February Favorites 2013

At the end of every month I'll be writing a favorites post. It could be about anything from new foods, movies I've seen, restaurants I've tried, make up, hair products or something I've bought for the kids. Anything that I'm loving and would really want to share!

Second Cup - Latte Tuesday's
This month I found out while going for coffee with a friend that Second cup sells any medium latte for $2.95 on Tuesday's. Which is a bonus when it's almost regularly $5. I'm really loving the Honey Vanilla Tea Latte. If you get it made with non fat milk and no whip it's only 160 calories.


Oikos Greek Yogurt
A few months ago a friend of mine got me hooked on the Honey Greek Yogurt. It's still my all time favorite. I didn't even want to try any other kind because I loved it so much. Last week my husband brought home the Coconut Greek Yogurt and it was delicious. I recommend you give it a try. The honey is only 100 calories a serving and the coconut is 80 calories.

Laughing Cow Cheese
Before I realized how many calories were in cheese my family ate A LOT of brick cheese. The last 6 months we have almost cut it out completely unless a small amount is needed in a meal. So there goes my love for cheese and crackers. I picked up the Laughing Cow Light Cheese wedges. It's kind of like cream cheese. I use it to spread on or scoop on my crackers. It's only 25 calories a wedge. It's really good and there are also different flavours you can get.

Jessie Blair Jewelry
I got a beautiful bracelet from my friend as an early birthday present. She owns a small jewelery business which she sells off of etsy and ebay. It is a black faux leather Chien de Collier inspired bracelet. I absolutely love it. There are various colours available and it also had an adjustable strap with 4 different sizes. The picture below shows the front and back of the bracelet. This bracelet is priced at $25. You can also purchase it through her facebook page or on ebay.  She is always getting in new items. I love how most of her items are very unique. Later this month I'll be writing a full post on all the jewelry I have gotten from her and what she has available. Until I do if you would like to check out her stuff on facebook click here and don't forget to LIKE the page. Or to check out her ebay page click here.

Flower Clips from Ebay 
I was looking around in stores for flower clips to put on a headband for my daughter. I wanted to get a variety of colours but found that individually they were $1-$3 each and since a wanted a bunch I knew that could get very pricey. I went on ebay and looked up small flower clip lots. I was able to get 14 clips in a variety of colours for only $6 with free shipping. The picture below shows most of the flower clips I received. I also made the clip holder they are on but we'll save that for another post.

Jenn

My Fitness Pal

  About a week after I had my youngest daughter, last July,  I had noticed that I had lost 25 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. I decided I should take this loss as a head start to losing more on my own. I knew that I was one of few people that were very lucky to actually lose weight while being pregnant. I had already starting thinking about eating better regularly and working out a few days before I had my daughter.  After having her I was really anxious on how much weight I had actually lost because she was 9 lbs 2 oz and I was hoping it was about 20lbs. I knew that would give me a push to keep going. Then, I found out about My Fitness Pal.

                                                                    using an iphone app

I was talking to my friend about how to go about losing weight with tracking as she was on Weight Watchers. She told me that a few of her friends had been using My Fitness Pal. She said it was similar to tracking on weight watchers except you track calories instead of points. I decided to try that out first because I liked how it was free.

                                     
                                                                    using your pc

I signed up online, entered my weight, height, my goal weight and how much I wanted to lose a week. It gave me an amount of calories I should consume in a day. I didn't start working out right away as I had just had a baby 3 weeks before and they say you shouldn't work out until about 6 weeks after. Since it was the middle of summer and busy with 3 kids I decided to wait 8 weeks so my oldest had started back to school.
During the first 6 weeks of tracking I honestly could not believe some of the foods that were high in calories. Foods that the "media" claimed were healthy were far from it. Even certain salads were extremely high in calories. It took a couple weeks but I finally found meals that were lower in calories. I'm not interested in "diet" foods that taste horrible. I searched pinterest in hopes I would find something. I found so many recipes that my family loves and keep you full and are low in calories. I will be posting about more recipes in the future. If you haven't seen it I had a post about Spinach, Feta Turkey burgers. If you haven't read it click here. .

                                                     an idea of what your daily journal looks like

What I love about My Fitness Pal is you can add everything you eat to it to monitor your calorie intake for the day. The database has almost everything you would eat in it even some restaurant foods. You can also get an app for your phone. If using an android or iphone there's an option that you can scan barcodes of products instead of searching. You can also create your own recipes instead of putting in each ingredient all the time. It will also tell you your carbs, sugar, protein, sodium and more amounts for the day. There are also a community tab that it you use your pc you can post or comment on topics. I don't go on them but I know people who do. You can also add your friends. Which is good for encouragement.  The app is also easily integrated with many of the popular fitness tracking apps out there (including pedometers and heart rate monitors).

So far I have had a lot of success using My Fitness Pal. I made my husband sign up in the middle of September and I'm so proud of how much weight he has lost. If you would like to try it out click here. It is completely FREE. If you would like you can add me by my email jenn_s83@hotmail.com. I hope it works as well for you as it did for me.

Roots of Empathy

  As I mentioned in another post my 7 months old daughter is in a program called Roots of Empathy. It's a program for school aged children from kindergarten to grade 8. The class we are in is a junior/ senior kindergarten split. The baby has to be between 2-4 months at the start of the year and we make 9 visits to the class over the school year.

  With each visit we talk about what changes has happened since our last visit. Rolling over, starting solids or getting a first tooth for example. Each week there is a topic. This week when we visit we will talk about sleep.  How we feel when the baby doesn't sleep, how we can become grumpy to others when that happens and how it makes us feel for the baby that can't seem to sleep. Or what causes them not to sleep. Other topics have been traveling with baby and crying. When we get to the classroom for a visit all the children have their hands washed and have to sit around a green blanket. The blanket is for baby only unless they are invited to come on. When we come onto the carpet all the children stand up and I walk around for each child to greet her. They sing the same Hello song as well as a Goodbye song when we leave. Other then the main topic we discuss each time, the children also ask their own questions and we talk about the predictions they made prior to the visit about what Gabriella can do now.

  The program is for the children to learn about the relationship between the parent and baby and how the parent responds to the baby's emotions and how the baby's needs are met. It is meant to make a more caring classroom and to help eliminate bullying while increasing social and emotional understanding between the children.  The children in the class are so fascinated with my daughter. I didn't think at the start that they would have such a bond with her if any at all. They get so excited to see her. They'll see her on the playground before school and tell me how much they love her. It's so cute! They make her cards and pictures. At first I wasn't sure about participating in the program, but if by taking Gabriella in once a month helps the kids be more compassionate towards one another it has definitely been worth it.

  If you would like to read more about Roots of Empathy click here .

  If you have any questions or comments please post below!
  Jenn

                                                     Gabriella - 7 months

Spinach Feta Turkey Burgers

Since I've had my daughter in July I have changed my lifestyle. I workout 5 days a week and eat a lot healthier. I am going to be sharing recipes that are low in calories and are very filling. One recipe I have recently made is spinach feta turkey burgers. I came across the recipe on greenlitebites.com. My husband and I absolutely LOVE them. We ate them on english muffins instead of buns to cut some calories and I just put tomatoes and mayo on mine.

SPINACH FETA TURKEY BURGERS

-1 lb lean ground turkey

-1 cup quick Oats

-2 large egg whites

-10 oz frozen chopped spinach

-1/2 cup crumbled feta 

Preheat oven to 375 

The first thing you need to do is prep the spinach. If you don’t have a 10oz package defrosted simply put it in a strainer and run it under water. It will defrost in no time.

Once it’s defrosted, squeeze as much liquid as you can out and add it and the rest of the ingredients to a bowl.

Combine using your hands. Don’t overwork, just mix it until all the ingredients merge.

Form into 8 patties

Place patties on a greased baking tray.

Cook for 25-30 min.

Approx Nutritional Information per serving:

1 patty

Calories: 135

Fat: 3g

Fibre: 2g

Sugar: 1g

Carbs: 9g

Protein: 19g

You can check out http://greenlitebites.com/2010/07/05/spinach-feta-turkey-burgers/ to see the original recipe. They grilled theirs on a George Foreman grill, we prefer ours baked.

Happy Valentine's Day! Heart nail design and heart muffins!

Valentine's Day isn't something my husband and I celebrate. But we love to try and make it fun for the kids. Yesterday I made some heart shaped muffins so they could have for breakfast to get them in the Valentine's Day spirit. I picked up some silicone heart shaped muffin molds at the dollar store and because I didn't have time to make them from scratch I used some MacMillans muffin batter.

If you haven't heard of MacMillans they have a great selection of muffin and cookie batters along with frozen pizzas, cheesecakes, fruit and vegetables and tons of other products. If you would like to know more about MacMillans click here. The thing I love about it is I can take it out of the freezer the night before and after I use it I can put it back in the freezer after I use what I need. The muffin batter will keep in the fridge up to 3 weeks or in the freezer up to 6 months and any unused portions can be refrozen.

Here is what they looked like after baking. I'm so glad I bought these molds. I think they look so cute!

Valentine's Day Gifts

With Valentine's Day in a couple days I wanted to share what gifts I put together for my kids to give to their friends. First I'll start with my oldest Isabella who is 5. I bought valentine's pencils from the dollar store and glued tags onto them.
    
 

 

  
All I did was print off the template cut each one out and used a glue stick to glue it. If you would like the template click here. She also will be giving princess valentine's cards as well.


For her class party I decided to make mini pretzels dipped in chocolate with sprinkles.

She is also in Sparks so I bagged up some of these treats up for her to give as gifts along with valentine's cards.

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Now for my son Dean who is 2. He goes to pre-school. I bought bags, stamps, suckers and chocolate hearts from the dollar store to make his gifts.

Last one! My daughter Gabriella who is 7 months is in a program called Roots Of Empathy. Since she was 4 months she visits a kindergarten class once a month until the end of the school year. I will write more about that program soon.  The kids absolutely adore her so I wrote out valentines with a chocolate heart taped on it for that class.

I hope these ideas will help with future Valentine's Days!


Jenn

This is all new to me!

So I have decided to break out of my shell and start a blog. I don't know much about computers or doing things on the internet so I'm pretty proud I started this on my own. My page is very plain looking right now but I'll need the help of my husband to spice it up! I'm a stay at home mom of 3. I have 2 girls ages 5 years and 7 months and a boy who is 2 years. I will be writing about EVERYTHING!  Some of the things I will be blogging about are kids products, crafts I've done with the kids, makeup, hair products, DIY projects I've done and anything else I have an opinion on!


Jenn