PEANUT BUTTER, STRAWBERRY & BANANA SMOOTHIE

YES! I am CRAZY for smoothies! They are such a healthy way to start your day. You get your fruits in and the protein from the peanut butter keeps you full. Here is another one of my favorites! It is a little more shake-like than the last one I posted.

PEANUT BUTTER, STRAWBERRY & BANANA SMOOTHIE

Two ripe bananas
Organic plain yogurt (about 1/2 cup)
Frozen strawberries (about 2 large handfulls)
Organic natural peanut butter (about 1 heaping table spoon)
Milk (normal, soy, almond....whatever works) (about about 1/4 cup)

Put it all in a blender, blend and enjoy!
Makes two 16oz smoothies.

Note: I never measure ingredients. The above measurements are guidelines. You may have to stir ingredients in the blender a few times between blends to get it to all blend together. If it is too think, just add a little more milk until it reaches the desired consistency.

MIXED TAPE MONDAY - RUNNING MIX VOL 1

Is it really Monday? Can I pleeeeease just have one more day to recoup from yet another crazy busy, jam-packed, without a moment to relax weekend? Not sure who I am asking this question to. Is there someone I can talk to who is in charge of handing out bonus weekend days????

Anyways, people often ask me if I always eat healthy? HECK NO! I eat healthy a good 85-90ish precent on the time. I like (by like I mean love) my chocolate and truly believe throwing back a few beers (or vodka sodas w/ lime) every once in a while belongs in the "healthy" category... at least for your mental health. I guess I improved my mental health this weekend. ;)

I do have to admit, after a night out, it feels so, SO good to get back into my weekly workout routine. It somewhat throws me off and I do not quite feel "right" again until I hit the gym.  Here is what I will be listening to as a get my butt back into gear this Monday morning.  Enjoy!



And just to prove today is going to be fabulous....

Oh, and a few shots from of our weekend wedding fun! Congrats Brian and Theresa!

BLOGLOVIN' & A NEW PHONE APP

What is your happiness? I guess a lot of things mean happiness to me, but the picture below perfectly describes one of my happy places. I. AM. BUSY. That might be the understatement of the year. I work 4 days a week, freelance on the side (so I am really working way over 40 hours a week), I hit the gym 5 days a week, I actually cook for my family, take care of a one-year-old, and now I guess I am a blogger. can I call myself that yet? hmmm.... that might be another topic of conversation.

My good friend Keri gave me this piece of paper. It was a piece from her daily desk calendar and it made her think of me. I have kept it ever since.

Anyways, what I am trying to say is that my few hours in the morning are sacred to me. I have always been a morning person and something about life being so calm for just those few hours makes me happy.

I wake up at 5am, make myself a pot of coffee (and a smoothie :) and sit and read my blogs. Many of my friends have this same routine (maybe not at 5am) but follow their blogs by bookmarking them and constantly checking if they have made a post.  Silly, silly girls! You all need some bloglovin' in your lives!  Seriously, check it out HERE or just hit the "bloglovin'" button at the top right of this page.  All you do is sign up with your email, search and add your fav blogs and they will all go into your news feed as the bloggers publish their posts. That way you only need to bookmark ONE site - bloglovin'.

Ok, now on to my new obsession - A Beautiful Mess phone app.  From my pics below you can see just how much fun I have been having. 99¢ is a small price to pay for this much fabulousness! :) Check it out HERE.

HAPPY FRIDAY KIDS!  I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. I will not be posting on weekends (except for maybe something small on Saturday mornings if I feel so compelled) b/c with all of that listed above, I still need to find time to relax, have a little fun and just be with my family.

4th OF JULY WEEKEND: PART 2

Logan's parent's own a lake house up north. Every 4th of July weekend the whole Buell family spends a few nights at the lake. This year my sister in law, Holly, had the great idea of splitting up the meals between the families.  Logan and I took breakfast (biggest loser pancakes) and lunch (healthy chicken salad sandwiches and white peach and feta salad) the first day we were all there. We spent the weekend eating, drinking, and playing in the water. I love that this is one of the the many traditions we are building. Building traditions for our family is something that Logan and I am really excited about as we continue through life.

I love this picture. The lighting was perfect and it was in the morning when the lake was still calm.
 Jordan catching Finn and Chuck in his kayak 

My beautiful Niece - Miss Brynn

These two fight like sisters and I laugh every time (even though I shouldn't)

My family :)

Boat ride with uncle/god father Paul

H & J on the jet ski

Logan slalom skiing

THROUGH MY IPHONE:

1. Brynn's beautiful braids        |         2. Cousin Love

3. Catching Ellis climbing the stairs... again        |        4. How we wake up Uncle Logan at the Lake

5. Red, White, and Blueberry Beer brewed by Paul        |        6. Whatcha doing down there Uncle B?

1. Couple selfie        |        2. Don't let the pink ride  fool you

3. Chocolate chip pancakes        |        4. Sister-in-Law breakfast bake

5. Passed out - it's a rough life        |        6. So happy on 4 wheels

RANDOM THOUGHT

A good friend of mine sent me this quote last week. I had to make it pretty and share it with all of you. I am sucker for inspirational quotes. I think I want to frame a bunch and put them on a wall in my house. hmmmm....... I feel a blog post coming on. Free printables maybe? :)

LETTUCE WRAPS

As you can see from yesterday's post, we have buttercrisp lettuce coming out of our ears! We needed different ways to use it besides salads. A girl can only eat so many salads! This recipe is a staple in this house - #1 b/c it is fantastic and #2 b/c it is super easy and fast to make when I get home from work. We all know taco "anything" is fast and easy, but this recipe is much so better than throwing in the taco bell seasoning packet. Really, there is no comparison. More importantly, by making your own taco seasoning, you are skipping all of the weird and unnecessary ingredients that you can't pronounce. You can eat these as lettuce wraps or on top of tortilla chips, my favorite being Pasqual's - made right here in Mad Town! You can also make a double batch and freeze half of the meat for later.

Ingredients: 

1.3 lbs lean ground turkey
1/2 onion (chopped)

1 red bell pepper (chopped)

3/4 cup water

4 oz can tomato sauce

Large iceberg lettuce leaves (we used buttercrip b/c we had it)

spice mix:
1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp salt

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp oregano

Directions:

Brown turkey in a large skillet. When no longer pink add dry seasoning and mix well.

Add onion, pepper, water and tomato sauce and cover. Simmer on low for about 20 minutes.

If making lettuce wraps:

Wash and dry the lettuce. Place meat in the center of leaf and top with tomatoes, cheese and salsa or whatever you prefer.

PIN IT!

Here is my little sous chef. She likes to help me by pulling all of the kitchen towels down and scattering them around the kitchen floor. Such a little stinker! :)

Note: My pictures are from a double batch b/e this family runs on leftovers. :)

Recipe slightly adapted from Skinny Taste

CINDER BLOCK GARDENS

Now I suppose this post would have made more sense a few months ago when people were actually starting to plant their gardens, but we have been eating from our garden a lot lately and I wanted to share how we (When I say "we" and mean "Logan") made our gardens this spring.

This post might have made me a rock star of a wife, but let's just say the pressure might have been on after Logan gave a totally fantastic, redesigned garden space for Mother's Day.

We moved into our home about five years ago and at that time we built a little raised bed garden out of leftover lumber from the house. We planted six strawberry plants at the end and filled the rest of the space with a variety of different vegetables.  Since strawberry crowns are perennials (live year after year) and each year the strawberry plant sends out new roots from the crown, the strawberries kept spreading year after year until the entire bed was filled with strawberry plants. I was thrilled with the growth of the plants b/c they are seriously the best berries I have ever tasted, but that left us without a place to plant vegetables. When Logan asked what I wanted for Mother's Day, another garden bed for vegetables was at the top of my list.

We looked around at different options and decided to replace the outside of the old wooden bed with a cinder blocks and build a new one to match. It was cheaper, less time consuming, and we knew the cinder blocks weather better than the wood.  Overall we are super happy with the beds and love that we can plant herbs or marigolds (to keep insects and rabbits away) in the cinder block holes. Here are some specifics about the beds...

- We used cinder blocks from Home Depot that were on sale for 89¢ a block.
- Each bed is about 11x6 ft (68 sq ft) and took 22 blocks ($19.58).
- It takes about 2 cubic yards of dirt to fill each bed about 6 inches high with dirt.
- You can have top soil delivered to your home for about $90/cubic yard or use black dirt and compost and mix it 90% dirt and 10% compost.
- We planted butter crisp lettuce, brussels sprouts, a variety of different peppers, cucumbers, chives, rosemary, basil, snap peas, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, and cucumbers.
- When buying your plants, keep in mind that you have to leave room between the plants - usually at least 12 inches.  We bought way more plants than our garden could handle and had to use large planters on the deck to contain the leftovers. 
- We planted our garden a week or so after Mother's Day and bought our starter plants from a little greenhouse down the road from our house.
- Early next spring I want to try growing my own starter plants from seeds.

Besides eating berries from our garden, we have frozen about 3 gallon ziplock bags full to store in the freezer for smoothies!

I could not agree more!

Right now we are using the berries for smoothies, making lettuce wraps (a post on those later this week) and salads with our butter crisp lettuce, using the basil for fresh bruschetta, pesto, and on top of homemade pizza, the chives in grilled potato packets on the grill and we are now just starting to get broccoli that I steam up for Ellis.