Chris' Accent Vlog!

I talked Chris into doing an accent vlog! I'm asking him the questions so you can hear the difference in our accents! Oh, this cracks me up!

He listened to it and then said, and I quote, "that's not really how I sound....right?!"

Um, yes dear. Yes it is.

You can still link up with your own accent vlog! Just click here!

My accent Vlog. Yes, a Vlog. From Me.

I'm not generally one for Vlogging - and I'll tell you why on the video - but, I couldn't resist this one! I added a linky if you want to share your accent vlog! I asked around on twitter to see who started the whole accent vlog trend, and found out it was Rachel! Great idea girl!

Generally, I would have done this in the office or family room, but my Macbook battery is dead - every time I unplug it the computer shuts off! So until I get a new battery, it has to stay in my room.

OK - so - enjoy. Or at least, don't make fun of me too much. =)

The instructions are to say these words:
Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

And answer these questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?

What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?

What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?

What do you call gym shoes?

What do you say to address a group of people?

What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?

What do you call your grandparents?

What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?

What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?

What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Don't forget, I have TWO great giveaways going on right now.

To enter for a Lima Bean Kids tee (and I have a discount code for you), click here.

To enter to win a $100 cooking.com gift card, click here.

There seems to be a problem right now with the linky but here is who was listed the last time I checked! To be included (if the linky is still down) just leave me a comment with your link and I will add you!

Running In Pearls

A Brighter Yellow

Superchikk

From the Midwest

Life In the Green House

My Crazy Haven

Kelly Bees Boys

Susy Homemaker

The Thames Trio

Pretty Whitty

Abby Sugar and Spice

Perfectly Imperfect

Cari's Accent Blog

Faith, Grace & Giggles Accent Vlog

The Monkey Boys' Mama

Janelle's Canadian Accent

Pretty In Pink Megan's Accent

Anne Says So

Rachel at In No Simple Language

Amy at Total Tippins Takeover

Meredith at The Tichenor Family

Erin at Blue Eyed Bride

Brody's First Razorback Game

Last week we went to a Razorback volleyball game with our friends, The Scott's. We thought it might be something the boys would enjoy. First, we went to Hammontrees which is a great grilled cheese place. If you're ever there, try their black bean soup. Sara recommended it and it was SO good!

On the way in, Brayden got to see the mascot - he LOVED him. The mascot must have loved him too - he came over to where we ended up sitting and played peekaboo with the kids, and then sat down on the stairs with Brayden for awhile. It was SO cute!

I didn't get any great pictures of Brody - he was completely and totally enthralled with the game. He wouldn't look at me and when I tried to stand in front of him to get one, he got so mad! If he likes volleyball that much, I can't wait to see what he thinks of football!

Here are the guys: Matt and Reid, and Chris with Brayden and Brody.
And since I never get any pictures of myself, here's one of me and Bman:

We had a great time, and the kids were so exhausted they slept until 10am the next morning! Ha!

Don't forget, I have TWO great giveaways going on right now.

To enter for a Lima Bean Kids tee (and I have a discount code for you), click here.

To enter to win a $100 cooking.com gift card, click here.

Lima Bean Kids Discount & Giveaway!

I discovered my new favorite store, Lima Bean Kids, on Zulily a few months ago. I ordered Brayden a really cute water bottle and was really impressed with the quality. So I am thrilled to be doing this giveaway! The great folks at Lima Bean Kids sent me tees for the boys to review. Aren't they cute?!

If you've read my blog for awhile you've probably noticed that I love these kinds of tees - personalized, with cute designs. But, one thing about them is that most of them fade, and fade quickly. I haven't had that problem with Lima Bean tee's - they are GREAT quality, with vibrant colors, and they offer lots of cute designs!

Here are just a few of the many design choices - for girls, boys and holiday tees!

They also do super cute pails:

Clipboards - LOVE the chevron stripe!

Here are the water bottles I was talking about. Brayden has the green race car one:

Lunch pails! Great for MDO, preschool, or "real" school!

Cute plates that will make kids want to eat their food!

And so much more - they even do stationary!

So, I'm giving away a personalized tee of your choice to ONE reader. BUT, you are all winners because Lima Bean Kids has offered you all a great discount of 10% off ANY order, now through December 31, 2011! Just enter the code JENNA10 to take advantage of the discount!

To enter to win a Lima Bean Tee leave me a comment with your total number of entries, email address (so I can contact you if you win), and what tee you would order if you win! Visit Lima Bean's site by clicking here to see all of the options!

For an additional entry, tweet, blog or facebook about this giveaway.

For another entry, add me to your blogroll.

Good luck! This giveaway is open to US Residents, 18 and older! A winner will be drawn on Friday, September 2, 2011.

Fab Five Finds Friday!

I was trying to think of a catchy title, haha!

But here are my five favorite pin's this week! You can find me on Pinterest by clicking here, or read my tutorial on how to use Pinterest by clicking here!

First up is a make your own monogrammed iPhone case tutorial! I found this through a re-pin and am totally doing it! My clear case just arrived ($1.99 on ebay!) and Chris is making my cover! There are downloadable prints on the website!

From: Dwellings by Devore

Next up, is a series of books I just read. I thought it was trilogy which is why I read them, then I found out it will be a series of 6 books. Four are currently out. The first three are fantastic. It's call the Mortal Instruments Series.

Mortal Instruments

You have to laugh at this - especially when you consider that I DO have a no solicitation sign and people still knock on my door EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. Usually during naptime.

From: Etsy

I love this idea but I'm slightly afraid I'd burn the house down. I'm not sure Chris would be too pleased about that. It's dixie cups, wrapped in scrapbooking paper, attached to Christmas lights. I could see doing this for lots of things besides Christmas too! Has anyone done this?

From: Good Housekeeping

And last, but certainly not least, I love this boot. And I might be secretly hoping that Chris sees this and thinks, "Oh! This would be the PERFECT GIFT for Jenna for our anniversary. Or Christmas. Or something."

Tory Burch, you make some BE-utiful shoes.

From: Tory Burch
Hope you enjoyed my pins! I'd love to see yours!

Don't forget to enter to win a $100 Cooking.com gift card, by leaving me a comment - just click here!

Weigh In

Be sure to enter to win a $100 gift card to Cooking.com! Click here!

Well, it's been 5 weeks since I decided to start losing weight - you can catch up on that here.

I figured it's time for an update! In my previous post, I mentioned that I was eating a lot of grilled chicken, fruit and vegetables. That lasted for awhile but then I got really, really tired, of eating the same stuff over and over again. Eventually I decided to just eat what I want - which generally, isn't that bad for me anyway. I rarely cook fried food or use a lot of butter or cream. Really, my only food downfall was eating sweets late at night, after the kids went to bed, so I haven't been doing that.

Time for the good stuff.

So, I'm down 12 pounds and 11.5"! Wow! I'm really not one to pat myself on the back, but I have to say I am pretty proud of this accomplishment! I have to wear a belt with all of my shorts now, even after trying to shrink them in the wash, which is pretty cool.

I've found a great workout routine that works SO well for me. I love my recumbent bike, and I love to read. So, while I bike, I read on my Kindle. Before I know it, I've gone 5 miles. Then I do a quick floor workout - planks, bicycle crunches and a couple of other things that I don't know the names of. It goes by quickly!

How to use Swagbucks

I've talked about Swagbucks before but I get asked a lot about how to use it. Here's the best way (in my opinion) to use Swagbucks!

First, if you don't have an account, sign up by clicking here. You'll earn 30 swagbucks just for signing up!

The easiest way to use swagbucks is to utilize it as your search engine. You won't get bucks for every search, but I usually get them 3-5 times per day. Generally I get between 7 and 20 swagbucks. Friday is Mega Swagbucks Day - so you'll typically get higher amounts then. I think the highest I've ever gotten on a search is 50.

A super simple way to earn 1 buck a day is to do a poll. It takes about 5 seconds, ha! Just go to Earn, then Daily Poll. Select your answer and and hit Vote. Done!

Another simple and quick thing is their NOSO offers (meaning no obligation). Go to Earn, NOSO, and click "next offer" 5 times. At the end you'll get 2 bucks without having to sign up for anything.

My new favorite thing is their coupons. Go to Earn, Coupons, print them out and then you'll get 10 bucks for every coupon you redeem! They've had a lot of coupons that I would use anyway - for things like V8 Splash, cheese, deli meats, etc.

Redeeming them is simple too. Just go to the SwagStore. I usually cash in for Amazon e-gift cards or Starbucks gift cards. I use the Amazon cards to order books for my Kindle app.

I hope this helps with the Swagbucks questions! Let me know if there is anything I missed that you were wanting explained!

$100 Cooking.com Giveaway & A Healthy New Recipe

GIVEAWAY CLOSED! The winner has been contacted! Thanks for entering!

I've been talking a lot lately about cooking healthy. Now I'm putting my...um...recipe, where my mouth is. Hehe.

This is a recipe re-do. We used to make this with white pasta, Italian sausage, 3 cheeses and no veggies! Can you believe that?!

Did you know that the USDA has released new nutrition guidelines? I think it's really important to eat at least the required amount of vegetables per day, and this is a GREAT and HEALTHY recipe using Country Crock buttery spread to help you achieve that goal! Also, it’s a really easy recipe to throw together. I let Brayden help me – he loves to be in the kitchen with me. He retrieved the veggies and the Country Crock buttery spread from the fridge, opened the box of pasta for me and then sat at the counter and watched me cook. His verdict of the pasta re-do? He loved it! He asked for seconds and even ate it again the next day for lunch!

Here's what you'll need:

2 T of Country Crock buttery spread

1 pound of wheat rotini pasta

2 small or 1 large red onion, sliced

1 large zucchini, halved and sliced 1/4" thick

1 large yellow squash, halved and sliced 1/4" thick

1 can of fire roasted tomatoes

2 cloves of finely minced garlic

1.5lbs of skinless, boneless chicken breast, cubed

1/2 cup of mozzarella, cubed

2 T paprika

Salt and Pepper to taste

First, get a pot of boiling water going. While that's heating up, turn a skillet on over medium heat. Add 1T of your Country Crock buttery spread.

Next, add your onions. Let cook about 5 minutes, and then add the zucchini, squash and garlic. Season with salt, pepper and 1T paprika. Cook until soft - about 10 minutes.

Remove the vegetables, and place in a bowl. Add your pasta to the boiling water.

Add your remaining Country Crock buttery spread and then your chicken. Season with salt, pepper and remaining paprika. Cook until done.
Throw the veggies back in with the chicken. Add the tomatoes. Stir until well blended.
Mix everything in a large mixing bowl - pasta, veggies, and your mozzarella cheese.
Enjoy this healthy, delicious meal while it's hot!
How would you like to win a $100 giftcard to Cooking.com from BlogHer?

Just leave me a comment telling me if you've tried my recipe or your favorite way of cooking with Country Crock!

Rules:

Enter between August 24 – September 30th.

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.

Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.

You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

Be sure to visit the Prizes and Promotions section of BlogHer and check out the other bloggers who are offering you a chance to win!

Happy 9 Months Brody!

Brody, you are 9 months old today!

What are you up to?

- You LOVE to eat. You do not like baby food, but you will eat anything you see Brayden eating. Chicken, mac and cheese, grilled ham and cheese, fruit, yogurt etc.

- Along the same line, you don't really care for your bottles anymore. You still eat a lot but you would rather it come out of a sippy cup than a bottle.

- You sleep like your brother now - 8:30pm - 9:30am.

- You still have bad reflux and take prevacid.

- You wore a 2T shirt the other day. TWO TODDLER! Ohmygosh.

- You are ALMOST walking. You cruise around, holding onto the furniture.

- You can say "Mama and Dada" anytime we ask. You are working on Uh-Oh and Hi. Once you said something that sounded exactly like "GrandDaddy." I think he worked on you while we were in Chicago.

- You wave hi and bye. In fact, you were waving Hi at me when I took this picture.

- You have three teeth, and several more are poking through.

- You love to be outside, go for walks, and play with the dogs.

- You don't really have a favorite toy - you like anything you see Brayden playing with.

- You love Bubble Guppies (it's a preschool cartoon).

You are such a sweet little man!

How the Razorbacks won me over.

Saturday was Razorback Fan Day so Chris thought it would be fun to take Brayden to meet some of the football players. Brayden LOVES football. He talks about it all the time and says he's going to be a Razorback!

You may have gathered from this blog that I am not a huge sports fan. I watch the superbowl for the commercials, I'll cheer for the Hogs because otherwise Chris might divorce me (just kidding... I think) and I'll even go to a game and semi enjoy it. But it's just not really my thing.

But here's the deal. The Razorbacks have won this Momma's heart over. Practically all of the players were so sweet to Brayden - giving him high fives and talking to him. It absolutely made his day. Or week. He is still talking about it.

Here are a couple of pics:

In front of the stadium:

One of the players high fiving Brayden:
How sweet is that?! Wouldn't that win you over too?

Buster/Mossy/Bubble Puppy

I wanted to document this for myself, so that I don't ever forget this cute stage Brayden is in.

Brayden has this stuffed dog that he absolutely adores. It goes pretty much everywhere with him.

At first, he called the dog Buster, because we have two golden retrievers and one of them is named Buster.

Awhile later, he decided he liked our other golden better - his name is Mossy. So then he started calling him Mossy.

A few months after that, Buster (the real one) redeemed himself and then he decided to start calling him (the stuffed one) "MossyBuster" or "BusterMossy."

Now he really likes the show "Bubble Guppies, " and when that's on TV he calls him "Bubble Puppy."

Brayden, you are just too cute and you have the best little imagination!

Baked Zucchini Stix

Here's a healthy and tasty way to eat your zucchini!

I love fried zucchini. Especially when it's smothered in ranch! YUM!

BUT, here's a healthier way that we like to eat them at home - BAKED!

I already had an egg wash/breadcrumb mixture going on because I was making Chicken Cordon Bleu, so I repurposed those ingredients for this. Don't worry, I dipped the zucchini before the chicken!

1 egg + 1 T water

1/2 C breadcrumbs

3T parmesan cheese, grated

3T ramano cheese, grated

Cooking spray

Preheat your oven to 425. Cut your zucchini into sticks - about 1/2" by 3". Dip in egg mixture, then into breadcrumb/cheese mixture and place on well sprayed baking sheet, and top with more spray (so they brown). Bake for about 25-30 minutes until nice and golden brown. Top with additional cheese.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

I found this great recipe at Skinny Taste and just made a few changes. I couldn't find whole wheat breadcrumbs, so I used Italian. I used less ham and cheese as well.

• 4 chicken breast halves

• 2 large eggs

• 1 tbsp water

• 3/4 cup seasoned whole wheat breadcrumbs (I like 4C)

• 12 slices thin lean deli ham

• 12 slices reduced fat Swiss cheese (I used Sargento)

• salt

• spray oil

• toothpicks

Preheat oven to 350°.

Slice chicken breast halves into thin cutlets. I usually get 3 thin cutlets out of one breast half. Pound them to make them thinner if you wish. This helps when you wrap the cutlets.

Cut each slice of cheese into squares and stack on top of each other. Place a slice of ham on top of the chicken, top with cheese and wrap chicken around to completely cover cheese, using toothpicks to secure. (Make sure no holes so cheese doesn't leak out) Season with a little salt.

Whisk egg and water to make an egg wash. Dip chicken into egg wash, then breadcrumbs.

Spray cookie sheet with oil and place chicken on cookie sheet. Lightly spray chicken with oil and bake about 25 minutes, until cooked.

Brayden Goes Bowling

Last Thursday, when Chris got home from work, he really wanted to go out and do something. Options in our town are fairly limited, but we thought Brayden might be old enough to go bowling for the first time. There is a nice, new bowling alley not far from us.

Here's the little man all decked out - I think he was hoping the superhero shirt would give him super bowling powers.

Our alley has two separate bowling areas. The bigger one is a regularly lit bowling alley, but the one we went to was the black light room. All of these pics were taken on my iPhone. I'm kinda impressed!

We grabbed him a dino bowler ramp, and I showed him ONE time what to do! From then on, when it was his turn, he grabbed his ball, ran over and rolled it down the ramp! He did so good!

And on a separate note, I would like to point out that I BEAT CHRIS!

OK, if you ask him, he will say it was because he had a 20lb baby strapped to his chest in the chest carrier. I just say that's an excuse.

Thirty One WINNER!

I just randomly picked the winner of the Thirty One Thermal Tote! And remember, if you'd like to order something, click here - you'll receive 15% off of your order this month!

Thank you Brittney for this awesome giveaway!

And...

The winner is...

Rachel from In No Simple Language!

Congrats Rachel! Email me your contact information and I'll put you in contact with Brittney!

My Organization Binder

I'm drawing a winner TOMORROW for the Thirty One Gifts thermal tote! Be sure to enter today! Click here!

I mentioned here that I was working on my home organization binder - or as I like to call it, our family binder, and you all asked what was in it. It's far from finished and I think I've already decided I need a totally separate one for my recipes - I could fill this thing up right now with those - but here you go!

First, the cover! Ha! I don't like plain binders - only because it has to be cute in order to motivate me. So I bought a pink binder with a clear cover and had Chris make me a little cover sheet. I love chevron!

And that is one smalllllll stack of my recipes. See what I mean? They won't fit!

Here's the thing I struggled the most with. The whole "Chores" section. What I ended up doing was first finding a list of chores, to help me think of things that I don't normally do. Then I also printed out a weekly calendar so that I can write down individual things that I did/need to do. Also, there were a bunch of things that I needed that aren't on that checklist form.

For the checklist form, click here.

For the weekly page I use, click here.

Next up, meal planning. I do a similar thing here - first I have a monthly menu. I like this because I may have just made something, but want to make it again later - I can just pencil it in. With a weekly planner I'd have to remember it or flip through several pages to see it. The monthly page is more of an "at a glance" type thing.

For the monthly page, click here. (this one isn't the same, but I can't find the one I used!)

For the weekly page, click here.
Next up, I have sections for both of the kids. Right now, they have birthday party planners and guest list information in them.

I also have sections for recipes, recipes to try, and Christmas. Christmas may eventually need it's own binder too!

You can find a lot of great printable pages here.

And I will also be posting the recipes that you asked for soon!

What I've Been Up To

My Thirty One thermal tote giveaway will be ending this Friday! Be sure to enter AND check out how YOU can save 15% Just click here!

These are all iPhone pics so I apologize for the quality!

First up, my favorite subject: FOOD!

I've gotten tired of eating grilled chicken every.single.night. So I was hunting around for some new recipes and I found quite a few.

Here's Cilantro Lime Rice, Chicken Tacos, Grilled Corn Guacamole and Spicy Pintos! I'll post recipes later this week - probably more than one a day but I'll do them separately so they file into my recipe section correctly.

I talked about my weight loss plan here, and it's still going great! I've lost 8lbs in 3 weeks along with 6.5" (off of my waist, hips and arms). In total I've actually lost 10lbs, two of them from the week before I started my "plan." YAY!

Monday my mom came over while I had a manicure and pedicure. We have a gala to go to which is why I went to the salon. I got a brand new color (to me) - it's called Glitzerland by OPI. I love it! I usually get a pale pink so that when it chips you don't notice! I tweeted this picture and got asked about my ring - my mom actually bought this for me about 7.5 years ago. I wear it just about everyday. I LOVE it!

And lastly, I've been working on a family binder for organizational purposes. I found an etsy site that sells printables for it - for $50! I couldn't believe it. So, I asked Chris to make one for me instead - I LOVE IT!!

This one actually printed kind of funny but he fixed it and it looks so great. I really wanted a cute cover!

Who will come back?

Be sure to enter my Thirty One thermal tote giveaway! Click here!

As I've mentioned I'm a huge Big Brother fan! Anybody else out there with me?!

So, like I said before, I love Jeff & Jordan! I've been watching Big Brother After Dark while I workout and I will say that Jeff has a bit of a mouth on him and I wish he'd curb that a bit! But he treats Jordan so well and is always looking out for her, which I love.

The twist this week is that someone is coming back - it will be Keith, Cassi, Dominic, Brendan or whoever is voted out this week (I don't want to giveaway who is nominated so I won't list the choices there).

I'm just curious - who would you like to see come back?

I can't BELIEVE I'm going to say this but I think I'd bring Brendan back. He's looking out for J&J - at least for now, plus Rachel is totally crazy when he isn't there and it's just hard to watch!

Brayden & Brodys Birthday Party THEMES!

Be sure to enter my THIRTY ONE giveaway! Click Here!

I wasn't going to post the kids party themes but then I realized that if you follow me on Pinterest, you probably already know what they are!

Brody's first birthday will be Little Mister. I don't think I'm going to do the mustache thing - though I could change my mind. I'm planning more on bow ties and neck ties.

I was shopping online for printable kits and Chris asked what I was doing. I showed him a few things I'd pinned but I couldn't find a kit on Etsy that had everything I wanted. He thinks he will be able to make everything for me, so I found a digital scrapbooking kit, purchased it and now he is hard at work making everything! Yay!

If you have any tips on making your own printables (he's using PhotoShop) PLEASE let me know!!! We've never done this before!

Brayden's third birthday party theme will be....ANGRY BIRDS! If you know Brayden this makes perfect sense. He's wowed all the girls at church with his Angry Bird playing abilities. Haha. I just found a kit on Etsy that I may order - since I know nothing about legally using their images and such.

I'm so excited. I'm hoping that since I've got my act together (Brody's bday is in November, and Brayden's is in January) that I can pull this all together nicely!

So, if you've got any tips on the whole printable thing or any Angry Birds sites you want to share, please do!!

What I Eat

Don't forget to enter my Thirty One Giveaway! Just click here!

I've gotten a lot of questions about what I've been eating since I wrote this post.

The truth is I have LOT of recipes. The bad part is that a lot of them aren't really uber healthy. Also, I'm incredibly picky. I don't eat seafood, eggs, oatmeal, tomatoes...the list goes on. I usually don't eat breakfast because I'm just not too hot on most breakfast food - unless you count chocolate chip pancakes. In that case, I LOVE breakfast food.

Anyway, here's a list of what we've been eating around here.

Breakfast:

Cheerios - I've started eating about 3/4 cup in the morning so that I can get my metabolism going.

V8 Splash

Lunch:

My favorite lunch is the Southwest Salad from Chickfila. It's 240 calories of goodness! Grilled chicken, cheese, black beans, corn...YUM.

Turkey with 1 slice of cheese and spicy ground mustard on Rye bread.

Grapes

Canteloupe

Watermelon

Dinner:

Grilled something.

Usually, grilled chicken breast (marinated in one of our favorites - jerk, smokehouse, garlic herb or catalina).

Otherwise, we grill a pork loin or a turkey breast.

Salad with a low cal vinaigrette

Fruit

Grilled sweet potatoes

If I need a snack I'll have a banana or some other fruit. If I reallllllly need something sweet I'll have a 100 calorie chocolate/peanut butter chewy bar! Ha!

Anyway, that's just a basic list of some of our staples. If you have a healthy recipe you'd like to share, I'm all ears!