Fab Friday

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Linking up with Laura at the Everyday Joys for a fab friday link up!

So let me fill you in on all the fabulousness going on around these parts:

• First and foremost- TGIF!!! Yeppers I have never been so excited for a friday in a long time! I need a break from work and kids and weekends mean I get at least an hour of peace in the daylight while the girls nap. You have no idea how precious that hour is!!
• I have already got the themes for both the twins' and Peyton's birthday party. Finally planning things ahead of time and I'm super excited about it! I even ordered the twins' dresses already and I can't wait for May and June so I can bring all my pins into reality! (I'll probably share some details before then though but here's a hint little sailor dresses are involved!)
• The scale no longer reads 1-6! Why hello there 157- it's so good to see you! Sdly I have not seen you since I was 18 weeks pregnant with twins but hey we are working our way down and hopefully I'll be back to my old clothes in a month or two! 
• I am back on the fitness train and uber committed. Yeppers- my fitness pal now logs EVERYthing I put in my mouth and Jillian Michaels is on my screen every night. 
• I bit into peer pressure and am jumping aboard the advocate cleanse along with almost everyblogger I know. I am starting Monday so look forward that post. Now I need to start meal planning.
• Also, I am seriously contemplating a hair color change. I am thinking highlights are in the works soon! I've been dark long enough! I use to always have highlights then I was pregnant for 1000 years and quit dying my hair and never went back. But I think I'm ready to become a little more high maintenance!

Well ladies, that's it for me! Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! I'll be spending mine with these three cutie pies!!! Saturday morning gymnastics and then a whole lotta nothingness!

XOXO, Ally

Making it easy...

Okay. So I am now on day 3 of flying solo on the parenting train. I am learning things everyday that I need to change to able to make people think we don't live in a pigsty I'm superwoman.

First lesson I learned was laundry. yeah, three kids plus the man-child husband equals a sh!t ton of laundry to be washed and folded and on a good day actually put away. The worst thing my husband ever did was put a folding table in our laundry room. Before that table I would fold and stack clothes on the dryer and put them away when I got tired of playing jenga with the pile now I have even more space to stack clothes because I have a whole table! Hehe, he totally thought that would mean things would get folded and put away. Hey- at least they are folded. Anyways, now every morning I start a load, when I get home I move it to the dryer. Then once the girls are in bed, I fold it up and put it on the table away :) Then I sort the next load and put it in the washer to be started the next morning. This saves me from doing 8 piles of laundry on the weekend.

I usually have food prepared for my lunches but its not packed up so I usually have to gather it all up which of course takes time plus even longer when there are three little ones running around dumping their breakfast all over the floor and trying to stuff their banana in the baby's mouth. So, lesson of the day have my lunch packed so I only have to put my bag in the car!

And the unfortunate lesson of the day carry febreeze and anything I can think of to make cleaning up a child that just vomitted all over herself, her carseat and the car when you have an hour drive to drop her off at my dad's which is right by my work. yep, for those of you keeping score I drive an hour every day to get to work with usually 1 or 2 kids in tow. Sad 2 hours of my life wasted in the car but hopefully by the end of the year I will be working closer to home *fingers crossed*

And that folks are the lessons I've learned on my current journey into doing things for myself and because no post is complete without some cuteness here are my babies at bath time last night. If you all three of you follow me on IG then you already saw this pic (if you don't follow me there you should- @ali4mmia).

Single Parent Mode!!!

Holy sh!tballs people! Okay, I know not many of you know too much about my life YET but know this. I am sure if you read back you'll wonder how my husband sucks balls most of the time when it comes to parenting and he's still alive gets away with it. Well, the answer to that question is I have this LADY!!!

That would be my MIL!!! She lives with us. People ask me all the time isn't it weird living with your MIL? Without hesitation I can honestly say- Umm, Heck no!!! If you haven't noticed I've got my hands full with little ones. Yep, at one point I had three kids under 1!!! Now I just have three kids under 2- piece of cake really! Anyways, well she's leaving me for three weeks. My sister-in-law's husband is in the army and she's going out there to help her out while he is away at training. Which of course means no help at home- BOOO!!!

I am going to look at this as a challenge to see if I can reach super mom status but mainly my goal is to avoid having a nervous breakdown. Wish my luck ladies! Oh yeah, plus I'll try to manage some type of exercise plan seeing as though I am STILL at 160!!! Some body tell that effin scale to move already!!!!

Mother's Day Out

I will say today I am feeling more grateful than yesterday. I should say the hubs may suck at all holidays and indeed believes it is my job to do his laundry and my sole responsibility to care for our kids BUT some days thats not a bad thing. Like when it comes to major decisions- I don't have to argue or compromise I get to make the choices I feel are best for our children and well let's face it- most of us like doing things our way. (oh plus I can often guilt talk him into doing what I want such as the toughmudder this April)

One of the things I thought would be good for the girls is to start socializing more with other kids. Some moms get to do play dates, but this momma works 5 days a week which apparently are the only times all the mom groups here do playdates. I swear if I knew more people I would start a playdate for working moms (of course none of us would probably have the time to attend because let's face it getting off work, picking up the kids and then getting home to let them play, have dinner, baths, cuddle time and bed time leaves little time for showing up somewhere and fighting with them when I tell them it's time to go). Anyways, enter Mother's Day Out.

If you're new here and are wondering how I manage to take care of three kids when the hubs doesn't help me. Well, it's because I have the most AMAZEballs family in the whole entire world. Seriously, I would probably be in some mental institution if it wasn't for them. between my MIL (who lives with us), my dad and grandma who live by my job, and my mother who lives 20 minutes from my house I am fortunate enough to always have my kids with family who loves them! So the way I separate the girls is because I may take care of three kids under 19 months on my own but I would never expect others to so usually whoever has the twins- is just watching the twins and whoever has Peyton- only watches her. I however started to notice that the twins were getting sick of each other- i.e. fighting over things more often and even started to bite each other. My interpretation of this was they are sick of each other since they are always so kind to Peyton. I mean really- they have spent their whole lives together. they sleep in the same room and well every where they go there the other one is. So I have friends who take their kids to mother's day out and say it helps so much with socialization so even though I have free childcare, I decided that this was worth a shot. 

The girls attend mother's day out 2 days a week for four hours a day. I had high hopes that they would be learning so many new things and come back talking in full sentences. Well not so much but they do seem to get along better now. They seem to be more patient with one another and the biting has for the most part stopped. They share a lot more and even hug each other for no reason. It could be that they are just getting older and we all definitely work with them and stress for them to share and be gentle and sweet. They seem to love going and get so excited to carry their little book bags and lunch boxes. So my overall experience after starting in January is that this has been worth the money to me and that I will be enrolling them again for the coming school year. And I leave you with a few shots of my girls at school.

Waiting to go In!

 Playing on the Playground!

Sitting down, waiting for the Valentine's party!

-Ally

Just another day...

Okay, If you don't want to hear me whine about my life. Please feel free to skip this post. I promise you're not missing much. I just needed a place to get it all out.

I know many of you gals are either- Oooohh yeah Valentine's or its just another commercial holiday. I am going to be honest with you. I don't care about Valentine's day or any other holiday for that matter. Not because of me or any feelings I have about hallmark but because I don't do well with disappointment. You see my husband doesn't do anything for any holiday- not mother's day, not christmas, and not even my birthday.  I have really tried to accept these things and to be honest I was doing well for the most part until I got onto social media such as blogging and instagram because it's just a constant reminder of things I will never have. I will never have the husband who tells me he loves me or that he is proud of me. I will never have the husband who says thank you for anything I do. I will always be the wife that does it all by herself because I have no choice. I will be the wife who just tries to keep everything going. I am the only who does laundry or cooks, the only one who watches the kids I arrange their babysitting when needed, their school, and all their activities.

Sometimes, when you see I have taken a break from blogging its because seeing so many of you happy "normal" girls starts to take its toll on me. I sit around and wonder what it would be like to have a family outing. I am not talking vacation or anything like that. I mean I used to dream of taking my kids to the park as a family or going for walks as a family. Well,there is no family time. It's just me. Just a mom struggling to do the best she can to give my kids the kind of life and memories they can look back on. And yes my husband works (just FYi- I also have a full time job) that I get but the fact that he doesn't want to be there. He doesn't get excited when I tell him the girls said a new word or even when they started to walk. He won't even hold our youngest because he says she "drools too much".

On Valentine's, all I do is review my life and think how did this happen to me. I go back to our first mother's day 7 months pregnant with twins. I spent the majority of that pregnancy miserably sick and vomiting and peeing my pants with every heave (how come no one warns you about that).  And well I was really looking forward to Mother's day. I thought now that I am having his kids surely things will change. Well, you know what I got for Mother's day. I got told "You're not even really a mother". That haunts me to this day. And well every holiday after that was completely down hill.

Anyways, on that completely depressing note for those of you that somehow found it worth reading to the end- Happy Valentine's day. I hope your day is filled with the love you should experience all year round.

Tomorrow, I promise to be happier and less of a Debbie downer. I'll tell you about the twin's time in Morther's day out and their first Valentine's party.

-Ally

Weigh-In Wednesday

Okay, so technically its Thursday. And although I did not post last wednesday I did weigh in and I was done to 160.0. The 160's are haunting my like big time and yesterday at 160.2. UGH!!!!!! I can't stand to look at that 1-6 number combination any more. That's the weight I got down to after the twins. You know before I got pregnant 8 weeks after their birth and stopped losing weight altogether. I think my body thinks its supposed to be here and well I know I need to add major exercise if I want to break through this plateau but I just don't have the want. I start out with the best of intentions, I eat well but my exercise is scheduled for after the girls are in bed which is around 8ish (the twins go down everyday at 730) but the little one likes to stay up and play since her grandma lets her nap a lot during the day. So by the time I get her down I don't feel like doing anything. I just don't. I don't know what to do to get my butt in gear but I guess I better start figuring things out. If I ever plan to get into the 150's.

Oh, speaking of exercise. Guess what I did on Saturday. I ran a 5k. Yep, my first race and when I say I ran. I may not have ran fast but I ran the whole thing not walking once. I was scared I would totally suck @ss as I have never run outside only on the treadmill in the garage so everybody warned me that outdoor running and treadmill running are no where near the same. So I set my standards low of finishing in 45 minutes but nope I did it in 36:53 which I was proud of. I know there is so much room to improve but I am just proud of not walking and hope to find a love for running.

-Ally

Weigh-In Wednesday

Funny, I thought of doing weight watchers the meeting ones because then I would have people see me weigh in and I could shame myself motivate myself into staying on track. So why not just bring that motivation to my little old blog. Anyways, eating clean is going incredibly well- like I was offered McDonalds for lunch and didn't even hesitate saying no. I have come to really LOVE instagram- I follow a lot of really motivating people and it has really kept me going. I do however need to really up the exercise because I only ran twice this week so I intend to up my cardio to 4 times a week and 3 days of weights. Anyways on to the numbers:

Last week: 162.2
Today: 160.4
Down 1.8lbs!

So I know that doesn't seem like a lot but I know I am losing real weight and I am determined to do this the healthy way and not the crazy three day diet I did last time that got my to lose almost 8lbs in a week for my brother's wedding. I am totally creating a lifestyle here and I am really excited about. So one lb at a time I will get myself where I want to be.

Plus little eyes are watching. It's so cute I taught the girls to squat. When we are playing and I can't get a good workout in I'll just do squats or ab work while they play and well they must have thought the squats were some kind of game because now they do it whenever they see me do it. I showed the hubs and he couldn't stop laughing. he said "Mommy taught you guys to drop it like its hot" lol. Yep- no further motivation needed to get my fitness on point than six little eyes looking up thinking I wanna be like Momma.

Freezer Cooking

I have tried my hand at freezer cooking once in the past- I used all recipes I got off different pins from my pinterest boards. I guess you take a chance when you make a large amount of recipes without trying any of them. But I thought pinterest wouldn't steer me wrong. Well, I made 5 recipes that first time and to be honest I only really LOVED two of them. This time around I only made one recipe but it got me four meals for my freezer that our perfect for lazy cold days. I was inspired by Bilo's 99cent sale of chicken breast so I went ahead and made Chicken and black bean chili.

So one thing I didn't like about my pin is that it gave the amount for the entire recipe and not what you put in each bag so I will do my recipe per bag and you all can just multiply by how many bags you want. I would say each bag will get you about 6 hearty bowls.

Step one:

Get your ingredients:

1.5 cans tomato sauce (not the mini can and not the jumbo can)

1 can crushed tomatoes (same size as above)

1 can yellow corn (regular size)

1/2 can white corn (small can)

1 can black beans (regular size can)

2 chicken breast (about 2lbs chicken bone-in) *note- we like a lot of meat

1 package chili seasoning

1/4 package hot chili seasoning (I like it hot but make it mild so the kids can eat too and just add hot sauce to my bowl)

1/2 onion

3 celery stalks

1 freezer gallon ziplock bag

Step two:

Boil chicken. While chicken is boiling dice onion and celery.

Step three: 

Let chicken cool. Remove skin and then shred the meat and place in large bowl. 

Step four:

Add all ingredients to your bag and zip tightly removing as much air as possible.

Step five:

I like to massage the bag to mix the ingredients. (make sure your have zipped it tightly.

You should end up with something like this:

To cook just place in a pot and simmer for 2 hours or I put mine in my crock pot on low for 4 hours or high 2 hours.

Let me know if you try it and also let me know what your favorite freezer meals are. My goal is to have a large variety so on days work gets crazy and I get tired I can still put homemade healthy meals on the table for the girls.

Not another crazy diet...

Soooo like many women after giving birth (in my case twice to three babies) the baby weight just hasn't melted off (magically) a la Giselle. And well I have tried crazy diets- low carb, calorie counting, grapefruit with little to no success and then it hit me. What the heck am I doing?!?! A diet is not going to solve my current weight struggles and it is not what I want my girls to learn. So I went back to my list of New Year's resolutions and somewhere on the bottom after lose weight and running races was the most important if not the most vague- Be a ROLE model to my girls.

With that thought in my head I have made a commitment to them and to myself that I will be healthy. I will fix us healthy and nutritious meals. I will fix us fresh snacks. I will make being active a part of our normal life not something mommy does because she is trying to lose weight.

I may not be a great or even consistent blogger but I am a consistent reader of other blogs and have become so motivated by all the amazing women I have found on here especially those I have also been following on instagram. I see the meal planning ahead of time, the regular gym appointments and the balance of family, fitness, and finances (i.e. work).

Well I started my planning Monday and was at walmart till 11pm getting us groceries. I bought all new tupperware and a 1/2 gallon jug I now carry with my to make sure I drink my water for the day. So what did a typically day look like for me yesterday:

Meal#1: blueberry power bowl (I got the recipe from muffintopless)
Meal #2: cheesestick and 15 almonds
Meal#3: salad with romaine, cucumbers, 1/6 avocado, and 3 oz turkey
Meal#4: protein bar
Meal#5: turkey sausage with onions and green peppers on corn tortillas with salsa and a dap of light sour cream

I had a meal #6 planned which was a post workout protein shake but since I didn't make it to the gym thanks to a little baby who refused to go to bed. Anyways, as you see totally doable and not only that I wasn't hungry like I was when I was counting calories and most important everything I put in my mouth was because it had nutritional value. I don't want my girls growing up using food as comfort or rewards I want them to learn the value of food that it's there to provide fuel for our bodies and that we have to take care of our bodies to be healthy. Anyways stick around won't you as I navigate my way through getting fit and healthy.

Oh wait one more thing: just because I am not dieting doesn't mean I don't want to see the numbers on the scale and on the back of my pants go down: so hello weigh in wednesday!!

Weight: 162.2
Pants: 8 or 10 depending on the brand

The goal:
Weight: 130
Pants: 2 or 4

So What Wednesday!!!

Linking up with the fabulous Shannon at Life After I Dew, in order to tell you all what I am saying so what to this week!

• I wrote two posts yesterday and could not make it publish worthy- maybe by tomorrow
• There are still no pictures on the walls- but I did buy frames- getting closer!
• I felt totally guilty about taking Layla to her first day of school today because Bree was sick and couldn't go. (I always feel like they need to be the same) It's okay she will go Monday.
• I put the girls in Mother's day out twice a week because I feel like they need to socialize with kids other than themselves.
• I took today off to take the twins to their first day and I gotta say I am now super uber jealous of stay at home moms (maybe I can start working from home?)
• I haven't worked out at all this week- so much for new year's resolution but hey I lost 6lbs! (woot woot) Thank you my fitness pal and your meager calorie allowance.
• My main motivation to start exercising is to eat more food.
• I let my friend talk me into signing up for a 5k- I guess I should train for that soon. It's a month away. (time to get serious)

Alright, enjoy the rest of your week ladies!

XOXO, Ally

Must be doing something right....

The day I found out I was having twins- a mixture of emotions flooded through me. With an extensive education in mental health- so much swirled through my head and so much anxiety I don't think I would have had if I was having a singleton pregnancy. I wondered how they would get along. I wondered if they would compete against each other or if they would get together to outsmart Mom and Dad. I never pretend to have all the answers- heck I've only been doing this parenting thing for a little over 18 months. Bur this weekend I felt like a supermom! No- I didn't do any cool pinterest worthy crafts, yes I did manage to get four kids to target, old navy, chickfila., coldstone and the mall but that wasn't what did it. Although pushing my triple in public always either makes me feel like a sideshow act or a superhero (thank you random strangers for all your comments in regards to my kids- yes they are ALL mine, no they're not triplets, and well how do I do it- I'm awesome I don't have any other option but to do it). Anyways, after that long rant I bring you the moment that made my momma heart overflow and gave me that reassurance that I am doing SOMETHING right:

 

You see that right there! Those are my two baby girls hugging AND kissing each other for NO reason! I did not tell them to do this in fact I wasn't even watching them I was putting their sister in the car when my stepdaughter calls me over and I see THIS!!!! Every night I pray that all my girls will grow up with a special bond and that they will develop a great friendship. Sometimes I question myself because the girls do fight- they bite, they push, and they pull hair. Not always and granted it usually involves some toy the other one wants. BUT moments like this- let me know that if nothing else I am teaching my girls LOVE and that ladies makes this momma so happy.

 

XOXO, Ally

  

New Year... Same blog

I think I am officially back. To be honest I can't really explain my hiatus- just surviving the everyday- work, kids, holidays and figuring out life. But I love reading blogs and I apologize for not commenting on some of my faves but I have just been reading from my iPhone while you know I was supposed to be working.

So a quick recap on what I have been doing for the last few months: took the girls (all three) on a 7 day cruise for Thanksgiving, celebrated Christmas, rang in the New Year, and a lot of growing up. My little babies are getting big. Speaking of big, the twins start MDO next Wednesday. I can't believe my little babies are going out into the world. I am excited for them to meet new friends and learn new things.

This year is also a big year because at the end I turn the BIG 3-0. Not as frightened as I thought I would be but also I have lots of goals to reach before I hit that milestone.

So for those of you still around. I'm back and I promise lots of fun bloggy recaps and posts to come- including cruising with kids tips, house makeovers, holiday recap, and watch us grow posts. Plus a few new year new me planning, setting goals and update posts as well.

Stick around.. please. I promise I'm here for awhile.

XOXO, Ally