This post is sponsored by Red Baron but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

How many times during the week do you hear someone in your house say, “What’s for dinner?” I hear it far too often! And with the holidays, and sports schedules our days and evenings are busy. Thankfully Red Baron pizza saves the days frequently in our house because we all love pizza night!

Pizza seems to be the one meal in our house that everyone agrees with! And it doesn’t seem to matter the flavor, we love it all. The kids especially love cheese! Travis loves Supreme and Zach and I always want Mexican Style pizza! But often times we add Hawaiian into the mix. As I said, we aren’t picky with our Red Baron pizza!

Honestly though, this time of year is so busy for everyone. And I love that Red Baron pizza gives such great dinner options. We love the Classic Crust!

Each night it seems like we have something going on. And it can be hectic, but it doesn’t have to be. Head over and check out what Red Baron has to offer. 

Every night I dish up dinner on our glass plates and serve them. So one thing I do for myself, to give myself “a night off”, is grab out some paper plates (these one courtesy of the most recent birthday party).  That way when dinner is done I am not stuck with a bunch of clean up after dinner. 

Obviously, Tyler is enjoying pizza night! 

What is your favorite Red Baron Pizza?

If you follow along on social media, you’ve probably already seen what happened last weekend. 

Literally, one of the scariest moments of my life. 

Of course it didn’t start out that way. We had a great afternoon at a birthday party for a good friend at the pumpkin patch. At one point Summer ran up to me and showed me that she found a quarter in the bounce house, so exciting when you’re 6! 

I never really thought another second about that quarter. My kids have been told not to put things in their mouth, they know not to ever put money in their mouth, nothing to be concerned about, right? 

That night I got Summer tucked into bed, we read a story like we do each night. I turned on her Stars, sound effects like every night before. And also like most nights she comes out to tell me something she forgot to earlier in the day. And she comes back to tell Zach or dad something, or she needs to go to the bathroom again.

Then after her remembering something she needed to tell me for the 3rd or 4th time I finally said, “Summer, it is bedtime. You need to stop talking and please go to sleep.” Then that was when I heard her say the scariest words I’ve ever heard, “I accidentally swallowed a quarter.”

I ran for her bedroom and could immediately tell she was struggling. She was breathing, her color was okay, but I could tell that it hurt. I yelled for Travis to call 911. As Travis was on the phone and they were explaining not to attempt getting it out, no patting her back, no food or drink. She was gagging and trying to throw up, but nothing was really happening.

Thankfully they were so fast. the firemen got to our house and after checking her over felt would could taker her ourselves to the hospital, but said they felt we should get it checked out to make sure it passed all the way through. 

We immediately left our house and headed for the ER. 

They wasted no time at all. We barely got checked in and they were taking her back for an xray to find out where that quarter was. Then we got back out to our seats and Travis says, “I heard them say ‘it’s in the esophagus'”. Almost immediately they took us back to a room for a Dr to check her out and talk to us. 

While we were waiting she started getting sick. Unfortunately she threw up all down her pj bottoms into her slippers but the quarter stayed put. The Dr. came in and confirmed that the quarter was in fact in her esophagus and that they needed her to be taken to the children’s hospital for it to be removed. 

We left within minutes and headed for Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital. Again, everything moved fairly quick. They got us in a room within moments and explained what the process would be. 

They came in to put an IV in Summer and that was interesting. They really made it a great experience for Summer (as great as it can be). They explained what they would be doing to her, but then they had a tablet for her to play a game on while they put in the IV.  Then they had an issue finding her vein and had to switch arms but then they got it. 

She certainly doesn’t look it, but she was really impressed that her thumb was glowing a bright red. 

Immediately after getting her IV in they wheeled her back where we talked with the Dr who was doing the procedure and she explained that they would use anesthesia for her to go to sleep and they would retract the quarter and once she was awake and stable we would be able to go home. The Dr. asked if we had any questions, and Summer speaks up to say, “Can I have my quarter please.” 

They then took Travis and I to a room as they wheeled Summer off. It was just after midnight, we were exhausted, we were nervous, I felt so sick to my stomach and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Thankfully, within about 45 minutes the Dr. found us and took us to our sleepy girl. Within a few minutes, she was waking up, enjoying a popsicle and not long later she was ready to head home. 

This girl gave us quite the scare. Thankfully, everything went smooth, there was no damage to her throat and after a couple days with a sore throat this girl was back to good. 

6 years ago I had this sweet little girl. The moment I looked at her I saw myself and I knew my entire life was going to change.  I knew we would have good times, and bad. Fun times, and not so fun times. I knew it would be a journey and I didn’t want to waste a single moment of it. 

That is part of the reason that I love doing all the girlie stuff.  I am not overly girlie, but Summer loves getting her hair brushed and wearing hair clips, having her nails painted, wearing cute shoes.  But she also loves playing in the dirt, getting her hands dirty, and going fishing. 

This rainbow cake was so fun and pretty.  Maybe a bit heavy on the frosting, but the kids powered through it!

We had fun snacks like unicorn and star cookies and Lucky Charm munch

The kids spent a ton of time running around outside and jumping on the trampoline. They also played “Pin the horn on the unicorn” and coloring unicorn coloring sheets. 

And I made a fun unicorn backdrop for the wall. 

And Summer can’t let a moment go by without getting to hold sweet baby Norah. 

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She had such a great day and I am so thankful for her friends and mine for making it a special day for her. 

She woke up the next morning, on her actual birthday sniffling and by the time she got home from school she had a full on head cold. My poor girl had such a red nose from blowing it all day and she was so tired but she pushed through for dinner with Papa, along with more presents and cake! 

Happy 6th Birthday my sweet Summer. 

Happy Friday, my friends. I am so glad this week is wrapping up! It’s been a long one! And tomorrow I am heading into a long weekend full of soccer games, birthday parties and house cleaning! So not exactly a glamorous weekend either but at least we have a little break from work and school. Who else has a weekend full of busy days?

Today I wanted to share a quick and easy recipe for some Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers that is so easy and quick to make. These ones were actually from a super bowl party this year and since I haven’t been the best blogger these days, they’ve never gotten shared!

One trick I’ve learned is that when you cut your jalapeno, cut the stem in half also so it gives you something to hold on to!

They bake up super fast and are so delicious! 

They don’t really fit in with my current Weight Watchers lifestyle, but could easily be altered to fit with light cream cheese and even turkey bacon. You could use less cream cheese, or drop the shredded cheese to lower your calorie/point intake.

Ingredients:
10 Jalapenos sliced the long way
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 c. shredded Cheddar Cheese
1/2 tsp garlic salt
10 slices of bacon, cut in half

Slice your jalapenos in half the long way and empty out the seeds. (you may need to use gloves for this part! Whatever you do, just don’t touch your face!)

Mix together cream cheese (regular or flavored, it’s up to you!) garlic salt, shredded cheese then stuff the jalapenos.

Next, wrap in a half piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick.

Bake at 400* for about 25 minutes.

Do you love Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers? Do you use regular cream cheese, or flavored?

You know when something just clicks and you get it? Like really, really get it? That is Weight Watchers, for me. So I wanted to share some of my weight watchers goals today.

In April I shared about how I had joined Weight Watchers and how that first month went for me. I really did plan to share more often here how my progress was going but you all understand how life and time fly and most of my progress has been documented along the way on Instagram anyway, so feel free to check it out there as well. 

But today I wanted to share how that journey has been going. 

As of my weigh in on last Thursday I have lost 40.2 pounds since March 1st! This Picture below was actually about a month ago, but I’ve only really lost a couple of pounds since then, so not too different. 

I really feel like it just clicked right away for me. My food choices are not always perfect. Exercise doesn’t always happen. But it happens. I make mostly good food choices and that is reflected in that 40.2 pounds that I’ve lost. 

This picture actually makes me laugh to think about. When I bought this sweatshirt below, it didn’t even come close to fitting. I put it on and it basically got stuck and I have to have my teenage son pull it off of me! Honestly, it made me feel terrible because the sizing was so off (due to coming from China) and based on the measurements I ordered a 3XL to make sure it would fit me. In reality, it’s probably a women’s large and it didn’t have any sizing tags on it and while I knew the size wasn’t normal, I felt awful knowing I bought up sizes and it still didn’t fit!

Diets don’t work. We all know that. You have to be open to changing your lifestyle to make this long term. I don’t know anyone that is perfect 24/7, do you? But it really comes down to finding what works for you. I know people that make comments about not wanting to count points, or count calories but if it works for you, then why not? All I do is add my food into an app, which takes about a minute. I know that I have time for that! 

One thing that is always so important to remember, is that sometimes you can eat perfectly all week and exercise each day and then weigh in day comes and the scale hasn’t budged, or maybe it even went up! That does not mean you aren’t doing good! It doesn’t mean your body has betrayed you! 

Weight fluctuates. That is just life. It’s the facts. I don’t typically weigh myself every single day for that reason. But recently I decided to weigh myself every day for a week to see how much my weight fluctuated. 

9/20 184.6
9/21 184.8
9/22 185.6
9/23 186.0
9/24 185.0
9/25 185.6
9/26 183.6
9/27 181.8
9/28 182.2

Wow, right? I could really get down about that. But I don’t. Somedays are so good and then weigh in day comes and I’m up a half of a pound and I could get so discouraged for having to post a gain. But then I weigh myself the next day and I’m down 2 pounds. It could be based on several different things. But the things that matter are how I feel, and how my clothes fit.

And right now my clothes are fitting pretty great. I actually got to buy new jeans in a smaller size recently and you know that feels amazing! Right?

Do you have a Fitbit? Find me (here) so we can do a challenge! 
Do you have Facebook? Come join my group, The Road to a Healthy YOU to get some motivation, inspiration or share your journey. No one is buying or selling anything, and you can just enjoy the give and take of women lifting each other up!

One thing I planned for the year, to motivate myself was to do my second half marathon. I know you might be asking, why would someone run 13.1 miles for fun. And that would be a totally legit question. And the answer is, I don’t know. hahaha. I’m not sure why I do that to myself. But I decided that I wanted to do another, and I got my bestie on board and we made plans to train together. And then we went on one walk together all summer…. Oops!

And then last weekend we did it. Together, her and I, ran, walked, practically crawled at times 13.1 miles. And we lived to tell about it. I even managed to make it a full 13 miles before I fell face first into the ground as everyone watched and cheered us during that last .1 mile. Ya, it was embarrassing, but whatever, stuff happens.  I literally dusted myself off and kept running. 

I made a goal to lose 25 pounds by the time the kids got out of school for the summer, which was June 13th, and I hit that! Then I made a second goal to lose another 25 (for a total of 50) by September 30th, and I came up 10 pounds short. But no fear, I am keeping on, and making these weight watchers goals happen.