A Great Halloween!

Thanks to an IBS flare up that kept me up until past 2am, I slept until 9 this morning. Ugh…By the time I had a shower and put my face on it was almost time to leave for hockey and I was pretty much out of time for a sit down breakfast. I defrosted an Ezekiel 4:9 English muffin, toasted it and filled it with some egg whites and goat’s cheese mozzarella;

Tasty, filling but best of all was that my belly was OK with it!

The game this morning was a lot of fun! The boys won their first game and were super hyper afterwards in the change room. All the parents were pretty proud of them!

Seeing as I missed my oats in the morning, I decided to make a big bowl for lunch! Didn’t think I’d miss my oats, did ya?? :D

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup USVAB
• 1/2 cup PC 5 grain cereal
• cinnamon
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• craisins
• mocha hazelnut sprinkles

I made a bigger portion seeing as it was lunch. The applesauce and pumpkin were leftover from some baking that I did previous to making lunch so I figured I might as well throw them in the pot! These are the sprinkles I used (which I totally forgot I had);

Then some Halloween treats found their way to my mouth;

On to the baking I did!!! I made Caroline’s Vegan Pumpkin Bread again using actual pumpkin this time! I used WW flour, 1/2 cup of agave in place of the sugar and a 1/4 cup applesauce instead of the oil. I also liberally sprinkled on some of those mocha hazelnut sprinkles.

I let that cool completely while we were running some errands, then enjoyed a piece when we arrived home.

DD went off to her friend’s Halloween party at 4:30 and DS had plans to go out with a teammate so the boys opted to grab some pizza for dinner. I’m willing to bet that pizza joints were rocking busy tonight! I pulled a serving of Curried Red Lentil Soup with Chickpeas & Quinoa for myself. I topped it off with a dollop of goat’s milk yogurt;

I munched on 3 more little chocolate bars as a sweet end, but no picture. Guess I was trying to hide the evidence! :D

So, the boys and the Dad’s took off for a good hour while I stayed warm handing out candy. There were some pretty cute little ones that came around. Another neat knock at the door came from 2 university students who were collecting non perishable food for the Food Bank. I guess a whole lot of them cover the city collecting food. I thought that was a fantastic idea for sure!!

Now, my hubby has left for hockey and I’ve decided to let the kids stay up until 9:30 to finish watching a movie. The mass amount of candy that they both came home with is safely tucked away and I am enjoying a nice, hot tea. I hope everyone is having a fun Halloween!

Bye for now!!

Halloween Festivities

I was up earlier than usual this morning. I think it was the excitement of us getting all dressed up in our costumes! Even better was the fact that my outfit required yoga pants, hardly any make up and a pony tail! I was downstairs 15 minutes earlier than if I was getting dolled up for a regular day at work! Before we get to the fun photos, let check out breakfast;

-1 cup coffee
-1/3 cup oat bran
-chocolate honey
-Enjoy Life Foods mountain mix

I pretty much inhaled that. I might’ve even burnt my tongue a bit! ;)

The kids picked out fairly easy costumes this year. DS wanted to be Bumble Bee the Transformer;

And DD went to what she calls a “dead” person:

LOL! Let me tell you….the cats DID NOT appreciate their get ups! They freaked right the hell out! It was kinda funny, actually. Once their hair and tails puffed out they looked like true Halloween cats. And here I am…hockey player extraordinaire;

I know, the pink slippers sealed the deal!! Everyone was impressed with A) my black eye and B) the fact that I fit into my 7yr olds hockey gear! Well, the helmet is DD’s, but she’s only 10. :D Apparently I look like a 12yr old boy in this shot!

Here are a few pumpkins from the pumpkin carving contest;

Yes, some of my co-workers have a “sick” sense of humour! I also had the pleasure of posing with a witch;

And we had a show girl and an official Olympic drug tester in the house;

A ghoul dropped in;

And Dora even took time off from her adventure’s to pay us a visit!

ROFL!!! :D

There was a potluck over the noon hour with tons of food. I don’t remember/know all that was on my plate, but here it is;

That was some wicked spinach salad so I had more of that. I kept the treats on the light side with a piece of pecan apple pie (to die for), a small piece of pumpkin crisp and some fruit (which was eaten later on in the day);

I just went with a light supper seeing as lunch was heavier than normal. I also used up a few leftovers while I was at it.

This is the last of my tofu, jade grain blend and some broccoli & yellow bell peppers all mixed up with a few spoonfuls of Ted Readers peach bourbon sauce.

We left for hockey right after dinner and when we got back home my hubby and the kids carved the pumpkins. This is one “job” that he likes to do every year. The kids get to gut the pumpkin for him…

Don’t they look impressed? :) I enjoyed a bowl of Nature’s Path Flax Plus Maple Pecan Crunch cereal for a snack;

Here’s the finished product!!

Pretty neat, eh? I think they did a great job!

Anyways, the time grows late and I still need to assemble treat bags for the boys on the hockey team tomorrow! Have a great Friday night!

Bye for now!!

How Long Does It Take You To Get To Bed?

Even though I got to bed later than I wanted and New Moon sucked me in again last night, I woke feeling pretty well rested. My game plan for last night was turn TV off at 10, make lunches, then go to bed. This is what ended up happening;

*Turn TV off at 10, go make lunches turned into
*loading/starting dishwasher, hand washing stragglers that didn’t fit turned into
*gathering the 3 cats (no easy feat) and putting them into the laundry room AKA their bedroom for the night turned into
*filling the food/water bowls, scooping cat litter turned into
*Finding laundry in the dryer turned into
*folding laundry and bringing upstairs turned into
*putting laundry away and taking tags off of new jeans that we bought DS turned into
*Setting out his clothes for today
and FINALLY getting to the washroom to prepare my bod for some sleep….after reading New Moon, of course. Now it’s 11:15pm and I’m wondering how the heck that happened!

Is anybody else guilty of doing this at “bedtime”? It’s apparent that I have to start preparations at 9 to actually get to bed by 10ish. LOL!

Here’s breakfast, which I remembered to photograph today!

-1 cup water
-1/3 cup sunrise blend with quinoa
-cinnamon
-pumpkin puree
-craisins
-almond butter (!!)
-cinnamon sugar

I had some odds and ends to clear up at work so the morning passed quite nicely. I broke at noon for my very last Mountain Mix Clif Mojo bar;

I’ll never get sick of this bar and have plans to stock up in a few weeks when I’m in the US.

I was pretty stoked when I heard that yoga had been cancelled today and that the gym would be available! I ended up enjoying a nice run while watching divine design!

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 158
Max Hr: 180
Calories Burned: 447
Distance: 4.5 miles

I warmed up lunch on the late side again today. 2:30 to be exact. Dinner was so tasty last night that I had it again! Only this time you get it all mixed up!

Red kidney beans, jade grain blend and PC Roma tomato sauce. I forgot to mention yesterday that the reason I bought this sauce in the first place was that it was marked down to 50% off. The one grocery store near me is renovating and I think they’re trying to clear some product out. It’s not something I would normally buy as it’s quite pricy for the size of the jar.

I snacked on some grapes; too while plugging away at some monotonous paperwork later in the afternoon;

I had just enough time after picking the kids up to go home and change before I had to head out again to take DD to skating. I shared some of my TJ’s chocolate bar with the newest member of our family;

While DD was on the ice I hopped over to Zehrs to pick up a few items that I can’t find at my usual haunt. When I saw that Lara Bars were on sale 3/$5 AND that they had the new PB&J flavour, i had to pick some up! The other 2 were coconut cream pie and pecan;

I haven’t bought any bars in a while cuz I had an overload of Clif bars to eat, but I’m down to 2 of those so this purchase was justified! :D I’m holding out another 2 weeks to see if I can score any of the seasonal flavours while in the States.

I had snagged us each a corned beef sandwich from a meeting at work for dinner which got rounded out by some cut up melon that I got at the store.

This was eaten at the rink once skating was over because we were hanging around to watch friend’s of ours son play a game. I had these little guys for dessert!

So now it’s almost 10 and we just got the kids settled into bed. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day! The kids will be dressing up in their costumes for school, there’s a big potluck lunch at work and a pumpkin carving contest AND I’ll be dressing up, too! Please come back to visit tomorrow to read about all the fun. I’ll likely be posting a bit later because DS has a game and them we’ll be carving our pumpkins.

In blogger contest news, head on over and pay Cassie a visit at A Pinch of This and a Pinch of That for a really fantastic Nature Valley give away. This is one prize that you do not want to miss!!!

Bye for now!!

The Best For Last

I must have been more of a scatter brain than usual this morning because I totally forgot to take picture’s of my breakfast. I know. DUH! And it was a good one, too. *sigh* Here’s what went in it, anyways!

• 1 cup USAB
• 1/3 cup PC 5 grain cereal
• cinnamon
• 1/2 cup cranberry sauce
• almond butter
• chopped peanuts

Work was smoking busy today so most of my eats were on the fly. I downed a chocolate chip Clif Bar before the gym;

I got a good sweat going on the elliptical today;

• Time: 45 minutes
• Avg Hr: 157
• Max Hr: 182
• Calories Burned: 435
• Distance: 5 miles

Work was pretty busy when I got back to my desk so lunch didn’t happen until almost 2. I had a Stonemill bagel with an Yves veggies burger, dijonnaise, ketchup and cucumber slices;

T’was delightful! I also indulged in a little treat from the office candy bowl;

Before I knew it, it was clock out time! My favourite time of (the work) day. DS had practice at 4:45 so I thought ahead this morning (maybe that’s why I neglected by breakfast photo!) and packed up some pasta to re heat at work for his Thermos. On the way to the rink I stopped at the dollar store to pick up some Halloween napkins for DD’s class party on Friday. I guess they chose what to bring on Monday while she was off sick and napkins was the only thing left. :/ Then I ate a honey crisp apple;

I stayed for half of the practice before collecting DD and heading home for some dinner. I combined a 1/2 cup of red kidney beans and jade grain blend with a few scoops of PC Roma sauce and a bit of goat’s milk mozz;

Oh, la, la! This was freaking fantastic. Hands down! Of course, once I took the picture I mixed everything up into a gooey mess! :D This is the sauce that I used;

Dessert was 2 of Allie’s aprican bites and 3 strawberry pumpkin coconut bites with some almond butter on top;

Eeeek…bright flash! Tasty plate of treats.

And the best part of this post? I received a great little treat box all the way from New York today! Sarah from Mastering Public Health offered to send me some TJ’s almond butter when she read that I had run out. Bless her heart!

And their were more treats in the box! Check it out…

Ow ow ow!! Hubbers and I broke into the chocolate bar just a few minutes ago and holy Hannah, does it ever ROCK! Yum! Thank you Sarah!!!

Well, my hubby is about to leave for hockey and I plan on making a tea and settling in to watch Law & Order: SVU. Hope you’ve all had a great hump day!!

Bye for now!!

Pilate’s & Biggest Loser

Well, I made it into work today! I’m SO, so relieved that DD was feeling more like her self when she woke up. Especially after reading THIS article this morning. Those 2 poor babies are right around her age! She ate a good breakfast, took her med’s like a champ and was excited to get back to school. Thank the heavens for that.

I got myself to bed at 9:15pm last night knowing that I needed to catch up on my own zzz’s, but that damn New Moon kept me up until 11pm anyways! Yikes! I must’ve slept enough regardless because I felt pretty good this morning. Breakfast may have been a factor in that!

-1 cup coffee
-1/3 cup oat bran
-raisins
-cashew butter
-Enjoy Life Foods trail mix

Seeing as today was my Monday and I had a back log of work to catch up on, the day flew right on by. Pre gym snack of the day was a Clif PB&J dipped Mojo bar;

JUST like a PB&J sandwich with out the bothersome bread! Loved it.

I’m guilty of trying to talk myself out of a run today and to use the elliptical instead, but then I read Leah’s post about how great she felt after her 4 miler and the deal was sealed!

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 161
Max Hr: 181
Calories Torched: 469
Distance: 4.5 miles

And, yes….I was very glad afterwards to have run!

Lunch was some leftover jade grain blend…

With some broccoli;

All I added to this was a wee pat of butter and some salt. Gotta have those 2 things with anything kind of rice because that’s how my Mom made it when I was a kid. I use to love when she made rice as a base for stew or chili because her rice was always so flavourful. Good ole saltiness!

Afternoon snack-a-roo was a huge honey crisp apple.

I only have one left so I’ll be buying more this weekend for sure. I think the season is almost over for them which is too sad for me to even contemplate. :(

We BBQ’d some turkey sausages tonight which I served with the rest of the green beans from the other night. The fam had some packaged noodles, too so I decided to mix up a 1/2ish cup of red kidney beans with a scoop of TJ’s spinach sauce. It turned out fantastic! Here’s my plate;

And just as a reminder, here’s what the jar of sauce looks like.

I scarfed back 2 of Allie’s aprican bites on my way out the door to Pilate’s. Hence no photo!

Speaking of Pilate’s…..at some point this class turned into a sweet kind of torture. By the time the hour is up every muscle in my body, but especially my core area, is trembling. OW-WEE! Mind you, that is what I paid for!

I’ve just settled in with 3 strawberry pumpkin coconut bites with some macadamia nut butter;

to watch The Biggest Loser. After that will be straight to bed for me. :D

Bye for now!!