Happy New Year...and I'm back!

Wow! Can't believe my last post was the end of August 2016. I don't know what happened and why I got away from keeping my blog going. Like I've said before, I want to keep it going for my kids. This is the closest thing they have to a "scrapbook" so I need to make a better effort of posting.

We've just come past the fall and the holiday season. Plus, I never finished my cruise posts! For now I will try to just get something up so that I am back kicking!

We went to Paducah in December to have the kids' picture taken with Santa. This is typical Mallory and Michael when we were waiting in line. Mallory is 12 and Michael is 9 and we told them they had to get their picture with Santa until they are out of the house!

We had the Sutton girls over for our annual ornament painting and cookie party. We've done this every year since we moved here as far as I can remember. Afterwards the kids played a game of Quick Cups. I love tradition!

I didn't take many cake orders during the holidays so I could spend time with the kids. But I did do this cake for a special girl who graduated from nursing school.

We had our birthday party for Jesus in Sunday School and Mallory told the Christmas story using her nativity set she got from Martha in 2010. This is her last year in elementary school so I wanted her to share with the younger kids.We had cake and made an ornament like we always do. Sweet times.

I noticed a nice trend in the Christmas cards we received this year...Merry Christmas is back! Not that any of these sweet friends hadn't used it in the past, but you can just see how many cards say Merry Christmas! 

I painted a couple of wooden boxes for a friend's daughters for Christmas. They were actually gifts from her mom to her girls. I suggested the grandmom write a sweet message on the bottom of them.  I painted on the top but decopauged some things I had cut out of magazines on the sides.

Our elves were back this year. Quickly, Snowflake and Jingles the reindeer, made their appearance on December 1st. I didn't get a picture of all the things they did but they had lots of fun pulling pranks and playing games.

On Christmas Eve the kids listened to the recording of The Night Before Christmas my sweet daddy recorded for them on his last Christmas here on Earth. I'm so glad we have this book for the kids to enjoy hearing Granddaddy read the story in his special way.

 My mother, Lothar and brother were all here for Christmas and we enjoyed playing games, going to the movies and eating out at Red Lobster which has become somewhat of a tradition. I loved that Christmas was on Sunday this year. It's just so wonderful to worship the Lord on the day we celebrate his birth. 

The week after Christmas we went over to Frankfort to visit friends. We had a great break and were ready to go when school started back on Jan. 5th. Happy New Year to everyone!

Catching Up

It's been quite a few weeks since my last post so I thought I'd do a little catching up. 

Paul, Mallory and I are maintaining our post detox weights. Paul and I are actually down a few more pounds. Mallory is about the same. Paul and I still drink two shakes a day and eat one meal for the most part. We like the shakes. They're healthy and an easy meal replacement. To us it's easier to make a shake than to come up with and prepare a meal so we're sticking to that plan. Mallory has a shake on occasion but mostly eats better. We keep healthy snacks on hand and don't have junk food in the house. From time to time we have a treat and it's fine. Paul went back to having a small coffee each morning but I still haven't had coffee since June 5. I don't really miss it. I make myself a cup of tea in the mornings and enjoy that. 

School has started and we're all getting back to our routines. I am working in a new role as one of the secretaries in our school office. I enjoy the new job and look forward to going to work each morning. I take a lunch break around 1245 which makes the afternoon go pretty fast. 

This is my principal Aimee in the middle and the teacher I assisted for the past five years, Leslie, on the right. We all had on blue jean jackets the other day so we had to get a pic:). 

I've been making quite a few cakes lately.  

This was for our back to school staff meeting. The shirt on the cake represented the staff shirts we got for wearing on Fridays.  

This was a smash cake for a one year old birthday boy. I was a little worried about the difficulty of these fondant turtles when the girl sent me the picture of the cake she wanted but it wasn't too bad. 

I made these cookies for a swimming pool party. I don't care for royal icing so when I make cookies I use buttercream. It's not as neat looking but it tastes so much better in my opinion. 

This was a simple white cake for a 16th birthday. The mom just wanted a plain white cake but I added our school logo for fun. 

These two cakes were for a sister and brother who celebrated together. 

This was for a bridal shower. I love these rosette cakes. So pretty. 

I did these rainbow cookies for a rainbows and unicorns party. 

I did these cake pops for a baby shower. I'm not a big fan of cake pops. They came out pretty cute but I prefer cake to cake pops myself. 

This was a surprise cake a guy ordered for his wife and two sons. I thought it was so sweet of him to to that. 

For this one I was given a picture of some paper goods for the birthday so I painted the picture on a piece of fondant using food color as the paint. Horses are so hard to do!

This cake was for a girl graduating from nursing school. 

And this was for a special friend of our family, Sydnie❤️

Whew! That's a lot of baking! I also have been painting some. I'm not a real artist but I enjoy painting easy, graphic things. I absolutely have to look at a picture to copy it. Here are some canvases I did for our school on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Kids :

Then I did these for our counselor's office:

And I did these for a couple of  friends' classrooms:

All this amongst trying to organize our garage and shop buildings. I'll save that project for another post😉

Arbonne Detox Day 26

Oh my goodness only two days left in our big detox. It's gone really fast. Can't believe how quickly time flies when you're eating good!

Yesterday I took the kids to Six Flags in St Louis. Mallory and I took our breakfast shake for the road when we left at 7:00 am. Michael's friend Kyler went with us. I got the boys something for bfast on the way. Donuts. I'm going to start weaning Michael off all this sugar too. Before that would have been me. Donut and coffee. Not this trip and I felt so much better the entire day because of it. 

Mallory was looking forward to meeting up with her friends from the math camp but we never were able to connect. We still had a great time!

It rained the first three hours we were there which was a bummer. We stood in line at guest relations and tried to get comp tickets to come back a different day but the best we came out with was free meal vouchers. Better than nothing! So we found one of the places listed on the back and took a beak from the rain to eat. Mal and I got a veggie burger minus the bun (and fries) and water and the boys had a cheeseburger and chicken strips, fries and a soda. All free and it would have been about 50 bucks. Food there was outrageous. But I guess that's how it is at all amusement parks so I shouldn't have been surprised. Parking was 20. Whatever happened to paying 5 bucks to park?!

The rain eventually moved out and we road lots of rides and played in the water park. Around 530 the boys wanted ice cream. I know it seems cruel to get them these big ol' honkin' waffle cones while Mallory got a bottle of Dasani but we only had three days left so we weren't gonna blow it now. Speaking of outrageous, these cones were $7.99 each and they only have one size. Michael ate the whole thing. More sugar. SMH

 Mallory and I put a fizz stick in our water and that got us through til we left the park around 9. I used to would have never made it all day without coffee or something sweet to keep me going. I have so much more energy now that I've been eating better. It's amazing. 

When we left the park I got Mal a plain salad with grilled chicken at Mc Donald's and I ate some nuts, a green apple and a few sweet potato chips. Arbonne does sell ready made shakes but we don't have any so couldn't fit in our second shake yesterday. We got home at midnight, beat to the socks, but what a great day. 

Today I mainly worked around the house getting ready for our week at camp. We had our breakfast shakes around 830. When we finally got around to having our lunch ones it was 2. I know it's hard to believe but your cravings all but diminish. 

Before I would have been snacking all morning and Mallorynwould have been asking when much was shortly after she finished breakfast. 

I made a simple birthday cake today

and a birthday pie for my friend Sue😄 No pic of the pie:)

For supper I made turkey burgers, no buns, with baked sweet potatoes and veggies. We had  two of the kids' friends here and they really enjoyed the healthy meal! Look at that color! And that's not even showing the orange sweet potato and pretty green avocado we had on the side!

I can't believe we're down to two days. This detox has been such a great experience. I've been praying about starting my own Arbonne business. I've never been into selling anything but I really believe is these products and what they can do to help people get on a path to healthy living.  On Tuesday, July 19th, I'm hosting a Healthy Happy Hour to talk about Arbonne and the detox and share our experience. If you live in the East Prairie area you're invited! Get in touch with me and I'll tell you more. If you're not in Southeast Missouri but would like to know more about Arbonne  please let me know. I'd be happy to tell you all about it!

Detox Day 24-we're on a streak

My whole life growing up I had the same hair. It was long and thick and boring. I kept it long at first because my daddy wouldn't let me cut it. Later, it became a security blanket. I so wish I had cut my hair and wore fun styles through the years. Hair grows. 

So I decided when I had a girl I would let her do whatever she wanted with her hair. Within reason of course😉

Behold the purple streak. 

It's a little hard to see but I guess they do it dark because it will start to fade and at least last a little longer. 

Tonight we had quinoa for the first time. If you're like me you might have thought it was qui-NO-a for the longest time. However in case you aren't familiar, it's pronounced KEEN-wah. 

We all really liked it. Even picky little Michael. I made another of the Arbonne recipes which called for turkey sausage. I got the uncured nitrate free stuff. They sell it at Wal-Mart. I'm starting to key in on more and more organic stuff, by the way, and Wal Mart, as well as Aldi, has quite a bit. Good to know since the nearest Whole Foods is probably two and a half hours away in St Louis. 

Doesn't this look delicious? It was. 

When I served it I stirred in the quinoa as the recipe suggested. 

Eating "clean" is satisfying and delicious. You should try it if you haven't!

All that healthy food is much better for us than this cake I made today. 

 But alas, celebrations call for cake. Not quinoa 😄

Arbonne Detox Day 23

Tonight I went to a Discover Arbonne meeting in Cape. I was asked to share a little bit about our experience with the detox. It's an easy thing to talk about because we have seen such terrific results. Before I left I asked Paul some things I could point out. Here's what he said:

- He feels so much better eating healthy

-He used to be so tired in the afternoons and have to come home and sleep in his chair. Now he has more energy to do more

-He has lost 12 lbs in just over three weeks

-He's lost several inches. His pants that used to be tight are falling down. 

-His blood pressure is down from upper 130s over upper 80s to 117/70

-He feels like we are now on a path and have a plan to eat better and feel better so we're around for our kids

-He really likes the fizz sticks which you drop in water for a bit of energy boost

And much more...

I didn't convey all of that tonight but you can see how thankful Paul and I both are for the experience we have been a part of. 

I find myself looking forward to my morning shake. Next week were headed to church camp and were planning to take our protein powder and make shakes for breakfast at least. The detox will be over but we've ordered more Arbonne protein powder and a few other items to continue with our healthy living. 

When you think about it, it's totally like having a milkshake twice a day. And I love milkshakes. The best part is these are healthy and beneficial and don't make me feel yucky afterwards! 

Go Arbonne. We're big fans👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Because I always like to post a picture , here's a snapshot from our trip to Instanbul in Jan of 02. My dad and brother and I went to Greece and while in Athens my dad suggested we hop over to Turkey. We absolutely loved it. The people were so dear. I hate that all this terrorism is going on. It's just awful. So thankful I serve Jesus and he's got it all handled. 

Detox Day 22 - a mere six days to go

Today we started our final week of the detox. Now that the day is over we only have six more days to go. Our weigh in showed we all had lost again over the course of last week. I completed the 7 day body cleanse yesterday and Paul has a couple more days to go. He started late due to an out of town trip. 

I decided to use an entire week's worth of new recipes along with the shopping list provided for this week's meals. Tonight we had crock pot taco soup. I knew this evening would be busy with swimming and ball games so I put the soup on this morning at 930. It was great to come in this afternoon and have dinner ready. We added some avocado on top and the soup was very flavorful. 

Mallory is attending a math camp again this week. Each day the students walk to the park to eat lunch. I always bring Mallory her shake and an apple cut up with lemon juice on it. I put the juice on it to prevent it from turning brown but Mallory likes the taste of it so that's an added bonus.  

I started a big project cleaning our garage today. 

We're detoxing and decluttering and it is a great feeling!

Detox Day 20

There hasn't been much to report the last couple of days. We are all doing fine and moving right along. There's only eight more days of the detox. The cat thing has gone well. We got Louie's claws taken out so we don't have to worry about being scratched. Mallory hasn't shown any signs of being allergic to him and that was a concern so great on that end. 

Last night was our big Main Street Party. 

There's always lots of good food to eat and we knew there'd be nothing detox friendly so we ate before we went. I made the salmon with the avocado salsa from the first week. Mallory walked around with some friends who got treats but she just stuck to bottled water. 

She continues to shine. 

Michael had fun too. 

I made two cakes and didn't eat any of the scraps again. This was a slip and slide kickball cake. I added a couple of gum paste people after I took this picture. 

This was for the sister. They were both born on the same day 8 years apart. 

Tonight I made meatloaf with carrots, onion and green peppers in it. Served it with baked sweet potatoes and sautéed spinach. It was really good. 

Tomorrow is the end of week 3. Can't believe how fast it's gone.