Thankful: Day 1

HAPPY NOVEMBER!!!

So I wanted to things we are grateful for in November, at least leading up to Thanksgiving. Here are mine and Ryder's answers. Chase can do this if he so pleases...

Courtney: I am grateful for my family! I love them so much and can't imagine life without them. They are such a great support to me in all of my crazy ideas. Seriously they are the best!

Ryder: Rest

Hummus

If you read the previous post you know that I'm participating in a biggest loser challenge with some family members. I haven't been doing to great so far. The first day we didn't really have much healthy stuff in our house, the 2nd day I had a Mystery Shop so I had Panda Express for lunch.

Today I had made a smootie, but that doesn't fill me up at all! We had some hard boiled eggs so I thought, how about an egg salad sandwich? I love egg salad sandwiches! The toasted bread, the white bread, the mayo! Ugh, but I can't do a mayo filled sandwich when I am trying to eat healthy. Enter hummus...

So I have been wanting to make my own hummus for quite a while now sole because it is pretty healthy. I'm actually never been a fan of it, but it's growing on me. And besides the beans, everything else I had on hand so it's fairly cheap too! I used this recipe except did chili power in place of cayenne because I didn't have any. Pureed it in my food processor and it was done!

According to somewhere it's 80 calories for 2T. So I put 1T on my sandwich and used the other tablespoon for carrots. A little goes a long way when dipping. I still had a good amount left on my plate that I added to my sandwich.

I think it's a little bland and missing something? Maybe the cayenne would solve it.


I also got my arm workout today. I ground up some flax seed with our wheat grinder! I would have just bought the already ground stuff, but Winco was out so I decided to take on the task myself! Do you have any favorite uses/ recipes for flax seed? I'm just planning on using them for extra fiber in smoothies, but other ideas would be great!

Biggest Loser; Challenge Accepted!

So I know it has been awhile and you have probably all forgotten about me, but here I am! The reason for my blogging today is because some members of my family are taking on a little challenge...

The Biggest Loser; Challenge Accepted! Is what we are calling it. Because it is 1. Similar to the show Biggest Loser and 2. 6 out of 8 of us love How I met your mother!

So here is the gist of it. There are 8 of us doing it. We had official weigh ins last night, that was our starting weight. We will do weekly weigh ins on our own to track how we are doing. Then final weigh ins will be on January 18th in the morning so it's a more true weight. The person who looses the most weight percentage wins!

What do they win you may ask? A pretty decent earnings! We are each putting in $20 to participate. So the winner will get $140. Then we are having a 2nd place winner and that person will get their $20 back. In the event of a tie the 2 people will split the $160.

I'm really excited about this! I'm hoping this will be the encouragement I need to jump start a big change! We did a facebook group just for us to track progress, share recipes and tips, etc. We even are having a motivator of the week. That person will be in charge of keeping us pumped! (We'll see how long that goes)

So with that being said, if you have any awesome healthy recipes please send them my way!

Where does the time go?

Really??? It's sad that I post more on my "craft" blog then my personal life. It's not because things aren't happening because they are. It's just I get a little behind and it seems impossible to catch back up.

So the last few months have been great! Chase got a contract doing the same thing he was doing. Only now he gets benefits. Because of that though his hours changed a little so he had to drop one of his classes. Blessing in disguise, he was able to sign up for another one that was online. So he is taking 3 online classes this semester.

He is still biking around. Unfortunately a few months ago his nice road bike that his Cousin gave him was stolen. We used our tax return to get him a decent hybrid bike. So he is back to biking. He was going to do the Tour de Mesa, but it is $115! Can you believe it??? So I told him to just make is own Tour de Chase.

As far as I go things are unbelievable! The craft blog has been so so. I have very few followers (If you don't follow me please do, you'll probably know more about us from that then this). So I am planning on doing a craft fair in November. One of the things I wanted to sell was a carseat cooler.

Since it is hot now I decided to give it a try and sell them on a facebook group called Mesa Consign. One of my friends saw it and asked it I wanted to sell them on a deal a day website she co operates. So if things go well I'll be selling them on this site all over the country! So I'm going to be popping these out like crazy trying to make as many as I can! So I feel like everything else has been put on hold because of this. This weekend I'll be getting the fabric to get it started! So exciting!

So with this experience I wanted to be able to have a business sounding name so when they describe my product it's not just Courtney, a mom.

SIDE NOTE: I did the top a week ago. Had to stop because I heard a strange noise outside. Went to check it out and Ella had her puppies! Well at that point she only had one. Over the next several hours she ended up with 5 healthy puppies!!! (1 unfortunately didn't make it). So if you are looking for puppies in like 6 weeks let us know!

So as I was saying  wanted to get more in the business mode. So I came up with my business name... Ryderbug! It is one of my nicknames for Ryder and I love how it fits! So my Brother Bryan said I should call my carseat cooler a Cool Ryder! LOVE IT!!!

Now onto Ryder. He is a smart little boy! Loves being outside and TV (kind of opposites). We recently took him to Toys 'R Us and let him pick out a toy to buy with his birthday money. He had the best time! He's walk around examining each toy. He ended up getting a Batman and Joker little people and 2 train cars. Not bad for $10! Technically he owes us $.44, but we'll let it slide:)

Tonka & Ella still like to escape the yard. Ella had 5 puppies as mentioned earlier.

Mother's & Father's Day came early this year. I got a Kitchenaid mixer and Chase got a grill! So much fun!

Bike Ride

Last night we spent a good chunk of money on some new bike stuff. Ryder & I got helmets (we'll order Chase a new one online because they only had 1 in store). I got a new bike seat so my rump doesn't hurt the second I get on the bike. And a bike lock so we can keep our bikes:)

Ryder loves his new hat!

 Today Ryder & I went on our first real ride without Daddy! (Well actually it so happened that he didn't have school so Chase rode with us their and then went to work.) We rode to the Library on 1st St and Mesa Dr. it is 2.7 Miles from our house so round trip around 5.5 miles. However we had like an hour brake at the Library so it's not too bad. We go there (Almost) every Thursday for the baby lapsit class. Ryder loves it!

 He fell asleep on the way home. He loves it in his trailer. He cries now sometimes when we get in the car, he'd rather take the bikes. We are hoping to make bikes a main way of transportation for us, a little at a time...

TP

Ryder's I'm so smart moment of the day...

Earlier today I went to the restroom. Yep, I go too! I used up the last of the toilet paper and like usual, I got side tracked and forgot to replace the roll. So later when I needed to go again I find myself sitting on the toilet without any tp... What do I do??? Luckily for me, like usual Ryder followed me into the bathroom. I showed him the empty roll and said “Ryder, can you go in the other bathroom and get me the toilet paper?” He left and came back with the roll! What a smart boy! Then he told me he needed to “poop” which he says for poop and pee so I set him on the toilet. I left him to do his thing while I replaced the TP in the other bathroom. Checked on him and he peed! What a big/ smart boy!

Smoothies

We have been smoothie crazy in the Gibson home lately! They are so good!!! Plus fruit has been pretty cheap lately too. Tonight we had a fun time, Ryder even got to help put everything in the blender. He is such a good helper!!!

Ryder loves doing Cheers!

Story behind the mugs. We love A&W Rootbeer. Unfortunately there aren't many around anymore. On our Honeymoon almost 3 years ago we stopped at one on our way to the Grand Canyon. That is where we got the 2 big mugs. Then when we were in Washington when Ryder was 3 weeks old we went to one there and got 2 little shot glass mugs. It is adorable!!!

So the smoothies kind of look like the antidote from TMNT II, but they were good!!!