I seem to be one of those people who even walk past the bakery and pounds get added to my hips. I am working on changing my eating habits, and for a while it was working really well. I decided to go the clean eating route. It is not too hard, other than the lack of sugar that you are allowed, which actually isn't my struggle, mine comes with the lack of chocolate! YIKES!

I have been on this diet for about 3 weeks now, and while I would like to say I am perfect at it, I can't. The first week I was 100% on target. I lost 4 pounds!! Then the second week was spring break (oh and Easter), so I had a hick up. I didn't gain, because I was still very on track, only having a few pieces of chocolate here and there. But the last couple of days has been rough. I don't know what my issue is. I just need to say no to the bread and sweets. But the last couple of days I didn't. Needless to say, all the work I did was put back on! Ugg!

So I am back to my strict diet. I will not eat sugar for the next month, change that, I will NOT eat sugar until my 3 year old turns 4 on May 27. I will NOT eat any fruit after 2 pm, and I will NOT have any bread/wheat after 10 am. I will drink LOTS of water. I will walk for 30 min EVERYDAY! I will eat salads for lunch everyday, with NO creamy dressings, just EVOO and lemon or lime. That is my plan. If this works I will post my menus. Wish me luck! Maybe I will be down 12 pounds by then! Wouldn't that be great!

I remember the days before kids. The hubby and I would stay out until the sun would come up, and sleep until the sun went down. And it would be real sleep, the kind that rivals hibernating bears. We could sleep for 12-15 hours without moving! Doorbell rings... we stay sleeping. Next door neighbors kids are screaming bloody murder as their dog chases them... not even a flip in bed. Nothing would wake us.

At that time, I remember thinking how much I wanted kids. I knew that sleep would be interrupted, but I didn't think it was that big a deal. After all I was used to staying up all night. However, what I failed to realize is that when I did stay up all night, I would sleep all day. With a baby... well... they stay up all night, and then continue to stay up all day. Seriously, I don't know how they do it.

It baffles me that all my sons don't sleep though the night regularly until 2 years, while I have friends whose children sleep though at 6 weeks or sooner!! What am I doing that they aren't? I have tried everything to get them to sleep. We have tried almost every sound machine made, which does help so we can make some noise while they sleep. We have tried humidifiers and vaporizers, both warm and cool mist. We have tried lights, music cds, lovies, bankets... I tried to "Ferberize" them, cry it out... Tried co-sleeping, sleeping in the same room, sleeping in different rooms... Lights on, lights off, late night snacks, dream feeding... I mean we have tried EVERYTHING (and by we I mean I, the hubby can some how still sleep fairly well with a baby screaming).

I have talked to people who say that I am just not letting them cry long enough. Well, I don't know what they are talking about. My boys will cry literally all night! The nights when I tried Ferber or CIY, they would scream for 6 hours before I give in. I am sure that their lovely children didn't cry for 6 hours. And to top that off I did it for 2 weeks! That is a lot of crying, and WAY too much stress for me. So I guess I will just suck it up. My kids don't sleep, and that is just the way it is. They are also some of the smartest kids I know (and I am not just saying that, my 3 year old tests at a 1st grade level).

In the middle of the night, when the baby wakes up, I just try to remember that this time will soon pass. Although it is hard, and I am constantly sleep deprived, I tell myself that one day they won't want me around much at all, and I will miss the nights when the cry for mama was all they needed to be happy.

Boys and clean clothes are like oil and water, they just don't go together. If it isn't dirt, it is paint, crayons, food... Oh the list is endless. Some of the clothes my boys have I just decided that they were going to have stains. I thought that the older they got the less this would happen, but with boys it seems that the older they get the harder the stain. So in our house we have instituted clothing types starting at age 5 (when they start kindergarten).

There are 3 types we have at our house. The first type is church clothes. The only place you are allowed to where church clothes is of course to church (it may be a wedding or funeral as well as Sundays). You do not put your church clothes on until 30 min prior to leaving for church, and then you are not allowed to rough house, color with markers or paint, or eat or drink anything but water. Then right when we get back from church you get changed and hand your church clothes back up.

The second type is nice clothes. These are collared shirts and pants with no holes in them, shorts are not included in this. It blows my mind how quick my boys can go through the knees in pants. These are clothes that they would wear to school, see grandparents, things like that, where you need to look a little nicer. It drives me nuts what parents are letting their kids wear to school these days! Most show no respect for their school, let alone themselves.

The third type is everything else. These are the "comfy" play clothes. The tee shirts, shorts, pants with holes in them. The kind of clothes that I don't really care what they do in them, and I don't bother to get stains out of them, because, well it doesn't matter. These aren't the clothes that they wear anywhere but our house and the park, maybe a friend's house if I know they will be getting messy (which is most of the time).

OK so those are the types, but when it comes to cleaning them, I have some rules. We have a laundry sorter. Whites in one, colors in another, and darks in another. It is for the whole family, I wash everyone clothes together. I have found that keeping the hampers out of my boys bedrooms makes their rooms cleaner. They have no reason to have any clothes on the floor. When they take them off, they either hang them up or put them in the correct clothes bag. Easy right. P, the 6 year old, is pretty good at this. L, age 3, needs a little coaching. I will let it go a day or two with out reminding him, but I usually do have to remind him to put his clothes up. B, the 1 year old, obviously needs a lot of help. He will carry one thing to the sorter, but I usually have to put it in for him, it is a good start anyway.

Trying to get kids to clean is like trying to hang a picture in a wall of jello. It just doesn't work. I have tried everything, but my kids just won't clean. They would rather sit and do nothing all day than pick up one piece of trash. Maybe it is just that my kids are overly stubborn, but I can't seem to get them to do anything. Until I discovered the house game on Pinterest (I love that place). Well I should say that it at least helps SOMETIMES, other times all they want to do is the "rolling the dice" part.


So what is the house game you might be asking? Well let me tell you. It is really a simple idea, all you need is a sheet of paper to print (or draw if you are that talented) and 2 dice. On the paper you make a grid that is 3x4 (creating 12 spaces). In each space you write the numbers 1 to 12 and a room in the house that you want cleaned. I have laminated ours so the boys can take turns crossing off the rooms as we get them cleaned. To start we were using the small game dice. But I found some large foam ones on Amazon that I just couldn't do without. The boys love to toss the dice, but it is still a bit of a challenge to get them to figure out what they need to do in each room, as if they don't see the floor needs to be swept or the windows washed.

Anyway, it is working. They are at least getting up and helping a little, even if I do have to tell them to pick up the toy instead of stand on it or step over it.

It is completely quiet, everyone is getting along... Then I decide to give my boys a doughnut or Lucky Charms for breakfast. Then the $%^# hits the fan (sometimes literally). Have you ever noticed how sugar can turn the nicest kid into a monster? I mean seriously... These kids turn into the most horrible monsters EVER!! I am sure that my intake of sugar does the same for me.

I have done a little bit of research... And I found out that sugar is addictive! I never thought about this, but it makes since. That is why so many of us crave it, we are addicted to it! I used to smoke, and I remember the first week after quitting was so hard. All I could think about was cigarettes. I tried the gum and the patch, neither worked for me. The gum just tasted so bad that I didn't want to chew it, and the patch left these red marks on me. So I did it cold turkey. It was hard, but I am glad I did.

In my research I also looked up the affects sugar has on peoples moods. There is a lot out there, and some of it is scary. Some researchers are arguing that sugar can cause mental illness! One researcher, Malcolm Peet, found a strong correlation between sugar intake and the risk of depression and schizophrenia! This could be the reason I see sugar monsters appear in the place of my wonderful children after they consume any sugar.

So I am going to do a little experiment on my kids, and myself. For the next 2 weeks we will eat no refined sugar, meaning we will still eat some fruit, but no white sugar as well as very limited amounts of starches (potatoes and corn) and carbs (as the body sees these as sugar). I am sure that this will be a challenge for us all, but we will be better in the long run. I will be following the 14 day diet laid out in the book The Quick & Clean Diet by Dari Alexander. I really like this book, and would recommend it to anyone looking for advise on starting to eat clean or wanting to loose a few pounds (which is why I got the book to begin with). There are some modifications of portion sizes for the little ones, and I added milk into their diets, but the rest will be pretty much the same as mine, only they can have as many veggie snacks as they want.

If you are wondering how it did on the budget. I am glad to report that I bought everything I need for this diet for 2 weeks for $170, with no coupons, so it is within the budget of $100 a week.

I am trying but this is soooo hard. I swear my boys get together and make up a list of things to do to push my buttons. I am still at day 0, as I have still not gone a complete day without yelling. The challenge continues, and I will continue my fight to get this under control. I have noticed that my temper isn't nearly as bad when I have a friend over, so maybe I just need to have someone over all the time.

I am reading posts on the Orange Rhino site for motivation, and I wish I was as strong as some of these people are. Some day right...

Geeze do we love food here. Who doesn't right? But it can get pretty expensive. We love to eat out, but the cost... Well, we can't do it as much as we would like. Actually we try to only eat out a couple of times a month (not the hubby, he eats out for lunch everyday but work usually pays for it so that doesn't count as far as budget goes).

When it comes to grocery shopping, I used to be one of those dreaded coupon people... You know the ones. They have a cart full of stuff, and then have a mountain of coupons. There were times when I would save 99% of my bill using coupons! Usually averaged about 60% though. I used to really enjoy seeing the savings (and I still would), but I just don't seem to have the time anymore, with having 3 active boys ages 6, 3, and 1. The 1 year old is really the culprit in me not having the time to coupon. I used to spend 3-5 hours a week clipping coupons and matching them to stores deals, just don't have the time anymore.

So I menu plan, for the entire month, and deal shop. I buy all our meat at Costco because it is the best cut and best price. I also buy frozen fruit and veggies there, as well as most of my baking supplies (flour, sugar, etc.). I do a lot of baking, so buying these in bulk is important for me to stay at budget.

At the beginning of the year I sat down and figured out how much I would need to supply our family of 5 with food, personal goods, and diapers. I budget $300-$400 a month for these things. It is tough though. We have a couple of meals a week that are constant which allows me to buy those things in bulk. Monday are Muffin Mondays for breakfast, so when those muffin mixes go on sale I stock up! The other constant is Taco Tuesdays. Again when taco shells go on sale I stock up. Then I buy the meat, cheese, and taco seasoning in bulk. I try to make about 5 lbs of taco meat at the beginning of the month, then separate it into a little over 1 lb bags to last us for all the Tuesdays in the month and freeze it. Super easy dinners on Tuesdays, which is wonderful. I think we are going to start also instituting a corn dog muffin Thursday too, as these are quick and easy and the boys really love them.

I am always working on quick ways to bring down our food budget, but without couponing I think we are at a wall. Things will get better once the little ones are out of diapers and pull ups, but until then it is what it is.

What do you do about food at your home?

I am good at saying no, when it is something that I don't see as healthy or valuable. For instance, my 3 year old always says he is hungry and wants a snack. I offer him an apple or carrots or cheese and crackers. He tells me he wants candy. Well that is easy... I tell him no, and give him an apple, to which he usually doesn't want, because he isn't really hungry, he just wants to go on a sugar high so he can torment me and the rest of the family. My 6 year old will see a toy on the Cartoon Network (I HATE that channel and we hardly ever watch it) and then he immediately says he wants it and can't live without it. Another easy No answer from me. But when it comes to a book or puzzle or anything to do with learning... I just can't say no.

Well, I hate to say it but my goal of saving $200 this month didn't happen. Thanks to my inability to always tell my boys "no" when they ask for something. We went to the book store a couple of times this month. And both times the boys came out with books and my 6 year old got this really cool book mark that has a timer built in so he can track how much time he reads (for every 2 hours he reads he gets a prize out of our prize bucket). It wasn't like anything I bought was expensive, in fact it was all on clearance, but the little things add up. I can't blame it all on them, you see it was also my birthday month, so I justified a doughnut maker I found on clearance at Target for $15 as a present for me. And I went out to eat WAY TOO MUCH! I have to stop that now.

At any rate, while I didn't do bad, I did pay off my credit card (although I put my son's karate back on it, so I will need to pay that off with my tax refund), I wasn't able to save the $200 I was hoping to do.

I will do better next month. I PROMISE!

I yell. I yell when I am mad. I yell when I am frustrated. I yell. I don't want to, but I do. I want to stop. With a house full of boys, I am frustrated a lot, thus I yell a lot. Any given day my boys fight, cry, throw fits... I swear sometimes they have secret meetings with each other discussing what they can do to push my buttons and make my lid flip. They are so good at it.  Of course having a baby who is teething (still, seems like it is a never ending thing from about 4 month until 2, but that is another post), sure doesn't help with my nerves.

At any rate, I was browsing the internet, and came across something that I am going to do, starting tomorrow, seeing as I have already yelled today. It is called the Orange Rhino Challenge. Basically I am committing to not yelling for 365 days. Good lord this is definitely going to be a challenge for me. It doesn't just tell you to not yell, it gives you some really interesting things to do instead of yelling. I am going to choose 5 of these suggestions to focus on, and when I get upset and want to yell I am going to do one of these 5 things instead.

1. Say out loud “They are just kids and I love them.”
2. Do Jump and Jacks or push ups (need to do this for exercise anyway)
3.  Start talking jibberish
4. Start clapping & go until kids have stopped annoying behavior
5. Get the camera

We will see how this goes, but I am hoping that I can stop! I want to enjoy my kids, and I want them to enjoy me too. Feel free to join me, let me know what your thoughts are... What are you doing to end the yelling at your home?

This is a bad word right? Who likes to live on a budget, and a tight one at that. When I think about budgeting I tend to think about all the things that I have to go without. Not good, and this is the reason most of us fail at keeping our budget. That is going to change for me RIGHT NOW! I am going to take charge and stop thinking of what I am going without, and start thinking about what I am gaining.

We are currently trying to save for a Disney Cruise, which we plan on going in the spring of 2015. So we have some time, and it is an achievable goal. All together we need to save up about $5000 for airfare and the cruise. Thank goodness food is included with the cruise, as are the activities for the boys, of which there are 3, not including the big boy (aka the hubs). I have done the math over and over, and we have 25 months till we plan on going so we will need to save $200 a month. Doesn't sound like much, so I think we can do it.