Hope You Have A While!

PHEW! What a great day we had yesterday! The weather was much too beautiful for me to be sitting inside all day! I'll try to make this post as picture heavy and text light as possible! Let's start with my Saturday night snack, shall we? :) Because I drank my green monster in the afternoon, I decided to have an orange and a Weetabix biscuit with the last of my Dark Chocolate Dreams PB on it....
This is my favourite way to eat Weetabix! The orange was dried out in spots which made it just blah. I had bought a big bag of oranges and this is one of the few left. Hope the others are OK!

Sunday morning I got up and showered right away because I knew it was gonna be a busy one. I made a delicious bowl of oat bran before we went out to the farm...
-1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup unsweetened almond breeze
-1/3 cup oat bran
-cinnamon
-1/2 mashed banana
-2 Tbsp egg whites
-sprinkle of carob chips and chopped pecans
Holy cow this was so good!!!

We left the farm a little earlier than usual because DS had his last hockey game of the season at 12:30. The kids ate their lunch before we left and I packed this Peanut Toffee Buzz Clif Bar to eat while at the game.
This flavour was another winner in my books!!! I'm always amazed at how satisfied the Clif Bars leave me. If it wasn't for the treat I'm about to tell you about, my hunger would've been kept at bay until dinner time!

So, treat, yes. We were a tad early for the game so I asked my hubby to stop at the store so I could buy those almonds. On my way back to the bulk sections, I came across the freezer bin full of the Cravings cheesecakes that I like so much. AND there was a new kind in there! Chocolate macaroon!!!
You know I just had to dig into one of those mid afternoon!!
Scrumptious!! I haven't had a chocolate macaroon in AGES! And this was only 110 calories for a good 1/3 cup. I'm in love! :)

DD went home with my parents after the game so after we were all snacked up, my hubby and I went for a walk while DS road his bike. That kids loves his bike rides, I tell ya!! We stopped at a park for a bit so he could play. I was surprised that the dirt was as dry as it was! Here is is getting ready to go down the slide!
When we got back I brought a chair and my book on the deck and squeezed in some reading time with my new Stpehen King book...The Duma Key. King is one of my all time favourite authors so I got right into it! I also let Pepper out on the deck for his first taste of spring. He was a little apprehensive at first, but quickly started to enjoy it!
Just before we left for my parents place for dinner, I decided it was time to try my hand at homemade almond butter. I ended up with just under a pound of almonds to start with.This is after about 5 minutes...And after 10ish minutes I finally had some spreadable butter!!! YAY!
I had some on a Triscut cracker immediately!It was warm from being in the food processor and OH, so good!! I packed it into some jars...
And brought the smaller of the 2 to my Mom's for her and my sister. I can't say it was a whole lot cheaper than that bought almond butter, but there certainly is some satisfaction in knowing that I made it myself!!

I started my birthday dinner out with a big serving of salad and a WW bun with a smear of butter.
Mom had made lasagna, but I can not eat pasta for dinner or I feel awful for the rest of the night. Round 2 was steak, sweet potatoes and asparagus. I declined the roasted potatoes as I'm not a fan.
Betty Crocker and my sister teamed up to make a marble cake which I ate with a scoop of Heavenly Hash.
My sister got me a neat little cookbook and some spa potions and lotions in a mango scent! can't wait to try the products out! :)

Check out my parents cat, Sinjin. She is 15 I think, and will shake a paw and do high 5's for treats! Here she is doing a high 5!
Eye on the prize, eye on the prize! :)

I had to fast for 12hrs so I could go get my blood work done first thing this morning. Before the clock struck 8pm, I munched on an apple with some of my homemade almond butter.
I wasn't exactly hungry for this but I knew if I didn't eat something, I'd be starving before bed which would equal a really crappy sleep!

So here we are at today, Monday and my birthday!! Happy Birthday to me! I can now officially say that I'm in my mid 30's, but I won't! :)

As I said, I started the day off with blood work so I couldn't eat breakfast right away. Surprisingly, I wasn't even hungry until we got home at 9 and I started getting the kids some food. Good thing, I guess!! I thawed out my last portion of Apple Pie Crock Pot oats and topped them with raisins and French vanilla International Delight coffee creamer once hot.
I started to get caught up on blog related things after breakfast, but once it settled I decided I wanted to go for a run...outside! I got the kids ready, packed up their bikes in the van and off we went. Ugh...it ended up being a DISASTER! The first trail we went to was still snowy and icy. Each kid wiped out once so we turned back and drove to another trail. This one was much better but still pretty wet. DS has no gears on his bike and kept up with me just fine. DD on the other hand was MISERABLE...and she has gears!!! She huffed and puffed and cried the whole 40 minutes and I was truly ready to just leave her there. Such a shame because the weather was fabulous and I felt really good! Somehow, I managed to get some pretty good stats out of it all.

Time: 40 minutes (of hell)
Avg Hr: 163
Max Hr: 183
Calories Burned: 376

I have no idea what the distance was because the trail was not marked as far as I could see. Next time, I'll go alone and pay more attention to the signs! And if I have to take the kids with me, I'll be sure to stick to the sidewalks!! When we got home, we had to strip out of our muddy clothes so I could throw them right into the machine. DD didn't come back down and when I went to check on her she was out like a light! when I woke her up for lunch, she informed me that she had been up since 6am. That sure shed some like on her crankiness at the trail! Here's a goofy picture DD took of me before we tried out the first trail...
I really need to invest in some better running gear! :)

For my lunch I toasted up 2 Dr. Praeger Sweet potato pancakes and sandwiched them between a Pita Break thin, Sabra jalapeno hummus, a laughing cow cheese wedge and some romaine lettuce.
This turned out to be a very good combination! I also ate 2 unpictured dates with homemade almond butter. As a treat later in the afternoon I drank a cup of dark hot chocolate...
Don't fret....that big mug was only 3/4 full! :)

I really just lazed around the rest of the afternoon (which was really only 1.5hrs) watching TV. My hubby came home from work with just enough time for me to get to Pilate's at 5. It was at this point that I realized that I had put my brand spanking new ipod through the washer and dryer when I did our muddy clothes after my run. Oh, yes....Krista is smart now that she's a year older. BLAH!!! Ruined my class because that's all I could thing about. I did come home to a surprise dinner, though which cheered me up some! My hubby & kids went out and got me a mango salad from my favourite Thai restaurant!
Yum, yum, yum!! I love this dish!! I finished my meal off with a piece of pumpkin loaf with a puddle of maple cappuccino sauce on top.
The sauce soaked into the loaf and filled it with gooey goodness! This is the suce that I used:
After dinner we drove over to Walmart and I bought myself a new ipod. My head is hanging in embarrassment. Too bad I can't really kick my own ass! :) Anywho, it's a little later than usual here and I must be off to spend some time with the fam before the kids go to bed. If you've read right through this monster post, I congratulate you!!

Around Blogland:

Jenn at Eating Bender is hosting a really cool contest for her 1st "blogiversary!" You don't want to miss it!! And remember to Get Us Baking and Win!!!

Bye for now!!