What's Up Wednesday

Today I am linking up with Shay for What's Up Wednesday. Let's get started!

What We're Eating This Week: We are still trying our best to follow the Mediterranean diet as much as possible. We have been adding a lot more fish and veggies to our diet. We have been buying our veggies at Costco because we have been going through so many of them. Do any of ya'll have Costco memberships?? I LOVE ours! It is amazing how much food you can get and how inexpensively. What are your favorite Costco finds? Tell me below in the comments!

What I'm Reminiscing About: I have a bunch of close girlfriends who are either currently pregnant or just had their baby, so I have been reminiscing a lot lately about being pregnant with Lily Grace 2 years ago. It is amazing to think there was once a time when we didn't know this baby girl who lights up our world 😍. I was 25 weeks pregnant here and was LOVING my bump!

Weekend Highlights

Happy Monday friends! It was pretty much your typical, run of the mill weekend around here but I have to say, it was much needed! Devin had been out of the country for a week and a half so we were excited to have him back and get to spend some quality family time together. 

On Friday afternoon our church was having a little Polish festival. My parents had planned on going and were also going to be our babysitters later that night, so we all walked over together for a few hours of fun. My parents ate some pierogis, kielbasa, sauerkraut, and other delicious foods while we all watched Lily Grace dance to the Polish music the band was playing. This girl loves to dance!

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday! Today I am linking up with Andrea to share some of my favorite things.

My Favorite Healthy Breakfast

Today I am posting about hands down my favorite breakfast. This is sooo delicious and filling at the same time. This is much more filling than my typical breakfast smoothie. 

I mean doesn't that look delicious?

Wavy Hair Tutorial

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday! Today I'm linking up with Andrea for Friday Favorites. 

Has EVERYONE been watching the Marie Kondo show on Netflix or is it just me?? It is making me go through our house purging things like crazy and either selling them on Facebook or donating them. I did not realize how much stuff we had until I started going through it... and yikes. But the silver lining is I've made over $100 selling some of our "junk", woohoo! #MoreMoneyForClothes #DoesThatDefeatThePurpose? #Maybe

How I Motivate Myself to Get to the Gym Throughout the Year (Not Just in January)

My biggest fans after cheering me on during the Charlotte Half Marathon in November 2018.

Mediterranean Diet: Salmon Cakes and Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Last week I shared with you that we were going to start implementing the Mediterranean Diet in our house. So far we are finding this to be really easy and have enjoyed trying out some new recipes. Devin has been making a less healthy version of these salmon cakes for years, so I asked him to try to find a more "Mediterranean Diet" type way of making them. Luckily he was up to the challenge and the only effort I had to put into this was making the brussel sprouts and being the official taste tester.  #mykindofmeal

J Crew Factory Mega Sale

Happy Monday! I don't know if you had heard or not yet, but one of my favorite stores, J. Crew Factory, is having a MEGA sale right now. As in an EXTRA 70% off clearance items type of sale. As in you can get one of these classic puffer vests for only $15. Yes, you read that correctly... $15! Make sure when you are checking out you add in the promo code EVENMORE to save your extra money. If you are into the preppy style of clothes, this is like another surprise Black Friday. Happy shopping friends!

This is a great time to stock up on classic fall/winter items that you know will be in style for years to come.  

Friday Favorites: Funny Mom Memes

Today's post of funny mom memes is inspired by a group of women who I could not live without: my mom friends, otherwise known as "The Mama Llamas". Every mom needs that group of girlfriends who understands why you might show up to the girl's night with poop on your clothes and not judge you for it. Every mom needs that group of women who you can text at an ungodly hour that your toddler has a rash and should you call the pediatrician?! They'll calmly (and immediately, because God knows they're up too) remind you that their child had the same thing a few months ago and it'll all be okay. And most importantly, every mom needs that group of women who can help you to see the humor in the many stressful situations that come from being a mom. Motherhood is without a doubt the biggest blessing in my life, but that doesn't mean that every single second of it is sunshine and rainbows. 

And So We Begin... The Mediterranean Diet

Good Morning! Today I am talking about something our family is going to be trying to implement more of in 2019... the Mediterranean Diet. 

Let's be real.. they had me at one glass of wine daily 😉

I'm sure you've all heard about the various fad diets going around right now (if not, this article was fascinating) and maybe you've stumbled across the Mediterranean Diet as one of them, but I have a feeling this one is here to stay. I first read a little bit about this after Bali when I was reading the National Geographic special magazine about Blue Zones (areas of the world where people regularly live to be over 100 years old). 

The magazine showed a fascinating look into several people's lives and what these people were doing that helped them to live such long and healthy lives. For some of these people, particularly the ones who lived near the Mediterranean, it talked a lot about what foods these people were eating and how the foods helped them to live a healthier lifestyle. 

Now obviously we are not going 100% all in here... we are still going to stop at Chick-fil-A once in awhile and if I don't have Mexican food every now and again I may lose my mind. The point is that maybe instead of pizza for dinner on Fridays we make a salad with cucumbers and Feta cheese. Maybe instead of cheeseburgers on the grill in May, we grill some salmon and vegetables. Maybe instead of dumping 4+ tablespoons of CoffeeMate into my coffee, I start weaning myself off of it and eventually go to black. I have read several articles/books on this and feel like I enough information and still feel comfortable with trying something new. This is not always the case, we did a LOT of research on keto after watching the documentary on Netflix and realized it wasn't for us. 

So stay tuned for some super easy Mediterranean Diet recipes on the blog. I'm going to see what I can find out there and find a way to make these as easy as possible for busy working mamas. If there was a "Mediterranean Diet in the Crock Pot" cookbook out there you'd better believe I'd have that one already Amazon Primed.

Weekend Highlights

Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL

Lily Grace's Attempt at Jailbreak... Leading Us to Her New Room

Hi friends and happy Friday! About 6-7 weeks ago we had a little bit of a scare when Lily Grace attempted crawling out of her crib during what was supposed to be her nap time. Luckily I had been watching her on the monitor (thank God for a video monitor!) and was able to catch her as she was straddling the edge of the crib before she went down the other side. She was completely silent as she did all of this-- not. a. single. sound! And boy you should've seen the smile on her face and look of accomplishment. If her crawling out of her crib wasn't so terrifying to us new parents, it would've been a sweet moment to see how proud she was. 

Crock-Pot Pork and Sauerkraut New Year's Traditional Recipe

I realize I am a few days late with this but figured I would post the recipe that my family always has as our New Year's Day meal. This was something my great grandmother on my dad's side made for her family, my grandmothers (on both sides!) would make for my parents as they were growing up, and then my mom made for us growing up. I plan to continue the tradition and make it for our family every year. 

Book Club-- December

Good Morning friends! I hope you're having a great start to 2019. One of my goals this year is to read more books than I did last year, meaning I need to read a minimum of 39 books. That feels like a LOT! I keep a running list of books to read on my phone but would love any suggestions you have. Please leave me one or two in the comments below!

The month of December was BUSY. I was only able to read 2 books last month, and to be honest with you, one of them was SO HORRIBLE it might make my short list of "Worst Books I've Ever Read". I don't even want to write about it other than to tell you all the characters were shallow snobs and not a single one was relatable. I was hoping that at some point they would redeem themselves, but nope. They were terrible all the way through to the end. The only silver lining? The book was short. So I only had to put up with it for a few days. 

The other book I chose to read because it brought back memories of this beautiful place we recently visited: Bali!