Date #2...sort of

So our second date night didn't come from the date box but it did come in the fun form of a dinner party with one of my best friends Pam and her husband Yuri. Pam and I go way back from our days at Urban and our husbands have bonded over their love for talking about anything to do with God, and for all of you ladies out there, you know how important it is for your husband/boyfriend to bond with your friends husband/boyfriend. So Pam and I get to relax and totally enjoy each other because we don't have to entertain the husbands. At one point Pam and I even stopped talking and looked over at the husbands and said how cute they were, it took them a few minutes to realize that we were talking about them and not my kids before they started man blushing.

Well all of it was going great until in the middle of cooking the sweet potatoes the oven starts doing this crazy beeping sound, won't work anymore and I haven't even gotten to cook my pasta or shrimp (enter panic mode), luckily the stove top still worked but for those of you who know my patience level I was about to throw that stove out the window. It's amazing how one little sound like a low beep can grate on my nerves so badly you would think I was a mad woman. After it was all cooked we were able to relax, enjoy my boys being angels (ha only when people are around), eat some yummy food and have some great wine along with great conversations.

one of my favorite meals ever!

Our dinner was a nice lemon shrimp pasta (so clean tasting not too greasy) with some spicy sweet potatoes. I love love love sweet potatoes but sometimes I get so sick of eating them with the same thing, a little bit of cinnamon and brown sugar. These have a great spice to them and taste just perfect so here are my recipes:

Lemon Shrimp

• 1 lb of large shrimp
• 2 tbs of lemon juice
• 1tbs of extra-virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 box of whole wheat or multi grain angel hair pasta
• 3 or 4 of the small sweet tomatoes diced (they are called camprini I think)
• 1/2 cup of pesto sauce

I combine the shrimp, lemon juice and olive oil in a bowl and let them sit for about 30 mins. After that I then add some salt and pepper and saute them until they are all opaque, put them on a plate to keep them warm. At the same time I cook my pasta, when that is done I drain it and add to a large bowl, throw in the shrimp, diced tomatoes and pesto, mix it up and it is done. It takes about 30 minutes to prep and 10 to all cook.

Chipotle Sweet Potatoes

• 2 large sweet potatoes peeled and cut into smaller cubes
• 1 cup balsamic vinaigrette
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 of fresh cilantro (I used the freeze dried kind so that I am not wasting what I don't need and can save the rest for later)
• 3 tablespoons of honey
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce minced (these come in a can so I take the rest of them and put them in a baggie and freeze them so I am not wasting and will have more for later)

Depending on how well your oven cooks you might want to spread out your sweet potatoes in two smaller cooking dishes but one large one will work. My oven doesn't do the best so I have to use two and cook them longer (or in the case of last night finish them in the microwave, luckily they were almost ready). In a bowl combine sweet potatoes and a half of cup of your balsamic vinaigrette and some salt and pepper (I say to taste because I rarely use salt but I know some people love it). Preheat oven to 400, and add the sweet potatoes in to your greased baking dish. Bake for about 30-40 minutes (again depends on your oven) until they are tender and stir them midway. In a smaller bowl whisk together your remaining vinaigrette, cilantro, honey, and chipotle peppers. Take out your sweet potatoes and drizzle the mixture on to them stirring some to get it all over them and serve. Prep time is about 20 minutes and the cooking time is about 30-40.

I promise you guys will love these recipes and they really did work good together. Enjoy!

Peace

I am not one of those people who just going around talking about my faith to everybody. And its not because I am ashamed by any means or any large reason in general, I really like to show Christ's love through me by how I act. Even then I know I get it wrong a lot of times but I do try really hard.

Today I want to tell everyone about this incredible experience that I am having. I would like to start with saying that I have a group of friends that are my "prayer warriors" and I know that whatever troubles I am having they will be there with me praying. Last night I had something that was really simple happen but I totally let it worry me. Before going to bed I asked my husband to pray for me as well but I let it bother me so bad that I did not sleep good. And what little sleep I did have was filled with stupid dreams.

This morning I got up said a quick prayer and even though the worry was still there I had two little boys to take care of and I did my best to not think of it. All of the sudden out of nowhere I felt this incredible peace, I can't even describe it, but I don't think I have ever felt this way before. Even throughout today when I have even thought about the situation I can just stop and feel all my worries wash away and that wonderful peace surrounding me.

What a great feeling to know that I serve an amazing God and even though this worry was so little on the grand scheme of things He was still there to make sure I felt His presence. So thank you friends that pray for me, and thank you God for being there I love you.

Monday Morning blah

Good morning to everyone out there! If you guys are like me on a Monday, you wake up wondering where your weekend went and if it really is time to get up. Most of us are probably rushing to get ready and the last thing on our minds is breakfast. Well I am going to say what most of us have probably heard our whole lives, BREAKFAST IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY! So please be good to your bodies and eat just a little something, anything is better than nothing. I am going to give you guys my favorite breakfast recipe that will take all of 5 minutes to put together and is extremely healthy for you.

I am becoming a smoothie queen, I really do love them and they help me out on those super busy mornings with my two boys. All you need is:

• about 5ozs of skim milk
• 1/3 cup of greek low fat yogurt (I use plain it has less sugar)
• 1 tablespoon of flax seed
• 1 banana 
• 1/4 cup of blueberries
• 3/4 cup of mixed salad (i know sounds crazy but you can't even taste it)
• 3 or 4 strawberries

Throw all of those in the blender and here is what you have.

so yummy!

Now some of you might like a thicker or thinner smoothie so just play around with the milk and yogurt. And for the sake of your body please try and use organic foods, you might not notice a difference at first but I promise your body will. I hope you guys enjoy this...oh and here are some pictures of my boys to put a smile on your face :)

Date #1

I have been so sick this week and between school, my husbands work, and me going to bed at 9pm every night this past week I was in some major need of husband time. After some negotiations with my mom I was able to talk her into watching the boys and letting Steve and myself try out our date box. We ended up having to go through most of the cards to see what we could actually do in the amount of time that we had.

Our card said to act like we were from opposite sides of town and try and hustle each other in a few games. Easy huh? Well except Steve knows how bad I am at pool and I know how great he is against me, but the hustling part I totally had down. We had also invited some good friends along for some friendly competition, but it was more like we invited them along to kick our butts. But I had a blast, it was so nice to get together and have an adult converstion without two little boys yelling "MOMMY" everytime I started to talk. It was also fun getting to watch the people at other tables trying to be so serious about their playing, and watching the two drunk women trying to pick songs out at the jukebox. After losing about six rounds we called it a night and went home, but I think my favorite part of the night was falling asleep to my husband playing footsie with me. He really is the most amazing man in the world.

my crazy eyes

It's Here!!!

Ok so yesterday I gave you guys a bit of a teaser and told you I had a big announcement to make :) Well I am very excited to say that I got to be a guest blogger today on a super great site called Naptime Diaries (just click on the link it will take you straight there). You have to go check out more of what I had to say about the Date in a Box, and to just check out her website in general. Jessi is a very open person sharing her daily triumphs and struggles with raising three super cute kids and with her faith in God. I know that every single one of you guys can relate to at least one thing she has to write about. So please check out her site and you will get a sneak peak at some of the dates you will get to hear about from the hubbs and me :)

Tomorrow!!!!

I have some exciting news for you guys tomorrow :) Stay tuned and you will see what it is (and no I am not annoucing I am preggos), its more letting you guys in on some of our date box stuff :)

Our Date in a Box

So as I mentioned two days ago I had the best Valentine's Day present ever! At least in my mind, and it will work perfect for my husband and me. I really wanted to do something homemade (I am semi-learning how to become Martha Stewart, I think my big sis Emilie will be so proud), and was racking my mind with what I could do. I then stumbled across a blog from a friend called the Dating Divas. It is an amazing blog you have to look it up. Anyway while reading it I came across one of their guest bloggers who wrote about her date in a box. The light bulb went off in my head and I just knew what my present would be. So with some random items I found around my house our date in a box came together. I started out with an empty oatmeal container, used some random material and bought some scrapbook stickers at Hobby Lobby. Then I looked around to see what else I could use and here is what I found... 

scrapbook scissors and some reversible mat stack paper...and here it is!!!

Our Date in a Box

52 different dates that we get to go on :)

I also googled fun dates, creative dates, cheap dates, you name it I googled and found so many fun ideas about this. My friend Salina blogs about some of her dates as well from their notecards they got called 52 Cheap Dates by Lynn Gordon, so I took a few from there too. Some of the dates online became repetitive, too adventerous for me, or kind of just silly so I came up with a few myself.   

I am more than excited about this, a different date for each week of the year. So I don't want to give away all of the date details yet but I will be writing about them when they happen. And if you guys don't know the story about my husband and myself, we only dated for two weeks before we got married. Let me tell you those two weeks were the most amazing getting to know someone time ever. We were so engrossed on getting to know each other I think we might have only gone on 3 actual dates. Then after a month and a half of being married we found out we were pregnant, so we didn't get to do much in the dating department. Now two sweet boys later we are actually going to get to go on some real dates that will be the time of our life.

P.S. My husband is pretty excited about this as well, he really liked his gift :)

Happy Early Valentine's Day

So it is the day before Valentines and let me just tell you I am so excited about what I made for my husband. I have never been the biggest fan of this holiday and I am still not but I am about to pee my pants for the gift I am giving him. This year instead of spending my money on him (or better yet his money on him) I thought home made would be much better, and I have spent so much time on it has become my baby almost. So there will be pictures tomorrow and all the information about this fantabulous gift (seriously I have outdone myself). YAY!!! In the meantime how about a picture of the man of my dreams. LOVE YOU STEVEO!

Asher took this!!

No Love for Each Other

Today was not the best day for me. A few things happen to make me very upset, which lead to me act in ways I didn't mean to as well as same some things that I am not very proud of. While I can't always change what I say, I can change the way I act and react. Later I decided to take a few minutes to myself and ordered a very yummy Vanilla Chai Latte, which made all the bad things disappear almost immediately (well in my mind it did), and I decided to reflect about my day.

Reflecting about my day today made me pretty sad. Loyalty to a company no longer matters because there are probably 100 more people that will replace the shopper that they lost. And just because one person decides to no longer give someone their business does not mean that others will because they feel there is no one else who will give them the prices or products the one place offers. Most of the time the situation isn't even passed on to a manager who can really help because the manager doesn't want to take the time out of their insane list of things to do to because they are busy enough as it is. So the employees offer a sympathetic smile (which is really just a smile plastered to their face and not at all real sympathy), say it is out of their hands and then go to the next person in line. People are then left with defective products and a horrible store experience (or even customer service experience) and are left to feel like it is their fault. And because we as the consumer are made to want so much we are just expected to buy it all over again, and the cycle continues.

So my thoughts are why are we like this? What happened to the customer always being right? While I have worked retail for many years and seen some crazy stories, if something is defective its defective, and you try your hardest to fix the situation because you want them to keep coming back. Are companies no longer standing behind their products because they no longer care about the consumer? Or is it because if they return something it goes against their "money made" and their bottom line goes down. Instead of helping the consumer and fixing the situation they are so quickly to turn you away and make you do all the leg work by going to the manufacturer. I also realize that so many people have scammed larger companies that it has forced them to tighten their policies but then that just screws over the honest people.

So why won't anyone take the blame? Why are we so quick to let pride get in our way, say we made a mistake and fix the situation? I can quickly attest to having a hard time taking the blame, and pride will rear its ugly head, then hours later I feel horrible and can't always fix what I have done. How sad is it that this is not the same for everyone? So then the consumer is left trying to find a new place to shop and feeling slightly defeated.

Change of Heart

So I don't know if most of you know or not but I am currently in school for nursing. I don't know why but for some reason I keep trying to go back to getting a degree in it, and then something changes my mind. This time I know for sure that I am not meant to have a degree in nursing. I love so much how much interaction nurses get with the patients and how they get to show them how to start taking care of themselves with whatever ails them. I don't know how much I could handle though taking care of so many sick people, when so much can be prevented in the first place. It always brings me back to my first major.

I first started going to UNCW for nursing (I know!), which then quickly changed to biology. But then I realized that as much as I loved it, it was not my passion. So after talking to a few people I decided to try some new classes in Health and I was hooked!!! My professors were so amazing and inspiring (thanks Dr. Perko and Dr. Kyzer.) I had a whole new outlook, and I was ready to take on the world, show them what I had learned, make them want to live a better life too. But then my life got in the way and all my passion sat on the back burner.

Now after being in nursing school again I realized that health really is my true passion. I want to show people how to live longer lives by being healthy, not doing what they want hoping they don't have a heart attack a stroke, or get cancer. I want to show people how being healthy isn't just about eating ok, but eating to help save our planet. I want to inspire people to grow a garden in their backyard, to eat organic, and to shop at their local farmers markets. I want people to see that what we do today not only affects our children but their children's children. I want everyone to love their planet as much as I do (and not because deep down I am a huge hippie), but because we don't get do-overs with this planet.

So I am going to go back to school for nutrition. I love cooking, I love food, and I love knowing what I am putting into my mouth is going to help my body and my family in so many great ways. And I want to be able to pass that on to others. I love being inspired, its one of the best feelings in the world knowing I can make a difference. What inspires you? 

Its the Victory in the Small Things



pregnant with asher, still had 3 months to go




pregnant with soren, 2 months to go

 I loved being pregnant. Getting to feel the bond of carrying a child, having those first kicks, hearing the heartbeat every month at the doctors office, and seeing my stomach contort like there was an alien in it was so much fun for me. I didn't even mind the labor very much (although I'm sure at that time with Asher I was completely wigging out.) In fact, if Steve would let me, I would have at least 2 more.

The thing I hated about being pregnant was what it did to my body after, the jiggly stomach, the stretch marks, and I think in general was just the way my body changed. As you can see in the pictures with Asher I was larger than huge and the 42 pounds extra on my body was nothing to brag about. I was also one of those women who didn't lose weight while breastfeeding (yay for me huh?) And so trying to lose all that extra weight was a huge challenge for me, one that I did not take lightly. So I dusted off my gym membership, started eating better, and worked my butt off. Just when I got to my almost pre-baby weight and felt semi-great about myself I found myself pregnant again.

Soren was a much easier pregnancy, and although I started out heavier than planned I only gained 30 pounds with him. I also worked out as much as I could during Asher's naps and tried to keep eating as healthy as possible only letting myself splurge some on the weekends. That being said my weight loss was just as hard, I lost most of it except those last 10 pounds. I knew I had to do something different again, so I gave up diet coke (my one love in the drink department), started my family on organic food (or as natural as possible in some cases), and gave up the fast food. That helped me lose another 5 pounds but grr why wasn't the weight dropping off.

So then if you have been keeping up I also gave up sugar, it was hard at first but now I look forward to my cheat days. I also started training for a 10k. I think this running has been so amazing to my body. I have so much more energy, I look forward to trying to eat as healthy as possible, and I have also started hating when I can't workout instead of thinking of it as the dreaded workout. And while I don't weigh myself all the time (its something I learned to do a long time ago, I absolutely hate scales), I do know that my body is changing again and this time for the best! I am finally able to get into my beloved Abercrombie jeans without that horrible muffin top and feeling like I am going to explode because I can't move my legs. So in just 3 weeks of training I have transformed my body again. I feel so great I did a happy dance in my jeans this morning! I have 7 more weeks of training and I can't wait to see what will happen next. Keep you guys updated!