An Important Discovery

Have you heard of Natalie Hodson??

I just discovered her website. Seriously, if you need some motivation and ideas for eating healthy and working out, check this out:

www.nataliehodson.com

She is a MOM and she looks AWESOME. :) She has great "clean eating" recipes and tips for looking good. 

Sometimes "eating clean" (no processed food) can seem boring or daunting.....but her website is full of recipes that are yummy and nutritious. Hooray!

And another plus? No skanky pictures on this website! 

Chocolate Black Bean Protein Brownies

Have you ever considered using black beans in your baking?

Yeah, my first thought was "gross". However, after finding this recipe on a fitness blogger's site that I really like, I decided to give them a try.

I used canned pumpkin instead of apple sauce and regular milk instead of vanilla almond. I didn't have cocoa powder so I just used 3 scoops of chocolate protein instead of 2. I also didn't have coconut flour so I used regular flour. My "brownies" turned out to be more like a bread, but they were really yummy. And because I have a peanut butter addiction...I had to spread a little bit on top of mine!

  chocolate black bean protein brownies

WET INGREDIENTS:

• 4 Egg Whites
• 1-15 oz Can Black Beans
• 1 Cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
• 1-4oz Organic Unsweetened AppleSauce 
• 3/4 Cup Water

DRY INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 Cup Xylitol Brown Sugar
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 1/2  Cup Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 Cup Organic Coconut Flour
• 2 Scoops Chocolate Casein
• 1/2 Cup Unsweetened Baking Cocoa

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9×13 dish with non-stick spray. Combine wet ingredients in a blender or food processor and mix until somewhat smooth. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Fold in wet ingredients and stir until all lumps are gone. Pour into dish and bake for about 30 minutes. Cut into 24 squares.

Nutrition Per Brownie:

• 80 Calories
• 1 gram Fat
• 12 grams Carbohydrates
• 5 grams Fiber
• 1 gram Sugar
• 6 grams Protein

Teeterboard

On Saturday, Lance got a chance to perform in a little teeterboard gig in Ogden for the Flowrider Championships at the Salomon Center. He had only been on a teeterboard 3 times before Saturday!

23

My birthday was on Friday. . . I turned 23! Yikes! Where does the time go??

I had the best birthday ever!

 Lance had the day off so he took care of Jade in the morning so I could go to the gym! While I was away, he made a yummy breakfast of pumpkin pancakes (delicious), garbage hash (sounds gross haha but it is eggs, hash browns and veggies and it too is delicious), and greek yogurt with nuts and lots of other yumminess. We lounged around the apartment and played with Jade and then went to lunch at Great Harvest. We spent the day shopping and walking Jade around in her stroller and then met up with my dad for dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. (Yes, my days often revolve around food. hehe)

To end the day, we went over to the Nielsen's and ate my birthday "cake". Lance made my "better bad choice" cake out of a massive pumpkin pancake, with a layer of peanut butter, and a layer of some mixture of brown sugar, pecans, coconut and apples. Think what you will, but I thought it was delicious!

dinner with Grandpa Robinson

do you see that red mark on my arm?
 Jade gave that to me.
She's got a strong suck. haha

my "cake"

my hubby and chef

my favorite little birthday buddy

a slice of my "cake"
I have a peanut butter addiction.
yum

4 Months Old!

Baby Jade is 4 months old!

Today we went to her 4 month check up. She is 25 inches long and 14.99 pounds! :) Jade had to get her shots today. Let me just say that Jade is really good at holding her breath. Yikes. Her face got really red. Poor baby. It makes me so sad when she is sad. I don't think it really made her feel any better, but I got a shot too. Maybe daddy will get both of us a treat tonight.

Jade is constantly drooling. Sadly, she has a rash on her chest, but it is getting better. She loves to grab her feet and she is pro at rolling from her back onto her tummy. She loves being on her tummy. It makes it really difficult to change her diapers and outfits because she always turns over before I am done! She hasn't rolled from her tummy to her back yet.

Jade makes really cute "talking" noises and blows lots of raspberries. Whenever we look at our reflections in a mirror, she gets really excited and happy. She has a little orange ball with holes in it that she loves to play with and tries to eat. She enjoys grabbing her feet and sucking on her toes.

on her tummy

asleep and holding her favorite toy

preview of Jade in one of her Halloween costumes

playing the piano with mommy

flying Jade

4 months old

Dinner in a Wheelbarrow + other adventures . . .

On Sunday we celebrated my father in law's birthday. For 3 years now we have carried on the tradition of cooking up a bunch of crab legs, shrimp, potatoes, corn, etc. and dumping the fabulous combination into a wheelbarrow. Then we all gather outside and around the wheelbarrow to enjoy some great seafood (well, as great as you can get when you don't live next to the ocean) and fantastic end of summer evening weather.

dinner in a wheelbarrow

We spent a bit of time playing on the Chinese pole that Tyce rigged up in the backyard...

Mary

Tyce

 And Jade was totally entertained trying to eat this random purple thing.

On another note . . . I have been trying to get back into shape and lose some of that baby weight I gained! It is taking me a bit longer to get back in shape than I had planned it to take. One thing I have learned (and am still learning) as a new mom is to just go with the flow! Things rarely go as planned. haha. 

At first I was frustrated that I wasn't able to go to the gym to work out. . . but then I figured out that I could just work out at home with Jade. She is a pretty good little workout buddy. We run to the park and do lunges and pull ups on the playground. 

Lance signed me up for a gymnastics class. Yep, me. He thinks it's good for me to do things out of my comfort zone! I went for the first time on Monday. In the class we did some conditioning, stretching, and tumbling. It was a great class and I had fun, but I definitely got shown up by some 14 year olds! Even though it was a bit embarrassing that I didn't even know how to do a cartwheel right....I think I am entitled to 20 free awesome points anytime I attempt to do something physically strenuous just because I've grown a human inside me, and lived to tell the tale. :) 

By the way, today I am sooooo sore!