Every year I drag bring Matt to the fair. For a while it was just us and Blair but this year we finally brought the twinkies along for their first visit! I fed Matt a burger and a beer and he ended up being okay with it. ;) The kids loved the hustle and bustle of the crowd, the corn dogs, and the bright lights. Cal chose to ride a ride with Blair and Evie opted for our friend Jojo to win her a stuffed unicorn at the balloon popping game. Everyone was a winner! You know all it took for me to be happy was a corn dog (of course).

For me the fair is a bloggers dream...the photo ops are endless! I'd be down to bring outfit changes but I'm pretty sure M would leave me stranded with all three kids if I suggested it. ;) Are you guys into the fair? It's the perfect thing to do while our Disneyland passes are blocked!

We've been wanting to change out our flooring since we moved in (buh-bye orange tile and tired carpet) and we decided on something called luxury vinyl. Yup, you read that right... vinyl! It sounds gross but I'm 100% in love with it! We have a pool (and messy kids) so we needed something waterproof and durable. The floors really do look like wood and they have texture which makes them feel like wood as well.

I did not bother to "pick up" for my before photos (or some of my after photos even haha) but you get the idea. The floors are still dusty in some areas...apparently we will be battling dust from the tile removal for 6 months. We also still need to go through and paint the baseboards but I'm really happy with the progress we've made! Now I'm browsing rugs for the dining room and the family room but all in good time!

And after...

One day we will get a new stair banister! Also, got this 8 foot round rug at Pottery Barn Outlet for $90...score!

We also did the flooring upstairs (except in the bedrooms). This is our messy play room.

Blair told me after I asked her if she like the new floors, "No I like the old ones. I could play hop-scotch them." Insert eye roll.

You better believe my home is NEVER this picked up. It helps that my cleaning lady is coming tomorrow so I killed two birds with one stone ("after" photos and picking up for her!).

Our floors are by Triversa and the color is Oakcrest TV002, gold wash. I believe Congoleum is the company that manufactures them for reference!

There's no question that while going through infertility it helps to have support. There are a million reasons to as why you could be infertile, and for me we never figured out why we struggled. Gabriela Rosa's Fertility Challenge is a FREE online event that teaches struggling couples why and how to make changes that can transform their fertility results. I would have loved this kind of information when Matt and I were in the trenches of negative pregnancy tests.

egg retrieval

After exploring Gabriela Rosa's website one thing that I loved was the different ways she approaches "fixing" couples' infertility. She meets the needs of couples who are trying to conceive naturally as well as helping couples who are preparing for IVF. Either way she teaches you how to prepare your body to be in optimal fertility health. 

shots to prepare me for IVF

our only two embryos... Hi Cal and Everly!

Gabriela Rosa bases her program off of 11 pillars of fertility:

1. diet and fluid balance
2. exercise
3. sleep
4. stress
5. nutritional supplementation
6. environmental challenges
7.whole body alignment
8. male reproductive health
9.female reproductive health
10. mind over matter
11. family foundations

When I was struggling to get pregnant it was important to me to talk to people who had actually suffered from infertility... not just doctors who thought they knew how to fix it. Gabriela Rosa knows firsthand about infertility and was able to overcome it by applying her own methodology.

Her fertility challenge starts on July 4th and takes place over 12 days. Best of all it's FREE so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. There might be a piece to the puzzle that you're missing and could figure out with her help! Head over HERE to sign up now!

Our Disney passes apparently have an extended two more weeks before we get blocked out so I'm livin' it up Disney style! So what I thought was our last trip last week was not!

Shoes

Cal's Shirt

Cal's Shorts

Blair's Shirt

Everly's Romper

Everly's Sunglasses

We're going to check out some other local theme parks over the summer since our passes will be blocked. Thinking about Sea World and/or Lego Land and/or the zoo! What are your summer plans?

It's the post you've all been waiting for...

A detailed post about how I got my body back after twins! I'm going to spell it all out for you and include all the dirty details. Yes, that means I'm telling you my weight at my highest and lowest! I'm going to go over what worked for me as far as diet and exercise goes. Get ready for a good read! And disclaimer: there's no trick. It was all good old-fashioned diet and exercise. Womp womp.

BEFORE: 2 months post twins weight:145
AFTER: 20 months post twins weight 124.8
20 pound difference!

Let's start at the beginning. When I was pregnant with the twins I gained 55 pounds. I started at about 130 and ended at about 185 (holy crap, I know!). I'm 5'4. When I delivered I measured 46 weeks pregnant (is that even a thing?!) and by the grace of God I really don't have any stretch marks. You can hate me for that but you win some and you lose some, right?!

34 weeks

37 weeks

36 weeks

 The week after the twins were born I lost 40 pounds (that's a lot of baby and water weight!). That put my weight at about 145. After the twins were born I exercised but I wasn't consistent and my diet was "I'm eating what I want because I'm breastfeeding twins." Neither of those worked for me.

My body doesn't play nice when it comes to breast-feeding. You see for some mamas all they have to do is BF and the weight falls off. My body is real cool and does the opposite. It hangs onto the extra weight till it's done nourishing children. I remained at 145 till I stopped breast-feeding the twins at the one year mark in August 2017.

Once BFing was behind me I tuned up the heat on my exercise and I settled in at about 135. Then the holidays came and I kind of just sat at that weight. I was eating dessert every night and feeling super yucky. I probably weighed 140 in the New Year.

In January of this year my gym (A Taylored Body) started a fitness challenge. I decided to enter with my best friend so we could keep each other accountable. We started by cutting out all desserts/sweets (not including fruit) for the month of January. I started losing weight (yay!).

In February we had a big cheat day to celebrate making it a month without sweets. We then vowed to only have dessert once a week. I also started doing intermittent fasting in which I abstain from food for 16 hours. It's not as hard as it sounds. For example, if I stopped eating at 7pm then I wouldn't eat again until 11 am. You can Google this but basically when you fast for 16 hours it allows your body to focus on burning fat instead of burning off food that is always in your stomach. I currently still do this about 4-5 days a week. Oh, but I am allowed to have black coffee while fasting.

In March I continued fasting, going to the gym, and eating my daily diet (see below). Once April hit I was at 130. When I got pregnant with Blair I weighed 127. My ultimate goal was to get to 125 which was still more than my wedding day weight of 117. However, when I got married I was "skinny-fat"... thin- but didn't have any muscle tone.

on our honeymoon

Two weeks before my fitness competition ended I changed my diet to try and squeeze out the last few pounds. My Fitness Diet is below. I knew this diet wasn't something I was going to maintain for life but the competition had money on the line so I wanted to go for it. I started losing the last few pounds and was thrilled!

In April On weigh-in day at the gym I clocked in at 124.8....HALLELUJAH! A few ounces under my goal... I was stoked! I celebrated with a big FAT donut haha. My body fat percentage dropped from 26% to 23% in 3 months and I lost 12.8 pounds. Below is a picture of my stats...

And my before after photos from January to April

Annnnd my donut celebration ;)

What I'm doing currently to maintain my weight
intermittent fasting (4-5 days a week)
dessert once a week
no alcohol (unless for a holiday or special occasion)
carbs only at my first meal (always whole wheat/grain)
exercise 5 days a week

Daily Diet
am fasting
black coffee
two over easy eggs on dry whole wheat toast
banana with one tablespoon all natural peanut butter
coffee with one tablespoon creamer
carrots and hummus or apple and 15 almonds or carrots and guacamole (individual serving)
any lean meat over a bagged salad (sometimes veggies on the side)
*I sometimes have a bite of my kids mac-n-cheese or I have one Oreo after dinner but I realllllly try to not do this. I don't want it to become habit.

Fitness Challenge Diet (2 weeks before)
am fasting
4 egg whites
1/4 cup of steel cut oats made with almond milk and cinnamon
apple and 15 almonds
protein shake made with almond milk
lean meat (fish is best) with cruciferous veggies or asparagus
*My trainer wanted me to eat fish and veggies for lunch also but I just couldn't do it. I ended up substituting my snacks for lunch because of my am fasting.

I do weigh myself here and there throughout the week to make sure I'm not having an upward trend. I'm 5'4 and am trying to stay around 125. It's my "happy weight." Yes, I could lose more and there is always room for improvement but it's all about balance. I don't want to be miserable "dieting" and not be able to have dessert/alcohol here and there but for me I can't have it daily. My body does SO much better without sugar. Sugar is my weakness! Diet in general is hard for me. I'm crazy disciplined with going to the gym but now I've realized that if my diet is clean then I don't have to kill myself at the gym. Diet is 80% of how you look...the gym helps that last 20%! That was a sad realization for me but an important one.

Let me know if you guys have any questions below. Again, this is what worked for me but everyone is different!

With summer quickly approaching I'm looking for ways to keep my kids out of my hair learning ;). All joking aside, Blair LOVES school and I know she will enjoy some learning activities over the summer. I recently tried out Playkids Explorer Kits and the kids were obsessed! Playkids Explorer is all about personalized, hands-on learning. The kit included stories, crafts, and games which were a hit.

Our kit's theme was "space" and each one of my kiddos got a cute book about space featuring them as the main character. I love that the activities were age appropriate and my kids were truly engaged in what we were doing. 

Look at Cal checking out his personalized book!

Everly loved finding the pictures that I named.

Of course Blair loved the crafts but she also enjoyed the question/answer cards.

I loved being able to spend intentional time with my kids. I know they crave having my undivided attention. These Playkids Explorer learning kits allowed me to work with the babies while simultaneously checking to make sure Blair was following directions in her kit. Win-win!

Are you guys scheduling some learning time into your summer? What are some of your favorite activities? Be sure to check out Playkids Explorer!