Jillian Michaels

Maverick is one week away from being 6 months old (NOOOO! Not already!) and I am still 15-20 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight. Not to mention the massive amount of toning that needs to still take place. It is offically time to get serious! This is where Jillian Michaels 90 day body revolution comes in. Monday was my 1st day on the program. The 1st 7 days is a detox diet and 2 workouts a day. The workouts haven't been too hard but getting up at 4:10 am to do those workouts has been rough. Today is the 1st day i've been really sore and HUNGRY!! I broke my diet a little and had some nuts. I thought i was going to DIE! Price is doing the diet too (BUT i'm going to call him out on how much he has cheated) and weighed himself this morning and has already lost 12 pounds! IN 3 DAYS PEOPLE!!!!! I know i will not have that kind of result, but I'm hoping to and it motivates me to keep at it. This weekend will be torture with the driving, and the junk food that comes with road trips plus my sister Ashlee's fantastic baking. Luckly my dad has an amazing garden with the most delicious tomatoes EVER so i'll try to eat as much of his veggies as possible. I'm sure i'll slip a little but am going to try to stay on point. Bikini body here i come (fingers crossed :( ) XOXO Brogan Lee

Anticipation

OH BOY!! I can't wait for this weekend! The family and I are headed up to Modesto tomorrow night for my littlest nieces 1st birthday bash, The Hungry Little Catipillar style! I haven't seem those adorible little faces since February and I'm dying to hug, kiss and spoil those little cuties! I'm, of course, excited to see the rest of the brood as well. It's going to be a long drive and I'm sure there will be WAY too much junk food consumscion, but it'll all be worth it. Pictures to follow....get ready for Walling boys in BOW TIES!! I've got to do what I can with my boys clothes while I can since I can't work with tutu's, bloomers, hair bows or pink. Price hates it but I L-O-V-E the preppy matching outfits. Have a great weekend everyone! Lots of Love and Bunches of Hugs!! XOXO Brogan Lee

Walling family update

I feel like I haven't posted any recent pictures or updates of my little brood, so here you are!

Preston is now 5 and WAY to smart for his own good. Each day when he comes home from school I am amazed at what he has to say. He can write and spell his name perfectly, knows all his shapes, colors and numbers and is learning colors and numbers in Spanish (he's almost got it). He "graduates" from preschool in June and will start kindergarten in august (don't get me started in the school process, you'll be reading this blog all day!) He's in the lying phase right now and has an opinion about everything which is pretty exhausting but makes for good stories later.

Ethan is 2 1/2 and so stinking cute (they all are)! His facial expressions CRACK me up! He's now in preschool with preston and loves, loves, loves it! I am so curious as to how I ended up with two boys with such opposite personalities. Preston needs constant stimulation and Ethan will sit by himself in a room for hours playing quietly with his trucks. It makes me very curious to see how Mav grows up. Ethan is officially fully potty trained during the day (yippee) and will make it through most nights without accidents. What a headache! I'm so glad to be past that!

Maverick is on the cusp of being 5 months old. It literally hurts to say that!! Where in the world has time gone? He's now eating cereal and I'm looking to invest in a Baby Brezza baby food maker so he can start on fruit and veggies. I say invest for a reason, this thing and the recipe book and all the Utensils are well over $120. But hopefully in the long run it is more cost efficient then buying baby food and is healthier as well. In March he rolled over for the first time, got his 1st tooth and ate solids for the first time. He had his 4 month check up this week and weighed in at 19.8 pounds! He is a BIG BOY! He's in the 97% tile across the board.

Price had been home now for 4 solid months and has tons of projects going! He "rescued" an engine from the junk yard that he wants to rebuild, his Uncle gave him a motorcycle that needs work, an he's installing our ceiling fans. I'm so proud of him for getting our living room fan installed last weekend. He installed a brace, wired power to that part of the ceiling and put the fan up.I honestly thought he was going to burn the house down or hurt himself, but NOPE! I then felt bad for having so little faith in him. Deepest apologizes babe! ;)

And, well me, I'm just trying to get into shape. I've been back to work since the beginning of march and still have not lost more than 2 pounds. I'm going to the gym almost everyday an am eating 75% better than I was before. I feel like I can't diet too much or push myself too hard because I'm still nursing and don't want to give that up yet. I did my first 5k last month and have another one in 2 weeks. After that I'm going to start on 10k's and work up to a 1/2 marathon and maybe a full marathon depending on how bad the 1/2 is. Other than trying to motivate myself to eat better and work out more, not too much else is different with me.

I need to start updating on our lives more often so I don't have these big long posts. Promise....

XOXO Brogan Lee

Crockpot recap

Ok, so I am way over due to responding to my last post. Here's a quick recap of how the crockpot meals went... The chicken and dumplings was delicious! I added carrots, celery, basil and oregano. The bacon wrapped chicken and sour cream was good but pretty rich, next time i will only use one can of cream of chicken and 1/2 the sour cream. I used way more bacon (because who doesn't love a ton of bacon?!?!) and over cooked it on accident. This actually worked out ok because it didn't burn, the chicken just shredded. It was served over rice with green beans and was a big hit with our company. I enjoyed the artichoke chicken. Next time I will use marinated artichokes, add olives and more garlic. I think this would be delish served over pasta with a little shredded parm. The chili an pumpkin soup was not a hit. It was just too bland. I couldn't taste the pumpkin but Price could and thought that was gross. My mom added roasted potatoes, a little hot sauce an salt and pepper and she liked it a little. I don't recommend it.

Overall, the crockpot meals made my life a little easier and made a TON of food but to be honest I felt like I was eating too much salt and processed food. I am not a big fan of things from cans and prefer fresh veggies. After a week of crockpot food we were ready for BBQ chicken and roasted veggies again!

XOXO Brogan Lee

Crock pot

I'm in my third week back to work and am beyond tired. I'm getting up at 4:30am everyday and not going to bed until close to 10 or 1030. Maverick has been doing pretty good about sleeping through the night, but those few nights when i still have to get up for 30-40 minutes to feed him leave me feeling even more wiped the next day. This is what my days look like right now: get up, shower, get dressed/do hair/makeup, feed Maverick,wake up the boys/feed them/dress them, make Price and I our green smoothies, pack up lunch and gym bag, leave house by 640am, drop boys off at school, work 8-430 (gym for an hour at lunch), pick boys up from school, get home at 6, cook dinner, make next days lunch, get coffee ready, do dishes (if Price hasn't done them), give boys a bath, read them a book, feed Mav again, set clothes out for the next day and try to get to bed by 10. I'm exhausted again just thinking about it all! In an effort to try to minimize dishes and spend more quality time with the kids and less time cooking, I discovered a website called: momswithcrockpots.com. Almost everything can be made in the crock pot without any other pots or pans and can be left to cook all day. I loved just about every recipe but I chose 4 (ones that had very little prep and very few ingredients) that I'm going to try this week.

1) pumpkin and chili chicken stew
2) tomato artichoke chicken on pasta
3) sour cream and bacon wrapped chicken with rice
4) dump and go cheesy chicken and broccoli

Yes, we eat a lot of chicken in our house. We usually do red meat one or twice a week but it's chicken and veggies most nights. I'm hoping these made my days a little easier and cut back on the number of dishes were using/having to wash. I'll make sure to post the impact momswithcrockpots has on the Walling family and if the food it as delicious as it looks!

XOXO Brogan Lee

PB PRETZEL BITES

Happy St. Patricks day! I was not into it this year :( I failed to make the green mint shamrock sugar cookies I had planned on making, the kids weren't decked out in green clothes, I didn't drink a Guinness and we didn't have corn beef and cabbage for dinner. I'm a bad Irish girl! Oh well, there is always next year!
Even though we didn't get into the St. Patties day spirit, we still managed to do a little baking! I found a kid friendly and delicious recipe on...can you guess????? YES Pinterest! I have no idea how I manage to have all the ingredients for these fantastic treats in my house!?! (But i am oh so glad that I do) I like this one because there is no need for an oven or stove top so the kids can do just about everything. I'd say this is appropriate for kids 3-4 and up. Preston (age 5)was able to roll the peanut butter mixture into balls but Ethan(age 2 1/2) had a hard time with it. His looked more like snakes! :) Also, to make the recipe a little easier, it might be best to drizzle the treats with chocolate rather than dip in chocolate. This was REALLY messy, the pretzels started to break and it was nearly impossible to keep the kids from licking their fingers in between each dip.
All in all, this was yummy! Yet another pinterest dessert that didn't last a full 24 hours in the Walling household!












Ingredients:
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons softened butter
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• Pretzels
• 1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1.Line a baking sheet with wax paper and set aside.

2.In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat peanut butter and butter until combined. Scrape down bowl, add sugars and beat until combined. You should be able to roll the mixture into balls without sticking to your hands. If needed, add more powdered sugar until you reach a consistency that is easy to roll.

3.Roll the mixture into small balls, about 1 teaspoon of mixture for each ball, and place on prepared baking sheet. Sandwich the balls between two pretzels and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.

4.Melt the chocolate in a metal bowl over a pan of lightly simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth, and remove from heat. Dip each pretzel bite halfway into the melted chocolate and place on the prepared baking sheet. Chill in refrigerator until chocolate is set.

Lots of Love and Bunches of Hugs
XOXO Brogan Lee