Day 2

Menu Log
Breakfast: Ezekiel cereal with yogurt
Lunch: Polenta with marinara sauce and roasted asparagus.
Supper: Lentil soup

Don't know if you can make out the heart shapes in honor of Valentines Day.

I ate 2 big bowls along with a bagel. It filled me up but by bedtime I was hungry again so had to eat some trail mix. I also snacked on peanut butter crackers and ate a boiled egg at different points during the day.

Holly told me about how eating things that require more chewing/digestion uses up more calories and that we should make smoothies. This makes sense. Brad eats a smoothie on the nights he works at Panera. Apparently they have some really good ones.

Feeling good. Haven't noticed any changes in energy. Haven't had any red meat cravings yet either. I'm sure they will come.

If anyone has a good vegetarian recipe let me know. We will cook it and tell you what we think.

Day 1 of 40

Day one of our new healthy eating program(this is not a Diet in the way most people think) has begun. Brad and I both had Ezekiel cereal with Almond milk. If you've never tried almond milk you should. Bethany loves the stuff!
Lunch was a nice salad with eggs.

We made quinoa burgers for supper. They are called Qrunch(Crunch) Burgers. Quinoa is a complete protein and these pre-made burgers are pretty tasty. They have a good crunch to them like they claim. No soggy mess. We got some vegan mayo to dress them and I was pleasantly surprised by its similarity to the real deal.

You can see that we piled on vegetarian cheese and roasted red peppers. Yum!
My only complaint so far is one that I've been experiencing already. Because I'm breast feeding I am hungry all the time. No matter what I eat or how much I eat I won't stay full very long. I can eat enormous amounts of food whether it be a quarter pound hamburger with a side of fries or a huge plate of salad with a bagel. I will still be hungry an hour later. So tonight before we went to bed Brad made huevos rancheros with eggs, cheese, salsa, black beans, and cilantro. I ate two of these bad boys and could still eat more.

So far we have enjoyed all of the food we've eaten. Brad has commented that he feels good for eating good food but is feeling the same way about being hungry even after eating. Maybe it's psychological but I would say that we both agree that our bodies are a bit confused right now. 

 

Finally, I wanted to explain what prompted Brad and my decision to try and eat a primarily vegetarian diet. Brad has a health screening done for free every year by Whole Foods. After he had that done he started thinking about ways to improve his health. We have also been watching some pretty interesting documentaries about becoming vegetarians. They make some pretty good arguments and present some convincing research about the benefits of eating a plant based diet. Here is the list of what we've watched if you are interested in that kind of stuff:

Hungry For A Change

Vegucated

Food Matters

Forks Over Knives

 

Veggie Tales

It has been a long time since I blogged so I thought it might be fun to log our family's Lent adventure. Every year Jessica sends out her Lent Police letter and asks us what we will be giving up for Lent. This year Brad and I decided to give up red meat, poultry, most dairy products, and coke. We will still eat seafood, fish, yogurt, vegetarian cheese, eggs, and small amounts of butter. We have been talking about trying to eat a vegetarian diet so decided this might be a good time to start. Our hope is that it makes us feel better, more energetic and gives us new ideas of how to eat healthy foods.
Because today was Fat Tuesday we celebrated like all good Catholics do and pigged out on red meat, cheese, and cola. Our supper was Jambalaya. Spicy and delicious as you can see in the picture below.

This is our fridge loaded with all our fruits, veggies, and milk/dairy substitutes and the top of Bethany's head.
                                

I have to admit that I'm pretty excited about these next 40 days. I think it will be really good for us to step out of our old eating habits and try some new ones. My one concern is that I might have trouble eating enough complete proteins. That's why we kept eggs and fish.
My goal is to blog about what we eat and how we feels during Lent so stay tuned for an update really soon!

What's New

It's official! We had an ultrasound and the doc said we are having a BOY!!!! Yay!!!! He looks healthy and the due date is correct this time so we couldn't be happier.
My only complaint this time us that I've had really bad back pain. I finally gave in and went to a chiropractor. Think it has helped a little so will go again on Friday.
In other news, Brad is thriving in his new position/location. He is enjoying learning all the new departments that he's in charge of. We both love that it's a 20 minute drive instead of the previous 45-1hr. trek that he was doing. The raise in pay is not bad either😉.
I'll end with a funny story about Bethany. Brad was playing with Bethy and she didn't like something he was doing so she told him "ttsshhhtttt"! That's the noise I make when I'm correcting Waffles! We had a nice laugh.

Easter Fun and Counting

We started our celebration of Easter off the night before with an egg dying session. It was just us girls but we had lots of fun. The video posted at the end of the blog is of Nanna helping Bethany and then her counting to 10! She's just 19 months old so I think that's pretty impressive.

Everyone attended the sunrise service because the church we go to is so packed on Easter that you have to get tickets for the other 3 services. Even though we were all a little groggy eyed it was still a great celebration of Jesus coming back to life!

Our Easter dinner was fabulous. We had ham, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, and Jeff Davis pie(custard pie Brad's Mama made).

After lunch was the Easter egg hunt. Grandad hid the eggs and Bethany had a great time finding them. We ended up doing it twice.

We ended the afternoon with some Sonic that Dad bought us. Bethany's favorite part was to eat the ice. I'm so glad Mom and Dad got to come down for the weekend. I think having lots of family to celebrate special holidays always makes it so much more meaningful.

Catch Up Post on Bethany (More for me than for You)

Just a few pictures of Bethany and how she has changed over the last 6 months. She is now running around like crazy and repeating everything you say. Some of her favorite words are:

Chicken

like it

Monk (milk)

More

Side (outside)

Broccoli (said very plainly)

Blaa (bath)

chocit (chocolate)

She can say all her grandparents names "Nanna, Gindad, Mimi, Pappy."

She can even say her cousin's, aunt's, and Uncle's names. I don't know if this is normal for an 18 month old but she loves to talk!

She loves singing! She can sing part of the veggie tales theme song; Sung as follows "broccoli, cerrey(celery) ga be(got to be) bum bum bum.(tuba noise)" as well as several other songs from the veggie tales movies.

I am now a stay at home Mom which has been nice. Brad has landed another job at Panera bread to cover my old job. We recently remodeled our bathroom so I'll have to show pictures of that on another blog. Enjoy watching our booger grow!

Shortly after her first b-day

October

a lion for Halloween

Christmas day

January

February

Making valentines cookies with "Nanna"

finally able to wear pig tails!

Snoozing in the car with her monkey

March; loves to feed the dog

The Hall Family Christmas

This was our first year celebrating Christmas just by ourselves and I do believed it turned out quite satisfying.
Christmas eve Brad got off work by 8pm so we had some time to watch the Traditional Christmas movie: The Griswold's Family Christmas Vacation while putting together Bethany's tricycle.
Christmas day began by opening and playing with all of our gifts. It was so fun to see Bethy get excited about her gifts. Brad and I had tons of fun making our Christmas dinner of juicy turkey, homemade cranberry sauce(I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to canned stuff), stuffing, Mama Hall's spoon rolls, mash potatoes, brussel sprouts, and pumpkin cheese cake. Yummmmy! Bethany was our official taste tester and she loved the job.
We took a long afternoon nap and lazed around the rest of the evening. It was a glorious Christmas!