Home sweet home!

We are finally home! I had a great time in Florida... but happy to be back in Tennessee!! It was SO hot in Florida! August in Florida is always the worst month weather-wise! It was TOUGH getting back into work, though! I had pretty much NO motivation! I wanted to be hanging with my little girl all day long. I got used to being with her all day long this past week :( You can bet I was bolting out the door to go pick her up when work was over!

It was definitely a week of mixed emotions... Happy for my brother who is now a married man - still can't believe it! Sad for JR's family with Granny's passing and trying to adjust to a "new life".

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for JR's family!

We drove last Wednesday down to Florida and made it in great time, thankfully! Maddie survived the car trip up and down. I was really afraid that she would go nuts in the car for 11 hours straight... but thankfully we kept Taylor Swift playing on the IPod and plenty of books and My Little Ponies to keep her happy :)

I had almost a full afternoon with one of my closest friends... we have been friends since middle school! Her daughter is only a DAY younger than Maddie. Crazy, huh? She is one of those friends that no matter how long it's been since we've talked or seen each other, we pick right up where we left off... she's amazing! Our girls had lots of time to play this trip!

My eating was not great, though. I normally can balance vacation eating pretty well... but not this time around. Along with my "monthly friend" showing up TWO weeks EARLY (what the heck is up with that mother nature?!?) and a little bit of family stress over the trip... my eating was pretty off for me. TONS of sugar - I mean tons, tons, tons! I normally splurge on a trip... this was kind of beyond. And since we were on the go from the moment we got up until we went to sleep each night (we drive an hour each way between visiting our families... sometimes two or three times a day!), I had no time to fit in a work out! I thought I would jump right back into healthy eating today... but I think my body got so used to gorging on sugar, that it was craving it BIG time! I'm thinking I may need to go cold turkey or close to it to ween myself off of it!

But enough of that... Here are a few pictures of my brother, Justin's wedding...

Justin and our Dad....

Maddie was the flower girl :)
Justin and I

First kiss as a married couple!
My baby sister Ashley and her boyfriend George (I have the most gorgeous sisters!)

JR & I
All four of us kiddos....I swear I'm the oldest! They all outgrew me =P

And this was TOO cute...Justin and his wives daughter, Katelyn... who is now 7 months old... was so worn out from the wedding, she crashed and they put her out on these pillows... adorable!

As for food today - it was not the best! I have a pretty empty fridge due to being gone for a week! Dinner tonight was pull out whatever is in the freezer! I had some frozen leftover grilled chicken breast, some Arnold's Thins in the freezer... pulled those out... then grilled up slices of pineapple, swiss cheese, Annie's smokey maple bbq sauce... loved it :) Crispy fries on the side...
totally veggie-less :( Oh well... I'll do better tomorrow on that one. We got our CSA delivery tonight!

We got 1 yellow squash, some grape tomatoes, a patty pan squash, 2 corn on the cobs.1 green bell pepper and a cantaloupe (all for JR... not a big cantaloupe fan here!)...

Any ideas on what to do with our produce?

Make Up Monday!! Guest look :)

Monday, Monday!!!

I am going to try to keep up with doing "Make Up Monday"! It's a fun way to start the week off!

Going a bit off topic here for a second - I don't think I have mentioned as of yet that I am the oldest of four kiddos....

We have me (29 years old), my brother Justin (25 years old), my sister Brittney (21 years old) and the baby - Ashley (19 years old)...

We can be quite the goof-balls :)

Unfortunately, we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. They live in Florida while I'm here in Tennessee. It's SO hard sometimes! I miss them like crazy! But... good news is that you'll be seeing LOTS of this kiddo on my blog this week!

Meet Brittney...

Adorable, isn't she?!?

She is flying in on WEDNESDAY to stay with us for 6 days!!!!!! I can't wait! I haven't seen her since March :(

Britt is one of the sweetest, most down to earth people you will ever meet! She can sing her butt off... and she and I share a huge love.... make up!

We seem to like the same products and both have so much fun playing with make up... whether it's for ourselves... or doing someone else's make up!

The one difference is... Brittney is a heck of a lot more brave than I am when it comes to eyeshadow colors! This girl can rock out the bright colors... and make them look HOT! Me... not so much! I tend to stick more with the smokey eyes... I use some color... but have no idea how to do it where it looks like I don't have pink eye!

So I thought it would be fun to have her create a look for us today :) Check it out!


And now for the classic Brittney pose... haha :) Love ya kiddo!
Thank you Britt! I love you! You make your big sister proud :)

Would anyone else be interested in sending me your favorite look for Make Up Monday? I'd love to feature some guest looks!

I will be back later with today's food!

Awesome Saturday!

How is everyone's weekend so far?

My Saturday started off with a 5:30 am wake up call! We had to be out of the house early to get to my Aunt's house in Georgia...I had to get up to fit a short work out in!

I decided to do "The Shredder"...Level 2 of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I added in a few more of my own upper body exercises after it was over....I burned 253 calories in about a half hour. Not bad!

The main reason we headed to GA was to see not just both of my Aunt's that live there... but my dad, too. My dad lives in Florida (where I grew up)... but was heading up to visit his sisters. I took advantage of him only being an short drive away (instead of a 12 to 13 drive) and took off to see him!

After that, showered and ate breakfast as we headed off to Georgia! I have had a whole box of Kashi Go Lean waffles in the freezer FOREVER... and they expire next month, so I figured I better start using them! I toasted them up and slathered one side with PB and one side with AB and cherry preserves... with a naner.

About an hour into the trip, I was so excited to see a sign for Starbucks and pulled in to indulge in a bit of latte action

So even though I packed a big ol cooler full of food for lunch, I had a feeling my hubby would end up with something else... haha... and I was right! I should have snapped a pic but I didn't :) He and the kiddo ended up with Mickey D's... I'm not a huge fan of the Golden Arches so I opted to stick with my packed lunch not knowing what we would be eating for dinner at my Aunt's house... I packed a quick turkey and swiss on Ezekiel bread... I had some mixed blueberries, strawberries and pineapple to go with it - but they didn't look or taste right, so I grabbed the bag of baked lays I had packed for JR.

After a few more stops (never know what traveling with a Toddler is going to bring)... we were almost there...as you can see, after four hours, Maddie was more than ready to get out of the car! I don't know what I'm going to do with her when we have to drive to Florida next month for my brother's wedding!

We finally made it to my Aunt's... got out and visited for a bit... and then took Maddie out to meet the animals! This is their donkey, Peetie
My Aun't horse, Harley
All three of their horses... Blackie, Grey and Harley... aren't they gorgeous?
We had dinner... sorry, no pics of dinner! I'm still in that "awkward stage" where I feel odd taking pictures of my food when I'm around family or small groups... haha. Plus, I'm not sure I want everyone to know just yet about the blog... so I didn't want to have to explain! My Aunt had fixed chicken and shrimp to have with alfredo sauce... eek!!! But she knew was awesome and fixed my Uncle and I some plain grilled chicken to have instead of the chicken alfredo! I had half of the piece of grilled chicken, two small pieces of boiled shrimp, some plain noodes, corn and green beans. And some of the awesome salad she put together! My other Aunt made a GORGEOUS trifle... pudding mixed with cake, whip cream and strawberries, blueberries and banana... it was heavenly!!!!

After dinner, my Aunt headed out to get her horse, Harley warmed up so we could all take turns riding him! Maddie was so excited... here's a few shots of her watching with anticipation :)
Having a blast! :)
JR took a turn, too :)
We snapped a few shots with family before heading back to Tennessee.... Maddie with my dad and his fiance, Carol.
A shot that I thought looked cool of us all hanging out on my Aunt's porch...
I tried to grab this shot on our way home of the sun... I got the camera out too late... We had full view of it... but I took too long! I thought I'd share this anyway... It was so awesome!

This has been one heck of a post! Sorry for that! I'll check in later today.... I'm now off to shower and get ready to head to the last class of my yoga workshop with an awesome blogger friend :)