My darling daughter has an ear infection, again. It is a different ear this time but the result is the same, lots of screaming and very little sleep. She is on an antibiotic so she should be right as rain in a couple of days. That was how I started out my Saturday, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room with a beautiful little girl that did not appear at all tired. Yet for some reason mom is exhausted…hmmm…crazy how that works.

But then the day started to improve! While my daughter took her afternoon nap I hit the road with my other baby. Yep, you all know who I am talking about, my road bike. She has been patiently waiting for the weather to improve and today was the day. We biked all the way to church and back (about 13 miles). There were not as many near death experiences as usual, meaning that most of the cars moved over and gave me room. After that awesome ride I parked my girl in the garage and went on a two mile run. It is much harder to run in the heat. I don’t know why I forgot that but I remembered today (about 3 minutes into my run).

After having my version of fun we took the kids to the pool. That was great family fun. The boys loved the water slides and Elliana and I relaxed in the lazy river. On the way home Aaron and I saw the coolest t-shirt. We saw it at different times and then turned to each other and smiled. It said the following words- Real Bikers Pedal. :)

I will end this post with a picture of my angel, just because she is pretty :)

Here you go Molly!!!

Grandma Fosters Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup Crisco
1 cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 ½ cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Bag of chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet or baking stone. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 8-10 minutes (longer on baking stone).

I am now a Vegetarian :)

Yep, you did read that correctly. I am officially going veggie, at least for a little while. I am not sure how long I will be eliminating all meat from my diet. But for right now it feels great!

You might be wondering why I am giving up being a carnivore. It isn't for any big political or philosophical reason. I simply do not like the taste of meat. I absolutely hate biting into a piece of fat; it makes me gag just thinking about it. And even eating a burger is kind of gross.

Besides those reasons I really think it will be a healthier lifestyle. I am not pushing this on anyone else in my family. Aaron loves his meat and he will get it! And my kiddos need meat for the protein. So I will insist they eat meat.

It is day 4 in this vegetarian adventure and I am still alive :) I have had no cravings at all for a Steakburger :) But the onion rings have been calling my name :)

Contentment

Lysa TerKeurst has an excellent post today dealing with the topic of contentment. It is very well written. In this world filled to the brim with "things" and people striving for the "bigger and better" around the corner, it is an amazing feeling to be content with your blessings.

Here are a few pictures of my blessings enjoying a day at the park with mom and dad :) We played on the equipment, enjoyed some miniature golf, went for a walk by the pond and had a picnic lunch. I am truly content :)

Tri- Update :) and a note to Molly :)

I had a great morning at the pool! :) I was able to swim 26 laps, non-stop (2600 meters). That means I just tagged the wall and kept on going. I stopped at 26 due to time constraints.

This shows me that I am getting the upper body strength and endurance that I have been working on for the last few weeks. It is so challenging to physically feel the difference between the three sports. The endurance I have for biking really does not cross over to swimming. And running endurance is nothing like swimming or biking. I guess that is why I love it! It is great to see progress :)

My triathlon season will start next April in Sullivan, Illinois. The distances are: 1/4 mile swim, 13.4 mile bike, 3.1 mile run. The swim portion of this triathlon is indoors. This will be so much nicer than swimming in a cold lake (which will occur in the triathlon in July).

My second triathlon will be the Evergreen triathlon in Central Illinois (July). The distances for this triathlon are: 500 meter swim, 24.9 mile bike, 3.1 mile run. My plan right now is to complete two triathlons next year :)

And in response to Molly’s post about me being too healthy, you obviously have not eaten those granola bars. They are DELICIOUSE! Just because it has healthy stuff in it doesn’t mean it tastes bad. Try it!! You will become a granola addict!!!

All I have time for...

We are enjoying this wonderful weather, which is why I have not been blogging much lately. In fact my boys are calling me to come out and play right now. So I will post a couple recipes and add more later…

The first recipe is for homemade granola bars. They are super easy to make and SOOO good. With the flax seed and peanut butter they are a very good snack for pregnant mommies (AKA Molly).

Homemade Granola Bars

Need:
2 ½ cups oats
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup flax seed (or wheat germ)
¾ tsp. cinnamon
½ cup wheat flour
½ cup white flour
1 cup mini chocolate chips (optional) (can use whatever you like)
¾ tsp. salt
½ cup honey
1 egg (beaten)
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (can use crunchy) (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Generously grease a 9 x 13 pan.
Mix oats, sugar, flax seed, cinnamon, flours, chocolate chips and salt.
Make well in center of dry ingredients and pour in the honey, egg, oil and vanilla. Mix well.
Pat mixture into prepared pan.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown on the edges.
Let cool 5 minutes and cut.

I put them in separate snack bags and leave them in a bowl on the counter. They are delicious slightly warmed up in the microwave.


And this is my recipe for banana chocolate chip bread. You can skip the chocolate chips and just add 3 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 egg
½ cup butter or margarine
1 cup ripe bananas
3 tablespoon milk
2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips

Cream sugar, butter and egg together. Beat until fluffy; set aside. Combine bananas and milk in a small bowl; set aside. Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda together. Mix together the 2 set aside mixtures. Stir the dry mix by hand into the creamed banana mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Grease a 5 x 9 x 3 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.


Hope you are all enjoying the great weather!!

Exhaustion…

That is what I am feeling this morning. My time at the gym went well yesterday. I completed 24 laps (swim), 18.35 miles (bike) followed by 3.3 miles (running). As a result I am pretty tired today. I signed up for a swim clinic on Friday. It is being taught by someone who has completed multiple Ironman’s (if you do not know what those are, well you should know what those are). I am excited to glean some wisdom from him about triathlons in general but especially the swim portion.

As May comes to an end we are looking forward to June and all of the summer activities starting up. Joshua and Asher both start baseball in the next week or two. This is a picture of Joshua in his baseball uniform. Elliana is starting to enjoy rough housing with dad...We recently added a table and chair set to our backyard. This means a lot of hanging out in the back yard and grilling out yummy food. Here is a picture of Aaron and the kids enjoying a night-night snack on the deck.

A day meant for rummaging through other peoples belongings

You guessed it, the kids and I went to garage sales this morning. It was actually a huge subdivision sale. This is awesome because we get to walk and talk. It helped that the homes were huge, more walking and talking time between garages. We found some great deals and had fun as well.

The men of the house will be going to see Prince Caspian tonight. I don’t think my little princess is ready for the high body count of this Narnia movie. So we are going to stay home and have a girl’s night. I love hanging out with “my girl”.

Tomorrow morning I will be hitting the gym for another “mini-tri”. I will try to remember to post my numbers sometime this weekend. My goal is to complete 22 laps (swim), 18 miles (bike) and 3 miles (running). I took today off from all exercise so that my body could rest and prepare for tomorrow. I sometimes forget the importance of resting.

Anyway, that is our weekend. Hope you all have a great day and enjoy your weekend as well!

Another sunny day :)

What a magnificent morning!!! Yesterday Aaron and I took the boys out for a special lunch to celebrate the end of 1st grade and preschool. I now have a 2nd grader and a kindergartner (we do a two year kindergarten program)!

We are all glad that summer vacation is here. This is actually the first summer that we have taken “off”. We normally school year round. After looking at all the activities that we scheduled for the kids and the trips we are taking we decided to nix school for awhile. As much as I love homeschooling it will be nice to just “be” for awhile.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am compiling a list of our goals for the summer and the coming school year. Those lists are still in progress and I will share them when they are completed. But Leah (my super, smart sister-in-law!) posted a comment that I think was full of great ideas. So I am going to copy it and post it below. I want to make sure everyone gets to read her ideas.

Leah’s words of wisdom…

God gives wisdom when we ask and He has brought some great tools/ideas at just the right time.

One thing I want my kids to leave home with is a love of God's word. They love memorizing verses. One year we did ABC...lots of curriculums do that and it's fun. Now we're learning 1verse from each book of the Bible, and talking about what each book is about as we go. We're almost through the Old Testament!!

I want my kids to learn to pray, of course, and to especially learn to think about those outside of their little corner of the world. I've adapted an idea a friend gave me to praying with my kids. On Monday we pray for missionaries, Tuesday is teachers, Wednesday is workers or just worship God, Thursday is thanksgiving, Friday is family or friends. Some days we just pick what is closest to our heart...after all, prayer doesn't have to follow a formula.

Finances is another big area...there is a book by Ron Blue called Your Kids Can Master Their Money (or something like that). It has great ideas for teaching personal finance starting at around age 7-8.

Thanks for the ideas Leah!!

We're Done!! We're Done!!

I am doing the happy dance tonight!! We finished our school year today! But shhh , don't tell the boys. I am going to tell them tomorrow morning. Aaron and I are going to take the boys out to lunch tomorrow to celebrate :)

Crazy Days!!

There is always something going on in the Nelson house :) We took off on a road trip today to visit family. It was fun, as always. We are almost done with school!! The summer is upon us :) I don't know who is more excited the students or the teacher. Here are a couple of cute pictures of our blessings.

Joshua could not put his school book down (not even during lunch)...

She is so adorable!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

I need YOUR help..

I am currently working on "goals" for the summer and fall for my boys. We want to be "intentional" parents. Which to us means having an idea before hand of what we want our children to learn or "catch" from the life we offer them. In other words we don't want to look back in 18 years and think "man, I wish we had emphasized this" or "why didn't we teach them that?".

Which leads me to the subject line of this post. I have along list of character traits already, but I am sure I am missing some. So what character traits do you want your children to have when they leave "the nest"? List them in the comment section :)

An Ode

We are in the process of finishing school. This has me remembering finishing school when I taught high school. A ton of loose ends that need to all be tied together. It will be a relief when we can say we are officially finished for the year.

Joshua’s last writing assignment was to pick his favorite assignment for the year and do it again. He chose to write an Ode. But this time it is an Ode to his favorite ship, the Titanic…

Titanic! Titanic
You are a big ship.
A metal ship.
And fast.
And special too.
What a Titanic.
You are special.
You are fragile.
A steam ship like never before.
The End.

Three hours later :)

This morning a completed a "mini-tri-" I went to the gym at 6 am and left at 9 am :) It was a great morning!! I swam 22 laps, biked 16 miles and then completed a 2 mile run. I feel GREAT! ! The best part was meeting other women training for a triathlon. There are other crazy people out there :)

News from Tri- land

I spent a lot of my free time (moms having free time... ha ha ha) researching the swim portion of a triathlon. What I discovered is that most people training for triathlons are not confident in this portion of the event. Upon further research I picked up some great tid bits of information. I started to realize that my main problem with swimming is my comfort level in the water. I needed to learn how to relax (those of you who know me well realize that this word is not in my vocabulary). Through some more reading and digging for information I found some drills that I could use to make myself more relaxed and comfortable (Beginner Traithlete). I also found a great book about triathlon swimming (Total Immersion). I was able to read some portions of the first few chapters and picked up some great words of wisdom and advice. So I set out this morning at 5 am to go put all this information into practice. I prayed for peace and the ability to relax.

When I first entered the pool last week I could not swim the entire length of the pool freestyle. By the end of that first hour I could swim one length (I felt like I had accomplished a lot!). Although to do so was still extremely difficult. This morning I kept track of the laps I swam. Before I tell you how many laps and how many meters I swam I must add that I swam the entire distance in peace. I was totally relaxed and comfortable. My form and my breathing were awesome!! With that being said, I swam 2400 meters (44 lengths or 22 laps)!! I paused between 0-15 seconds after each length. It was so much fun!!

I still have a lot of work to do, but I love seeing progress!!!