31 years

Happy Friday!

I started my day off right by getting up and running a good 3 miles and then doing my 3000 club exercises:

40 pushups, 40 burpees, 150 crunches. 

Breakfast was oats, 2 egg whites and a tablespoon of natural peanut butter that I took to the office!

Yesterday was my 31st Birthday and I couldn't have planned it better!!

Let me back up to Wednesday night though.

While I was at work, Clint and Ava were busy bees. 

I walked up the stairs leading to the house in the garage and saw signs made and taped up by the door!

Aww so sweet!

I walked in and was welcomed to

A "Happy Birthday" sign,

pink and zebra balloons and streamers.

I was so surprised!!

Then I look at the table and they had made quiche, breakfast casserole AND a Lemon Chess pie!

I was overwhelmed!!!  It was the best surprise!!!

Yesterday morning, I got up after Clint left for work and went to go make coffee.

He had scattered sweet notes and words of affirmation ALL over the house!!

Best husband ever!

I had my coffee and started some laundry, cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen (that doesn't stop even if it is your birthday!).

Ava woke up around that time, so I got her settled with some leftover casserole and Cinderella and then I went to get on the treadmill. 

Only to find a new workout band and another note from Clint.

After I finished, I just kind of sat and took it all in. 

I turned 31 years old, am 11.5 weeks pregnant, and ran 8 miles with an 8:54min mile average. 

I was pretty dog-gone proud of myself!!

I showered and ate a late breakfast and then we played with dolls and I combed and braided Rapunzel's hair.  I loved every minute of playing dolls with Ava!

We got ready and headed to visit my parents before we were to go meet Clint when he got off of work.

I RARELY buy donuts. Like EVER!  I love them, don't get me wrong and there are NONE better than Krispy Kreme. 

Well my mom got me a dozen Chocolate covered Creme filled ones for my birthday!  If you have  Krispy Kreme close, you should go soon and try those OR get one right off the line!!

We met Clint and headed to Opry Mills mall, so I could shop!  Hello, talk about fun!!!

Old Nacy had this cute picnic table the kids could color on, so we had to leave our mark!

I got some good stuff at a few stores and then we saw it.....

The Carousel!

Me nor Ava have ever ridden one so we HAD to do it today!

Ava LOVED it!!!  She even got a horse stamp after and kept staring at it on her hand!

We went to a couple more stores and then I was starving!!

Good thing the restaurant we were going to was in the mall!

Great Mexican food without the greasy plate!

Clint had the special(can't remember what it was), I had a grilled chicken salad with avocado, there were a couple of baskets of chips and some salsa in there too.  Ava picked from our plates.

We were too stuffed for dessert, plus we ate an earlier than usual supper.

Clint brought up my "birthday cake" to the bonus room. Ava had fell asleep on the way home so she was on my chest sleeping.

Perfection! 

I only ate one!  But it was the best donut ever!!

My birthday was one for the books!  I couldn't have planned it better! 

Now for the day after birthday blues, haha. Kidding!!  Nothing at ALL to be blue about!

Have a great weekend and I'll talk soon!

Shopping, shopping, shopping

Hey!

Good morning on this hump day!!

Yesterday was a good day for us!

I got up and ran 7.25 miles before Ava woke up! 

She slept until 8:15, which is SUPER late for her!

I got her breakfast and got us both ready for a day of shopping with my mama!

My birthday is tomorrow...the big 31, so I asked my mama if we could just go shop together since I wasn't sure what I wanted.  The drawback of having a birthday 3 weeks after Christmas when you get so much for Christmas!

It wasn't a draw back though!!  I got what I wanted and needed although I won't GET it until tomorrow on my birthday. 

We went to The Shoe Dept to look for some boots.

There was this really neat kid game/time consumer at The Shoe Dept and while my mama looked for her some shoes, Ava and I played on this thingy.

 

Our next stop was next door to Cato.  I love strip mall shopping

First round of bags!

My prissy daughter walking the aisle!

We headed to Kohl's last and finished up some good shopping there.  Kimber Ava's buddy for the trip got to ride in the stroller seat while she stood on the front end. 

(no toddlers were hurt in this stunt!)

The weather channels were calling for some ice and freezing rain, so we cut our trip early without LUNCH and my mom dropped us off.  I was starving when we when got home, so I made a quick lunch of tuna, chips, broccoli and mixed sour cream and salsa for a dip.

It hit the spot.

Clint got hom shortly after and we caught up on Revenge and Grey's Anatomy(so sad) from last week and then he worked out while I did my 3000 club exercises!

Supper was simple and good!

Grilled boneless pork chops

Baked sweet potato for me, regular potato for Clint

green beans

Bath time and more relaxing ended the night!

I did get up this morning and ran 3 miles and did my 3000 club exercises:

50 pushups, 35 burpees, 200 crunches

(all before 5am)!!

I feel so accomplished and proud of myself when I do that!!

Well, of to get some work done!

Have a great day and I'll see ya soon!

(p.s. My birthday is TOMORROW!!! YAY!)

Apples and dancing

Well Happy Friday to y'all!!  I am glad it is Friday!  Who can have a bad day on a Friday, right?!

Yesterday, I woke up with Restless legs which was quite irritating because it was 5am!  I got up and had my cup of coffee and did my computer ritual, read my She Reads Truth for the day, told Clint bye when he left for work.  At 6:20, I decided to go ahead and start my run for the day.  I was planning on 7 miles, but I decided to run until Ava woke up.  Well, I decided to call it at 9 miles and 5 minutes later Ava FINALLY woke up!  Sheesh kid, you are sleeping the day away waking up at 8am!! 

I got her breakfast and jumped in the shower before making my own breakfast.  I had a dental cleaning at 10:30, so we got all dressed and headed out to the dentist office!

My aunt works there, so it was fun getting to see her at work!  Ava, sat in my lap and played with toys the whole time!  She is such a great kid!!

We stopped at Kroger for some organic apples and bananas and ground turkey meat for supper, got gas and then headed home. 

It was lunch time for sure!  I made a salad of kale, carrots, a morningstar black bean burger, bell peppers, pickles( yes pickles) and a smidge of bbq sauce as dressing! I love bbq sauce!  I could drink it through a straw, y'all!

Ava and I share the salad while watching Scooby Doo.

Shortly after I went down to the kitchen to grab an apple.  I took 1 bite, 1 and asked Ava if she wanted a bite too.  That was the first and LAST bite I had!  She wouldn't share! 

Stingy apple taker!!

I guess there are worse things than your toddler stealing your organic apple, but hey I wanted that apple! Oh well right!

Clint got home and we did our typical "catch up on DVR shows" afternoon until it was time to start supper. 

I picked up hormone free ground turkey meat because I had some leftover pasta sauce in the fridge that needed to be used. 

We had a simple but fantastic supper of pasta, salads, and garlic toast!  YUM!

 

Daddy/daughter dancing is a frequent thing in our house!

Off to get some work done!  Have a great day and I'll see ya soon!

Productive patsy

Happy Wednesday y'all!  The sun is shining and it is a cold 23 degrees!  Eek!  At least the sun is out right?!
Yesterday, was a busy busy day!  We got up and I got coffee and got Ava breakfast.  I went to work on my grocery list and coupon gatherin'.  Ava and I had grocery shopping to do and I DO NOT go without a plan of attack! 
I finished that up and put away some Christmas totes and put a load of laundry in to wash.  I jumped on the treadmill and did a fab 7 miles!  I definately needed a shower! 

We started Elf on a Shelf last Christmas and Ava wasn't all that able to understand.  She would go look for Bryant (named after Bear Bryant).

This year though, it is fun!  We are day 3 of his coming.  He has "came back from Santa" and landed in a different spot in the house.  Yesterday morning after she found mama's hat and Bryant, she started "hiding" him in the same spot we had found him in that morning might I add.  She cracks me up!

We finished getting ready and packing snacks and the "search" was on.

We are on the hunt for good deals on groceries, I suppose!

In the organic section at Kroger. 

Our infamous buggy car picture at Kroger.

We came home and I unpacked groceries and cleaned up the kitchen.  I didn't get to that chore that morning.  I folded laundry and then when Clint got home we had to make a quick trip to Dollar General.

As soon as we got back, I put chili together to simmer on the oven until supper.  We caught up on some DVR shows and relaxed until supper.

This was spectacular!  I planned to have extra so we could have chili dogs for supper!  Yum.  I love comfort food, especially on cold nights.  Who doesn't right!!!

The rest of the night was Clint giving Ava a bath while I cleaned the kitchen and folded laundry and put it away.

I had planned on getting up and running this morning, but for some ODD reason, I didn't fall asleep until 2am!  98% of the nights, I fall asleep in like 10 min, so I haven't the slightest idea why I had a night of insomnia!  Having said that, I chose to sleep an extra hour.  I hope my body will think that was the smart thing to do....right?!

Well, time to get productive at work!

See ya soon!

Tea parties and balloons

Hey there! Yep, it is Monday!

It is raining and the temperature is going to drop throughout the day.  Cold and rainy...yuck!

I hope you had a great weekend. We sure did.  Let me back up to Friday though first before I go into what we did Saturday and Sunday.

Clint has been making breakfast smoothies for us about 4 days a week.  He does NOT disappoint!

I'm never REALLY sure what is in these, but they are tasty and I know he uses healthy stuff, because Ava and I do the grocery shopping. ;-)

Ava stays at my parent's house on days I work, but I get a 2 hour lunch.  We live 5 minutes from my work and they live 5 minutes past my work, so I get lunch with her EVERY day I work!  Such a perk!

Tea party at lunch on Friday!

Saturday, we got up and I did a 2 mile walk on the treadmill at a 6.5% incline and 4.3 mph.  I worked up a good sweat!  I "tried" to run for a minute, but I could feel my Achilles pulling, so I slowed back down.  I will just walk for the next few days and continue to let it rest. (ugh)

Publix has turkeys for $.69/lb so I told Clint we needed to go for

1. we are hosting Thanksgiving for his family

2. the turkeys don't get ANY cheaper than that!

I deemed Saturday "No makeup" day!  Some days it is good to have a clean face and "no eyes on".

At Publix, an employee was handing out flowers and then Ava got a balloon!  She was tickled pink!

Clint suggested we stop at the little antique place!

It was AMAZING!  I could have stayed in there a while, well we did, but I could have stayed longer and spent lots of money!

We went home and watched Alabama, sadly get beat.  It was a somber house for about 45 min.

Clint turned on the grill and grilled hormone free steak for him and me a black bean burger.  I sauteed some asparagus and made a salad. 

GOOD STUFF!

Sunday morning I got up and did a bodyrock workout and then walked 1.5 miles at the same speed and incline as Saturday.

We got ready and headed to church. 

Ava was so excited to go. We let her wear her flower girl dress from my brother's wedding about a month ago. 

(wedding day picture)

She kept running around the house saying, "I'm a princess. "I'm a princess." And "we're going to church, we're going to church." 

Too funny!

After church, we went to my aunt and uncle's house for lunch. She had make your own sub sandwiches, chips, dip and meatballs.

YUM!

As soon as we got home, I put the ingredients in the bread machine for our weekly loaf of sandwhich bread. Hands down the best recipe!

Isn't that beautiful?!.

We lounged around until supper.  It was glorious! 

Supper was biscuits (gravy for Clint), eggs, and turkey bacon (and a banana for Ava).  LOVE breakfast ANY time of the day.

Have a great Monday and I'll see ya soon!!

Halloween recap & busy Thursday

Yeah-yeah it is Friday!

Love me some Friday's! 

Halloween night I indeed got off work at 6pm and rushed home with a treat of pizza for supper.

It stayed warm in the oven until we got back from

TRICK OR TREATIN'.

We went to a local neighborhood and let me tell ya it was THE place to be.  Let's put it this way, if you lived there you needed to do some MAJOR candy stockin up!  There were kids, parents, and cars EVERYWHERE!  It was such a fun atmosphere to be in!  Clint sent me a picture of him putting face paint on Ava and it is the MOST disturbing picture of her EVER!  I will spare you the scary crying painted up face. 

Needless to say, when I got home, she had a squeaky clean face! 

Ava did so great!  Clint took her to most of the doors, she wanted him too.  I guess she felt safe with her big strong daddy! 

She wasn't to keen on saying "trick or treat" when she went up to the doors, but EVERY single time she said "thank you!"  I am all for our child being polite!

From house to house she would say, "daddy, i'm trick oh treatin" and "my punkin heavy."

Some graves in someone's yard.

There was one house that was SCARE-EEE!

The last 2 houses, she was brave-pants McGee and went to the doors herself and said "thank you".  Proud parental moment!

In the car on the way home, she got ONE dum-dum y'all!  That is it!  I choose not to give her anything else, just because and she had that one and she was fine.

We went to our next door neighbor's house and visited for a few and Ava handed out candy to some fellow trick o' treaters.

Yesterday was a busy day for us.  I got up and had some coffee and ran 1.5 miles on the treadmill.  Crappy Achilles!  Ugh.  I played it safe and got off when it started bothering me.  I did a 12 minute Bodyrock workout and whew it was a good one!

We got ready and headed to the office to do some cleaning before we met my bestie and her kiddos to look around for some plants and such.

Love these kids.  The baby isn't in the picture but here are the rugrats.

We left there after a too short visit and went to get my hair trimmed up.  This is the soonest I have ever gotten my hair trimmed.  I can usually got 3-4 MONTHS! Yea I know.  But this time was 2! 

She wanted to sit in my lap and look at the mirror. After this, she played with "piper" her doll and was completely good while my stylist, Jamie finished up.

Kroger was next up!  I love me some Kroger.  They have such great deals and organic foods to boot. 

I didn't need a whole lot, but I came across some great deals on things that I will be using in the next few weeks for Thanksgiving, so I snatched them up.  Fletcher, the little boy in the above picture had some goldfish, so that is all Ava talked about and to my amazement she spotted them in the aisle.  Well, since you "i spied" them, I can let you have a treat!

We got home and I put up the groceries and we went out to play.  When Clint got home we stayed outside and I cleaned the garage and he cut up the leaves.  Ava drew a picture and wanted to display it in her house!  Adorable!

After Clint got done, we let Pekka run like a crazy dog outside of his fence and Clint took Ava on a ride. (don't worry, no blades were on and he stayed on flat ground)

Gotta love country living1

We came in and got cleaned up and jammy-fied and snuggled a bit on the couch.

I finally got up and made supper.

Healthier chicken pot pie!

This was good! 

I boiled a hormone free chicken breast earlier so that was ready to be chopped up. 

I added 2 cans of Light Progress Chicken pot pie style soup and about a cup of frozen veggies. 

I put some butternut in the mircrowave to soften and then diced up about a cup and added it to the pot too.

I brought this to a boil and then simmered until I was ready to put in the dish.

I took some Pillsbury biscuits 4 in fact and cut them up into 4 pieces.

I poured the heated mixture into a baking dish and placed the cut up biscuit pieces on top.  I baked this for 27 minutes at 375 degress.

Comfort food goodness.

Well, I need to get some work done, so have a great Friday!

See ya soon.

Randomness brings joy!

Well, hello there!  It is FRIDAY!  WHOO HOO!

I pray that EVERYONE has a fantastic day!  I woke up to Clint's alarm going off at quarter to 5.  This might not sound like this is a bad thing, but for me to work out, get me ready and Ava ready I need to be and at em at 3:45am.  So I didn't get to do any exercise this morning. =/ But I am chalking it up to my body needing the extra rest....right?! 

Yesterday, Ava and I got up and I did some house chores and Ava had breakfast and then we went on a little walk in the beautiful morning sunshine!

About a quarter mile in to our walk Ava wanted to walk and put Piper in the stroller so SHE could push her.  Well, ok.  No problem, but when a 2 year old is not tall enough to see over the stroller it is hard for her to go STRAIGHT!  She was driving that thing all over the place!  Good thing we live on a street with barely any traffic! 

We cut it short when she wanted me to hold her.  Can I just tell you that hold a toddler, pushing a stroller and containing a 60lb puppy is NO easy feat!! 

We got back to the house and got ready to go on some errands. 

I needed to go by the Credit Union for some business and that was annoying to me.  Out of the 4 ladies working in that office, not ONE knew what was going on and they shuffled me all over the place passing the buck on each other, until FINALLY I was told I was going to have to WAIT to do my business.  Thanks for wasting my time and gas!

We left there and headed to TARGET!  Love this place!  The thing to do in Target is shop the clearance sections on the end caps!  They have fantastic deals!  I got a box of VUE Kcups for under $6!  They are usually like $10.79!  SCORE!

I picked up a few other random odds and ends, we went down the toy and PRINCESS aisle and we checked out. 

Ava might be the only kid I know that can be let loose in the toy aisles and when we tell her it is time to go, we leave.  No whining, no tantrum throwing.  We just walk away!

CVS was up next.  They have Xtra laundry detergent for $1.49 this week. I had a $1.50 on my CVS card, so I went to use it up!  4 bottles of laundry detergent for under $5!  Don't mind if I do!!!

We headed home and Clint got home shortly after.  We were going to my parent's house for supper and we had a little time to work out in the yard. 

I love this picture of Ava and I!  We were sitting on the front porch!

While Clint got on the lawnmower to cut up some leaves, I got to play with the blower to pile them together so he could cut them up.

This was fun!

I got a lot accomplished!  Holy leaves! This was only midway through my blowing them frenzy.

I will tell ya, my lats are SOOOO sore this morning from holding that bad boy for 30+ minutes straight! Who knew it would be such a workout!

Supper was tacos at my parent's house and they were yummy!

We got home kinda early because my parents eat on the early bird schedule and lounged around and watched Gray's Anatomy and Scandal. Super good shows!!

I will leave you with some good worths of truth....

"You are fearfully and wonderfully made..."

Psalm 139:14

Y'all have a great day and a fantastic weekend!  I am sure some early Halloween shinanogins will be taking place.  Be safe and have fun!

See ya soon!