My First Buttercup

After an exercise filled morning, there was lots to be done. The rest of my day consisted of:

• Lots of Laundry (sheets, towels, clothes)
• A little cleaning
• A bath for Franky
• A few hours of work
• Errands
• Choreography work
• Christmas shopping
• Cooking!

For dinner tonight, I had my first buttercup squash (aka kabocha squash):

Pinto beans topped with TJs seasoning:

Peppers and apple dipped in TJs hummus:

All together now:

Josh had steak topped with the same TJs seasoning, a baked potato and tangerine:

I also received my Britt winnings from Naomi’s amazing giveaway. Hot chocolate and chocolate covered coffee/espresso beans:

And loads of amazing coffee:

I cannot wait to dive in!!! Thank you so much Naomi!

Come back for a fun giveaway tomorrow night!!

13.4 & Thanksgiving in Nashville Part 2

Hope your Monday is treating you well!! Today is my last abbreviated day before going back to the usual work hours. One more quick note about today before I get to the end of my Thanksgiving recap: I got up this morning and taught Body Pump and then got ready for one of my last longer runs before my half. I knew I had to teach this morning, but this was the only day I could really fit it in. I ran 13.5 miles!!!!! I am super excited:

Ok, back to the recap.

Friday:

• Slept in
• Got up and ran 7 miles
  

• Lots of relaxing
• Family pictures, Our Christmas card for this year:

• Everyone:

• Funny:

• Me, Josh's Daddy, Jenny:

• Matching vests anyone?

• Dinner out. Here is Jenny enjoying her first legal cosmo out:

Saturday:

• Started my day off right by meeting Heather from HEAB for the first time! She is even sweeter than I had imagined. Heather treated me to yoga at a gorgeous studio:
  

• Then Heather gave Josh a massage! He said it was awesome!
• After, Heather, CD (who is also super nice), Josh and I went out to lunch at Fido's in Nashville. Josh got an egg sammy:

• I got a big bowl of fruit (I ate light as I was saving up for some TJs action, more info below):

• And we both enjoyed Cafe Au Laits (so good):

• Heather and I (thank you for such an amazing time Heather!!):

• TJs!
  

• I love TJs, I wish they would open in Charleston! I got lots of goodies, including many products you all recommended:

• Dinner out

Sunday we drove 9.5 hours home! What a great Thanksgiving!! BIG thank yous to Josh's family for another great holiday.

I will be back later!

Thanksgiving in Nashville- Part 1

Hi guys! How are you? I have missed you all so much. Based on everyones posts, it sounds like you all had a great Thanksgiving. I did as well! I have so much to share that I decided to break my Thanksgiving weekend into 2 posts.

Wednesday:

• Ran a mile and taught Body Pump
• Hopped in the car and drove the 10 hours (due to traffic) to Nashville. We saw some fun signs on the way:

• Arrived at Josh's parents house and enjoyed an incredible dinner of roasted veggies, black beans, and wedge salads (she also cooked up some steak for the meat eaters):

• Dessert at one of the MOST incredible frozen yogurt places I have ever been to, Sweet CeCe's.

• I got pumpkin (oh my gosh amazing) with chocolate sprinkles:

• Josh got original tart and pumpkin with kiwi:

Thursday:

• I woke up early to fit in a great 7 mile run on the hills of Brentwood:
  

• The rest of our Thanksgiving was pretty low key and relaxing:
  

• We enjoyed a fabulous dinner (I didn't capture pictures- I know, what was I thinking?)
• At midnight, Josh's Mom and I headed out for the start of our Black Friday shopping (Josh's mom is the BEST shopper and so much fun):

• The mall was CRAZY busy:

After shopping, I came home and crassssshhhed. More tomorrow!

More Counter Snacks & Thanks

Thank you, thank you for ALL of the TJs suggestions (I have quite a list going :)) and for voting for Frank in the Hallmark contest! I believe you have until December 15 to vote (so please vote!!).



Today was a half day of work & a full afternoon of baking. I continued to work on my counter snacks with Cinnamon Sweet Bread:






Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins:





Vegan Banana Nut Muffins (I used Maria’s Recipe for her banana bread and made some changes to make it vegan/a little lighter):

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup granulated sugar (you could probably use honey or agave here as well)
½ cup applesauce (unsweetened)
2 tablespoons flax
6 tablespoons of water
3 medium bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons soy milk (whoops- wrote skim before, meant soy!)
1 cup crushed walnuts

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350

In a bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and powder. Set aside.

Using a mixer (or by hand), mix sugar and apple sauce. Next, add flax and water, beating until combined. Add the mashed bananas and vanilla extract; beat to combine. Alternatively add the flour mixture and milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat just until the flour is incorporated and finish mixing with a spatula. Lastly, mix in walnut pieces

Evenly divide mixture between 12 muffin cups. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Thank you for the amazing recipe Maria (every recipe I have tried of hers has been fantastic!).



I will be submitting my recipe changes to Diana for her Thanksgiving Food Challenge. This recipe could be used for Thanksgiving day breakfast, for breakfast the day after, or even a great snack!





And Big Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies:





Phew! This afternoon, I also took Franky for a walk and then prepped dinner for later. I essentially followed this recipe for my lighter pasta but utilized artichokes & peas instead of cauliflower and spinach. I also plan to add tuna to Josh's.





Now, I am on my way out to run some errands and teach Body Attack.



I wanted to send a quick thank you out to Juliana who gave me the Kreativ Blogger award- you’re the best!

I am officially off of work for the rest of the week (hoooray!). Are you taking time off this week? Just a warning- my blogging may be a little sporadic for the rest of the week (or I may go MIA). But I do have a VERY exciting blogger meet up coming up that I cannot wait to share with you. Hope you have a good night :)

Run, Work, Bake & Vote for Frank

Ahhh Thanksgiving week. How impossible is it to concentrate on work or school or being a hot mama(or two or three of these, if you’re a super hero like some of the amazing bloggers out there)? I decided to reverse my day a bit today and got up and went right out for my 8 mile long run of the week:

Then it was work, a few errands, and the start of my Thanksgiving baking! I am in charge of what I like to call “counter snacks”, aka eats that kind of sit out throughout the weekend that people can munch on. I made my first set of snacks tonight, two varieties of Granola.

Granola #1 was inspired by this post from my girl Alison at Mama’s Weeds. I have never put fresh fruit in granola and was excited to give it a go.

Ingredients
1 apple, diced
2 cups oats
½ cup walnuts
½ cup almonds
2 tablespoons ground flax
Sprinkling of cinnamon
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons honey

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 250.

Combine vegetable oil and honey. Add in dry ingredients, mix well to cover. Bake for 1 hour.

Pre-Bake:

Granola #2 was more along the lines of my usual with a little pumpkin flare:

Ingredients
2 cups oats
½ cup pumpkin seeds
¼ cup sesame seeds
¼ cup walnuts
1 cup coconut
2 tablespoons flax
Sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons honey

Same Directions as Granola #1.

Pre-Bake:

Since our oven was occupied for most of the night, dinner was an easy throw together and utilized the remainder of our leftover black bean soup. I microwaved a sweet potato for me and a regular potato for Josh. On top of my potato went black bean soup and salsa with a side of apple (duh):

Josh will have the same toppings and an artichoke burger on the side.

Other fun stuff:

I got a sweet holiday card from Stonyfield Farms today (Thank you thank you!):

Frank is competing in a Hallmark card contest, please vote for him!

Frank A Dog Named Christmas

I want to send a BIG congrats out to Caroline (the WONDERFUL representative who sent me the V8 Soup to try) for doing awesome at her Body Pump training this weekend!!

AND (lastly) I have another request for all of you! I am taking a trip to TJs during Thanksgiving and want to know what TJs products you’re loving these days. On my list so far is:
Nut Butter
Gingerbread Coffee
21 Salute Seasoning & Smoked Chipotle Hummus (thank you Julie ;))

Sunday Mish Mosh

Hey guys. Happy ALMOST Thanksgiving! Hope you’ve been enjoying your weekend. I’m glad you liked seeing all of the pictures from hiking yesterday. Today was another good one! I got up early to squeeze in a 6 mile run prior to the rain:

Then I went to Publix and got our mini week of food shopping done. I swung home to drop off the groceries and pick up Josh. We went to the car parts store to get a new battery for my car and Barnes and Nobles for some books. While at B&N, I picked up a grande non fat misto with three pumps of the new Carmel Brulee syrup:

The Carmel Brulee is pretty good. Its VERY sweet though (sort of like the cinnamon dolce). I still think pumpkin spice is my #1 and gingerbread my #2 (in terms of syrups...I like a good plain misto most of the time). Do you have a favorite coffee drink?

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and watching football. While watching football, I checked out the official race results from my 10 miler the other week and found out that I came in first in my age group! I had no idea and was totally excited!!

I also made up a random combination of foods for Josh and I for dinner. Josh started with Nachos using leftover black bean soup and cheese:

Next, he had oatmeal with bananas, maple syrup and walnuts:

I started out with my favorite carrot chips:

Then another salad topped with leftover black bean soup:

And now I'm eating an apple with nut butter. Josh will probably have a melty salami sammy in a bit too ;). I kind of love random dinners. What are you having for dinner?