It has been exactly one year since we have made our food changes. A more detailed post is on the way next week but I will say that one thing that has really been a lot of fun is finding new ways to ‘treat’ ourselves within the new whole food guidelines. I can tell you this, it’s not usually easy! Desserts are usually a labor of love and while always worth it in the end, they can be very time consuming. During the winter, I don’t mind spending a lot of time in my kitchen over my stove or oven but in the summer? I just want to be outside!

You can imagine my excitement when I was able to partner with Fruti to create a new summertime dessert using their All Fruit Bars. Most bars you’ll find in the freezer section are full of junk, but not these. Here are a few things I love about them:

1)These bars are made from Premium Actual Fruit and they contain more fruit than any other ingredient
2) They are Gluten Free
3)  Because there is so much fruit, there is NO NEED for added colors or flavoring. THIS is huge for our family!
4) No HFCS – yes and amen.
5) Non GMO verified

Are you running to your car as fast as you can to buy them up? I grabbed mine at our local Sam’s and they came in this awesome variety pack. Even better, when you open them, they have 4 smaller individual boxes so you can maximize space in your freezer. You can see more of my shopping trip here.

When I began thinking about a dessert I would make with these bars I immediately thought of taking a spin on coke floats. Traditional cokes are not a part of our diet at all anymore but I have seen some specialty sodas and kombucha sodas I have been waiting on an excuse to try.

These are so easy yet so delicious. On a hot summer day, hanging out with family or friends in the backyard, these are sure to be a huge hit! Head to your local natural food store and grab a few different flavors of their naturally brewed bubbly drinks and set them out on a table.When it’s time, give everyone their choice of Fruti Bar and watch them create and enjoy. The stick on the end of the popsicle will be facing up and it makes the perfect stirring stick!

For ours, we chose a Blackberry and a Cream Soda. I paired the Cream Soda with the Carribbean Mix bar and the Blackberry Soda with the Pina Colada (It also would have gone with with the Strawberry).

I really enjoyed reading the labels, look at the back of this bottle: you can see what farm it came from and the great ingredients in it. The real fruit in this pairs perfectly with the real fruit in the Fruti Bars:

My boys thought pouring the drinks in was half the fun. Like I said, we haven’t had cokes in such a long time, this was such a fun treat for them! Who doesn’t love something that fizzes?

Just let it sit for a few seconds while you stir it together and before you know it, you will have a delicious Fruit Float!

I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias®  and Fruti #cbias #SocialFabric #FreshNFruti but all opinions are my own. We really will be buying these again in the future!

Are you as excited about summer as I am? I enjoy the holiday season and a few snowy days but beyond that, I love warm weather. To welcome and usher in beautiful weather and active days we are going to take a family challenge in May to jumpstart the upcoming summer season. Want to join us? Here’s what we’re doing

1) No eating out. None, whatsoever. We have cut back our eating out considerably since switching to a whole foods diet but have become more lax in the past few months, I want that to be nipped in the bud immediately. We have some family events coming up the weekend of the 18th so it might get tricky, but I plan to prepare ahead of time and not let it catch me off guard.

2) Do some form of exercise every day. This is pretty lax but it has to be something: a walk around the neighborhood, crunches, squats, yoga, group exercise classes – anything goes. It just has to be something and it has to be every day.

3) Take vitamins, every day. This sounds like an easy one but I really do forget some days. I need to make this an every day habit.

4) Spend time in Gods word, 20 minutes, every day. I’ve done better in the past year but there are still some days I slip. For our boys, we read a bible story every night so that will be their time. My oldest has the youth version of Jesus Calling and he will read that with me each morning.

5) Be in bed no later than 11pm. My husband and I have gotten into a really bad habit of staying up late and it has to stop. I read an article that said every hour you go to bed before midnight is equal to 2 hrs after midnight. 2 for 1? I am for that!

So, there it is! Will you join me? Adapt as it fits your families needs – I think #1 could be a challenge for everyone! I will do a weekly recap, check in each Monday. I can’t wait to hear from you!

One of my favorite go to lunch or dinner recipes is this Pitza dish. You can do so many different things with it. Most of the time I will grab a pack of whole wheat pitas (just make sure they have 5 ingredients or less) or some home made if I have them laying around, but every now and again I will use store bought Naan bread. The crust these breads create is very similar to a fire house pizza restaurant and you can’t beat having them on hand. Super quick and easy!

Once you have your bread base, add desired toppings and voila! Your kids will love you and inhale this dish. Here is one variation we love:

Ingredients
Whole Wheat Pitas or Naan
Crushed Tomatoes or Pizza Sauce (I like Muir Glen or Delallo)
Pesto or various toppings (optional)
White Cheese of choice, freshly grated from a block

Pre-heat oven to 400. Arrange Pitas on a baking stone. Spread evenly with crushed tomatoes or pizza sauce. Spread a layer of pesto or arrange toppings if desired.

Sprinkle with plenty of cheese, make sure it’s even. Then, cook in oven on 400 for 8 minutes. Once the 8 minutes is up, turn your oven from 400 to broil and broil for 2 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool slightly before cutting. Serve with fruit or veggies and enjoy!

Get creative! I’ve used refried black beans as a base, topped with chicken, jalapeno slices and cheese, served with sour cream. Possibilities are endless!

My friend Kelly is having a discussion today on tips to keep up with your housework, you can join in over here. Here are two posts I’ve written to help with that very topic:

Keeping a Clean Home Part 1

Keeping a Clean Home Part 2

As you’ve noticed, I haven’t blogged nearly as much as I normally do. It’s not because I don’t want to, I love my little blog here, I just have changed my focus and direction over the past year and I’m seeking simplicity in my life. I’ll tell you what has most recently changed my perspective:

This past December, a precious woman at my church gave the testimony of her journey with her Auto Immune Disorder. Sweet Timesia has been through so much over the past few years and her story is one of triumph, strength, beating the odds and giving God glory. She told us tales of perseverance when everyone around her said there was no hope. I remember her proudly recanting a time when her doctor told her that her prognosis was poor. She quickly retorted, “Well, obviously you don’t understand, I don’t serve a poor God.” Talk about a bold witness! She told numerous stories like that, stories of sharing the gospel and people she came in contact with coming to know the Lord, times when tests came back with results the drs told her was never possible. But the one that stood out to me the most, the one I’m sure God wanted me to tune in to was this one:

Timesia told us about her career before getting sick. She served in the Army and then had a business career in Bentonville. She said she was very busy, that she could remember so many nights of shuffling from work, to pick up her daughter from school to the various activities at church and elsewhere. It was quite a change to be laid up at home once she was ill. One night, she was apologizing to her young daughter for not being able to do more with her and her daughter looked at her and said, “I’m not, since you’ve been sick, I’ve gotten the best of you.”

Tell me that doesn’t stop you in your tracks. Here is a mother, aching from illness and aching from wanting to do more for and with her daughter and her daughter is telling her, I’m not sorry! I have the best of you! We aren’t too busy, we aren’t constantly running from here to there, I have the best of you.

Now, hearing this in December was especially poignant because I had just finished a very full and busy family photo season. God has blessed my photography business in ways I never thought possible. Unfortunately, the price of a thriving business is more time. Fall is definitely my busiest time, but I’m steady year round. Add that to serving at church, church activities 3 days a week, running a home and writing for a blog and I’m depleted. I’m pretty sure the #1 phrase my boys heard last fall was, “Just a minute.” Do you ever feel this way? It’s probably just me.

That day, God spoke to me. “You can’t be all things to all people.” And trust me, I try to and He called me out on it. I have this desire in me to do 50 different things at the same time and do them all to the fullest. And, let’s be honest, that’s impossible. So, this year I’m trying to say no to the good things and yes to the best things. I’m trying, each day, to say, “Lord, how do YOU want me to spend my day.” Because it’s all His and my purpose is to serve Him.” I don’t want my boys to grow up and say, “Well, my Mom was always busy with something else to do xyz with us.” That can’t be part of my legacy as a mother. I am the only mother they have, the only wife to my husband (well, I better be!) and I have to be present with them. I love the quote from Ann Voskamp, “Wherever you are, be all there.” Have you read the book 1000 Gifts? If  not, I highly recommend it, it’ll change your life.

Please hear my heart on this, this is not to make you feel guilty for the things you do, whether it be work or pleasure, I’m simply sharing how God is changing my heart. I still have my photography business, I still serve at church, I still go with friends to do things, those things are important to retain autonomy as a person. But, I don’t have to do everything, every time. Take for example, my Big Red Pot blog. I still plan to write, share recipes and life events but I don’t feel like I have to. Before, I had to get things done no matter what, but now, God has shown me the freedom in sometimes saying no or not right now. I have some exciting things planned for this blog this year, one being sharing  my testimony, something God has prompted me to do for a long time, so don’t give up on me yet.

So, if you don’t see me on here, no worries, I’ll be back with a recipe soon. I’m probably just outside collecting lady bugs with my boys.

Oh man. This stuff is SO good! Have some scrambled farm fresh eggs and a bowl of this for breakfast and you are in for one energy packed morning. I’m going to give you the recipe for one, so feel free to multiply the ingredients by how many people you need to serve

Ingredients
1 banana, sliced
1 clementine (cutie orange) peeled and broken into slices
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 cup flaked UNSWEETENED coconut
1/4 cup dry roasted cashews

In a bowl, stir together all ingredients and enjoy! This is also Whole30 approved

If you have children you need to read this. Boys, girls, biological, adopted, foster, nieces, nephews, you name it. If they are in your life and you can have influence in some way, please read this.

If you are a woman and are struggling with the view of God that the world has pushed on us, read this. It is soothing for the soul and armor for the battle we all face daily.

I love this excerpt:

“This is what God chose as best, this is where He first became one of us: God chose to make His entry point into the world through the holy space of a woman, to enfold Himself inside of a woman, to drink of a woman, be held and nourished and cared for by a woman — that’s the jolting truth of how God loves His daughters with His honor. Christ came to the defense of a hurting woman and the Son of Man stood between her ache and her attackers and He lifted the weight of shame from her and cupped her heart with hope and wrote a new future into the dust and dirt of everything and he saved. her. life. That’s how God loves His daughters “

You can find the full article here.

 First, let me say, there are just no good ways to take a picture of cooked oatmeal. It just doesn’t look appetizing.

Now that we have that out of the way, this is one of my boys favorite breakfasts. I am always suprised at how quick they inhale this considering it does not have very much sugar in it. We are coming up on our one year mark of cutting out certain foods and restricting others so you may have to up the sugar to taste. If you are used to limiting your sugar, this should be plenty sweet! Feel free to double or triple this recipe as needed.

Hurry and grab one of these $1/1 coupons! We love Naked Juice!

For anyone that has read my blog for a long time, you know how much I love Jesus. I try to share that as much as I can and I hope when others see me, they see the love and light of Jesus. A few weeks ago I felt God asking me to share my personal testimony on this blog and I’ve been putting it off, making excuses why it’s not a good idea or at least not right now. But wiht Easter approaching, it’s actually the perfect idea. My Savior is alive and as Christians, it’s something we should be shouting from the rooftops every chance we get.

My friend Nikki sent me this video today and it has reignited my desire to share Jesus with you, what He means to me and what He has done for me. For my fellow Christians, watch this and be bold for the Gospel. After all, Jesus is so worth it.