikes, chalk, hose, sprinkler, scooters, every ball and sport you can think of, bubbles... They love paint brushes and buckets of water; they "paint" everything in sight. This is nice too because they can run in the house and use the restroom and I can fill up my water without having to drag everyone off of play equipment while lugging around all our stuff, like when we go to the park. I do also utilize our neighborhood parks; we pack sand toys and picnic. Sometimes this is our days outing. For the days we have to stay at the house, we have lots of indoor toys and we make sure to pick them up between activities so they stay fun, even if they can reach a lot of these themselves. We have crayons, Play Doh, puzzles, crafts... I really try to do a couple focused activities with them a day, even just helping me make granola bars, so that they arent moving from down time to down time.

Here are some of the things I have loved so far during this pregnancy:

1. Finding a homeschool playdate group
Since we are homeschooling preschool this year and starting to homeschool kindergarten next year, finding a playdate group with fellow homeschoolers has been awesome! (If you arent a homeschooling family, maybe just a mommy playdate group?) Instead of me trying to fill our calendar with things to do, I have this group of moms who are always planning something. They are always posting park meet ups, picnics, bubble playdates, information on local happenings... I love it and my kids love it. I dont go to all the playdates and Ive had to leave early a couple times, but it sure is nice to have low-key playdates outside of our house to take the kids to on our calendar!

2. Brain Quest workbooks
This is for our 5-year old. For our 3-year olds, I am using a lot of the same things I used with their older brother when I was pregnant with them. We do Look and Finds; we watch Netflix. And they are entertained. For our 5-year old... he gets bored. He wants to do something. These have been a recent purchase and Im sooooo glad we got them. We have our homeschool activities (read "Homeschooling 5-year old preschool"), but this is not for homeschool. This is just for the times that he is bumming to play a game and I want to lay on the couch because his brothers are finally quiet. He sits next to me on the couch and works on his workbook. He loves the puzzles and games. These have been very entertaining for him.

3. Well-stocked pantry
While running out of groceries wasnt a huge deal when it was my husband and I feeding a toddler,  now that we are a family of 5, I cant feed our kids just by splitting my meal with them. Eating out gets expensive, not to mention it is very inconvenient at our current duty station. It is exceedingly convenient to be able to make our meals at home (read "Family diet and family budget"). For breakfast we had English muffins, strawberries, and hard boiled eggs. We spent some time outside, came home for lunch, and I let the boys play on the back porch while they ate sandwiches, pickles, and apples. For snack we turned on a movie and picnicked on our family room floor where they had chips, almonds, and dried apricots. Since today has been such a rough pregnant day for me, I threw some tortellini in boiling water and steamed a bag of frozen veggies for dinner. Not fancy, but super easy.

4. Games
Games have been ah-maze-ing this pregnancy. We play so many games. With our 5-year old, we play the obvious preschool games: Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land. We also enjoy playing with him:

• Share a Berry
• SpongeBob Square Pants Yahtzee Junior
• Farkle
• Sorry and Sorry Sliders
• Battleship
• ThinkFun Math Dice Jr
• Uno
• 3-in-1 Jumbo Checkers

We dont play as many games with our 3-year olds. We didnt really start playing a lot of games with our oldest, like seriously play games, until he was around 3.5/4-years old. Playing with all 3 of our kids is a little crazy. We usually can get in 2, maybe 3, rounds before the toddlers are bored and our 5-year old is frustrated. With them, we recently have started playing Uno Moo-- which is actually a lot of fun and our oldest will play with his brothers, even without an adult-- and Cooties. Cooties has been more fun for us to play with the age groups, either with our 5-year old or with our 3-year olds. Our oldest wants to follow every rule and our toddlers just want to build Cooties and make them dance. A game our 3-year olds really like is when we take out their deck of cards and shuffle and deal and pass cards around. There is no rhyme or reason to this game, just holding real playing cards (one of our old decks that is now missing many cards).

5. Let it be
To quote the Beatles, "There will be an answer; let it be." Sometimes I just let it be. The kids are behaving too wildly-- but happily-- in the playroom and Im having horrible round ligament pain? Let it be. Husband called to say he was on his way home when I made steamed veggies and tortellini for dinner? Let it be. Someone knocked on the front door when Im wearing my husbands PT gear and our kitchen counter is covered in dishes? Let it be. Some of this stuff just really doesnt matter that much in the scheme of things. My house is not going to look like how it did before I got pregnant with baby #4 (which isnt how it looked before I got pregnant with babies #2 and #3... which isnt how it looked before I got pregnant with baby #1... notice a trend?). Pregnancy is a temporary state; Im not going to be pregnant forever. Yes, I will be busy when baby #4 gets here and there will be sleepless nights, but I wont be dealing with all the wonderful side effects of pregnancy (note the sarcasm). I cant do it all right now and there is no reason to do it all right now. Our house is operating under a Priority Policy-- if it must get done it will; if not, it wont. The harder side of letting it be has really been saying no. Sometimes there are things I want to do, but I know that after a day with the kids and my hubbys schedule being what it is, that it would be too much for me to go, that I wouldnt have any energy or that I would really pay for it that night with Braxton Hicks. The biggest reason I say no to things is that I know would just be exhausting for me and not fun, like if I would have to spend too much time wrangling the kids. It is what it is. I cant change whats on my plate-- my husbands schedule, our active kids, the point Im at in this pregnancy-- and so I just need to put some thought into what I say yes and no to.

6. Sisters
Ah-- gotta love family. Since we dont live anywhere near family, my sister is going to fly down and stay with us for a month, during an especially busy time in my husbands schedule, when Im even further in the third trimester and having a hard time dealing with his long hours. Im so excited to have her come down and help with the kids and make us dinner and pick up around the house-- er, I mean, Im really looking forward to her company. ;) On some of these really busy days, it is so comforting to think, "Only a couple more weeks and my sister will be here!"

So that is how Ive been taking it easy so far this pregnancy. My definition of taking it easy has evolved with each pregnancy and again this pregnancy with each trimester. Now that Im 30 weeks (home stretch!), Ive really had to put more thought into how I can take it easy with 3 kids.

What are your tips for taking it easy when pregnant, especially if you have other children?

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weight loss during pregnancy due to sickness | Family diet and family budget

weight loss during pregnancy due to sickness

As a larger family, our grocery budget can be a little intense, especially as we have really tried to cut the crap out of our diet. Ive written before about how we cut out hydrogenated oils and aspartame ("The first step") and how we really try to eat at home ("Dinnertime"). Over two years has passed since I wrote those blog posts and I wanted to do a follow up. How are we doing now that we have two busy toddlers, a homeschooling preschooler, and another on the way? And, since I wrote those original posts, weve moved twice ("Across town move" and "PCS to South Carolina") and my hubby started power school--a lot has changed since we decided to undertake a new family diet!

Im happy to report that our family diet is going even better than we had anticipated! Not only have we cut out hydrogenated oils and aspartame, but weve also cut out food coloring and fast food. We stick to foods that have ingredients we can pronounce or that we know the origin/purpose of. For the processed foods we buy, we try to stick to under 10 ingredients, preferably under 5, bonus points if they are made out of ingredients we have in our own pantry (take, for instance, Cape Cod chips).

Getting to this point has required a significant shift in how we do things. I pack a lunch or snack almost every time I leave the house with the boys. This has many added bonuses. My husband would say that first and foremost this saves us money. Im not driving through Chick Fil A to pick up 3 kids meals at just over $3 each plus my meal, equaling about $20 for one meal that wont even be finished by the kids. I like it because I can control what is in the lunches I pack for our boys. I can also pack more of what I know theyll eat (fruits and veggies) and pick a protein I know theyll like more than chicken nuggets (like yogurt or peanut butter). It has been a shift because it does require preparation before we leave the house. If we are going to be out of the house for a longer amount of time, I need lunch and a snack. If I think well only be out of the house for a short while, but home for lunch, I often pack a snack anyways that keeps well (apple slices and string cheese with an ice pack). This works great because if it takes me longer than expected to get home, I have something on hand and Im not tempted to drive through anywhere on our way home. Plus, when we do get home the boys have something on their tummies so they arent fussing and whining while I pull together lunch. In my blog post "Toddler twin must haves (2yo to 3yo)," I list what we use to pack the boys lunches and my favorite lunch pail to use for me and the boys.

Packing lunches has also required that we have more food on hand at home which means staying on top of our grocery shopping. I miss how convenient it was for us to do online grocery shopping at Harris Teeter in North Carolina, but we live here in South Carolina now and dont have that luxury close by. Instead I do the bulk of our shopping at Costco and a real life grocery store. That has been another big shift for us because the entire time we lived in North Carolina, I did the bulk of our shopping online. Suddenly I find myself in South Carolina with a preschooler and toddler twins and Im figuring out how to make grocery shopping work with our hoard! We are in the groove of it now. (Though it has really made me appreciate the convenience of online grocery shopping and made me miss our old Harris Teeter even more.) To accommodate our family and cut down on the frequency of our grocery trips, the extra side-by-side fridge/freezer in our garage has really come in handy. With the aid of our extra fridge/freezer, I can pretty much limit our grocery shopping to every 2 weeks. That means that when we run to Costco, I buy the 7.5 dozen box of eggs, 3-4 gallons of milk, and 2-3 cartons of heavy cream every 2 weeks. I missed my last Costco run so my hubby actually had to pick up a carton of 18 eggs at the commissary and we have been rationing them over the past couple days. (Yes, eggs are our favorite protein!)

 

Costco is an integral part in our family grocery shopping. There are so many things that I buy there that would cost a fortune buying in smaller portions at a grocery store, even the commissary, such as nuts, dried fruits, tubs of yogurt (we buy the large tubs and then portion out from there), eggs, milk, butter, organic ground beef, fancy cheeses, and a lot of the fresh produce we buy there. I wrote before about how Costco has a lot of great organic options for a better price than grocery stores, but, even there, a lot of times I still cant squeeze it into our family budget (read "Organics vs family budget"). Ive found that the longer we stick with our family diet, the more we have been able to make room for things, like insisting on real maple syrup and not table syrup (we buy Costcos organic maple syrup).

 

And to make more room in our family grocery budget, Ive started making a lot more things from scratch. I thought that I made a lot of things before, but weve really started incorporating homemade items into our regular day to day family life. This has been a slow shift because it puts a lot more on my plate that Ive had to make room for. Yet, it all fits in, especially since we are homeschooling. We are home and I can talk to the boys while I make granola bars or have them help cook, especially our oldest who is very interested in the happenings of our kitchen. My husband and I love that we are controlling what goes into our food. Some things I started making homemade out of necessity. The cost of granola bars was becoming a substantial portion of our grocery budget. Because we cut so much of the junk out of our family diet, buying granola bars that made the grade was a much larger expense. If you read the back of the boxes of granola bars, most of them are essentially candy bars. My husband loves to bring a granola bar in his lunch for power school and I love having them as snacks for our boys or myself when Im feeling like I need a boost (oh, the joys of pregnancy!). The granola bar recipe I used to make granola bars for the kids wasnt filling enough for my hubby and Clif Bars were becoming too expensive. I found this Hearty, Homemade Granola Bar Recipe posted by Mens Health that I modify based on what is my cupboard, usually switching up what nuts I use or the dried fruits I mix in, which also gives them variety.

 

But Ive taken over making a lot of things from scratch, like pasta sauce. I have a food processor that I love (shout out to Cuisinart!) and make the Best Marinara Sauce Yet courtesy of AllRecipes.com. Ive also been making our pie crusts more and more instead of using the Trader Joe frozen pie crust like I did almost the entire first 2-years of our twins lives. Putting that food processor to use again, Ive loved Pams Pie Crust from the Pioneer Woman. We also love the Pioneer Womans Applesauce Recipe, another food processor favorite. My family is absolutely crazed for Alton Browns "Instant" Pancake Mix Recipe. Weve used a variety of mix-ins for the pancake mix; well never be buying pancake mix from the store again with a recipe that tasty (and easy)! The Pioneer Woman has so many amazing recipes on her website that whipping something up from scratch isnt intimidating anymore. For instance, this is one of my favorite oh-crap-it-is-dinnertime recipes, her Bowtie Chicken Alfredo. The other night I threw a couple frozen chicken breasts in warm water for a few minutes before dicing the mostly frozen breasts and tossing them in pan for that recipe--easy and homemade in under half an hour. I cannot recommend her cookbooks or her 16-minute meals tab on her blog enough. Her cookbooks are totally worth the money and her 16-minute meals tab is well worth the time to peruse. I own The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl and The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from my Frontier. Tonight I made her Mini Meatball Sandwiches. However, Ive made the recipe many times before and my pregnant self knew all I wanted was meatballs in sauce. I whipped up the meatballs in my Kitchen Aid mixer and made my marinara sauce in my food processor to pour over the top of them. We ate them with broccoli sprinkled with Parmesan. Hands down, my favorite Pioneer Woman recipe is her Comfort Meatballs. I dont know what it is about these meatballs that I just love.They really do just taste comforting. My husbands favorite recipe is her Chicken Pot Pie. We havent bought store bought chicken pot pies or meatballs in over 3 years because of the Pioneer Woman.

 

We eat the majority of our meals at home. Much like packing lunches, this takes preparation as well. I freeze most of our meat. I stock up on meat at Costco and freeze it in portions that work for most of our recipes. It is so convenient having a well-stocked meat freezer. I can flip open my cookbook and decide what sounds good-- flank steak? pork chops? chicken? I try to cook portions that will last for a family dinner and lunch the next day, both for my husband and for myself and the kids. Right now for our family of five-- a 5-year old and 2 3-year olds-- that means cooking for 6-8 people. Because buying organic, free-range meat is so expensive, I try to do several meatless recipes a week or really cut down on the amount of meat in a recipe I cook. My family never notices when I almost cut the meat in half in a lot of our regular recipes. Another one of my favorite tricks from the Pioneer Woman is to cook a large portion of meat-- like a brisket-- and then break it up into several different dishes, like what she did on her "Bulk Buys" episode of The Pioneer Woman.

 

I also utilize tricks to make things quicker for me, especially breakfast. For instance, when we make pancakes, we make big batches that will have plenty of leftovers. The last batch of pancakes we made lasted us 2 days after we made them. I just microwaved pancakes in the morning. Most mornings we have eggs or oatmeal for breakfast. I make the eggs fresh each morning, throwing some toast in and giving the boys a banana while the eggs cook. Since we dont buy instant oatmeal, I give them a banana and a glass of milk while I cook their oatmeal. When I make oatmeal, I make a huge pot. I get the water boiling first thing when I wake up (well, second after my cup of coffee). I store the leftovers in a container in the fridge. The following mornings I scoop the boys portions into their bowls, splash a little water on top, and microwave the bowls 1 or 2 at a time. I stir it up before mixing in their toppings. I either do a little sugar and milk or brown sugar and mashed banana. Sometimes Ill do strawberry spread with chopped nuts or granola on top. We also like doing "pizza toast." I toast some bread and spread yogurt on top. I chop up strawberries or bananas and lay them like "pepperonis" on the pizza. Sometimes Ill sprinkle some sort of spice on this, like ginger or cinnamon, or drizzle honey over the top. Sometimes I drop berries over the top of this. I buy the big tubs of plain Greek yogurt at Costco instead of individual cups; I use this for the yogurt I spread on their toast and to eat with mix-ins. Of all the fancy ways I mix up my yogurt, our kids prefer it drizzled with honey. And as much as they love fruit, they dont like when I drop fruit in their yogurt, just on the side of their bowls.

 

 

For us, eating healthy is not about a calorie count; it is about balance. We eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. I use my Pampered Chef Apple Wedger almost everyday. We snack on fruits and veggies; we eat them raw with breakfast and lunch everyday. I actually cut them up for dinner a lot too, especially if the one dish meal I made isnt heavy in veggies. I care much more about the ingredients list than the calories to fat. We believe in moderation, portion size, and a healthy, active lifestyle. We spend a lot of time playing outside-- a lot of time. We like going to the park, taking walks, and playing around our house. When I say our family diet is much more a lifestyle, I really mean that it seeps into all aspects of our life. We dont believe in a life dependent on technology for ourselves or our kids (read "Toddler technology"). Our kids are often bored and we like it that way. Today while they were bored, our oldest took it upon himself to pull out our large coloring sheets and teach his brothers their colors. They spent 45 minutes coloring together and working together as a team; they also spent a large portion of the day playing on our back patio in costumes and doing various imaginative play throughout our house. We read them books-- real life, bound books. We try to make the best choices that we can for our family.

 

Part of that has also been shifting to making our household cleaners (read "Homemade household cleaners"). This has also been one of those decisions that has really been a blessing both to our lifestyle and our family budget. I love being able to mix up refill cleaners in my laundry room instead of having to make a trip to the store. I love that they are non-toxic. My husband absolutely loves how affordable they are. Our kids can help us clean house without worry about the chemicals they are handling.

 

We are really happy with the changes we have made as a family. When we first made this shift, I never would have believed all the things that slowly would have made their way onto my plate, like making household cleaners or all these different things from scratch all the time. There are other staples in our family diet that I would like to shift to homemade, like our bread. I have a bread maker, but every time I make bread in there, my son calls it "ugly bread." I think I may try having the bread maker knead it up and let it rise, then pour it into a bread pan and bake it in the oven. Maybe that will help make it more attractive. Id love to get rid of store bought bread. We consume so much bread and there are so many ingredients in store bought bread that I would like to cut out.

 

Something that I touched on in my blog post "Organics vs family budget" is that sometimes what we want to buy doesnt always line up with what we can afford to buy each month. I feel that we are taking steps in the right direction and that we are much further towards that right direction than I would have expected us to be when we originally started down this path. I would love for us to buy all organic, free-range meat, but that doesnt mean that we can suddenly afford that. So we buy the next best thing. I would love if we could afford to buy all organic dairy products, but, man, we cannot afford that. I would love if we could afford organic eggs again, but we are buying the 7.5 dozen box practically every 2 weeks. We would either need to cut down drastically on our egg consumption or start a special egg savings account. I do my best to avoid GMOs, but, honestly, my attempt is spotty at best. I have found that trying to buy products with recognizable ingredients has cut out a lot of the red-flag GMO products (bye-bye processed cereal!).

 

When I look at where we are now compared with when I wrote my first blog post on our family diet in October 2011, it is night and day. In another 2 years, where will be then? My mom called me the other day and told me that someone gave her a bunch of eggs from the chickens they raise. She said it reminded her of me. I would seriously love if we had fresh eggs-- not sure how military housing at each of our duty stations would feel about us throwing a chicken coup out back. (Maybe when my hubby retires...) Tonight my hubby and I were looking up peanut butter recipes for our food processor. My love of cooking has grown. I love that my husband loves the granola bars I make him and that my kids get excited when I tell them what Im making for dinner. I love when Ive had a really stressful day and I make Clodagh McKennas risotto to unwind. I cannot even begin to describe how much I love watching our oldest help his daddy make pancakes for breakfast; they are such an adorable pair! We absolutely love when our kids get excited over "real" food. We like the direction this is going in. We like the food weve been making. We like turning raw ingredients into something delicious and we love gathering together as a family to enjoy them. It was a scary first step to take, but we havent ever looked back.

 

END NOTE:

 

I do want to make a note here that we have made a very conscious effort to not be confrontational about any of our changes in our family diet. We never turn down what is offered us when we go to dinner somewhere. We do not judge other peoples choices for their family diets. We do not expect our families to conform to our diet or buy anything special for us. We have eaten the candy given to us at holidays and never make it a big deal to our kids; we even have a sweets bin in our pantry. We have tried to be very practical about these changes. I wish that it was more mainstream to eat this way; Im totally on board with Jamie Olivers Food Revolution. But we understand that not everyone feels this way or eats this way and so we have been very careful and thoughtful in our friendships and day to day life to make sure we dont isolate people with our diet changes. Im writing this blog post on something that has been a big shift for us as a family and how we made those steps.?

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