SOCIAL MEDIA

Friday, July 31, 2020

Monthly Goals-- August 2020

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you had a good week! Today is the last day of July and I wanted to share a peek at what goals I'm setting for myself for the month of August. 
Thursday, July 30, 2020

Thai Basil Chicken

Good morning friends! Today I wanted to share with you a recipe that Devin whipped up last week that was incredibly delicious and also super healthy. I love finding recipes that check both of those boxes šŸ‘ 
You can make this one more or less spicy depending on your preferences. 
Here's What You'll Need:
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon coriander
- 1/4 teaspoon citrus salt 
- 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 shallot, minced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 red bell pepper, sliced
- 1/2 orange bell pepper, sliced
- 2 large carrots, shredded
- 1 cup fresh basil
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
- 1/4 cup peanuts, crushed
- 1 packet rice or vermicelli noodles

1. Cook noodles by following directions on package. Set aside.

2. Season chicken with ginger, coriander and citrus salt. Melt 1 tablespoon of coconut oil in a skillet, and cook chicken until cooked through. Set aside chicken but keep warm (we put a plate over the top to keep it warm!) 

3. Reduce heat to medium and add garlic and shallot. Add bell peppers and carrots and sautĆ© 3-4 minutes until they start to soften. Add soy sauce and hoisin sauce and a few dashes of coriander. Stir together and add the chicken and basil to the pan. Toss together until basil wilts. 

4. Plate your dish by first putting down the noodles as the base, then the basil chicken on top of the noodles, then add crushed peanuts on top.

Enjoy!! 

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

What's Up Wednesday

Good morning friends and happy What's Up Wednesday! Another month bites the dust... and I have to say, our July was great, but I am looking forward to what August will *hopefully* bring-- a little less busy and a lot more downtime. Let's have a look at July, shall we? 
Monday, July 27, 2020

Family Beach Trip Video Recap

Good morning everyone and happy Monday!! I am actually super pumped about it being a Monday and about starting a fresh week ahead. We've just had so much going on lately that a little taste of boring old "normal" life sounds like exactly what we need!
Friday, July 24, 2020

Walmart Home Decor Finds

Guys, if you had told me years ago that Walmart would be a place I would turn to for cute home decor items... I probably wouldn't have believed you. Practical home items? Absolutely. Affordable home items? Of course. But cute? I didn't think that was Walmart's thing. But apparently I was wrong! Lately on Pinterest I have been searching out all the California Casual/Boho home decor pictures. Every time I open my Pinterest browser I am inundated with pictures like this:
Thursday, July 23, 2020

Green PiƱa Colada Smoothie

Good morning everyone! Today I am sharing another one of our favorite smoothie recipes, the green piƱa colada. Coconut water is often referred to as "nature's Gatorade" because it helps replenish electrolytes after a good workout without all the dyes and added sugars of Gatorade. It's my favorite drink for after a run, and is also why this smoothie is great post-workout!
Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Our Trip to Blowing Rock, NC-- Summer 2020

Good morning friends! As I write this it is a scorching 95 degrees in Charlotte and we are doing the tango of in the pool, in the AC, back in the pool, back in the AC. Anybody else doing the same thing?? 

Just this past weekend Devin had a camping trip with some friends so the kiddos and I headed to the mountains to cool off and spend time with my parents. 
Monday, July 20, 2020

Motivation Monday-- Back on the Healthy Wagon After the Beach

Good morning and happy Monday! As most of you know we spent two weeks at the beach and then took a quick trip to the mountains last weekend. We had an amazing time, truly, but we are also happy to be back home and back into our usual routine. I'm sure most of you get that šŸ˜‰. It's also time to get back on the wagon as far as healthy choices go. When we are on vacation we don't quite adopt an "anything goes" mentality, but we definitely relax a little and have a lot more ice cream and a few piƱa coladas/local beers. So it's time to get back on the self-care bandwagon!
Friday, July 17, 2020

Hilton Head Island Beach Trip

Good morning everyone and happy Friday! We are back from our annual trip to Hilton Head and I have to say, I think I was more grateful than ever before to have a chance to get away. The COVID numbers were rising on the island of Hilton Head (at home as well) so we pretty much stuck to the beach, the grocery store, and grabbed takeout from a few restaurants. Exactly what we do here, except with a beach to play at! Here's a look at our trip:

We drove down on Friday afternoon and arrived just before dinner. My parents and younger sister were already there so they had dinner waiting for us and we ate out by the beach. After dinner Lily Grace and my dad, "Pop Pop", went to go jump some waves.
Thursday, July 16, 2020

Peanut Butter "Ice Cream" Smoothie

Smoothies are one of our standard breakfasts around here. They are a great way to start the day off right and get your greens in early. This is our all time favorite smoothie recipe because believe it or not, it tastes like our all time favorite ice cream (hence the name!). This is a much healthier version of our favorite sweet treat, so when we are trying to "be good" we will whip this up instead of grab our fave ice cream from the freezer. If you end up making this, let me know what you think!!
Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Blast from the Past-- Cinque Terre, Italy

Good morning friends! Today's post is another installment of "today in my mind I'm in _______". Devin and I were sitting on the beach yesterday as we are wrapping up our trip and were talking about our next big trip... Italy. We have plans to go in 2021, but honestly, who knows if that will end up happening?? It started a little trip down memory lane and I remembered that years ago I posted several posts from our trip to Italy but never got around to posting our 3 days in Cinque Terre. 
Monday, July 13, 2020

Not Just a Mom-- Girl Time

Good morning friends and happy Monday! Today we have our next Not Just a Mom post and the theme for this month is "girl time". I love this theme because I think "girl time" is something that we all probably took for granted pre-kids and now that we are moms, we struggle to get enough "girl time" in. 
šŸ‘†So true, and so important!

It is getting harder as I get older to find time to spend with my friends. Most of us have kids now, houses we need to take care of, more demanding jobs, etc. I know it is easy to put off that phone call, that glass of wine you were going to grab, etc. but the more you say "I'll just catch you next time", the less likely you are to get invited in the future. Keeping up with girlfriends takes effort, but it is 100% worth it! Here are a couple tips I have found that help me to still end up consistently spending time with friends:
- Schedule a LUNCH date-- I don't know about you and your friends, but with my girls if we schedule something at the end of the day, something inevitably comes up for at least one of us and that person bails. If we plan to meet earlier in the day, before the day gets hectic/crazy/we get tired, we are more likely to keep the scheduled date. Some of my favorite things to do with girlfriends is to go for a morning walk with our kiddos, take our kids to the pool together, go to a playground together, etc. My favorite activity for adults-only time is to schedule a Saturday or Sunday morning brunch with friends.
- Schedule a time to call friends-- We've all been there, you've been playing phone tag with a close friend but one of you is always busy when the phone rings and you just can't answer. My girlfriend who lives in Chicago always used to call on her way home from work, which just so happened to be when I was trying to cook dinner and needed to pay attention to what I was doing. We kept going back and forth on calls but always ended up missing each other. I suggest finding a time that works for both you and your friend, and schedule it just like you would any other date you wouldn't want to miss!
Low-Key Activities Can Be the Best Activities-- Sometimes you don't need to schedule anything in advance, and that's great! I can't tell you how many times I've sent out a mass text message to several girlfriends saying "hey, I know this is last minute but we are going to ______ if anybody wants to come!" and usually somebody ends up joining. That obviously doesn't work for everybody on a given day, but if you do it often enough it can work for everybody at some point.

It's so important to put the effort in to keeping up with your friendships. Hanging out with or talking to friends is something I always come away from feeling rejuvenated. 



Thanks so much for reading along today!! Be sure to link up below if you also wrote a post about girl time. I can't wait to see how you do "girl time"! Be sure to come back next month for "Back to School Freedom"... I guess we will have to see how that looks for all of us at this time next month??

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Friday, July 10, 2020

Books I Read in the Month of June

Good morning everyone!! Hope you had a great week and that you have some fun plans in your future for the weekend. We are still soaking up some sun at the beach and I'll tell ya, we are going to have some trouble prying these kids off the beach on their last day. It turns out I have two beach bums for kids šŸ˜€
This month I was able to squeeze 3 books in. Let's have a look, shall we? 

Thursday, July 9, 2020

Honey Balsamic Grilled Carrots

We are on a big honey balsamic kick lately and I am not upset about it! This honey balsamic glaze is so simple to make and adds a bunch of flavor to our food. The next time you are looking for a veggie to throw on your grill, give these a try!
Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Monthly Goals-- July

Good morning everyone! I hope your July has been off to a great start. We are still at the beach and are having a blast soaking up the sun. I wanted to pop on and share my goals for the upcoming month because you ladies help to keep me accountable! This month is going to fly by because we have two weeks at the beach, then have family coming in town for Liam's rescheduled baptism. He was supposed to be baptized in March, but then everything shut down due to COVID and we had to reschedule. Here's hoping we are still able to do it šŸ™.

Here's a look at my goals for the month:
Monday, July 6, 2020

Favorite Healthy Costco Finds

If you haven't noticed, the blog has a little bit of a different look and a different name. If you want to know more about that, click here. Otherwise, keep on reading!!

Good morning everyone, I hope you had a wonderful 4th weekend!! Our day was spent at the beach and looked a lot like this:
Sunday, July 5, 2020

Blog Changes

Hi there friends! So if you've been reading here for awhile you know that my blog used to be called All About That Mommy Life. If you look around this blog today, you'll see that is no longer the title. I wanted to give just a little explanation as to why I changed the name, just in case you're wondering!
Friday, July 3, 2020

What I've Been Priming


Woohoo!!! We made it to 4th of July weekend! We are leaving soon for our annual beach trip and I am beyond excited! We had a taste of the beach last weekend and the kids were both in heaven... I can't wait to get back! We will still be taking it easy and doing pretty much the same things we've been doing at home, but with the beach and a pool instead of our backyard... woohoo!!
Thursday, July 2, 2020

Grilled Peaches with Cinnamon Honey Butter


Last weekend on our way back from the beach we made a pit stop at one of our favorite farm stands for some fresh peaches. Fresh local peaches in the summer are one of my FAVORITE snacks, but Devin accidentally bought a few more than we might be able to go through.. meaning we had to get crafty in order to use them all. We had this as a dessert one night, but could easily be a side or would even make a great breakfast with some Greek yogurt. No matter when or how you serve them, you'll be sure to love them!
Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Our Road Trip Bag

Good morning! Today's theme for Let's Look is our carryon bag except... I don't have any plans for a carryon bag anytime soon. A road trip bag though? That we have plans for in our immediate future. šŸ˜€ This is the bag of goodies I try to keep handy for our road trips so I can just hand a thing or two back to the kiddos without having to try to dig through all of our stuff. Here's what I'm packing for a 4 hour road trip to Hilton Head. For reference our daughter, Lily Grace, is 3 years old and our son, Liam, is 9 months. Most of the stuff I'm packing is for LG, not Liam. And the "bag" itself isn't pictured.. but you aren't missing much, its just a reusable grocery bag!