Uncorked Masterpiece

Our April wine club outing was a new adventure for us. We may be pros at drinking wine, but we are amateur painters at best!

We brought wine and appetizers and dessert and got down to business. We ended up having a great time and our canvases turned out completely different but really great. We even kind of want to go back.

Happy 2nd Birthday Emily!

While the boys were off camping, the girls were off celebrating baby Emily's second birthday! We headed to the new house and Lila walked right in and started eating. Who would have thought?

Emily was excited about her party dress, and to show off her dancing moves! She had a lot of room in the new house to twirl and jam out. We didn't get a lot of pictures, since I was keeping Lila fed and off the stairs. But once presents started, Lila was super excited about Emily's tricycle! While we were all eating cake, she hopped on it to try!

She was also happy to be fed cake (and any other food) by Uncle Eric. She shared a plate with me, had cake, and then took a handful of macaroni off of Jeni's plate too! Silly hungry baby!

Happy birthday sweet girl!

New food

So I went to the grocery store on a mission yesterday. I've found that breakfast is my Achilles heel - if I start the day off well, I feel better, I have more energy, I *want* to eat better. But let's face it. Sometimes, it's hard enough to get two dressed, clean, fed kids out the door by 645am and a biscuit on the way is just easier. But it's terrible for you when you make a habit of it. So this weekend I decided to make a plan. I had seen recipes for breakfast burritos you can freeze on Pinterest ages ago. I pulled up my Pinterest and decided to make a shopping list based on some foods I could feel good about eating, and feeding my kids. I stuck to mostly the "outside" of the store, because as you get closer the food becomes less real. When I went to check out, I was pleasantly surprised that 95% of my cart was fruit, veggie, whole grain and protein. Let's be honest, Hayden had to have chocolate syrup.

First up was the burritos. I LOVE eggs. And in the morning, that's what I'm craving, the protein. The bacon and eggs, not the biscuit itself. Eggs were on sale and I picked up some bacon, spinach and mushrooms. I figure I need to mix it up a little, so I went with a bacon egg & cheese version on whole wheat, and spinach, mushroom & egg on low carb tortilla with some Skinny Cow sun-dried tomato basil mozzarella cheese (man what a mouthful!). I made five of each, which gives me two full weeks of breakfast.

I also picked up the stuff to make carrot zucchini bars, which I'm hoping Lila will eat as well. She's been anti-green veggie lately so I'm trying to make it more fun. Anything she can feed herself is generally approved. I also made some homemade apple chips while the burritos were in the works. Couldn't be easier! I love dried fruit but it's stupid expensive. So I got two Red Delicious apples, cored and sliced, sprinkled with cinnamon and baked on parchment paper at 275 for two hours, turning after an hour. Voila, healthy snack! Next up will be the banana chips, but those jokers take FOUR hours.

I have the ingredients for zucchini boats (like a twice baked potato but minus the carbs) that I hope to prep tonight and cook one night this week. The recipe says they are best right out of the oven, so I may just cook one a night. I know Jay won't eat them, but Lila might! Hayden is definitely in an "I only like five things" phase so we'll just keep those in the rotation. Chicken was also on sale, so I'll be grilling up a week's worth of chicken to go with either brown rice or sweet potatoes, and my salad at lunch. I find when I have it ready to go in the fridge, I'll take my lunch and save money and not eat like crap. So here's to new food and preparation!

And I finally broke down and bought the Peace, Love & Low Carb cookbook on e-book when it was on sale this week. I can't wait to try out all the recipes!

March Madness

H: when do the Tarheels and the Dukes play?

Me: Well not until November dude, they lost.

H: but they gotta win, they're my favorite.

Me: Mine too buddy.

H: Well I'm a Tarheel boy, can I play on the team?

And this is where I know he's mine :-)

Testing testing 1, 2, 3

So I got an iPhone. And I'm testing a blog from it. I don't anticipate a huge life change coming from a new phone, but maybe I'll blog more? Nah.

Happy 2nd Birthday Lindsey!

We took a quick trip to the other side of Winston-Salem for a sweet little girl's 2nd birthday party! Hayden loves new friends and has never met a stranger, so he was WAY excited to go to a party.

Lindsey was a shy little birthday princess but once we were there a bit she started to warm up. It warmed up outside and once the toys were out, everyone had a good time!

Lindsey really liked handing me Lila's cup, which Lila kept throwing down so it gave us a lot of time to bond :-) Lila liked driving the car so she spent most of the time in there.

The birthday girl was extra sassy in her "invisible" sunglasses and princess hat! She is too cute.

She was super good at opening presents! You can tell she's had some practice. Once they were all opened, the bubble machine was filled and open for business!

The kids all had a great time, and the mommies got to catch up a little too!