Weekending

This past weekend was a busy one.  Friday night we met some friends for happy hour and drinks at our local Mexican place, always good!  Saturday was kinda nuts, we had lots of errands to run, places to be, but thankfully we made it through the day and we even made it to church at 5, win!

Although I kinda just wanted to do this all weekend...

But ya know, kids, house, food.

Sunday was quiet, Brad and the girls went to Paynesville to watch one of our good friends daughter play vball.  I stayed home and relaxed.  Just kidding, I cleaned my house (including scrubbing the floors, ALL of them!!), finished laundry and meal prepped.  Felt good to get everything done.

My friend Annie is a pretty big deal over at Beachbody..  We met through blogging and after having her third child who has Down Syndrome, she decided to get healthy, and man did she ever!  She is an amazing woman who is changing lives and lives her faith.

She posted this on her Facebook page awhile back and it has stuck with me.  I always complain "if I could just lose these extra 5 pounds, 10 pounds".  After reading this, I decided I'm good with where I'm at.  I don't exercise to lose weight, I do it because I need for my mental health.  Even just doing the 15 minutes/day has helped so much!

Emma has really been into cooking/baking lately and I decided that once/week is her night to cook!  Sunday night she made these pizza twists with dipping sauce, they were amazing!

She also made this chocolate almond frozen dessert, delicious!

I love that she is taking on some cooking!  We watched Julie and Julia on Saturday night (one of my fave movies) and she said, "maybe I need to start blogging my meals??!!"  Um yes please!!

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Linking up with Tuesday Talk

What's Up Wednesday

Linking up with Shay, Mel and Sheaffer for another What's Up Wednesday!!

 What We're Eating This Week:

I've really been on top of meal planning and prepping!  I've been making some good ole standbys and also plugging in some new recipes.  

I had the meatloaf, lasagna and pizza dough in the freezer which makes my life so much easier!!  Here is what we've had this week:

Monday:  Meatloaf and mashed potatoes

Tuesday: Venison sausage and fries

Wednesday: Lasagna, ceasar salad and garlic bread

Thursday:  Emma's night to cook!  She is making pizza twists

Friday:  Homemade pizza

Emma has been into cooking and baking (which I love!) and this weekend she made homemade churros with chocolate sauce, YUMM!!

 What I'm Reminiscing About:

Mexico!  We went to Mexico in 2010 with 4 other couples and had an AMAZING time!!

We decided to take the kids to Mexico in February, and while I am excited to relax and not think about work or life, I am just not quite into it yet.  When we went the last time, I was a working out machine, tan and felt amazing.  This time I'm pretty sure I will look like a beached whale, but oh well.

What I'm Loving:

I shared with you how I am getting up early to have some quiet time since the New Year started and I am LOVING it!!  I seriously can't wait to go to bed just to get up early and have some "me time".

What We've Been Up To:

Volleyball, volleyball and more volleyball!!

Rachel had a tournament in the cities on Sunday and they did SO well!!  They ended up placing 4th out of 12 teams.  They have a great group of girls and all get along so well!  It's going to be a super fun season of watching them play and hanging out with some fun families.  I also have been making sure I am on top of my meal prep, and of course made my famous granola bars that everyone loves, I'll share the recipe this week!  One of her teammates who she was on a team with 2 years ago told me she was so excited to be on a team again with Rachel so she could have my granola bars again, ha!

What I'm Dreading:

Absolutely nothing.  Since my trial is done, I can't even tell you how amazing I feel, and so relaxed!!

What I'm Working On:

With Mexico coming up here shortly, I've been so disappointed in myself for not working out.  With the holidays and the stress of trial, I hadn't worked out in a couple months, and my workouts before then were super spotty.  I have ALWAYS worked out, even while pregnant, so I've just been really down about it.

My amazing treadmill is 16 years old, and I love her to pieces, but I'm bored with her right now.  I decided to get my old workout videos and totally forgot I had Tony Horton's 10 Minute Trainer.  I decided to do one video everyday until Mexico.  With the warm up and cool down, it's about 15 minutes.  Now that I can do!  I get the best workout and am a sweaty mess in 15 minutes!

What I'm Excited About:

Mexico!  I cannot wait to relax on the beach with a good book and a cocktail!

What I'm Watching/Reading:

I'm watching all the Chicago shows (Med, Fire, PD) and of course "This Is Us".  LOVE this show!!  I seriously ball at every.single.episode.  Ridiculous.

I just finished another Kindle book, "Deliver Her" by Patricia Perry Donovan.  It was ok, but not one of my faves.  I ordered 2 books from Amazon, "It Ends With Us" by Colleen Hoover and "Barefoot" by Elin Hildebrand.  I'm super excited to read these!!

What I'm Listening To:

At work we have iHeartRadio and we started listening to the Rewind channel and it's SO good!  It's a lot of the good 70's and 80's stuff!

What I'm Wearing:

Nothing fancy.  I'm trying to order some clothes for Mexico.  Ugh.  Not impressed is all I have to say...

What I'm Doing This Weekend:

Not a DAMN thing and I cannot wait!!  Our whole entire weekend is open and this hasn't happened since before Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving??  I plan to get caught up on some TV and reading.

What I'm Looking Forward to Next Month:

Ummm, Mexico??!!

What Else Is New:

We are working on finishing our lower levels.  We built a 4 level home 10 years years ago, and only finished the family room on the lower 3rd level.  The 4th level has always been storage and where my treadmill and craft stuff is.   Brad has been working on finishing it since a year ago last December.  For a whole year everything has been boxed up and in the garage, family room, and anywhere else that has room to store stuff.  Thankfully it will hopefully be done this spring and I CANNOT wait!  I'm tired of disorganization and dust, lol.

That's our life right now, busy, busy, busy but oh so good!!

Friday Favorites- New Years Addition

Thank goodness Friday is here!  Linking up with the usual suspects, Andrea, Erika and Narci. 

 It's been a long week, but a good one.  After last week , I feel like a different person, and it's been wonderful!  

I wanted to talk a bit about my goals for the new year.  I love January 1st.  It's like a new beginning, a fresh start and I am all about new beginnings!

I love making New Years resolutions and  am actually pretty good at sticking with them and I kinda love the challenge.

I decided this year to pick a word.  I thought about it for a few weeks because I really wanted it to "represent" me. This year, my word is:

GROW

Grow in my job:  I started a new job in August, and I feel like it was meant just for me.  It is completely different than my previous job and somewhat stressful.  But I feel like I have a purpose here and my co workers are truly amazing!  I would love to work my way up and be in charge of HR.  Might take a few years, but I know I can do it.

Grow in my friend base:  I have some really amazing friends, and I am ready to get more involved.  I would LOVE to be a part of a book club, freezer cooking club, or just having monthly get togethers to hash out life.  I really need this addition.

Grow in my faith:  I have been pretty good about doing my morning devotionals.  I love, love, love Jesus Calling.  I swear every one I read is meant just for me, haha!

I also do a few prayers from Stormie O'Martians book, 

There are 31 prayers to pray over your kids, I like to pick 3 to pray every morning.

I then do one prayer from her book, Power of a Praying Wife.  Love this book too, 

This is another quick devotional that I love to read in the morning.  

I then get my Bible out and will read some from that.  I have the app She Reads Truth on my phone.  I am (slowly) reading the Bible from start to finish, and this app has it laid out very well.  I read the Bible from cover to cover several years ago and really enjoyed it.

I have been getting up really early in the mornings and am LOVING my quiet time!  I light a candle, make my coffee, start the fireplace and just let myself be in the moment.

Grow my Talents:  I am a crafty person by nature, and have loved doing crafts and lots of scrapbooking.  All that fit well into my schedule when I stayed home and did daycare.  However since working outside the home for the last almost 5 years, I haven't found time to do any of that.  I want to find my creativity again.  A couple weeks ago, Emma and I sat down and practiced some calligraphy style writing and it was SO fun!!

Grow with my Family:  This does not mean grow another family member, haha!!  I was feeling for awhile (last fall) like we were a bit disconnected, but I really feel like we've been together a lot and lots of fun playing cards and games.  I think the best compliment was when Rachel's boyfriend told her that he loves hanging out with us because we have so much fun!  One thing we have slacked on is family devotionals.  We are not regular church goers, but we used to have Sunday night family devotionals and do the rosary once a month.  I want us to get back to that.  Any good family devotional books you love?

Grow With my Health:  My workouts are SEVERELY lacking.  I used to walk/run at least 3-4 times a week.  It's been at least 3 weeks since I've done anything, ugh.  My eating is spot on, but I need to workouts for mental clarity.   

I am also back on track with meal planning/prepping.  My perfect Sunday is finding new recipes and prepping everything for the week, it's so relaxing for me!

This week we had:

Smothered Pork Chops

Chicken Ala King (From Mix and Match Mamas cookbook)

Panini's and soup

Sausage and potatoes

Alayna and I also made a meatloaf and a lasagna to freeze for next week.  It feels so good to have that organized.

So there ya have it.  I have everything organized and together for this week.  And I know that everything will change tomorrow and I will feel completely overwhelmed again, haha!!

Life Lately

Life lately has, well, kinda sucked.  Not gonna lie.  Last week I had court for a car accident I was involved in 4 years ago.  We decided to go after the insurance company, and we lost.  It was by far the hardest, most stressful thing I've had to go through.  But it's done, and I can't change the outcome.  It's really hard to sit there and listen to someone say not the nicest things about you, but I am very proud that I stood up for myself, and know that it needed to be done.

Now we move forward and I'm not looking back.  I know that God has all this planned out and I am trusting in Him completely.  I am SO grateful for what I have.  Even though it was unbelievably stressful, it is so minor compared with what others are dealing with, and I am focusing on that.

Having that stress gone is SO wonderful!  I feel like I am back to myself and am grateful I can eat again!!!

This weekend was glorious.  Saturday we were home and just hung out watching movies all day.  The girls and I did get some cleaning done and laundry, and I did get some meal prepping in too.

Sunday was Rachel's first volleyball tournament, and they played so well! (She's #13)

They have a really good team this year and came in 3rd in the gold division!!  We are so excited to watch them play this year.

Her 2 BFF's came out to watch her and Taylor, love these girls!!

We were actually home by 2, so I finished meal planning and prepping.  Alayna was my sous chef and she put a lasagna together.  After a disaster of a week last week, I was determined to hit the jackpot with meals this week, haha!!

Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful New Years weekend!  It was the perfect mix of relaxing, organizing, cooking, and spending time with friends.

Friday night was a very chill night, I went grocery shopping so I could meal plan and prep.  Brad and I are starting the Fast Metabolism Diet again, so it was lots of fruits and veggies in that cart! We played games with the girls and I think we were in bed by 9:30, haha!

Saturday was just a nice day of getting caught up.  Brad worked on the basement all day and I cleaned, finished laundry and got some cooking done.  My goal for the weekend was to organize and meal plan/cook and I definitely accomplished that!

We headed over to Brad and Trisha's around 6 and enjoyed playing games and eating, and then eating some more.  I guess that's what happens when you know your diet starts January 1...Rachel made a taco dip to bring, and we thoroughly enjoyed all the foods!

Love all of the kiddos.  And I really love that they still want to hang out with us, I know those days  will soon end...

Sunday was a total chill day.  Brad and I literally did nothing and it was glorious!  We both needed a day to veg out.  I started a new book, "Present Over Perfect" by Shauna Niequist.  I really like it so far and think it is a great read for the beginning of 2017.

I read her book, "Bread and Wine" last year and it quickly became one of my favorites, I've read it twice!  It is a must read for 2017.

Emma and I spent Sunday night practicing our handwriting skills.  Ummm, I think she found her calling!!

Sunday afternoon Rachel's boyfriend Matt came over and I made a pasta bar for supper.  I had spaghetti and fettuccine noodles with spaghetti sauce, alfredo sauce and grilled chicken and shrimp.  It was divine!  We spent the evening playing the game Tripoly and laughing at Alayna's antics...

I got my menu board ready to go, and put one of my favorite quotes on it.  There is a sign at work with this quote and I love it, so true!

Tonight I had Rachel make the oven roasted chicken and veggies and it was a hit!  I had the chicken marinating for a couple days so all she had to do was cut up the potatoes and add broccoli.  She sprinkled Montreal Chicken seasoning and it was SO good!  All three girls gave it a thumbs up.

source

Thursdays the girls make supper, so Emma will be in charge of the soup.  She found a recipe for homemade tomato soup that she might make instead of the tuscan soup.  I love that they are getting so handy in the kitchen, makes it so much easier for me!