WOW Your Cooking

Healthy eating is something that I have worked to get better at over the years. And it's something I really enjoy learning about and improving on! I recently attended a seminar called WOW Your Cooking. (WOW for Word of Wisdom, which in the Latter Day Saint faith, is a commandment to take care of your body, eat healthy, and abstain from harmful substances). The seminar was given by a woman who suffered from severe multiple sclerosis and found herself wondering why the promises given in the Word of Wisdom were not being realized in her life. She had frequent episodes of paralysis and struggled to raise her family. At one point she was paralyzed from the neck down and doctors found over 70 legions on her brain.

Upon more careful study of the Word of Wisdom she thought maybe she could do a better job of living this principle of the gospel. After a commitment to do her best and working towards that goal for 7 years, doctors informed her that she no longer had MS. She was cured! I know this kind of miracle doesn't happen for everyone but I do know that God blesses us when we sincerely do our best to follow His commandments. 

During the seminar she taught us about incorporating a large variety of healthy grains and vegetables. She gave us information on chia, amaranth, barley, quinoa, and teff and brought samples of meals she had prepared with these grains. She also taught us about a unique way to incorporate a large variety of vegetables, especially those that we don't eat very often (which for me is a lot of them). She calls it veggie blending. I tried it and love it! First you buy a large variety of fresh vegetables, wash and cut them. Then you put a little of each in a large food processor and chop of them up fine. Put the chopped veggie blend in freezer bags, freeze what you won't use soon, and put the rest of the fridge to use in your meals for the week. This veggie blend can be added to anything, casseroles, stir fry, spaghetti sauce, any thing and everything. Add the blend right before you serve it so the veggies are as close to raw as possible. It is amazing! 

This is my first attempt at veggie blending. I spent about $12 on vegetables and bought spinach, kale, carrots, beets, asparagus, butternut squash, and broccoli. 

A little bit of each in the processor.

It made 10 bags which will last me awhile because I only use half a bag for each meal. 

Yum! 

Here is one of the meals I used the veggie blend in. Lettuce wraps with brown rice, quinoa, ground turkey, veggie blend, and home made teriyaki sauce. An amazing recipe that I got at this seminar! Love it! 

I used quinoa and the veggie blend in my recipe for southwest egg rolls. We had it with refried beans and rotel tomato dip and salad. 

My favorite way to eat chia is in green smoothies. So far the best one I've made is with spinach, kale, pineapple, and frozen mango. 

Some of the other meals I've used/want to use these different grains and the veggie blend in are:

taco salad

lasagna

home made chili

spaghetti 

enchiladas

taco rice

hawiian haystacks

chicken tamale casserole

fried rice

thai noodles

I'm excited to try them in all my meals! 

I'm always up for more meals ideas so if anyone else feels like posting their ideas too, please do!!!!! One of my old roommates has a great recipe blog I use all the time if you want to check that out: http://peterspickins.blogspot.com

PS: If you want more information on this let me know! I am going to try to attend another one of her seminars soon and I'd love to take people with me if you live close. 

West Happenings

Susie is still growing. She is getting so much better at standing. Paul and I have really tried to work with her because she is a little behind. She is now 14 months!!! Can you believe it!? 4 more months till nursery. :)

Susanna likes to pull herself up and stand on everything. She is even starting to do a little climbing so I have to watch her close. She walks along the edge of things like the couch and chairs and pushes her waker around the carpet, too. We'll see how much longer it takes her to walk on her own.

I can tell she understands so much of what I say to her. It's pretty fun! She is getting better at talking although her words are still hard to differentiate. She is really good at "dog" and "mama" and we think she says dadda, amen, and hi.

Susie like to give high fives, wave hello and goodbye, and is getting pretty good at blowing kisses. Sometimes she will give me kisses when I ask her and it's my favorite. She isn't much of a performer though. She likes to do cute things when she likes to do them, not when everyone is asking and waiting for a performance!

She loves the little boy that comes over to play. His name is Sam. He still doesn't feel quite the same way about her. Susie likes to throw his toy cars and he really doesn't like it when she cries. But the 3 of us sure have fun together and I'm grateful everyday that I can stay home with Susanna and still bring in a little income with preschool and babysitting.

Susie got a little sick this week. She threw up in the middle of the night one night and wouldn't sleep the remainder of the night. She was pretty snuggly for about two days and then she got better. (Susie is a pretty good snuggler anyway, which I LOVE because so am I!) Here she is hanging out on dad's lap.

Paul is excited for the end of this quarter. It's been a rough one. Finals are the third week in May and then he has a whole week off! After that he starts his first rotation and will be working in a compounding pharmacy for 4 weeks. Then what I'm looking forward to most.... the whole month of July off! Woo!

One of my birthday presents from Paul was Disney on Ice. We went last Saturday and it was the coolest. I love anything Disney so this was really fun. One of our friends babysat Susie so we got to go just the two of us. Very magical!

(I tried to take pictures of us but it was too dark!)

As of late

What we've been up to as of late!

I went to the Mesa temple pageant with the young women. It was really great.

We switched Susanna to a forward facing car seat. It's fun looking back and seeing that smile. (I took this picture in the passenger seat, don't worry).

Very focused

I had a birthday! It was a good one, too. Paul made me breakfast for each meal of the day.. it's my favorite meal after all. We had hash browns, and french toast, and scrambled eggs. He made a chocolate cake with home made frosting and all (he only needed a little help :) ). I got Beauty and the Beast and Disney on Ice tickets for my birthday along with a few other things from family and friends.

Another great birthday treat was my little brother's visit. Logan came down to Phoenix for his Spring Break.

At the zoo

At Midwestern

We had so much fun, Susie was exhausted!

At the park

We took turns jumping off the swings.

Logan's jump was much more impressive.

Paul on the monkey bars.

I have a cousin who works at an indoor shooting range. He was able to get us a great discount. Logan took a girl out in our ward so we doubled. It was a lot of fun!

Happy Easter!

I made this gorgeous cake myself!

Susanna and Paul had a little Easter egg hunt this morning.

A little update

March usually isn't my favorite month of the year but this one hasn't been too bad! And we're almost all the way through it! This month has flown by. Here are some of the things we Wests have been up too.

Well first I can tell you that Paul is always studying. This quarter is a difficult one. He has multiple tests every week so he wakes up early and stays up late studying every day. Including weekends :( which is no fun for the girls that love to hang out with him. At least it won't last forever.

Meanwhile Sue and I have been...

Teaching Preschool

Hanging out with the awesome YW in our ward

Here Susie is at an official Thunderbird High School tennis match. (She enjoyed scooting on the cement more than watching the tennis).

Susie and I also recently gained a new buddy to join us on our daily shenanigans. His name is Sam and he is one of my preschool students. His mother recently went back to work and so we get to hang out with him from 8-5 Mondays, Wednesday, Thursdays, and Fridays! Today was our first day together actually and we celebrated by going on a picnic (shown above). We had a lot of fun! Sam is a really good boy. We are all going to go swimming together later on this week and are excited for that. It's getting hot in Phoenix!

That's it for an update!

The Grand Canyon

Brrrr!! Last week we took our first trip to the Grand Canyon in honor of Susanna's first birthday. We headed out after preschool on Monday, drove for about 3 1/2 hours, and arrived at the Canyon early evening. We checked into our hotel and drove around the Canyon rim to get a look at some of the amazing views, but man was it cold!

The wind was blowing and temperatures were about 40 degrees. We thought it would surely be better the next day around noon so we headed back for a fun night in our hotel room (the 3 of us have never stayed at a hotel together!).

The next morning we woke, excited for our day in the Canyon... until we looked out the window. Our car was covered in snow. It had snowed about 10 inches that night. We made the best of our day though and had lots of fun trying to keep warm. Boy was it cold. The Canyons were absolutely beautiful though and we're so glad we went. We definitely want to go back in warmer weather!

Susanna likes popcorn on road trips, like mother, like daughter!

We had a little family birthday celebration the day we got home, cupcakes, candles, and presents. Then Thursday night we had a few friends over for dinner and cake so we could celebrate again! It was fun! Happy birthday Susie!

The Laugh of a Child

"I love it, I love it, the laugh of a child, now rippling and gentle, now merry and wild. Ringing out on the air with it's innocent gush, like the trill of a bird in the twlight's soft hush. Floating up on the breeze like the tones of a bell, or the music that dwells in the heart of a shell. Oh the laugh of a child, so mild, so free, is the merriest sound in the world for me."

Isabelle Athelwood

(this video also premiers the "booty scoot" and getting from a laying to a sitting position :) )

Another quick note: Susie and I flew to Utah last weekend for a short trip and we flew over the Grand Canyon! It was awesome!

(from the plane)

Paul and I have been wanting to go to the Grand Canyon since we moved to Arizona and he has this next week off from school so we're going to head up there tomorrow. Which is perfect because Susie's birthday is Tuesday. We are using a gift card we received for Christmas from Paul's family in DC to pay for the hotel. Thanks Jon and Kylee! We're so excited!

I Havva Everything

A favorite quote of mine-- I found it in an Anne Geddes book and think of it often.

"If you havva no babies, you havva nothing."

Italian immigrant woman