Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Healthier Heflins

I am really trying to be intentional this year about getting our family to eat healthier.  It is not an easy task and takes more time and effort on my part but it can be done. I have been researching clean eating and learning about what goes in to what we eat.
 
My kids have been juice drinkers which honestly has bothered me for a while.  I think it is because Waylon and I don't drink enough water either.  I would choose a Diet DP, tea or anything else over water any day of the week. I was also justifying the juice since I was buying the Roaring Rapids Capris Suns, which is still loaded with sugar. This is NO longer the case!  I stopped buying juice.  It has been water or milk for the kids for the past couple of weeks.  And you know what?  They are breathing and thriving (not to mention their teeth are probably thanking me)!  Who knew?!  ;)  It was a slight adjustment at first with whining about not having a juice with dinner but that quickly ceased when all we had was water or milk.  Water goes in Austin's lunch to school now too. I know the kids are going to get their juice fix at birthday parties, friend's and family's homes and such. I still by soda for Waylon because I don't want him to completely hate me.  :) Clean/healthy eating has to become a way of life not just for me but for my family. I am easing them into it. My kids don't like veggies so I am taking it slow and hiding the heck out of the veggies in their food! 
 
So my mom and I have been talking about prepping meals for easy dinners for a while now. Since I work full time, I leave the house at 7:30am (on a good day) and don't get home until 6:45pm after picking up the boys.  The hubs is a lacrosse coach on the side with practice 4 night per week as well. This schedule does not allow for a lot of cooking at night for me, especially when the boys are whining from the moment they get in the car about being hungry. 
 
We decided to try the meals that I found on Pinterest via Loving My Nest.  Jessica, from Loving my Nest posted her crock pot recipes, shopping lists and more on her blog.  We made all of the recipes from the Slow Cooker Recipes (Round 2) post. It was easier than we thought to prep all of the meals.  It took us over 2 hours to prep 12 meals (6 for my mom and 6 for me). The meals were labeled with instructions and bagged for the freezer. 
 
 
 
So far, I have made the Chicken Taco Soup and the Sloppy Tamale Pie and my family loved them. All of the ingredients are fresh or canned beans/tomatoes with the exception of the taco seasoning (which we will make from scratch next time).  I put cheese and crushed tortilla chips on the soup for the kiddos (and a ton of avacado on Jack's). The Sloppy Tamale Pie is just like a traditional sloppy joe but made with ground turkey (which is all I use anyways) and zucchini, carrots, onion and bell pepper.  I served it on a bun to my kids and they ate it up.  They also had no idea that the veggies were in there.  Score!
 
From both of the meals I have cooked so far, I have enough left over for 2 more meals.  I imagine by the end of this week, I will have left overs from every meal which would mean that we actually made 12 meals each for approx. $4.50 per meal.  The crock pot is the way to go for me. I was nervous however about leaving it on all day while I am gone for 11 hours. Most recipes say to cook your crock pot meals for 5-8 hours on low. Both of the meals that I have made have been just perfect in the CP for 11+ hours on low. I even continue to keep it on low until Waylon gets home from practice so he has a warm meal.  I am hooked to say the least!
 
I also make Oatmeal Muffins and Pumpkin Bread Muffins and keep them in the freezer all the time.  Austin loves the Oatmeal muffins so he gets them for snacks and lunch and Jack likes the "puntin' muffins" which makes a better snack for him.
 
I will post more on here about our clean/healthy journey.  For now, some of the blogs and/or Facebook pages I follow to educate, motivate and inspire me are:


2012 Year in Pictures {1 of several}


I am so behind on blogging. I figure I will catch up by doing a 2012 review in pics with few words. I am going to post the pics in order of events. 

Lacrosse - Austin played on the first ever kindergarten team.  He loved it and is playing again this season. 




My sweet boy before we chopped off his mullet. 



 
We took the kiddos to the NASA Space Center.  It was awesome and highly recommended.




 
My sweet Austin turned 6 (and I also got older). 

 
Birthday presents and birthday donuts before school.

 
Pizza party at Chuck E. Cheese!





You know I HAD to make cookie and cupcakes for it :)

 
Pizza favor boxes that my mom helped me make.


 
 
He actually caught the golden ticket worth 1000 tickets!


 



 
Elementary School fair
 


More to come...


Sunday, November 4, 2012

Heflin Halloween

I love Halloween because I love to see my kiddos in costume.  I could actually do without all the candy as they don't really eat much of it.   It is so fun watching them get it though. 
 
 
Ninja Austin took his costume very seriously.  He even won "Best Boy Costume" at his after school program.  He was so very proud of the little trophy he won and the $1 bill. 

 
He is really into ninjas right now as he started tae kwon do this year. 


My cowboy was very hard to photograph.  Jack was being a punk and wouldn't let me take his picture.  He wore his costume to school during the day so it was pretty raggedy by the time we were ready to go trick-or-treating.


I really enjoyed trick-or-treating this year since Jack understood what he was doing.  He was insistent on holding his pumpkin the entire time even when it was totally full.

 
They did great.  Jack went into everyone's home totally uninvited.  LOVED it!

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

A Little Heflin-Action

Since it's been 20 years since I've posted anything about the Heflin boys, I figured I will just start with some of my favorite recent pics.
 
 
Did you know that Jack turned TWO?! {terrible two}  We had a low-key family get-together this year and he had a great time.  He got this awesome kitchen which I was so excited about.
 
 
It now looks nothing like this as all of the cute, little accessories have been tossed aside and now there are 50 shades of crayon on it. 
 
 
It was cute watching him cook while it lasted.
 
 
Yes, my sweet six year old is in first grade!!! 


I was impressed with his choice to go with the messenger bag and crazy-bright tennies.   
 
He also recently pulled out his 3rd tooth.  Dental school in his future?!
 

 
We had a visit this summer from one of my BFFs and her sweet girls who live in Canada. Austin grew up with these girls and it was awesome being around them again.

 
Water balloon fight was a must.


 
Due to mosquitoes, Jack had to watch from the sidelines.  He wasn't too sad though since he climbed up to get one of the girls' pack of starburst and ate every single one.


 
Alright, I will post more later; just had to get some in to clear my conscience.  :)



Sunday, January 22, 2012

I am Guilty...

Of being a horrible blogger!  There is so much to share, I don't even know where to start.  My last post was Halloween.  Since then, we are back down to two kids (ours) as my nieces are with another amazing family.  The three months that we had five kids were the most difficult months of my entire life. One of the most difficult days was the day they left.  They are doing amazing however and we are going to see them tomorrow. 

That experience taught me so much about myself, my kids, and my family.  I am more proud of Austin than I ever have been.  He handled the time with the girls so very well.  He was a great brother/cousin to them.  He was always a huge help and never complained.  Jack on the other hand picked up some not-so-awesome habits as a result of the attention sharing.  He started biting and tantruming more often.  He has gotten a lot better as things have settled down around here. 

Austin experienced a huge milestone week of Christmas;  he lost a tooth!



I didn't even know it was loose.  Waylon was at home with the boys and when I got home from work, Austin was so excited to show me his tooth and let me know that he pulled it out himself!  Waylon said that one minute, Austin was complaining that it was loose, the next minute, he had pulled it on his own.  I had a little "mommy moment" about that one.  I had no idea that I would get so emotional about a tooth. (Waylon didn't either) ;)  So Aus got a visit from the Tooth Fairy and Santa all in the same week.

 We went to Oklahoma for Christmas which was a great time to get away and see family.  Pics from the trip are coming next!