Jason informed me last week that he’s getting called back up for work, so that we needed to secure some daycare for Kirra. I called up our usual provider, however she unfortunately was full and unable to take us. Knowing that this would be a possibility last fall – I started scouting out the “what would we do if we can’t go back to Tally” question, and found a Montessori on my way to work that I really liked. Well – I toured the school, and met the director, and some of Kirra’s future teachers, and we are starting her there this Wednesday. This will have lots of structure more similar to a school than what she is used to at Tally’s. She will start out her day upstairs in the daycare area to play with friends Then they have a nutritious snack and milk Outdoor playtime (unless the temperature is below zero, or above 100) She will then move downstairs at 11:00 a.m. to the school area where she will eat her lunch that we provide, just like at “real school” School time, learning lessons etc Back upstairs after 3:30 p.m. for after school daycare We went to Target and picked out a new lunchbox for Kirra, and she picked out a purple one (which is her favorite color) that had a pretty rainbow on it, with a rainbow over the shoulder strap. She will probably be surprised at first with her lack of barbie playing time, but I think she will be excited to learn new things. I will post Wednesday night after her first class.

We are in need of a tsunami of bleach in our house, or Lysol. Anything to start at House Base Zero (Hunger Games Trilogy) Kirra has either RSV or Pneumonia. She started coughing late last week, and had become progressively worse throughout the weekend. She is much more tired than usual, and coughs until she gags. Sometimes having a coughing spell most of the day/night. Jason took her into the doctor on Monday, and because she was just on abx for an ear infection the week before she (the doctor) decided to just have her be on the neb. Kirra is a great trooper on the neb. She had to be on it when she was just two months old when she had Pneumonia, and again around 15-20 months when the doctors couldn’t find out why she was coughing all the time. When she was 15-20 months she wanted nothing to do with the neb or inhaler, and just cried most of the time. Now – she just thinks its the coolest thing ever… which is good since we have to do it every 4 hours while she is awake. Kirra at 2 mos old on the neb Kirra age 4 on the neb I woke up this morning with crusty eye. Sure enough its progressed into full on pink eye round two. We have a funny tradition at my work called Pink Shirt Tuesday, because one of my co-workers wears a pink shirt almost every Tuesday… but I told him this morning that I was going to start Pink Eye Tuesday! … He didn’t think it’d catch on very fast though….

Man I’ve been slacking in the blogging department! here are a few Tid-bits for you to nibble on. Since New Years we’ve all gotten sick with some kind of crud. It left me with a double ear infection, and constant tinnitus, which I still have in my left year. All I hear all day and night is buzz (like a generator in the background) it is very very annoying, but there is no treatment/cure for it. Hopefully time will clear it up. When I have been able to pop/clear my ears the ringing has stopped, but only to return again. At some points I feel like I am going insaine! Kirra just had typical crud. As of this week however she’s been running a mid to higher temperature all week – but usually only in the evenings, or after her late afternoon nap. Ranging between 99.8 and 104. Last night when it was 104 it was like – ok – going to the doctor now. We brought her in, and because she doesn’t have really any other symptoms they put her on abx. We’re to wait until Monday, and if she still has a fever we’re to bring her back in on Monday. They did do a test to measure the vibrations on her ear drum which were lower than the dr. would have liked… so if we don’t have a fever, then we’ll go back in at the end of next week to get that re-checked. We’ve still been eating very healthy, and it makes us feel really good. I haven’t had a drop of pop since Christmas Eve, and I say good riddance. I don’t miss it one bit. I still indulge in my real favorites though of coffee and wine! I’m learning lots of new recipes like Tuscan Bean Stew, and Butternut Squash Soup. Not much else is new. Just trying to get healthy! Cheerio

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!

Jason and I watched a documentary last week called Forks over Knives which was about eating whole foods and eating a plant based diet. We researched it – checked out numerous library books, and cookbooks. I had previously read a book called the Omnivore’s Dilemma, and watched Food Inc. and Meet your Meat. We first thought about entertaining a full out vegan diet. Free of any animal products, and were going to try that for a month and see what results we got. (After you watch Meet your Meat you’ll want to entertain the idea as well). After scouting out the options,we settled on a happy medium [for us]. We’re going to cut out red meat, but will eat fish and chicken [caught ourselves/raised humanely]. We also plan to add a lot more whole grains, fruits, vegetables,and definitely WHOLE FOODS. I am personally going to cut out dairy. Do any kind of research and you’ll know why. Cheese is going to be very very difficult. Not because I munch on cheese all day or NEED to have it in everything, but because many recipes call for it. I will try though. We will substitute some of our chicken and fish meals with beans for protein and hopefully see better results, a healthier body and minds. We’re going to kick the habit (again) of eating junky processed foods and focus on healthier eating. We did try this back in February-April, and fell off the wagon,but hopefully with dedication, and better meal and SNACK planning we will stay on. And hey – if we fall off we can always get back on. One slip up doesn’t mean the end of healthy eating! So I will blog about our journey once a week and let you know how its going. Bon Appétit http://www.100daysofrealfood.com

Since we’ve brought Sadie home she has spent several nights in the bathroom ( to limit where accidents are) a handful of nights in our bedroom (because we couldn’t take the crying) although then its like a treasure hunt to see where she has all had accidents… and finally we’re now crate training. Night 1 in the crate we put her in around 11pm,and boy did she whine, and cry and thrash around in there. Of course its not fun being in a crate especially when you’ve gotten to sleep with your owners on a tempurpedic mattress… but we didn’t want the accidents… and I actually got less sleep when she’s NOT in her crate. We gave up on Thursday into Friday around 1am. Friday Sadie had her first shot,and her vet check which went well. They said she is really really healthy looking, and had no concerns. We go back in around a month for more shots! She even got a nail trim, and her ears cleaned out! Friday night into Saturday night (just last night) we went for crate training number 2. All of the research says that on overnights you have to be ‘hardcore’ and not give into whining, crying,barking and thrashing. That you have to completely ignore it so they don’t think that you’ll come to them every time they whine. Instead they will learn that crying is futile. We ignored her successfully, and everyone got some sleep! When she is not napping (which she does very frequently) she is out every 2 hours or so, and is getting pretty good at potty training. 🙂 She does very well in the crate when we’re away for a few hours, and its nice to know we can leave without our house being destroyed, or her, or any of our animals being in danger.