A Paleo Journey

We have been tackling this lifestyle for awhile. More in a way that we can't quite give up on certain things. Cake, bread, pasta, cookies, cheese...oh sweet delicious gouda. Paleo...what is paleo? Well it's basically the caveman diet. There's a lot online that talks about the Paleo "diet" and it all makes it sounds complicated. I am hoping as I journey through it I can help you our a little more. All I saw when I researched Paleo was NO FREAKING ICE  CREAM!?!?!?!?! WHY!?!?!

The Mister and I have bounced back and forth with this thing. What made us change? Well miss Mom over here decided to hurt her back. That's what happened. Let's go back a bit before we get into my back. In February I decided to start working out not just simple working out but like legit hardcore working out. Weights, running, swimming, bike, classes, etc. You name it I wanted to try it. I instantly fell in love with weight lifting. It made me feel like a beast and that I could conquer the world while punching everyone. Ok maybe not that beast like but you get the point. Loved weights. As some know I do photography part time. Well here in Japanland there's a special torture for us photogs called Sakura season or is you don't know what that means Cherry Blossom season. I remember before coming to Japan thinking I was going to have to travel far to see the magnificent blossoms of Japan.  Like they were tucked away in the mountains somewhere and would have to trek to them. Wrong! They're everywhere here. Every corner, park, 7-11, shrine, temple, and basically most front yards have either a cherry blossom (sakura) tree or plum blossom (ume) blooming. Why are they torturous for us photogs. Well these pink blossoms of beautiful doom like to bloom unexpectedly. Sure we get our prediction charts and what not but you can't predict these things sometimes. Blossoms also don't last more than 2-3 weeks. So you basically have to jump on them while they last. This season I was completely over booked. Blossoms are actually very wonderful. It is my favorite time in Japan because they represent the start of spring. Everything is covered in pink and it's just wonderful. Combine my blossom season on top of being a new weight lifter and things can get sort of bad. Hurt my back and had to stop lifting and running. How the heck was I going to lose weight and get a work-out in?

Insert Paleo and yoga. Once the pain in my back got slightly better I started doing 20 minutes of yoga a day. Every morning I did it to ease my pain to relieve stress. I completely cut out sugar, gluten, processed foods and dairy from my diet. Which is basically what paleo is I think I will make a special post about exactly what and how it works. Like I said simple foods. Since I have been doing these things I have lost 10 pounds. I plan on starting up with swimming soon to add onto my now 30 minutes of yoga a day. Simple changes can really help you in so many ways. I do miss lifting and maybe I will go back but right now I am sticking to what is working. Plus I get that precious 30 minutes of quiet in the mornings.

I hope you decide to stick around while I figure this whole paleo madness out. I will be posting recipes and other things as I go.

A Year Later....

Wow I haven't blogged in a whole year.....oops.
Since our move to Japan I have really been neglectful with this blog. I guess there's been so much going on that I just didn't sit down to really write it out. I am going to try and make an effort of keeping this thing going. Especially since it's our last year and I would like to document our travels.

So what's been going on in our world...lots and lots of work. My photography business has really blossomed in the last year. I took a little break but I came back and things are steadily going well. I haven't decided if I will continue the business side of things back stateside but we will see. I really like the idea of just taking portraits of the boys for the rest of their lives (insert evil laugh).

Steven has been very busy with work as usual we get to pick our next destination very soon and before we know it we will be gone. More on that later.

Bear is in Kinder and will be ending soon. We decided to send him to school when homeschooling was going well but not as well as planned. I still love to teach him at home but he loves school and his friends at school. His teachers have been incredible and we're so thankful things have really worked out on that end. He is also in baseball this season and loves it so far. He has one more game then we will try out something else. I fully plan on having these monkeys at the beach or pool all summer. Then maybe Bear can do Judo plus an arts and crafts class. He's very interested in coding so we will play around with that this summer plus keep him reading a lot by doing a 100 book summer with him. I can't believe we will have a 1st grader soon! Where has our baby gone?

Bears 1st 4th July 2009

Bear at his culture day May 2015

The Pig is officially potty trained. Well he's been potty trained since Feb but this is one of the biggest things in his little life. He just pretty much started on his own and went with it. We really tried not to force him into this. He's quite the stubborn and independent little guy. He keeps growing and learning everyday. We have been working on getting him into speech therapy as he is still not talking as much as we want him to, but he's getting better daily. We had his ears checked out and they said everything is normal. He likes to say phrases over basic words. So we will get a "May I please" or a "thank you" here and there. I guess we should be very happy about that but it's still behind and we're hoping to have him a little more on track before our move. 

Other than all that we are doing good. I have a lot of pictures to post for you all and I am going to try and do my best to get them up in the next week. Hope you all are having a great start to your summers. 

Amazing Discoveries in a Moms World

Being a Mom is an amazing thing. We give up our wants and dreams to think of another persons wants, needs, and future dreams. Let me rephrase that we are willing to give up our wants and dreams for another little life. There's some pretty amazing moms who continue on their paths to doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, etc and still do an amazing job at being a mother. The thing I can guarantee about all mothers whether we work or stay at home is we would all drop our dreams for the little people we created. I'm still following my dreams to be a photographer but I would drop it in an instant for my boys.
Anyway this post has nothing really to do with our wants or what we've given up. It's more about how we find the simple things the most amazing things instead of caring for those big dreams we have/had. Those little things are just simply amazing. Admit you get more excited about snuggles than say an A on a test. Seriously who else gets excited when their 6 month old finally poops after 4 days? Or when you first discovered the power of magic erasers? Amazing gypsy magic right there. Today I had quite an outing with my boys. They helped me deliver a disc, we went shopping, and they "helped" me get groceries. When we got home the little one was sleepy so I took him up to his bed and he instantly fell asleep. That's another little big thing when your child falls asleep willingly with no tears. Simply amazing! Anyway I came downstairs and got the big boy to go upstairs and sleep.mo cleaned the upstairs bathroom and came down to start dinner prep to discover the big boy drew a giant pirate in black sharpie all over my Japanese refrigerator. My reaction was what a typical moms would be. I slumped to me knees and started to cry and curse the day we chose a Japanese fridge! No I just let out one of those defeated sighs and went and grabbed a wet rag. To my surprise it wiped off instantly. Hmmm....I stopped wiping and got the dry erase eraser. Holy cow it worked! Could my fridge be a dry erase board too? It's not like other fridges it's smooth and doesn't have those weird cracks in it for texture. So I grabbed my hot pink glittery dry erase marker and nearly peed myself when it worked. The possibilities are now endless! I have a dry erase fridge! I quickly wrote my cleaning list and am now blogging instead. Hey....it's a start.
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Christmas

The holidays this year have come and gone like they always do. I always think its funny that as a kid the days up until Christmas dragged on and on and on. But now as a parent it gets here way to fast and it feels like you have hardly anytime to prepare. I am sure like most parents our house gets bombarded with toys and wrapping paper galore. This was Zacks first year giving gifts to Steven, Eli, and I. Eli also gave a gift to Zack. We're trying to teach him that Christmas is about giving. He got to go with each of us to get a gift for the other person. He got Steven a small Samarai statue, Eli a dinosaur outfit, and me a memory card holder. On the morning of Christmas after he had a mini heart attack from the wrapped beauty we asked him to give his gifts first. He went right to them and gave them to each of us. He even watched us unwrap them before going back to ripping apart the beautiful wrapping. It was a great Christmas and now I am going to fill this post with plenty of pictures.


Decorating the tree









































Christmas morning

Bowling Fun

Over the next few days I'll be posting pictures of what we did for Christmas and New Years. Normally Steven takes one of the leaves given to them but this year we decided not figuring we would have free days off regardless. We're saving up leave for a vacation to Cambodia for Thanksgiving next year. Anyway everything turned out as planned we got 4 days off for Christmas and 4 days off for New Years. This left us with a lot family time. We went to the movies, we went on nature walks, and we tried new restaurants. Zacks favorite thing was to go bowling. I believe we went twice and both times he had a blast. Thankfully I actually took my camera for one of the times.


Showing how not to throw the ball the floor.


Eli had fun too


He wanted to use the slide too


I want mommies ball


Just kidding moms ball is too heavy


Perfect form


Looking good honey








And evidence that I won. Don't worry zack won the next round.

When Eli Turned Into A Gremlin

We thought we were safe with the small one. He has this way of making you think he is innocent but don't be fooled. He is his brothers clone.

You see for the first year of a babies life they are lying to you. Babies know what they're doing. They're making you all goody and soft on the inside. Not that pregnancy and childbirth wasn't enough to make us emotional saps, they have to be cute too. All their coos and giggles. Don't forget all those "firsts" they go through in one year. Oh they know what they're doing alright. So why am I so paranoid about my child's secret missions? Let's get started.

About a week ago or more. It's probably more the holidays make me very confused about time and space. Anyway about more than a week ago we were sick (also why I'm confused on time) like not just kind of sick. We were really really sick. All of us were not able to hold anything down for at least 2 days. That kind of sick where you are sore when you're done throwing up that you just lay there on the couch like a slug. Yup that was me. If you don't know already but when you're a parent and you get sick...nobody cares. Seriously though I miss the days when my mommy would bring me soup to my make shift bed on the couch and I would study shows like Sally, Maury, and of course Jerry to learn how not to screw up my life. So back to story. We were sick and it was awful. On this day I am speaking of we were slightly feeling better.
The boys were starting to get better and Steven was able to go to work. I dressed the boys in cozy pjs and made them their very own make shift beds on the couches. Then I curled up on my end of the couch and proceeded to let them watch whatever they wanted. Fast forward after a marvelous nap time and a lunch consisting of crackers and water. It's about 3pm when I think to myself "hmmm Eli hasn't pooped today. His body must be pretty drai...." I was cut off by Zack saying "EWWW....MOM!!! Eli made a poopoo on his back!" I was officially scared to even look but I did and it was only partially up his back. To mom that's a huge deal. So I got saddled up and ready to change a poop; I had new comfy pjs, a diaper, and all I needed was wipes. Then i realized we had used up all the wipes the night before to clean Eli's explosive poo up his back. Now I was in panic mode. Wipes, wipes, wipes....where we're they? I tore apart the house in search for wipes when I remembered that I carry a pack in my car. Yippee!
This is where the story gets interesting. I put on my boots because no other shoe goes quite as well with my mid thigh t shirt nightgown fully decked with flamingos on the front ( thanks grandma it's still my favorite) and no pants. Hey! I was opting for comfort and nothing says comfort like no pants. Can you really blame me? So I put on a grey tattered sweat shirt and went outside. Of course Zack followed in his underwear. Where did his comfy pjs go? "Zack get inside right now!" I barely made it to my car when I heard a very familiar "click."

ZACK LOCKED ME OUT!!!! I ran to my door only to find Zack standing there shivering. I tried the door and it was for sure locked. The bottom lock to be exact. I grabbed Zack and found him a jacket in the car and sat him in there. He put a blanket over his legs and was quickly happy to be warm. I ran back to the door and there it was. I saw his outline standing by the door....Eli had locked us out. Now I was really in panic mode. I tried to get him to unlock the door he just sat down by the door and started crying. So then I tried to comfort him from outside the door. I said things like "Its ok baby. Mommy is right here please unlock the door baby" "Eli my love please open the door and mommy will give you booby" then my please escalated to "ELI mommy is cold open the door now! You were able to lock it now unlock it or you'll never see my boobs again because they'll be frozen." To my dismay neither of these approaches worked. I had no keys, no phone, and holy cow I was pantless.
Since he was busy crying I figured I would find a way in. I ran around the house checking every window. I even considered climbing my neighbors roof to check the upstairs windows. Then I remembered Zack is afraid that ninjas will break in at night, so we make sure everything is always closed and locked. Darn those ninjas. So I went back to the door the plead some more. When I crouched down I realized that he was not by the door anymore. I heard giggling and silently prayed to myself that he wasn't rubbing poop on the walls. Meanwhile Zack was in the car discovering the blinker and some toys he had been missing.
I decided to open our shutters in front of our house. If you don't know Japanese homes a lot come with large metal shutters in front of the windows to protect during typhoons. When I opened them I was relieved to see Eli sitting on the floor watching Mickey Mouse. I spent the next 45 minutes trying to convince him to unlock one of the doors, crying (me), laughing (him), and finding random objects to try and pick the locks. Turns out you can't pick certain locks. I would make a horrible criminal. In this time Eli had successfully made the house look like a tornado went through. All of their toys were thrown around the house. He found a bag of wipes (yup what I went outside for) and removed them from the packaging.
I was in the middle of putting my face and hands against the window just staring at him when I felt someone staring at me. It felt like slow motion but I turned my head to the right and there was my Japanese neighbor trying not to stare but I imagine it was hard. Remember what I was wearing? Comfort clothes....and no pants. Thankfully my flamingo nightgown is to my mid thigh. But still I'm sure he was thinking I was a very crazy American lady. We said awkward Hellos before he scurried back into his warm home. Eli now had my phone and was listening to lady gaga and dancing. For a moment I thought it was cute. Then I saw Steven was trying to call. How long had I been outside? When I checked on Zack he had buckled himself into his car seat and said he was going on a rocket ride.
At this moment in my life I felt so helpless. This little person had won the battle. He was thoroughly enjoying his poopy butt freedom to play with my phone and his big brothers toys. Just when I was getting ready to run to my neighbors house to call the police I turned around and a beautiful ray of sunshine drove up. It was a knight in shining armor coming to my rescue. It was Steven. He jumped off his noble steed and unlocked the door, swiftly changed Eli's diaper, ran me a bath, and made dinner. Or at least that's how it felt. I actually ran to his Honda made him give me his keys while he asked questions like "did zack lock you out?" "wheres Eli?" "why are you wearing your flamingo nightgown?" I unlocked the door and swooped up my baby and kissed him. I even cried because I imagined all the horrible things that could've happened to him. I changed his diaper and gave him new comfy pjs. When Steven came in with groceries which included wipes. He asked "where's Zack?" I ran outside saying "holy cow! He's in the car still!"

And that my friends is how Eli became a gremlin.

P.S. zack was only by himself in the car for 5 minutes
P.S.S. please don't ever leave your children unattended in the car ever

And

P.S.S.S. When leaving your house always bring your keys.

Laugh it off...

In Japan there's a lot of different customs to fit into their culture. When we first got here it felt as if we were tourists in their country which in retrospect is true. Now that we're much more settled in living off base we are starting to notice the wonderful things they do and don't do.

I don't know how many times I have seen Japanese women fall. I am not going to lie it's hilarious but I came from a Dad who taught me to just laugh it off and keep moving forward. This is NOT how the Japanese see things. They absolutely don't like to lose their dignity. Especially the women. No, they have not heard me laugh out loud since a majority of the time I am in my Ironvan. And no I am not scaring them purposely in Ironvan to see them fall (you all know me too well). When they fall it's like a single movement of walk walk walk, trip, fall, roll, get up, walk away. It's like they are the ninjas of making a fall look like it's on purpose. I really wish I had this skill. I also really wish I can pretend that what just happened to me was not hilarious but that it never even happened. Surrounding Japanese people ignore it too. I am pretty sure if the person was actually hurt they would help but nope they don't lose face ever. So the point of this little story of Japanese people falling. Is because today....I fell. Not just fell I completely crashed and burned.

While out on a walk with the boys to burn Bears energy before nap time, we decided to walk to the Sanwa (grocery store). We needed some eggs so it worked out. Burn Bears energy and get eggs, totally productive. We get to a busy area where a lot of people are walking towards the front of Sanwa. I got momentarily distracted by what looked like someone eating live squid on a skewer and BOOM! next thing I knew I was on the floor with  2 kids looking at me. Thankfully neither of them was being worn. Aside from my shoulder and arm hurting I was happy to be in one piece. So I started laughing, hard. Bear sat down next me and asked if I was ok. I kept laughing and said "mommy is fine but she sure looked funny falling" which in turn made him laugh. Hippy Baby caught and started laughing in his stroller with us. After awhile I looked around and all the Japanese people seemed to be horrified with us. I got up and dusted myself off. Then it started "daijoubo des ka?" from every corner around me. I even had someone bring me water. Which I am not complaining about but I am so used to falling I never thought once that water would help. Anyway we went in the store got out eggs and went home. 

While laying Bear down for nap he kept talking about how I looked like I was getting trampled by Hulk smash. I am happy I will be teaching my boys that it's ok to laugh at ourselves. Mistakes happen and it's best to just take them and move on. Life is a beautiful thing and we should take every little bit and be happy. Whether it be good or bad. So I will leave you all with this....