Whole 30 Day 16 (I think?)

I don't always know how I get so behind on my posts.  It typically takes me a few days to write a blog post now, as I don't have the time or desire during the day to sit and write all at once.  I'll be on a good train of thought and then one of the girls need me and things get postponed.  And I'm just done by bedtime: if it isn't done by that point of my day, it'll have to wait until tomorrow.  I have about zero motivation by that point of the day.

Anyway, I know some of you have been curious about our Whole 30 diet and how that's going (Hi, Mom).  Short answer: awesome.  Long answer: really awesome. 

For a few days, I was doing really well writing down everything we ate- because you all care- and then I kept forgetting.  Eh, oh well.  I'll give you some of the highlights of our meals.

Pumpkin pudding.

Cucumber cilantro lime salad and avocado salsa salad.

Coconut chicken.

Sweet potato breakfast casserole.

Mashed cauliflower.

Buffalo chicken wings.

Pulled pork sliders.

Almond crusted eggplant in marinara.

Jesse's favorite meals may be the coconut chicken, wings (of course!) and the pulled pork sliders.  The sliders were delicious, even though what I made was definitely not following the recipe.. Considering we had no pork roast so I used a deer roast.  And the recipe has you bake some sliced sweet potatoes as "buns" and I only had teeny sweet potatoes, so they were more like bites.  Still tasty.  We have eaten other meals, of course, but I think those are most of the highlights.

We are enjoying this.  There have only been a small handful of times I've thought I wanted something anti-diet, but it quickly passed.  Except Jesse brought home cupcakes with a heap of frosting for the girls and I wanted them.  Even though they were store bought and I knew they would be as terrible as you'd expect from store bought cupcakes.  But that icing.  Oh man.  It looked glorious anyway.  Overall, we both feel we have more energy, which is awesome.  It Starts With Food states that you are eating the wrong sorts of foods and your diet isn't right if you need coffee and caffeine first thing in the morning to function, so it's been nice to feel I have energy throughout the day without naps.  There have only been a few days where I felt tired all day like I used to, so that's encouraging.

Ok, boring stuff out of the way, the girls are doing great.

Lily and I have been making an effort to have some flash card time in the morning.  She recognizes all the letter, and I can mix the flash cards up and she still knows which are which, most of the time.  I can tell when she's done because she'll just start saying she doesn't know what the letter is, when I know she absolutely does.  The other day, I wrote out all the upper and lower case letters on a piece of paper and stuck the sheet in a page protector.  She then learned to trace letters with a dry erase marker.  I just let Lily trace her own way yesterday since she had never done tracing before, but I will show her next time the correct way to draw each letter.  At the end, I pulled the paper out so she could see her work on the page protector and she and I were both thrilled.

Emma is busy.  And requires extra patience.  Some days, Jesse and I get frustrated because it seems that all she does is cry, from the minute she wakes up to the time she finally gives it up and goes to bed.  Those days are hard, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone ever say, "parenting is easy."  Because I don't care who you are, or how much of a Super Mom you are (and I know a few!), being a parent is hard.

While she can be a challenge, Emma is also hilarious.  She's spunky, fun, loves her sisters and keeps us smiling.  She absolutely loves trying to sing along with Frozen, jumping and following in Lily's footsteps.  I think my favorite is when she gets incredibly excited about something, and she starts yelling staccato words.  Like when she sees an airplane, she starts yelling things like, "airplane!  Fly!  Loud!  Funny!" with lots of smiles, arm waving and flailing about.

Kaylee has been good, a little more high maintenance than normal, but still good.  Her "high maintenance" is not even on the same scale as when Emma was "low maintenance."  I feel blessed with an easy baby.  She giggles, loves her sisters and has started interacting with them (which is my new favorite thing EVER), rolls all over the place and is scooting.  My 5 month old is scooting.  And rocking up onto her hands and knees.  And trying to sit up, and doing a pretty good job.  Both Emma and Lily have really started to be all over her lately and I love watching them all together, even the times I get nervous because I'm in a different room from the girls and Lily shows up carrying Kaylee and saying, "look how strong I am!"  Which she is, but since Lily is only 35 pounds and Kaylee is 20 pounds...third born babies are chill because of necessity.  I had been feeling that Kaylee's extra fussing could be a result of a growth spurt, and it turns out I'm right.  I called Jesse into her room last night as I was getting her in a sleeper after a bath.  Her 3-6 month sleeper, which she had just been wearing, was a good 2 inches short.  So I pulled out a 6-9 month sleeper and it fits perfectly.  She's so tall.  Of course, 3-6 still fits fine if there aren't any feet on the outfit. She also tried rice cereal last night because she's been acting interested in food.  Time goes so quickly with kids.

Jesse and I had a heap of plans and projects for the long weekend, but our 4th of July weekend was really low key and lazy.  Which was nice.  We went to hang out with Partins at a local lake for a few hours in the afternoon so the girls could play and swim, which they absolutely loved.  There is a shallow area where the little ones can play, and Emma thought it was the best thing ever to sit on the bottom and splash around.   

Other than that...Jesse has been working on his bee hives quite a bit, as he re-queened his hives.  We've had some chicken issues...But will be reflocking soon.  Needless to say, we hate raccoons and went from 9 chickens to 2.  Our garden is great, Jesse says we will have green beans this weekend, so I guess I better make sure my canner and supplies are in order!  I'm looking forward to eating some of our fresh produce before we can the rest of it.

baby on the move: she started on her back in the bouncer chair.

Lily and Emma and I enjoyed lunch outside over the weekend.