A clean house when we expect company and Plant Based Nutrition Certificate from ecornell

This is what the kitchen looks like on a normal day. All sorts of things left out from breakfast and the makings of lunch, paper and pens scattered, dishes in the sink and dishwasher open.

I love this sign that I just saw posted online:

It's totally true! But you have to live. If we didn't eat and read and play and work, it'd be super clean. If all we did was clean, it'd be clean, or if we only had three people living in the house, it'd be much cleaner. But with 7 people and all their things, even though they do clean up after themselves daily, or at least, they mostly clean up after themselves, we still have a lot left out. When I'm hosting bookclub, we get the house really clean: 

 I told Scott I just need to host bookclub or some other activity every week so that it stays like this longer. But the truth is, in order to maintain this level of cleanliness with 7 people living in the household, mom has to turn into a taskmaster and not do anything else except clean and be on everybody about cleaning, and I don't like to do that. Oh well, such is life.

 I just finished up my ecornell class in Plant Based Nutrition (WFPB)! If you're not sure what that is, it's basically vegan (no animal products including meat, eggs and dairy), plus no processed foods including oils, refined sugars and flours. My family doesn't follow this closely, but I have been making adjustments and am cooking with less oil, and I've been feeding my family more vegetarian and vegan meals (I am vegetarian), more plants and legumes and whole grains. We do have a treat on the weekend, and sometimes the kids have more because of school/friends etc; and if we're being honest, sometimes I do too. Like last week on Thursday, I ate a small bag of fruit snacks at the car dealership ...Okay I ate 3 bags. It wasn't an exciting visit to the dealer, just my van needing to be worked on, as usual, and the fruit snacks seemed like a good thing at the time.

Healthy Habits while working, and Halloween

Charles finished football a couple of weeks ago. He worked hard and improved his skills and his team won over half of their games. 

 I've mentioned before that I'm working part-time at my little girls school, American Preparatory Academy, as a substitute. I go in 1-2 days a week. I've found that I have to plan ahead to make sure I'm eating healthy and getting in my daily exercise and studying my scriptures. I wake up at 5, read and pray til 540, and then exercise until 630...some days I exercise later, or for longer, like Thursdays and Fridays when I know I'm not going into the school(I told them before we started that Thursdays and Fridays were out...Thursday is temple day and friday I drop off junior high at 950am). I have been making a green smoothie Sunday afternoons for Monday and Tuesday, since that's usually when I go into the school; I drink this after I have my hot lemon water. I often prep my lunch the night before, making sure I have some chopped veggies and a plan for whatever else...often times I take chopped veggies and hummus and leftovers from dinner warmed up in a Thermos.

 Halloween has come and gone! I don't love Halloween. I don't love all the creepy costumes and decor and I don't love all the candy that's around for so long. I have a weakness for sugar so it's hard having it around, though it's also hard always having to be the mom that says no to treats. We've come up with a compromise, where they each picked out a quart sized freezer bag of goodies from halloween, and they keep it up high in the pantry during the week and one the weekend they can pick out a couple to eat. The rest of the candy we froze, threw away or put up high for later use on gingerbread houses. We did have fun going to the pumpkin patch and picking out some pumpkins for the porch, and running through the cornmaze.

 Elisabeth had her Halloween piano recital...here she is in her Vote for Pedro shirt...Napolean Dynamite.

 And here are a few pictures from our ward Halloween party and Halloween night:
Annabelle dressed as Anne Wheeler from The Greatest Showman, and her friend Lorelei from school that she invited along. They were in charge of this ghost bowling activity.

 Nora as Mal from Descendants.

 Charles as Mario.

 Me as a BYU super fan,

 Jane was Evie, another character from Descendants.

 Halloween night Annabelle went as Ginny from Harry Potter and she went trick-or-treating with our long-time friends the Ludwigs, since her and Annika Ludwig have been close since birth. Elisabeth went to the house of a friend in the neighborhood for a Halloween party with friends, and Charles went around with his friend Beau. So we only had Jane and Nora with us.

 Annabelle received the builder award at her school; one person from each class is chosen as the builder. This months theme was honesty. Good work Annie!