~Spring Fling Challenge~ Here it is!

 

I am so excited to share the new challenge for the month of April. 

 This challenge is all about getting healthy.  

And I'm hoping to shed a few pounds too!

 

Before we begin the challenge:

1. We all need to record our current weight. 
2. Choose a weigh day. 
3. We need to record measurements of our hips, thighs, belly, bust and arms. 

If you need some guidance on how to take your measurements visit LIVESTRONG.COM.

 

It's important to get your measurements because sometimes we don't lose pounds but we do lose inches.  As you make better food choices and exercise, your body will tighten and firm! 

Choose a day that suits you to weigh in.  Don't weigh yourself everyday.  Our body fluctuates from day to day.  Just choose one day to weigh yourself.  Mine is Saturday morning (in my underwear, before I eat and after I pee...eek TMI...but I want the greatest chance of seeing that scale move!).

 

And now without further delay:  

Here are the new goals for the month of April

~Spring Fling Challenge~

• Eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day (combined)
• Eat an apple a day.  There ya go, one fruit down already
• No fast food, chips, pop, muffins, cookies, brownies, cakes, pies.  You get the picture.  Basically no junk! 
• Don't be discouraged already..I have a surprise....keep reading
• Take a multi-vitamin everyday
• Drink at least 8 eight ounce glasses of water a day
• Do 30 minutes of exercise 5 times a week.  Yep you get two days off, you choose which two!
• You get one SPLURGE a week

Splurge!  That's the surprise.  This month long challenge includes one splurge day per week!  What is a splurge?  It's an ice cream cone, a can of soda pop, a serving of chips!  It's whatever you want it to be and whenever you want it to be.  But you only get one per week, so use it wisely.  And be smart.  A splurge is not consuming an entire family size bag of potato chips in one sitting.  It's just one serving to get you over your craving. 

~Bonus~

 

If you add a sixth day of exercise during your week, give yourself a bonus splurge to be used on another day!

And my favorite part...........
The printable chart to keep track of all those things we need to do.

We Can Do This ~Spring Fling~ April Challenge Printable

 

 

This printable is only good for one week.  So you'll need to print out several.  Just check off each section as you go.  The water section only has seven water drops.  I thought we could put eight dots in each water drop to keep track of the day's water intake.  This way the chart wasn't loaded up with a bunch of water drops.  After all we will be drinking 56 glasses of water a week.  Say What? 

We will be starting in the middle of a week so this printable won't match up exactly to the weeks in April.  For example, the first week of April only has six days, but you get the idea.

 

Ready to start with me? 

Go to the store this weekend and buy your fruits and veggies!  Don't forget the apples and a bottle of multi-vitamins too.

 

This challenge begins April 1st and runs the whole month!

 

We Can Do This!

 

 

 

 

As with any diet or exercise program, consult your doctor before starting.  I am not a health care professional.  This is just something I'm doing be a healthier person! 



~Three More Days And A Sneak Peek~

Only three days left on the 21 Day Challenge!  We will wrap up the challenge the day before Easter.  Just in time to delight in whatever the Easter Bunny brings to your house.  Rumor has it that the Easter Bunny is bringing me a new hummingbird feeder instead of chocolate!  I can always pinch the kids candy, right?

My little superheros are getting so excited for Easter.  They love going to church.  They can't wait to wear their new ties to Easter service this Sunday.  And the Easter bunny visiting adds a whole new level of excitement.

I'm excited for Easter too!  I'm excited to celebrate the risen Lord and reaffirm my commitment to Christ!  I'm excited to see those little superhero smiles when they find their Easter baskets full of goodies.

AND...I am excited to have a nibble of chocolate.  Did I say nibble?  Um, probably will have a little more than a nibble on Easter morning.  It's tradition in this family to eat some Easter chocolate for breakfast! 
 
What kind of silly traditions do you have?


The new Spring Fling Challenge will start on April 1st!  I'm really excited about it.  My friend, Karin, and I have been working on some new goals.  We've decided to keep the apple a day from the 21 Day Challenge. 

Here's a little sneak peek of the new printable coming your way.

 

A new post will be up soon detailing the whole Spring Fling Challenge. 

Can't wait to share...I'm kinda like really excited about it  (have I said that already...)

 

We Can Do This!

~The Final Challenge Check In~

How are you doing on the 21 day challenge?

 

 

I really, really want to hear from you...

I want to know what the best part has been so far.

I want to know what the worst part has been so far.

 

 

For me, the best part has been my success in drinking water.  I'm actually doing it.  Yesterday I drank ten 8 ounce glasses!  Can I get a woot woot?  Prior to this challenge I hydrated with coffee and diet soda.  What a poor choice on my part, eh?

 

The worst part has been daily exercise.  I'll be honest, I haven't done 30 minutes EVERY day.  But I'm doing more that I was 16 days ago!  I have more energy now.  I can run around with the kids without getting out of breath!  I'll take it!

 

There's only 5 days left in our 21 Day Challenge.  We got this, baby!

 

If you haven't started this challenge, there will be a new one starting April 1st with new goals!  I'll be putting up a post all about it this week.

 

We Can Do This!

 

 

~New challenge just in time for April~

 

 

We Can Do This

~Spring Fling~

April Challenge

 

A new challenge is being prepared for the month of April!

 

Starts April 1, 2013

 

There will be new goals and a new printable chart to help you stay on track.

 

This week is your prep week. 

We all need to weigh ourselves and take our measurements.

 

Think about what day you want to be your weigh day (once a week).

Record your current weight.

 

Grab a cloth tape measure and record the following

measurements (you may need a friend to help you).

 

Hips, thighs, arms, belly and bust.

 

If you are unsure how to do this go to LIVESTRONG.COM.

There are good directions there.

 

The 21 Day Challenge has motivated me. 

It's a great starting point for anyone wanting to make a healthy change!

 

I hope you will join me for the April ~Spring Fling~ Challenge!

 

We Can Do This!

 

 



~Box Top Bank~

Do you collect Box Tops for your kid's school? 

 

 

 

 

Do you have somewhere to put your Box Tops?

 

I was tired of our Box Tops hanging out in a plastic baggie.  So when I received an email from Box Tops For Education with a link to a cute printable.  I was excited (small things excite me I guess)!

 

Here is the printable: 
Keep Calm and Clip On

I bought a set of magnetic metal baskets from LTD Commodities a few years ago. I knew once I saw this free printable, I would use one of these baskets to hold the Box Tops
(why haven't I been doing this all along? duh!)

I have a package of adhesive magnetic sheets.  I just cut two pieces for the printable and stuck it to the front of the basket. 

And if you like the "Think Spring" chalkboard picture.  Just go here.  It's a free printable that I made.

 

Keep collecting those Box Tops for your school.  They really do help out!

We Can Do This!

 

How do you keep your Box Tops?  Let me know in the comments below!

 

~They Call Me The Wrapper~

Well, they don't really call me the wrapper...but it makes a good title don't ya think?

A few years ago, I bought a wrapping paper organizer that goes under the bed.  I had a love/hate relationship with that thing.  I loved it because it gave my gift wrap a place to live.  I hated it because it just ended up being a big dumping station with everything just jumbled all together.  Plus every time I wanted to wrap something, I had to dig it out from under my bed. 

I LOVE Pinterest.  My goodness, the ideas out there are amazing.  I've always been a good copy cat crafter, so Pinterest is right up my ally. 

I stumbled upon this lovely pin.  You may have seen it.

BHG

 

I knew right away that I wanted NEEDED this lovely set-up! 

 

Here is my version

 

 

I purchased this kitchen shelving system from Wal-Mart.

This system can hang over the door or you can hard mount it.

I decided to hard mount the rack to the inside of our linen closet door (okay, when I say "I" hard mounted, please read "my wonderful husband" ).  This gave me more height to work with.  I was able to utilize the whole length of the door and not be restricted by the length of the rack itself.

 

 

I reused a Victoria's Secret bag to store my tissue paper. 

I just whipped up some letters on my cricut to cover the name of the store.

 

 

I have quite a few giant bags that wouldn't fit anywhere.  I bought a large Command Hook that holds up to 5 pounds.  The bags hang behind the wrapping rolls.  I tied a piece of skinny ribbon on either side of the rack to keep the wrapping paper rolls from falling forward.

 

This brings me to another awesome pin. 

Have you seen this idea?

 

 Karimas Crafts

 

I really like this idea, but I don't like the look of toilet paper tubes.  Enter...scrapbook paper! 

I just wrapped the tube in pretty paper. 

 

 

 

 

Now, that's better!

 

 

 



I'm getting organized, one step at a time. 

I get caught up in all the eye candy organizing out there.  Looking at the beautiful pictures gives me inspiration, but sometimes  it makes me to stumble.  I get caught up in trying to make everything look perfect like the pictures in a magazine. 

This is real life organizing.  My paper, bags and ribbon are not in one beautiful color scheme like the one on BHG.  But it works.  I did it!

We Can Do This!

 

 

 



SPRING BREAK ~ How to survive the kiddos!



My superheros are home all day from school for spring break (that's two full weeks)!  I love being home with the boys.  But let's be real.  Being at home ALL DAY with little superheros can be exhausting, especially if they are having trouble sharing and getting along.  And trying to get anything done around the house is near impossible.  So I decided I would theme a few of the days and do a little homework the night before to try and give our long days some direction and intentional fun. 

Here is what I came up with for day one....

 

A is for Airplane!

 

1.  Airplane coloring page

2.  Build an airport out of Legos

3.  Airplane lunch (chicken salad on celery in the shape of an airplane)

4.  Make paper airplanes

5.  Pretend to fly on an airplane (line up all the chairs)

6.  Airplane balloon science experiment

 

 

Airplane Coloring Pages

There are a million airplane coloring pages on the net.  Just search google images, you won't have a problem finding something you like.

Here is the one we used.

source

 

 

I have preschoolers.  So I wanted a page that had the letter "A" on it so they could see it and color it.  This one also has the dotted word "airplane".  Nice practice for writing.

 

 

 

 

 

Build an airport out of Legos

Next we made an airport out of Lego Duplo Blocks.  I let the boys take the lead.  We made a runway out of some foam puzzle pieces.

 

Bob the Builder is the air traffic controller.  Can you see him at the top?




Airplane Lunch
Before we knew it, it was time for lunch. 

I knew I wanted to make chicken salad today.  Since this was already planned, I had celery on hand.  So I whipped up a batch of chicken salad and just cut some celery to make a very simple airplane.  I filled the celery with the chicken salad and voila!  The boys LOVED it!  And making airplane noises while eating is still cool when you are three and five!

I really wanted the boys to help make this lunch, but they were SO hunrgy, they wanted nothing to do with preparing.  You win some, you loose some.




Make Paper Airplanes

We have a paper airplane book & kit that my oldest superhero received for his fourth birthday.  This will keep us busy for quite a while! 




Airplane Balloon Science Experiment

I pinned this science experiment a while ago. 

 

 

source: DISCOVER EXPLORE LEARN

 

This will fit in with our airplane theme!  Can't wait to give it a try. 

 

 

 

Well, that's it for the day.  We may add a trip to the library to look at airplane books.  If the weather was nicer, we could have made a trip to our local airport to watch some planes land and take off.

 

Some other themes I am exploring for the week are

Under the Sea

America The Beautiful

Diggers, Dozers and Dirt

 

 

We Can Do This!  We can make memories for the kidlets and stay sane while doing it.  It just takes a little planning.