I’m getting a new niece!

My step-sister had a gender reveal party this past weekend. Everyone was asked to wear pink or blue to guess the baby’s gender. Reece and I chose team PINK!

Katie (my sister) and her husband opened up a big box of balloons to announce the gender.

GIRL! Paisley Katherine will be making her arrival in January and we are SO excited to get another little girl in the family!

That one has me wrapped around her finger so I can only imagine how bad another girl will be! :) But seriously though, is she not the cutest?!?

Katie will be a great mommy, and I can’t wait to meet Paisley!

Protein Brownies!

I had a comment left asking for the recipe of my Dad’s protein brownies, so here you go! I haven’t attempted to make them myself yet, but I plan on it soon! They are yummy and will satisfy your chocolate craving.

Protein Brownies

6 scoops chocolate protein

1 1/2 cups oatmeal

1/2 cup flax seed meal

3 tbsp dark cocoa powder

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp oil (coconut, almond or olive)

3/4 cup skim milk

1 tbsp honey

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup shredded coconut

Place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl (except the shredded coconut) and mix together. Add oil, milk, honey and peanut butter and stir well. Keep mixing until evenly blended. Scoop some of the mixture with a tablespoon and form patties. Place each patty in the shredded coconut coating well. Place patties in Tupperware and store in freezer. Remove from freezer and allow patty to thaw and enjoy!

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Once I make them myself, I will give an update along with the exact calories in them!

A healthy lifestyle

I made the decision several months ago to get healthier. I wanted to lose a few pounds and with my health issues (arthritis, lupus, blah blah blah), I just wanted to feel better. So I began changing my eating habits and started working out at the gym several times a week. I’ve lost about 15 pounds since I started! Of course, I fell off the wagon tons of times, but I’ve always gotten back in to the swing of things.

Now, I am trying to lose another 5-8 pounds and I will be at my goal weight! I decided to record my typical day of eating and working out for my future reference and for you in case you are interested!

Breakfast:

4 boiled egg whites (I threw out the yolk): 68 calories

1 small red plum: 30 calories

1 can of Diet Mt Dew: 0 calories

1st bottle of water with Mio Energy: 0 calories

Workout:

I just started doing a Couch to 5K program and today I did Day Two. That burned about 96 calories.

2nd bottle of water: 0 calories

Lunch:

Chicken LoLo (grilled chicken tenders on top of sautéed zucchini, spinach and squash) from FIG: 300 calories

Side of fruit: 70 calories

3rd bottle of water: 0 calories

Snacks: (I usually have a snack between breakfast and lunch and then another snack or two between lunch and dinner!)

Skinny Cow Heavenly Crisp Bar: 110 calories

Protein Brownie (My Dad made this…it has coconut, protein and cocoa in it and that’s all I care to know!): 50 calories

19 Garden Veggie Ranch chips: 65

12 cocoa roasted almonds: 75

4th bottle of water (Propel): 0 calories

2nd Diet Mt Dew: 0 calories

Dinner:

Subway-6 inch Turkey on wheat bread with cucumbers and pepperjack cheese: 310 calories

1 bag of Subway apples: 35 calories

5th bottle of water (Propel): 0 calories

1 Sugar free Reese’s peanut butter cup: 36 calories

Snack:

2 Fun Size pieces of Hershey’s milk chocolate with almonds: 146 calories

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My caloric goal for the day is 1200 calories. If you counted, my net (calories consumed minus calories burned at the gym) caloric intake for the day was 1199. The only problem with that is that after I got home from church at around 8:30pm, I couldn’t resist having a small bowl of ice cream… that probably added on about 250 more calories. That puts me at about 1450.

Based on my sex, weight, height and activity levels, I burn about 1800 calories a day just doing normal things (breathing, walking around, standing up, changing diapers :), etc.). So I still burned more calories than I consumed, but I like to keep it under 1200 calories a day for my optimum weight loss.

My problems are (1) I REALLY love chocolate (2) I like to snack in the afternoons (3) I like to munch in front of the tv at night. If I can just get some more self control in those areas, I will get to my goal weight much sooner!

Brad’s Honduras Trip

I had high hopes of lavishing you with beautiful pictures of the Honduran landscape and heart-wrenching pictures of the sweet Honduran kids, but leave it to a man to go out of the country for a week and only take 11 pictures.

And only 3 of them weren’t blurry. He just can’t help himself. :)

I’ve never seen my husband wearing so much jewelry. He will do anything for those kids!

Here is my hubs and his best friend, Brian, hugging kids at the orphanage. I’m kind of surprised he didn’t bring one home in his suitcase!

I know that was just a tease, but I will try to get him to take more pictures next time! He already can’t wait to go back next year!

I’m back!

I have been in a MAJOR blog funk lately! I love reading blogs every day, but for some reason I just got burnt out on actually writing on my own. But I know I will miss reading about our family in years to come, so onward we go! :)

We have had a lot going on since I last posted so in an attempt to catch up, I’m going to post iPhone pictures!

Of course, we have been geocaching!

Noah had a parade at school for the 4th of July and he got to ride his Thomas. He was SO excited!

My fabulous friend (and neighbor!) has been keeping Noah for me when he’s out of school. Noah LOVES Natalie! I’m sure the ice cream dates have something to do with it!

Brad went on his yearly Honduras mission trip (the second time this year) in July. Noah and I had to rough it out and eat McDonald’s by ourselves!

Noah discovered an affinity for sour gummy worms. He gets this from his Tay Tay.

Sunday afternoon naps with my peanut. Which reminds me, Noah has started to call me “Mommy-Lou” now. Where he came up with this, I do not know. But it’s super cute. And kinda weird.

We have been looking for a new house. Our current house is a great starter home, but we are ready for our forever home. And when I say forever, I mean the house we can raise our kids in and stay there until they are grown! In this picture, we were looking at a house and Noah was roaming the back yard. He suddenly turned around to me and said, “Mommy! Take my picture of me at my new house!” So I did! (This is not where we are moving…just in case you were wondering!)

I have been wanting to try some healthy new recipes and I found a recipe on Pinterest for a lighter version of PFChang’s chicken lettuce wraps. These were pretty tasty!

Bella. My super spoiled first born.

I took Noah to the Children’s Hands-On Museum. He had so much fun! His favorite part was this ‘hospital room’. He loved playing with the ‘hospital food’.

A few weekends ago, Brad and I travelled over to Atlanta to visit our best friends and we took Noah to the aquarium. He had fun but he wasn’t as interested in the fish as I thought he would be. He was just happy to run around the building. He did love watching the otters and the dolphin show. We bought him a stuffed otter and dolphin from the gift shop and he is still sleeping with them!

While we were in Atlanta, we ate at The Varsity. We had never been before. It was packed out (I’m told it always is!), but we still enjoyed it! That’s my friend, Jenn!

On our way home from Atlanta, Noah got a strawberry shake from DQ. He thought he was so big getting to have a shake all by himself! He did SO GOOD on the car rides to and from Atlanta!

This past weekend, my sister went to the beach so we happily agreed to feed her animals…including the chickens! Noah said, “I need my BOOTS!”

Alrighty. I think that about catches us up! Hopefully I’ll quit being such a slacker and I won’t get so behind again! If you made it through that whole post, gold star for you!

Just a sangin’

One of the biggest blessings God has given me is the privilege to be able to lead worship on the praise team. I really can’t even find the words to describe it, but I have moments when I am singing and worshipping when I just feel like He is looking down and has the biggest smile on His face. I love using the gifts He has given me to glorify Him and do His will.

So my husband is in Honduras for the week. I am doing a LOT better than I did on his first trip. But Noah and I are missing him like CRAZY! :) I sang in a trio yesterday at church and Brad was disappointed that he wouldn’t get to hear it. I asked my friend to video the song with my super-high-quality iPhone camera (insert sarcasm here). Anyway, for our family that lives out of town or for anyone that just wants to see, here ya go!

Swimming

Over the holiday weekend, Brad and I took Noah swimming at his parent’s house. Noah likes the water, but normally he WILL NOT let go of you once you are in the pool. Even with his puddle jumper on, he is just scared to let go. For some reason, this time he lost all his fear and started swimming by himself! After watching his cousins, he even started jumping off the side of the pool all by himself! He is so proud of himself and we are proud too!

Now his favorite thing to do is watch those videos on my phone over and over and over again! :)