IndigoGTI- Glad to hear you (and your wife) are feeling inspired. I train my wife, who's not especially athletic and is, uhm, in her 50's, and I also advise a female friend, so I have a pretty good idea of what will and won't work there (nah, my ideas are a bit unorthodox at times, but not too "radical" for "normal women").
Cardio three days a week should be good, but you might find it takes energy away from your weight work if you do it first. Once you and your wife get into the swing of the lifting, and start pushing yourselves harder, you'll only want to work ONE large muscle group per workout. It'll then be leg day/back day/chest day with arms and abs worked in also. That way you can really concentrate on getting results in a single area and not worry about the last bodyparts getting shortchanged because you are exhausted. Like what you had planned for Wednesday night (legs and bis and abs). You'll REALLY appreciate this when you start doing more sets (I usually have my wife do about 9-12 sets for a large muscle group). Working each group (hard) once a week works well for most people. I'd probably do legs on Fri/Sat so they can recover over the weekend (in time for the next week's cardio).
Legs: I'm absolutely convinced that leg press machines, etc. (ESPECIALLY leg extension machines) are truly BAD. They cause injury due to the fixed pathway and they ignore the stabilizer muscle development that is so important in "real life". You just can't beat squats, though you have to do them with proper form. My wife has found that squats and straight-leg deadlifts (which she initially thought of as macho powerlifter moves) have done WONDERS for her, uhm, entire lower body. Even if you do them with a bare bar (or even NO bar!), you'll really FEEL a few sets of them and they'll firm and strengthen your entire body.
On biceps, it's all about FORM. Most people use WAY too much weight, thus end up using too much body english, and don't get good results. Again, stick with free weights for arm exercises.
Of course YESTERDAY was your leg/bicep day, so this is a bit after the fact!
As I told PrinzII, do your ab work LAST and DON'T do a zillion, low-exertion reps. Do ab work SLOWLY. No, abs don't "grow too big" very often, it's not something to worry about.
People starting out tend to gravitate towards machines (I know I did, and I have the long-term injuries to show for it), but it's precisely THOSE people who should be working with free weights. Rather than write a (longer
) book here, if you want tips on form for a specific exercise, or reasons why I believe what I do (as in my anti-machine stance), just let me know. Proper exercises + proper form + proper resistance + proper reps/sets = proper results.
PrinzII- How'd that workout go?