Garden Update

The garden is out of control!!! lol, we have squash and cucumbers growing like crazy out there. Today we went out and picked some veggies and I did some much needed weeding. We ended up with way more cucumbers than we can eat ourselves so the girls suggested that we take some to the neighbors. They were so cute, I put them in a bag and sent them next door while I stood on the porch with Eli. They were giggling and kept telling me "don't talk mommy, we're going to do it all by ourselves!!" Sophia was so shy, she said "I'm kind of scared, what if they laugh at me??" But Ansleigh was so ready to tell them that she had cucumbers for them that she kept forgetting what they were called. When the neighbor came to the door they all just stood there and looked over at me to do the talking... I decided to keep quiet and see how they handled themselves, Ansleigh made a weird nervous grunt while holding the bag out and Alyssa started grabbing cucumbers out and handing them to the man with a huge smile on her face while Sophia sort of hid behind a pillar on the porch. It was so cute and he was just laughing and saying "these are for me? thank you!!" They were so proud of their hard work and can't wait to give out more vegetables to the neighborhood. This garden has been a blessing in more ways than I had imagined. My kids are learning where out food comes from, they're eating healthy snacks straight from the back yard, and now they are learning how good it feels to give to others and hopefully some confidence with talking to strangers too. I took some pictures today, they aren't great because the sun is so high right now, but it's the only time I'll have to get pictures today.

Squash and zucchini

flower on squash plant

eggplant

very first eggplant is growing!

cucumber plants

tomato plants are HUGE!!

just waiting on them to ripen 

cherry tomatoes!!!

beans

flower on beans

peas (had a couple more of these but lost them today
while Ansleigh was "helping" me weed the garden, oops)

tomatoes are taller than Sophia! 

Slim in 6

I have completed Slim in 6!! And I am very pleased with the results. Not only did I lose 11 pounds of body fat, but I also lost a total of 9 inches! (4 of those coming off of my waist alone). I still have a little ways to go until I meet my goal, but this definitely got me motivated to keep it up. I start Insanity tomorrow and I am so excited to see what kind of results I can get with it. I took my "before" pictures yesterday, but I'm not ready to post them just yet... I might post them once I have 6 pack abs to compare them to though  ;)

Here are the results from Slim in 6:

 (I've lost 13 lbs total, but the first couple were from dieting before I started Slim in 6)

Bye-Bye Baby Weight!

    Alright, so Eli is 16 months old now.... I think it's about time to say goodbye to the extra weight I've been carrying around after giving birth twice. I managed to lose the weight between Sophia and Eli, but with diet only. I've never been into working out unless it was through a sport, and now that I have four little ones here to take care of I don't have very many options as far as working out goes. We don't have room in our house for fancy workout equipment, and if i wanted to go for a run I would need a quadruple stroller!! And since I'm not good at coming up with my own workouts, that pretty much leaves me with home video programs. I've always wanted to try out P90X, but I just never felt like I was ready for that. I tried it out once and just got frustrated because I couldn't do any of the moves; you see, I don't like to do things I'm not good at :) [just being honest]. But a friend of mine was telling me about how she got back into shape with another Beachbody program called Slim in 6. It's a 6 week program geared more towards people getting back into shape, where I felt like P90X was geared more towards people who were in pretty good shape, but wanted to tone up or get stronger. So we started doing SI6 together 6 days a week, and we're 3 weeks in already. I feel great and I'm amazed at the results I'm already seeing in just 21 days! I will be moving on to P90X once I'm through with this workout, I think I'll be strong enough to not get discouraged this time around. I've been taking pictures to have before and after shots, but I'm not ready to show them yet.... they show my bare stomach and I need to have an awesome after picture before I'll dare to show the before picture on the internet LOL, but here are a couple of me that I'm comfortable sharing.

       Before: 143 lbs                        Day 20 of SI6: 135 lbs

I plan on blogging throughout my fitness journey. I want to prove to all the moms out there (including myself) that it IS possible to get your body back after babies. Wish me luck!! :) 

Garden (June)

Time for another garden update and we officially have veggies growing!!! I am so excited to see them getting bigger every day. Still waiting on the peas to sprout (they went in the ground kind of late) but everything else is thriving. The tomato plants are huge and the beans are starting to climb the trellis, which is really cool to see happen. Here are some pictures of all the progress:

squash plant

tiny squash

Cucumbers are climbing

tiny, tiny, cucumber

eggplant

bell pepper

tomato plants

fried green tomatoes anyone? 

beans

vines fascinate me

it's really neat to watch them coil around the trellis

carrots

I noticed a couple were growing too close together,
so I picked one of them. 

random flowers growing in the backyard

the girls planted some wildflower seeds and they are starting to bloom