The Mediocre Mom's Guide to Greatness

Thursday January 28th, 2010

Today’s Activity:

Find the time to exercise.

Note:

If you need to use your children as free weights to help keep them entertained then do it.  If you can bench your 5 year old them I’m impressed.

Evaluate:

I wasn’t able to go to yoga last night so I was glad to have an excuse to fit in a little physical activity.  After teaching the kids a few yoga poses they wanted to play freeze dance.  Because I didn’t want to go get the CD player and then try and find something that would work for dancing, I just made up songs and then when I stopped singing we would all freeze.  Not only was this very entertaining for the kids but I got about a 1/2 hour of exercise that I wasn’t planning on.

Prepare:

This is to help you get a head start on tomorrows activity.  Set your alarm to wake up 15-30 minutes before your kids usually do.  Once you are awake simply get an early start on your day.

Tags: exercise, prepare
Posted in Average Length Activities | 2 Comments »

Wednesday December 23rd, 2009

Today’s Activity:

Exercise with your children today.

Note:

This will be a great chance to get out some of their pre-Christmas wiggles.

Evaluate:

Like most days I really didn’t want to take the time to do this but I did and honestly I only spent about 5 minutes.  Max came home from school ultra-crabby and crying about everything.  I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t very patient with him.  Anyway, once we started doing jumping jacks, stretching and playing with my free weights he started laughing and smiling.  The rest of the day he was very cheerful.  It’s amazing what just a few minutes of attention can do for a child.

Tags: exercise, indoor
Posted in Quick Activities | No Comments »

Wednesday December 9th, 2009

Today’s Activity:

Exercise on your own today.

Note:

Here are the same suggestions I gave you last week:

Us an exercise DVD

Go to the gym

Shovel the walks

Do some squats

Calf Raises

Go for a walk

Evaluate:

When I realized this was what I had to do today I wasn’t thrilled.  Although today is really the only day I have the chance to go to the gym it was the last thing on my mind.  But as the day went on I got more excited about it.  First I went to Zumba.  I heart  Zumba and if you have never been I suggest going.  It’s like a party but the best non-food party EVER.   You are burning TONS of calories and having fun at the same time.  Plus the instructor that I go to is my favorite because she a young mom and she’s pregnant and she’s easier to follow than some others that I’ve had.

After Zumba I went to yoga.  Honestly, I wasn’t very excited because the instructor that taught isn’t my favorite…really push-ups in yoga?  That’s not yoga to me.  But…it ended up being much better than I expected.  The main thing is that I get used to the instructors I see the most and when I get someone else it’s a little frustrating.  So after two hours I burned probably around 800 calories, had a break from my kids and took out some stress on the dance for…not too shabby.  For me exercising is something that I never really want to do but once I’m there doing it I can’t wait to go back again….then I forget and don’t want to go next time…it’s a cycle.

Tags: exercise, yoga, zumba
Posted in Average Length Activities | No Comments »

Tuesday December 1st, 2009

Monthly Goal:

With all these holiday parties eating healthy meals is not always an option so lets combat it with increasing our physical activity.  Not only will this help us burn those extra calories but more importantly it will help relieve some of the stresses brought on by Christmas shopping and budgeting.

Today’s Activity:

Do something physical that you wouldn’t normally do.

Note:

You can pull out that exercise DVD that’s been hiding in the back of the DVD case, head to the gym, shovel the walks (if they need it), carry your little ones around on your back and use them as your own personal free weight, do push ups during the commercials of your favorite daytime or evening TV show, take a few extra trips up the stairs today, do some calf raises on the steps, do sit ups with a child sitting on your belly or knees and see if you can give them a kiss while sitting up, squat a few extra times before actually sitting down at the table, or take a nice walk around the block with or without the kids.

Evaluate:

Elese has a favorite DVD.  It is called Dance Baby Dance by Infantastic.  I’m almost positive they don’t make it anymore.  Anyway I got this DVD just after she was born.  Basically it is mom’s dancing with their babies as a way to loose that baby weight.  Today I woke up feeling gross because of all the junk I ate over the last week and the last thing I wanted to do was exercise but lucky for me that is this months goal so I HAD to do it so I could evaluate it.  Elese and I had a fabulous time.  This was the perfect exercise for me to do today because I’ve been feeling like Elese is getting harder for me to carry so this was the perfect way to build some strength in that area.

Tags: exercise, fitness, goal, holidays
Posted in Average Length Activities | 1 Comment »

Wednesday October 7th, 2009

Today’s Activity:

We all know our kids are much happier when mommy and daddy* are happy right?  Take the time to schedule a babysitter for a night out with your hubby in the coming days.

*If you are a single mom then plan a night out on your own, you deserve it!  It can be a girl’s night out or maybe you’ve wanted to ask someone out for a while.  Whatever it is make time for you!

Note:

The Community Events section is up and running for Utah, Idaho, and Washington (our top three website viewing states).  Check it out, you may be able to find something fun to do for your date.

Prepare:

Friday we will be making caramel apples.  Plan a trip to the store before then to pick up some apples and caramel.  If you look on the Halloween isle you should be able to find caramels that have sticks with them, otherwise the sticks should also be on the Halloween isle.

Evaluate:

My kids and I enjoyed our hiking adventure.  It wasn’t really a hike per say, more of a walk.  We went to the Temple Quarry trail.  Max and Elese remembered seeing mountain goats VERY high up on the mountain the last time we were there so they asked about them the entire time.  Fortunately, we eventually saw one, although it really just looked like a little blot on the mountain.  Max tried to find shortcuts along the trail while Elese fell several times and insisted that I carry her.  My mom had never been there and it’s only about a 5 minute drive from where we live so she tagged along and enjoyed the colorful leaves.  I enjoyed watching my kids and Amber laugh and play while I appreciated the beauty and got a little bit of exercise.  I hope your hike was a success!

FYI

My computer has been feeling under the weather so everything I’ve done thus far has been done on my mom’s computer.  My computer should be up and running today!  So look forward so some pictures of me and my kids having fun together!

Tags: date night, exercise, hike, prepare
Posted in For Mom | 1 Comment »