Happy Birthday Zach!

Zachary is now 14~ It is SO hard to believe that I have a 14 year old! He had a great birthday weekend, went out to dinner his choice, and got to eat ice cream cake which we do not get very often.

Today in the midst of baking, we went through some scrapbook albums from when he was a baby and toddler. It was sort of fun because when he was about 18 months or so we went on a trip to Vancouver, since they are showing so much of Vancouver with the Olympics it was fun to show him that he had been there. They showed a park called Capillano (not sure if I spelled it right) but it has a very long rope suspension bridge. Not so exciting for those of us with height issues! Absolutely beautiful though.

The kids grow so fast, it is hard to believe where the time goes. It seems that some days life is so busy and fast that we forget to appreciate the good things in life.

I digress, however really wanted to say, Happy Birthday to Zachary! You are growing in to a fine young man! I love you! Mom

Fish N Nips.....

Plus a few other fun shapes. My kids and I made these great cheese crackers from here. I originally saw them on Erika's blog. Thanks for sharing the recipe. My daughter and I had a great time cutting out the shapes however I have to say that just making the squares was the easiest and quickest. I was hoping that between the sweet potato oat bars we made yesterday and these that they would have snacks all week! Ha.. they are almost gone.

In the spirit of clean eating, I have really been searching for snacks for the kids that they would enjoy and wouldn't be too hard to make. I would hope that I could make these each week at least in theory, and squares not fancy shapes. There is no sugar in this recipe and I altered the recipe and used whole wheat flour instead of white for more than half of the flour. I will try half whole wheat and half spelt flour next time and see how it turns out. I also used white cheddar instead of yellow to avoid the food dies. This means they don't look as pretty yellow as the photos on other other website. I will also try to alter them in other ways as well in the future. I will see how it goes!

All in all, it was a great success. Even my husband likes them, which means they wont last long!

Let me know if you try these. I don't think you will be disappointed at all!

Tosca You Are My Hero... Another Eat Clean Winner!

I have jumped into baking some new stuff this weekend. I started with a Sweet Potato Oat Bar from Tosca Reno's new The Eat Clean Diet Recharged. I was so excited to win this book from The Fitness Freak's Blog, I have to make this recipe first. First order of the day was baking the sweet potatoes in the oven early in the am, I was so tempted to just eat them but I held off and made the recipe. This recipe has whole oats, fresh ground flax seeds, slivered almonds, walnuts, dried cranberries, coconut oil (which I used instead of coconut butter, research said that it would work the same way) I had bought some goji berries and I forgot to use them too.

I have been searching for something to make my kids for a quick breakfast or a snack for school. I also want something that I can pack in my bag when I head out for the gym or another activity in which I might get hungry! It is packed full of nutrients, smells great and tastes to good. Zachary said it tasted good and he says he doesn't like sweet potatoes!! Thumbs up from Ariana! She liked it too!

So thanks again Tosca for such a delicious recipe, I haven't met one of her recipes that hasn't knocked my socks off! This one is no different!

For all you Tosca fans out there. What's your favorite Eat Clean recipe?

Fantastic Day and more!!

I started off the day with a bang. When my running buddy wasn't able to run with me because she was home with a sick child and then as fast as it took for the kids to get from the door to the bus at the end of our driveway, the ground was covered with the fluffy white stuff. I opted to kick it by getting out my rebounder and doing the intermediate workout off of this DVD! I forgot how much fun it is to jump on the mini tramp and just how much oxygen it takes to continue to do it for 35 minutes. JB give a great workout, challenges you to push beyond what you think you can do!

I have also recently learned that rebounding is a great way to detoxify your liver! Yes, the bouncing helps activate your liver to clean house! Not to mention it also helps improve lymphatic and immune function and will improve you cardiovascular health, lower your resting blood pressure the benefits go on and on. Just think a few years ago, I bought the rebounder as a new way to exercise, the benefits are many! Here's the veggies that I cooked up for dinner. Tonight it was Ariana's choice and they were stir fried with a little grape seed oil, we had fresh onion, green and yellow, broccoli, corn, spinach, carrot, zucchini and then mixed with the quinoa and a small amount of nuefatchel cheese. Yummy clean eating meal. Quinoa has quickly become one of my most favorite whole grains. I have been working to venture out of so much pasta (completely given up white pasta long time ago) Quinoa is SO tasty with a bit of nutty crunch. I like to use it in recipes in place of coucous since it is a whole grain and much better for you. Quinoa has 222 calories for a 1 cup serving, 5 g of fiber, 8 g of protein, sodium is 1% based on daily value, 39 g of Carbohydrates with a glycemic load of 18. This grain with all essential amino acids packs a strong nutritional punch! So if you haven't given it a try yet pick yourself up some next time you go to the grocery store and see what you think! It also has a great fullness factor, which I also love!! Also stewing in my kitchen, is a few dinosaurs soaking in my kitchen! yikes! We aren't going to eat them so they will not be added with the quinoa; however, my two youngest are enjoying watching them grow in the bowl. So there we go! Dinosaurs brewing in the kitchen, I sure hope they don't get to much bigger! Then the mail came! Wahooo!! My book I won from The Fitness Freak's blog. At first thumb through, this book looks like the best Tosca book yet! I have most of them and love them. I can't wait to dive into the vegetarian recipes in this book and do more reading. The photos are phenomenal and they made me want to dive right in with my fork they are so delicious looking! Thank you so much Nicole for the chance to win this great blog candy and for sending me the book!! Yeah my Bondi Bands arrived too. I have heard so many things about these wonderful wicking headbands that when I found the coupon code for them I decided that I just had to order a few. I seem to have permanent ponytail when I am working out and then leads into when I am not working out because I take a shower and get busy studying and forget to do anything with it. These should give me another option. These headbands are supposed to be wicking, non-slip and come so highly recommended on the running boards that I just couldn't resist. I have had one on my head all day, without pain, without moving! yeah!

here's the code:

Buy 3 get one free- code: ONE

Five for $25- code: FIVE

Then most exciting an envelope from American council on Exercise. My official certificate of certification! I guess I should get my plan in gear, and work on getting insurance and paperwork so I can get started training some clients! I have been collecting up some gear such as medicine balls and kettlebells as well as elastic tubing, and bands. It's all coming together!

I have also been making some progress on my Masters degree. My current class is nutritional counseling. It will also help me in meeting new training clients as well. I am thinking of a few other certifications but for now, Hawthorn has my full attention!

I love having days like this one. Good food, well behaved children, great workouts and I did no laundry today! I am also all ready for my sons class party for valentines day a few days in advance!

A Girl and Her Shoes

I know exactly what you all are thinking, where are the high-heeled toe crunching arch aching contraptions that many women collect. Well I have a few of those, but I don't have any desire to wear them more than needed. The shoes above are the shoes I live in. I chase around 3 kids half my time and the other half I am chasing my drive and desire for fitness and health. If you haven't walked, ran, cycled, or lifted in my shoes read on and maybe just maybe you will understand why, I feel it is so important for me to have these shoes and use them! I wont talk about all them and trust me when I say, they are not ALL lined up in the photo above. Meet my Specialized cycling shoes, if you have ever gone out on a ride with me, you will know, me, chatting and cycling don't always go well together. I haven't rode my bike outside much since moving to NY, mostly because I feel like the roads are so narrow and the drivers are so not cautious of any type of exerciser on the road. Well I love love love these shoes for spinning. They clip onto the bike petal and give a much more rounded leg workout. Clip shoes allow for both pushing downward and pulling upward making the petal stroke much more energy effective for both cycling in or outdoors. Ahh, the dance shoes, I wear these shoes for Zumba. Zumba is a fun, cardio dance aerobics. In this type of exercise there is a lot of twisting which hurt my knees when wearing other types of shoes. The bottom of this shoe allows for ease of twisting with the reduced risk of injury. Meet the mother of all running shoes! Mizuno Wave Nirvana, I dearly LOVE these shoes. I have had issues on and off with my knees and went to get professionally fitted for these shoes. I highly recommend going to a running store for a fitting if you have any intention of running on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I do not get to wear the cute little purple and pink girlie running shoes that we see all over the mall. Most importantly know what sort of arch and gait you have (which is why you should go to someone trained because most of us don't get to watch ourselves run or know what to look for). Anyhow, these shoes are the mother in stability and motion control. I love them and I love being able to run pain free! An old stand-bye for the gym, my nike air's. I can use most of the gym equipment very comfortably. These are great for weightlifting and general exercise at the fitness center. They are not my most favorite but a good stand-bye. These are my Ryka's they are great all around exercise shoes. They are incredibly comfortable to wear. These shoes are like walking on clouds. They are a great all around fitness shoe. I don't recommend running in them as I don't think they have the lateral support I need, but for any other exercise they are great!

What I am really saying here is that all fitness sneakers are not created equal. Be certain that you have the proper shoe for you sport, as having your ankle, knee, and hip misaligned could cause lots of problems. One could get a great workout with only a decent pair of shoes! I cannot ignore the importance of the right shoe for your foot! Our own body weight is a resistance for good exercise if needed. Whatever you do, make a good choice for yourself, eat your veggies and get out there and do some exercise!

Humor Me: The Ultimate in Multitasking!

I just cannot get over this latest gadget on the market. These lovely utensils sport a 1.5 lb weight as a handle! As a newly certified personal trainer, I can not say that I will be recommending them anytime soon. However I just can stop thinking about these funny gadgets!

Can you really burn calories and build muscle by eating with weighted utensils? Stay back when I am doing my P90X because a girl working out while wielding a knife and fork could be a really dangerous thing! Can you imagine doing the bicep curls and scooping up a bite to eat every rep?

And worst of all, where's the spoon? It just might make it all worthwhile if there was a spoon, so I could burn a few extra calories while eating dessert!!!

Have a great day my friends, and please be careful if you choose to eat and exercise at the same time!!

Just My Luck!

I am home today with a sick child. So I cancelled my run with my buddy, I was so looking forward to it after a long and busy weekend. Then, I stick in the DVD that came with my new medicine ball that I picked up, guess what? Something is wrong with it, so I call customer service they are sending a new one; however it just didn't help that I had to figure out what I was going to do instead of that workout.

In the process of getting set up to do some sort of exercise, the orthodontist's office calls, the request for approval for my son to have oral surgery is both denied first by our dental insurance and then by our medical. UGH! She is going to make some calls and see what she can find out.

OK what next? I get in my workout and then a shower, I bring my adorable and snotty nose 8 year old upstairs for a lesson on how to use the neti pot. Well that really didn't go over so well, but we got through it. Nice thing, I can't hear him breathing right now. It cleaned him out! Oh please let him feel better and go back to school tomorrow for we have no groceries in the house and I was supposed to go shopping today. I made the menu and list last night and it appears that I will be in the grocery store tonight after my husband comes home from class, and the kids come home from Odyssey of the Mind practice and Scouts. That would be about 9pm. Not so excited!

How much more can a girl take? Well one good thing, my new iPod is finally full of music. So I came downstairs and made lunch for the boy and myself. I sit down and the computer tells me I have a new email! A bright spot yes!!! Perhaps the bad luck has finally run out for real! I won blog candy from The Fitness Freak. Check out her site, she has great healthy living tips, exercise, recipes and motivation! I am so excited to get a copy of Tosca Reno's New book The Eat Clean Diet Recharged! I love that her books are SO focused on whole foods, and even as a vegetarian she has lots of recipes that are vegetarian or that I can adapt! SO hurray for some good luck in my life!!!