Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

Upon reading that headline, you may think that I am referring to Maddie and the fact that she is growing closer by the day to taking her first steps. Well, though she is very close, and has been eating us out of house and home for the past three months and is growing like a weed (she's now in 12-18 month clothes at 9 months), I'm really referring to my own motivation.

A few days ago, my co-workers and I went out after work and we somehow began to talk about vices. We went around the table and shared what our vices were. There were smokers, purse and shoe shoppers, and another that claimed he didn't have one (upon which we quickly assigned one to him), and I realized that the only real vice that I have is buying cute kid clothes. I don't drink and I don't smoke, but I am somehow addicted to buying and dressing the girls in monogrammed or smocked clothing. Now if you see Morgan or Maddie on an average school day, you may not agree, but for pictures, parties and definitely Sundays I try to make them look as cute as possible. I know it drives Jon crazy: the bows, the shoes, are their faces clean?, etc. But then I started thinking that maybe a vice needed to be something that you indulge in for yourself - not for the kids. So, in thinking about it more, the only thing I really enjoy buying for myself is shoes. It doesn't matter if it's athletic shoes, shoes for work, church, going out, whatever, I just really like shoes. Actually, Jonathan and I both have an insane amount of shoes. At any given moment, we can have at least 6 pairs near the front door that we've worn over the course of a day with all of the different activites that we do in a day. Anyway, when I thought back to the beginning of my journey, I remembered thinking that the only way to keep going was to give myself motivation. One of the things that I decided to do was to sign up for a 5K Run/Walk at least 1-2 times a month so that I would keep training. The other thing I decided to do was to reward myself along the way. For instance, when I went to the gym 20 times in the first month, I bought a new pair of running shoes. 

I then started thinking that I maybe would buy a new pair of shoes for every 10lbs that I lost. Well, to date I have lost 38lbs. According to my calculations, I owe myself almost 4 pairs of shoes. ;) Maybe I will hold out for something bigger when I hit a much bigger number - like a new Coach purse. Now THAT'S motivation!

I am very happy to say that my first 5K this past Saturday was a success. The weather was beautiful.

I am definitely looking forward to the Northshore Heart Walk this weekend (5K) and the Covington Spring Stomp on April 16th.

We had an amazing weekend spending time with family and friends. Jon and our friend Dustin took the girls and Dustin's son Boston to the Splash Park on Saturday morning at the Abita Springs Trailhead. They had a blast!


Morgan and Boston play in Abita Springs



Maddie at the Abita Springs Splashpark

 On Sunday, we celebrated the 1st Birthday of my cousin's son Bryce. Here are some pics from his fireman party.

Dad and Mom with the girls at Bryce's party

Happy Birthday, Bryce!

After the party and a quick trip to the mall, I decided to spend the afternoon walking on the Tammany Trace. I walked from the Abita Trailhead to Boston Street in Covington and back. I didn't realize it at the time, but I calculated the distance when I got home as over 6 miles. If you've never been, it's really a beautiful place to walk, jog, bike or even horseback ride. All of the trailheads have activities like playgrounds or splashparks. It's definitely one of the reasons I love the northshore.

We have another busy week and weekend ahead. As I mentioned, I have the Northshore Heart Walk on Saturday morning at Fountainbleu Park. Thank you so much to all of you that have supported me. As of this past Friday afternoon, I reached my fundraising goal. I am also bringing a TON of items this weekend to be sold at a children's consignment sale. If you are in the area, be sure to check out Reruns for Little Ones in Folsom next week. It's bittersweet to be getting rid of all of the baby stuff, but I definitely will welcome the room back in my house that has been swallowed by swings, bouncy seats, Boppy Pillows, rubbermaid containers of infant clothes, etc for the past year.

One last thing - I have to share my new favorite phone app. It's called "CardStar" and it's amazing. You know all of those plastic cards that you carry around for discounts at Winn Dixie, CVS, KMart, ToysRUs, etc? Well, when you download the CardStar app, you can take a pic of your card, which scans the barcode, and it stores the number and barcode for you for all of those cards. I emptied my purse of 12 of those cards including my fitness center card, Hallmark, CVS, AutoZone, etc. When you visit the supermarket or drugstore, the associate just has to scan the barcode stored on your phone - no more digging through your wallet! It's the little things that make me happy!

Have a great week!
Janel

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for…wait! There’s HOW MUCH FAT IN THAT???”

Summertime…just that one word gives me flashbacks to high school and back to 1991 - when Will Smith belted out that famous hit. But it also reminds me of vacations, baseball, Louisiana heat and humidity and cold treats like ice cream. In fact, food can be associated with all of those things I mentioned above. As you all probably know, Jonathan and I LOVE college baseball: Tulane, UNO, Southern Miss…we follow them all. In fact, we took Maddie to her first college baseball game last night – UNO at Southeastern.

One of the greatest things about going to the ballpark is the food. Of course, there’s the all-American hot dog, but there’s also the burgers, chicken tenders, fries, popcorn and even at Tulane, the pulled-pork nachos…unbelievable. So needless to say, attending baseball games has been a bit tough to adjust to with the journey that I’m on. We’ve stayed strong: watching Morgan eat popcorn while we sipped on water, but the scent of a baseball park can be amazing.

On Sunday afternoon, we took Morgan to Cold Stone Creamery. I fully expected to sit back and watch Jon and Morgan eat ice cream, but I decided to ask the manager for nutritional information. She was so awesome…she grabbed the list and walked me through all of the low fat, no fat, low calorie items. It turns out that they have a fat free/low cal sweet cream made with Splenda. She gave me a taste and it was delicious. So this “Like It” size only had 170 calories and 0 grams of fat.

When I got home, I decided to look up what the regular sweet cream was. For the big size, it was 790 calories and 48 grams of fat. Wow. I can't believe there can be so much fat in something that's not even a meal. Here is the info from Cold Stone. And here is Morgan enjoying her strawberry ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.

One more thing to share about this week…I was DYING for seafood. I mean, it’s Lent in Southeast Louisiana and it’s EVERYWHERE. So I decided to go to lunch yesterday at New Orleans Food & Spirits in Downtown Covington. If you’ve never been, it’s AMAZING. So I decided to get the grilled shrimp salad. Now, if you have been to New Orleans Food & Spirits, you know that they give you enough food for 2 people. My advice is to ask for a to-go box as soon as they set your plate down and box up ½ of it…I guarantee you will NOT leave hungry. So here is what my salad looked like before I boxed up ½ for later. There were at least 3 dozen grilled shrimp on top of mixed greens. It was delicious. Just the pic makes my mouth water for it again.

Only 3 days left until my first 5K walk/run. I am excited about that as well as the very busy weekend we have planned with other family events, etc. Stay tuned and remember: don't forget to ask for nutritional info from the manager of a restaurant. You may be pleasantly surprised and it can be a whole lot better than sipping on water!

Janel

I lost a whole person!!!

I've often been amazed at the people on The Biggest Loser losing over a hundred pounds and proclaiming "I've lost an entire person!" This week was a great week. It was so great that I can actually say that I've lost a whole person! To explain: Morgan got on the scale in our bathroom last night before her bath and it read "32.4 lbs." I thought that was awesome because as of last night, that's exactly how much I've lost on my journey the past 7 weeks. So, even though the person I've lost is a 4-year-old, I can now say that I've lost a whole person!


I'm really proud of this week because there was the potential for MANY roadblocks. My sister and nieces were in town, and on Tuesday evening, I took Morgan and Emma to Chuck E. Cheese. Now for many people, Chuck E. Cheese may not be very appealing, but there's something about their pizza that's so great. BUT- Chuck E. Cheese also has an awesome salad bar. So as Emma and Morgan were chowing down on their 1/2 pepperoni, 1/2 beef pizza, I was dining on a delicious salad with fresh fruit.

This week was also very busy at work. I was constantly on the run for lunch and had to grab Roly Poly three times. Now I really love Roly Poly because they have many wraps to choose from, but the healthiest thing to do is to build your own. They have a ton of ingredients to choose from:

Now my personal favorite is a 1/2 size, wheat, hot pressed with grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato, onions, jalapenos and fat-free ranch.

The last reason that this week was a challenge is because today was our 7th wedding anniversary. I knew that we had a PACKED day, so I got up at 6am (yes, on a Saturday) and went to the gym. After my workout, we took the girls to get their pictures taken with Baby Chicks. I CANNOT WAIT to get the pics back. Maddie was a doll and was smiling the whole time.

We then went to the Kids Expo to check out Summer Camp options. After about an hour and a half of extreme kid overstimulation, we headed to drop the kids off at my mom and dad's so that we could head across the lake for a Tulane/UNO baseball game. College Baseball is a fave pastime for us, and usually we try to head out of town to get away and catch a game the weekend of our anniversary. Heading to Turchin was the best we could do this year, but we still had a blast. PS- Tulane won 7-4.

We then grabbed a quick bite at Jazmine Cafe in Riverbend. We absolutely LOVE Vietnamese food and never get a chance to have it on the Northshore. Good thing that it's healthy!! We both had the Grilled Chicken Breast Vermicelli Lettuce Bowl.

I have one week left until my first 5K. I'm going to train pretty hard for it this week. Staying focused is going to be tough because we have a PACKED social calendar pretty much every day this week with appointments, family birthday events, work stuff, kid stuff, etc. I'm also gearing up to be part of a huge kids consignment sale in 2 weeks, so the house remains unorganized as I sort through and price all the baby stuff that we are getting rid of. No matter how crazy this week is, I'm determined to get 4-5 workouts in before Saturday.

I'll keep you posted!
Janel

Just for the taste of it...

Thanks to all of you who read my first entry! And a very special thanks for your kind words! One of the most common things that people have said over the past few days in response to the first entry has been, "I find it so hard to eat well and exercise because I am SOOO busy." Believe me, you're preaching to the choir. As a busy family, we used to eat out SO MUCH. We've pretty much got that down to 1-2 times a week as a family now because I have been able to be home at 5pm and cook dinner each night. But one of the things that used to make Jonathan and I laugh was when we would go grab a quick bite at McDonald's and someone would order a #1 (Big Mac Meal) with a Diet Coke. Really??? It's only reasonable that someone would want to conserve those calories from a Coke or Sweet Tea while consuming a 704 calorie sandwich with their 500 calorie large fries. I was reminded of this while eating at Chick-Fil-A for lunch today. The couple ordering next to me was discussing the fact that they wanted to substitute fruit for the fries because they didn't want "those fattening fries." So the associate then asked if they would like to try the New Banana Pudding Shake...at which they answered "of course, that sounds great." So I HAD to look it up as soon as I got back to the office. 780 calories for the small (note: they didn't get the small)!!! Wow. Good thing they saved the calories from not having the fries.

And I have to tell you another story...Jonathan got a HUGE kick out of this one. I was at the gym one Friday afternoon. I always bring my big water bottle to drink as I am doing my 3+ miles on the treadmill. So as I am mid-workout, this lady jumps on the treadmill next to me. I see that she puts her drink in the cupholder in front of her. I nearly fell off my treadmill as I saw what her drink was. It was a Java Chip Frappuccino! At 560 Calories and 21 grams of Fat, I hope she's still on that treadmill. I swear, I would have taken a pic with my iPhone had it not been weird. Now all these stories to make a point: I think people are just ignorant about their choices. They just have no idea how bad it is for them. This is in NO WAY a blog against Fast Food. I do not blame McDonald's nor will I sue them as others have tried, but I blame it on the fact that there is not enough education about how bad things can be. The information is there...usually posted near the back of the restaurant by the restrooms. Sometimes it's located on the back of the tray liners. It's ALWAYS available online. And I've found some great iPhone apps that I use to make healthy choices when I grab a bite out. There is almost ALWAYS something that you can get somewhere that is low in fat or calories. You really just have to use your resources. Here are a few of my fave fast food meals:

CHICK-FIL-A:
Chargrilled Sandwich
Side Salad (take off the cheese)
Fat Free Honey Mustard Dressing (use only 1/2 packet)
Unsweet Tea

McDONALD'S:
Classic Grilled Chicken Sandwich (no mayo)
Side Salad
Fat Free Dressing

SUBWAY:
Tons of choices from the under 6 grams of fat
No Cheese!!

WENDY'S:
Grilled Chicken Sandwich (no sauce)
Side Salad or Plain Potato (chives only)
Unsweet Tea

I've also given up ALL sodas (including Diet sodas). Unsweet tea and water are now my drinks of choice. I also wanted to say to those busy folks that if you make a change or two at a time, you may not even miss it. For instance, use fat-free milk in your coffee or cereal this week instead of 2%. Park as far from your office as your parking lot allows and enjoy the extra steps. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Switch from sweet tea to unsweet tea. Please continue to go to Starbucks, but order a Tall Iced Coffee with non-fat milk instead of that Java Chip Frappuccino (or order one of the Frappuccino Light Blended drinks). Trade the poptart for a protein bar for breakfast. Fiber One has a GREAT protein bar that's only 90 calories and gets me through until lunch without being hungry.

I'm no expert...I'm just someone that has known the right thing to do but has neglected to make the right choices - until now.

Saturday night, we went out to dinner at an amazing restaurant in Covington called Schwings. They are known on the northshore for their fried seafood. I had heard so many awesome reviews and I was dying to try it. Needless to say, it was PACKED. When we walked in, the entire restaurant smelled of the most awesome fried seafood you can imagine (my weakness). BUT- I decided to get the boiled shrimp salad with fat free garlic vinegarette dressing. IT WAS DELICIOUS. Although the fried seafood at the next table made my mouth water, I was strong. And I learned that it was possible to make great choices even down here in Southeast Louisiana. Here is a pic of Maddie enjoying Schwings:

Another accomplishment this week: We went to the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Old Metairie on Sunday. We have some of our old Richland Avenue friends that have a house near the route. Each year, they have the most amazing spread of food for the parade: dips, gumbo, red beans, hot dogs and chili, sandwiches, desserts, etc. Well, I was able to avoid the bad things and munch on grapes and a turkey on wheat. Below is a pic of Morgan at the parade. She was content to sit back on a chair and munch on the bag of carrots she caught as endless floats and trucks passed by.

The weather was beautiful and we were so glad to be able to enjoy the day outside with family and friends. Meanwhile, Jon and Maddie hit Sam's Club (they are not fans of parades).

Notice the missing cart cover. Hope he used the sanitizer. ;)

That's all for now. Remember to make great choices! And whatever you do: don't order the banana pudding shake from Chick-Fil-A or use the treadmill while drinking a Frappuccino. You may end up in my next blog. :)

Janel

Today is a new day....

I know...a quote from "Chicken Little." What else do you expect from a mom with a 4 year old???

Let's first start this by saying that I've always wanted to blog. In the past, I've found excuses to never have the time. But in the past few months, I've suddenly found myself with LOTS of extra time on my hands (more about that later) and among many other things that I've started lately, I've decided to blog. So here it is...my new blog. Hopefully this will be more of a journey for me to look back on and laugh about how hectic life can be as a wife and mommy of 2 kids under the age of 5, mixed with a dog, a cat, a house and a full-time career.

To catch you up...if you are a follower of my Facebook, you've seen that life in the Evans household had DRASTICALLY changed over the past year. We added precious Madison (Maddie) Kendall to our family in June. She's coming up on a year soon (grrrr) and is soooo cute. Morgan will also celebrate her 5th birthday and graduate from Pre-K 4 in May. She will be starting Kindergarten at Northlake Christian next fall. You will also have realized as a Facebook follower that I quit my job at Cox in January and started a new life as an Internet Marketing Content Manager at PoolCorp. If you're not familiar, PoolCorp is the largest distributor of swimming pool, spa and recreational products in the world. The best part is that their international headquarters is located in Covington...yep, exactly 3 miles from my front door. As you remember (and heard me complain about often), my commute to Cox was about 40 miles one way. The worst part about the commute was losing over 3 hours a day getting to/from work. It was really taking a toll on the amount of time I was spending with my family. Now, I am home at 5:08 pm each night which allows me to cook dinner, play with the kids, etc. It's been awesome!

So, now that you're caught up...let me tell you about what else I've had time for that I've brushed aside for YEARS...working out. One of the perks of working at PoolCorp is that we get a great discount at several local fitness centers. So, I explored a few and chose one near our house. On February 1, I joined Star Fitness. Now, I've been a member of fitness centers before: Elmwood, Curetons, Loyola and UNO's Fitness Centers, Premiere...name it, I've probably had a membership at some point or another. But never have I been consistent. But there is something different about Star Fitness. It's small...when I say "small" I mean there's like 6 treadmills, 4 stationary bikes, only one class studio and a handful of weight machines. But that's what I think I like about it. It's never crowded (unless the Silver Sneakers are exercising on Saturday mornings). And it's not one of those meat market fitness centers. No one is flashing their muscles, staring at themselves in the mirror...it's just people trying to get healthy. So, I am proud to say that since Feb 1, I've been going 5-6 times a week. It's awesome. I've also adapted a new, healthier lifestyle by cutting out all fried foods (next to impossible in New Orleans), processed sugar (I never had one single piece of King Cake all season!), and carbonated drinks (even Diet Coke). And since Feb 1st until today, I've lost 26 lbs. I know that's taking a chance putting it out there like that because now people will hold me accountable (please do!), but it's something I'm proud of and hope to continue to work on.

And to keep motivated, I've also decided to walk/jog at least one or two organized 5Ks a month. I have a few coming up and would appreciate the encouragement... The "Keep Covington Beautiful" 5K on March 26th and the Northshore American Heart Association's Heart Walk on April 2. I'm raising money for that one by the way, if you would like to support with donations at Janel's Heart Walk Page.

I guess that's enough news for one blog, but I will keep you up to date with everything going on in our lives! Until next time, here's a pic of my cuties taken this past "Sunday Gras" before church.

Morgan (4) and Maddie (8 months) - 3/6/11

Janel