The Nursery

This post is long overdue. I know.

The nursery that I spent so much time dreaming about, planning for, & creating won't even be slept in by our little lady. Why? Because we are moving.

Shocking, I know. It's so sad, but also exciting. We finally have direction for this next year of our life that we have been praying for the past couple of months. Here are the details of all that:

We came to Buchanan originally because I had a great paying nanny job, a 2 bedroom loft apartment for an amazing price that I could walk to work from, & it was close to Andrews University [a potential grad school option for Matt]. He applied ONLY to Andrews last fall after we found out we were pregnant because we didn't want to move with a newborn if he got into a school far away. Andrews isn't working out for this fall. I won't go into details, mostly because I would say very unkind things about the unorganized people in the admissions office there.

Anyways - we are leaving this sweet, sweet town & heading to Greencastle, Indiana. 40 minutes west of Indianapolis. & moving into a 2 bedroom, 2 floor rental house on my in-laws' property [rent free. thank you parents]. It will be great for us financially & for Matt academically as he will take a couple classes this fall & next spring to make his application for grad school more competitive. It would also be great if he could get into one of the physical therapy programs in Indianapolis because we wouldn't have to move AGAIN. So it's a good location for us. Socially... not so much. We will be a 1/2 mile from Matt's parents, which will be nice, but also a little overwhelming [for me]. We are also leaving behind an AMAZING church [Grace Church in Granger], & AMAZING Bible study/small group who we love spending time with, & other AMAZING friends within 20 minutes of us. It will be sad to say goodbye to those people, but we know that this is an open door that we have to walk through.

So I get to re-design Jori girl's nursery once we move. & can even do some painting!

Here is the original nursery. Once we are settled & organized, I'll do a nursery take 2 post of her NEW room. What a lucky lady, 2 nurseries in the first 2 months of her life. What a spoiled girl :]

To the left of the door: Cutie "J" sign made by the lovely Stacey Dalby & hooks for diaper bags & the Solly wrap [Thank you Alyssa Allen]

Above the closet: Sign made by Matt's Aunt Jennifer - she even hand made the baby booties!

We got this changing table/dresser for $100 on Craigslist. They even delivered it for us! The baskets on top hold shoes, socks, & hair accessories. All cloth diapering supplies are just under & to the right of the changing table. There is enough storage space for most of her clothes & receiving blankets/burp cloths/swaddle blankets.

The play corner! The tree was a gift from the wonderful Brenda Eubank [my second mom] & was up at the baby shower. The little bins hold toys, the wooden crate holds special books, & the pink trunk holds nothing at the moment, but was a cute little book shelf!

These signs hang between the windows. The top sign was a gift from our good friend Jenna Jones [we love it!!!] & the bottom sign is a chalkboard sticker put on a piece of wood. We are using it to document her growth every month - those pictures are coming!

Re-used this lamp that was at the reception of my best friend's wedding. Thanks!

The crib. I hand made the banner & owl pillow that you can barely see sitting in the crib. & no she doesn't sleep in this yet.. so no one freak out that there is a blanket & stuffed animals in her crib. 

So that's the nursery! I'm slightly nervous about how we will fit it all in her new room that will be MUCH smaller... but it just gives me a chance to be creative. 

Any paint color ideas? 

Until next time...

Is This Real Life?

I have a 4 month & 2 day old baby. She will be 1 month tomorrow. Shouldn't we throw her a little party or something? Cupcakes & balloons? I guess we are attending a wedding tomorrow, so I'll consider that half her party & half a party for the soon to be Mr. Cam & Mrs. Dayle Brundage.

I really want to continue with this whole blogging business - & now the focus will be on fitness & health while parenting, other mommy things, crafts we do together, & general recordings of our life.

Now that I have 4 weeks of learning how to be a mom to our sweet girl under my belt, I feel like I'm ready to start writing again. I feel amazing. I expected to be a walking zombie for the first couple months, but I really took to heart the whole "sleep while they sleep" advice & take morning & evening naps with my lady & spend the afternoons awake just looking at her & doing other non-important things [AKA house work, taking a shower, watching TV, etc etc]. It just feels natural. What the heck was life like before this little beauty made her entrance into our life? I can't even remember what I thought about or did before pregnancy/her arrival. Actually I can... i dreamed of future babies while taking care of my little Henry that I nannied for. That was not nearly as good as it is now.

Anyways.

Here a few thoughts on our first four weeks as a family of three & random "accomplishments" in Jori's tiny life.

1. Babies are incredible. They are tiny humans. With all their bones & organs so tiny & little crammed into their tiny little body frames. Kind of mind-boggling that this little thing will be as big as me some day!

2. Babies heads are huge. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but Matt & I joked that her head must weigh at least 3 of the 7 pounds that she was born with.

3. Breastfeeding... not as easy as it seems. It seriously takes practice. I won't go into details on the frustrations we had, but golly I wish someone would have warned me! If anyone wants the inside scoop, just ask & I'll gladly share with you.

4. Jori is an eating machine. She weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce at birth. Weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces when we left the hospital. In 2 weeks she gained back more than her birth weight & was up to 8 pounds 3 ounces. Her pediatrician was impressed. I'm curious as to how much she weighs now.

5. Jori sleeps like a superstar in her little pack n' play bassinet next to our bed at night & like a little cuddler in my arms during the day. Until she stops sleeping well at night, all her naps will continue to be in my arms [or more of them]. Those are my favorite times. I know it won't last forever, so I'll take every baby cuddle I can get while I can. Dishes... what dishes?

6. I miss my husband. Our little girls is my favorite person ever [second to my husband] but sometimes I just miss the times where he would come home from work & we could go for a run together, cuddle on the couch while watching The Voice, & go out on dates with ease. Even going to bed at the same time is uncommon, which we did 98% of the time before her arrival. I would never wish Jori away, but it will be nice when we can have a date night without my worrying about her waking up crying, needing to eat, or having to change a diaper.

7. I'm not sure how I'll ever send Jori to school. On the rare occasion I put her down during her day time naps in order to do some things around the apartment, I miss her like crazy. Yes, I will be that mom who obsesses over her child. Shut up. :]

8. We have more clothes than we can get her into. She has started growing out of newborn sizes & that is incredibly depressing. Some outfits she only wore once! So a tip to all you pals without kids who buy gifts for new moms... go for bigger sizes!! Or at least give a gift receipt if you buy newborn size so that moms can return the unworn items :]

9. 2 more weeks & I SHOULD be cleared for physical activity. Hollaaaaaaaaa.

10. 2 weeks post baby I had lost 20 of the 30 pounds I gained. I think I'm close to my pre-pregnancy weight... & I am determined to get my 6-pack back! Baby boot camp, here I come.

11. Jori has started little grins [while awake. she is a pro at smiling in her sleep]. She hasn't mastered the skill yet & can only do it once in a while, but she's learning!

12. She ROLLED OVER! Don't call me a liar! It's true! She rolled from her belly to back on our bed the other night. I know it's kind of cheating since a bed is easier to roll on than the harder floor, but whatever. She rolled. We have a motor genius, people.

13. I can't believe this is our life. Our baby. She will be with us forever. I don't have to give her back to anyone. The strangest thing is seeing her name on mail. Or her having a social security number. She has an identity that someone could steal. Whoa. Jori Marie is OUR baby. Can someone help me wrap my mind around that?!


We are so blessed :] Thanks for reading & following our journey through the pregnancy & now life with our girl. If there is anything in particular you'd like to read about/see, please comment or email & let me know!

For your viewing pleasure, a picture progression of our lady since birth!

A few hours old!

A day old! 

A couple days old!

2 weeks old!

3 weeks old!

4 weeks old!

Looking Ahead:

-The nursery [that she doesn't sleep in yet... but I finally uploaded pictures!]

-Reflecting on labor

Jori Marie is Here!

May 22nd, 2013

Jori Marie Owens 

10:39 am

7 pounds 1 ounce

20.5 inches long

13.25 head circumference

Like I promised in the post about our goal of having a natural childbirth experience, here is our labor story. I'm posting it a little later than I expected to, but I've had better things to do - like cuddle with my baby and take naps.

At 5am on Wednesday the 22nd I woke up in full blown labor. There wasn't much build up of slower, low intensity contractions. They were the type of contractions that I couldn't walk through, move through, or respond to questions through [sorry Matt]. The first contraction woke me up & lasted about 45 seconds. 3 minutes later another one. I woke Matt up & said "I think maybe I'm in labor" so he instantly popped out of bed & started getting the apartment tidy & bags packed. For about an hour the contractions continued. Between contractions I was able to move around, eat some food, & pack up last minute things. As soon as I felt another contraction starting I had to stop everything and either lean on the bed, counter, table, etc or sit on the yoga ball and rock my hips back and forth.

With our plan being a natural birth, we wanted to labor at home as long as possible so that the time at the hospital would be limited. This would give less opportunity for medical intervention if things were taking too long [according to the medical professionals]. I expected that we would be home for most of the morning & make our way around lunch time. Silly me. We would have had a home birth if we had waited much longer! My midwife said "you will know when you need to go to the hospital. Just listen to your body & you will just feel like it's time".

At 6am I started feeling more intense contractions & knew it was time to go in. By the time we got loaded up & to the hospital it was after 7. We went to the triage room so they could make sure I was in active labor. Duh. I absolutely was. & was 5cm dilated. We sat in the tiny triage room for an hour & the contractions continued to increase in intensity. At this point I had started moaning through them & even shed a few tears. I had to really focus & repeat to myself "relax, relax, relax" through the pain or my whole body would tense up, which isn't helpful & would make them more painful.

By the time we got up to the labor room I was really working hard. The contractions were close together & lasting a minute or longer. It was about 9am when I got into the shower in our labor room & sat while the jet shower heads ran on my lower back. That was amazing & really helped me stay relaxed even through the most painful of contractions. Things really started picking up & I began to doubt myself. With it being our first baby, we were expecting to be working most of the day & having a baby around dinner time. Our midwife felt the same way & hadn't made her way to the hospital yet. I wondered how the heck I was going to make it through contractions of that magnitude & frequency for many more hours & decided I'd probably need an epidural or I'd be too exhausted to push when the time came. During this time of doubt, I remembered what I had read in my natural childbirth books about this "emotional signpost". It it is a typical sign that the body is in the transition phase [when the cervix dilates from 8-10 cm & pushing is within an hour] when the woman begins to doubt her ability to continue. I put that thought out of my mind though, because I couldn't believe I could actually be progressed so far.

After about a half hour in the shower I moved to the labor tub. It's a big square tub with water that fills up high enough to submerge baby bellies & is big enough to be on hands & knees - which was my position of choice. Labor was really intense now & it took a lot of focus & determination [and yelling] to not lose control during contractions. After about 10 minutes in the tub I felt the urge to push. When I told the nurse this she was pretty relaxed about it, told me not to push, & checked me. "oh... your cervix is gone!" After only 2 hours, I went from 5cm dilated to fully dilated & ready to push... not typical for a first time childbirth experience. The nurse became less relaxed & started paging & calling the midwife saying she needed to get into the hospital right away.

I got out of the tub & into the bed & people started coming into our room in prep for pushing & baby time. The only person missing was our midwife. This was the only time Matthew started to get nervous. As I was getting into bed I had a contraction & my water finally broke.  Unfortunately, there was meconium present in the fluid, which means Jori had a bowel movement. This was terrifying because if she ingested any of it, it could have been harmful to her health. So the NICU was called in to be ready in case we had a baby who needed emergency attention. There were probably about 12 people in our room at this point, but the only person I wanted to see was Kristin, our midwife. When I heard them say that there was meconium present, I knew that wasn't good & it is the only time I was on the verge of losing control & panicking. Enter my amazing husband - he said everything I needed to hear to get my breathing back under control & prayed for our lady. We got back on track & had more contractions while we waiting for Kristin.

I was told to not push since Kristin wasn't there yet & that was the hardest part of the whole thing. I couldn't do what my body needed & wanted, but finally Kristin showed up & things got rolling. As she came in she said "wow! let's have a baby!!" Her plan was to come in around lunch time, check in on me, & expected to deliver later in the afternoon/dinner time. Surprise! :]

I told Kristin right away that I needed to push & she encouraged me to do so. With her amazing coaching, encouragement, & my loving husband giving me all the support & help he could, we started pushing. Wow. Talk about feeing the burn. After about 15 minutes & multiple pushes that slowly moved our lady down, she was born! I think because I was able to feel all the pain, I wasn't able to push for long periods of time & with high force, so she slowly worked her way out & prevented me from tearing. No stitches. Hallelujah. After 5.5 hours of labor, we had our girl & she was perfect.

Good news - the meconium scare... she was fine :] after she was born, she cried within seconds, meaning she hadn't ingested anything & I could hold her right away. Within 15 minutes of being born & cuddles with me she started nursing. The first hour of her life she was cuddled up on me before they had to take her away to be cleaned up, measured, weighed, & double checked over. After that, Matt was finally able to hold her & that was one of the most memorable, beautiful moments of my life. They were perfect together & he was so smitten with his tiny lady. It truly was a great day & an amazing experience.

our first family picture. poor Jori destroyed her face with her sharp baby nails before we were able to get a good picture. what a stinker.

cutest baby feet i've ever seen

our tiny lady hours after she was born

Labor Plans

It's the big day - Due Date Day.

I sure do feel frustrated! I just want to meet our little girl. I've continued to have random contractions the past few days, but nothing progresses to more frequent or higher intensity contractions. We found out at my midwife appointment on Tuesday that I am already 3cm dilated [33% of the way to 10cm & it didn't even hurt! :P] & 70% effaced. If you don't know what that means, basically my cervix is thinning out & opening up. Yahoo!

Last night I got to thinking a lot about labor & I feel so ready for it. As I've been out & about with this big baby belly, it's rare if someone doesn't ask about my due date. Lately, usually middle aged women, will ask if it's my first child, & then quickly tell me just to go into the hospital & ask for my epidural right away...

My body was made to do this. There are multiple reasons why, for me, I want to avoid an epidural & other medical interventions if possible. I'm not going into it with a "natural only" mentality because I know things will not go as planned - but deep down my true desire is to have this little lady naturally & here are a few reasons why.

1. I want to feel as in control as possible. Being hooked up to an IV & sitting in a bed hours with minimal or no feeling in my legs gives me terrible anxiety. I want to feel as if I am in control of my body, Jori's position as she prepares for her entrance, & to experience childbirth the way God made it to be.

2. I want Matt to be able to be involved. He has been a superstar husband through this whole pregnancy experience & he is really looking forward to his role as "birth coach". We've done lots of reading & feel so prepared for him to help me through each contraction that will get us closer to holding our girl. This is OUR baby & OUR labor process - he can't wait to help do is his part in it all. [lucky fella, his part is going to be a little easier than mine :P]

3. I don't want Pitocin. Sometimes when women start on an epidural, it can slow labor down significantly & something needs to be done to get it going again - but without the ability to walk or move, the drug pitocin is used to get contractions going again. This can be strenuous on the little babe as one of the drugs slows things down & the other speeds things up. For some women this is a truly great option for them & gets their baby in their arms quickly & safely. I don't mean to sound critical or negative about it - it's just something for me, I don't want to have. [that was a little disclaimer so that no one thinks I'm judging their childbirth experience].

4. C-Section: NO THANK YOU. If the situation occurs where little lady is all tangled up in her cord or some other emergency type situation occurs, then yes, cut me open & get her out. Otherwise, I don't want a lack of progress to be the reason why I have a C-Section. Not always, but often, it is more likely to have a C-Section after being on various drugs for pain than if the whole experience is natural. If you weren't aware, C-Sections are major surgery & take weeks to recover from. I don't have the luxury of having family close by or a husband who can easily be home for a couple weeks to take care of me - that will be things very tricky coming home.

5. When it's time to push, I want to feel what I'm doing. I've read that for some mom's it can be tricky the first time around to try & push without much feeling of what's actually happening. Many women do it no problem, I just don't want to be one of the ones that can't do it because I'm lacking feeling from the epidural. Sure it's going to hurt... but it's only temporary. & the reward is well worth the work.

There are other little things I could mention, but those are the biggies. God created my body for this & as long as everything goes like it should, we will have this lady drug-free [but if my labor is going on 30 hours... you better believe I'll be considering an epidural]. It shouldn't be a shocking thing, it doesn't mean I'll give myself a gold star of accomplishment & prance around thinking I'm better at giving birth than someone who used an epidural... it just means we had a baby without drugs. & that would be awesome.

That's my epidural vs. natural birth post for anyone wondering what our plan would be like. I hope that people can be encouraging of our decisions & avoid comments like "oh my gosh it's going to hurt so badly" "you're crazy!" or "i hope you can actually do it....[with a cynical attitude]. Those comments aren't helpful. & kind of discouraging.

After she's born, I plan on writing a post on our whole experience. Hopefully it goes as we hope it will & we can be an encouragement to anyone wondering if they can do a natural childbirth & how the heck they can get through the hours of labor. We have a plan, & I'll share that plan & how it worked out for us.

Until that day comes - please be praying for my mental well-being. I'm feeling a little crazy. Uncomfortable. Bored. Anxious to hold our lady that we've been waiting for for 9 months. & I just want this amazing labor/childbirth experience to begin!

Waiting

39 weeks & 1 day. Due date is next Friday, only 6 days away. I have learned that I really don't like the system of "due dates". Of course it's known that the chances of babes actually coming on her due date is highly unlikely, but I'd prefer a better way of knowing when to expect her to be here. I wish I was told "you'll probably go into labor sometime in the middle/end of may" and then I don't have a date in mind that I can't stop thinking about!

Ever since 37 weeks [when babes are considered full-term & safe to come] I've started going to bed thinking 'tonight could be the night!' but then waking up sad that it wasn't. Every day I go out hoping that I won't have to come home, but can just make my way to the hospital & have a baby. Then I come home from whatever errands I ran feeling a little sad that there wouldn't be a baby in my arms that night.

The real kicker is that I thought I really was going to have Jori this weekend. Thursday night around 12:30 [4 hours after drinking 2 tablespoons of castor oil mixed with a glass of orange juice. The texture is horrendous.] I had some contractions. They weren't crazy painful, but pretty uncomfortable. Throughout the night the contractions continued. I slept when I could, but woke up almost every hour from them. Around 6:30am they slowed down significantly, so my darling husband got up at 7:30 on his first day off of his week long vacation & took a nice 40 minute walk with me. The contractions picked back up while we walked & were pretty regular, but not increasing in intensity. Minutes after we got back to the apartment & I sat down the contractions stopped & never started up again. Talk about disappointment. In both of our minds, this was early labor & that eventually, maybe later in the afternoon or early evening we'd have to make our way to the hospital & meet our little lady. But here we are. Still at home. Two of us waiting, praying, & begging our little girl to come be with us. We really will be great parents, Jori, I promise you'll be happy when you meet us. :]

So this is my dilemma. I feel as if I'm walking on a very fine line of trusting God, because ultimately He has already chosen her birthday, & trying to control the whole situation. We've tried quite a few of the old wives' tales that potentially get labor started. Spicy food, walking, 'cuddle' time, & even the dreaded castor oil [I vowed I wouldn't take until I was a week late but caved in & took anyways]. Essentially it doesn't matter what I do because God's plan for her birthday will be the deciding factor in her arrival date. I can't help but think "maybe if I get the spiciest wings at BDubs that'll do it" or "if I walk for 3 hours, certainly that will start contractions again!" But really... does that actually do anything if God's timing for her is to come "late"?

We will just have to keep playing the waiting game until the REAL contractions start. You can be praying for & with us about it as it has been a very frustrating time for me/us. I don't want to wish away the last few days/weeks we have as a family of two, but I also cannot wait to be a family of three.

Jori Stats:
-39 weeks, 1 day
-could be between 18-21 inches long
-could be over 7 pounds in weight.
-she measured at 37.5 weeks at my last midwife appointment [so potentially a 6-7 pound baby yahoooo!]
-my total weight gain is at 32 pounds & still feeling good enough to walk/jog in short intervals [& at a very slow pace]
-little girl is fully prepared for her arrival to the world as far as her development goes

Looking Ahead:
-The Nursery!

36 Week Reflection

Is it even possible I have been pregnant since last August? [only aware of it since September] I used to think that May was years away & now we are quickly approaching Otter girl's due date in 4 short weeks. I still feel amazing physically [most of the time] & love that I'm able to still exercise with minimal difficulty. It still amazes me every time I get kicked, punched, & nudged by the baby in my belly because it is still surreal to me. It will probably still be surreal even after she's born & I carry her around in my arms instead of my belly.

There are a few changes I'm looking forward to once we welcome Jori Marie into our world...

1. People looking at my baby, not my belly. People will say things like "she's beautiful! How old is she? she's adorable! she's amazing! she's the sweetest!" & I won't hear things like "how far along are you? are you sure there aren't two in there? are you sure your doctors have the correct due date? you must be due "yesterday!" there's no way you're making it to your due date! you're about to explode! you're huge! she's so low!" for all my pals out there - these are things you should avoid saying to an emotionally vulnerable pregnant lady. We don't like it [I'm assuming all pregnant women feel this way about these comments]. Your intentions might be good, but it's not nice. & we don't like it. How about "good luck! you look great!"

2. Putting on shoes & pants- it's so hard!

3. Painting my toenails - it's ALMOST impossible! Thank goodness for a loving, humble husband who will pamper me so I still feel fabulous :]

4. Caesar salad - I don't think I particularly LOVED this type of salad before pregnancy, but the whole "you want what you can't have syndrome" has hit & I sure could use some good caesar salad dressing! [it's encouraged to avoid it during pregnancy because of the raw eggs in the dressing, which can be harmful to little babes - for all you who didn't know]

5. Clothes that fit - a pregnant belly sure is cute. Except I have reached a point where its just too darn big for MOST of my shirts. No one wants to see a preggy belly hanging out under a shirt. Not too classy. I also don't want to drop $100 buying 4 new shirts that I will only wear for a couple more weeks. Talk about a dilemma!

6. Sleeping on my belly or back - It might seem silly, but this is no joke. I NEED to sleep on my back. I love it. But I'd rather not cut off blood supply to my legs & baby by letting all her 5.5 pounds compress the main arteries in my back.

7. Intense workouts - While I've remained active throughout this pregnancy, I sure would like to go do some high intensity workouts that my body simply cannot do anymore. I'd even love to do a burpee. Which is saying something because after I retired from soccer I vowed to never do one again. If you don't know what that is, do some research, try it out, & prepare for your butt to get kicked.

8. Hugging people - stinkin' belly gets in the way! & depending on the person, it's kind of awkward...

9. Wine - I'm no alcoholic. We rarely have beverages in this home. But I sure do love cranberry wine & you better believe I will be treating myself to a glass as soon as I'm able.

10. Holding my lady. I think I'll miss her once she is born. I'll miss her little slides around that make it look like an alien is trying to crawl out of my belly. I'll probably even miss her scraping on my ribs [which is NOT comfortable] But my heart is aching with anxiety to have her snuggled up to me. Even more, I cannot wait to see Matthew holding his little girl. He sure is going to be an amazing father.

In other news - we had some maternity pictures done with a good friend from church & our small group. She is amazing. Check them out here!

This is my favorite of the bunch. But I LOVE them all equally. So it's really not my favorite of all since they're all my favorite.

Cheers to only 4 weeks left of baby belly kicks, too-short shirts, rude comments, encouraging comments, & unseeable feet. Baby Jori, we cannot wait to meet you <3

Healthy Lunch Tips

I love lunch. Mostly because I love food. Now that I'm home [almost] full time I'm trying to find clever ways to make lunches that are quick but full of healthy benefits [& have minimal clean up time]. Here are a few ideas for you - & that you can eat at home or in the office.

1. Add hummus: This stuff is great [especially when it's on sale 2/$6 at Meijer!]. & if you think you don't like it, try Sabra brand supremely spicy or sweet red pepper. So. Stinkin. Good. 

        -I use hummus on my sandwich instead of mayo & mustard - the calories from hummus

        are MUCH better than in mayo & adds some protein to your diet. 

        -I usually hate raw baby carrots. But dip those bad boys in hummus & I could eat a 

        bag! Really ANY raw veggie is great in hummus - carrots, broccoli, celery, cucumbers,

        bell peppers... A great side to your lunch [and SO quick to pack!].

2. Enhance your sandwich: This is the most classic of all lunch items. But it also has the most potential to make you snore with boredom. Again with the hummus, add it on there & enjoy. I also LOVE adding veggies galore to my deli meat. Spinach [much better than plain ole lettuce that has no nutritional value], tomatoes, onion, cucumber, bell peppers... all of it. Add some cheese slices [it's most economical to buy block cheese & slice it yourself, rather than pre-sliced cheese... we like to keep things cheap around here] Also, keep the bread whole wheat. Don't be fooled by "enhanced" or other fancy words on the packaging. If the first ingredient isn't whole grains/whole wheat, you're being tricked. Or, if you're sick of bread or want to cut down on carbs, use whole wheat or spinach wraps. So tasty.

3. Leftovers: Purposefully plan dinners so you have yummy extras for the next day. This is especially easy with soups & chili. It's also easy for us since we only cook for 2 & usually have leftovers. 

4. Fruit: Bananas, apples, & oranges are the easiest thing to throw into a lunch box & have with your lunch. We purchase ours at Aldi [we never get the red apples, they taste like wax] & it's so economical! Add a little peanut butter to your banana or apple & make it more filling. Other fruit is great too, just more time consuming when you have to chop it up. 

5. Add some crunch: Chips. Yum. Instead of doritos, or my favorite Lays sour cream & chedder, choose kettle chips. If my mother-in-law eats something, I have no guilt indulging as well [she is the healthiest lady I know. She NEVER eats sugar. & makes EVERYTHING from scratch. Even her bread. What a woman]. Anyways, she LOVES kettle chips. We also get these at Aldi for half the price of the bigger chain stores & they're delicious! Our favorites are jalapeno & BBQ. Put your chips in a small baggy or bowl so you don't accidentally eat half of the bag. Trust me, it can be done. 

6. Make a super salad: We try & put super salads into our dinner menu a couple times a month [& probably should do it on a weekly basis]. For ours, we just load it up with lots of stuff. Our salad base is spinach leaves & romaine lettuce mixture [because I love the crunch of romaine & the health benefits of spinach]. Then we just pile on the veggies & sometimes meat. Like chicken? Cook some up the night before with a few herbs on the stovetop, shred it, & throw it on top to make the salad a little more filling. Tuna is also great to add. Even some deli meat is good. Also tasty to add - apples & nuts. It makes the salad more filling & also adds more health benefits. You'll feel better throughout the day if you give your body the best fuel possible.

7. Skip dessert: You don't need it. If you need something sweet, suck on a peppermint or chew gum [your colleagues or children will thank you]. Adding cookies or other treats to lunch every day is nice, but is adding a lot of unwanted yucky calories to your diet. Just don't buy it & you won't eat it! 

One last benefit to making your own lunch - it saves money. Serious money. The assumption is that produce is expensive & it's not economical to eat healthy. False. We buy most of our food at Aldi & spend about $60 a week on food [depending on the type of food we buy].  & that includes breakfast, lunch, & dinner food. Eating out for one meal a day, 5 days a week [for one person] & eating a meal that is $5 would spend $25/week...$100/month... $1200/year yikes. I'd rather use that money to buy some cute clothes. Or things for my baby. Or pay bills.

Those are only a few ways I've thought of for having a tasty, QUICK, & healthy lunch - anyone have any additions to the list that you love for your lunch menu?

Jori Update:

-35 weeks today! whoa. This baby is around 5 pounds & 20 inches long. What a mini woman! 

-The nursery is NEARLY done! Only a few more touches & organizational things... & you'll be treated to a full post of nursery goodness.

-Cloth diaper supplies came in - the pre-washing process began & I can't wait to put these on our little girl!

-Feeling SO good & working out 5 days a week. Bam.

Looking Ahead:

-The Nursery

-Vaccine Research Update