Firstly, thanks for all of your input on M's picture. It seems #1 and #3 are the most popular, although quite a few liked #2 as well. I'll have to decide shortly and send something in. I think I'm leaning toward #1 for the smile and how it shows her goofy personality at the same time.

Also, I have a few questions that I will be answering in a post tomorrow. I have about 5 questions to answer and would love to have more 🙂 I was informed my link wasn't working properly before, so if you tried to click it and it didn't work you can give it a shot now. Click here to ask anything 🙂

This weekend has been quite the enjoyable one. Yesterday afternoon we headed out to drive down to Atlanta to my parents' place for some family time. We did have to make a pit stop for a shopping excursion on the way though. We hit up the mecca of baby stuff (Babies R Us) to pick up our gifts for my good friend's baby shower which is coming up fast.

Babies R Us

Oh, Can we buy that?!

After that, we quickly made our way through a ton of Atlanta traffic to a fun afternoon with my family. The afternoon hours were spent laughing at all of M's attention hogging ways...

playing with a giant duck

laughing with Papa

...playing some cards....

...laughing...

we are a goofy trio...this is a traditional photo we do...don't ask! LOL!

with my awesome bro

...and getting a good family picture.

I love them!!! Although I can never get over the fact that I am the oldest of the siblings by quite a few years and look younger than my sister. I know I'll appreciate it more about 10 years from now. Right now it's no fun to be in your mid-upper 20s and people to think you're a teen mom.

Onto dinner though. We went to my all time favorite Mexican restaurant. Tijuana Garage.

This place serves great Mexican food. And what I love about it is that it's not the same old stuff you find in other Mexican restaurants. There is a lot more variety and I love the various sauces, slaws, and toppings for all their food.

We enjoyed dining on the patio with some chips and salsa and margaritas...my 2nd favorite thing to drink. Surprisingly though, I didn't have any. I try not to drink when working on the baby. I know it probably does nothing for or against our chances of conceiving, but I prefer to play it safe for my own peace of mind.

patio seating

chips & salsa

I ate lighter in the day since I was fully planning on indulging here. I ordered a trio taco plate for my dinner. My choices - 2 fish tacos + 1 BBQ pork taco. Sounds odd, but oh so very good! The fish tacos had a chipotle jicama slaw and the BBQ had a pickled jalapeno slaw. Fun, interesting flavors and delicious.

may not be healthy but sure was YUMMY!

Today has been a bit of a pain. I woke up feeling AWFUL again. Not stomach sick this time, but with a severe headache and that deep to the bone type of bodyaches and a sore throat and foggy head. (sigh) Maybe it will be a one day thing. It hasn't gotten any better though. So, I went and just taught Sunday school and then went home to curl up on the couch.

And that brings us to our Good Life Sunday lesson. The lesson today was about the prophet Elijah and how he lived a life that demonstrated his faith in God's power. Elijah was a prophet who testified to King Ahab about a drought that was a consequence to King Ahab's actions of worshiping other gods in detestable ways (like sacrificing people's children detestable ways). Ahab refused to believe Elijah and sought counsel from 850 prophets of the other gods in the region.

Eventually, Elijah was distraught with the King seeking advice from these other prophets and the fact that all of the people weren't being faithful to God. So God sent Elijah to Mount Carmel to basically challenge the other prophets in a test of which God had the true power. The 850 Baal prophets brought a sacrifice to the mountain and called to Baal to accept the sacrifice by fire but the fire wouldn't come to their sacrifice, despite their calls. Elijah's sacrifice, however, did carry through with the fire and was so strong the other prophets finally claimed their belief in God.

The lesson from this is that we are to live as examples of trusting God, following Him, and expressing our faith and commitment to God. It won't be easy and there will be numerous people against us, but if we stand up and proclaim our faith then God will be on our side and carry us through. It is easy to get confused in our culture and turn to other things that seem to have the answers for a fulfilling life. We have to work hard to continue to be a living testament to trusting God and not follow other paths that may seem easy, right, or justifiable.

Well, first off I want to give a shout out to my girls Krys, Mandy, and Stacia!! These are three close girlfriends of mine from my old online home (a fitness site) and I am so happy that they have found their way to my blog. Don't worry - none of them are the watermelon dress friend 😉 And I honestly don't diss on her color choice and do think it can be pretty with her wedding plan...I just don't think it will be a friendly color to a watermelon belly. But, then again, NO bridesmaid dress is going to be! 😉

But moving on. Today I am actually going to post about FOOD! Now, you may notice that I do not post my meals every day and sometimes not even a single mention of a meal for a week. The reason why I don't do this is because feeling the need to document everything I eat with a photo is unnecessary and detrimental to me. Some people enjoy it, but I can get way too caught up in it too fast. I prefer to eat what I enjoy as long as it is all part of a healthy, balanced, moderate diet. I have spent way too much time analyzing everything I eat and allowing it to put me back into a bad relationship with food, so documenting it all is not good for me. I'm at a good place with my lifestyle and plan to stay that way. Plus, I prefer my blog to reflect the many aspects of who I am, not simply what I do in the kitchen. And I only get about 10 minutes to eat at any given time with a one year old at my feet, checking me out like this:

peekaboo!

I will, however, post reviews of things I tried and enjoyed and recipes I experiment with. Today I decided to go for a yummy sounding recipe that the awesome Danica posted on her blog last week. Kung Pao Chicken. It sounded and looked oh so good. And it uses the appliance for people who don't cook crock pot! Perfecto! Or however you would say that in Chinese. Anyhoo...it went like this...

Cut up 1 lb chicken breasts into chunks and place in slow cooker.

cubed chicken breast

Mix together hoisin sauce, soy sauce, cooking sherry, ketchup, ginger, red pepper flakes, hot sauce.

sauce

Pour over and coat chicken in slow cooker. Cook on low 6 hours. Gotta love being able to go shopping for a few new workout clothes, play, read a book, and go to the gym while dinner is cooking 😉 I hit up TJMaxx and picked up a few workout tops and two sets of capris, all for $60!

new gear

So, I got to look cute while doing the following workout:

• 10 min elliptical warmup = 1.14 miles
• walking lunge + db pullover
• wide stance bb squat + incline bb bench press
• upright bb row + bb bicep curl
• 20 min treadmill = 4.0 speed, 5.0-7.5 incline

Back to the recipe. About 45 mins before serving, chop up your choice veggies.

celery, onion, green pepper, yellow pepper, broccoli

Mix water and cornstarch. Throw in the water/cornstarch mixture and veggies for the final 30 minutes of cook time. Let simmer and get thick and yummy.

served up

The TASTE of this was really good....but I was even able to screw this one up. I cooked it too long and the chicken was too dry. So, if you keep an eye on your cooking times I know it would be awesome! You can find the full recipe HERE.

To make up for the lackluster meal, my sister and I have been getting in some quality goofy time.

me and the baby sis

We decided to sort through some boxes of old books my parents brought over to salvage any that might suit Makenzie. It was very nostalgic. Can you tell I was an 80's baby by my elementary school reading?

Rainbow Brite, Glow Worm, My Little Pony, Bernstein Bears, Dr Suess

And we found this old joke book for children. Holy cow!!! There must have been a lot less of filtering what kids say and protecting kids back in our time. Here are some of the jokes we found while reading and laughing hysterically...

Ouch, Why did you drop that hot towel on my face? -- What? Did you want me to burn my fingers?

What do you get if you cross a pig and a hobo?? -- A filthy beggar!

Your name should be Lawn? -- Why? -- Because I would like to mow you down!

Nice, huh? Quality stuff for us kiddos! Another good one was "You're just like scrambled eggs! -- Why? -- Because you get beaten often!" WOW! At least it provided some good laughs to think that we used to be entertained by this when we were under the age of 10. 🙂

Okay, time to watch The Biggest Loser! Have a great night!

• Anyone else still watching The Biggest Loser out there? I still enjoy the show, but I really wish that the producers would stop trying to get the oldest and biggest contestants. I much preferred when the contestants needed to improve their health and lose weight, but I could SEE the results throughout the show by visible increased fitness and health and better body composition through the show. I understand the larger contestants are in need of the help, but I don't think how strenuous the expectations of the show are is suitable to them. It's not as enjoyable to see contestants who aren't really able to do anything and at the end of the season still have such a long way to go. They either need to extend the length of time contestants are at the ranch, or not have it be the biggest people they can find.
• Do you blog ALL of your meals? Just some of your meals? Or very rarely focus on your meals like I do? If you do blog your meals most of the time, does it ever wear you out or cause any negative thoughts/feelings/stress on your approach to food or what you're eating? Do you ever feel guilty for eating something or not eating something?
• What's a childhood joke you remember? Or what things were you into as a child?