Win some Shakeology!

Don't miss out! As I stated in my live Facebook video (you can watch below!), I'm giving away 2 Shakeology sample packs! Each pack includes a Shakeology bottle, and a vanilla, chocolate, and cafe latte shake packet! Visit the linked site to learn about all the awesome benefits of Shakeology. Contest is open to anyone in the U.S. who is not already a Beachbody customer. Contest runs now through midnight on September 3rd. Two winners will be selected to each win one Shakeology pack. Good luck!! :)

Just follow the prompts on the Rafflecopter widget to enter. You can enter daily by sharing my new Facebook page, Coaching by Kristy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ethan's "Cars 2" Fourth Birthday Party

When I asked Ethan what he wanted for his birthday party this year, his response was the same as last year...Cars!! Well, more specifically, he wanted Tow Mater, and later decided he wanted Lightning McQueen mixed in there, too. So, I started designing his invites with this in mind. Last year, I made pit passes for the invitees (just family, since we had the party at the Great Wolf Lodge in Ohio), so I wanted to do something different this year, yet still race-themed. So, I decided to make tickets to the "race," aka his party. :)

    

I was happy with how they turned out and most importantly, Ethan thought they were really cool. :) All items you see here are available for customization and purchase through my business page, seeley LANE design, or Etsy shop. See bottom of the post for details!

I sent the tickets to each of the children invited to the party, and decided to also include a letter for the parents with more details.

After I got that far, I struggled to find motivation to get the rest of the party planned, due to a combination of pregnancy, hubby being out of town, and well, just the fact that I unfortunately procrastinate everything. So, the day before the party, I finally got to work designing and printing and getting everything ready for Saturday's party! Here's a summary of what I came up with for the big day.

To decorate the house, we bought a 5-pack of Cars 2 birthday balloons at the local party supply store and I made a custom banner that read "Happy 4th Birthday Ethan!" using checkered flags. Here's an example of the flags, close-up.

I also made tags to label the food items that we served at the party. I have these, in addition to blank tags (with characters), available.

My favorite was Francesco's Caprese skewers, because of the cute little checkered flags that we pasted onto toothpicks to hold them together. Adorable. :)

I also made custom water labels, like I did for Noah's Very Hungry Caterpillar party last summer.

I purchased a small favor for each of the kids to take home from the party - a Cars 2 cup filled with a Cars 2 fruit pouch, with a thank-you note for coming.

Then, finally, there was the cake. This consumed most of my Friday night and Saturday afternoon between baking three batches of my favorite vanilla sheet cake (in order to make 3-9" layers and 2-6" layers), then decorating it to look like a cake I found on Pinterest, that Ethan picked as his favorite! The cake has a mix of Lightning McQueen eyes with a Tow Mater mouth. Ethan thought it was absolutely hilarious every time he saw it on my laptop screen, and really wanted me to make one for him. The original was super awesome, done in fondant, of course, which helps tremendously, but I didn't think mine was too bad. Ethan loved it, and that was really all that I cared about when all was said and done! :) I found the cute cake topper and candles at Walmart. The candles have tires on the bottom - love it! For my frosting, I made a batch of faux fondant icing. After you ice the cake, you can let it set, then go back in with a smooth napkin or paper towel and rub it to create a smoother looking finish to the icing. It has worked fairly well for me in the past, but I think the humidity that day (it was snowing, in March!!) was messing with my icing a bit. :( So, it wasn't perfect, but not bad.

And here are some pics of the birthday boy!! :)

Happy 4th Birthday to my big boy!

Menu Monday #30

Loving the darker shade! :)

We spent another nice, relaxing weekend at home this weekend. Josh decided to work from home on Friday morning, which meant it was like a 3-day weekend! :) There have definitely been perks for him not working in a manufacturing setting anymore. We enjoyed lunch out together at Atlanta Bread Company. We hadn't been in awhile and I had missed their roasted butternut squash soup! I took the afternoon off and enjoyed a cut and color with my favorite stylist, so I'm sporting a darker, more chocolate color now for the winter. I love it! That evening, we decided to stay in and order some pizza for dinner.

On Saturday morning, I tried a new recipe for strawberry pancakes. Ethan had been requesting some for weeks, so who was I to deny my 3-year-old some yummy pancakes?!? ;) I found a recipe from Rachael Ray, and tweaked it just a bit to fit our needs. Here's what I used...

Strawberry Pancakes with Cream Cheese Icing
(makes 18 pancakes, serves 5-6 people)

Ingredients:

• 2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1-16 oz package of strawberries, sliced

Directions:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk and vanilla. Preheat a nonstick griddle over medium heat. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir in the melted butter. The batter should be thick and smooth. Fold in the strawberries. Spoon the batter onto the griddle. Cook the pancakes until set and bubbled throughout, about 3 minutes. Flip them with a spatula and cook until golden brown, about 2 minutes more. Serve with cream cheese icing. Enjoy!

Looking sweet and innocent before gobbling up THREE pancakes!!

We all loved the flavor of these pancakes! Noah managed to gobble up THREE of them!! Wow. I seriously have no idea where he puts all that food in his tiny little body. Nor do I know how he manages to gain so little weight! I need some of his metabolism, that's for sure! ;) This pancake is probably better suited as a summer breakfast, but it worked for this weekend since we enjoyed temperatures in the high 60s again. Craziness for the middle of December in TN!

Breaking in the new bed!

Later on Saturday, we decided to go mattress shopping. We have been looking for awhile for something to replace the original mattress we bought when we moved into our first house almost 7 years ago. It has not held up nearly as well as we expected it to, leaving us both with sore necks and backs in the morning, so we were anxious to replace it. So, we bought ourselves a Christmas present - a new Tempurpedic Contour Signature mattress that was on sale! Awesome. We both prefer a very firm mattress, so this fit the bill perfectly. We managed to talk them in to delivering it that night, so we have enjoyed it the past 2 nights! :) Since we were waiting for the mattress to be delivered during dinner time, I ended up going out to pick up some take-out from the Yong Asian House. It's always a tasty meal, and was quick, too!

On Sunday morning, I wanted to try making some steel cut oats for breakfast. During the week, I had made some quick oats with dried cranberries and sliced almonds and they were delicious. Since I had a bit more time on the weekend (as in Daddy was there to distract the hungry little boys!), I wanted to try the steel cut variety, since they take longer. I used this recipe as a guide, to come up with this...

Apple Cinnamon Oats

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups water
• 3/4 cup steel cut oats
• Dash of salt
• 1 medium apple, peeled, cored & diced into 1/2-inch pieces (I used a honey crisp)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• Milk, if desired

Directions:
In a medium saucepan, bring the water and salt to a boil. Stir in the oats and bring to a simmer. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the apples, cinnamon and brown sugar. Cover and cook for an additional 15 minutes, or until the oats are tender. Stir in the walnuts (and milk, if you want it to be a thinner consistency) before serving. Yum!

And now for our menu for the week.

Sunday: NY strip steak, oven roasted parmesan broccoli, oven roasted red potatoes

We fired up the grill since the weather was beautiful, in the high 60s again! The veggies were seasoned with EVOO, a little sea salt and freshly ground pepper. I also used some rosemary on the potatoes.

Monday: Baked pork chops, roasted sweet potatoes with honey and rosemary

I'll brown the pork chops with a quick sear, then finish them off by baking them in the oven. I haven't made the sweet potatoes in awhile, but both of the boys love them.

Tuesday: Melt in your mouth baked chicken, whole wheat rotini, oven roasted asparagus

This is such a great, easy meal that the kids will both eat. And it's healthy with the use of Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise! For my asparagus, I season with a little EVOO, sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Wednesday: Spaghetti and meatballs, oven roasted green beans

A classic. I use whole wheat spaghetti. For the meatballs, I'll use 1/2 lean ground beef and 1/2 sausage, for some great flavor. I didn't try roasting the beans last week because I didn't think it would work well with frozen beans. This week, I bought some fresh ones, so I'll season with a little EVOO, sea salt and freshly ground pepper before roasting.

Thursday: Buffalo ranch pulled chicken, rice, corn
I'm going to try this new recipe this week. It sounded tasty, so we'll see how it goes! I'll serve it over rice, with lightly buttered sweet corn on the side.

Friday: Girl's Night!

I'll be enjoying a night out with friends, so the guys will probably order a pizza here at home. I'm so excited!

Saturday: Out to eat

We'll eat out somewhere!

Happy meal planning to you this week. Are you ready for Christmas? I haven't done much shopping yet, so I better get it in gear! If you need ideas or some cash, keep reading!

If you haven't checked out Mom of the Year's posts on What Real Moms Want for Christmas yet, please do so! Keep tuning in every Monday, as you just might see someone you know there next week. ;)

And don't forget about the Target gift card and kreations by kristy gift certificate giveaway going on at Janine's Confessions of a Mommyaholic. Hurry on over before the contest ends Wednesday!

business giveaway!

Do you still have Christmas shopping to do this year? Or do you just love Target as much as I do?!? If so, read on...

I've partnered up with Janine's Confessions of a Mommyaholic today for a great giveaway! Please visit Janine's blog for all of the details by clicking on the picture below. Hurry, contest runs through Wednesday!

Good luck!!

kreations by kristy

Since the birth of Noah, I had been taking a bit of a hiatus from my business, kreations by kristy. I recently completed an order for a bridal shower and I posted about it on my business blog. I am going to try to do a better job keeping up with that blog from now on when I complete orders. Please take a minute to check out my latest project...

...and contact me if you have any design needs! Christmas will be here before we know it, so I'll soon be working on designs for the holidays and will be offering specials on early orders! :)