Potty Training and the Work at Home Mom

I truly tip my hat to all you moms who have your toddlers potty trained. We have made several attempts to potty train Hanna and nothing has quite worked. She is now at the point where she runs to the potty after she has pooped and sits down, making a lovely poopy mess all over.

With my new found feeling of competency I have decided to make a full fledged effort to help her get potty trained this week. We have already tackled getting her sleeping in her own bed, and falling asleep on her own and it’s going quite well.

So far today, we have pooped in our pants, but no tinkles in our pants, but none on the potty either. IT seems unreal to me she hasn’t tinkled yet since she hasn’t gone since she got up this morning and has had lots to drink in effort to get her to pee.

We have set it up at this point where she gets a sticker for going tinkle on the potty. She loves stickers but htey are pretty accessible around here, so we upped the ante and said she could have a lolipop when she gets 2 stickers.

She LOVES lolipops and very rarely gets them, so that seems to be a huge motivating factor. I figure as she gets better at going on the potty we will increase the number of stickers she needs to get before getting a loli, but we just want her to start going.

She has usually started out well, sitting on the potty and being excited about it, but about half way through the first day she just starts yelling NOOOO when it comes time to sit on the potty. Not sure what that’s about, but the lolipop possibility seems to be overcoming this problem.

The problem I’m having is I’m trying to work and I forget to get her to the potty. This has been an ongoing problem with the whole potty training thing. This time I keep setting the timer, not only to remind her to sit on the potty but to remind myself to help her get there before she has an accident.

Any suggestions on this crazy topic would be greatly appreciated. Would love to hear how you all got your little ones potty trained.

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Properity Prayer ~ Affirmations for Prosperity

Joe Vitale posted this beautiful Prosperity Prayer from Will Bowen, author of A Complaint-Free World, who says this is the greatest consciousness conditioner available to attract prosperity. Enjoy.

The Prosperity Prayer

Prosperity Affirmation

(Read Aloud Every Day for 30 days)

I am the source of all wealth. I am rich with creative ideas. My mind abounds with new, original, inspired thoughts.What I have to offer is unique, and the world desires it. My value is beyond reckoning. What the world needs and desires, I am ready to produce and give. What the world needs and desires, I recognize and fulfill. The bounty of my mind is without hindrance or limit. Nothing can stand in the way of my inspired creativeness. The overflowing power of God life energy overcomes every obstacle, & pours out into the world, blessing & prospering everyone, & everything through me. I radiate blessings, I radiate creativity, I radiate prosperity, I radiate loving service. I radiate Joy, Beauty, Peace, Wisdom & Power. Humanity seeks me and rewards me. I am beloved of the world. I am wanted wherever I go. I am appreciated. What I have to offer is greatly desired. What I have to offer brings a rich reward. Through my vision the world is blessed. Through my clear thinking & steadfast purpose, wonderful new values come into expression. My vision is as the vision of the mighty ones. My faith is as the faith of the undefeatable. My power to accomplish is unlimited. I, in my uttermost God Source, am all wealth, all power, all productivity. I hereby declare my financial freedom, NOW and henceforth forever!

Isn’t that beautiful?

Pass it along to those you care about and let’s help everyone create more Prosperity and Wealth (whatever Prosperity and Wealth means to you).

PB & J Chicken Stew

I’ve had a couple people ask me what Peanut Butter and Jelly Chicken stew is so I thought I’d share the recipe with you here. This recipe comes from my favorite CrockPot Cookbook ~ 300 Slow Cooker Favorites

I’m not big on following the recipe when it comes to crock pot cooking. I just threw everything in the pot and let it cook. After a couple hours I stirred it all up and then let it cook for the rest of the cooking time. Here’s the real recipe from the book.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Chicken Stew

What you need:

8 skinless chicken breasts, thighs or drumsticks (Iused chicken quarters since I had a huge bag that was stuck together and I had to defrost the whole dang thing to use some for Morrocon chicken a couple nights ago)

1 large onion chopped

1 cup mushrooms, quartered

2 tbsp fresh parsley (I used dry~ just sprinkled it on, didn’t have any fresh)

1 cup chicken stock (used my favorite “Stock in a Box” by Rachel Ray)

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter

1/4 cup grape jelly or berry jam or jelly

1 tbsp tomato paste (I seriously need to get some tomato paste in a tube so I quit wasting most of a can)

1/2 tsp salt

1 red pepper cut into 1/2 inch strips (left it out since we didn’t have any on hand ~ probably would have added a nice flavor though)

2 tbsp chopped peanuts (skipped this too, didn’t have any on hand)

What you do:

Place the chicken pieces in slow cooker. Sprinkle onion, mushrooms, parsley around and on top of chicken.

IN a bowl, combine stock, peanut butter, jelly, tomato paste and salt. Pour sauce over chicken and vegetables.

Cover and cook on low for 5-7 hours or on high for 2 1/2 to 4 hours, until chicken is no longer pink. (It was done right at 5 hours with my crock pot)

Add red peppers. Cover and cook on high for 20 – 25 minutes or until peppers are tender.

Garnish with chopped peanuts.

I served this over rice, the sauce was so good. I also served up a side salad for those of us who eat salad in this house. (that being the girls lol).

Let me know if you try it and what you think.

Fitness Friday ~ kinda not so much

Here it is Fitness Friday ~ again.  This week has not been to great for my fitness journey. I have been eating ok including this ROCKING Morroccon Chicken Stew I made in the crock pot this week. However, the moving has been poor I must admit.

I have fallen off the wagon when it comes to exercise. I haven’t gotten even one of my workouts done this week, which is really disappointing considering they only take 15 minutes a day.

I’m still on the hunt for a Wii Fit, although truthfully, I’m not sure how much more motivated I’m going to be to turn that on either ~ although I do still have fun doing the boxing on Wii and haven’t played as much as I could I’m sure.

It is so weird, how this consistency is so tied in with balance. I never really realized it before. It seems if I really focus on the fitness and living healthy I manage to stick to it, but as soon as I get distracted and start to really focus on business or parenting I loose my footing in the fitness area. (and almost always focus on something else ends up with many dishes in my sink).

Not sure how to find the balance and the focus to keep consistent with ALL of it.  DANG.

Any hints or suggestions welcome. I’m going to try to get back on track this week. I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe I”ll find a Wii Fit in stock somewhere! Until then I will just keep doing what I can, making the best choice I can in the moment I am in.  It’s really all we can do,  right?

A First Time Parent’s Confession

When I was pregnant I attended birthing classes, I ate right, I exercised (some), I created a birth plan. I felt in control and ready to roll. I knew how my birth was going to go, how my parenting was going to go, how my life was going to go.

I’m not sure where I got all that confidence but it was there.

Then came my birth. Despite taking care of myself very well, creating a birth plan and reading and researching everything I could possibly need to know to make informed decisions things went sideways.

Whether it was because of some of my decisions or not I don’t know, but my birth did not go as planned, and my daughter ended up being in the NICU for a week after she was born. This week in the NICU was probably more traumatic for me than for her.

I was told what to do, how to do it, and how everything I was doing was wrong by “professionals”, be it doctors or those NICU nurses. At the time I felt like I stood my ground quite well. We maintained our plans while we were in NICU and I did not let the “professionals” sway me from what I felt was right.

Here I am 2 years and 8 months later having the weekend from HELL with this “spirited” toddler of mine. This little girl is unlike any other child I have met ~ Ryan even said it over the weekend, she is NOT like other kids. I have been on “spirited child” email lists, I have read no less than every book available on managing a spirited child, and nothing.

We are in complete havoc around here, she doesn’t listen, I don’t follow through, and Ryan ~ well he just watches TV and shakes his head.

This weekend something happened ~ it was nothing different than what always happens, but this time it was the straw that broke the camels back. I just lost it. I had no desire to be around her, to see her, to talk to her to even be her mother. I stayed upstairs, and cried and felt like a miserable failure.

I did get online with a wonderful friend of mine who has a magical way with children. If I could be more like anyone as a parent ~ it would be like Mary K. She also did childcare in her home for many years and has dealt with MANY children. I got online with her and just asked some questions, about how she would handle things, and how to react to certain behaviors.

Here’s part of what’s happened, I have read so many “gentle parenting” books, and I totally believe in the law of attraction and allowing my daughter to deliberately create her life, I didn’t understand what it meant to be a PARENT within that framework.

Mary K is a fantastic deliberate creator and has been championing kids to do the same in their  lives forever, so she really helped me get clear on what it means to be a parent who raises deliberately creating children.

After that conversation I felt so much better. I felt better because the things she told me where the things it felt natural for me to do. They were the way I would have been parenting if . . . well if I don’t know what!!

Over the weekend we sat down and decided on some Lee Family Rules. We also decided on some Lee Family Consequences, and the Lee parents are now on the same page, and being a lot more consistent. The rest of the weekend went much better.

Which brings us here, to this happy Monday Morning. I woke up this morning with a realization. I love how I can work things out in my sleep and just wake up with an answer.

So this morning as I was waking up I realized, the whole experience with Hanna’s birth, and our first week in the hospital knocked my confidence. It knocked my confidence in my ability to parent and make decisions for this little child. The decisions I had made thus far had not turned out so well, and the decisions I was making during that week were being objected to by “professionals”.  So that’s where it started, I started buying books telling me how to parent ~ but none of them felt quite right (subconsciously I think), so I never implemented them ~ much.  So I bought more books, looking for someone who would tell me how to parent this child.

Here’s the problem with that. If I have no confidence in my ability to parent this child, no number of books is going to give that to me. No book is going to work, if I am unable/willing to make decisions and parent my child.

In the end it ends up that all the parenting books I have read have been a little at odds with how I feel a parent should behave and parent ~ so it’s no wonder I have been feeling conflicted for all this time. lol.

So I’m going to put the books away. I am going to play it by feel. I LOVE my child. I want what’s BEST for her. I am a GOOD person and I think that gives me the ability to make those decisions. With the best interest of my daughter at heart I am going to go forward making decisions based on what I feel is right for her, me and our family.

Fitness Friday ~ Wii Fitness??

I have broken the cardinal “no video games” rule and we bought a Wii this week. It was quite a journey trying to find one. We thought this far after Christmas they’d be pretty easy to find ~ boy were we wrong.

It all started this Christmas when Ryan’s son brought his Wii over and we played a little bit ~ take that back, he and Ryan played a lot and everyone else watched. It looked really fun. As much as I love my husband we don’t have a lot of “activity” type things in common. This looked like something we could do together and have some family fun together.

It was about that time I found the Wii Fit group of women having a rockin’ good time getting fit and losing weight with their Wii Fits. That kind of cinched it. I am working hard to lose weight and get fit and really wanted a Wii Fit ~ but ya gotta have a Wii for the Wii Fit to work lol.

So we finally, with a lot of effort, tracked down a Wii on Wednesday. We ran home hooked it up and played for a while. We played a couple games of Boxing, and a few games of Tennis and bowling. It was a lot of fun, and I was TIRED and winded after the boxing games.

Before I went to bed I tweeted that I had been playing boxing and thought I might be sore the next day. Here’s the reply I recieved from @ifamous

And she was NOT kidding. My arms and back were killing me yesterday. I did stick to my Fit Yummy Mummy workout schedule and did my strength training session yesterday.

Last night, I don’t know what I was thinking, I said to my husband, “Hey, let’s play a couple rounds of boxing!” Well that was probably the dumbest thing I’ve done in a while. I could barely move the blankets around to get comfortable last night my arms and back were so sore.

I am still looking for the Wii Fit to be in stock somewhere, and I have to say ~ I used to mock people who talked about getting fit and losing weight with the Wii. I mean come on! it’s a video game!!

I take it ALL back!! I take it all back. I am pretty sure if you play hard and keep doing it consistently you probably can get in better shape ~ especially if you’re like me and sit at a desk and don’t get much physical exercise in your life.

What I think really does it is it’s fun. I mean really, as sore as I was last night I NEVER would have thought of “working out” on top of it. But I did want to kick my hubby’s ass at boxing. (which I did NOT ~ I think he practices after I go to bed!)

All in all this has been a great week fitness wise ~ I have stuck to my supportive eating quite well. I used 2 of my 3 “cheat meals” this week. I did all of my scheduled workouts ~ even though I was sore, drank more water than I usually do and took a little “me” time every day. I’m half way through The Hour I First Believed.

I have lost what looks like 2 pounds so far this week. I don’t really have much faith in scales as at times this week it has said I’ve lost 4 pounds and some times it says none. But I’ll take 2 today.

I’m still on the lookout for a Wii Fit so I can get started with that too, hopefully it will help me get consistent with my Yoga practice I’ve been trying to get started with for the last few years!!

Riding a Horse ~ Wordless Wednesday

Yeeee Haaaw!

Get Organized for the New Year! Free Gifts!

If you are trying to get organized, whether it’s your kitchen or your meals I have a couple free gifts for you today!

The moms over at Meal Planning Central have put together some great gifts to help you get organized this year.

The first of which is a How to Get Your Kitchen Organized. Take your kitchen from scary to spectacular with this step by step guide.

Are you trying to lose weight? The next free gift is The Healthy Weight Loss Success Guide. This guide will help you make healthier eating choices and help you get started on an exercise program.

And of course the last gift is a great Meal planning guide to help you get your family on the right track eating healthy meals together.

Pick up your Free New Years Success Pack for Moms and enjoy!

Menu Planning Monday

Yesterday I made a delicious roasted chicken in the crock pot. It was easy and quite nice to have the smell of herbed chicken wafting through the house all day. It also left me free to play with Hanna, read a book while she was napping, and not have to worry about making dinner other than cutting it and heating up some veggies. I love that.

This never used to happen here. I never planned far enough to have everything I need to hook up a crockpot dish in the morning. But all that has changed.

I’ve started MEAL PLANNING!! Yet another adventure in consistency. I thought I’d start sharing some of the meal planning techniques (ha ha) that I use and some things that help me get dinner on the table and us out of the Mexican restaurant eating 1500 calorie dinners.

I mentioned meal planning on twitter one day and someone asked if I was planning from the circular. I have to say I am not ~ and probably should be. I did try it once and we saved a lot of money but there’s a bit of a learning curve for me.

With trying to switch to healthy eating and having a super picky eater husband I am just trying to make food fit into the plan right now, I just don’t have the energy to worry if the grocery store is sticking with the plan yet ~ but maybe soon.

I recently read You on A Diet by Dr Oz (you know Oprah’s guy) and he mentioned it helps to decrease your calories if you just have the same lunch (or one meal) every day. That way it becomes routine, you don’t have to think about it, and you don’t have a big chance of making a bad choice.

I have to say this is working VERY well for me. In fact, I’ve done it with both breakfast and lunch. I will be switching them out each week so I don’t get super bored, but it’s working now. I no longer scramble around trying to figure out what to have for lunch and just end up with chips because I can’t think of anything good, or it just gets too late.

We were completely out of groceries so I did our meal plan and shopping on Friday, so far so good. I am going to try to move some of this extra stuff to the weekends ~ which I have decided to take off from working to spend more time with my family, and a little time on the house.

So here’s our plan for the week.  I’ll include some of the recipes ~ if there’s one you want let me know.

Breakfast ~ cheerios with milk and fruit or scrambled eggs with veggies ~ V8

Lunch ~ Bowl of soup and half a sandwich or one whole sandwich I cooked a big pot of vegetable lentil soup over the weekend to have for lunches this week.

Dinner:

Friday: Hawaain Burgers and salad

Sat: Chili and cornbread (we generally use venison for these types of dishes)

Sun: Crockpot Roasted Chicken (recipe below) with Roasted sweet potatoes and green beans

Monday: Mexican Chicken and salad (here’s this easy chicken recipe)

Tues: Leftover Chili

Wed: Mushroom Swiss Chicken and Salad

Thurs: Grilled Salmon pasta side for hubby, cous cous for me and hanna and brocolli (with cheese for hubby) lemon for the girls.

Which brings us back to next week.  We’re on the right track so far, I didn’t make the sweet potatoes last night, hubby was running late, so we just had green beans.

Roasted Crockpot Chicken Recipe

What you need:

3-4 lb whole chicken
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp rosemary
salt and pepper
4-5 cloves garlic
1 c chicken stock
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 small onion
1 stalk of celery

What you do:

Rinse off your chicken inside and out.

quarter the onion and cut the celery into 3 or 4 smaller pieces. Go ahead and use the leaves too.

Put the onion and celery inside the cavity of the chicken (make sure you took out the giblets if there were any)

Cut the garlic cloves in half

Make a little space between the skin and the chicken and insert the garlic in the pocket.

Place chicken in the crock pot. You can tie the chicken together with kitchen twine ~ I didn’t, and it still worked out fine.

sprinkle thyme and rosemary over the top of the chicken

Add chicken stock and worcestershire sauce around the chicken

Cook on low for 6-8 hours ~ cooking time will depend on the size of your bird and the size of your crockpot.

Make sure the internal temperature of the bird is at least 180 degrees before serving.

TIP: Don’t open the crockpot to check on the chicken. Each time you open your crockpot you let out the heat, and increase the cooking time by about 30 minutes. It’ll be fine. I promise.

If you need more chicken ideas check out my Easy Chicken Recipes blog and look out for my soon to be chicken crockpot recipes site as well. You can also get recipes sent to your computer daily and help meal planning with Send Me Recipes.

I Do Exercise! A Two Year Old’s Perspective

Yesterday I really truly started the Fit Yummy Mummy 12 Week Transformation Challenge.  It’s going pretty well, but that’s not what I wanted to write about today.

I wanted to write about how every day it surprises me just how much Hanna picks up from me. I just go about my day and do my stuff, and then out of the blue one minute she comes out with something that totally surprises me.

It happened again tonight. I was doing dishes, and she came in with the timer and said “I do exercise”. I was like, ok cool. I mentioned that it’s good to exercise to make your body strong.

Next thing I know she starts sprinting back and forth across the dining room, which is exactly what I had done yesterday for my short burst cardio workout. She even squated down and touched the floor at each of the end points.

I was slightly flabergasted. I then realized why she had brought the timer in. I had set the timer yesterday so I could do 30 second short bursts, and then I did a couple minutes of working recovery.

The timer beeped and she yelled “exercise is over”, and started walking around the room again, then hit the timer and started sprints again.

She has only seen me do this ONCE!!! (since I’ve made a promise to myself to do every scheduled workout, I’m sure she’ll see it more, but I had only just started)

The last time she did something similar was when we were driving in Wichita. We were waiting in traffic then suddenly from the back seat I hear her yell “Come on People MOVE!” yikes.

It makes me really stop and think about the things I am modelling for her in my day to day life. It obviously sinks in more than she lets on.

I am really grateful on a whole other level that I am committed to this challenge and making exercise part of my daily life. I think it’s a wonderful lesson for her to learn this early, and hopefully if she sees us doing it now, she won’t have such a hard time getting started when she’s my age, she will have been doing it all along.