Par-Tay

Good morning! I'm so glad it's Wednesday, it's all downhill towards the weekend from here, right? This week has been great so far! Jason's birthday was on Monday (more on that in a bit), and I have been rocking the bootcamp workouts. I must say, I'm insanely sore. Not sore like I injured myself sore. Sore like I've only been running lately and haven't done any strength workouts in months sore. Today will be another full body weights workout + a little cardio. I'm thinking 20 min of tae-bo might be fun. What's your favorite kind of non- running cardio?  I'm a huge tae-bo fan from WAY back in the day.

So, Sunday night we got together for Jason's birthday and by his request I made a Chocolate Cherry cake. I used THIS recipe that I pinned on Pinterest. So easy and so yummy. I also found a guitar shaped cake pan at Hobby Lobby that turned out awesome! I'm no cake decorator, so I just slathered the cake down with dark chocolate ganache and sprinkles and called it a day.

Jason is the only one in our family that likes the chocolate/cherry combo but everyone else tried the cake (and ate around the cherries) and agreed that it was delicious.  My Mom also got a "regular" cake and for dinner we got Jason's favorite, take out from our favorite local restaurant, Thai House.

Besides a few jazz cd's and some guitar strings, I made Jason this super cute Daddy Star Wars kit from the kids.  I found the printables online for free HERE.  He loved it, as expected.  Plus I added a cool Star Wars shirt in there for him.  It was a great time.  I am SO blessed to call him my husband and my best friend!

Jason said his heart was so full on Sunday night because everyone made him feel so special!  I'm so thankful for my wonderful family, they make these occasions a million times for fun.

Elliot and Rowan wrestling with Papa.

Sooooooo cute!!

Rylie loved reading all of Jason's birthday cards with Mimi!

Ok, I'm off to get breakfast ready for the babies.  I hope ya'll have a wonderful Wednesday!

I'm Going to Bootcamp!

So, how was your weekend? Ours was busy as usual here. Jason and I always stay up too late and get spoiled by sleeping in late too. Thank the Lord, our kids seem to sleep past 8am on most days and we aren't complaining. We also celebrated Jason's birthday last night. He turns 40 years young today!! More on his celebration in my next blog post. Today also starts day 1 of Best Body Bootcamp!

Amy and I have been reading Tina's blog over at Best Body Fitness for awhile now, so when she announced that she would be doing a virtual bootcamp, we were excited! Each week there will be prizes and then a big cash prize at the end of bootcamp. Amy and I had fun reading over this week's workouts and planning some meals together. Each week I'll be posting an update on my progress and how I'm doing on my health and fitness goals.
Any encouragement or tips are appreciated! We are also still training for our Zooma 5k next month too, this bootcamp should be a great compliment to that training!


Well, I'm off to start my first workout. Have a great day friends, and if you know Jason, please be sure to tell him Happy Birthday! He's the most handsome 40 year old I know!

I love him!

February in Pictures (Instagram)

In case you didn't know, I'm a huge fan of this little app called Instagram. I have it on the phone and iPad and honestly it's like a visual Twitter, so fun. In February I joined a challenge on Instagram called Febphotoaday. I had so much fun challenging myself to come up with a picture for each day on the given theme. I thought it would be fun to recap the month of February in pictures on my blog, so let's check out my Febphotoaday Challenge!






This is the list of photo assignments for each day.

It was so much fun to see what everyone came up with for pictures this month. I hope y'all enjoyed a glimpse into my month on Instagram. Have a great weekend y'all!

Foodie Pen Pal time!

Hi friends! A month ago I signed up to be a part of a program called Foodie Pen Pals. I love trying new foods from all over the place and I love reading blogs so this program was a match made in heaven. Lindsay from the blog The Lean Green Bean started the program and after reading her blog for some time I decided to join in on all the foodie fun. Right before Valentine's day I received my foodie box from my pen pal for the month Candy, she blogs over at Healthy in Candyland.  I love all the detailed touches she added to the box!  Candy is from Tacoma, Washington and there tons of local finds in her box...what a treat!

How exciting! Let's dive right in!

I love that Candy put a picture of her town in the card.  Isn't Washington state beautiful?!

Candy left tags on each item.  What a great idea!  My kids and I looooved these apple chips and it's a crunchy snack I can feel good about giving them!

Yum! Starbucks (we keep them in business ya'll), and this Via was iced, perfect for this warm weather we've been having.

Can you say yum?  How unique and delicious!

Love this sticker that she included.  So simple and true.  Eat more kale, ya'll! (your body will thank you).

This popcorn was amazing.  The kids even loved it...I think they have expensive tastes if they like truffle oil ;)

How cool is this? Delicious soup from her local produce market!  This is actually on the menu for this week!

I made the mistake of letting Jason eat a bite of these.  They were gone in 2 seconds.

I have to tell you, this was my favorite item in the box.  Homemade granola and the recipe to make more for ourselves.  The kids and I have snacked on this since we got it.  It's the perfect mix of salty and sweet  and not all the added sugar that's in many store bought brands of granola.  Can't wait to make more.

Thank  you SO much Candy!!

Now if you want to be involved in Foodie Pen Pal's this month here is the info.  It is so much fun, so feel free to join in.

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal! 
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month. -Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We've determined things might get too slow and backed up if we're trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I'm going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

If you’re interested in participating for March, please send  an email to Lindsay at theleangreenbean@gmail.com and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)
-WHETHER YOU ARE A US RESIDENT OR CANADIAN RESIDENT.

You must submit your information by March 4th as pairings will be emailed on March 5th!

***PLEASE NOTE: if you send an email, you WILL GET A RESPONSE within 48 hours. If you don''t....please re-send your email or contact Lindsay via Twitter (@LeanGrnBeanBlog). Last month we had a few emails get lost as spam so we're trying to avoid that!

Alright friends.  I'm off to get the day going wrangling two cute babies. Have a great day and if you want, check out who I sent MY Foodie Pen Pals box too at Luana ola (Enjoy life). Happy Wednesday!

Wordless Wednesday-Love Day

SO thrilled with Valentine goodies!

Festive breakfast (instead of the pancakes I'd hoped to make).

End of my day.  Card from my Valentine and a very valentine-tastic Glee.

Hope your day of love was lovely!

Happy Love Day + lots of pictures.

Happy Valentine's Day! This day may seem cheesy to some, but I love Valentine's Day!  I think of it as a day to celebrate all the people you love SO much. Some may think the day is just commercialized to sell chocolate and some may think it's sappy, but I love chocolate and all things sappy, so I love this day =)  This morning, inspired by my friend Kelly, I think I'll make the kids some pink heart pancakes.  She also made pink milk, but I think the colored milk will lose it's cool factor in a sippy cup.  These are the goody bags awaiting my 2 love bugs this morning.

Just a little happy for them.  It's amazing how happy you can make 2 little kids by shopping out of the Target $1 bin.  Haha. The lollipops with capes are from their cousin Elliot!

I thought I'd take a few minutes and share a few pictures from last week/weekend.  Our life in pictures is what the blog should be called!

Earlier in the week I attempted to use the Easy Button on the kids.  You know those days when they can be whiny and into everything?  It was one of those days.  For future reference, this stupid button only mocked me by telling me "That was easy!". Haha

I loved this sweet picture I took of Rylie and her sweet language pathologist Lindsay.  I cannot say enough about how wonderful Lindsay is with Rylie and how fun it is to watch Rylie work SO hard for her. Rylie is definitely making progress with her speech, slowly but surely.

You walk out of the room for a minute and what does this little guy do? He looks like he tried to do the tango with the vacuum cord here.  What a little stinker.

On Saturday my sweet friend Kathlyn and her little family came up for a visit.  They moved to Dothan a few months ago and we've been missing them so much.  In a few months they will meet their new addition and I cannot wait to find out if it's a boy or girl.  My guess is girl!  Jessi and Caden came over too and we had homemade pizzas and lots of great conversation.  My time with these ladies is precious!

I had to share the cute items from her shop that Kathlyn brought me in exchange for some baby items.  Are these not THE cutest???

Saturday night my awesome parents came and stayed at the house so that Jason and I could go out for some shopping, coffee and then a late viewing of Star Wars Episode 1 in 3D!!  We had SO much fun together.  I never saw the first episode in the theater, so I was thrilled.  I cannot express how blessed I am that THIS man, no other, is MY husband.  We got home at 1am (my parents rock for staying that long).

This picture perfectly sums up our Sunday morning.  We all slept in until 9am and this is Rowan being goofy while Jason plays us some jazz.  It was so lovely.

Finally, just for my own reference, or to anyone interested, here is how I did on running this week.  I amped up the frequency of my runs and I can really feel my endurance getting better.  It's weird to say, but I actually look forward to running now.  I crave it.  Words I never thought I'd type.  Hopefully I'll get better and better before my 5k in April. I ran 4 times and covered almost 14 miles!

Well, I hope ya'll have a wonderful Valentine's Day! Love and hugs and LOTS of chocolate!  So, what did ya'll get for Valentine's Day?  Or how did you spend it with someone that you love?