RVL Update - Day 11

It is the morning of Day 11 and I just got out of bed after a long night at election parties last night.  I am officially down 8 pounds!!!  And....I had my first piece of clothing be too big!  Have to admit, that hasn't happened in a while!  So very excited for RVL!  Please let me know if I can hook you up with this.  It's truly amazing.

RVL - Day 6

Day 6 started and still going strong!!! 

The cravings have started to slow down...thank goodness!!  Pray for me to hold up this weekend as all that Halloween candy enters my house!  Hopefully the kids will get a bunch of stuff that I don't like anyway.  Normally I don't have a problem with candy, but since I haven't had any sugar since Saturday....well, we'll see.

RVL has been quite a blessing for me in a way that I first had not imagined.  It's been wonderful to have my breakfast, lunch and snacks already ready for me.  I don't have to think about it.  I don't have to plan it.  I don't have to go to the grocery store for it!  My typical week normally resulted in at least one drive-thru visit because I forgot to plan a meal out for myself.  Now, I don't have to worry about it!  I've been keeping some snack bars in my bag so even though I'm on the go, I have my snacks with me and can eat them at the right time!

We still don't know the exact price, but from what I'm hearing, it will be comparable to what you would spend on breakfasts, lunches and snacks anyway!  What do you have to lose???  Except a lot of weight you don't need anyway!!!

There are only a few more days to sign up for this people!!  If you don't, you'll be waiting until January!

RVL - Day 4

OK Everyone!!!  I started MonaVie RVL on Sunday morning so have been on it for four days!!!  So far, so good. 

I was really worried about being hungry and that just hasn't happened.  When I've found I've been hungry, I've realized it's time to eat again! 

I'm still drinking the shakes with water.  I think for those of you that like milk, it would taste really good with milk.  I just can't tolerate milk so water it is!  But, don't get me wrong...they taste really good with water. 

The snack bars look really small, but they are very filling.  Personally, I think I like the chocolate more than the berry, but the berry are very good as well. 

My only "bad" thing happened this morning.  I woke up with a HORRIBLE migraine.  For those of you that don't know me, I have quite the Pepsi addiction.  Well, I had my last Pepsi Saturday night and have only been drinking water all day with one glass of sugar-free Kool-Aid with dinner.  So, I started having serious caffeine and sugar withdrawals that hit my body this morning.  The headache lasted until about 3pm, but then was gone.  That has probably been the only thing I've noticed affecting me is that I'm still craving my Pepsi, but other than that, all is going well.

We had an appointment with my doctor on Monday and she's very excited about MonaVie RVL and what it can do.  She's going to be monitoring me throughout this process, but thinks it's just what my body needs to jump start my metabolism.  In her words, if MonaVie's putting it out, it's got to be good!

Would appreciate your prayers as I go through this! 

Day One

Have almost completed Day One with no problems.  I drank my first RVL shake this morning.  It was really really good.  I added in my MonaVie Pulse when I mixed it up, but thinking I will drink them separately from now on. 

I forgot to bring my AM snack bar with me to church so unfortunately missed the opportunity to munch on that.  Drank my second shake at lunch and it was just as good as the first.

Ate one of the chocolate snack bars this afternoon and it was unbelievably good.  It tasted like a Twix candy bar...just without the caramel.

I haven't been hungry at all today.  The only "side effect" I've experienced is a slight headache because I haven't had the caffeine that I normally drink. 

Will be eating my dinner soon! 

If anyone is interested in starting this now, we need to get you signed up by November 1st.  If you're not signed up, you'll have to wait until January!  Contact Steve or I if you're interested!

Weight Loss

I, like so many others, have horrible problems losing weight.  It's not for lack of trying.  We are very careful what we eat in our family.  I exercise during the week...twice a week with a trainer.  At one point, I was working out 5-6 days a week and had a doctor-approved meal plan.  I still wasn't losing anything.  No matter what I tried, nothing worked.

As many of you know, my schedule is crazy.  For those of you who don't know, I'll recap.  I am the wife of what many would label a "local celebrity."  My husband has a very popular radio show and his time is in high demand.  If he's not out of the house somewhere, he's on the phone with someone or reading something for someone or on the computer working on something for someone.  I end up helping him as much as I can with this "stuff" that he's constantly got on his plate.

We have three children whom I homeschool.  Our oldest daughter is nine.  In a given week, she attends Learning Rx three times a week, PE, guitar and singing lessons.  Our middle child is five.  In a given week, she attends PE and ballet.  Our baby is three.  He's not so much into anything anymore, but he follows along with us really well.  We also have church events that we go to frequently.

In addition to all this, I am back in school working on my master's degree in Biblical Counseling.  I am almost done, but still have four hours of lectures to listen to on a weekly basis plus weekly papers that have to be written.

Why do I tell you all this???  BECAUSE I AM BUSY!!  I really don't have any time to count my calories or my points.  I'm lucky I'm getting to the gym to work out as much as I am.

I think I've finally FINALLY found something that will work with my schedule.  MonaVie is about to come out with a new product called RVL (or Reveal).  Reveal includes a meal replacement shake and snack bars.  I just got accepted into their pilot and my box of goodies came yesterday!!

So, why am I blogging about it???  I want to share this with you!  MonaVie is an amazing company and I know the results will be HUGE.....or SMALL.....well, you know what I mean!  I am going to be blogging about my experiences with this product as long as I am on it.

If you're interested in learning more about it, please contact me at amydeace@aol.com.  If you sign up with MonaVie by November 1st, you can order your RVL on November 2nd!!  If not, you'll be waiting along with the rest of the country and will have to wait until January!  Please join me in making 2011 a much healthier and RVL'ing year!!!

Age Appropriate Chores

Below is a  link to a Focus on the Family article on finding Age-Appropriate Chores for your children.  Thought that some of you would find it as helpful as I found it. 

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/parenting_challenges/motivating_kids_to_clean_up/age_appropriate_chores.aspx

Des Moines Frugal Family Examiner

This is a link to the site of another homeschooling mom!  Looks like it has some great stuff on it!


http://www.examiner.com/frugal-family-in-des-moines/julia-mcguire

Time Management

I'm having one of those mornings.  One of those days when you look at your to do list and realize you have about 300 things to do and only a short amount of time to do it all in.  I'd love to get on a firm schedule...scheduling everything....cleaning time, reading time, school time, etc., etc., etc.  But then, you wonder.  How much should we be scheduling and how much time should we leave for spontaneous activities?  (Can I count the dishes as a spontaneous activity?)

I mean how many books can there be about time management?  If you type "time management" into Amazon.com's search engine, you will get 17,540 results.  How much time would those take to go through? I've listed the top rated ones at the bottom of this page.  I don't have the time to order one today...maybe tomorrow or Wednesday.

So, pray for me today as I try to fit homeschooling, my school, cleaning, work, etc., etc., etc. into my 24 hour day.  I would move some to tomorrow, but tomorrow is scheduled worse than today.  But, as I always tell people, I seem to work better when I have a thousand things to do rather than just one or two.  Let's see if I can make that work today. 

Photo Books - Buy One get one free

Hello all,

This just in from a friend.  The following link will take you to a company that throughout the month of September is offering Photo Books at Buy One get One Free.  I've never personally used this company, but the link came from a personal friend that works for the company so I'm sure it's on the up and up :-)

http://www.flashbackpics.com/

Kids Eat Free

OK, most of you mommies out there probably already knew this website existed, but I just found it and I'm excited!  At the bottom of this post is a link to the "Des Moines Families" website.  They have a list up of local restaurants and when they have free or reduced meals for kids!  I knew about some of these before I saw this site, but it's amazing how many restaurants are doing this!  Most of them are buy an adult meal and get a kid meal for free, meaning that I would only have to pay for one kid's meal!  Awesome!

I just joined and it looks like there is a TON of useful information on this site!  Looking forward to exploring it more!


Visit Des Moines Families

Meal Planning - Take 3

Ok, all.  I bought groceries yesterday.  I normally get two weeks of groceries at a time.  I spent $270 at the grocery store and $150 at Costco.  The $270 is a little higher than my typical grocery trip, but the $150 was a little lower, so I evened out to about my normal budget.

We've only tried one recipe this week however.  It was a grilled pork tenderloin and it was absolutely delicious.  Even the kids ate it!  I'm looking forward to making something else tonight and seeing if I get the same result.

I did pull this week's menu off the site and am wondering if we should've bought the low fat menu rather than the "normal" one.  Our family is used to a low fat diet so some of the recipes seem a little much for us.  I might give it another week and if it looks like that again, I'm going to switch.

25 vs 35

I am now 35 years old.  Remember when 35 seemed old?  I haven't quite grasped this yet.  I was thinking of the differences between 25 and 35 and wondering how my life has changed.

25...Living in an incredibly small 2 bedroom apartment
35...Living in a gorgeous 4 bedroom house that works perfectly for our family

25...I was pregnant with my first child
35...I have three children (9,5,3)

25...I never in a million years would've thought of homeschooling my kids.
35...I am now homeschooling all three kids and talk to others on a daily basis on how they can homeschool too!

25...Working 40+ hours per week with no end in sight. 
35...Blessed to be able to stay home to raise our kids.

25...I had been married for three years and did not get along with my husband.  The "D" word came up a lot.
35...I have been married for 14 years to the person that I consider my best friend...and I cant' imagine life without him.

25...I'd had it with church and religious people and would never step foot in a church again.
35...Not only has God saved me, but I am actually enrolled in a seminary and almost done with a master's degree in Biblical Counseling.

What a difference 10 years, a husband that works his butt off, and most importantly, God's blessings can do for your life. 

Meal Planning - Take 2

Well, last night I stayed up until about 1 o'clock working on this meal planning thing.  Let me state for the record, this was not because I had to, but because I've had horrible problems sleeping and was up anyway so figured I'd work while I was awake.

With this e-mealz thing, they give you your grocery list for all your dinners so you just need to add in everything else.  I always have problems remembering everything else though.  I have a tendency to make my list to the best of my ability and then always end up going back two days later because I forgot a bunch of stuff.  Then, of course, I end up buying a bunch of stuff I don't need. 

So, back to last night.  I made a list of everything we normally buy.  I broke it down into these categories: drinks, snacks, breakfasts, lunches, toilettries, cleaning supplies, and extras.  Extras consists of salt, pepper, baking supplies (which I hardly ever use), ketchup, mayo, etc., etc., etc. 

I'm hoping to type this up into a checklist of the stuff I only buy every now and then and a set list for the things I buy every time.  Then, I will be adding it to the e-mealz list to bring to the store.  I'm thinking it will take some time on the front end, but once it's set, it will work pretty well.

As far as the dinner menus are concerned, I bought the any-store meal plan.  Most of the meals look pretty good. I will have to alter a couple of them.  My husband is about as anti-mushroom as you can be and one of the recipes calls for mushrooms so obviously that will change.  There's also a recipe with spinach...also something my husband won't eat.  Well, you get the idea. 

So, my first grocery trip will be on the 31st.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Monavie

I know some of you know my Monavie story and some of you do not so I wanted to share it here because I've been asked about it a lot.

On February 11, 2007, I started having severe chest pains.  I was two weeks away from delivering my third child so this was a pretty scary thing.  The pain was so intense, I could not even use the phone to call my husband to come home and get me to the hospital...my six year old daughter had to.

We got to the hospital at 8:30pm.  My blood pressure was 220/130 and they were amazed that I hadn't had a stroke.  I was rushed into surgery and at 10:15 my beautiful little boy was born by emergency c-section.

Unfortunately, my blood pressure stayed elevated.  I was put on medication after medication and nothing brought it down.  About a year ago, I happened to mention this to my friend, Mindi who suggested I try Monavie Pulse.  I started drinking it right away...2oz/twice a day and within months my blood pressure was normal.

I am now off of my blood pressure medication and still drinking Monavie Pulse to keep myself healthy.  My husband is drinking Monavie Active for his joints and muscles and I just started my three children on Monavie m(mun) to build up their immunity before cold and flu season.  This stuff is amazing and I am living proof that it works.

My husband and I believe in this so much we signed up to share Monavie with our friends and I would love to share it with you.  If you're interested in learning more about it, please contact me. 

www.mymonavie.com/amydeace

Meal Planning

I was looking at our budget the other day and realized that we were spending a ton of money on groceries...at least what I would consider to be a ton on groceries.  My friend that has five kids...I'm not spending as much as she is, so maybe I'm still ok.  However, I would really like to decrease my grocery budget. 

I spend a lot of time planning out our menus.  I usually do two weeks of meal plans, make a grocery list and go shopping every payday for the next two weeks of groceries.  I don't think it's my planning that's lacking though, I think it's the meals I'm making.  I think our meal choices are too expensive.

I have little control over my husband's meals.  He's on a strict eating regiment during the day because of a health plan he's on and he also has celiac so everything has to be gluten free. 

I've been looking for a way to take the stress out of planning dinners though.  As you know, I homeschool and am in school myself, so by the end of the day, I really want dinner to be a non-stress thing.  I just found a website that I'm hoping will help me with that and I'd urge you to check it out to see if it would work for you.  It's Dave Ramsey approved which I found really exciting because you know there's something money-saving about it.

So, the site is called E-mealz.  They do the meal planning for you and have a pre-made grocery list.  It comes out to $1.25/week which I found pretty cheap for all the time that they're saving you.  I just subscribed and downloaded my first two weeks of menus.  They look really good and the stuff looks like stuff my kids will actually eat.  I'll keep you updated on how it goes, but until then, check out the site and see if it's something you'd like to use too.

Our ABC Books

My oldest daughter (9) made ABC books for my other daughter (4) and my son (3) for Christmas.  Both of my preschoolers are needing to learn their letters.  We started talking one day and realized that everytime we tried to tell my son what a letter said, we were referring it to a super hero.  For example, B says "bbb" as in Batman.  So, this is where the idea for the books was born. 

The books were 8x8 scrapbooks that can be found in any craft or scrapbooking store.  We made one for each child with leftover alphabet stickers.  My nine-year-old put these books together by herself, but my four year old could've done it as well.  For the pictures for the page, I used a variety of things.

This is a Batman sticker I had left over from a scrapbook page I did for my son.

The Wolverine and Tinkerbell pictures are just pictures that I found online and printed off.

This is the insert from our Aladdin movie...you know those annoying inserts that the kids rip up and you find all over your house.

This is actually a 12x12 piece of scrapbook paper that I cut down to 8x8.

My kids are able to look through the books and practice their letter sounds with pictures of characters that they are familiar with and enjoy.  My three year old likes to make up stories to go along with all of his pictures.

Book Review: Sister's Grimm Series

I'm realizing this is turning into a book review page.  Something I didn't intend, but hey, whatever works....

I am a book nut.  I can't remember a time that I wasn't in the middle of a book.  Both my parents and my husband are the same way.  We are constantly reading.  My husband is more of a non-fiction guy...always absorbing information that he will use later.  I, on the other hand, prefer fiction.  I love mysteries, thrillers, who-done-its.  I love trying to figure it out.  If I can figure it out too early in the book, I usually don't read that author again.

So, on to today's book review...or should I say review of a series of books.  This series would be more for older kids.  We actually came across this series by accident.  My daughter picked up one of them on CD (we listen to a lot of books on CD in the van). We loved it so much, we went back, got the first book and have listened to all of them.  Book 8 just came out and we can't wait to start reading it!

The series is called The Sisters Grimm.  Like I said, it might be for older kids, as it has small amounts of fairy tale violence in it (nothing worse than Snow White or Sleeping Beauty).  The books follow Daphne and Sabrina Grimm who find out they are descended from the Brothers Grimm.  They learn that all fairy tales are actually real and that the charcters in these tales are called Everafters.  It is their family's job to write the accounts of all the Everafters' lives. 

It's fun to recognize all the characters.  Snow White is a teacher at the elementary school, Prince Charming is the mayor, the Three Little Pigs are policemen. 

I've posted a link to the first book for you to check out.  Like I said, you might want to read it first before you let younger children listen, but my kids were fine with it.  The quality of the reading on CD is wonderful if you wanted to go through them that way. 

Has Noah's Ark been found?

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/27/noahs-ark-found-turkey-arafat/

Thoughts?  Do you really believe this is Noah's Ark?  And, if it is, why is God allowing it to be found now?

Struggles

Today is one of those day's that homeschooling moms dread.  We all have them, but we very rarely talk about them.  We don't want others to know we are struggling.  We want it to all look perfect. 

Kids aren't listening.  They complain about the smallest amount of schoolwork and/or chores.  You start contemplating is it really all worth it.  Would they get more out of public school??  You know there are reasons you've chosen this path for your family, but those reasons are hard to think about right now. 

I'm thinking I'm going to go sit in my basement and re-read Todd Wilson's books.  If you haven't read these....read them.  Seriously.  They are the best mix of humor and practical applicatioin I've ever seen.  I've heard him speak in person and he's just as funny. 

Lies Homeschooling Moms Believe, Learning to Live the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth

Darien's Rise

We are in the van a lot....dance practice, homeschool PE, guitar practice, grocery store runs....you get the picture.  We have been trying to listen to quality books on CD when we can just to pass the time, but also to learn something.

We just finished a book called Darien's Rise.  It was amazing!  It was put out by the Adventures in Odyssey people so you know it has a good message.  Anyway, check it out.  It was definately worth listening to.

The Snail's Trail

I posted a link to The Snail's Trail on the left side of my page. This page belongs to my friend Kari. Kari and I went to high school together, got in trouble together, well, you can imagine. Note to self: find a picture of Kari from high school and post it here to embarass her.

Anyway, Kari grew up to be this genius when it comes to early elementary education. Her blog is what I'd love my blog to be when I grow up. If you have younger children, please go to her blog. She's super smart and has some wonderful ideas!

Stressful Marriages bad for your Health?

The following is a link that Mark Driscoll posted on his Facebook page. I'm a strong believer that your mental health has a lot to do with your physical health.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/magazine/18marriage-t.html

Title

I've been contemplating (for some reason this word keeps coming up with me today) this for hours. I want to do this, but what do I call it and where do I go for a title to this new thing I want to do.

I want this blog to be a variety of things.

1. I want to talk about homeschooling. I believe in this whole-heartedly and would like to encourage other moms who are contemplating (there it is again) pulling their children from the public schools and teaching them at home.
2. God has placed a desire on my heart to help women. For those of you who don't know me, I'm completing my master's degree in Biblical Counseling. I will be done in December and have already started counseling a little.
3. I have a strong desire (that I also believe has come from God) to do something about Christian marriages. I've found myself very frustrated lately with Christians attacking non-Christians for their marriage practices when we have problems ourselves. I think we need to start concentrating on our own marriages.
4. Other things as they come into my mind (which as many of you know, happens often)

So, obviously this is kind of a hodge-podge of things. How do I fit it into one blog and what would this be called. I've been wandering the house all morning with names swimming through my mind.

Then, I signed onto Facebook and saw that my friend, Dave was online. For those of you that know Dave, you know he is super creative. He can come up with anything about anything with less effort than it takes me to tie my shoes. So, I chickened out and emailed him and he (God bless him) put me out of my misery and came up with "Amy in the Morning."

This actually has a bunch of meanings behind it. Those who know me, know that it's a take-off from my husband's job. Those that don't...well, just trust me....it's funny.

So, first post down....hopefully many to go.