Our first raw Thanksgiving!

Our breakfast fruit salad. :o) We ate this during the Macy's parade. The ingredients were my oldest daughter's idea, except the pomegranate, that was my addition.
Marinated portabello mushrooms! YUM!
The cranberry salad from Alissa's book p298
Marinated crimini mushrooms for the kids.
Alissa's mock turkey loaf with the sauce on the side. p 393 YUM!
Maraw's southern corn nut dressing. This was everyone's favorite!!
Maraw's pumpkin pie. This was yummier than any cooked pumpkin pie, seriously!

It was a success! Our first holiday without the traditional dead food! Freedom!!!!!

King Vita-Mix!

I forgot to update about what my surprise was! A Vita-Mix! The king of all blenders, with a motor as powerful as a lawnmower!! I've wanted one for so long. And it was a surprise!

I was going to have to do the 3 payment plan on their website (although I really wanted to order from Alissa's store). So I was going to place that order today for the 5000 model, and was crossing my fingers that it would get here before Thanksgiving.

So Wednesday night my mom called me from Sam's club (where I don't have a membership) and asked if this price for a Vita Mix sounded the same, I said yep, same as Costco (where I do have a membership) and same as the Vita Mix website. Then a light bulb went off- I asked, it's the 4500 model right? She said no, it's the 5000!!!! With the extra dry container at a lower cost as well!!

God bless them, they bought it for me & are letting me make the monthly payments to them instead!! Woo Hoo! By getting it at a lower price and saving the shipping costs they literally saved me over $80 easily. So I won't even have to take 3 months to pay them back, maybe 6 weeks at the longest. The demonstration was only going on till Sunday here- I'm so glad they stopped by Sam's!

I was/am SO excited, I woke up Wednesday & didn't have a Vita Mix & I went to sleep that night having one! WOW! And yes, just the little I've done so far shows me it's well worth the money! I got to put a whole entire peeled orange in my smoothie at lunch yesterday! Incredible! And my almost 6 yr old finally enjoyed a green smoothie! That alone is worth it.

We can let it run for a few minutes and the darn thing is so powerful it will warm up soup without cooking it! Raw warm soup!! I'll be able to get so many of our recipes really smooth finally! And raw ice cream too! I just about killed my food processor making ice cream from frozen bananas. Now it'll be a cinch! So far I've made 5 of the smoothest green smoothies ever, and sesame chocolate mylk! It sounds silly to say that a blender can change your life, so I won't go that far. LOL! But really, this does change a lot for us! We're all excited about it!!

Here are the girls having the sesame chocolate mylk!

3 Months Raw!!

So it's been 3 months! I'm so excited!! WOW!!!

Let me get right to it: Greg is now 185 pounds. That means he's released 55 pounds!!! :o)

I now weigh 222, which means I've released a total of 47 pounds. In the past month, I'm down 10 more pounds and 13.25 more inches! On with the photos--





I'll have to post more later, it's so late right now it's already tomorrow! My parents brought over a lovely surprise tonight & that's what kept me from posting earlier. I can't wait to tell everyone about it, but it'll have to wait till sunrise!!! :o)

12 weeks!

We started this journey 12 weeks ago today! It won't be officially 3 months until next Tuesday, but I wanted to check in and give an update! :o) As of Sat I've released 47 pounds. I won't lie, I wish it was melting off faster than that, but how can I complain? I know those are good results for 12 weeks. I just want it gone so badly! Greg's released 52 so far.

I did a 4 day water fast last week. My first time ever! It was amazing- I did it for spiritual reasons, and felt very blessed! However, by the end of it, I was craving cooked food like crazy, for the first time since starting this. I gained perspective though. It's been very easy for me so far, and now I'm reminded of what Greg's experiencing every day. I'm even more impressed with his commitment, and his resolve. My cravings are passing now, and I'm so glad!! It didn't feel fair to do something good for my spirit but have my flesh cry out like that! I guess that's the way it works though.

My youngest daughter's birthday was Thursday! She turned 3. Where does the time go?! We had her little family party Friday evening and I made a strawberry almond cake. I think I liked it the least of everyone. Hopefully they were being honest. I tried to make chocolate "ice cream" as well but forgot to process the cashews first, just threw it all together and processed. So it was chunky. Most folks didn't like that at all. Oh well! Many a baker messed up their first baked cakes right? I can't be too hard on myself! But I really didn't want to let my daughters down. The oldest one turns 6 in 3 weeks, so she's next! Here's pic of the cake...



She & her sister seemed to enjoy it, but I know it could've been better. It also cost about $30 or so in ingredients and I spent 4 hours in the kitchen. I know I need more practice at this! My results are not typical! LOL!

Oh, Halloween! I bet you're wondering how that went. Our girls are used to full blown trick or treating (with 3/4 of the candy disappearing mysteriously during the night, never to be seen again). Well, we decided to go to a church festival, who said they would hand out candy at the end of the night so kids wouldn't be eating it all evening. Sounds good! They did give them a tiny bit of candy early in the night, which my girls gave to their cousins. They knew that at the end of the festival they could choose 2 pieces of candy apiece. They were fine with it. One of the pieces that my oldest chose was a full size Baby Ruth candy bar. I told her that wasn't Halloween sized, and to please just eat about 2 bites. She did, and I've been lazy and haven't thrown the rest away yet, it's up on a shelf. But she hasn't asked for more. I'm so proud of them! They did eat popcorn during the festival, but no hot dogs, or snow cones, etc. We concentrated on it being a fun night, not a candy night. Oh, by the way, that night was day 4 of my water fast. UGH! Those hot dogs smelled divine. YUCK! I knew what was in them, but still!!! I just drank water.... It feels good to know I'm in control though and NOT the food. Freedom!!!