Tag Archives: birthday

May 20, 2013 · 12:14 pm

31 Years Old

First up the winner of the Sambazon giveaway!

#7 – Karen

Congrats! Please email your shipping address to runeatplay(at)hotmail(dot)com.

Saturday

Saturday night, we met my family at a nearby Mexican restaurant for food and margaritas to celebrate my birthday. Then, we came back to our house to have cake, play games, talk, and stay up late

Here’s a few pictures from the weekend:

Sunday

On Sunday, we went out to breakfast and then spent the rest of the day relaxing. My mom stopped by to visit and wish me a happy birthday.

We eventually went for a 30 minute walk at a local trail that I will probably be using when I start my longer runs.

At one point you have to go through a tunnel which goes underneath a busy street. It’s kind of creepy actually.

We spent the rest of the night catching up on tv shows – CSI, The Big Bang Theory, and The Amazing Race.

Today

Today I am 31 years old. It’s amazing how fast life seems to fly by. When I was younger, I could never imagine an adult. Now here I am, all grown-up, married, and a mom of two kids.

I didn’t have a very hard time turning 30 last year. I mean, I wasn’t screaming that I was 30 from the rooftops either, but I wasn’t depressed about it or anything. Of course, Danny made sure to give me a hard time about it because I might have given him a super hard time when he turned 30

I think the thing is that I don’t feel 31 years old. I think you’re only as old as you feel

A big thank you to my family for making my birthday special! My family knows me too well. My brother and sister-in-law got me a food scale. I had been using a postage scale to weigh my food, so I am so excited for an actual food scale.

My dad and stepmom ordered me this cute Under Amour tank I wanted.

It has been sold out in stores, so they ordered it for me.

Today’s Workout

BodyPump – 60 minutes

Enjoy you afternoon!

Was turning a certain age hard for you?
If you could stay one age forever, what would it be?
What tv shows do you watch?

runeatplay

11 Comments

Filed under Family Fun, Fitness, Fun, Working Out

Tagged as 31, birthday, cake, food scale, under amour

May 18, 2013 · 3:20 pm

Just Play 5k 2013

Good afternoon!

This morning, Danny and I ran the JustPlay 5k.

It’s a smaller race and really close to our house. My dad and stepmom came to watch the kids for us. We got there about 7:30 am, and the race started at 8 am.

It was warm out, and I definitely really started to heat up while running. The whole time I kept thinking, how am I going to run a 15k in the middle of June in the heat?!

I started off really good – too good. My first mile was 8:40, which is way to fast for me. By the second half of the race, I was losing energy, and the third mile my right quad was killing me. I seem to be having more quad problems than calf problems lately. I have been foam rolling my hips and quads lately, so hopefully that will help, and I have to start wearing my compression shorts.

I finished in 31:11, which is my second best time. I’m happy with it, but I couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed after last week’s 29:22 5k. I think it helped that the temperature was a lot cooler last week.

Danny did awesome and PR’d this race! He finished in 23:17! He is super speedy. Good job, Danny. I’m proud of you!

After the race, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for some iced coffee and donuts.

Then, we headed straight to Jaden’s t-ball game.

The t-ball game lasted about an hour and a half, then we went back to where the race was held because they were having a Just Play festival for the kids. Unfortunately, the lines for paddleboarding and the zip line were too long, but the kids had fun doing other stuff.

They did a fitness obstacle course which was funny to watch.

There was also some reptiles for the kids to touch. And one of the guys put a roach on Jaden’s head.

I tried to stay as far away as possible. I am actually really surprised that Jaden didn’t freak out. He’s not really a bug kind of kid.

The kids got ice cream, and I was excited to see screwballs. That was my favorite treat from the ice cream truck when I was younger.

After checking out some of the booths and letting the kids play, we went to a nearby bakery to pick up my birthday cake! My wonderful husband ordered the chocolate/strawberry/whipped cream cake that I wanted.

He even made sure that they put my age on the cake. Thanks dear.

Tonight, we’re meeting my family at a local Mexican restaurant for my birthday dinner. Can’t wait!

Have a great rest of your weekend!

What’s your fastest mile?
Where would you have your birthday dinner?
Favorite ice cream truck treat?
Hot coffee or iced coffee or no coffee?

runeatplay

8 Comments

Filed under Family Fun, Fitness, Fun, Race, Running, Working Out

Tagged as 5k, birthday, cake, family, fun, just play, race

May 5, 2013 · 10:17 am

That Time I Almost Burned My Taste Buds Off

Good Morning!

Today’s Workout

5 miles, outside
Stretching – 10 minutes

The weather outside is beautiful this morning, so I began my day with a five mile run outside. I followed up my run with about 10 minutes of stretching. My calves were very tight after my run, so hopefully the stretching will help, and I should probably foam roll a bit.

Let’s back up a bit to the weekend.

Friday afternoon, when the kids got home from school, we headed to the hotel. First, we had to make a quick Starbucks stop because I was still exhausted.

I tried their new caramel ribbon crunch Frappuccino (half price 3-5pm!) and it was amazing. Definitely my new favorite Frappuccino!

A lady that I take BodyPump classes with at the gym works at the hotel we went to occasionally, like one day a week. I mentioned to her in BodyPump that I was taking the kids to the hotel for Jacob’s birthday so they could swim and stuff.

When we got to the hotel room, it was decorated with birthday balloons and party poppers! The lady from my gym went to the hotel and told them we were coming and had the room decorated for Jacob.

It was a small gesture, but made such a big impact. It was a fun surprise for Jacob, and it touched my heart that some people are just so genuinely nice and thoughtful. I really appreciated that she would take time from her day to make Jacob’s day special even though she’s never met him. It’s the small things in life.

The kids had a fun time swimming, and Danny met us at the hotel when he got off of work.

After the kids swam for awhile, we met my family at Buffalo Wild Wings for Jacob’s birthday dinner.

My dad orders the Blazin’ hot wings, which is the hottest they make. He was crying eating them because they’re so hot. And he likes spicy food!

He told Danny that he’d give him five dollars to eat one and Danny said no way. Then he said that he’d give me $10 to eat half of one. I figured that I am almost 31 years old and it’s about time that I started taking some risks in life, so I surprised everyone by agreeing to eat it.

It was horrible! I ate two things that I never eat – chicken and spicy spicy spicy food. I was dying and my mouth was on fire. Everyone yelled at me for drinking water and the waiter brought me a chocolate milk. I guess I’m getting crazy in my old age.

They brought Jacob a piece of cake and we sang happy birthday.

Saturday

On Saturday, we had a family birthday party for Jacob. I made funfetti cake dip.

I made it a few times last summer and it’s so good and easy to make! All you need is funfetti cake mix, two cups of plain yogurt, and one cup of cool whip.

Mix it all up and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve! I served mine with animal crackers, Nilla wafers, and fruit.

Marlene made awesome giant ice cream sandwiches!

One had mint chocolate chip ice cream and one had vanilla hot fudge ice cream. Delicious!

My mom made yummy strawberry cheesecake strawberries.

She mixed cream cheese and powdered sugar, put it on the strawberries, and then dipped them in graham cracker crumbs. Genius!

Jacob had a great time opening his presents and it was nice spending time with family.

Have a great Sunday!

What did you do this weekend?
Favorite cake? Favorite ice cream?
What’s the nicest thing someone’s done for you that you weren’t expecting?

runeatplay

10 Comments

Filed under Dinner, Family Fun, Fitness, Fun, Recipes, Running, Working Out

Tagged as birthday, buffalo wild wings, dinner, family, funfetti cake dip, spicy food sucks, starbucks, swimming

May 3, 2013 · 12:12 pm

Happy Birthday Jacob and I’m Home!

Happy 12th birthday to my son, Jacob!

Jacob was born 12 years ago today, 25 weeks early and weighed 1 pound 14 ounces. His weight dropped to 1 pound 8 ounces at its lowest. You can read the post I wrote on his birthday last year with pictures here if you would like

I let the kids pick out anything they want for breakfast on their birthday. Usually they pick out McDonald’s Cinnamelts, but today Jacob picked out Krave cereal.

Love you, Jacob!

I got back from Atlanta last night. It was a pretty quick trip. I flew out Wednesday afternoon and flew home on Thursday night.

The reason I was in Georgia was to film a video for Mizuno’s Mezamashii Run Project.

I promise that I will do a whole post on it soon. I want to be able to tell you guys everything that happened! Today is really busy because I just got home, it’s Jacob’s birthday, and I have to shop for his family party tomorrow. Tonight, we’re taking the kids to a nearby hotel to swim and spend the night. It’s always fun to go to a hotel when you’re a kid, even if it’s close by! So, today is busy, busy, busy!

Going to Atlanta and filming a video for Mizuno was an awesome experience, and I can’t wait to tell you guys about it!!

Today’s Workout

Treadmill, walked slow – 15 minutes?
BodyPump – 60 minutes

I woke up this morning feeling horrible and exhausted. I didn’t sleep very well in Atlanta, I was home and in bed late last night, and for some reason I woke up at 6am this morning and couldn’t fall back asleep.

I am really dragging today and just don’t feel well. I decided to go to the gym anyway in hopes I would feel better. Nah. Didn’t happen. I was still exhausted when I left.

I started out by walking slow on the treadmill and I don’t even know how long or how far because Jaden’s doctor called me and I had to jump off the treadmill to answer, and I didn’t even think to look at my time or mileage.

Then I went to BodyPump, and I ended up just giving it half an effort because I was so tired. Oh well, we all have our off days. I also wasn’t feeling well enough to eat before the gym today so maybe that was part of the problem.

After my workout, I had a Carrot Cake Clif Bar.

Yum!

Have a great Friday afternoon!!

Do you ever have days when your workout isn’t as good as it could be?
Do you have a special birthday breakfast?
Any plans this weekend?
Where’s the last place that you flew to?

runeatplay

8 Comments

Filed under Breakfast, Family Fun, Fitness, Fun, Working Out

Tagged as atlanta, birthday, BodyPump, fitness, jacob, mezamashii, mizuno

February 24, 2013 · 1:03 pm

The Weekend: Birthday Party Edition

The weekend in pictures:

Saturday

Happy Birthday, Dad! I love you.

Sunday

runeatplay

10 Comments

Filed under Family Fun, Fun

Tagged as birthday, famliy fun, food, party

February 12, 2013 · 3:00 pm

Happy Birthday, Jaden!

Happy 6th Birthday to my baby Jaden!

Proud new daddy and baby Jaden:

Proud new brother Jacob:

I swear that Jaden doesn’t look anything like he did when he was a baby. He looks so completely different now than when he was born that I often wonder if I came home with the right kid…

I’m joking, I’m joking. He’s definitely my baby, but he sure looks different now.

Luckily, he got cuter as he got older…

…and balder.

That’s okay, we just covered up his big bald head with a hat

Happy Birthday, Jaden!! I love you!

Today’s Workout

1.11 miles treadmill, walked
Butts and Guts Class – 60 minutes

Today in Butts and Guts class, the instructor set up about 10 different stations. We spent three minutes at each station, rotating until we did every station. It was a fun workout, and I really enjoyed it.

Some of the stations included:

one-legged squats
jump rope
squats on a bench with four risers
kettle ball arm raises
hurdles
bosu ball exercises

Post-workout, I had something a little different for snack today.

I had a cookie dough Luna protein bar. I’ve been hearing good things about this bar lately, so I figured I’d pick one up and try it out. While it was good, it wasn’t my favorite. I’m glad that I tried it and would recommend it, but I prefer my normal snack size Builder bar.

The Luna bar had 170 calories and 12 grams of protein. Whenever I buy protein bars, I try to look for three things – not too high in calories, high in protein, and tastes good. I like to stick to around 150 calories and at least 8 or more grams of protein.

After the gym, I went to pick up my niece. As soon as I got there, the school called saying that Jaden was sick and throwing up. On his birthday. My poor baby.

My brother’s house is at least a half hour away from Jaden’s school, so I got my niece ready really quick, and we went to Jaden’s school to pick him up. So, Jaden will spend his birthday laying on the couch and watching cartoons for the rest of the afternoon.

We’re going to have his birthday dinner and cake tomorrow if he feels better.

Lunch

Lunch this afternoon was a strawberry, blueberry, and peanut butter smoothie. Trust me – it was absolutely delicious. It’s like eating dessert for lunch.

I topped my smoothie with some of the new Cheerio Medley Crunch cereal.

Have you tried this cereal? I love it! I never thought I’d be a fan of mixing cereals, but I was wrong. This cereal has honey nut Cheerios, flakes, and granola clusters. It is so good that sometimes I can’t even start eating it, or I won’t want to stop.

I hope you all have a great afternoon!

Do you mix cereals together? Which ones?
When is the last time you were sick?
What was for lunch today?
Do you have kids – how old are they?

runeatplay

15 Comments

Filed under Family Fun, Fitness, Working Out

Tagged as birthday, butts and guts, cheerios, gym, jaden, lunch, sick, smmothie

February 10, 2013 · 8:36 am

Party Time

Yesterday, we celebrated Jaden’s 6th birthday with our family. (His actual birthday is Tuesday.)

I tried my hardest to make the Lego cake. They made it look so nice and easy online, but in reality, that cake took me hours and hours to make and came out looking like a five-year old made it.

It looked pretty bad in person. The cake itself tasted good, it was just a lot harder to frost than I thought it would be. I am not a baker.

Oh well, I did make M&M blondies that I thought came out pretty delicious!

I used this recipe (I doubled it) that I found via Pinterest.

And thank goodness Marlene made the cupcakes for Jaden’s party today. I’ll leave all the cake baking up to her from now on! She made Minecraft cupcakes (a computer game the kids love) and they turned out awesome.

Jaden was very excited and can’t wait for his friends to see them.

Jaden had a fun time at his party and thank you to my family for helping him celebrate! The babies loved my brother-in-law, Billy.

Danny and I:

The rest of the evening was spent playing fun party games. The kids played Twister…

…and the adults played Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

You’re never too old for party games.

This afternoon we’re off to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate Jaden’s birthday with his friends from school. Have a great Sunday!

What’s your favorite party game?
Have you ever had a cooking/baking failure?
Favorite kind of cake?

runeatplay

14 Comments

Filed under Family Fun

Tagged as baking failure, birthday, blondies, family fun, lego cake, m&ms, minecraft, party games

February 9, 2013 · 11:06 am

The Most Money I’ve Ever Spent on Juice

Last night, we stopped at Target, and I bought the ingredients for the Jillian Michaels detox water/tea. I went to three different stores and Target was the only place that I found the dandelion tea bags and unsweetened cranberry juice.

Every time I picked up a bottle of juice that said “cranberry 100% juice”, it turned out to be a blend of four different juices. 100% juice yes, but not 100% cranberry juice. Go ahead and check next time you’re at the grocery store – 100% just cranberry juice is pretty hard to find, especially unsweetened. Even though the picture on the front of the bottles shows just cranberries, it’s not actually just cranberry juice most of the time.

Luckily, at Target, I found unsweetened organic just cranberry juice. Not so luckily, the juice was insanely expensive. $8.09 a bottle. For one bottle! Crazy!

I really debated buying it. Did I want to spend $8 on juice and $5 on tea bags?! In the end, I did up buy it (obviously). It was the only place I had seen both the dandelion tea bags and cranberry juice. It figured it would be a good experiment to try put. That way if it helps me lose weight, you can run out and spend $8 on cranberry juice too :)

Another thing – the Ocean Spray No Sugar Added Cranberry Juice (a blend of four juices) has 140 calories and 36 grams of sugar per 8 oz. serving. (And that’s the no sugar added version.)

The R.W. Knudsen Unsweetened Just Cranberry 100% Juice has 70 calories and only 8 grams of sugar per 8 oz. serving. I’m guessing that this is the cranberry juice that’s supposed to be used in the detox tea.

This darn tea better work because it wasn’t cheap. I plan on making the first batch on either Sunday or Monday morning. We’ll see how it goes!

Today’s Workout

3 miles, treadmill (3:4 interval)
Stationary Bike – 12 minutes

I didn’t set my alarm for Boot Camp last night, and I told myself that if I woke up in time to make it, I would go, otherwise I’d just go to the gym when I woke up. I woke up at 7 am. Boot Camp starts are 7:10 am. I was glad that I slept though because I haven’t been sleeping well lately.

I got to the gym around 7:30 am and did a 3:4 interval workout on the treadmill. I walked three minutes, followed by four minutes of running for a total of three miles. After the treadmill, I hopped on the stationary bike for about 12 minutes. Today, I rode through the lost trails. There were a lot of palm trees and grass huts. It was nice.

When I was leaving the gym, a dentist’s office was there handing out toothbrushes for kids.

If you thought my kids wouldn’t be excited for toothbrushes, you’d be wrong. After fighting over who would get the floss, they sat on the couch watching cartoons and clutching their new toothbrushes.

Well, I off to finish baking some treats for Jaden’s party today! (And I really need to stop tasting so much of what I’m baking – it’s just so darn good!) Have a wonderful Saturday!

Questions of the day:

What was the last thing you baked?
Do you set an alarm on the weekends or just wake up naturally? What time?
Any plans or workouts for today?

runeatplay

15 Comments

Filed under Family Fun, Fitness, Recipes, Working Out

Tagged as baking, birthday, cake, detox wate, fitness, gym, interval, jillina michaels, toothbrushes, treadmill

November 11, 2012 · 9:06 am

Showers and Birthdays

Early yesterday afternoon, we went to my cousin’s baby shower.

It was at a banquet hall, and it was very nice. It was your typical baby shower – we ate food, played games, ate cake, opened presents.

My other cousin made cookies in a jar as a baby shower favor.

I thought this was such an awesome idea! Much better than the normal baby food jars filled with candies or whatever. This would also make an awesome gift for Christmas.

Of course, Jaden and I got right to work making those cookies this morning.

The cookies were so good!

After the baby shower yesterday, I went home to get Danny and the boys and we headed out to Gordon Biersch to celebrate Crystal’s birthday.

There was a big group of us that went, so Danny and I got banned from the big people table, and had to sit separately at the kid’s table. Thanks, family

The low light option on my camera doesn’t really work anymore (maybe because I dropped the camera a few times?) so the pictures in the restaurant didn’t turn out as well as they should have.

I had the fish taco, which I’ve had before, and they’re so delicious. Last time, I had the pecan crusted salmon, which was amazing, but I wasn’t really in a salmon mood.

After dinner, we stayed and watched the Christmas lights for a while. Gordon Biersch is located in an outdoor mall, and yesterday was the tree lightening ceremony, so by the time we were done eating dinner, the tree was all lit and the lights were going off to music. I love Christmas lights. The only picture I took of the tree came out blurry, but I still think it looks cool.

Questions of the day:

What kind of camera do you have? Any recommendations?
Do you decorate your house with Christmas lights?
Do you ever make homemade holiday gifts?

runeatplay

9 Comments

Filed under Christmas, Dinner, Family Fun, Fun

Tagged as baby shower, birthday, christmas lights make me happy, dinner, family, fun, Gordon Biersch

September 2, 2012 · 8:54 am

Birthday Fun

Yesterday

Yesterday afternoon, we went to my grandparent’s house to celebrate Marlene’s birthday.

There was so much delicious food. I indulged, but I don’t think that I went too overboard.

Even though, I am not a tomato fan, I tried the bruschetta because it looked delicious. I was surprised at how much I liked it, since I don’t really like tomatoes.

My grandpa made beer can chicken on the grill, which Danny said was fabulous.

I ate salmon, which was cooked in a grilling basket. So good.

And the night isn’t complete without a little love from Baby McCutie. She gave Danny a ten minute hug. It was so sweet.

My dad took the guys outside to show them some new frisbee golf techniques. Frisbee golf, also known as disc golf, is a sport that my dad recently discovered and has been playing.

From the PDGA website:

Disc golf is played much like traditional golf. Instead of a ball and clubs, however, players use a flying disc, or Frisbee®. A golf disc is thrown from a tee area to a target which is the “hole”.

As a player progresses down the fairway, he or she must make each consecutive shot from the spot where the previous throw has landed. The trees, shrubs, and terrain changes located in and around the fairways provide challenging obstacles for the golfer. Finally, the “putt” lands in the basket and the hole is completed. Disc golf shares the same joys and frustrations of traditional golf, whether it’s sinking a long putt or hitting a tree halfway down the fairway.

(Source)

My dad really likes it, and Danny has played a couple of times with him. They don’t ask me to play because apparently they think that girls can’t play frisbee golf. That’s dumb. They’re probably just scared that I’ll kick their butts. Actually, they just leave me at home to watch the kids.

A birthday party isn’t complete without cake. Since Marlene is a professional dessert chef (is that the proper name for it?), my Grandpa decided that he would bake her a cake since she’s the one always baking. It was his first cake that he made all my himself and it came out delicious! Jaden did help by putting stars on the top of the cake.