Sweet September, Part 2

Since our move a year ago I have felt very lucky to still regularly see the people I love and mantain the relationships important to me.  But I still miss my baby sister every day! Before we moved, we lived about a mile away from each other, nightly dinners, weekend adventures, long conversations, kids laughing and a bit of crazy too were all frequent.  Aside from being my best friend Becca is a very busy working mom and our schedules haven't been as free as we would like to see each other this past year.  So when the weekend before my birthday I went to pick up my mom from the airport and I spotted a cute little red headed boy with his mother it quickly turned my 27th birthday into the BEST BIRTHDAY SURPRISE EVER! There was lots of shrieking, hugging and tears!  We had such a good time, shopping, cooking, late night chats & just the joy of being together.  Mom & Becca made me the best shrimp scampi with asapagus and homemade bread for dinner with from scratch chocolate cake with fudge frosting, it was sinfully delightful! The kids had so much fun together! Addi & Connor have been best friends since they were born and adding Hudson & Lilly to the mix has made their time together more fun! I also got to share my love of Trader Joe's and H&M with Becca with was fun.  I got such sweet gifts, my mom brought a variety of items and then let the kids each pick something to give me, they wrapped it in white tissue paper and then colored pictures on it.  It meant so much to me that mom thought of that, not to mention we brought me her yummy homemade bread!  We had so much fun together & our weekend went by incredibly too fast! I seriously considered making them miss their flight back.  But they made it home safe and sound leaving me with wonderful memories.   Missing the daily compaionship of my sissy is still one of the hardest things about living here, but I am so grateful for a magical weekend with her and all the people who had a hand in making it happen.  I am so lucky to be so loved.  Thank you Mom & Becca!!!

I love my Slow Cooker

I came across this webiste, Six Sisters Stuff & I love it, they have cute crafts and great recipes.  Here are a few of their slow cooker recipes I've tried and loved.  

• Slow Cooker Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches
• Slow Cooker Chicken Caesar Salad Sandwiches
• Slow Cooker Three Envelope Pot Roast Sliders Recipe
• Slow Cooker Creamy Ranch Pork Chops and Potatoes

Yummy Pumpkin Treat

Low-fat pumpkin cake bars recipe

Every fall season I remember my mom baking pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting and I love them! When I came across this low fat recipe I was really excited to try it, I found the original recipe here.  My family enjoyed it, hope yours does too! 

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 2/3 cup low-fat Greek yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup white sugar (I used half a cup of splenda)
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• Cooking spray

For the frosting:

• 5 ounces light cream cheese
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup toasted almonds, chopped

Directions:

1. To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 x 8-inch glass cake plate with cooking spray.
2. Mix pumpkin, yogurt, vanilla, egg whites and sugar well in a large mixing bowl. Once combined, add in baking soda, baking powder, flour, salt and pumpkin pie spice until fully mixed.
3. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until cake comes out dry when inserted with a toothpick.
4. To make the frosting: Mix cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla together. Once cake has cooled, frost and garnish with toasted almonds.

Yields: About 16 cake bars

Sweet September, part 1

Oh how fabulous was the month of September, seriously loved!!! Not even sure if I can re- cap the amazing month, I have so many fun memories! 

The first weekend was labor day & Jay's parents came to visit, we were all excited to have them and they had never been out to the west coast.  We went to Cannon beach with them, Multnomah Falls & hung out around the house visiting.  The kids were in 7th heaven.  Addi was warm and bubbly from the minute they walked in the door, Hudson was a little shy but the minute he & Grandpa started talking tractors it was game over.  Alice & I had really nice time visiting, we enjoy so many of the same things, sewing, scrapbooking and she & Ken raised 7 kids so she has lots of sweet advice to offer.  It was so cute to see Grandpa & Lilly play together, they snuggled lots & played catch.  The beach was gorgeous, we went out to eat and stay at an inn right on the beach, we had a bonfire and yummy food, it was delightful. We also went to the aquarium and fed the seals which was a hoot! I also got a huge break, between Jay, Alice & Ken I had so many extra sets of hands to help with the kids & everything around the house, and I hardly cooked, it was a vacation for me too! I was so grateful Jay got to have this time with his folks, it is hard being away from family, but his family is even further away so they don't get to make as many trips this way as my loved ones do.  I know he had a wonderful time with his parents and he & I got to go on two dates (in one week)!  Needless to say we are excited already for when they come next. 

I feel so blessed, like I hit the in-law jackpot. Love you guys!

xoxo

~s

Calling all Pinterest & Fashion Addicts

I love fashion!  Although it may be hard to tell since my full time job right now is a stay at home mama,which most days requires a uniform of yoga pants and one of my bf's over sized Michigan tee's.  But I really adore the way we can express our self through what we wear, I saw a quote once that said little girls start playing dress up at age 3 and never really stop- I totally agree! Enter Pinterest Addiction- according to my "style me cozy, neutral & sweetly practical" board my fashion sense never skipped a beat!  If only my style board and fitness board could come true while I eat my dessert board right?!

The other way I get my fashion fix & pinterest fix is through Jen Cylde, a stylist living in SLC, I love her because her sense of style is unique, she loves a good deal as much as I do, she doesn't do hoochy mama fashion & she's a working mama, she's totally relatable.  She has a great board which I love to pin to pintribute-w-jen-clyde-stylist & because I'm truly a pinning addict I've even been on her blog a few times for my pins, which is super fun!  You can check out her blog with some of my pins here: 

Striking Stripes

Pin Pal of the Week: Sara Deppe 7/6 

It's all about the shorts suit

Pin Pal of the Week: Sara Deppe March 3/23

Pin Pal of the Week: Sara Deppe 3/16

I get all excited like a little school girl when I land on her blog (the bf is so clueless about the whole thing) so I would love to share some of the fun & excitement with you, come and pin with us too! All the details are in the above post, just click on the link. Oh and every Monday she does a killer give-away!  Happy pinning to all us stay at home mamas who have a killer pinterest closet!

Addi's 5th Birthday

Picture collage personalized with Smilebox

Addi turned 5 this past week, she is my little angel, she is talented, boldly unique, spirited, kind, big hearted, loves to be a big sister.  She is a ham bone, always goofing around and making funny faces.  She loves to dance & sing, play in the water, do art, and play with her friends.  She is also my biggest snuggle bug.  I love you baby girl!

A Journey of Three Years

I just caught myself in this very self aware moment.  I was on pintereset (Hi, I'm Sara...I'm an addict) and I went to pull out a journal so I could record all these grand ideas I have, how I'm going to make my life completely organized, fit back into those skinny jeans, become a professional photographer, open an etsy shop and do all this in one month! No...really for a split second I contemplated doing all of this.  So back to the journal I pulled out, I expected it to be blank, but it wasn't. Its the journal I had started writing when I was deciding if I wanted to, no if I was actually going to follow through to, get a divorce or not.

"today I recognize that nothing he could do at this point would be enough & that closes the option of going back to the marriage. while this is sad it also frees me to look ahead to my future without complicated 'what if's."  author uknown 

"I don't need anyone else to show me how to fly or how to find my wings...my wings are broken...there's one truth that ties it all together, though...that you WILL fly again..you will." Melody Ross

I think visually and in lists so I have all these pages full of lists of what I though I could do better, what I could sacrifice, the worry I had for my children.  I started to look at this huge laundry list of things I felt like dazed, tired, worn out, drained, confused, scared, alone. And then I look at this list of words below it of how I wanted to feel....loved, adored, honored, respected, beautiful, strong, brave, wise. I got teary eyed I feel all those things now! Not in every moment of every day but I do have this very strong sense of 'right' in my life. Don't get me wrong my life is far from perfect I still battle with my depression and hang out in my pj's more days than not, I still loose my temper with my kids and some days I'm embarrassingly lazy and yet even with all these imperfections I still spend more days than not feeling happy and peaceful. I place three years ago I never thought I would be. 

So I wanted to take a moment to stop thinking about all my wants in this world and how I feel like I fall short and simply embrace the journey my life has been the last few years and  to say thank you God.  It has been a very messy, hard, bumpy, scary road but I truly believe that no other road could have brought me here. Thank you God for this beautiful life and I'm sorry on some days I don't love it as much as I should, but God I know you know my heart and I am truly so grateful.

*please note that the bottom two images are courtesy of Brave Girls Club. check out their life changing fun for women at www.bravegirlsclub.com or https://www.facebook.com/BraveGirlsClub

xoxo
~s