Clean Menu

It's time 

for week one of clean eating 

AHHH!

Is it silly that I am kind of nervous.

More than anything I am just really excited to 

start putting so much goodness into my body! :)

Here is my menu for this week, just in case you are interested.

Breakfast:

Banana Oatmeal cups

Green Smoothie

Strawberry Quinoa Muffin

We still have granola left over for cereal and yogurt toppings.

Snacks:

easy cheesy crackers

hummus

Dehydrated apples and strawberries

veggy goldfish

Dinner:

stir fry

Sweet Potato Veggy Burgers

Linguinne with creamy scallion pesto

Coconut chicken satay

Lunch:

I never made the chicken Salad from last week so it is still on the menu.

Healthy Mac and cheese

So you have the game plan...

Now it is time to dive in!

Remember that it is never to late to join me on my 

Month o' unprocessed food!!!

Much love

~Rach~

Happiness!

I feel like I have been complaining a lot lately...

SO I wanted to take a minute and share some good things happening in my life.

1. Z-baby was a cutie booty ALL last week. Talking her jibber-jabber 

and just learning so many new things. She brings so 

much laughter into our house!

(She did this all by herself)

2. Baby-M slept a 9 hour stretch a couple nights ago!

3. These two already LOVE each other. I seriously

can not believe how well Zadie treats Mattie!

4. I got to get a pedicure and manicure yesterday (my parents are great!)

It was almost this color... but a little darker.

I feel so hip ;)

image via

5. My keys were locked in my running car and after a few minutes of panicking

my car lights blinked and the car unlocked itself.

Praise the LORD for technology!

image via

6. I made it to church this morning with both girls, by myself, and it was not tragic!

That is an enormous blessing!

image via

~happy Sunday

Unprocessed March

So I've made a commitment to not eat processed food in March

And my lucky family gets to do it with me!

I love to cook and bake and EAT-

A LOT!

I have always joked that I run so I can eat what I want.

It was kinda a serious joke though...

The hubster and I recently watched the documentary 

Forks Over Knives.

I really still can't believe I watched it.

I have managed to not watch Food Inc.

or any of those other highly informative movies that might just 

make me second guess my food choices.

Somehow I let this vid slip through and OF COURSE 

it made me want to eat differently.

(I am such a sucker for fads!)

This is not really a fad though :)

It is serious.

Our bodies are our temples and we tend to really make a mess of them.

Now that I get to stay at home I feel like it is really on this momma's 

shoulders to create healthy habits in my family.

I read a blog post at a small snippet

that I think explains my decisions really clearly.

I'm not going to repeat what she says- I'll let you hop on over and read if you are interested!

(sidenote: I do not grind my own flour although I think she is very awesome for doing it!)

Anywho, you may not give a flying flip about this change in my life 

and I totally understand if you don't!

But if you have been considering this change to and

want to try it out with me next month I would LOVE it!

There is a lot of debate about what "unprocessed" or "clean" eating actually is. 

For me, I have no desire to cut out meat and dairy.

I definitely have a desire to limit it but I will not be doing a "whole food" diet as is defined in 

Forks Over Knives.

I am leaning more to the definition and "rules" given on the blog food rules.

I also have learned a lot from the blog 100 days of real food

and I have found a bunch of frugal delish dishes at poor girl eats well.

I am going to take one month and see if this is seriously a change my family could make permanently.

These are my goals:

1. (honestly) I'd like to drop the baby weight.

2. See how much this diet coupled with working out regularly changes the way I feel/ look

3. Try to eat really healthy on a budget (see if it is truly possible)

4. know how to read a food label/ be aware of what my family and I are consuming

I am getting a slow go on things this week.

I have made my dinner menu unprocessed... but we didn't eat much processed food for dinner to begin with.

It is the snacks that get us... and the desserts!!!

Here is a look at this weeks "almost" unprocessed menu:

(This is in my oven right now!)

this will be our sandwich bread-

100% wheat and honey bread

and a breakfast option

(it smells SO good)

apple cinnamon bread

Another breakfast option-

homemade granola

We had a veggie pizza for dinner tonight on this crust

Dinner tomorrow night:

braised coconut spinach and chickpeas with lemon over a sweet potato

vegetable tian-

a side dish to grilled steak

Dinner

Spinach and Swiss Quiche

Lunch:

greek yogurt chicken salad

And of course...

DESSERT!

So I am thinking this is not going to be that bad at meal times...

Now we just have to conquer snack time!

I do have some plans for homemade (really quick and easy) granola bars.

And I am planning on dehydrating some strawberry fruit roll-ups tomorrow!

I'll keep you guys posted-

But not TOO often for those of you who could not give a flip :)

PLEASE join me if you want!

There is always strength in numbers

(and more recipes!)

If you would like some unprocessed meal ideas as I scour the internet I am posting to this Pinboard.

Feel free to start following it!

~happy healthy eating

The ever changing picture frame

I have a confession to make:

I have blogger envy.

And I wish I could say it was just for one specific blog

but it isn't.

I am envious and a little bit bitter about all those bloggers who post 

professional pictures of their nearly professional crafts

that they just "threw together."

GAG!

(okay, that was totally just my jealousy talking :)

I have come to terms that around my house

Well, around ME specifically,

nothing is going to go perfectly. 

Like in that cute little kindle cover post

I failed to tell you that I had to cut out the material for the project TWICE

because the first time I cut out the pieces to fit

something about the size of an ipod.

(this is AFTER i already added the applique :)

Seriously.

And then when I finally had it cut correctly

and I was on the final few stitches,

I put the corner of the front cover in coffee.

The coffee that I had so intelligently set RIGHT behind the arm of my sewing machine.

Are you shaking your head yet?

I'm not. I'm laughing... 

I told you that my new life motto is  

Chaos is beauty.

On that note I want to show you one of my latest 

most favorite projects:

The two reasons why it is one of my most favorite projects is

1. I am far to fickle about pictures and this is just way to easy to change up.

2. It cost me about one dollar to make!

Whoop!

You have to love projects like that.

I got all of the wood supplies from my good friend who has recently renovated her farm house.

We like to have craft nights every once in a while and I always steal some of her super cool wood she has stashed in her barn.

This is actually a piece of wood from a front porch she tore down.

(I didn't even have to sand it. It was naturally that awesomely rustic looking!)

The skinny wood pieces are slats from an old broken shutter that we cut down to size to frame the pictures.

These cute little clothespins are the only thing I had to buy

and I have so many more projects in mind

that I want to use them for!

My craft night/ farm house friend is also my photographer friend.

(She is a good friend to have!)

She took this fabulous sequence of pictures at my maternity shoot.

They were not planned pictures.

We actually were trying to get a posed picture that Z-baby kept interrupting.

She was ENTHRALLED by the bubble I was blowing.

I may not have gotten my posed picture 

BUT 

I love this sequence!

My little family is growing though and I know there will be plenty of more pictures to love.

That is why I am so very excited about the versatility of this project!

The Chaos: The day I was planning on finishing and photographing this project Z-baby found    these three pictures and fell in love. And you know how toddlers show their love- by slobbering and crumpling. :) I wish I could be one of those blog mommas who at this point says "so I jumped in the car and ran to the store and reprinted them."

But I can't. 

Seriously- I have a 5 week old who likes to nurse like every 5 minutes it seems. 

Instead I placed the crumpled pictures between two heavy books, put the blog pictures off a couple of days, and when I finally did take them I just tried to angle for the least amount of glare. 

I really truly love my life and my crinkled pictures and my little picture crinkler!

~happy bubble blowing :)

kindle fire cover

I have been loving being a mother of two.

It feels like my family is so much more complete...

you know what I mean?!

I have been loving it so much that it gave me a sense of foreboding.

Like I knew something was going to have to happen to shake up my happy place.

Because, let's be real,

as good as having two kids is... it is HARD.

Especially when you have two kids under two!

That ball dropped about two weeks ago.

I started telling you about it in an earlier post.

I want to just list the things that went wrong in a week.

Not to complain because I know it could have been MUCH worse,

more to just give you a laugh.

1. I got my car stuck in a puddle leaving a party.
2. I brushed my teeth with the toilet cleaning toothbrush.
3. I only got about 4 hours of sleep each night due to nursing
4. I swallowed my tooth
5. I had to puke up a really delicious dinner to try to find said tooth.
6. I never found my $900 dollar tooth
7. my kindle decided not to work out of nowhere and they told me I had to pay to replace it even though it was a system error... grrr
8. Z-baby got sick (which brought lots of weeping and no sleeping)
9. Our heater broke on the coldest two days of winter this year.

Drumroll please...

number 10: I asked my hubby to pick up krispy kreme because I thought my horrible week deserved some indulgence. He was kind enough to stop on his way home from work only to find that their glazing machine was broken... seriously!!!

I held my own until then...

but when he came home empty handed my sleep- deprived- bad- week- self just cried.

All that to say that I was truly in no mood for V-Day.

But the hubster knew just what to do.

I woke up tuesday morning to a brand new kindle fire.

I love that man.

So much.

Then, for the icing on the cake,

he watched the girls and he let me sew!!

Which, as nerdy as this sounds,

I had been DYING to do since having Mattie.

I decided to make a cover for my new kindle...

This one will not end up with a broken screen!

I follow a tutorial from Seven sisters.

I only did a couple things different.

I added an applique to the front.

and I used different elastic because I thought it would hold the Fires thicker frame better.

I wish I would have sewed the elestic down BEFORE i sewed the front and back together.

Then I would not have had all the extra stitches on the back.

I loved the extra pockets but I really don't think they will be useful for anything- 

I might would leave them off next time

But I kept them just in case... 

Maybe I'll use them all the time!

Over all I LOVE it and the tutorial was so simple to follow!

~happy reading!

cauliflower pizza crust

FOOD POST

Whoop! I love to eat!

Today was a pinterest recipe day.

I tried three different recipes.

One was perfection:

microwave chocolate peanut butter bar

YUM!

One was good, but needed a little work:

Cauliflower pizza crust

(pictured above)

It was a little salty.

I need to figure out how to replace all

the cheese in the crust with something else.

Any good ideas?

If I can tweak this just a bit I think it could become a house staple!

One was a FLOP:

(It was yummy but still a flop)

No bake Nutella Cheesecake

The original recipe probably works great.

I think my little change screwed it up.

I read (on pinterest of course) that you could chill coconut milk

and mix it and you could use it to replace whip cream.

It never got to whip cream consistency for me so when I added it

to the other ingredients it made it all very runny.

On a positive note:

I have it in the freezer and I am going to see if it

will make a nice frozen dessert.

The hubs and I just tried some and although it was delicious it was VERY runny!

I'll let you know if it every firms up. 

If it does it will be made often! :)

Love is my religion

I so enjoy celebrating love!

I heard the most fitting song on Pandora this morning 

"Love is my Religion"

sung by Bob Marley's son Izzy.

Love is my religion... 

God is love.

so today is kind of religious right?!

I know I am stretching it :)

My hubby has been asking for a really simple gift the last few months.

He wanted a journal.

Which kind of weirded me out when he asked for it

because he truly is not a sharer of emotion.

He eased my confusion when he finally explained that he

wanted the journal to write down interesting quotes and thoughts 

he has been reading. (He is addicted to Mark Twain right now!)

I have had a long romance with journaling so I was 

VERY excited to shop for this special gift.

I decided to go classic and got him a softcover moleskine.

This is a kind of boring gift... I wanted to find a way to

make it a little bit more sentimental.

I was looking through my trusty ole' Better Homes and Gardens 

when I saw the CUTEST idea.

To make a library card inspired valentines card.

They even gave a template to print out.

I decided to make one for the back of Brent's journal.

I printed out the card and filled it in with ten things I love about my baby...

And yes the first thing is his legs...

I know that is weird for a girl to like but what can I say ;)

I'm a legs girl!

Then I made a cute little envelope to put the card in.

I went ahead and glued it to the back cover so he could keep it with him always.

I thought it turned out really cute!

It was an easy way to make a simple gift more personal.

I can't wait to use this idea again when I give someone a book.

You can do so many different things besides list why you love someone-

seriously endless possibilities!

I hope you like it!

AND

I hope you are having a fabulous valentines day!!

~happy loving!