I love Weight Watchers!!

I am realizing again how much I love being on Weight Watchers! It is amazing! I am sticking with it for life this time. I love that they make you keep track of such things as daily dairy intake as well as fruits and veggies. I've never been a fan of "diets" and this isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle change. I love eating REAL food. Eggs, chocolate, peanut butter. I'm also wary of diets that eliminate a food group completely. How is that possibly healthy? The plan works, it just does. And I don't have to worry about something like an upcoming birthday, or holiday, or eating out in general. Plan for it and make sure you have the points, and you're good to go! I also forgot how much I love walking. It's a time to clear your head and somehow it is relaxing. Two weeks in and my pants are already loose and I'm feeling so much better and have so much more energy. And I love that what I make the whole family can eat. Weight Watchers, I love you.

Testing, weekend and Keurig....

This past week was a long week. It seemed like Friday would never get here. It did of course. Jason tested Tuesday, using CAT. He did extremely well on the test. We were very proud of him. We didn't do any regular school that that day. With testing taking a good 4 hours, I didn't want to push regular work. Wednesday he was a little tired all day and I, too, felt a bit sluggish all day, so we took the day off. Sometimes it is nice to take an unscheduled day off and just relax and regroup. We both were rested and ready for Thursday. As it turns out, we had a system move through and although snow totals would not have been significant, we had tropical storm strength wind making for blizzard conditions. Kevin ended up working from home. Friday finally arrived and we had a fairly decent school day.

Our weekend was busy and productive. Repairs to our kitchen sink and a trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond. I love that store. LOVE it. They had way too many choices for our Keurig. We also dropped by Cracker Barrel for a late lunch. And someone we can never have an outing with it involving Walmart.

Had some pretty awesome blueberry pancakes Saturday morning.  Pancakes are so good. They just are.

And speaking of our Keurig......we now LOVE it. It took some time, and playing around with it, but oh my gosh we love it. We found we need to use the smallest option and use only half of the normal sugar/creamer we would normally use. Well, that and we found some pretty kickin' coffees. :) Love the espresso roast, French roast, and Italian roast. There is also teas and apple cider. We think we're in love with our new friend, Mr. Keurig. :)

Now it's time to settle down, make sure things are ready for Monday, then, well, wait for it to arrive.

Weight Watchers, P90X, school changes and weather...

Things are changing in our home. More to the point, our overall health and school. Both were lagging, but that is going to change!

Let's start with school. While it has gone rather smoothly since we started back from our Christmas break, it became obvious to Kevin and I both, that Jason had become totally lazy with his multiplication. Enough so it was bugging us. And writing. He prints and does cursive fairly neatly, but the boy. hates. to. write! He has a huge imagination, but hates to sit down and write. I decided to take a month off regular school and devote it to math(learned but forgotten things), and writing. It seems to be working so far, so I have not yet regretted this decision. He is a super smart kid and in reading, language arts, phonics, spelling etc, he's a good grade ahead if not two grades. But math. Oh math. And even it is weird. More complicated things, he "gets", no problem, blows right through it, but really simple things like simple multiplication and even addition sometimes, he struggles and could spend half an hour on a single problem.

And moving on to getting healthier....Kevin has been doing P90X for months now with very noticeable results. I decided it is time for ME to do it, so I started the program over the weekend. I won't be doing it daily as he does because I'm looking for different results. I'm starting with 2 days per week. I am also beginning a walking program(again)that starts at 3 days per week. Kevin is currently doing the snowshoe races up northwest of Boulder every week. Also, Weight Watchers, our friend, has been started up again. It works. I don't know why we always go off it when we reach our target weight. This time a purposeful decision has been made to NOT leave the program but actually stay on it for good. It is working as it always does and I personally have lost 7lbs the first week. I know it seems harsh, but the first week and really the second, the weight just falls off. Litterally. Then it slows down, at least for Kevin and I to a healthy 1-2lb a week.

Our weather is very typical CO right now. Days in the low 60's and days in the teens all in the same week. Heck, sometimes all in the same day!

Here's to a fantastic week for us all!!

Most romantic weekend EVER, yummy greasy diner food, and snow....

https://plus.google.com/photos/105466260500521201276/albums/5708386157586113889?authkey=CNj0kuforfjKjgE


All of the pictures from our weekend are on my phone. We got them downloaded to google and hopefully the above link will take one to the pictures to view.

Friday was a bit of a dreary looking day outside. Cold and cloudy. We managed a good bit of school and Kevin worked from home which was nice. We finished school around 3:40 and he finished work at 4:00 and thus our weekend started!
We enjoyed a French picnic while Jason played Wii. :)

Friday evening we made pan seared(and then oven baked at 500 degrees, that's right)steak for dinner. The 1st picture is searing the steak on the stovetop in cast iron. We seared and baked ours to be medium-rare. YUM! It was so, so good. The 2nd picture is of the roses my wonderfully romantic husband had ordered for me for our romantic weekend. :) The 3rd is of the empty bottle of bubbly. YUM!!!!!

Saturday morning we woke up to freezing fog, 2 inches of ice and almost 2 inches of snow and it was snowing. HOW perfectly romantic....snow for our weekend. It was great! There are a few pictures of the snow and also one of our French breakfast. YUM!! So, so good. Not AS good as the breakfast we had on our 5th anniversary IN France, but pretty darn good. We(okay, "I") decided I didn't want to cook lunch so we opted to go to Gunter Toody's and there is a picture or two of Kevin and Jason playing pinball there. Food is totally not good for you, but we only go once every 2 or 3 years, so.

There is a picture of our chocolate covered strawberries and bubbly and chianti. YUM! Strawberries=yum, chocolate=yum. Win....win! Probably another picture or two of the roses. I really like my roses. :)

We ended our weekend with slow cooker beef stew which was amazing and there is a picture of it with some sweet iced tea. And then finished with Tiramisu and some really strong coffee! What a wonderful, and romantic weekend. We truly, truly did not miss Denver AT ALL!

This week we will be studing the Gold Rush as well as President's Day in school. Jason is pretty excited about the gold deal. :) Kevin is working from home tomorrow this week. We aren't doing anything special tomorrow because the weekend was our Valentine's celebration.

And here's to a brand spanking new week! Hopefully we will all be productive!!

Valentine's Day, family time and romance

Here we are having arrived at Thursday already. It truly seems like the week just started. We realized this past weekend that we would have to cancel and postpone our fun family, quiet/romantic weekend in Denver. Life happens and you therefore must go with it. After being a bit "hinky-tooky" about it, I realized that you don't have to give up everything, you simply must look at it a different way. We can still do something fun for a family thing and can still have some quiet  couple time. The only difference really, is we won't be in Denver or at a hotel. Family time is important. It is something your kids need and should have. Couple time is equally as important and you and your husband/wife need and should have. It is important for your kids and your family to have couple time. And yes, it is important for alone time. Sometimes you just want to go on a long walk and leave the spouse and kiddos at home. Guess what? It's OKAY to do that. :) I adore our family time and I love and cherish couple time with Kevin. I also enjoy a little quiet alone time here and there. Friday evenings seem to usually be our family night. Sometimes it might be Wii, sometimes a movie or two. Date night is something we always look forward to. It is so nice going to a nice dinner and talking to each other without wiping spills or correcting bad behavior. And alone time can be as simple as a half hour bubble bath. All of these things are so, so important. I can't imagine life without them. I love my kids and and I love my husband.

It isn't Valentine's Day, but, "Happy Valentine's Day", I hope you all find time for doing something cute for your kids and something romantic and thoughtful for your spouse. And yes, don't forget yourself, either. :o)

Giants win!...and inappropriate halftime events AND commercials!

Well, yet another football season and Super Bowl have come to an end. :( This is sad for us football fans. This marks the saddest time of year for sports fans(well, most sports fans), football is over but baseball hasn't started. BORING time of year indeed!

We did in fact watch this year's Super Bowl. You all know Kevin is a Viking's fan, but, well, they didn't go to the Super Bowl, so....We do like Eli Manning so we did watch and rooted for the Giants. And, YAY!! What a game. Love to see the Patriots go down as well. It was beautiful. :) I must say that Brady was pretty gracious in his speech post game. Not all players, teams, or fans are gracious winners and or losers. :)

As for the half time deal, this is, for the record, "MY" take on it. Madonna probably did a decent job, I don't know, we didn't watch. To be fair, we NEVER watch the Super Bowl halftime show. And I, too, was a huge Madonna fan in the 80's. Loved her! The incident with this M.I.A. person who I personally didn't even know existed(I know, I know, i'm so "out" of it) :), was sad. A very sad event indeed! I've read this morning on Fox News that both NBC and the NFL have apologized, and that both are basically pointing at the other for who is at fault. Lemme tell ya both, you BOTH are. As long as questionable performers(and I use that term loosely)are allowed to be part of shows like that, these things are going to continue to happen. It really doesn't take a genious to figure that one out!

As for the commercials, OH my. First of all, thankfully we pause the tv during commercials, always, especially during football, because we just aren't interested in watching them! We wanna see the game, not  commercials. And second, thankfully Jason wasn't even in the room. He was down in the basement playing his Wii. But again, OH MY GOSH! I have seen now online some of what was shown, well not actually seen, but seen pictures and read the article. It's not like the game was broadcast at 2:00 in the morning when kids would be asleep! There were some commercials aired last night that are just. NOT. Appropriate. Period. I wonder how parents explained, or tried to last night to young kids about some of the commercials. I certainly wouldn't know how to. Again, I didn't watch them, but going by what I've read they were just not appropriate. There are times and places for certain things, and a Sunday evening, prior to even 8:00 mind you, on network television, is NOT the time. I assure you seeing a naked lady being painted on in a godaddy.com commercial is not going to make me go out and use godaddy.com. And again, this is my take on this. Not trying to speak for anyone else.

And now we start a new work and school week. :) Hoping for a good week for both.

Snow, birthday and Super Bowl

We've had a rather pleasant weekend here at the CO Lidh establishment. After Thursday evening's storm that lasted well into Friday evening. We ended up with just over 12" at our house. We've heard reports around various parts of Falcon anywhere from 7-13". A town, Calhan, which is I think about 20 miles northeast of here on hwy 24 got 22". Yikes! No one did much traveling around which was good. Not as many accidents as usual during inclement weather. Not that there weren't some really bad ones. Denver got wallopped with a good 20" as well. Most folks were happy to get the moisture as we've been so super dry!

Kevin worked from home both Thursday and Friday. Thursday was scheduled and Friday was due to the weather and road closures.

We had Michael's birthday cake yesterday but his actual birthday isn't until tomorrow. We celebrated by going to Hu Hot for dinner and it. was. AWESOME! We are definitely going back there.

Have a couple of recipes to put on here since I like having some of my recipes in more than one place if they are a hit with the family. :)

Potato-cheddar-beer soup:

SO easy. Melt 2 TBS butter in a large pot. Mix in one pouch of instant potato flakes(usually a box comes with two). Stir in one can chicken broth 4 drops tabasco sauce, and 1/4 cup of beer. I used lager. Then finally mix in between 1 1/2 and 2 cups shredded cheese. I actually used cheddar-jack today. Simmer for a good 15 minutes and enjoy. Kevin really likes it and again, SO easy to make.

Hot & spicy chicken legs:

Put 10-12 legs in crockpot and put little cubes of butter all over the pieces. About 1/3 cup total. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and garlic and onion powder, no set amount here, just sprinkle to taste to your liking. Sprinle cumin powder, smoked paprika and roasted ginger powder. Put little bits of dark brown sugar all over the pieces, about 1/3 cup total, and then sprinkle 1/4  cup hot sauce over it all. Cover and cook on high for 3 hours.

Happy cresent rolls:

Open 2 cans of Pilsbury cresent rolls and spread them out on cookies sheets. Mix together 1/2-1 cup cream cheese, grated mozzarella cheese, 1TBS chopped green chili or a chopped jalopeno pepper, and browned sausage(I use turkey sausage). Spoon mixture onto cresent rolls and roll up. Cook by the instructions on the cans.