Week 7 ~ Healthy Eating & Exercising Update

This past week I recruited more friends & family to help out with November's fitness challenges.Staying on task is so much easier when other's help keep you motivated.

My 1st recruit was  my husband joining my personal training class. Attending class together to work our butts off is almost like a mini date night BUT instead of eating cake we are exercising. (Although we probably both wish date night included dessert).

And now Monday night classes are so much more fun now.

On Tuesday & Thursday mornings I am now attending another workout class with another friend from church.  Knowing that I have to get to the gym b/c someone else is there is so much motivating. It also makes going to the gym so much more fun when you have an actual adult there to socialize with.

And thirdly my Canadian family is also working their butts off & avoiding treats, diet coke & exercising to also work towards being a little more healthy. 

Working out & eating healthy has really taken on a new life with so many workout partners.

This past week I lost 2 . 7 lbs. 

Total lbs lost 11. 7 lbs.

Me & The Boys….2013-2014

In August 2013 I officially took on the role of spending the day with 3 boys (now 4).

Here are some of the many activities the 3 boys & I did together.

We found the days were a lot more enjoyable when we kept busy. 

Every 1st Thursday of the month we would go to the Great Northern Mall for sing song, craft & snack. Great Northern Mall put on the best activities for little kids. We tried to never miss the 1st Thursday activity. Strongsville Mall also put on activities on the 2nd Wednesday of the Month & we also tried to visit a few of their activities but Great Northern always had the best activities.

On one of the Great Northern days they had free french fries.
Definitely one of my favourite snack days.

Here is a picture of their Halloween activity. Ohio also has a lot of great Halloween activities. We love Halloween in Ohio.

 

And another picture of the Great Northern Mall Thursday activity:

And another Thursday activity at the Mall. I tried really hard to not miss one of the Thursday mall activities because they were so much fun.

One of our final Great Northern Mall activities. The boys making bird houses.

And of course you can't visit the mall without a pretzel & a pop.

On a few of the Great Northern Thursday Days the Disney Store also had a few activities. One of the boys favourite Disney days was when they had a Pirate Day & went on a treasure hunt & found Golds of Bloom Coins. So much fun at Great Northern. We really do miss this mall. 

We tried to keep busy by doing a few inside semi education activities too.

Here are the boys baking a few alphabet cookies:

We tried to do a few indoor "crafts" too but our boys love to be out & about.

Here we are trying to make a few balloon animals.

 We visited lots & lots of parks. Here are a few pictures from the park last fall 2013.

Here is the duck park by our house. The boys loved this little pond.

Here we are visiting the Independence Park. 

We loved this park & visited it many times.

The boys loved this park b/c we would bring our bikes & scooters to safety town. This park has the best little kiddie area to ride bikes, scooters or just run around.

We tried to visit the library at least once a week. Many times we would visit the library right beside the gym. Trying to get in two activities back to back was not always the smartest idea but the boys loved getting books. We never did make it to story time. For some reason 9AM story time activities did not fit in our schedule. 

Surprisingly our boys loved to help cook & bake. 

Looking back at all these pictures I am actually surprised at how busy we kept 3 little boys.

Thank goodness for all the expert creative online people.

99% of these ideas I got from googling. 

Getting close to thanksgiving we made Thanksgiving turkey's bags & popcorn. 

 As it got closer to Christmas we started following Mary's Christmas countdown chain. One of the activities was making gum drop loaf. All Roy's love Gum Drop Loaf & I usually don't make it b/c I end up eating too much. But, we made it & the boys loved adding DOTS (our substitute gum drops).

Hudson loved eating the gum drops.

Another one of the Christmas Countdown Chain Activities was write cards & send them in the mail. Taking 3 boys to the post office was an adventure in & of itself but we made it & the boys loved dropping mail in the mail-box.

 

 Whenever the weather was nice we always went for walks & bike rides around our neighborhood. It was nice to get outside before the crazy snowstorms arrived. We had a lot of snow this past winter.
Our new house does not have side walks & we have way too many hills to ride our bikes. We still go for walks but miss taking our bikes out around the neighborhood.

We tried to have a few get together's with friends. In December we held a Christmas Party at our house & made Christmas trains. Here are a few pictures of the boys putting together all the chocolate bars & candy for the Christmas Train party. 

As you can see a few chocolates may have been eaten in the process of organizing the candy.

And here are the finished trains. We had so much fun making trains & having friends over for the party.

In December a friend of ours also hosted a Christmas party where the boys got to make Graham Cracker houses. The boys loved decorated houses with more candy.

On the 1st Saturday of the Month Home Depot & Lowes put on the best Saturday morning activity where the boys get to make a woodworking activity. We love these activities & tried to attend as many as possible. Over the past year the boys have actually gotten better at hammering & painting their projects.

And of course whenever we needed an easy exit from the house we would take a visit to Target for a pretzel & pop or a visit to Giant Eagle to visit the Eagles nest. The Eagles nest is an area in Giant Eagle where parents can drop off their kids & shop in peace. The boys loved playing at the Eagles Nest & I loved shopping peacefully. (When Myles wasn't quite 3 I may have a told him to tell a little white lie about his age. He was going to be 3 in a few weeks so it wasn't that big of a deal. right?) 

The boys love pretzels. Any place with pretzels & pops & shopping was the perfect combo. We would buy them at Target, Sam's Club & Walmart & shopping would be so much more enjoyable. I may have used Pretzel & pops as rewards one too many times to get all my shopping errands done. 

Our usual shopping locations with 3 little boys were Target, Toys R Us, Walmart & Sam's Club. Here we are at Sam's club with Sam's club with a pretzel & pops.

As the weather got colder we got to spend Snow Days with Dave. We also got a chance to do a few snow activities. Here we are making snow ice cream. 

On one of Dave's Snow Days we took the boys to go see our Parmatown Mall start demolition. The boys loved it. What little boy wouldn't want to see a building destroyed. 

Our boys loved their snow days with their daddy. They loved playing in the snow & helping shoveling the snow with him. Hudson wasn't so sure about his first few experiences with snow. We hope for many more snow days this upcoming year.

And on days when I just needed a break aka a nap the boys would have fun watching movies. The boys loved going to the Red Box & picking out a movie. 

We really do have a lot of fun with our boys. We participated in yogurt day & all got free yogurt. Another one of the boys favourite activities is getting their own frozen yogurt. It was a cold day but the ice-cream was still enjoyed by all the boys.

The big boys also really love to paint. 

During one of our favourite snow day activities is painting. 

In February we celebrated Valentine's Day. We had a day full of chocolate, heart shaped pancakes & Kraft Dinner. The perfect Valentine's Day for 3 little boys. 

On one cold Winter Saturday the 5 of us went out to Lorain Ohio to visit a Dinosaur exhibit. It was cold but it was still a lot of fun. 

Bryant got to help build this dinosaur. He was so proud of his dinosaur.

Life with boys means keeping busy. I like to do at least one activity a day. If we didn't get out of the house things would go crazy so I was always on search of things to do. The boys loved playing with the tiny dinosaurs & drawing pictures of dinosaurs & walking about in the snow looking at the dinosaurs. 

And on days when it's too cold to be outside these boys always found something fun to do. Our boys love their super hero's.

All 3 boys trying to kill a bug. Bryant knocked it down with a broom. Hudson stomped on it & Myles caught it. Such a process.

We also loved living only 10 minutes away from our Cleveland Zoo & every Monday we could go to the Zoo for Free because we lived in Cuyahoga county. We took many visits to the Zoo while living in Parma. So much fun.

Here is a picture of the Koala Bear:

Here are the boys playing at the Zoo park.

Here we are riding the Zoo train because some days it was just too much of an adventure walking up the big hill to the monkey exhibit.

And as the Winter months & cold snow disappeared we headed outside to the Parks again. It must have been a warm day to be at the Independence Park:

And once the snow really disappeared the boys got to take out their backyard toys.

When Springtime hit & the Easter season began we started participating in the Easter Egg Hunts.

Our boys love Easter Egg hunts & this past year we found the greatest activity. 

It was sponsored by the City's recreation centre & they had pictures with the Easter bunny, a free lunch, balloons, bounce House & Easter Egg Hunt.

This year Hudson got to fully participate in the Easter Egg Hunt.

And when we were leaving the boys also got Easter Party bags.
This was by far the best Easter Egg Party we attended while living in Parma.

And since all Holidays seem to have lots of activities we tried to participate in a few more. Here are the boys at the Strongsville Mall Easter Activity.

The boys met with the Easter bunny again & made a cute Easter Necklace.

And of course we tried to make a few Easter goodies & home too.

And Easter Fun could not be complete without decorating Easter Eggs.

And when the weather got really nice we had to go see Captain America at the Drive-In. We loved having the Drive-In only 10 minutes away from our house.

We saw many movies there & had some interesting crazy nights there.

But it was still fun!

And as Spring continued & our house sold our final few activities involved searching for a home. We spent a few too many hours visiting a few too many cities in Ohio. 

Here we are in Delaware Ohio (which was my favourite locations b/c it's so close to Columbus but a little too far from Dave's work….maybe one day we will get to live in Columbus).

Here we are in Hudson Ohio. The boys loved the beach.

And our final activities with only 3 boys was Mother's Day Fun.

1st off the boys went to Home Depot & made Mother's Day flower pots.

Then we went to Lowe's to make Mother's Day Flower Vans.

And then our final & most favourite Mother's Day activity. Our local grocery store allowed the boys to decorate their own cake for Mom. Each boy got a free cake & a rose to take home for mom.

These boys loved decorating their cakes & bringing them home to mom.

The boys made the cutest Mother's Day Cakes & I am very spoiled to have spent the past year with all 3 of them.
We had some very fun, interesting & somewhat crazy days.

And then a few weeks later we went from 3 boys to 4 boys.
May 23, 2014 Greyson entered into our life.

And now we are into the next year & keeping busy in Ontario Ohio.
And the Blogging Updates Continue…
Hopefully I will be caught up soon.