Smorgasbord Night!

Tonight was SMORGASBORD night!! Yum, we had little leftovers from the week. Our menu included 2 chicken Italian sausages, 1 pork chop, a serving of chicken spaghetti and garlic bread. Little does the hubs know that was really a clearing out of our cabinets. We are way over due for ridding ourselves of "honeymoon menu."

We've been eating pretty healthy but we could def improve. Preplanning is the only way I can stick to anything. Thankfully with an extra day off this week, I planned our dinners for the week. This life-saver calendar I got from Target. I'm really bad at communication and reminders, so this helps both of us remember what's going on. Wednesday Justin has class so I normally eat with my mom :). But the calendar really helps, especially in the morning when I see that I need to pick something up, or start the crockpot.

Anywho, my sister asked me to send her the recipe for my Tuesday meal. Specifically cuz Chloe can eat that one :). But I thought I'd post the whole week. I love sharing recipes!

So here it goes:

Monday- clean the kitchen ;)

Tuesday- Honey Chicken Kabobs **Spark Recipies is awesome, they aren't always super clean, but you can clean them up yourself and all their recipies are fairly healthy and have all the nutritional information, so you can find what your willing to eat

Wednesday- Justin's last class for the summer (cookout)

Thursday- Pulled Chicken stuffed Red Peppers thanks for the link Carrie :)

Friday- Turkey Burgers with acocado and salsa

I'll leave the weekend open. But the kitchen is stocked with healthy snacks and stuff for lunch. I'll keep eating my tuna, but I have to stop packing unhealthy crap for him.

5-7 Fruits and Veggies a Day?

That's right! It's not just an apple a day that keeps the doctor away, it's 8! I wish it was that easy. Truth is for most of us busy bodies, fitting in 4-5 meals a day and including a fruit or veggie in each one is harder than you'd think. And with fruit being so high in sugar, while trying to be "healthy" you should really only have 2-3 of the F&Vs as fruits. It would be a lot easier to eat 6 apples in the morning and just get it over with.

Though there are pill form supplements, eating the real thing fills your little tummy instead of leaning on carbs to help fill the void or worse, real sugar.

Any who, here are some fun, easy ways to get more fruits and veggies in your day.

• Childhood throw back: One of my favorite snacks is apple and almond butter. But again I love fruit and need help with the veggies. A yummy alternative is BUGS on a log :) The ever so under-used celery isn't just for hummus and ranch anymore. Put some almond butter on those babies and dress them up with raisins or cranberries, even blueberries! Almost any fruit will make the perfect bug. You got your protein, veggie and a small serving of fruit, depending on how many bugs you like



• Roll ups without the roll- My trainer taught me this one. Turkey roll ups, I had them for lunch today :) Boars Head is my fav, ask the peeps to slice it sandwich style. Take 2 pieces of turkey, two hand fulls of spinach torn and any other dressing. Today I used pesto (Classico is really good and no pine nuts, for the allergy ones out there). Use can use cheese, carrots, mustard, anything on a sandwich. Stuff the spinach and condiments and roll that puppy up! YUMM!! Full serving of veggies, protein and healthy fat!


• Amp your salad- You can always add another serving to your salad. Adding fruit such as pears, mandarin oranges, pineapple, any kind of berry can turn your salad from one serving to 2. Of course you can always add veggies too, but fruit makes my salad colorful and fun! I little grilled tuna and you have lunch.


• Throw it on the grill- You can save washing dishes by throwing a veggie on the grill with your meat. Asparagus, corn, broccoli anything. Wrap in in some foil and steam it out! You can also add some fruit to the grill! Grilled peaches are one of my favorites! Pineapple, pears and grilled banana (learned that in Mexico). This iron skillet from Crate and Barrel is the perfect size to throw on the grill next to your turkey burgers!! Put a little olive or coconut oil on there, salt and pepper with your favorite veggie and they will be done when your meat is ready. Squash and Zucc is so good, and no leftovers in The Luttrell Home.

Fighting for a cure

This weekend was our Pensacola Relay for Life. Cancer awareness may seem to some like a time to wear pink. Yep, May is Breast Cancer Awaness month (as well as sometime during football season now, apparently). But cancer awareness is a little different in my family.

The two on the ends are my Mom and Dad. They both have battled with the "C" word. It's human nature to forget to be thankful for anything when something is fixed. But, this weekend at Relay was all about remembering, those who fought, those we've lost and those who contiune to fight daily.

My Dad was diagnosed with cancer when he was 25 years old, I was 8 months. I am thankful for Dr. Einhorn in Indiana that "just so happen" to be working on a trial cure at IU Medical Center. My Dad was a candidate and it worked. It's saved my Dad and many others including Lance Armstrong. LIVE STRONG!! He's been Cancer free for 25 years

My Mom heard the "C" word when I was 8 years old. I am thankful for Dr. Sunnenberg. She had progressed into stage 4 by the time they caught it and FOUGHT back. She's been cancer free for 17 years.

My Mom and Dad both are walking miracle. I know God put them through their fights for a reason. Maybe it was so they could support each other through the other's battle. Maybe it was to bring us all closer through prayer and love (may also be the reason I slept with my sister everynight from when I was 4-10, Sorry Nuns)

I will be doing more than just wearing my "Save the Ta-Ta's" tank to the gym. I want to continue to volunteer for the cause and help raise money for a cure. Medicine has always been my passion and though I may not be in Med school like I had planned, there are other plans out there for me.

Boxes and work

So though we are working on our yard, we are still sorting through the last of our boxes. I have a slight issue with holding onto things, but we managed to condense almost all our memories into one box (and another one for some of my younger memories). So here it is, "Our Box." Filled with yearbooks and little league programs from softball, baseball, cheerleading and football. You can see my little bag of notes, our diplomas, and a diary that holds some pretty rough memories from Freshman year at FSU, including days of missing Justin so much and thinking that was the end of "our" road. You can see the score card from when we won STATE in high school, our senior class portrait, pom poms, and Justins' McSwaine award. So many memories, some good, some bad and some how they managed to bring "US" together in some magical, horrific tornado/roller coaster :)

Okay enough of the sap, don't VOM !!

I may obviously have a slight case of hoarding (see below) keeping notes from my lunch my mom gave me... hence the box of my own stuff. I have letters from my sister when she first went away to college and letters from her through my first days at college. I've kept postcards from my dad, whom used to travel a lot when I was little and any birthday card that ever made me cry. I don't know what I'll do with all this stuff, but for now it's in the attic and I'll pull it out again one day and love it all the same. I'm a very lucky girl.

Some of you know I work for my Mom and Dad's business, but you may not know what we do. It's not the Mexican Mafia :) My parents own a Computer Training and Gov Contracting company. I've only been there for 2.5 years, but it has really changed from my first day to now. I don't know all the numbers but I do know I was the 32nd (coincidence, I think not) employee and we are somwhere around 77 now? I think. Well this little company has just continued to grow and change. We've brought on some great christain people into the office, which helps hold myself accountable on a daily basis. This past week was National Prayer day, our whole office gathered at our new sign and flag pole for prayer over our country, familes, company and so on.

It's so nice to know that we have wonderful people that love such a wonderful company. Dad was out of town in Seattle and everyone else is scattered from Seattle to Georgia, San Diego and Orlando. This is just our little office :)

Here's to the new and Here's to you.

This is my first blog... I'm always behind the trends but I like to consider it fashionably late. So let me start by a little bit about myself and what you will get out of my blog. I am horrible at spelling and grammar, no need to correct me just read on. I am not a dietitian but I have a love for healthy food and healthy life. I am a newly wed, so I'm all about gushing love and home projects for our new house and trying to make it into a Luttrell Home...

So I'll start with a family tradition of "Here's to." A toasting tradition that I'm not sure if my sister made up recently or if it's been around for years, but here it goes:

• Here's to, my new husband and our new life, may we bring God into our "circle" and love each other unconditionally as we have for the past 7 years.




• Here's to, blogging, hopefully I can stick with it and someone out there will learn something new.
  



• Here's to, a new leaf turning to health, family, love and friends.




• Here's to, our list (in a later blog) of accomplishments we want to make together before adding to our family.




• Here's to, Home Depot and Lowe's for helping us make our seemingly huge house into our home.
  



• Here's to cook outs and get togethers that will start soon, after we get over our "sit at home and snuggle phase." :)




• Here's to adding our families together to make the perfect concoction of life as we know it



• Here's to many, many more "Here's to's."
  
  

This weekend, was a lazy and productive one, Saturday we helped mom and Dad with the SGM neighborhood garage sale. We picked up a HUGE picnic table for our backyard.

After that we laid around the house, while Justin prepped for his first Semi-Pro referee game this year. So proud of him for being one of the few selective to move up. Sunday we went to Crawfish Fest and a trip to Home Depot for Justin's project of giving our mail box a face lift:

Before

After- We will probably add some flowers later

He was very proud, and so am I :)











I also got to start a little trial of my garden which will be full of veggies one day. But I thought I would start with some of the most indestructable veggies possible: Jalapeno, Cayenne and tomatoes. Soon I'll have citrus, and all kinds of veggies.