More Birthday Fun! November 12, 2012

I hope everyone had a great weekend (or is still having a great weekend, if you are off today)! We had a wonderful weekend with my birthday celebration part 2!

On Saturday, we spent the day at my in-laws. My mother-in-law made an AMAZING brunch for my birthday that included:

Quiche made with swiss chard and mushrooms

YUM!

Cinnamon Rolls

SO worth the splurge!

Deviled Eggs (made by Patty, their good family friend and neighbor)

So good that I ate three!

Cafe Bon (the yummiest coffee drink ever!): made with coffee, chocolate, Amarula liquor and whipped cream!

Best coffee drink ever!

Keenan enjoying Patty’s whipped cream in her Cafe Bon!

My birthday cake: A dense and gooey sweet potato cake with whipped cream and white chocolate frosting!

One of the best cakes I have ever eaten (and I’m not much of a cake fan)!

Everything was delicious and left us all stuffed, to say the least! When we got home that evening, my husband and I were still so full, that we just munched on a few carrots, a slice of turkey and some popcorn.

Yesterday, my husband planned a wonderful day of wine tasting with our friends in Amador County (while Keenan stayed with some friends). We started our day at Amador Cellars with some tasting and then a nice picnic with sandwiches and baked goods from Andrae’s Bakery. Everything was delicious, especially their yummy rosemary brie bread! If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend stopping at Andrae’s for lunch!

SOOO yummy!

After lunch, we made our way to four wineries, including Vino Noceto (one of my favorites!), Story (a new favorite!), Convergence and Helwig (least favorite). It was such a beautiful (but cold!) day, that we were able to get some good pictures! On our way home, we picked up some pizzas and salads from Hot Italian in midtown Sacramento for dinner (a yummy way to end the day!). All in all, it was a great day and my husband did well! He planned the perfect birthday celebration. I’m so blessed and thankful for having such a loving and supportive husband!

Our first stop at Amador Cellars!

Great friends!

The girls and our boots!

Well, today, has been a “semi-lazy” day, since my husband has the day off (though, he isn’t feeling too well). Keenan had his last music class of the year this morning (we start again in January) and we stocked up on groceries on the way home.

After Keenan wakes up from his nap, we are going to CrossFit to complete “Murph,” a hero WOD that consists of: run 1 mile, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats and run 1 mile. I’m SO not looking forward to it and trying to think of every excuse NOT to go.  But, I know my body needs a good workout, especially after consuming so many calories this weekend!

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Question: How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?

*REMINDER: There is still time to enter the Fiber Gourmet giveaway! Contest ends tomorrow, Nov. 13th at 8 p.m. PST!! To enter, click here!

Friday Favorites and Fitblogger! November 9, 2012

Happy Friday! Are you one of the lucky ones who has Monday off in honor of Veteran’s Day?

I’m SO excited it is Friday because we have some fun things planned for the weekend and today is my feature post for Fitblogger!! If you haven’t checked it out, you can see my post here. I was so thrilled to be asked to be a featured blogger! Fitblogger is a community of healthy living bloggers. It is a place to meet other bloggers, support one another and gain great information pertaining to health, fitness and  blogging.

As for the weekend, we are doing a little more celebrating for my birthday, starting with tomorrow at my in-laws. My mother-in-law is making a special brunch for my birthday with the most yummiest beverage ever, Cafe Bon, a mocha mixed with Amarula (a liquor similar to Kahlua) with homemade whipped cream! I can’t wait! On Sunday, we are going wine tasting in Amador County with some friends. My husband is planning it, so I’m not sure what all he has planned; it should be fun!

Tonight, we are going to have an “at home date night” after Keenan goes to bed, catching-up on our favorite TV shows that we missed during the week. I’m not sure what we are having for dinner: either stuffed bell peppers (since I have a couple that need to be used) or something with sweet potatoes. We’ll see…

This morning, I went to the box to do some skill work of cleans, squat cleans and split jerks. We are heading back to the box this afternoon for the WOD. My shoulders are definitely feeling it from this morning, so this afternoon shall be interesting! At least I have two days off!

Now, onto “Friday Favorites!” If you missed my post from a couple of weeks ago, I decided to start a new theme for my Friday’s posts. Every Friday, I plan to reflect back on my favorite moments and eats from the past week, as part of my new focus of living more in the present and cherishing each and every moment.

Favorite Moments:

• Keenan having fun taking a bubble bath!

• Playing piano and singing with Keenan. He even made “Baba” play the piano!

• Keenan sporting his new “Elmo” outfit, thanks to Nonna!

Favorite Eats:

• Turkey Meatloaf in the Crock Pot

• Turkey Meatloaf Melts

• Loaded Pumpkin Protein No Oat Oatmeal

Have a great weekend!

Questions: What were some of your favorite moments and eats from this week? Any suggestions on what to do with two green bell peppers or sweet potatoes for our dinner tonight?

*REMINDER: There is still time to enter the Fiber Gourmet giveaway! Contest ends Nov. 13th at 8 p.m. PST!! To enter, click here!

The Very Inspiring Blog Award

I can’t believe that this is the first time all day that I have had a chance to sit down in front of my computer (now 10 p.m.!). It was a long day, but very productive! Today was my not-so favorite day in our household…cleaning day. Even though I always feel a million times better after my house is cleaned, I don’t enjoy doing it. Who does? Thankfully my mom came over this morning to play with Keenan while I cleaned, which made things so much easier. Though Keenan loves to help, I can go so much faster when he isn’t around.

Before I forget, I have to share a couple of creative ways I used leftovers from last night’s dinner. Since I am usually not the best for coming up with different ways to use leftovers, I was excited about today’s creations!

Breakfast: I added leftover roasted butternut squash to scrambled eggs. Since I made the squash sweet, I whisked in a little vanilla, cinnamon, honey and flaxseed to the eggs, making semi-sweet scrambled eggs with butternut squash. I know it doesn’t sound good, but it worked and was really tasty! The base was like No Oat Oatmeal, except scrambled.

So good and so satisfying!

Even Keenan enjoyed his scrambled eggs with butternut squash!

Dinner: Since it was a cold day, a turkey meatloaf melt sounded good. We added a little pasta sauce to the whole wheat bread and then topped it with a slice of a tomato, leftover meatloaf and Gouda cheese. We placed the melts under the broiler for a few minutes, until the cheese was bubbly and golden brown. They turned out so good! On the side, we had a pear and walnut salad mixed with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Perfect for a cold night!

One of the reasons as to why I am writing this so late is that I helped coach the beginner’s CrossFit class tonight. It was my first opportunity to take the lead and coach most of the class. I was extremely excited, but also a little nervous, especially since there were 30 people in class! Even though I have taught health education classes to 20-25 people and led meetings with several audience members in the past, I still had a few nerves. Overall, it went okay, a little chaotic, but not too bad. I definitely have some areas that I need to work on, especially being louder and loosening up a bit, but with time, they should come (I hope!).

Now, onto The Very Inspiring Blog Award!

A couple of weeks ago, I was nominated by Diana, at Food n Thought Peddler and a couple of days ago, by Giselle, at A Healthy Happy Home. Thank you ladies; you both are so sweet!

It is a fun award to get to know fellow bloggers!

Here is how the award works:

1.  Thank the person who nominated you.

2.  List 7 things about yourself.

3.  Nominate 15 bloggers and inform them.

7 Things About Myself:

1. I raised sheep and showed them competitively for 4-H and FFA from the ages of 9 to 18 years old. My oldest brother started the breeding project, so I literally grew up with sheep. In fact, I was so close to all of our ewes, that my brothers would send me in to get them (as little as 2 years old!)  for vaccinations or trimming their hooves! The sheep loved me!

2. I absolutely LOVE Lucille Ball and the “I love Lucy” show. My grandmother introduced me to the show when I was 8 years old and I haven’t stopped watching it, in fact. When I am sick or feeling down, I watch a couple episodes and I always feel better. I used to collect the show’s memorabilia, in fact in our first home, our guest room was the “Lucy” room with all things “I Love Lucy,” including the bedding!

3. I am the youngest in my family with a 10 year age gap between my oldest brother, Chris and me. My middle brother and I are 5 years a part. It was great growing-up with two older brothers. They were my protectors, but also taught me to be tough, to stand my ground and be myself. I loved wrestling and playing football with them. They were the best big brothers a girl could have!

4. My husband and I were the choreographers for my high school’s show choir during our first year of marriage. I was in show choir and danced throughout high school and my husband used to teach swing dancing, so the choral director at the time, asked us to help. We had so much fun, especially choreographing, “Proud Mary.”

5. I met my husband on the doorstep of my apartment my second year of college. Even though we had a couple of classes together a few semesters prior (he saw me in class, I didn’t know him at the time), he was too shy to talk to me. One night, he and his friends (who lived in the apartment across from mine) were having a little get-together. They parked their car in front of my apartment and saw me studying on the couch through the window. His friend wanted to invite me to their party, so he knocked on the door. My husband immediately spewed out the classes that we had been in together, as well as stating what I used to wear, so I immediately declined their party invitation and locked the door (stalker!). A little while later, my now-husband knocked on the door holding a special Belgian cherry beer, called Kriek, that he felt I absolutely had to taste. My roommate, who had just gotten home and didn’t know what had happened, earlier, immediately let him in. We have been together ever since! We actually used Kriek (instead of champagne) for our toast at our wedding.

6. One of my favorite places to shop is Nordstrom. Their customer service is awesome and you can literally return anything at anytime (with or without receipt) and still get your money back. Though, I am on a budget, I can’t always shop there as much as I like. When they have crazy sales, like their Anniversary or Half-Yearly ones, I always try to go, because their deals are hard to miss!

7. Playing the piano and singing are two hobbies/passions of mine. I took piano lessons when I was little (4 years old) and vocal lessons in high school. I try to play the piano as often as I can, but I don’t always have the time. One of my goals is to truly sing and play the piano at the same time. For some pieces that I have mostly memorized, it is easier, but sight reading both piano and vocals is something I’ve yet to master.

15 Bloggers:

Jessie Loves to Run

Mommy Run Fast

Stuft Mama

Clean Food Creative Fitness

Say What You Need to Say

Our Best Bites

Fitnessista

A Healthy Slice of Life

Peas and Thank You

Healthy Diva Eats

Steph’s Bite By Bite

Whipped

Another Jennifer

Frugal Foodie Mama

Sunday Baker

Question: What are some of your favorite things or things people don’t know about you?

*REMINDER: There is still time to enter a chance to win a sampler pack of pasta or a case of crackers from Fiber Gourmet! Giveaway ends Nov. 13th at 8 p.m. PST!! To enter, click here!

WIAW and Fiber Gourmet Giveaway!! November 8, 2012

Happy Hump Day! Since it is Wednesday, it is time to link up with Jenn for What I Ate Wednesday!

Today, I was on a cooking roll…

For breakfast, Keenan and I had No Oat Oatmeal with chopped spinach added, sliced strawberries and a dollop of almond butter on top. I accidentally cooked it a little too long, so the consistency wasn’t as smooth as I like, but it still tasted good! Keenan liked it because he finished his in a matter of minutes! It was funny, he kept saying, “Mommy put salad in it!”

For lunch, I made Keenan some pasta using Fiber Gourmet elbow noodles with pasta sauce and leftover chicken from our dinner last night. He also had some Italian Carrots and a few slices of a pluot that he and I shared.

For my lunch, I made an open-faced turkey sandwich with tomato, half of an avocado and some pasta sauce. It was tasty!

In addition, I made another batch of Italian Carrots for Keenan this morning, as well as preparing tonight’s dinner.

For dinner, we had Turkey Meat Loaf in the Crock Pot, with roasted butternut squash and an apple walnut salad. Since I had some leftover salsa, I made the meat loaf Mexican inspired, using cumin, oregano, a little chili powder, fresh garlic and salsa (omitting the feta cheese, basil Italian seasoning and sun dried tomatoes).  We added a little chili garlic sauce on top for some added zip. It was delish!

For our salads, I used romaine lettuce, a fresh gala apple (diced), crumbled apple chips, roasted walnuts and feta cheese. For the dressing, I mixed a little champagne and balsamic vinegars with olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Overall, dinner was tasty and everyone enjoyed it! Also, as an added bonus to tonight’s dinner, everything was done as soon as we got home from CrossFit. I just love crock-pot/make ahead meals!

At CrossFit tonight, we had a great gymnastics WOD of pullups, handstand pushups (HSPU) and wall walks: 10 HSPU, 25 pullups, 5 wall walks, 25 pullups, 7 wall walks, 25 pullups, 9 wall walks and 10 HSPU. Though my shoulders will probably feel it tomorrow, it was a good WOD. I finished in 16 minutes and 8 seconds, not too bad.

Before I talk about Fiber Gourmet, I have to say my son is officially into bugs! As we were playing outside this morning, he found a couple of beetles and was fascinated by them! He just picked them up, held them in his hand and walked around with them. He kept saying, “Holding the beetles!” So, needless to say (no matter if I like it or not), I guess this is the beginning to the lovely world of collecting bugs….

Now onto Fiber Gourmet!

A couple of weeks ago, I received a package from the very generous folks at Fiber Gourmet. They sent a box of their half-calorie everything crackers and a box of their light elbow noodles. I was so excited to try their products, because I had heard so many good things about them. They are a food technology company based in Miami Beach, Florida. Their focus is on making low-calorie, high-fiber foods that not only taste good, but are good for you. They make pasta, crackers and cake taste like the “regular versions,” but with ten times the amount of fiber and much lower in calories! They use their own unique technology to add large amounts of insoluble fiber, called “resistant starch” (which is calorie free) to increase the fiber content, while lowering the calories by 40%. The “resistant starch” tastes like starch, but works like fiber in our bodies.

With that said, the nutrition labels for their products are so different than regular pasta, even whole wheat. For their pasta, a 2 oz. cooked portion contains 130 calories, 18 grams of fiber and 6 grams of protein! In contrast, whole wheat pasta contains on average, 200 calories and only 4-5 grams of fiber with barely any protein. Their crackers contain 70 calories in each 30 gram pouch with 12 grams of fiber and 4 grams of protein. Also, the ingredient lists for all of their products are pretty minimal: Durum semolina flour, modified wheat starch, and wheat gluten for their pasta. For their crackers, the ingredients are: Modified Wheat Starch (resistant starch), flour, vital wheat gluten, palm and/or canola oil, wheat germ, sugar, salt, honey, molasses, baking powder, guar gum and any spices.

When my husband and I tried the crackers for our “at home date night” a couple of weeks ago with some Gouda cheese as our appetizer, we were both impressed. He was definitely not looking forward to trying the “healthy crackers,” as he called them, but was pleasantly surprised! The crackers were light and crispy and definitely did not taste like a “healthy” cracker. They sure did not taste like you were consuming 12 grams of fiber! My husband liked them so much, that he practically finished the entire box of crackers that night!

When we made the elbow noodles, we were once again impressed. The noodles looked and cooked like regular pasta (not requiring a longer amount of time like whole wheat pasta), and the best part of all, they tasted great! My husband and Keenan loved them! We will definitely eat these noodles again. Since I’m half Italian, I grew-up on fresh pasta, so I have to say, I’m thrilled to see pasta that tastes pretty darn close to the real thing, but contains far less calories and is loaded with fiber! All, in all, I highly recommend Fiber Gourmet and I can’t wait to try more of their products! You can find some of their products in specialty grocery stores, or you can buy directly from them online, or through amazon.

Since Fiber Gourmet was so generous, they offered to send one lucky reader a box of their choice: a sampler pack of pasta or a case of crackers!

To enter the giveaway, please follow the steps below:

1. Leave a comment on this post stating which product you would like to try: a sampler pack of pasta or a case of crackers.

(Optional) Earn an extra entry by:

1. Like Fit ‘N’ Well Mommy’s Facebook page

2. Follow Fit ‘N’ Well Mommy on Twitter: @FitNWellMommy

3. Post on YOUR Facebook page or Tweet, “I want to win a sampler pack of pasta or a case of crackers from Fiber Gourmet and Fit ‘N’ Well Mommy!”

4. Follow Fit ‘N’ Well Mommy by email

*Make sure to leave a second comment on this post with your Facebook post, Tweet, like or following, in order for your extra entry/entries to be counted!

The giveaway ends Tuesday, November 13th at 8 p.m. PST!! Good luck!