Excited, grateful, and so much more . . .

Tim and I have had quite a busy and exciting year and to say it is going to get busier and be even more exciting would be an understatement.  We are beyond excited, thrilled, and grateful to share that we are having a baby!!!

We feel so blessed to be parents and start a family together.  We are going to find out the gender in the next couple weeks and then the shopping and the name game can begin!  The official due date is Oct. 28, right near Tim's birthday.  We are excited as can be and will keep the updates coming!

My Absolute Favorite Green Smoothie Recipe!

I am currently in a healthy living competition that requires eating 5 fruits and veggies a day.  In an effort to eat enough produce I was on a salad kick for awhile: spinach salad, buffalo chicken cobb, chicken cabbage . . . and I got real tired of salads.  Then I switched to V8 and could get 2 servings of vegetable in one cup, awesome!  Except for the fact that it tasted like tomatoes :)  The V8 kick didn't last too long.  I needed something different and came across this awesome green smoothie recipe from Iowa Girl Eats.  It is SO good and you can't taste the spinach at all. It also counts for 3+ servings of fruits and veggies.  I make it several times a week and have yet to get tired of it.  (Check out the link above for pictures and more info on why spinach is so good for you.  You should also check it because her blog is cool, I love her Friday Favorite posts.)

Green Monster Spinach Smoothie

1 frozen sliced banana
1 Tablespoon peanut butter
1/2 cup Vanilla Greek yogurt
1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla almond milk
2-4 cups fresh baby spinach

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Fridge-Worthy

I am substitute teaching again this year and loving it.  I love the flexibility, I love being busy, and I love working with the kids.  I am now working in our local district which has a lot more schools and means more opportunities to sub.  I have come to discover how much I enjoy teaching the elementary grade classes.  The kids are so sweet and eager to learn.  They love coming to school and always want to impress their teacher.  A bit different from other experiences I have had teaching. ;)  Whenever I am in the younger grades, the kids like to give me their drawings and art projects.  Some of them have little notes on them too.  They're cute and definitely fridge-worthy pieces. 

 

Happy Fall!

It is officially Fall! Despite the fact that the temp today was in the high 90's and we went swimming, I am still excited and look forward to the change in season. My fall candle is burning and the pumpkin cake roll is baking. It's a good day! Happy Fall!

Home Sweet Home

Surprise, we blogged! It's hard to believe it is already June and we have lots to share and document from the past few months. We have been busy but things are good and we are so grateful to be where we are at. Back in January, Tim was offered a new job. Same company, new position. It is a great stepping stone in his career and it has some great perks. He travels a lot less and works from home the majority of the time. His new job brought with it a certain time commitment so we knew we would be staying in the bay area for a few more years. We have loved the area we are in and decided to buy a house! We are homeowners in CA! It's really exciting and we are absolutely loving it! We moved in 2 months ago and have been busy unpacking, organizing, decorating, and getting settled. Everything fell into place rather quickly and we are very grateful and feel so fortunate. It is a single story with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. It is great to have a room that Tim can use for an office plus we have a guest bedroom, for guests!!! (come visit!!!). We are so happy to be where we are at and have loved getting settled into our new place. 

A quick trip

We headed south last month for another quick work trip.  Tim was busy at meetings and I was lucky to spend time with my sister Emily and her family.  It was SO much fun!  Emily and I took advantage of our slumber party and stayed up late chatting, laughing, and sewing.  Let me back up, Emily called me a couple days before we came because she was looking for a specific fabric to make a beach bag she saw online.  I new exactly what bag she was talking about because I had just recently got the fabric to make the exact same one!  We decided we would make our bags together and it became our late-night project.  We popped in a season of Murder She Wrote and got to work.  We took turns at the iron and sewing machine and both ended up with a nearly finished product. We talked and laughed and sewed, it was a blast!    
The next day, Em and the kiddos took me to the fabric district downtown.  It was amazing!  We scored 60" wide fabric for $2/yard.  Knits, denim, linen, you name it and they had it for a steal.  They had so many different colors and patterns of knit to choose from, I ended up with tons to make into maxi skirts. Charlie and Lucy were so fun to shop with and we had a great time.  They would play together and make each other laugh so hard, it was adorable!  After shopping, we met Tim back at their house and hung out until we left to fly home.  It was a quick and wonderful trip!

Charlie was showing me how to play the saxophone like a trombone!

This is Em's bag.  She is an incredibly talented seamstress and her bag is pretty much perfect.

This is my completed bag. Too bad you can't see how I cut the fabric wrong so the entire bag is vertical stripes, or the inverted pleats I added to make the bottom of the bag fit! I love how it turned out though and know I will get a lot of use out of it!

This is probably 1/100 of the fabric selection at this particular store!

 Even the zippers looked pretty.

 Trims galore.

He was showing me his favorite fabric!

 Sweet girl!

It was such a fun trip and now I am excited to make some skirts!

a good tune

Every now and then I post a song/album we have added to our current playlist. This is one I have listened to a lot since we found it a few weeks ago. There is a music video for it but I prefer the official lyric video here. Sweet and simple melody and lyrics.

i won't give up

Happy Valentine's Day!

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Hope you have a LOVEly day!

A Sunny Winter

We took a quick trip to LA last week and soaked in the warm winter they are enjoying (75 degrees!!). It was a great trip and even though it was less than 2 days, we got a lot accomplished. Lunch at Cafe Rio, shopping, cruising the LA freeways (in a sweet convertible!), dinner out with my family, lots of work meetings, reading, playing with our niece and nephew, more shopping, spending time with family, a short and sweet drive on the PCH (note: you don't get very far, very fast in LA when you leave at 5pm:), and delicious frozen banana ice cream. We had a great trip and enjoyed every minute of it! I even managed to snap a couple photos on our coastal ride.

There were several of these chairs in the lobby of the hotel.

Tim had to check it out! :) Not quite our style but they are comfy!

A cherry on top

 The breakdown: sliced banana, swiss milk chocolate ice cream, peanut butter fudge sauce, whip cream, nuts, and a cherry on top.

Tim and I enjoyed this delicious Fenton's masterpiece in December on a pre-new-years-resolutions-to-eat-healthy-exercise-more-and-get-in-shape date night.  I thought I would post this so I could just look at it since I won't be eating it again anytime soon.   Maybe if I stare long enough, the craving will subside . . . . or maybe not!  For the record, it tasted as good as it looks. 

Here is to a healthy start in the new year . . . we can do this! ;)

Happy New Year!

 I love the fresh start of a new year.  It is a wonderful time to set goals and make resolutions.  It is also a great time to reflect on the past year.  2011 was a great year and we have many good memories.  Here is a list of our Top 11 in 2011 (in no particular order):

         1)  We traveled together for work to Hawaii, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and Utah.
         2)  We enjoyed the Hill Family trip to Monterey.
         3)  Tim received a promotion at work.
         4)  We moved to a new city.
         5)  Camping in Utah with the Averett Family over Labor Day.
         6)  Serving as team teachers in Sunbeams.
         7)  Tim taught me to play golf and I played my first 9 holes (that were not mini-golf!).
         8)  Muir Beach picnics with Sol Food (our favorite Puerto Rican restaurant).
         9)  We started this blog.
        10)  We went on an Alaskan cruise and visited Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, and Ketchikan.
        11)  We celebrated our first anniversary . . . and we couldn't be happier! ♥

 Lots of great times and good memories!  We are excited and look forward to the opportunities, goals, and memories of this new year.  

Happy 2012!

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