Reading

I just added a new sidebar titled "I Love Books!". It shows what I'm currently reading, what I've just read, and what's up next. I know I love getting reading recommendations from other people so hopefully this will bring attention to some new reading material for someone else! Oh, I should add that I got this idea from Kristin. =)

NKOTB

If you understand the title of my post, then you're cool in my book. If you don't, let me clue you in. NKOTB stands for New Kids on the Block. If I have to explain any further, that's just sad. =) Most of you know that I won tickets to their concert here in Des Moines. I took my, very excited, friend Brandi. Thankfully, she took pictures and has signed the rights over so I can post them here!

Here's all the boys!

And, what I consider to be an awesome picture of me and Brandi. The concert was SO MUCH FUN! If you have the opportunity to see them, I highly recommend it.

I have hardly any pictures from Easter. I did manage to snap a few in the morning when Tyler went on an Easter egg hunt. Here he is discovering that his egg is filled with marshmallows!

I tried to take a picture of him in his Easter clothes but he refused. Moving on to spring! I love when the trees flower. If you remember, I posted a picture of this tree in November because it was really holding onto it's fall color. Now it is flowering!

The neighbors Magnolia dwarfs it though.

Speaking of my friend Brandi, here is a picture of her daughter walking around the zoo with Tyler. Aren't they adorable holding hands?!

I'd like to give a shout out to Dan. For the past two years he has taken the day off of work, to stay home with Tyler, so I could go shopping with my friend Amanda for my birthday. Last week he did it again and I really enjoyed my day away. Thanks for making my 30th special Dan!

So much to talk about!

Let's start with food! There was a women's event at church last weekend (which was awesome!) and I volunteered to bake a dessert and a breakfast item. Since Dan and I have been counting calories (see below) I have not done much baking and I miss it. Even if I bake low calorie foods I overeat, so I try not to bake for just us. Anyway, when the opportunity came up to bake something and let other people eat it, I jumped at the chance! Tyler, of course, was my little helper.

Here he is sifting the batter for the muffins (I don't have a sifter, so I use a fork!) I left out the nuts, used mini-chocolate chips instead, and didn't sprinkle the sugar on top (I tried with my practice batch and it didn't turn out right).

The finished product, yum! How could you go wrong with chocolate in the morning? Tyler says, "Put down the camera, I want to eat them!"



Here is the dessert I made. It is a Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Torte. It is one of my favorite Pampered Chef recipes. The chocolate layers are brownies, the middle is marshmallows with a peanut butter sauce, and then chopped up peanut butter cups on top with melted peanut butter drizzled over it. If you want the recipe, then host a cooking show! =)

On Sunday we had some yucky weather come through that left wet snow behind. Apparently one squirrel was starving and decided to feed off of our bird feeder. The feeder is actually squirrel proofed but that part doesn't work anymore so I guess it's a free for all for the neighborhood squirrels. I did enjoy how he hung upside-down to eat. Tyler though it was pretty funny too.

I wasn't sure if I was going to post this or not because it feels like bragging, but I'm proud of myself and I want to share. =) I participated in a Biggest Loser contest with some friends and won! It was 12 weeks long and on every Monday we weighed in and the person in charge calculated our total percentage of weight lost and kept track of it week to week. At my final weigh in I lost a total of 22 pounds. I have never done anything like that before. I didn't even know I could lose weight! If you want to know what my secret formula was, it was counting calories and exercising. I know, who woulda thought?! I don't think I realized how different I looked until I went shopping for new clothes. It's been awhile since I've had so much fun shopping. I also want to mention that Dan has been doing this along with me (not part of the contest though) and has lost quite a bit of weight too.

Here is a before picture from last October. When I did my first weigh in for the contest, I was 10 pounds heavier than I am in this picture.

My after picture, taken yesterday.