Memorial Day Giveaway! $100 Amazon gift card or PayPal Cash!!!

$100 Amazon Gift Card or PayPal CASH 24-Hour FLASH Giveaway!!!

 

A few AWESOME Bloggers have teamed up to give you this wonderful $100 Amazon Gift Card or PayPal CASH! We believe in quick, small, and easy giveaways! Our giveaways only have a FEW entries to fill out! WHAT FUN! Good luck on this giveaway! See you back on Wednesday for another great FLASH giveaway!

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Mama Luvs Books

Emptynester Reviews

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Sweepstakes Mama

Building Carpenters 

Sarah's Blog of Fun 

Linda's Angels

Africa's Blog

Penny Pincher Jenny

Powered By Mom 

Mom Does Reviews 

Miki's Hope

US Deals and Coupons

My Wrinkle in Time 

Mom To Bed By 8

Baby Gators Den

Give Oh Giveaway 

Divas With A Purpose

Snip Shop Save

Tory's This And That

Enchanted Savings

May Days

We have been running around like mad lately. May has been busy and, thankfully, it is starting to get warm. I realized that I have taken lots of pictures this month, but I never have the time to edit them. I guess I need to be less worried about that and just get some memories up on the 'ole blog before I turn around and have high-schoolers on my hands. So what has been filling our days besides work and cleaning my house?

• Running through the sprinklers. I really wish we had them in the backyard, but I'm ok with being that family who sets lawn chairs up in the driveway and lets the kids run around in the front yard.

• Climbing trees. Every chance this kid gets he is up in the tree in the back yard. Sometimes he can even get himself down. Do you know how hard it is to get a 53 pound kid out of a tree? Mama's back is tired.

•  Playing in the garden beds. Aka, go turn the soil for me so I don't have to do it before we plant our veggies! I have a feeling I will be sorry I ever let them play in there. Let's just hope she doesn't attempt to scoop any of our seedlings out of "her garden".

•  Falling out of the garden bed. She will hate me for this shot one day, but I had to do it. ;)

•  Eating watermelon sherbet. Our local ice cream stand has the best sherbet. Lucky for me it is only 100 calories because I like it a lot. A LOT.

•  Watching the bushes and trees bloom. I need to plant more colorful flowers in the backyard this year too. Next weekend...or so I keep telling myself at the end of each Sunday. 

•  Getting injured and giving me this dramatic face. I am in for some looks in the teenage years.

•  Fun at the circus. Or not. I hadn't been since I was a kid and lemme tell you, the Peta people outside with the elephant signs kinda squashed the mood for me. Note to self, find a circus without animals to attend.

•  Bouncy house cage matches with friends. Batman meets Power Ranger. What can be more fun and energy zapping than that?? 

• Running half marathons.... I will save this for a post tomorrow. It needs more than a bullet point!

Running down a dream

I am sitting here on a Saturday night reading blogs. It is Cinco de Mayo. This afternoon I had a good laugh with my husband about how, in younger years, we would have been drunk by now.  Oh the days before kids and real responsibility. Now, instead of imbibing margaritas I am drinking water in preparation for my long run tomorrow. By long, I mean l-o-n-g (for me anyway). Tomorrow will be the first time I will run 11 miles. Last week was 9.5 miles and the sense of accomplishment I felt after I finished was amazing. It was quickly followed by another feeling....aching. My 33 year old body wishes that my 20-something body had taken up running years ago. Well, I didn't then but I am proud to say that I have now.

Two weeks from tomorrow I will run 13.1 miles. Yikes! The thought of me running a half marathon is mind-blowing to me. I talked about it a while ago,when I first started training. Ten weeks have gone by and I am sticking with it. That in and of itself is an accomplishment for me. I tend to peter out when it comes to sticking with exercise. The only other time I kept up a routine successfully was when I got in shape for my wedding. I wore a strapless dress. Damn, I need my wedding back back.

I know running isn't the answer to getting myself to where I want to be, but it is a big part of the goal. Sticking to it. Forming a habit. A healthy one. Now if only I could wire my jaw shut or find a way to say no to the treats, I'd be set!

First Day: May 2012

If the first day of this month was an indcator of how the rest of May will go, wake me up on the first day of June.

Join us at Nicole's for the first day project!

Easter fun

Easter 2012 was fun and hectic. I learned that I should not help my hubby, BIL and SIL house 3 bottles of wine on the eve of a screeching holiday. This list shall include Christmas, Easter and birthdays...or any other day when I expect excited children receiving gifts to run screaming through the house. Wait, if you minus the gifts part that sounds like every other day. Maybe I shouldn't drink at all, but I digress.

Arielle wanted boots and a "ba-rella" and the Easter bunny came through. They loved their baskets and of course jelly beans were eaten before breakfast.

The played out in the yard and Arielle toted the umbrella around everywhere. (Slightly out of focus, boo, but I love the face she's making).

Nate got a new hat and was convinced it was his Indiana Jones hat. I swear this kid can turn a peep into a fire breathing something that he needs to slay. We visited with my other BIL, his girlfriend and the boys' mom and her husband for a couple of hours. As if I wasn't already exhausted after all of that, we had to get ready for Easter at the other In-laws!

 The best laid plans of taking super cute shots are always thwarted by silly faces, blinking, lighting speed movements and the fact that my backyard is super boring. I need to get some color happening back there! Of course I didn't get one good one of them looking at me, but this one of them looking at each other made me melt.

We finally made it to the in-laws' house and the eating began. I planned on taking more pictures, but once the food came out, my camera sat idle and my hands decided that a fork was a better tool! We had a fun day that ended with me passing out at 8 putting Nate to bed, but time spent with family made it special. They might be crazy but I love them! 

First Day: April 2012

 

Faces of Nate

He cracks me up EVERY day.

March Madness...

...that has nothing to do with basketball. What madness am I speaking of? Oh, you know, the kind that starts the first day of the month off with snow and then 3 weeks later does this...

WTFrick?? Seriously.

When I saw the forecast for last week and noticed that every day was supposed to range from high 60's through the 80's, I decided to take a day out of work.  I spent the day with my hubby. We went shopping for spring fashions (mine not his) and then had our first frozen lemonade of the year. 

Arielle was digging the warmer weather all week in true puppy fashion. 

She kept asking me to roll down her window so she could open her mouth and face the wind.

This further solidifies my argument that two year olds are much like small animals.

 The kids played in the yard in short sleeves and then in shorts. I had to go dig the summer bins out of the basement a full 2 months ahead of schedule.

This week has been glorious.

 I have run outside 4 times and have felt happier than I have since the cold set in.

Of course, the forecast for the next 2 weeks shows temps back into the 40's and 50's, but it's coming.

Summer is almost here and we're looking at life through these.

Menu Planning Sunday

This is going to be a busy week filled with a birthday, consignment sale and a hectic week at work so I am actually going to make 2-3 of these meals tonight and tomorrow so they are ready to go during the week!

Sunday: Roasted Chicken and veggies with beet salad.
Monday:Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie
Tuesday: Turkey Burgers with zucchini fries
Wednesday: Birthday dinner out with the hubbs. Kiddos get to eat frozen fish fillets and edamame
Thursday: Mexican lasagna (I promise I will do the recipe post on it this time!)
Friday: Chicken Marsala

I am also trying to work more vegetarian dishes into our lineup. If you have any good ones, leave me a link!

Notes on last week:

• Creamy tomato and Chicken sausage pasta was excellent! See last week's post for suggestions and what I changed.
• Cod was good. A little secret is that I really don't like fish. I eat it because it is good for me and the kids and hubby like it. This dish, however, was pretty good. I actually ate a whole portion of fish, which I usually don't. I think the turkey kielbasa that was in it helped. I think next time I will add some fresh oregano to add to the flavor.
• Creamy chicken taquitos were a hit, yet again. 
• BBQ pork loin was really good. I am finding such a difference in the quality of our meat since we started shopping at Whole Foods! For lack of time, I ended up making mashed potatoes instead of roasted.
• The shrimp were good, as always. :)
• We ended up having pizza again on Friday. I am starting to hate pizza. Not that this is relevant to my post,but I seriously don't want to eat it again for a long time.