A Series of Life Changes - Change 1

Todd and I love having a big family. When we grew our family by 2 the first time it took time to adjust from having no babies, to having 2 babies. We had to take time and rearrange our lives, our schedules, our home. When Ryan joined our family we went through and changed again, rearranging our house, our routine and every other aspect of our lives. But when the girls arrived, I just allowed them to take a spot (not being infants we wanted to follow as much of their lead as possible). It took us about 6 months to realize that our family had AGAIN grew by 2 people instead of 1 and taking their lead just wasn't goin to work. We had changes we needed to make for ourselves, for our sanity and for our marriage. We aren't as healthy as we could be. We weren't getting enough sleep. We were tired and as much as I HATE to say it, I was dropping the ball...I was juggling too much and just couldn't keep up. So we decided to make some changes...the first change is how we're fueling our bodies for the day. Here's the thing, I wasn't fueling my body. I was drinking a cup of coffee with some sugar and calling it good. By lunch I was starving and in turn would over eat. Long term, it just couldn't work. So Todd and I decided we'd try a breakfast shake...but not the shakes my mom made for me as a kid...even her attempt at a healthy breakfast shake was mostly ice cream (still makes me giggle). So a little research, and Todd found a "starter" shake...something easy, tasty and good for us!

When doing morning prep (I'll post about that at some point in this "series") we set out the ingredients we'll use the next day....or the ingredients that require measuring. The recipe called for 2 handfulls of spinach, 2 bananas, 1 cup pineapple, 1 cup yogurt and 1 cup water. Since we buy our bananas for 2 weeks at a time, we buy them green so to help them ripen up before morning, we peal them and put them in this container with the yogurt, a section for pineapple (I don't mix them because of the pineapples acid). You'll also notice the blueberries...but the recipe I posted doesn't call for blueberries you say? You're right but they're SUCH a super fruit, and don't alter the flavor, I just can't resist throwing them in for good measure. Just a handful...

We set out the blender the night before also...making our mornings run so much more smoothly.

Next morning, I throw the spinach in the bottom of the blender so the other ingredients will provide weight and push the spinach into the blades. Then throw in the pineapple, bananas, water, yogurt and blueberries.

Blend it up.

and ENJOY! It's so yummy! I have a "friend" on Face.book who used to drink shakes and I thought she was a nut case! How could she possible drink a GREEN smoothy with spinach. Try it. It's worth drinking and I am not too hungry by lunch time! I feel good and productive all morning long! Even Todd (who we all know is a meat and potatoes kind of guy) drinks his shake and enjoys it!