Cabin Fun

We got the chance to go to the cabin on Saturday. It was a rainy afternoon but the kids had so.much.fun.  They had a party upstairs, laughed like maniacs, played in the mud, and made s'mores.

It was neat to see Avery and Ben play with their cousins in the same place that I spent countless weekends playing with my cousins. 

Juice Cleanse

A couple of weeks ago Rob and I decided to do a juice cleanse.  Ok.  I decided to do a juice cleanse.  

Me: hey, do you want to do a juice cleanse?

Rob: sure. 

If only all decision were made that easily.

Why a juice cleanse?  I'd been wanting to try it for a variety of reasons: health, energy, detox, and weight loss being primary among them.  A reset of sorts.

Some basic searches led me to a diy version of the Blueprint Cleanse.  The Blueprint Cleanse is around $165 for 3 days.  Per person.  So obviously we were going to diy. 

I decided to follow this particular blog's directions.  They were simple and easy to follow with dedicated grocery lists.

These 6 daily juices are as follows:

Green

-celery

-cucumber

-green apple

-kale

-romaine

-spinach

-lemon juice

PAM 

-pineapple

-apple

-mint

Green-again

Spicy lemonade

-lemons

-cayenne

-water

CAB

-carrot

-apple

-beet

-ginger

Cashew or Almond

-almonds

-water

-agave

In addition to the above juices you can have water and green tea.

First, of all, this requires a TON of produce and a TON of prep and a TON of cleanup.  We spent several hours washing/cutting/juicing our juices for the next day.  It is definitely not quick and easy.  

I figured I would be hungry.  Starving, actually.  And I was not disappointed.  I was indeed starving for the better part of 3 days.  Here's the thing-I read a lot of reviews and experiences and nearly every single one said they thought they would be starving, but they weren't.  They actually had tons of energy. 

No. 

Liar liars.  

I was so hungry it was difficult to focus on anything.  I was at times light-headed.  It was just an overall feeling of foggy-ness.  Rob felt the same way.  Instead of moving my focus away from food-which I had hoped the cleanse would help with-I was obsessed with food and could think of little else.  

So how did the juices taste?  

The green juice was horrible.  Let me rephrase; the green juice tasted like celery.  I hate celery.  

The PAM juice was delicious.  I could drink that all day.  

The spicy lemonade.  Not good.  Not good at all.  

The CAB I like to refer to as "beet juice of death."  I drank it once and only once.  That was enough for me to decide I'd rather go hungry(er) thank drink said death juice.  To clarify, Rob got a little heavy-handed on the ginger, which made it very spicy.  I'm talking burn-your-throat spicy, fiery gullet spicy.  I choked a glass down-gulping water in between-heaved on the last sip, and decided that was where the road ended for me and the CAB.  We had made 2 days worth of the fiery beet juice, and there was really no way to fix it.  

The almond juice was delicious.  

So did I cheat?  I had a handful of almonds and a few cucumber slices on the second day.  On the third and final day I made it until lunch and called the whole thing off (I had already decided to ease out of it that day).  Rob had a salad on the night of the second day, and I think he ate normally on the third day.

Did I lose any weight?  Yeah, we both lost weight.  And we've probably gained it back.

How much was it?  Honestly, I never totaled it up (I went to store several times) but less than $100.

Would I do it again?  Eh.  Modified.  I would do it for a day.  Or replace two meals a day with juice and eat one meal.  No food for three days is too much for me, personally.   But I do love the reset and the influx of vitamins and nutrients.  I like juicing.  But I will definitely hold off on any juices that contain celery or beets.  

Avery's First Camping Trip

We took advantage of the incredible weather and took Avery on a little campout Saturday night (Ben stayed with Mimi).  It was technically not real camping (according to Rob) because there were actual campsites, other people around, grills, etc.

But camping is camping.  And Avery loved it.  She really had an awesome time.  She was into helping with everything from collecting wood to setting up the tent to starting the fire (she wanted to sleep by the fire, and said it would be fine because she doesn't snore so she wouldn't put out the fire).

Setting up the tent

Bubbles in the sunshine

Feet in the water

Greenleaf Lake

Snake skin

Starting the fire

Kabobs from Reasor's-perfect camping food

Weenie roast

We didn't bring enough blankets (and we lost the dew cover for our tent) and we froze.  Avery was fine, I think, because she had a new sleeping bag.  Rob and I were not so lucky.

We saw a deer, found a snakeskin, roasted hot dogs, made smores.  I think it was a pretty good camping trip!

Children's Museum & Weekend Fun

A children's museum/discovery lab recently opened in Tulsa and we took the kids last Sunday.  They both had so.much.fun.  There is an area for little ones that was perfect for Ben.  Everything was on his level and there were tons of blocks, balls, mirrors, and things to crawl over, under, and through.

Right now there is a Cartoon Network area where kids can learn about animation, drawing, etc.


 
There is a huge tunnel/slide made of tape and various other exhibits.  There's also an art room that features a daily theme.  They supply everything to make a craft that the kids can take home.  That day's theme was 3d.  Avery and Dad made a sunflower.

Avery has already asked when we can go back.

A few more pics from that weekend:

Videos

I try to get videos here and there of the kids, but often times by the time I get the phone and switch the camera to video, they've stopped doing or saying what they had been.

There was a lot more to this, but I just caught the latter part.  

Anything you ever wanted to know about My Little Pony:

And after dance class on Monday, she had a new move:

Sunday morning, Avery locked Ben out of the office.  Totally justified.  He wrecks everything in there, throws fistfuls of crayons and markers with zeal, and rips in half anything she's coloring right out from under her.  But he wasn't happy about it.

Tiny Walker

I went out of town for 1.5 days over last weekend and I came home and Ben was walking.  And talking.

Seriously.

He's been taking 3-4 steps here and there for a while but he is suddenly walking everywhere.

And he is saying several new words, including airplane.  He also pointed to a picture of an airplane in a book and one when we were outside and said the word.

My little smarty.

It's still kind of odd, but cute, to see him teetering around.

Sweet little guy is getting bigger!

Rite of Passage

I went out of town this weekend for a quick girls weekend at the lake.

On Saturday I got a text from Rob.

Avery gave haircuts to the ponies and herself!  

with accompanying photos:

My mind processed Avery gave haircuts to the ponies (My Little Ponies of course).

I don't understand what I thought I saw.  My mind only saw pony hair.

Haha I replied.

Rob thought I was taking it well.

Imagine my surprise when I walked in Sunday morning.

"Mom, I made a mistake."

Avery: do you like my hair?

Me: well...I liked the way it was before.

Avery: why are you crying?

Me:  I'm just...surprised.   I think we're going to need to go see Papa today.

I know.  It's just hair.  I know it'll grow back.  I know.  But...it's just, our kids are somewhat follicularly challenged.  Their hair doesn't exactly grow like weeds.  This could take a while.  And if it was just the back, it wouldn't have been bad.  But the front?  Not gonna lie, it's not awesome.

Rob said she was pretty upset on Saturday.  She thought everyone was going to be mad at her.  No one beat her up about it-she beat herself up enough.  Although she understood when Dad took her scissors away (she had a pair of safety scissors at her coloring table that she had been instructed to only use on paper).

He says I can have them back when I'm 5 or 6.  That's a long time away...maybe when I'm 5?

Papa evened it up.

Much better.

Headbands are our friend.

Monday morning we went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and fix (ha) her hair, like usual.  She gave herself a funny look in the mirror.

I look crazy, she said.  I don't look pretty anymore.

No.  You are beautiful.  It doesn't matter what your hair looks like.  You are pretty on the inside and the outside.

No pony tail came out unscathed.

I'm kind of glad I was out of town on Saturday.  Who knows what may have happened to me.

Sigh.

It'll grow.  In the meantime.  Headbands.