My New Favorite Recipe

I mentioned in my last post that I've been following an eating plan called Trim Healthy Mama, which I'm not the poster child for at all, but it has really helped me lose some overall weight and tummy bloat! I started it last summer and its really the only "diet" that I've stuck with for this long! I don't follow it 100% of the time but try to stay on plan Monday - Friday which means all of our dinners are structured around their eating plan.

Sometimes I need a little variety in our dinners so go searching on pinterest for something that's compliant with THM and recently I found a good one!

We love sweet potatoes here. Mark still loads his up with butter and brown sugar (the way I used to eat them too!) but since THM I've been eating with a small bit of olive and salt and shredded chicken. I still love it, but when I saw this recipe I was definitely willing to try a new way to eat a Sweet Potato.

It's a twice baked sweet potato with buffalo shredded chicken on top.

I'm not a huge fan of spicy things so I didn't put near as much hot sauce in my chicken as she did. She calls for 1/4 of a cup... I only put in 2 teaspoons! But the rest of the flavor was delicious.

It also has a little bit of cheese mixed in. 

I don't know why I never thought to mix cheese with a sweet potato, but it's delicious! Whyyyyyy is cheese always so delicious?!? I couldn't live without cheese.

Anyways. 

This is on the menu for us again this week because I loved it that much {and need to use up the left over shredded chicken from the first time!} So I thought I would share it here. The link below will take you right to the blog, TJ's Taste, where I first found it!

Buffalo Chicken Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

Reaching Goals before 30

My Journey this past summer to my 3rd marathon!

On November 18th I'll be running in the Philadelphia marathon and I'm so excited!

I knew it was going to be hard work to find the time to run for 2-4 hours at a time almost every weekend with 2 girls at home, vacations, and having to work some Saturdays - and it was! Some days were super early, sometimes I'd get back from a long run and feel awful for a few hours until my body recovered a bit {but I still had to be a mom!} some runs were rainy, some were scorching hot with 90% humidity...

But I knew I wanted to work hard towards a goal before my 30th birthday and get myself back in shape. So I did it.

I stayed more on plan following the Trim Healthy Mama plan that I started last summer, slowly built my miles and found a Youtube channel that has amazing in home workouts (Check out Sydney Cummings!) that has helped me drop a few more pounds, build strength and tone muscles! 

I really feel the most in shape and confident in my body than I have since I got married 6 years ago and I'm so excited to be heading in to my thirties healthy and energized!

Aside from the marathon I'm doing my first "ultra" marathon ON my actual birthday.

Its a 50k, so 30 miles for my 30th!

My people think I'm crazy for wanting to spend 6 or so hours of my birthday running trails but if nothing else it will be something I remember forever. A friend form work has been trying to get me to run this with her for years and since this year it was actually on my birthday I decided to go for it! I'm nervously excited for it, even if it ends up being miserable! ha!

I'm so grateful for Mark and his encouragement and support! He's the one home with the girls when I go out for my long runs on the weekends so I couldn't work towards this goal without him. 

But he definitely thinks I'm crazy for all of this running.  : )

One of the songs on my running playlist is a song by Andy Mineo, a Christian Rapper. A line in this song goes "Make Moves or Make Excuses." It's been my motto this past summer until now. All of the days I didn't want to wake up before the sun to run or workout, I thought of this line and the goal I wanted to reach. I could make a move towards it, being faithful in the little daily things or I could make excuses about why I couldn't do it! 

There's always a way to reach your fitness goals, mamas! 

Set some for yourself, no matter how big or small, and work towards them. 

The feeling of accomplishment is worth it. : )

See Reaghan Grow {4 years!}

I completely forgot to write my annual update on my baby girl! I shared her birthday party but not all of the things that made her special in her fourth year of life.

I am going to go ahead and give all the "baby book" stats that you know I love to document but I could really some up her "specialness" in one small story. Her birthday this year was on a Monday so for several weeks we were planning what we should do during the day until daddy got off work. We decided we would go to the Children's museum and invite some friends to join us. She woke up the morning of her birthday excited to go! We stopped at the grocery store on the way to pick up some cupcakes to share with our friends and after we got back in to the car I decided to pull up the address of the museum on google to make sure I knew exactly where I was going. As soon as the page appeared on my phone with the address it also showed the hours of operation and that they were CLOSED on Mondays. I couldn't believe it! I called to double check and sure enough, they were closed. I was so bummed! I knew Reaghan had been looking forward to it so much and I felt so bad for not knowing or checking to see if it would be closed but she handled it so graciously. She was disappointed but she kept reassuring me that it was okay and that maybe we could go again another day! Thankfully we were able to get a hold of our friends and meet up at Chuck E Cheese instead and she was delighted to play there for an hour or so! No melt downs over change of plans. She is genuinely a sweet, tenderhearted, thoughtful little girl. I am so grateful to be her mama.

On to her stats!

• At her 4 year check up she weighed 32 lbs and is 3 feet 3 inches tall. So she's grown 3 inches this past year and bumped up from the 25th percentile for weight to the 33rd. I was happy about that because she continues to be a picky eater and I'm always trying to make sure she's eating enough good, healthy food.
• She has matured a lot this year. I still wouldn't characterize her as outgoing but she speaks when spoken too, has developed some cute little friendships at church and no longer needs to me to be with her when we are around friends. Last year she sat right by my side during summer bible study but this year she spent the whole time playing friends. 
• She completed her first year of dance class, including 2 recitals! I wasn't sure if she would do okay being in a classroom without me or going up on stage, but she found a lot of confidence in herself this year through dance class. I'm so glad we started it with her.
• She rode rides at Busch Gardens with courage. Some of them made her a little nervous but she decided she wanted to do them and she did!
• She continues to have an anxious side. If something is upsetting or embarrassing to her she'll get very tense and complain of being itchy or cold. This is something that I'm trying to tackle this year in helping her work through. She is very sensitive to being corrected or disciplined because she doesn't like to be wrong, or embarrassed or disappoint. I know this year will be filled with teaching her to accept correction graciously.
• She loves all things princesses. Her favorites change week to week, but currently Belle is holding the top spot.
• She loves playing with her princess barbie dolls in her doll house, and loves when I join in! She often wants to play like the barbies are putting on a dance recital or since Aunt Nin Nin had her baby, like her barbies are going to the hospital. 
• She still loves to play baby dolls, play like she's "fixing things", read books, play with stickers and play outside! 
• She loves to look at animals but does not want to pet them, unless its Piper.
• She got a bicycle for her birthday and still hasn't quite mastered it in the last 6 weeks but we'll get there! haha She can ride her tricycle though!
• She still loves to watch TV and movies! If I didn't limit her, she could probably watch something all day long!
• She loves to sleep with her teddy bear named "changin bear" and her polka dot blanket.
• She knows all of her letters and sounds. Knows all of her colors and shapes. Can count to 50. We had fun doing a relaxed preschool last year!
• She can easily recognize landmarks and neighborhoods belonging to families and friends. 
• She learned how to pump her legs on a swing to keep herself going! 
• She was able to swim by herself (with a life jacket), the year before she needed someone to hold her in some way.
• She has chores to complete every morning - feed Piper, feed her fish and empty the shoe basket by the front door. (Where we throw our shoes during the day!)
• She can fully dress herself and put away her clean clothes correctly. 
• She is a great Big sissy and is very giving to Lilly! She is always willing to play and share with her. It is fun to watch them become closer and closer as they grow.

This and so much more make up our first born. The other night when I went in to say prayers with her before bed I climbed in to her bed to cuddle with her for just few minutes. She is growing so much and as the first born she gets the unfortunate roll of bearing all of my parenting blunders as we walk together into each new phase of her childhood and I'm thankful that God gave her the personality that He did! If Lilly and I were experiencing everything new together I think I'd be getting grey hair already! I'm incredibly blessed to have a sweet firstborn who I hope is always as loving and tender towards her mama as she is right now. <3