2011 to 2012

Will have to look back and see what all I wanted to accomplish, but happy new year! 2011 was great. Can't wait to see 2012 has in store.

5 things I am loving right now

I love it when people tell me what they love (or hate) as it gives me a little help which as a busy mom, I can always  use.  So here are some of the things I love right now.

1.  Peas and Thank You Cookbook

What can I say about this book?  It not only has great recipes but it is a hilarious read.  I read it as a book the first time around.  The stories she tells will have you laughing out loud.  We have tried many of the recipes already.  We even made Santa Mama Pea's Sugar Cookies (and he loved them BTW).  Check out her book if you are in the market for a new cookbook (or even if you are not).

2.  Garmin 305

I have not been running as much as I would like to right now, but I got this for my birthday a few years back and I wonder how I lived without it for so long.  It is so nice to just leave your house and start running.  If I want to run 6 miles, I can just leave in any direction and after 3 miles turn around and head home.  I don't have to spend time researching routes.  And I am a numbers person so I love having the miles I ran with the time it took me to run it, etc.  Love, love, love this thing!

3.  True Nutrition Protein Powder

This stuff I have found to be the best as far as vegan protein powders go without costing me a fortune.  I couldn't find anything good at the regular grocery store (where I traditionally bought hubby's), so I ventured to GNC where I found this brand.  It was the only vegan protein powder they had, so I bought it.  It wasn't bad.  I think I paid $13.99 for almost a pound.  It was chalky and I could only get the vanilla, but I was fine with that.  I thought I couldn't do any better unless I wanted to pay a fortune, until I found True Nutrition.  You create your own combination of protein powder and it's very reasonably prices (I would say cheap but you have to pay for shipping).  I got myself a combination of 1/2 pea protein and 1/2 rice protein, vanilla flavored, and unsweetened (I wanted to be able to sweeten it myself).  I got the hubs 2 different whey proteins, chocolate flavored, sweetened with stevia.  I ended up getting us each 2 lbs. because shipping was only a $1 more if we doubled our order, making it cheaper per pound.  I was nervous when it came, but wow, it is not chalky at all.  The powder is much finer and I am very happy with it.  I got 4lbs for $44 (2 vegan and 2 whey).  The whey is much more expensive than the pea and rice, but still very reasonable.  I have only made smoothies with it so far, but I am hoping to do some baking (bars) with it soon.  Maybe this weekend. 

Why the combination you might be asking?  Well I hated to just get all rice protein powder when I had the power to make any combination I could possibly think of.  I think those 2 are the only vegan options I used them both.  We also got the powder in the free bags to save money, so I had to transfer them into containers when it got here.  I may have just ended my search for vegan protein powder. 

4.  The Big Bang Theory

I had never seen this show, but the hubs started watching it over Thanksgiving OnDemand (love OnDemand) and thought it was pretty funny (did I mention he has a PhD in biochemistry).  I slowly started watching a few and have since gotten into it.  They show reruns on TBS now, so we caught a few while wrapping Christmas presents late at night after the kids were in bed.  It nice to be able to watch so many episodes that I haven't seen before. 

5.  Running Log Books

Because not all my runs occur on the road (and my Garmin can upload to the internet), it has been nice to have somewhere to put all my runs down on paper.  I got one of these a couple years back and used it last year.  I specifically asked for one last Christmas and hubs said it was a lot harder to find then he had anticipated, so he had to order it and it didn't make it here by Christmas.  Oops.  I like to have that one place where I can put everything and then look back and see where I have come from.  I forgot to ask for one for Christmas this year, so I guess I need to try and find one.  It appears book stores do not carry them, so I could order again, or maybe a running store? 

Bonus Love:  This guy

3 days before Christmas, my little guy slept through the night for the first time.  Since then, he has only woken up during the night twice.  It has made my life so much better now that I am sleeping more.  I have so much more energy and can actually get through the day.  Thank you son for sleeping (it only took 9 months and 10 days but who's counting).

So this is what I am loving right now.  What are you into?

Starting to sleep more, and feeling better

I know, I have been terrible, but being sick, not sleeping, and the holidays, I have had zero time to blog.

2 days before Christmas the little guy slept through the night for the first time. Yay!!! Since then, he has been doing really well. He doesn't always sleep through the night, but he does most nights and when we wakes up it's not for very long. Thank goodness!!! Only took 9 1/2 months. So now that he is sleeping, I have been recovering from being under the weather. I am not sick very often and I felt like I was sick forever this time around. But with the holidays, we have been so busy. I am still cooking a lot, some days more than others. Unfortunately, I did not take a lot of pictures but some things I love to make for the holidays are my mom's pumpkin bread recipe, which she used to make all the time during the holidays. I have kept the recipe the exact same except I made it vegan (exchanged real eggs for flax eggs), but that is the only change. The recipe calls for canola oil already so I don't have to change up the recipe much which is good because I wanted to keep it similar to what she used to make. Memories!

I also make semi-homemade cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. This was the first year I made them vegan. They turned out pretty well, but didn't rise the second time around as much as they should have so they didn't look very pretty, so I didn't want to take a picture of that either. Any tips to helping dough rise when it's cold outside?

Christmas

I got a new food processor.  I have only had a junior food processor and my magic bullet and I just needed a full size one.  Now, I am not sure where I am going to put it.  Do you store your food processor or do you keep it on the countertop?  I haven't gotten it out of the box, but the box is big so I am not about storing it. 

The kids had an unbelievable Christmas! 

No, Santa did not give her all of those.  Santa is responsible for the dollhouse. 

Being sick and tired, I have not gotten a lot of workouts in.  I have only run a handful of times and broke out the yoga dvd too, but not much.  I know I need to get back to working on my abs.  I have neglected them for too long.  I don't know if they are just weak because I haven't done as many ab workouts after the little guy compared to Hope or if my abs are just shot after carrying 2 babies.  My new goal is abs 3 times a week. 

I also signed up for the GA Publix Half Marathon a while back.  I plan to do a 10 week training plan which will start in mid January.  I would like to start running again constantly before then so I am ready to train.

How was everyone's Christmas?  Were you naughty or good?  Santa knows!

Where have I been and Turkey Trot 5k

Let's see . . . kids not sleeping, crazy holiday travels which require me to start packing and prepping weeks in advance, and a tired mama.  The good part was since the hubs had only taken off 4 days all year (when our son was born), he was due for a vacation.  And surprisingly, even though I took off 12 weeks from work, I still had plenty of vaca time as well.  My dad invited the whole family (extended fam) to FL for Thanksgiving.  My brother-in-law (the genius that he is) decided we should take off the entire week and if we were going to take the whole week off, then why not leave the Friday before Thanksgiving after work.  I tell you the man is a genius.  So, the week before Thanksgiving, hubs and I started gathering up everything to pack for 8 days in FL.  So the kids and I took and picked up the hubs from work on Friday and started our way down to FL.  I was so excited to have an easy Thanksgiving.  The trip down was uneventful but we didn't arrive until 1:15am.  Yikes!  Of course both kids woke up and it took a little while to get them back down.  For all the families coming down, we had 3 condos.  So Saturday, we were able to trade off some to get some much needed naps.  The weather was ok on Saturday, overcast but in the high 60's.  We made our way to the beach to do some playing.  The ocean was freezing.

The days following were warm and sunny and we were able to hang out at the beach for some time during the day. 

On Thanksgiving, we had a number of family members who participated in the 5K Turkey Trot near where we were staying.  We knew the course would be flat (hello, FL), so everyone was hoping to do well.  I finished 2nd in my age group (24:05), my brother-in-law won his age group (19:30) and my father-in-law won his age group (24:33).

Dinner was stress free and then we headed home last Saturday.

My lack of posting is from my darling son still not sleeping well and I just haven't had the energy to write or run for that matter (have not even exercised once this week and it's Thursday afternoon).  Also, since my daughter has started school, I have had more responsibility (I am the PTO President of her pre-school and chairperson for the Breakfast with Santa).  I have been cooking some, but haven't posted many recipes yet.  I took pictures, so if I ever get around to it, you will see I am still going. 

I hope to post more soon.

Marathon Relay - Recap

Last weekend, I got the privilege to run in the Atlanta Marathon Relay for Team Trees Atlanta.  I had never run in a marathon relay, and really had a good time.  I liked the "team" aspect of the race.  I was not in charge of the team, so I just got to sit back and see how it was all going to pan out.  That Staruday, I actually walked a 5k for Making Strides against Breast Cancer.  One of my bunko/tennis friends formed a team, and we walked the 5k together.  Because it was not competitive at all, I was able to bring my jogging stroller and both kiddos (yep, hubby had the entire morning to himself).  The kids were awesome that morning.  We even ended the morning with a nice little breakfast at one of my favorite places - The Flying Biscuit.  I had the scrambled tofu (so yummy). 

Ok, back to the marathon relay, it was going to be cold so I was trying to figure out what I was going to wear.  All I knew was that I was going to get a Trees Atlanta shirt, but I was pretty sure it was going to be short sleeved.  On Friday I was told I would be doing the first leg (5.1 miles with a lot of uphills).  Well by Saturday afternoon, it had changed.  Now I was going to do the longest leg (8.4 miles with some hills).  The captain was going to run the first leg and then run with me on the 2nd leg (he wanted to get a real workout in).  Fun!  Someone to run with!

Sunday morning, I was up at 4:15am with the little guy, and no, that was not the first time he was up either.  So by the time my ride (the captain and my brother-in-law) picked me up at 5:30am, I was wide awake and very talkative.  We rode down to the race and got the lay out.  We met up with our teammates and then I was off to get on the bus to take me to the 1st exchange.  I got on the last bus and he even got lost, but that was fine with me because it was a lot warmer in the bus than waiting around outside.  I had decided not to use the porta potty at the start, but to wait until I got to the exchange.  Yeah, there was a line.  It took me forever to get through it but I didn't have anything else to do. 

The race had started.  They were giving us updates as to when the first person got to each mile.  Then as more runners came on, the race volunteers started shouting the numbers as they approached.  It wasn't too long before I heard 137.  Holy moly!  That's my team.  I got ready and saw Eric (captain + brother-in-law + awesome runner).  He passed the arm band to me and then we were off.  He was telling me about the course he had just run (he didn't think it was too bad at all), and that first 1.5 miles went back super fast.  I couldn't believe how well we were doing.  I told him I wanted to do a 8:20 minute/mile pace, or at least that was my goal.  The men on my team are pretty fast so I didn't want to slow them down too much.  We chatted and he coached me through some crazy hills, we had some gu, drank some water, and then between miles 9 and 10 of the marathon was our cheering section.  Trees Atlanta volunteers were out screaming and cheering for us.  They were so excited to see us and I got really pumped after seeing them.  Eric talked me through the rest of my leg, and we finished my leg averaging 8:31 pace.  Not too bad.  I passed the band to the next teammate and looked for my family.  Found them.  Unfortunately, they missed us coming in so, no running pics of me. 

Just after we finished.  Go Team Trees Atlanta.


My personal cheerleader with my medal and some chocolate milk.

And of course, my brother-in-laws cheerleader, who is not a morning person (aka my baby sister).

Our team finished our relay in just over 3:36.  Pretty awesome if you ask me.  It was a fun race, and I would definitely do it again. 

And just because I missed a good Halloween post, here are the kiddos all dressed up.

(Ariel/mermaid and a peapod)

Look what I won

I won a giveway from Natalie over at Lil Runner.  I now have some fall flavors of Clif bars.  Yum!

I survived Hopeapalooza

Last week was such a crazy week, I can't believe I survived.  My little girl is 3 years old.  I can't believe it.  I feel like she is a child now, not a baby or even a toddler (I know she is technically still a toddler, but it doesn't feel like it). 

Little Miss Hope Cecile has been giving us drama from the very beginning.  Not only was she conceived with love, but also modern science and medicine.  Then when I was 20 week pregnant, her growth dropped a little.  They told us not to worry but come back for another extensive ultrasound in 6 weeks.  We did and she had dropped even more, being diagnosed with borderline IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction).  I was put on modified bestrest and told to consume as many calories as possible (easy to say after they freak you out so bad that the thought of food makes you want to vomit).  I won't take you through all of the details, but the specialists wanted me induced after she stopped growing at 38+ weeks which was something I didn't want, but had been so upset for so long, I just wanted her out and healthy.  The induction went well and relatively fast for inductions and my "miracle" baby was born on Oct. 14, 2008 at 7:30am (yep I labored all night long).

3 years later, . . .

For her birthday, we took her out to dinner and to see Disney on Ice - Dare to Dream.  Dinner was nearby the arena at Johnny Rockets.  Little Hope wanted a "pink" shake and chicken fingers.  And they have a very good veggie burger, so I was happy. 

At first, she didn't like the show. 

We were very close, it got dark fast, and it was loud, so it was a good 20 minutes before she calmed down.  She survived and really enjoyed the second half.  The next day was her family birthday party, aka Christmas for Hope. 

For dinner, I did 2 veggies soups, vegetarian chili with butternut squash (pretty much used this exact recipe), and baked potato soup.  The chili is very good, btw.

For her cake, Hope wanted a pink cake with pink icing and pink ice cream. 

It was a whirlwind weekend, but we survived and lived to tell the story, including this guy . . .