Cleansin like Nekter

I'm pretty excited about my "cleanse." I really want to try this Nekter's cleanse, but in lieu of spending $50 on one day, I went to our local market and got all our produce (and enough for our family for the week) for $20. I blended all the same ingredients from the cleanse (using info from this site). Technically, I got a whole lot more fiber, and it wasn't a scientifically engineered day of eating, but dang it, it was good for me.

{last four}

I used a vitamix blender and added water to all of these to give them a smoothie consistency.

Each of the 6 drinks are about 16 oz.

Total caloric intake is about 1425 calories.

I never felt hungry. Fiber is bulky!

I was planning on spending some time in the bathroom if you know what I mean...but, business as usual! No problems there. I did pee a whole lot more often but I'm sure it's just because I don't drink enough in general. Ben claims I'm like a camel.

I drank them about every 2 - 3 hours.

Juice #1: About 220 calories
Apples, kale, spinach, parsley, cucumber, celery, mint, lime

Specifically:
2 small Gala apples, 1 leaf of kale, 1 cup spinach loosely piled, 1/2 c parsley, 1 persian cucumber, 1 stalk celery, several leaves of mint, juice of 1 lime

Juice #2: about 245 calories using milk instead of water
Cucumber, coconut water, pineapple

1 persian cucumber, 1/2 can coconut milk (I was not going for starvation in this cleanse. sheesh.), 3/4 c pineapple (i think)

Juice #3: about 139 calories
Celery, parsley, kale, spinach, apple, cabbage, lemon

2 stalks celery, 1/2 c parsley, 1 leaf of kale, 1 c spinach loosely piled, 1 apple, 1 leaf of cabbage, juice from 1/2 lemon

Juice #4: about 75 calories
Water, lemon, agave nectar, cayenne pepper

This gets tricky since I just added water, lemon, agave and cayenne and tasted it until it was good. This was so yummy after the last green drink!

Juice #5: 200 calories
Apple, cucumber, parsley, spinach, lemon, ginger

1 apple, 1 persian cucumber, 1/2 c parsley loosely piled, 1 c spinach loosely piled, 1/2 lemon, 1/2 TB ginger

Juice #6: 552 calories
water, raw cashews, agave nectar, vanilla bean

3/4 c cashews, 3 tbsp agave nectar, 1 tsp vanilla. Mine was really really sweet, so I would do less agave the next go around.

Whenever I used to hear people do cleanses I would secretly think in my head they were completely NUTS. But, here I am thinking it actually sounds cool and doing it. I don't know, it's still weird. But I can honestly say, yesterday was an awesome day of eating and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I think I'll do this every few weeks. Give or take a couple of months of laziness:)

Springing

It's been a lovely spring.

We went out lizard hunting once. 

A couple were caught, but they got away!

Our house is nestled down there in between two hills. A little path winds up this side, and it kind of makes you feel like you're not in the middle of a city.

Fruit flies have come out with a vengeance.

Our solution is AWESOME, so if you have fruit flies, do this:

apple cider vinegar

(like 1/3 cup)

plus a couple squirts of

dawn dish soap

in a cup

Bam. They love it and drowned in it.

I don't want to speak too soon but Mackayla decided to be potty trained.

After her bath earlier this week I told her to bring me her pajamas.

About a half an hour later she finally did

but she got underwear instead of a diaper, very deliberately.

(Because, she is not a baby; we cannot make that clear enough at our house. The highest compliment I can pay her right now is that she is so big.)

I gave her the quick you can't pee in these chat and she agreed and has worn them since, accident free.

I literally have not thought about it once. She pretty much takes care of it.

It's a dream come true!

Nobody be surprised if I post about potty training her again in a year though.

I think I'm up to three posts about it for her. I've been really wishy washy and non-committal and frankly, unconcerned about whether or not she wears diapers. It's so liberating. 

Clearly my first two traumatized me.

 Easter was the typical celebrations.

We had the cute little egg hunt about Jesus with little things in 12 eggs about the last week of Christ's life.

Then the last egg is empty, like the tomb. Because He is Risen!

 We've had lots of hard boiled eggs and ham this week.

Aside from those, here is a recipe worth trying. 

I love it (and the whole blog including restaurant reviews)!! 

I found all the ingredients at Trader Joe's. bonus. 

I will never try to be a food photographer, but imagine this looks fresh and tasty:

Monday was no school so we went to Disneyland.

Holy cow it was crowded. We went on a couple of rides and saw a couple of shows and got home in time for dinner with Ben.

Tuesday was earth day. On our walk home Cody picked up a ton of garbage. Seriously a ton. I love his little desire to do good. He did great at his baseball game that night!

Wednesday and Thursday were preschool teaching days.

We had a Declutter your house relief society activity from a pretty entertaining professional organizer that night and I am pumped to get our house spring-cleaned up!

At one point she had everyone stand up and asked us to sit if we had any of these common clutter items:

old greeting cards

old phones

socks with missing mates

outdated vitamins

broken unused games/toys

jeans we don't wear

etc.

Yes. to all of them~

Today we had a ward carnival and auction and we got Angel's tickets!

I feel like life has sped up a little. I'm not going to lie, it's not as physically demanding or even as  draining as it was last year with the kids just one year older. But I have a sinking feeling it's only going to speed up even more.

Happy Spring!

Happy Day

The kids loving watching old videos. We found this gem the other day, along with a bunch of other cute Cody videos I may post. They just make me smile.

I just want to squish his cute little cheeks and give baby Cody a big hug.

Despite what it looks like, this is pure knowledge of the song, into action.

Spring Break Utah Bound

On our venture to Utah traffic there and back was perfect going our direction and terrible the other way. ha.

I actually think it's easier driving alone-if I'm driving the kids have to take care of things I would normally do and they are generally more responsible and content.

But, we wish Ben could have come. work shmirk. (It's a good thing!)

Thanks to my sister-in-law's gracious in-laws we got to split up our trip. They have a beautiful home in St. George

The room we stayed in was adjacent to the living room.

That night I walked straight into the living room screen door like a bug on a windshield

and even bounced off like a cartoon. awesome.

Sooo, since I took way more pictures than is normal for one post, but I'm too lazy to make multiple posts, here's a brief explanation of our week and then a bazillion pictures.

We were able to spend the day with Ben's family before Bonnie headed out to Palm Springs.

We saw Jessi's new house, played handball, and went to "the farm" and brushed the horses. My favorite part is always just sitting and catching up.

Cody could not wait the next day to get to play with Clayton so we walked to school to get him (my elementary school:))

We dyed easter eggs, played chess, went to a fish farm, went to the zoo, rode papa Jeff's horses, had an easter egg hunt, roasted marshmallows in the backyard and the kids had a sleepover in a tent.

Grandpa beat us.

Egg dyeing prep

Macey was very meticulous and her eggs turned out beautiful.

Trout farm in North Ogden--so fun!!

So the best explanation of this is they go camping A LOT!

She was so excited to catch a fish and pick it up! Until she did!

Hogle Zoo

Success

Discovered Cody's new talent

Do you ever throw your head back when you laugh? It's really not that attractive:)

Something was hil-arious

Thanks go to Papa Jeff and Amy for carving out some time to take us horseback riding.

It's pretty much all Mackayla wanted to do when she got to Utah and it made her day.

Egg Hunt

 

My dad makes the best smoked salmon, and he made our burgers, in his green egg. This huge thing is fascinating to me. 

My parents just added this cute room to the back of their house and the floor's not in yet so there was plenty of room for a tent.

 On our way home we had a little excitement just outside of Mesquite. We drove around a hill to an empty highway and hundreds of cars pulled off to the side of the road, hundreds of people out and about 40 cop cars in the middle. Apparently this was the exchange of cattle from what one woman called the "BLM War." Luckily we got there before traffic came to a complete stand still and watched for a second then drove through. Crazy day on I-15.

I'm so glad we decided to go, kinda last minute! It's always so good to see our families.

Steph and Ryan are moving soon and I'm so glad we got to see them.