Winner Announced

Thanks for participating in the giveaway and thank you to Kari Beth for your generous giveaway. 

I used random.org to pick the winner and lucky #44 is the winner today! 

Congrats Haley :)!!! email me your address and I'll pass it to Kari Beth and you can redeem your shop credit.

Don't Forget!!

Don't forget to enter the amazing Elle + Ollie giveaway!! Ends tomorrow morning! 

Hope ya'll have a happy Wednesday! 

On the Menu at the Henry's

A couple months ago Andrew decided he was ready to get healthy and lose weight. He has gone back and forth a ton of times with wanting to and then quickly getting back into his normal routine. This time I was wanting to lose weight too and was wanting to feel better. I knew that if I changed everything around the house that it would be much easier to stay on track. I wanted it to be a gradual life change rather than a quick fast diet.


We decided to do basically the Paleo diet but we definitely incorporate some whole grains and some wheat. We also do minimal dairy intake. I got rid of regular flour and bought almond and coconut flour which is what I have been using for all the baked goods. I use unsweetened almond milk in place of regular milk. I 've made my own organic mayo and ketchup that are on the paleo plan. We use almond butter and sesame butter in place of peanut butter. I also have been buying 90% organic produce. I use dark chocolate in place of regular chocolate and we keep TONS and TONS of fruit and veggies around all the time. For oils I have been using safflower oil and coconut oil.


The problem with eating healthy all the time is it really does get super expensive. So here are some of the tricks I have figured out...


Find a local veggie stand or use your locals farmers market. You get tons more for your money. There is a veggie stand on the corner right by our house and I stock up with their homegrown organic zucchini, tomatoes, squash, berries and peaches. Then the things that we use all the time like sweet potatoes, spinach, field greens, onions, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers I actually buy at Sams. You can also get a frozen veggie blend that is really good to have on hand. It's a package with cauliflower, broccoli and carrots and I use that when I don't have any money to buy fresh.


For meat I go to Sam's at the beginning of the month and buy two packages of fresh all natural chicken; they come in packages of 12-14 chicken breasts that are $14.00. I also buy the chicken breasts tenderloin b/c they give you more in those packages and it's cheaper. We also buy big packages of chicken legs and thighs with the bone b/c they are so yummy to cook with and super cheap. I usually pick one extra meat or fish to have on hand when I'm there; pork, ground beef, tilapia or even steak sometimes. After I buy it I come home and divide up the meat into 1 gallon ziplock bags for each meal and freeze them. I date the bags and then I'll just take out whatever meat I want to use and put them in the sink to thaw at the beginning of the day and that way by 4:00 they are ready to use.


So here is our result... Andrew is slowly but surely losing weight (18 pounds so far). He is staying on track with this diet b/c I have time to cook good stuff and there's no way to cheat at home. Do we cheat sometimes?.. Yes! I can't resist Chick-fil-a chicken nuggets and fries every once in a while and I do crave a good chocolate chip cookie every once in a while. Andrew cheated all weekend when he was at the lake, he couldn't resist some good southern cooking by his mama. When he got home from cheating all weekend I asked him how he felt all weekend and he said he had the worst stomach problems all weekend. And when I splurge and eat chick fil a I feel rotten the rest of the day. Overall this new way has made us feel so much better and made us have more energy. I can seriously tell the biggest difference.


Sawyer doesn't mind it either, he eats what we eat and enjoys all of it. In fact at home instead of asking for fruit snacks, he's asking for pistachios, almonds and fruit. I will say he becomes quite the binge eater when he's at other people's houses. If he knows someone has fruit snacks or cookies or anything in that realm he will ask for snack after snack at our friend's houses. Sorry to my friends whose pantries he's cleaning out! We are going to keep a few extra things around so he doesn't act like we are starving him when we go other places.


Hope some of you find this helpful. I did this because I've had a few people request info on what we are doing. I also hope you are enjoying some of our healthier recipes that I'm featuring. Let me know if you try some of them!


Here are some of the sites I get my recipes from... I'm still new at this so send along any other sites you might know about!


http://fastpaleo.com/
http://www.multiplydelicious.com/
http://everydaypaleo.com/


Happy Tuesday! Have a great night!

Yummy Monday: Memorial Day Menu (Paleo Style)

( Sources: Table and Lawn games: Country Living, Red white and blue tin cans: Pottery Barn

Happy Memorial Day to everyone! Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend and still remembering what this day is all about. Thank you to our veterans and to our troops who are still serving our country. 


Well I officially promise to write a post about our diet changes tomorrow! But for today I wanted to tell you exactly what I'm making tonight for our version of a Memorial day cookout. Personally I love having burgers for Memorial day so that is exactly what I'm making. This recipe is one that I partly invented and one that was also inspired by other recipes that I found. 

Sweet Potato Cumin Burger

For the Sweet Potato Salad...

- 2 Sweet Potatoes peeled and cubed 

- 1/4 cup chopped green onions

- 1-2 medium tomato cut in cubes

- 1 avocado diced small 

- 2 TB chopped cilantro

-1/4 cup fresh lime (about 2 limes)

- Salt and Pepper to taste

- Safflower Oil or whatever oil you prefer

After you peel and cube the sweet potato place on a baking sheet and coat with oil. Roast in the oven at 415 degrees for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned. 

While the potatoes are cooling chop your other veggies and then combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and then add the sweet potatoes to the salsa. Mix all together and refrigerate for a couple hours. 

This salsa would be good with chips or crackers too!

(Recipe inspired from HERE)

For the Burger... 

- 1/2 Pound grass fed beef

- 1 TB chopped jalepeno (optional)

- 1 TB cumin

- 1 ts chili powder

- 1 TB garlic salt

- 1 ts cayenne pepper

- Salt and pepper to taste

- 1 Egg for each burger

Mix together all ingredients (Leaving out the eggs) until well combined and then grill. When the burgers are close to being done fry eggs in a little bit of oil. 

When everything is hot and ready you will layer the egg on the bottom, burger goes on top of the egg and then top everything off with the sweet potato salsa. 

(Recipe inspired from HERE)

This is SERIOUSLY good! You have to think outside the box a little ;)

For dessert... 

Banana and Dark Chocolate Smoothies

(Pic and recipe inspired from HERE)

Here is what you'll need.... 

- 1-2 bananas

- 2 ts raw cacao powder

- 2 TB almond butter

- 1/2 cup ice

- 1/4 cinnamon

- 1 cup coconut milk or almond milk

- 1 TB raw honey

- 2-4 drops stevia supplement (adds sweetness)

Add all ingredients to the blender and blend away! This is so delicious and not too bad for you either!

Serves 2 adults and 1 toddler perfectly :)

Hope you enjoy these recipes! I would love to hear if you try some of these and if you like them. 

Happy Monday! Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial day! 

Elle + Ollie Giveaway!!!

OKay friends, I have the most amazing giveaway for you this week. Kari Beth the creator and founder of Elle + Ollie offered to do this giveaway and I know you all are going to be so excited. 

Kari Beth has made my kiddos a few things now and we are addicted to her creations. I think I alone could keep her in business because I keep wanting more from her. She is amazing and SOOOO creative.  

Here are just a few examples of her adorable creations... 

She makes CUTE boys shirts

And dish towels.. PRECIOUS!

And then of course, girls dresses and onesies... Go to her shop and you'll want one of everything.  

Kari Beth is giving a $25 shop credit to one of my readers!  

Here's how to enter the giveaway.. 

Must be a follower of my blog to enter the giveaway. For additional entries you must leave a comment telling me what you decided to do.. 

1. Go follow Kari Beth's blog HERE

2. Go visit Ellie + Ollie HERE and come back and tell me about how obsessed you are with her cute stuff! ;)

3. Tweet about the giveaway

4. Blog about the giveaway

5. Facebook about the giveaway

OKay folks, get on it and enter the giveaway! Good luck! 

Giveaway ends one week from today. 

Sweet Memories

I have been wanting to do this post forever. One year to be exact. 

I have to seriously fight back tears when I think about where the Lord placed us with this move we made a year ago. We are on a street with people who will be lifelong friends and we didn't even know them one year ago. We moved on a street with several 3-4 year old boys. And not only that but all of these little toddler boys have little sisters who are all babies around Brooklyn's age, they range from 1 year down to Brooklyn who is 7 months. Seriously, perfect! 

We play almost every day with these kiddos. They live right across the street so Sawyer is constantly looking out the window to see if his "best friends" are outside playing. They play anything and everything under the sun. Lately we have been doing tons of activities in the water. They all get along 95% of the time, they laugh constantly, are coming up with hilarious games and they really do all love eachother. It's so fun to watch. 

Not to mention I have become best friends with these kiddo's mamas. I LOVE them and motherhood has become 10 x's more fun living next to these families. We spend mornings together, afternoons together and even many evenings together. I drop kiddos off to go run errands and they do the same. I am constantly asking for ingredients I am needing (I think I'm the only one that does this though.. oops!). We meet outside after naps for happy hours in our solo cups ;). We count on eachother for moral support and help eachother stay sane. This street and these peope are one of the biggest blessings in our lives right now. 

Here is a collection of pictures of these sweet kiddos together.  

Yummy Monday: Roasted Veggie Spaghetti

Today I have another Paleo and diet friendly meal for ya'll today. We are really enjoying our new lifestyle of eating clean, healthy foods. I want to write an entire post about what changes we have made and some of the tricks I've learned to eating healthy on a budget. 

We feel good and are losing weight the healthy way and it feels good to watch our 3 year old enjoy things like zucchini spaghetti rather than the real carb loaded spaghetti. 

This recipe was made up last week when I had limited groceries to pick from. I have a veggie stand right by my house that I get most of our veggies from so I ran by there to get a load of veggies but other than that we had no food except for some frozen ground beef. It was fun to come up with this recipe on the whim and it turned out awesome. 

Roasted Veggie Tomato Sauce

- 1 Large sweet potato peeled and cubed

- 1 large zucchini cut in slices

- 1 cup cherry tomatoes cut in half

- 1 bell pepper sliced

- 1 squash cut in slices

- 1 can diced tomatoes 

- Safflower Oil or whatever oil you like to use for coating the veggies

- 3-4 cloves garlic

- 1/2 onion chopped

- 1/4 cup coconut milk

- 1/4 cup chicken broth 

- Salt and Pepper to taste

First chop all veggies (except for the onions and garlic) and place on a baking sheet. Coat with oil of your choice and generously sprinkle salt and pepper over veggies. Roast in oven at 415 degrees until lightly browned. (about 15-20 minutes)

Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. Add all the roasted veggies to your food processor or blender and add your can of diced tomatoes to the veggies. Process until everything is blended together to make a smooth sauce.  

Place your chopped onion and garlic in a skillet with a little oil and saute until tender. Add the pureed sauce to the garlic and onion. Add the coconut milk and chicken broth to the sauce and simmer on low heat for 10-15 minutes. (If you feel like the sauce is too thick you can add more milk or broth to thin it out.)

This sauce is SOOOO good by itself but I did add ground beef to make a heartier spaghetti sauce. I browned the meat separately and just added it at the very end. 

This sauce can be used with regular spaghetti or you can do what we did and try it out on squash and zucchini noodles. Here is the tutorial on zucchini noodles that I used... 

Happy Yummy Monday! Hope you enjoy this one! 

7 months

Why does time have to move so fast?? I want to push a pause button on our life right now. Brooklyn is becoming quite the little missy in our house and I'm enjoying every single second watching her grow up. 


- Brooklyn is officially all over the place. She's basically crawling. She crawls with two knees and then lays down on her belly and starts over. She almost has it down. She can go from laying down to sitting up now which is life changing if you ask me. She can sit up very strong now and rarely falls over. It's been a rather life changing month for my little baby girl. 


- She is sleeping through the night again after her month long battle with an ear infection. She goes to bed around 7:30-8:00 and sleeps until about 5:00, has a bottle and then sleeps until 8:00. She takes two- three naps depending on our day. If we are home all day she'll take a nap in the morning about 2 hours after she wakes up and sleeps for about two hours and then goes back down around 2:00 for 2-3 hours. 


- She loves food. We have introduced a new food once a week and so far she has loved everything. She has also learned to feed herself puffs and I even cut up a banana last night and she managed to make a few of the pieces to her mouth. GROWING UP!


- She weighs about 18.5 pounds as of a week ago and is really tall (not sure her length) she is perfectly fitting into 12-18 month clothes. She is huge! I took her monthly pics without pants so I could remember her chunky thighs that are oh so yummy!!


- She is still happy, happy, happy. She lights up with anyone who will pay attention to her. The only time she is fussy is if she is tired or hungry. 


- She still loves to play with all her toys. Her favorite toys are Sophie the giraffe, anything that plays music, she loves tupperware and cups and anything that is her brother's. 


- She has never paid attention to T.V. until last week when Sawyer was watching Yo Gabba Gabba and I looked over and she was in a dead stare and sat there and watched the entire show. I have been known to put it on just so she'll snuggle with me. 


- She loves her brother and he is the only one that can get her to laugh like she does with him. I love watching their relationship grow. 


- hmm.. what else?? I love her more than words. Seriously want to eat her up she's so cute and still sometimes can't believe that I have my own little baby girl. We love you so much sweet girl! 

Playroom Inspiration

Playroom part one by passysandparties on polyvore.com

Playroom part 2 by passysandparties on polyvore.com

Let the FUN begin!!! I love designing new spaces. 

Mother's Day 2012

Every year the last few years when I wake up on Mother's day I still have to pinch myself that I actually get to participate in this holiday. I could not feel more blessed to be a mama to these two precious babies of mine. It's such a special day. Thanks to my own mom who showed me what it means to be a mother. She goes over and beyond as a mom to us and I hope and pray that I will be half the woman she is.  Love you mom! 

I drove back from Little Rock late on Saturday and Andrew beat me home by a few hours. He got home from work (b/c he had to work that morning) and worked his little tail off. I came home to a SPOTLESS house that had been picked up and deep cleaned. He rented me a movie, had chocolates and magazines by the bed and took both monitors into the other room where he stayed all night. He left me a long letter that was the sweetest ever and told me to enjoy my night alone and to sleep as late as I wanted. So since this was all such a rarity I stayed up until like 12:45 b/c I wanted to soak up my alone time. I watched the best movie, read gossip magazines in my clean room and then fell asleep to peace and quiet.... HEAVEN! 

Around 9:00 the next morning Sawyer knocked on my door and woke me up with sweet kisses and even blurted out happy Mother's day. And then they brought me scrambled eggs, fruit and coffee in bed. After we got up and moving we all got dressed and headed out to Rogers to see our brother and sister in law's new house. We went from their house to eat lunch in Rogers and then enjoyed the crystal bridges trails and museum. We were gone all day but enjoyed every second of it. Sawyer even got to end the day, running around the Rogers splash park. We really had the best day and I felt so loved and pampered all day long. 

This is my gorgeous sis in law, Sierra and my precious nephew Hayes. Love them!