Easter, Ice cream and Fitness

Easter weekend was a lot of fun. Saturday we decided to do something fun as a family so we went to Le Mars and walked around downtown, looked in some shops, got ice cream from the ice cream parlor of course, and got coffee. Of course :) Sutton was thoroughly impressed by ice cream, although she hardly got any. However, she did get her very own cake cone and demolished it.

Notice the reach for the ice cream, she got it

Saturday night my mom watched Sutton while Braden and I headed to his brother and sister in law's down the road to grill out with his cousin, home from college, and Paul and Lauren. This warm (ish) weather just makes you want to be outside, grill steaks and go for walks, I love it!

Easter Sunday my parents had my mom's side of the family to their house for the traditional Easter meal of ham, potatoes and all that good stuff. We had a really nice service at church and then headed to Orange City to see all our cousins, aunts and uncles.

 Life lately has been busy and a lot of fun. Braden is getting busier at work, which is great, and he is really beginning to enjoy his work. Sutton and I stay busy also, between the two days a week that I work, walks outside, playing at nana and papa's and grandma beths, and being home we have a lot of fun. She is 7 months already and I just can't believe how this first year is flying and how close her first birthday seems already. She is not crawling yet which really, I am OK with. I am not ready for that added busyness just yet. She does, however, love to stand up. She obviously cannot balance well yet but I suspect she may kind of skip the crawling phase and walk pretty quick, but we will see. She definitely has thick Kooiker legs, daddy is so proud :) She is now, Sleeping.Through.The.Night. Hallelujah! We realize that it could easily change but it has been a week now and it is so nice!

First time shopping in the big girl seat

In our home I have been doing a little redecorating. A long time ago I posted that I was redoing our bedroom, I am waiting on one picture and then it is officially done! I also redid a wall in our living room. As soon as I have our room complete I will post a full tour but for now, I will leave you with a sneak peak of our room :)

I am IN LOVE with this old window turned into my kitchen  memo board. One pane was left glass with burlap behind it for dry erase marker, two panes turned chalkboard, and one pane a cork board. This is definitely my favorite thing in our house.

Some people have asked about how I made time to work out and go to the gym after a baby and I have talked with a lot of moms about losing baby weight and how frustrating and impossible it can seem. I know now, it is hard to lose baby weight, but not impossible! I am by no means an expert but I thought I would share what I did to lose my baby weight and how I am keeping it off.
I was pretty into working out and fitness before Sutton and was in a fairly strict routine when it came to the gym. But I was also at my "goal weight" and was not pushing myself as hard as I could have been. When I got pregnant my working out slacked A LOT. The closer it got to the hot summer and the more pregnant I got the less I wanted to do much of anything. I ended up gaining quite a bit of weight, a lot more than average. I am tall so there is a lot of room for weight to go but it was surprising to people the weight I actually gained, too much. I really regretted not making more of an effort to work out all through my pregnancy and the topic of my weight gain and worry about losing it was a frequent topic of discussion in our house. I was very insecure about myself at the end, which is not normal for me. Long story short I decided before I had Sutton that after I was healed I needed to kick it into high gear and Braden and I both needed to take working out more seriously than we had been and push ourselves, not settle. I got on the treadmill the day we got home from the hospital. I had just had a C-section so my treadmill sessions were by no means impressive, but I was doing something. I knew the weight would not come off on its own. I would walk for fifteen minutes at a time and slowly (very slowly) increase the speed and added an incline. When Sutton was 3 weeks old I started to jog Very slowly and not for very long. I was fine but this is a BIG no no if you've had a C-section so I am not recommending it, I am just very impatient. When she was 6 weeks old I had my personal postpartum check up and the doctor cleared me to go to the gym if I took it slow, Slow is not my forte but I tried to work myself up slow-ish. I made/make it a point to go to the gym 4-5 days a week. I was able to do this because Braden's mom who lives right near the rec center was willing to watch Sutton so I could work out. Braden and I are now doing the Insanity 60 day work out  in the mornings 6 days a week before he works, and it is a work out! We are also still running some days of the week because we have our first 5-K next month, Yay! I know a lot of you moms out there have more than one baby and I am by no means suggesting working out is easy or convenient to fit into a schedule, and I know the more kids the harder to lose the weight usually, but it IS possible! You can do it! Even if the gym is not possible there is always some sort of workout you can incorporate into every day routines. It is so worth it! As a mom, I feel like it would be selfish of me to not make time for myself or make myself happy because I want to set a good example for Sutton. I want her to grow up knowing that health and fitness are important, and having a good confident body image without being unhealthy is crucial in our society. Fitness is more important to Braden and I than ever before now and I don't think that will ever change now that we have a family. It is just so important to take care of yourself, and it is not selfish to take that time for yourself. Diet is so important and I will be the first to admit that when it comes to food the line that always runs through my head is "well if I will work out hard tomorrow so I can eat this now" not true. Cutting things out that are so bad but taste so good has been tough for me but I have been doing a lot better. When I enjoy working out and can lose the weight by working out it is hard for me to say to myself "I can lose weight without eating right so I can eat this". Not. True. It is not just about weight loss it is about health, and as Sutton gets closer to eating what we are eating we are trying to make a big change in our diet and cutting out a lot of the things that are doing nothing for our body. We are also realizing how important it is to get all the food groups in your diet. When we did a 7 day cleanse we realized how few veggies we really eat and that we should be eating them more. Here are a few of the meals I have made lately that are delicious but good for you also.

Stuffed pepper with brown rice and ground turkey over lettuce

We are attempting to incorporate more seafood into our diet since it is not our favorite thing to eat. This was a shrimp pesto broccoli dish with whole wheat pasta. We also like baked salmon with brown rice.

Overall, having a baby has kicked our lifestyle into gear. Realizing we want to be around for a Long time and see as much of her life as we can, and we also want her to grow up with the best lifestyle we can give her. It is definitely a lifestyle change but So worth it! A healthy lifestyle makes everything better, and the longer we do it the less we have to "try" and the more we just naturally do things in a healthy way. However, I will Not be giving up my coffee habit anytime soon, and I don't mind at all if Sutton grows up to love coffee like her Mama :)