Whole Wheat Pumpkin Pancakes

Happy Sunday!

I’m happy to report it finally stopped snowing today.

It snowed for 53 hours straight I swear.

This morning when we finally got out of bed. Bee requested pancakes for breakfast and I was completely on board for that plan.

Much better then her idea to go the car wash and get ice cream yesterday. Did I mention it snowed ALL day yesterday?

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Pancakes

Yields: 10 pancakes

Cook time: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Skim Milk
• 1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 Egg
• 1/3 C. Pumpkin (canned)
• 2 tsp Raw Honey
• 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. Nutmeg

*If you want to pump up the protein add a scoop of whey vanilla protein.

Directions:

Put all ingredients in blender and blend until well combined and pour onto hot skillet, when bubbles form and pop, flip and cook on other side. It is about a minute on each side.

Top with favorite toppings- maple syrup, honey, bananas, strawberries, etc.

And devour!

Pancakes should always be mandatory on Sundays.

Great idea Bee.

Now, lets go get some ice cream.

Synergy Stew

Hey guys! It has been snowing here today NON-stop!


Somebody really loved it.


First thing this morning he wanted to go “catch snow.” So we did.

I also broke out the Christmas music..I’m usually all against listening to Christmas music until AFTER thanksgiving but I thought maybe it would help me break out of my “snow,snow go away” thoughts. It did. A little.

Synergy Stew


Have you ever made a stew or soup and after you finished you thought “that would have been really good if..”? It was missing maybe just one ingredient to make it absolutely perfect?

I have.

Mainly because I usually decide to make a soup off a whim with left overs and almost always forget a little onion. (I love the flavor onions give in soup). 

I’m going to take this a different route and relate it to MY personal synergy. Synergy is created when things work together to create a great income outcome.

What makes me good, or feel my best? What elements assist me in my life to achieve my best self.


1. SLEEP- I need sleep. I crave it some most days and honestly do not know how I got through the first few months of becoming a mom. When the twins sleep well. Mom does too! I’m happier, more energetic and less grumpy.

2. My family,husband and children- I love these people and their sarcasm, jokes and love. I know if I ever need anything I have someone to call. Chances they pretend their to busy to care are high, but I know they have the best intentions. ---Totally kidding. I love them all and they love me. Sarcasm at best.
 

3. My friends- My friends are some of the most unique, down to earth, funniest people I know. I don’t know how I could get through my day without their emoji text and sweaty hugs.


4. GPP- My day doesn’t go anywhere without getting my workout done first. I can’t get anything done around my house until I get my workout done.




5. Me time- I love my schedule. I like having a plan, things to do, places to be, people to see kind of life. I also love having scheduled “me” time. To take a nap, right in my journal, blog, read a book etc. ME time is for my sanity.


6. Eating Clean- When I eat clean, I feel better. Easy as that.


Eating Chicken, Rice, Broccoli and raspberries while watching Greys? Even Better.


Check out some of the other things my friends over at fitmixer have going on!

BOGO sale! Send people to our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/fitmixer) You have to  "like" fitmixers page to unlock the code to get a FREE bottle of fruit punch amino® with any purchase (does not include blender bottles). Ends November 30.
Weekend Getaway Giveaway! Again, go to the Fitmixer Facebook page and follow the steps to win the Weekend Getaway. The prize consists of a $99 Marriott Hotels & Resorts voucher and a $50 gift card to Restaurants.com. Ends November 30. ---Who wouldn’t want to win a getaway!
Fitmixer® Product Daily Giveaway! Go to the Fitixer website (http://fitmixer.com/current-promotions/daily-giveaway/) to enter to win their choice of any fitmixer® product, DAILY! You have to enter daily to increase your chances of winning, and the winners are announced each day. This promo ends December 15.

Head on over to Fitmixer and tell them a few of your ingredients in your synergy stew to gain a few extra entries!  To head on over right now CLICK HERE!

GO! GO! GO!
Question of the day:
What is your synergy stew recipe?

Gearing up for Winter Running!

Workout: 30 min slow run 4.15 miles

There is suppose to be a big snow storm dumping on us tomorrow. I am NOT a fan of winter. It really screws up my running. If you are anything like me you enjoy running outside vs. treadmill, you enjoy being able to run in shorts and a tank with a cool breeze at perfect fall temperatures.

I live in Utah. My ideal running temps last from about June-August in the early morning and Sept-October in the afternoon. Then the snow hits.

I wait until the sun comes up and I get bundled up.


Must have: Winter running


My friend Chelsea, has winter running down.

• Beanie/headband—you need to cover your ears when you run. It prevents you from catching a cold. I am lusting after this.
• GLOVES- My hands freeze every winter. I even wear gloves. I need to invest in this pair. I like to keep some hand warmers in my running belt just incase my gloves fail me.
• Reflective Vest—if your brave enough to go in the dark. If possible, run during the day so you can see where your stepping to avoid slippery ice
• These are awesome to run in! Especially the day after a snow storm. Don’t wear them on the road, just in the snow. Trail running shoes are awesome as well!
• Layer up! You may get a little heated during your run so layer up just in case you need to shed.

I love to wear something like this, this and this. Pretty much a thin layer long sleeve, fleece fitting and wind resistant.

• Running tights: You obviously don’t want to wear shorts so get some tights like these. Wunder Unders really are my favorite running tights by a land slide but are a little on the pricey side, I know you can find something similar without spending all your grocery money for the month. Like these. I also like to scope out Tj Maxx- they can have some awesome deals on running gear!

Know this:  Winter running

• Throw your running clothes in the dryer for a few minutes before heading out.
• Shorten your stride-  By keeping your feet lower to the ground you will run more efficiently and and lower your chance of totally eating it. If you can run on fresh snow rather then ice or packed snow you will have better traction.
• Warm-up: When you get outside walk for a little bit and let your muscles warm up a tad before take off with a comfortable tempo.
• If its absolutely freezing, icy head to the treadmill and knock out your miles there.
• Run a holiday race, change up your course and check out some Christmas lights around town. As always, keep it different, keep it fun!

Question of the day:
What is your winter running tip?

My Traps are on Fire.

Good News: At least one kid slept through the night. And today was MUCH better then yesterday. Totally Winning.

BUT is it a good thing that it is Wednesday and I feel completely wrecked?

It is launch week at one of the gyms I teach at, so everyday this week has been two-a-days for me. So when I saw this workout pop up last night on GPP website, for todays workout I cringed a little. Last time we did this workout, I did not RX it. I had to drop weight to get through it. It is ROUGH..

When I woke up this morning I was totally feeling the power cleans from yesterday.. I workout every morning and spent the whole drive to the gym talking myself into doing the workout with every intention of using the RX weight.

The smart me, thought I should actually take it easy, I had another workout coming tonight, I was sore, give the bod a break and give up RX today. THEN the real me comes out..Do it, push it, embrace it and get it done.

I grabbed the #15 dumbell and got it done. ALL of it. It took me longer then I would of hoped for. I also had to stop and shake it out more then once. But I RX’d that sucker. That felt better at the end and accomplished!

My man traps are still sore.. but worth the RX.

If you hate doing core work, like crunches, sit ups, planks and all that jazz. Throw this workout into your day. This workout will do amazing things for your core, without one sit-up.

I wrapped up the day with a little Body Combat. I have all my extra cardio in for the week according the the TDC! Except for the fact I’m not in bed yet. Totally failing on the sleep thing. I better search for a case lot sale.

With that being said, I’m keeping this short and sweet and heading for some ZZZ’s

Question of the day:

When you are sore do you take a rest day or go workout anyway..(I know I’m not the only addict.)

What do you do to keep you on track for your goals?

Birthday Cake Fail.

I have procrastinated this post tonight due to the election watching and cake serving.

We had family over tonight to celebrate Brent’s Birthday and ended up watching the election with the rest of America..

I made my very first red velvet bundt cake from scratch..but when I went to dump it out it broke.. I frosted it anyway and pretended it was fine.. it wasn’t.

So I went out and did the easy thing.. I bought one.

My Red Velvet, cream cheese filled Bundt cake tasted fabulous (so I heard from a few taste testers) but wasn’t easy on the eyes… Thank goodness for bakeries.

It was fun having some fam over tonight to help relieve some morning, mid day and afternoon stress that I had… And wrap up Brent’s Birthday Celebration!

He got ALL the candles out in one blow. A new PR.

My workout today was this workout at GPP. I love power cleans! It is one of my favorite Olympic moves. I reached a new PR today of #145 1RM!  Which I was stoked about but really wanted #155 but I’ll take it. I still have a little transition issue and I create a fear of the bar when I fail once. It’s all in my head.. I’ll get it one day.

So, remember last night when I mentioned my children are rebelling because we didn’t take them to Vegas… And maybe cause daylight savings messed up their golden sleep patterns..Well guess who woke up at 3:45 AM, 4:45AM and all ready to go at 6 AM. Yep.. and who spilled a lot of odwalla on the couch 2 hours before I had to leave to teach and get a new cake and get home before the fam got to my house.. ugh. It was a long day today.. Tomorrow WILL be better!

Off to bed, just in case, two of my favorite little people decide to party at 4 am again.

Peace.

Take me back.

Usually, when I get home from vacation I come home refreshed and more then ready to get back to the daily grind. – I am definitely one of those people that really likes my daily schedule. I don’t necessarily plan my life weeks in advance, I just like being home. Well…that was not the case today. When Baylee woke up at 5 am, I was wanting nothing more then to be sleeping in that big comfy MGM king sized bed again instead of sitting on the the couch watching Angelina the ballerina at 5 AM!

Take me back..

This whole daylight savings thing is great if you don’t have kids. They just don’t get it. We even kept them up a little later throughout the last week to prepare for the time change and it didn’t do jack. They both were still wide awake even earlier then normal! They usually sleep until 8… Maybe this morning was just them getting back at us for not taking them to Vegas… maybe.

The good thing about them getting them up we were able to eat breakfast together before heading out to the gym.

The GPP workout kicked my booty today..

Source: GPPfit.com

After the GPP workout I headed over to skills fitness (its right across the gym) to do a quick workout from Porter at THF gave me to do this week. It took me about 20 minutes to get through a few negative sets all upper body, chest press, tris, back and biceps followed by 10 minutes on this

I also launched Body Attack 78 at Golds today. Let me just say, I pretty much sweated my face off the whole hour… When we do launches of new releases at the gym, All of the Attack instructors get together to teach it. So I end up having to teach 3 tracks instead of 6-12 tracks. That release is crazy rough. I really like all the music in it and the new moves the added, especially the tuck jumps and triangle pushups brought it to a whole new level.  I’m sure I’ll be feeling it tomorrow. We didn’t get a group photo but here, check out my new wunder unders I picked up in Vegas this weekend..

Love the design and fabric.. nothing really is quite as fabulous as lulu.

A good thing about being home…

WARM food!!

I had packed plenty of meals to get me through the weekend, but didn’t have a microwave accessible and ate most of those meals right out of the tupperware.. which isn’t my favorite, especially cold oatmeal! Warm oatmeal is SO much better.. and chicken and well.. all food in general is better fresh!

Now, its almost 10pm and I’m ready for BED!

Question of the Day:

Warm food vs.Cold food.

Would you rather eat it warm or cold.

Pizza?

Oatmeal?

Spaghetti?

Chicken?

I’m all on the warm side, I always hated when people would eat pizza cold.. some like it better! I just don’t get it.

What happens in Vegas…

We just got home from celebrating Brent’s Birthday Weekend in Vegas!

It was nice to unplug and just spend time together! My BIL and his wife- Brandon and Janey came along for the ride.

We left Friday night and got caught in killer traffic so we took a 2 hour break at Scheels, a new sports store in Utah. Brent has been asking to go for awhile so we decided instead of wasting gas, why not go play around in the worlds larges sporting good store for awhile.

Scheels has EVERYTHING for any outdoor enthusiast. Biking, running, apparel, hunting, fishing, etc. You name it, they got it. –even a Ferris wheel.

We had a fun time playing around with a few photo ops that were around.

Once we got on the road again, traffic -we pulled into St.George around 1am. We slept at Brent’s moms condo for the night and got to Vegas Saturday afternoon, just in time to place a bet on the game.

Our Utes WON!

We spent the afternoon shopping and people watching.

We stayed at MGM Grand hotel right on the strip. Check-in took forever… but once we got to our room, we dropped off our bags, got ready and headed out to get some food!

I had packed a few meals to keep me on track through the weekend, so I stuck some meals in the mini bar in the hotel room.. did you know they have sensors on that crap, and charge you if you move it… oops… Don’t worry, we talked them into removing the charge, but they weren’t very nice about it! But there was no way we were going to pay $220 for keeping my food cold.. Oh, well.. guess we won’t stay there again! Nice room- but service was a little unfriendly.

We walked around for awhile and ended up at some Mexican place that had a café rio feel to it. I tried to stick to my THF plan and got a salad with grilled chicken, veggies, pico de gallo and some guac.

Not great, not bad.. but clean as can be!

We tried to score some tickets to a show but the one we wanted to go to was priced well over $100 and I wasn’t willing to cough up that much dough so we shopped a little more and ended up leaving Lulu with my entire Christmas..

We ate dinner at the Rainforest Café. To save some money and keep it clean, I got a cheap side salad and topped it with a packet of tuna I kept in my purse.. A normal size salad was $25!!

I love the atmosphere of Rainforest Café. There was a “rainstorm” every half hour. The lights would flash and all the jungle animals would move and make noise. It was pretty entertaining. I also loved the fish tank!

Our service was great. The food was pretty pricey but hey, it was Vegas. Nothing is cheap really..

Brent got the BBQ Chicken Pizza that he really liked. I had a bite of the chicken and it was delish!

After dinner we enjoyed hanging out watching all the party –goers and people lose a lot of mula in the casino. I have never been brave enough to gamble… freals.. I would NOT be a good poker player…

We spent the night walking around town, jumping hotel to hotel. The thing about Vegas is that there is always something to do! Just walking around is entertaining!

Before I left Nevada, I dragged everyone into trader Joes.. (We don’t have one in Utah—yet) To stock up on a few favorites!

I made out like a Bandit! My husband loves my obsession with this grocery store.. he even skipped in with me.

 

It was a loooong drive home but it feels good to be here and after 2 days away from the twins I was pretty excited to see them!

After 2 full days off of training, I’m recharged and ready to go!

Here comes MONDAY!