Well…I’m coming to grips with the fact that this may not be a super white winter. Although I was pleased to see that tomorrow and Thursday’s forecast has snow in it,i’m not going to get my hopes up that we will get feet and feet of snow needed for downhill skiing, and cross country skiing. (Who wants to ski on fake snow?) We all enjoyed a 51 degree day yesterday playing outside on the swing set with the dogs & Kirra, and again today,although the temp is in the mid 30’s the bright sun is making it feel warmer. I stayed up past 1:00 a.m. reading Mockingjay (book 3 in the Hunger Games trilogy) and I can barely put it down. Jason bless him let me sleep in today until 10:30. If you haven’t already – go grab yourself a copy of this trilogy. Its so excellent! I’d liken it to Harry Potter & Twilight, only better even! Right after I post this i’m off to read some more! Christmas was so great around here. We all got really amazing gifts. (too many to even list) Top gifts were a Keurig Machine, a speedlite for my camera, and Jason got a nook and a gift cert to the Men’s Wearhouse. Santa brought Kirra a baby 6 & 1 set (Playpen crib/bouncy chair & more. Kirra got lots of clothes a tinkerbell doll,games and a remote control car. The real gift – and the best gift though came with the announcement of my brother & Nicole getting engaged on the 24th! I’m so happy for them, and love Nicole & her family like they were my own… and now they OFFICIALLY will be! Merry Christmas!

So I’ve been feeling a little -un- Christmasy lately with the lack of snow despite the sky TRING to give us a white Christmas. Last night though I attended Christmas service at Eagle Brook,and my heart was reunited with the Christmas spirit, that nothing is impossible with God. I thought I would share my absolute favorite song…and absolute favorite Christmas song! My favorite quote/lyric from the song is… “and the world didn’t know…. salvation was writing a song… the night before Christmas….” Embrace the real magic of Christmas!

Got home from work today and wanted to run aprox. 3 miles. Because all of the snow has melted its quite dark when I get home so I drove over to the development where there are lots of lights and a lake to run around and took Sadie with me. Well right when we got there, and on to the path she wanted nothing to do with running. I’d get about 10 feet and then she would put on the brakes, so I’d run the other way and she’d put on the brakes. Finally I got her to go potty (after about 10 minutes of nonsense) and then and only after a jaunt through the park she was happy to run around the lake. We got done and she was just filthy so I threw her in the sink and gave her a sink bath. Jason made Chicken and Lentil soup, and it was really good! We’re doing rather well still with our clean eating, and I hope to post a recipe per week! The food so far has been delicious and after our unhealthy binge last week (d/t no counterspace) I realized I hardly even like the taste of sugary things anymore! cRaZy!

This week we were much less clean eating due to the fact that we were giving our kitchen a facelift by re-painting our kitchen cabinets, and countertop so therefore I had no countertops, etc to work with. They should be fully dry by Monday so I will resume my clean eating then. I still haven’t had much sugar or milk unless you count the cookies that were brought into my work,and the hot chocolate I had at Church… otherwise we DID almost eat out every night this past week, or had “garbage” food (e.g. Mac & Cheese doesn’t require countertop space)! Debating going out and running with Sadie this afternoon. I’m planning on running in Fargo Half Marathon in May – so I need to start some base training since I haven’t been hardly running since my 10 Mile race in September (i’m awful). I”m planning on doing the Go Far Challenge. You can read about it on their webpage, but it seems like a cool/sweet deal! I’d be doing the 5K/Half option. Well….here is to a 2 mile run with Sadie girl.

Here is a re-cap of how Week 1 went. Lots of water was consumed, and dairy was very limited. Got Kirra to try Almond Milk and Soy milk and she didn’t like either one…so her and Jason will remain on cows milk. Because we ate more often through out the day I won’t bore you with everything we possibly ate- but will give you our dinners. We successfully made it through the whole week (minus Monday night) with no processed food (except white rice really/and the ravioli) I feel great, and didn’t feel like I was really limiting myself on other stuff too much. We did have a bit more refined whole wheats than I would have liked,but we didn’t want to throw anything away. Monday: Lots of water was consumed. Very limited dairy today. Only in my coffee creamer. Bought Almond milk to try tonight, and its surprisingly very very delicious, and lower in sugars and everything ‘bad’ than cows milk/soy etc. Tonight we had Kirra’s kindergarten screen,and didn’t finish until 7pm. So we went out for fast food. As maybe a “last supper”. Dinner: LeAnn Chins (go big or go home with bad food right?) Tuesday: Again lots of water was consumed. A bit more dairy today but no milk. Only in my coffee creamer. Drinking Almond Milk for an after dinner treat and loving it. Dinner: Cheese, and chicken Tortilini and spaghetti sauce with WHITE noodles. Side salad of spinach leafs. Got Kirra to try Almond Milk, but she wasn’t too fond of it. Probably because it has such a different taste compared to cows milk. Wednesday: 80 oz of water today. Same Dairy intake. Dinner: Paprika Chicken with steamed green beans and white rice. Everyone loved it. This would be good with whole wheat pasta, brown rice, barley or couscous. Thursday: Tonight was tricky since I had play-group. Found a juice that only contained 10oz of sugar,and we had Triscuts and apples available. Santa came to our house though and bought all the kids candy canes. Dinner: Chicken Salad with Vadilia Onion Sauce Friday: Dinner: Crunchy Curried Chicken Salad (with yogurt as a binder) It was greek yogurt which I’m NOT a fan of. – I know…dairy slip… but i’ve come to terms that sometimes I’ll have to cook with Dairy for certain recipes. As long as i’m not downing half a gallon of milk at dinner and still abstain from it in general…. Saturday: First time trying Tilapia. It was really really good. Dinner: Potato Crusted Tilapia with steamed vegetables Sunday: Dinner: Garbanzo Bean Tacos. with whole wheat shells. Really freaking delicious!!! I would DEFINITELY make this again. Summary: Our 1 week experiment with eating whole foods really wasn’t a bad transition. I think this went easier than last time,because we’re not also trying to implement an amazingly hard workout routine with it. (Insanity) While I wont’ be drinking too much milk – I probably won’t give up cheese, yogurt, or mayo when required as a cooking agent, or part of it. I had no pop and no junk food. We even got Kirra to ask for healthy snacks. So – here’s to week 2 of clean eating!