A weekend of birthdays! & A Thank You!

It's  hard to believe just last year that Ava was born. Saturday night they had her birthday party. She is just the cutest thing!

 "How big is Ava? SO big!"

I love getting to see cousins I don't visit often.

My mom and me. I love her outfit. 

We had a great time at the party!

Sunday, my mother in law had people over for lunch for her birthday. I didn't take any picture there (too busy chatting with everyone!) Andy told his mom I would bake something for her though. I knew what that translated to...cupcakes! You see, I am pretty famous for my cupcakes. I make everything from scratch. My buttercream frosting is awesome, if I do say so myself :) I did take a picture of them before we left though so I thought I'd share. 

I wanted to thank Jen over at The Look 4 Less. She was so sweet to send me a little gift and sweet note. Check out her blog, she does an awesome job to save people money!

She sent me this nail polish:

Which is the "look for less" of the Chanel Particuliere nail polish. I LOVE it and can't wait to paint it on! Thanks again Jen! 

Love Swap

After a minor mix-up, I received my Valentine's Day package from the swap Katie set up. Lucie was my swap partner. Check out her blog-her boys are the cutest! 

I was super excited to open my package. She wrote the sweetest note in the card. Thank you for everything Lucie! 

 First off the box was full of Hershey Kisses with almonds which are my fav! I love that purple nail polish, which will be perfect for spring! My favorite is the bracelet. Its hard to photograph how glittery it i, but here is a close up.

Thanks to Katie for setting this up! And thanks to Lucie for my awesome stuff! 

What we eat

Ever since Oprah had her show "Food 101 with  Michael Pollan" I have become very interested in the food we eat. I picked up Michael's book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.

WOW! I learned so much from this book. He gives you a couple rules to live by. One that stuck out to me was "Avoid food products that make health claims"(Pollan 154). Yes, I am  was a total sucker for buying into that. Did you know that brands (like cereals, and dairy) that have The American Heart Association seal on them pay a fee for that? This logo is on that sugary cereal with that cute little leprechaun (without naming names :) ). I mean now that I read that how can that at all be good for our heart health? Bogus! 

Okay, so processed food is bad for you. I liked when he said "Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food" (Pollan 148).  His whole point was would she be able to idenify the food we eat now, i.e. Go-Gurt. He lists the ingredients and more than half of them aren't "yogurtlike."

I feel like I could just go on and on about all the things that opened my eyes. He used the term "flexitarian" which I really didn't know what it meant. I did a Google search and learned a flexitarian is a semi-vegetarian diet focusing on vegetarian food with occasional meat consumption. A self-described flexitarian seeks to decrease meat consumption without eliminating it entirely from his or her diet.

That is me! I thought about being a vegetarian, asked a friend that is for advice, and researched. I came to the conclusion I enjoy chicken, a lot. Michael himself isn't a veg and listed some great websites at the end of the book that help you find beef that is 100% grass fed (cows were meant to eat grass not grains like what most are because it makes them grow bigger and faster)  and eggs that are pastured (Free range doesn't mean the chicken had access to grass: sometimes it's just an area of dirt). My favorite site is Eat Well Guide. Just enter in  you zip code and there you go! 

This is a must read! Our bodies are all we have and we should know everything we put in them. I am ready for the change (slowly!) and look forward to all the food I can try! I will leave you with one last quote from the book, and after you read it let me know! I already have his new book on my list at the library!

"In countries where people eat eat a pound or more of fruits and vegetables a day, the rate of cancer is half what it is in the United States." (Pollan 164)

All info was from:

Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto New York: 

The Penguin Press, 2008

Extra Long Weekend

I work at a school and this weekend was our mid-winter break, we were off Friday and today. Well I just got the call we will have our 5th snow day tomorrow. I hate to say this but I am getting bored staying at home all day! I don't want anymore snow days because they will add them on to the end of the year. 

So since it is a snowy day I will give a weekend recap (there will be some CUTE pictures along with it too!) 

Friday was "girls night out". The girls go out for drinks and a movie while the guys stay back for poker night. This time it was only 3 of us. We went to the bar in the movie theater and watched the opening of the Olympics. Then we went to go watch When in Rome. If you haven't seen it you aren't missing anything, if you have seen it what did you think? I normally like chick flicks, but I thought this one was kind of corny. I won't complain too much because Josh Duhamel isn't too hard on the eyes!

Saturday I went out to Micheal's with my 60% off coupon (more than once!) and got some fun things for my craft room. Then we went out to A's cousin's house to bring them dinner and see the twins! You might remember Amanda from the shower Kristen & I threw for her. Well I don't think I ever posted that they came at 32.5 weeks on December 23rd. Sam came in at 4lbs 2oz and Kate at 3lbs 4oz. They were the tiniest babies I had ever seen in real life. Their actual due date is tomorrow. Sam is now 6.2 and Kate is 5.6. They are adorable. See for yourself:

I just love them!

For Valentine's Day A and I just kept it easy. We stayed home and watched Julie & Julia, which was a great movie! We cooked dinner in the crockpot and it didn't turn out so great but you live and learn :) We didn't do gifts this year since we just took a ski trip but we did make each other cards:

Mine is on the left and A's on the right. I think its cute he goes in my craft room and makes a card. 

Sorry for such a lengthy post! Tomorrow I am crossing my fingers my package comes for the Love Swap from Katie's blog! 

Snow

Like the rest of the country we got a significant amount of snow fall over the past 36 hours. It was nice to come home from a 4 day vacation to having a snow day on Tuesday. Then this morning I got another phone call saying we would be having another one today! I haven't been at work for a week! This weekend we are off Friday and Monday for President's Day so I will only be working Thursday (my job has its perks!) Hope everyone is staying warm. I leave you with some snow pictures :)

Boyne Mountain Ski Trip

We got in from our ski trip yesterday afternoon. We had a great time! The drive wasn't bad at all. It was much colder up there than it was at home, but after a little bundling up it wasn't too bad. Boyne Mountain was beautiful. Back here at home the closest ski mountain is pretty small, Boyne was about 4 times bigger.

When we got in Friday we walked around to check the place out. We went ahead and bought our lift tickets for the weekend. They had $10 lift tickets for Friday night, so while Andy, Tony, and Kristen went out I stayed in by the fire. They were only out for about 2 hours since it was freezing! We went to grab dinner at the pizza place on the resort, Trophy Room Pub & Pizzeria. So yummy!

 I love that we had a fire place in our room. I had that thing on every chance I could!

Saturday was the day all 4 of us hit the slopes. It was so nice to ski right out of our condo! It wasn't as cold as I thought it was going to be with the sun shining on us. We all had a great time, and I only fell about twice! 

Saturday night we went to the casino, but sadly none of us came home big winners. I was just excited to play my favorite slot, The Wizard of Oz :)

Sunday while the boys went skiing Kristen and I had a day at the spa. We started out by relaxing in the relaxation room. We then went to the Hatha Yoga class. It was my first time ever going to yoga and let me tell you I can now understand why people love it! It was so relaxing. The class was 75 minutes long and I enjoyed every minute. Next, we went to get into the whirlpool tub. After a long day of skiing it was super nice to get in! We went into the cider sauna before heading up for our manicure. While getting our mani's we had a great view of the mountain and got to watch all the skiers. I loved having a girly day while the boys were skiing. 

Sunday night we wanted to watch the Super Bowl at a bar/restaurant. So we went "downtown" to see what we could find. We found this great little place.

We came home Monday afternoon. It was a great trip! Thanks to Tony & Kristen for inviting us to come along! 

Ski Weekend

We our on our way to the slopes! We are headed up to Boyne Mountain, MI. 

I can't wait to hit the slopes, visit the spa, and gamble a little at a casino. I think its 

going to be a great, and much needed 4 day vaca. I will be back with a full report

and tons of picture! Have a great weekend!