Where I've been...

Sorry for the lack of postage going on here on kelsdish. I seem to have caught the flu and have been sleeping as much as I can. I started getting sick Friday, but pretended it was just allergies becaues I didn't want to miss my long run on Sunday. Soooo Sunday I went out and ran 16 miles (yea!) and then that night started going downhill fast. I've been sick ever since. So, yea, it was proably not smart to run, because now I am missing lots of runs, but oh well. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be better. It's raining here today which I am thankful for because I don't feel bad about not taking the kids out to do anything and just having a lazy day at home.


My in-laws were in town for the weekend, they flew out this AM to go back home. We had a nice visit, and it was great because I got a lot of sleep and rest.

Saturday we had the big kids first soccer game. It was too cute. I do have pictures but they are on my other computer so I'll have to post them later. Hubby and I were supposed to have a night out on monday, dinner/drinks downtown, movies, etc. But along with my illness I lost my voice so dinner wouldn't have been much fun with no talking, so we settled on just going to an early movie at the theater down the street. We saw "Dark Knight" the Batman movie, and my "boyfriends" last movie before his sad death (okay so he wasn't really my boyfriend, but I am a big fan - although he was rather creepy in this movie). The movie was good though, we both enjoyed it, AND it was nice to go to a movie together. We figured it has been almost 4 years since we saw a movie together...yeah, pretty sad.


I can't believe it's already wednesday! This week really seems to be going fast, but then again, I haven't really been awake for a whole lot of it, so I guess maybe that is why. I'm sort of fuzzy on the whole time thing.


Okay, instead of rambling I'm going to post some cute pictures of my little ones! Oh, btw the Munchkin is walking full time now, turning around, changing directions, he's a full time walker! He also cut two more teeth, he now has 4 on top, 4 on bottom, and one of his molars. Glad that one finally came through, it was a pain in the you know what for the poor little tyke! Okay, really going to stop rambling now.

Big Kid at the Zoo

Family night at the park

soccer star!

Too Cute! Soccer for hot shot started last night, and it was so cute to watch all those little ones run around the field. And I have to say that the hubs did a great job of keeping a pack of 3 year olds interested and focused for the full 45 min. practice! Here are a few pictures of our little soccer dude. Our first game is Saturday, so I'm sure I'll have pictures from that as well. Maybe I'll even get it on video!!

Practicing in the front yard

High fives for "Coach Daddy"

Working on his dribbling

Keeping an eye on things

Tuesday at the Table

Well, here we are, Tuesday again. I can hardly believe it, last week just flew by and this week seems to be going quickly as well. I have a few little updates, but I'll put those at the end of the post. Also, I realized that I forgot to include a link to Sam the creator of TatT in case any of you want to join in, or just check out what some other people are fixin'.

Last weekend I decided I needed to give the cinnamon rolls another go. So, I decided to change things up and use a different recipe, which was easier to follow, and tasted delicious. Although you do have to make them the day before you plan to eat them because they are an overnight deal. You can find the recipe HERE! These turned out great, and if you follow the directions, you are sure to get a good turn out. The only "change" I made was to make my rolls a little smaller. The recipe says it yields 12, I got 15. Here are a few pics, one as they are in the oven and another of them just out. We had to rush out the door after eating to get my car to the dealer for an oil change, so there aren't any with the frosting on them, but I can assure you they looked even better!!

My next up is just something I threw together for the boys last Friday. I found these cute little tart shells at target and decided I could make something fun with them. So this is what I came up with. Key Lime Berry Tarts. It's a key lime mousse base topped with strawberries and homemade blueberry syrup drizzled on top. I had a small bite and they were quite good, and the boys ate them up! I thought they were pretty and sort of looked like little flowers. Of course that was lost with the three boys in the house, but that's what the pictures are for! :)

So those are my pictures for the week. As always if you want a recipe let me know. We also had turkey meatloaf again and the fajitas which have become a favorite!

So, tonight is the first soccer practice. I think Mr. M may be more excited than our little hot shot, but I really can't blame him. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, and if nothing else, good for a few laughs. Kids at this age are just too funny with the things they do and say. I'll be taking my camera tonight so hopefully I'll have pictures later this week.

Running/training is going well. This weekend I take a stab at 18 miles, so wish me luck...again. I am ALMOST up to my longest training run as far as milage goes which is encouraging because I know I have made it past the 1/2 way point.

My in-laws are flying in this weekend and will be here until next Wednesday. It will be nice to see them and I know they can't wait to see the boys. I think we are going to take a trip to the zoo, maybe catch a baseball game, and the hubs and I are going on a DATE!! Yea! It will be our first night out together in a LONG time, so that will be nice. I think we're doing dinner and a movie! We might even get to squeeze in a run together as well...good times! Well that's it for me. Catch ya'll later!

Thursday's Tid-bits

First let me start off with this. As most of you are very aware I am running in the Marine Corp Marathon this October, and have decided to join up with Samantha and Carrie (two other ladies running MCM) to do a bit of fundraising. We are raising money for two really great organizations, and I am proud to be part of this team. So, if you want to check it out, and feel that you can help please do so HERE!! Thanks in advance for checking it out.

Onward...today is grocery store day - meaning choices are slim around here, but as usual I do have stuff to bake with, so this morning I whipped up some Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Syrup for the boys (all three of them!) and as you might figure they were a hit. I found the recipe here. These turned out great...AND they are low in fat - but you wouldn't know it from the taste of them! I still stuck to my sensible breakfast of Kashi with plain FF yogurt, but I did drizzle a bit of the blueberry syrup on for some sweetness! YUMMY!

almost ready to enjoy

Here they are...

Mmmmm...don't they look yummy. I did have a nibble or two, and they were very good! And, the batch is rather large, so I have some individual servings in the freezer for breakfast another day! Bonus!

Later in the morning the boys and I met up with some friends at the park up the street from us. It was good to let them get out and run around, and it wasn't too hot here today, which was nice. Now they are napping (whoo hooo) and after this I am going to finish up our grocery list. That's what we will be doing when they wake.

Not much going on other than that. I can't believe it's already Thursday...where does the week go?? Okay well I'm off to work on that grocery list! Hope you all have a wonderful day and if I'm not back tomorrow have a fabulous weekend!

Tuesday at the Table

Well, here we are, week three of TatT - pretty cool! I have a few things for you all today. First up are some wonderful Apple Cookies that you can find the recipe for here. I did however make a few changes. The first was that I didn't use shortening, I subbed in butter instead. And second I omitted the nuts because some people (me and the hubs) aren't nut fans when it comes to their cookies. They still turned out wonderful. But one note, if you do make them, while you are waiting for your first batch to bake, stick the dough in the fridge to keep it cool. I took these to a mom's club meeting and they were a huge hit!! They taste like a cookie version of apple pie...how can you go wrong??

Next up is one of our suppers from last week. It was Halibut over spinach, broccoli, brown rice and some whole grain bread. No recipe, just a few simple things tossed together for a quick and healthy meal, but it was yummy and the family enjoyed it.

And finally - Doughnut Bread Pudding. The base for the recipe can be found here but because I wanted to use doughnuts and not actual bread, I made a few changes that I will list below. This was really yummy, but next time I will use cake doughnuts and not glazed. Glazed was the hub's choice, but it was a little too much for me. ALSO on another note, this tastes wonderful the first night, but it's not so hot the day after. So, next time I make it I'll make sure to do it at a time when we have more people to enjoy it!

Doughnut Bread Pudding:

6-10 doughnuts (depends on size)

1 cup sugar

2 T butter (melted)

2 1/2 cups milk

2 eggs (lightly beaten)

2 T Vanilla

cut donuts into 1inch pieces, arrange in pie plate. Mix together sugar, butter, milk, eggs and vanilla until sugar is dissolved. Pour over doughnuts. Bake at 325 for about an hour, until golden brown on-top.

While baking make the whiskey cream sauce. For this I followed her recipe exactly - and boy oh boy was it yummy!

We served this up with a little vanilla bean ice cream on the side and it was fantastic.

So there are some of our good eats here at our place. Tonight I have to admit we let Papa Johns do the cooking for the guys. I had to get a run in as soon as the hubs walked in from work. He is going to be the coach for the big kids soccer team this fall and had his first meeting tonight! We are both really excited, it should be a good time for all of us! Kid sports are just too darn cute if you ask me.

Hope you all are having a good week so far! KP

Run Kel Run

Well, I did it! I ran my 15 miles this AM! It went well and I was happy with my outcome! If you want to read about it just go click on my training log off to the right. I had my phone with me so I took a few pictures along my way so you all could see some of the sights here. There aren't many because I really tried not to stop.

This first picture is just as I started off. This is one of my favorite places to run, the trail is a 5K loop and it runs around a little lake. It's always so pretty there, but this morning it was amazing as the sun was coming up!

This is the park is where I stopped to fill up my water bottles around mile 6.5 - it's another pretty place, but the trails there aren't very long.

This is what much of the run looks like - lots of fields with corn and other crops.

Okay so that was my run, hope you enjoyed it. The best part of it was the end though, the hubs and my boys were waiting for me at the park where I finished, and that was the best sight of all! After the run we went for breakfast, then I came home and iced my legs...here's a shot of me doing just that!

Okay, well that's pretty much been my day! The kids and I napped together, well they napped, I tried to but couldn't sleep. I went to the store, and then fixed supper. We've just been hanging out watching the Olympics. I baked some yummy treats this week, so I'll post those Tuesday! Okay...well I think we are heading out to go visit with the neighbors. Catch ya'll later!

Rolling into the weekend

I did it! I have always wanted to try and make homemade cinnamon rolls, and after one very unsuccessful attempt (which I now know probably would have worked if I would have been more patient) I got a good batch the second time around.

Because I didn't have enough yeast to do the full batch I cut the recipe in half for my second try, therefore I have smaller rolls but they still tasted delicious. I'm not quite convinced that my dough did exactly what it was supposed to, but they turned out okay. I think I need to play around some more, maybe try another recipe, see how that goes. The recipe I used can be found here in case you are interested.

So, here are a few pictures of my first ever batch of made from scratch cinnamon rolls!

Ready to go in the oven

Ta-Da!!!

A close up

No cinnamon roll is complete without some icing!

The kiddos enjoying their yummy breakfast treat

So there ya have it! That's what I was working on last night and this morning. I am now taking a break from cleaning, but as soon as I finish this up will get back to it. We have a busy weekend so I want to get my usual weekend cleaning done today instead!

Tomorrow AM I will be heading out to try my best to run 15 miles! EEEK - wish me luck, I think I may need it. Then Sunday we're packing up and going to see my Grandma (and cousins) for the day. I hope you all have a great weekend! love KP

Tuesdays at the table...

Sorry this is a little late folks. I had intentions of posting earlier, but I started a new book the other day (Sunday) and tonight after the boys went to bed, I became completely engrossed and couldn't put it down until it was done! The title by the way was "Something Blue" and it was very good. I'll admit, totally a "girlie" book, easy to read and fun, but I really enjoyed it. I wasn't sure I was going to at first because I was having trouble relating to the character but in the end, I was hooked.

Okay, so now on to my cooking and baking adventures. These were actually both from today. The first are whole wheat pumpkin cranberry muffins that I found here and they are wonderful! This is my third attempt at whole wheat healthy muffins, and I am happy to say that third time is a charm. They have a good texture, moist but not too dense, and they are really yummy!! The kids and the hubby both enjoyed them, so I take that as a good sign!!

Here are a few pictures of my little muffins...

Next up are the fajitas we had for dinner. This is another recipe from my Clean Eating magazine that I just love! I do tone down the spices/hot sauce a bit so it's more kid friendly, but these are wonderful! And, they are quick and easy which I am a big fan of!! We served these up with some black beans and fresh fruit! Yummy.

So there ya have it. Now you have seen what we had for dinner, and what I'll be having for breakfast in the AM! Hope your week is going well so far, and I'll be back soon with more updates, and maybe even some more treats!

quick and easy

If I had realized how easy it was to make your own fun frozen goodies I would have done it WAY before now. I don't know why it never struck me as an "easy" thing to do, but yesterday while at one of my most favorite places ever (Target) I found these fun molds (on sale) so I figured I'd give it a try. I made orange banana yogurt pops and the big kid is a HUGE fan (so is his daddy). So all in all I'd say this was a worthwhile purchase, and I think I'll go back and pick up some more molds if they are still there!

In case you are wondering what I used to make them - here's what I did.

In a blender mix the following: plain fat free yogurt (about 1/2 cup), 1 banana, splash of OJ (again maybe about 1/2 cup) and about a tablespoon or so of honey. Blend it up and pour into molds. See...SOOOOO easy, and a healthy tasty treat for the kiddos!

P.S. I don't know why but for some reason it won't let me align the font on the left...it's all about keeping it centered today apparently...I dunno. Hope you all have a good weekend!!