Do you ever know if you're really failing?

Dont let the title mislead you. This isnt a depressing post by any means, more so meant to be funny so lets hope that tone comes across lol

Today I have "failed" at many things.  I failed at my diet, I failed at being on time to swim lessons, I failed at making dinner for my kids, I failed at getting them in bed at a reasonable time (like, they just are in bed at 10pm....not even asleep yet....we have been trying to get them in bed since 9 though) and finally I failed at being an awesome mom lol im pretty sure I ruined all 3 kids lives when I made them clean out their toy shelf and decide what they wanted to keep and what could be thrown away.

I must say though the kiddos did great at swim and they all tested to pass to the next level so yay for not drowning!!!!!!!! Aura actually jumped into the pool on her own today which made us super proud. I still remember my little gummi that hated water and wanted nothing to do with it and today she was dunking and jumping in, proud momma moment. I will reflect on that next time she is screaming no and throwing herself on the floor.....yes shes almost 5, yes she still does this. Judge if you must. 

Some of Zaidens homeschool stuff came in today and one was a state book because we will be studying the US and all of the stuff that comes with that (can you tell I have no idea what I'm doing?)
He was excited to flip through it and less excited when I told him its 10pm and he has to go to sleep lol...dont worry he already came out again to tell us about a mysterious dot plaguing his vision making it impossible to sleep **insert eye roll here**

Lily is going through the hormones right now so naturally I am the worst person on the planet, who she then apologizes too...and then as soon as something else doesnt go her way im horrible again. When did 9 become the new teenager? Was I this horrible at 9? If I was im totally sorry mom....and thank you for not killing me. 


SO back to this diet thing. I am doing low carb because I gained so much weight after my hysterectomy (no more periods woooohooooooooo) and the first couple of days were ok.....today even up until like 3ish was pretty easy....and then I became STARVING!!!!! literally felt like I was going to pass out so needless to say I fell off the wagon and landed in carb valley.  I mean not totally but I for sure went over my carb count today. I refuse to be hard on myself though and I will be starting right back again tomorrow morning. Im not gonna lie though...the cup of coffee with a shit ton of creamer was AMAZING!!!!!! 

 I will be weighing myself for the first time on sunday since i started the diet so we will see if there is any change. I should also be getting my blood test results tomorrow so heres crossing fingers toes and eyes for some good news. 

Cheers,
Jenny

Here we go again.....

So it has been about 2 years since I have blogged anything and for some reason tonight I got a wild hair up my ass to start doing it again!!!!! 
So much has changed since I started the blog and I thought I was busy then!!!!!! hahahaha little did I know. We now have 3 kids and my oldest is 9....like when the hell did that happen??? 
I feel like if I type a bunch of stuff right now and share it to my facebook it will be pointless because everyone on there pretty much knows my life so I dont have much to write at the moment but I am going to start posting more here. 

I will talk about my weight loss journey (100lbs to go), my makeup life, my crazy kids, homeschooling, any recipes I come across and really anything funny that happens which is often!!!! 

My goal is to be on here everyday so we will see if that happens. 

Here is to being an even more open book

Cheers
Jenny

Its been how long since ive been on here????

Ive read some amazing blogs lately so I decided...hey im sort of funny....my life is sort of amusing and crazy...and well why not add one more thing to my plate...ive decided to start blogging again. Im not saying im going to do it everyday and who knows I could give up again and throw in the blog towel but for now the plan is to stick with it. I dont even know where to start from my last post.....well over a year ago...dont judge! Our minions are now almost 6 (we are celebrating lilys birthday tomorrow with our VA friends) zaiden is 4 and aura is 18 months and doing fantastic.

We are moving to IL in 4 days and still are not done sorting and throwing away stuff but it will get done because...well it has to.  I cant wait to be near family again and the kids will actually get to be near their cousins! Thats how I grew up...near all my cousins and it was amazing...although they picked on me because I was the youngest (yeah cousins if you read this dont think I forget the torture!!!! lol) but holidays were always so much fun.

I decided to get certified to become a doula and it has been one of the most rewarding decisions of my life. I work and love what I do. I get to be there when a human being takes their first breath and watch as a woman becomes a mother...even if its for the 5th time there is still that look of peace and love and awe...and it is amazing.

what else....I have gained a bunch of weight because I like to eat and not work out so I will also be going on a "back to the natural eating and working out everyday" routine once we are moved and settled. Im not doing it for anyone else...im doing it for myself...at one point in my life I have to be happy with how I look and that might as well start before im 30.

I cant think of anything else for now but who knows what tomorrow holds!

Until next time

its beginning to look a lot like....spring?

oooooo VA....You never cease to amaze me! It is December right? The last two days have been BEAUTIFUL!!! Im so glad that even though today started out really rough cause I didnt feel good that I got to feeling better and got to enjoy my kiddos and some park time.

I made a decision today that I am going to be spending a lot more time OFF of facebook. It is such a time suck...and for what? How many people on my friends list can I say are actually friends? How many people would I call to just say hi? Why do I sit there and wonder about all these peoples thoughts every second of the day? And I mean no offense to anyone cause I post some stupid stuff too no doubt but it hit me today how much time I waste on there. Time I could be spending with the kids or just myself. Time to think about which direction I want life to go and where I want my family to be in a few years.....time that I will NEVER get back to see someone post another picture of their lunch? (again no offense I do it too and I will be posting pics of food in this blog lol) so its time to focus on me. My goals. My wants. My kids. its time to be a little selfish and quit giving my time to others who dont even know im giving my time to them lol

so today.....started out rough cause I was feeling like cacapoopoo (its a word look it up.....I really hope you didnt cause obviously thats not a word lol) but when I started to feel better it got better. I got some time with my z man while lily was at school and aura was sleeping. He was making funny faces for the camera lol

and when sissy got out of school I made us some fruit salad for a snack. My kids drive me nuts with food.....they will love something for ever and then one day decide no I dont want that. In the fruit salad was apple,tangerine, strawberries,bananas and grapes all fruit my kids normally love and they took a few bites and walked away. I on the other hand inhaled it. mmmmmmmmm fruit salad (insert food picture here)

That entire bowl was full....and I will most likely finish it off tomorrow....I love me some fruit! after that since it was like 70 out we decided to go to the park. Anyone who knows me knows I hate messes....I hate the kids making them...I hate them being messy....I hate cleaning messes....im a little ocd when it comes to it....and part of this life change that im slowly making is to learn to let messes go. Im letting the kiddos help me cook more....im letting them do more crafts inside and trying not to stress about it.....its slow but im learning. so while at the park I of course was taking pics cause im obsessed with my new camera but there was some amazing piles of leaves so we decided that playing in them was a great idea. I loved the shots that I got of my minions and would have gotten better ones if there hadnt been a baby strapped to me but it was so much fun to watch there faces light up and the sweet expressions they were making having so much fun! dirty, nasty, germy filled fun lol. heres a few of my favs

ok so it was more then a few but there were so many great ones!!!! we eventually had to leave the park after one black eye....zaiden got in a fight with the swing....the swing won lol and a fussy baby it was time to head home for the promised "make your pizza" and have popcorn and hot chocolate movie night.  zaiden at this point was exhausted so it was somewhat of a challenge but we did have fun anyway. more pics from that :)


OMG THE BLOG THAT I HAD LOST SAVED ITSELF!!!!!!!!! I dont remember what I was writing though lol

Natural Minded momma on a mission

anyone who knows me know what an advocate for natural birth I am...and ive always like the idea of living natural and "clean eating" but never knew how or why or when to take the steps into that road. lately....and I dont know if its the holidays, or the move to VA or the isolation of the last few months but I feel like something is missing. im tired all the time!!!! I have no energy to play with the kids, I feel boring and run down and I just dont like it. I have 3 (yikes that still feels weird to say) active kiddos who need their momma at their best so I started thiking about what I can do to fix this. I have my friend (I call her hippie Katie and you can find her blog here- http://gypsymothsol.blogspot.com/2012_12_01_archive.html ) that I turned to for help and advice on this because she did a life change and ive never seen her more happy in her life....im envious of that hapiness. Im envious of her ability to really see this world and live life without fear of judgement and to just BE. im so jealous of that. Anyway...im not saying I will ever be totally like her or even go in that direction but I know im not happy where im at ( and no I dont mean in my marriage or anything....fear not me and mr bundty buns are great!) so here is to a new start in life....a new journey to get healthy and to be true to myself instead of feeling like im just floating around above my body. I dont know if that makes any sense to any of you but it makes sense to me. blog later when I have more time.



until tonight........

suuuuuuuuuuuper mom.....with a side of caffeine

so as most of you know (considering my blog is not popular and only my friends read it :-/) I have my mini gummi bear. she is going to be 4 months old on the 27th and she had decided lately  that mom doesnt need sleep. what is sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep....oh wait she sleeps alll damn day and then keeps my butt awake lol anywho she has been sleeping from like 9-11:30 and then wants to wake up and eat for 30-40 min...totally fine....I love that shes getting all chunkyfied. but she goes to bed at 9 and I cannot because of other kids and well im 26 and not 60 (no offense lol) so I want to stay up and have some adult time. in any case the last few days I have been going to bed at midnight or midnight 30 and she has decided 4:30 is a good time to wake up....eat for 30-40 min....and not go back to sleep til 6:30....well by then im wide awake so yesterday I decided I cant fight it so im just going to get stuff done. thus began the suze homemaker day......

For anyone that knows me (or has been to my house) I HATE putting away laundry. there is always a stack of laundry somewhere in the house cause im to lazy to walk it upstairs and put it away. therefore my husbands and my clothing was pretty much everywhere in our room. so I decided yesterday morning I was going to tackle that because he wanted to move my eliptical up to our room for me so I could actually work off this baby weight...yes im still chunky....no you cant judge me.  so anyway I thought to myself" fine God.....I will finally go and put away the laundry that has been staring at me for like a month" but then the thought occurred to me......2 of 3 children are asleep.....said non sleeping child will fall asleep if I stick a paci in her mouth (by the way im typing this and she just fell back asleep.....its 6:38 lol) so I decided to take a shower by myself, uninterrupted, as hot as I want and it was glorious!!!!! no mommy mommy mommy whatcha doin....mommy mommy mommy your belly is big are you having another baby (yes lily said this to me...more then once....ouch) and although aura cried for the first 10 min after several very cold trips over to her chair to replace the paci and shush shush shush her she went to sleep. it was AMAZING to get to take a shower alone....any mom knows what im talking about. so after the amazing shower I walked out in our room and thought "well crap I still need to put all this away" so onto my wifely duties of cleaning our room. I got 95% of the stuff put away before gummi bear woke up again....thanks gummi!!!!!! but then her crying woke up lily hahahahahaha by that time it was like 9:30am...I had been up since 4:30 with only coffee in my system and thought maybe eating would be a good idea. downstairs we go.

i was going somewhere with that story but I forgot where hahahahaa anyway I know most of my friends have pinterest (evil addicting amazing website) and I have been pinning like crazy on there. if you dont follow me you should its jenny jolley bundt I think...or jenny bundt.....im not sure...damn now I will have to look. but either way I have been on there like crazy looking for fun stuffs for me and the minions to do and bake. we loooove to bake!!!! I decided the project yesterday was going to be mini apple pies...well sort of. Here is the recipe that was the inspiration
http://cookinupnorth.blogspot.com/2011/09/bite-size-apple-pies-from-taste-of-home.html

but I tweaked it a bit to match us. one I didnt have pie crust and didnt feel like making pie crust so we used reduced fat crescent rolls instead. I cut up an apple after laying out all the dough and I let the kids go crazy sprinkling cinnamon and sugar all over the insides....yes it was as messy as it sounds. then we layed the apples in and wrapped them up. I put on the top melted butter with a little bit of vanilla extract in it and then sprinkled more cinnamon and sugar. followed the baking instructions on the package of crescents and just added a few min til it looked down. This was the promised treat after dinner!

now I had the bright idea to also make my laundry detergent while making this. oh I didnt say I was making laundry detergent. OK I decided to make laundry detergent. I am by no means this perfect 50's housewife that keeps a perfect house and dinner on the table every night but im trying to get better. one of my missions is to save our family of 5 some moneys and feel productive. I like experimenting and making things and it makes me feel all sorts of special when it comes out right. but anyway I decided to make the detergent. I pretty much used this recipe

http://www.themakeyourownzone.com/2010/10/homemade-laundry-soap-what-you-need-to-know-plus-2-recipes.html

except I used dove instead of ivory because....well I like dove and thats what the hubs picked out. ok so making detergent is really easy and the only time consuming/annoying part was grating the soap. That is a labor of love let me tell you. my hand hurt.....my soul hurt a little from it but it got done. I had to put it in 2 batches cause Ididnt have a pot big enough to hold all liquid but it still came out great! im happy to report it is sitting in a tub in my sink still geling up but it looks great! and smells so clean! I cant wait to use it and figure out if it works great or if I need to tweak it.

did I mention the amazing dinner I made? my daughter has become the pickiest eater ever...im not kidding...unless its mac and cheese or cereal she doesnt want it lately.....ive tried to add chicken and veggies to the mac and cheese and thats a no go...and dont get me wrong if she wants cereal for dinner one night a week and its been a hard day im totally ok with it but when I make dinner she better eat it!!!! so yesterday I was planning on pot roast, green beans and mashed potatoes. I had bought the green beans, had the potatoes and the roast was in the crock pot already. because of my soap making and apple pie baking I did not have time to do what I wanted to do and switched the plans up a little.  first the pot roast. it was just a small roast that I put in the crock pot with french onion soup, rosemary, herbs de provence, and some crushed mint.....yes crushed mint....amazing!!!!! the potatoes I had planned on making I ended up cutting into small pieces, boiling them first and them baking them at 350 for about 30 min with herbs de provence on them as well and then just did some mixed veggies. it was amazing.....soooo good and of course who refused to eat it. the lily girl. I had to remind her several times we had mini apple pie waiting and she would get none of it unless she ate her dinner. I HATE that dinner is such a pain in the butt but I know its just a phase. its just a phase...its just a phase....ok back to the happy place.

all in all yesterday was a great day...I love baking with the kiddos and showing them new recipes and ways to save money...like making your own detergent! hahahah can you tell im excited?  I dont know what projects will be done today or if any crafty magic will take place but at least I know it will be full of fun and im sure fighting with the munchies.

Until next time.....

Looking back.....

so im not normally such a debbie downer ( its been super bad since we had to move to va lol) but looking at all of the old pics from our life I cant help but be sad. I mean of course im happy cause I love seeing old pics and remembering those times good and bad but I am just thinking how different would life be if one thing had changed. theres a dr.who episode where one small seemingly unimportant decision changed her entire life and therefore everyone around her.

I wonder if that is how it is in real life. I know that doesnt really make sense. But lilys birth for example...anyone who knows me knows im a huge advocate for natural birth. Birth as God or nature intended. no interventions (unless totally medically necessary) and just go with the flow. But her birth I had so many interventions. im not saying they were done against my will. at the time I didnt know any better and trusted every word out of my doctors mouth. but its like could one decision have changed my entire life?

the saying is once a c section always a c section and with zaiden i so badly wanted to have a vbac but the closest midwife that would take me was well over an hour away and in the end we decided that was to risky. so we decided to go with the repeat c section. Zaiden ended up having fluid trapped in his lungs and he had to spend 4 days in the nicu. I didnt get to hold him til he was 4 days old....could that have been prevented by a vaginal birth???

With Auralynn...yes I went into labor at 29 weeks but I had to have her because my uterus ruptured.....I 100% dont think my uterus would have ruptured without my prior c sections.
I understand everything happens for a reason and there is a plan for everything so I am not questions Gods plan but its just a depressing thought that LIly was the only child I got to hold within hours...she is the only one we left the hospital with....she is the only one that didnt have problems when she was born.

in other news it was a great sunday....my hubby took the kiddos(minus the gummi) out to go play at the mall play place so I could get some much needed cleaning done. Its fantastic to have a clean downstairs!!! we then went to the park as a family with one of my besties aluria and another great lady named reyka. The only things that make va not suck as much is my family is here obviously but some of the women I have met restore my faith in humanity. Gummi even got to come out for a bit!! it was a beautiful day so that was really nice.

I also made an amazing dinner and dessert!!!!! 
dessert was a "cobbler" I found on pinterest and seriously its amazing and pretty low in points.
you take mixed berries (frozen) or any kind of frozen fruit and then sprinke a cake mix over the entire thing and then pour a can of sprite zero over the top of that and bake at 350 for 45-50 min. it was sooooo good!!!! I had to keep myself from eating the entire thing. ,mmmmmmm ok im making myself hungry again lol

until next time.......