I wish I could make every wife and mother listen to this interview! Ladies, I could not have said it any better! You need to take care of yourself! You CAN take responsibility for your own happiness and you can fill those around you with joy as you fill yourself with joy! It's part of how we serve the world. Please watch this and take it to heart! I'd love to know what you take away from it! Comment below!

I have been getting a lot of questions about Shakeology recently since I am known to be a frugal person and at first glance it seems pricey. I have had people asking why its so much more than other protein drinks? Is it worth the money? Am I seeing health benefits?
I will be honest, I had all those same concerns myself! It took me 8 months to even try it. I am not a fan of meal replacement shakes. I like hot food, so it didn't appeal to me that way. I started drinking it because as I learned more about nutrition I realized how very little nutritional value we actually get from our food these days. It's scary! And as I became more aware, I started looking for answers on how to fill my body with the nutrients it needs. Shakeology ended up being the answer for me. If you haven't looked over the ingredients in Shakeology, you should! Compare them to whatever shake you are already drinking and weight the difference. It becomes evident very quickly why it's more expensive!
With that said, it costs me less than $4 per serving everyday. Before I was doing the 21 Day Fix, I spent $2 a day on redbull without batting any eyelash and let's be honest, how often do we go out to eat which costs a lot more than $4 a day. Yes, I had to cut out some expenses to fit it in the budget but it came down to priorities. My perspective shifted from consuming what I felt like eating to consuming what I needed to fuel my body.
As a bonus, I got to quit taking a multi vitamin, and between 2 and 4 pm, when I start craving something sweet, I get a nutritious meal instead of refined sugary sweets. It also helps curb my cravings and keeps me on the straight and narrow with my nutrition plan.
The 21 Day Fix is not a quick fix, it's for people looking to make a lifestyle change and in this day and age of fast food and instant gratification that's pretty revolutionary! We are in need radical change. Are you ready?

​I love this! As women we often look to fitness to make us more beautiful because we have bought into the lie that thin = beauty. You are beautiful right here and now. As someone who has been thin my entire life, I can tell you that being thin doesn't solve the problem. I have spent my life feeling unworthy and criticizing my appearance as much or more than someone who is overweight. What I have discovered is that we don't need an outward change, we need an inward change. When I started caring for my body, respecting it through the food choices I was making and working out to become stronger not to stay thin, there was a shift in my perspective. When you care for your body because you are worthy, the end results (thinness) stops being the point and the journey becomes the point.

My mission is to be a catalyst for change in how women view their bodies and their worth. We have a lot stacked against us with the unattainable beauty standards of our society but I believe the change starts from the inside out.  It's time to stop comparing and time to start seeing ourselves the way those that love us see us! There isn't a perfect body shape, age, skin color, height or weight. It's the differences that make us truly beautiful as women! If my post caught your eye because you struggle with insecurities like I do, I would love to talk to you some more. I would love to give you some personal development ideas ( books to read or podcasts to listen to) to start caring for your mind and giving you the confidence to know that you are worthy just as you are! Or if you are ready to start working on the whole package and would like to join our group and get plugged in with women on a mission, we would love to have you! Our next group starts January 4th.

One of my favorite quotes is by Ralph Waldo Emerson:"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting." 

Never lose an opportunity to see beauty in yourself. You are a masterpiece! And as you choose to see your own beauty, you inspire others to see their own and that's where this turns into a revolution!

 I was 30 when I got pregnant with my first daughter and to be honest, I felt pretty prepared! I was skilled at caring for babies, I knew what to expect and what not to expect. My childhood  had prepared me well. I was the oldest of a big family and I experienced many things ranging from day to day child rearing issues to major events like my brother getting third degree burns. I learned to handle things calmly, not to panic and I developed a lot of patience. I was well aware of the time and personal sacrifices that I would be making when I became a parent and that wasn't a struggle for me.

However, nothing could have prepared me for the mom guilt as people refer to it. I prefer to say mom shame because guilt infers that we have done something wrong and in most cases I think its simply feeling the end of ourselves, knowing we are doing all that is within us and yet we can see we still fall short. We aren't perfect and that feels like a mortal sin.  With one child, I felt pretty together. We had a routine, things went according to plan. I often had people asking me for advice and I felt like I was doing a fairly good job. Well, God didn't give me the chance to become proud over it. Scarlett was 11 months old when we got the joyous surprise that our second baby was on the way. 6 weeks later we found out we were moving to Atlanta away from our entire support network and that's when things got crazy. 

It wasn't long before I had an infant that screamed all the time, rarely slept more then 90 minutes at a stretch, and a toddler that had two year molars coming in. My husband and I both got bronchitis and the girls were sick off and on and we had very little help. The mom shame set in pretty early. I felt shame that I was too exhausted to be a great mom to Scarlett, I felt shame that I cried over my screaming infant, longing for a break. I felt shame that I was poor companion to my husband in my sleep deprived state. Those nagging thoughts started to fill my head." You aren't good at this. You are wasting these precious years. They aren't going to feel loved. They aren't going to love you. You don't do enough. You aren't enough. You aren't treasuring them. You can't get this time back." The thoughts rained down upon me like arrows, attacking me every moment and stealing my joy. And as I let my joy be stolen, I would heap more shame upon myself . It got hard for me to leave them, because I felt so ashamed of how badly I needed the break.

I kept moving forward, loving them, caring for them but feeling less and less worthy each day. I would call my mom and cry and ask her a million questions trying to figure out IF I was a good mother. There is no handbook, no grading scale. I would watch other moms and try to see if I was missing something, if they were better mothers than I was.  It weighed heavily on me.  I was so hard on myself that ANY criticism was hard to take, even people I don't agree with could send me into tears with a negative word. There are so many things in my life that I am confident in and feel like I do well but motherhood hasn't been one of them. All I could see is what I was doing wrong and when they would finally fall asleep at night that moment of relief was quickly followed by thoughts of all the things I could have done better that day. "Did I spend too much time doing the chores? Did they feel ignored? Did I look into their faces today? Did they feel loved? Was my voice too harsh when I told her to get back into bed for the tenth time." The regret was so sharp at times that I would want to wake them from their sleep to make sure they had felt loved that day.

In my family, we were raised to ask questions, to dig deep, to believe the truth, to fight against thoughts that weren't helpful or true, and because of that, I have been able to stay in a somewhat steady emotional state but I have had to fight for it. I've had to fight my own ideas of what motherhood would look like as well.

I quit my job when Scarlett was born and I have no regrets about that, but I loved my job and I grieved the loss of what I had built and what might have been. Somewhere in my subconscious, I felt that to be a good mother, I needed to not work.  I can get obsessed with work, I love it, I feel good at it and sincerely feared that to work would mean that my children would suffer. This year, it became clear that my desire to work was important and that I needed to do something for myself and I really struggled with all of my fears. I get to work from home, I am never away from my children but I was worried that I wouldn't be present for my daughters, that I wouldn't be able to balance it. I decided to try and,yes, I have had to keep it in check. I have had days where I spent too much time working, and then I have had days where I didn't spend enough time working because my kids needed me and I chose them. I was so afraid to make a mistake that I was sacrificing a part of myself that didn't need to be sacrificed. Friends, we don't need to fear making mistakes! We are going to make them even if we never do anything great with our lives, so why not do something great and figure it out as we go along?? I realized that looking perfect was what I was trying to do. If I didn't work, no one would be able to see that I place it above things when I shouldn't. I wouldn't have to feel the shame of making a mistake and having to remedy it, but that's not solving the problem. That's putting it on the shelf! I can't grow in that environment, no one can. So for me, working again is me willing to work on my flaws and  willing to live vibrantly.

Some of the things that I learned once I started working again were:

1. I stopped taking care of myself. I put my family's needs so far above mine that I was drained of all resources. I had very little to give. I WAS giving all that I had and it felt like not enough because it wasn't. One of the things that is now a daily part of my life again is reading personal development, the insight I gain and the encouragement that I get from those times of study make me a better wife and mother. It makes me more confident. I am gaining a better understanding of who I am, the things that are important to me, and its helping me to design a life that I am excited to live.

2. I need to be the example that I want my daughters to follow. If my actions don't align with what I teach them, it's going to be my actions they follow not my great advice. What they witness will be ingrained in them. Do I want to be the  example of a tired, struggling, emotionally depleted woman? NO! I do not want that for them. I want them to pursue things that bring them joy and be passionate about their talents. The best way I can parent them is to be the example, to work on myself, to learn to balance family and work. Will I make a mistakes? Absolutely, but I will teach my daughters that making mistakes isn't the end of the world and show them how to respond with integrity when mistakes are made.

3. We were made for more. Motherhood is very important but its only a season where you are needed so greatly. They quickly grow up and though we will always be mothers, the years of raising children is small in grand scheme of things. What will you do with the rest of your years? It doesn't have to be work related. My mom got trained as a doula and a Le Leche League counselor and served woman in our community for free, later she went back to school and became a nurse. We all have talents and abilities and if we fine tune them and put them to good use, we train our children to do the same, and when they have gone to live their lives, we have built  something for ourselves and in the process built them a strong foundation on which they can build their own dreams. We don't have to simple be empty nesters, we can be women living wholeheartedly, finding joy and fulfillment in every season of life!

I am sharing these things with you because I know there are mamas out there that weren't given the tools to process all those thoughts like I was or can't articulate what they are feeling and I want you to know that we all feel these things at some time or another. Maybe you felt like a great mother when your children are small but the teenage years have you in a tailspin. Maybe the baby years you are in are not as enjoyable as you had thought and you feel shame for even thinking so. I am here to tell you that it is hands down the hardest thing I have ever done, and also the most important.  All of the feelings that come from raising children are tools. Your love deepens more than you ever thought it could, you grow in your compassion for other people, you become aware of needs that you would have been oblivious to in the past. The fear and shame and other negative emotions reveal things that need to be rooted out. I fight to strengthen myself more now than I ever have because I have two beautiful little girls watching and mimicking me. It's not selfish to spend time studying and growing and working, because the person I am becoming is a much better role model for them than the one I am today.

At the height of my mom shame, I read the book, "Daring Greatly", by Brene Brown and it freed me from the shackles I was wearing. I highly recommend reading it! Here is a copy of her parenting manifesto. I have adopted it as my own and it has changed the way I look at and feel about parenting' I still cry every time I read it. I want this to be my children's legacy and nothing on this list is outside my ability. How freeing! I hope reading this has lightened the mantle of responsibility that you carry upon your shoulders as a parent, but if not, I encourage you to read. If you make time for nothing else, pursue personal development until you stumble across the words you need to hear. Actively seek out truth.  The more that you soak in, the less shame has a hold on you!

This is probably my favorite dish that has come out of my kitchen thus far! I could eat it everyday! I adapted the recipe a little but it's the My Natural Family recipe link here. The original recipe was very spicy. I like spicy food but even I wanted to take it down a notch so I did and it was perfect! :) 

Ingredients

• 1 cup Greek Yogurt 
• 1 Lime juiced
• 4 tsp Cumin divided
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
• 2 tsp Paprika
• 2 tsp Black Pepper
• 2 tsp Ground Ginger
• 6 tsp Himalayan Pink Salt
• 6 Chicken thighs cubed ( or 2 chicken breasts if you prefer) (feed 4 people)
• 1 Can Garbanzo rinsed and drained
• 12 oz. Tomato Paste
• 1 Can Coconut Milk
• 1 Tbsp Butter
• 3 Garlic Cloves chopped
• 1 Jalapeno Pepper
• 2 Tbsp Coconut Sugar

Instructions

1. Mix greek yogurt, lime juice, ½ cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, black peppers, ginger and ½ salt for chicken marinade.
2. Add chicken cubes and marinade in refrigerator for 2 hours.
3. Discard marinade and cook chicken in a skillet over medium heat until cooked through.
4. Meanwhile, melt butter in saucepan and add peppers, brown sugar and garlic. Sauté while adding remaining cumin, paprika, and salt.
5. Add tomato paste and coconut milk.
6. Reduce heat to low, add chicken and chickpeas and simmer until sauce thickens.
7. Serve with or over rice. 

 

I am always looking for new ways to jazz up simple meals! I have said it before and I will say it again, I would rather be doing anything but cooking! So to support my healthy lifestyle, I have had to find easy flavorful meals to keep us on the straight and narrow. Here is one of our current go to chicken recipes. It delicious on its own but we usually throw it in salads or make tacos or flautas or sometimes even make a mexican pizza with a corn tortilla, refried beans, and some cheese! I warn you know: this IS a spicy recipe in case the ingredients don't clue you in!

Ingredients:

6  skinless chicken thighs ( or three chicken breasts but I prefer for the darker meat for this dish)
2 cans of adobo chipotle peppers
1 jalapeno ( deseeded)
1/4 cup canned pineapple with juice. ( crushed or chunks)
2 cloves of garlic
2 tsp Himalayan Pink Salt
1/4 chicken broth

After chicken is fully cook you will need:
1/4 cup of honey 


In a crock pot, combine all of the ingredients for the chicken and cook on high for 4 hours. One the chicken is thoroughly cooked, remove it from the broth and shred it with forks. It should fall apart easily. Preheat the oven to broil on the LOW setting while you shred the chicken. Once the chicken is shredded, line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spread the chicken even across the sheet. Then take the honey and drizzle it over the chicken evenly. Place in the oven and cook for about 5 minutes or until the honey thickens and the chicken begins to turn golden brown. 

And done! Take your delicious chicken and get creative! It is super delicious in a salad if you have trouble eating your veggies or use it to jazz up you favorite Mexican dish! :)

His and Hers. These were our breakfast choices today. My amazing in laws took the kids last night and this morning we had the opportunity to run and get whatever we wanted to eat. When it comes to breakfast, I want eggs everyday. I love savory breakfast, I love healthy food. I am not a fan of sugar for breakfast. When it comes to fitness and nutrition, I am an addict. I want the best results. I hate being slowed down. My hubby on the other hand is a hedonist when it comes to fitness and nutrition. He hates working out and only does it because he needs to and when it comes to food he wants to enjoy everything this world has to offer especially when it comes to baked goods! So you can imagine that it gets quite interesting around here! It's good for us both! I need to brought down to earth and enjoy life and my hubby needs to make healthy decisions consistently. He has taught me that you do need to treat yourself. So today, I want to leave you with two tips!
1. If you are a hedonist like my husband, plan out your treats! For him, it's donuts on Saturday morning. He gets through the week of my healthy meals knowing that he gets his favorite treat on the weekend. Healthy eating is a long term lifestyle for us and in order for that to be livable for him, he needs to know that he can indulge on a regular basis. Your healthy lifestyle has to be something you can live with so make it your own. Maybe it slows down your results but if it keeps you going and seeing progress, it's better than setting a standard that is too high for you to realistically keep!
2. Don't eat things you don't enjoy JUST because other people are eating them. I was about 24 years old when I realized I don't like ice cream. I was sitting there eating it and realized I don't enjoy it so why waste the treat? Skip the things you don't love and hold out for the things that lift your spirits. We are so conditioned to just do what others are doing that sometimes we don't even realize we don't want it. Make a list! What are your "things"? What do you love? If its not on there, skip it!

In this world of social media and Pinterest, it gets really easy to be overwhelmed by what everybody else is doing with/for their kids. You can feel like the only parent that hates crafts or can't afford to go to Disney EVERY year! However, you are doing things for your kids that you don't even see. Today, this little miss ran in wanting to help me clean and I handed over the dust pan and I saw this look on her face. ❤️ Yes, it took me three times as long and I had to redo it after she left but I included her, took the time and made her feel loved. My mom did this too! I didn't have a childhood full of fancy vacations and expensive toys but I knew I mattered. You do this in your own way for kids every day! Keep a look out for this expression! Maybe it's your bedtime routine, or family dinner, maybe it's those moments when they fail that you wrap them in a hug and take the sting out of it, or a million other things! Look for them and enjoy those moments! It's the mundane every day moments that will in the end be the most important! ❤️ #parenthood

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