Life's Whirlwind Adventures

Ok I know we missed a week here, but there was literally nothing to report.  I went through a lazy stage, and I just couldn't shake myself out of my funk.  I even binged on some terrible foods and then almost as soon as it started I was ready for it to be over and we are back in the saddle again. My neighbour may be a huge inspiration to this as well.  In December she got a treadmill (I hate those things, but...) and after her birthday she decided that was it she was going to use the treadmill every day and she has, even if its just for 30 minutes, she gets on that treadmill and gets to work. It's been 11 weeks and you can see a difference already and because she has done it every day it's become a habit for her!! I sat and talked with her this weekend and I was inspired, I need to kick my work outs up a notch and need to get them to become a habit, something I just do every day.  I can't not do them, I have to do a little something everyday, it's the only way thi...

I'm once again linking up with the girls from DC.  Make sure you check out Mar , Cynthia and Courtney 's blogs and the other bloggers who join up!! Today's topic is Favourite Spring Time foods. I'm stumped, literally stumped, I didn't know there were seasonal foods, I mean I know fruits and veggies have seasons but for favourite foods I am not really sure.  This took a lot of thinking, a lot of deciphering what I consider spring foods. 1) Barbecue!! Anything really, I love Barbecue foods and I love them more in the spring or summer.  My husband barbecues all the time, every season and that's new for us. Growing up the Barbecue was only ever fired up in the spring or summer so I think that's why I love Barbecue in the spring and sumer. 2) Jello:  Mostly the red jellos, but I love jello! It's definitely something I make more in the spring than any other time of the year.  It's super easy and fun for the kids. 3) Ice Tea.  I know technically n...

I hate coming up with meals at the last moment, it frustrates me to no end and usually it ends up with us eating something convenient and not entirely healthy (kraft dinner, frozen nuggets etc).  I am much more relaxed and willing to cook every night if I know what I'm cooking ahead of time and I'm not having to come up with a new meal at the last second. For a few years I've used my chalk board cupboard and written our main meal on each day.  But I was having to come up with new meals each week and sometimes it seemed like I was just repeating the same meals week in and week out.  I needed something more long term, that I could use for my Costco shopping trips and buy all the meat at one go. I decided to try something new this month, if you follow me on Instagram (@Jenn_loves_photos) you would have seen my calendar that I have for my meals for March 23-April 25th.  I sat in my van at Costco this morning working out what meals I was going to have. I am cooking 5 ...

It's been a fun rookie season of hockey!! And by Rookie season I mean for all of us, Lil Man was in his first year and he went from barely being able to skate, to keeping up with the big kids on his team, and I was a first time hockey mom. There were definitely things I did not enjoy (How come half our games were at 7 in Penhold???) but the thing I enjoyed the most was the most important thing for any sport, Lil Man's smile!! He loved it, and he never once complained about getting up early! Lil Man was seriously so proud of his hockey season. He wants to be a goalie, and he was able to be the goalie twice, both times his team won.  He participated in the skate-a-thon and did 30 laps, which is really impressive considering he could barely skate when he started this season.  He took some face offs, he started skating backwards, he learned to pass and he learned to be a good team mate! He's still distracted when playing and you can often find him hanging out b...

A couple weeks ago I was completely sick of my regular menu items, I needed to change things up and I wanted to try something different.  So I headed out to Pinterest to my Recipes I want to try board and picked out two new recipes.  Bacon Cheeseburger Bombs were the first I tried and they were a huge success you can read about them here .  The second was the Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joe's.  O-M-G!! They were so GOOOOD!!! I got the recipe from here .  And I have since moved that pin to the Recipes I have tried board.  It was super easy, at first I thought it was going to be complicated but as I started making the recipe I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was and how few ingredients it actually called for. Not everyone in the family was a fan of the cheese sauce, but everyone loved the meat and buns!! The recipe is here. The only change I'd make is to add a little more spices to it.  I would have liked a little more garlic and ma...

I started writing letters again!! I love getting mail that is not bills, I mean it's so nice to see a hand scribed address on an envelope when you go through your mail each day.  It's something I love so I thought I'd share my love of letters with people I love.  Sending them letters as a way of corresponding and hoping that it brightens their day. I picked out 11 friends to write to, at least the first round, and these were friends I'd previously had a "pen-pal" relationship with, family members and some of my close junior high and high school friends.  I'm finding in the digital age, we just rely on email or text messages and as convenient as those things are, they definitely don't convey true meaning the way a hand written letter can.  I didn't expect a letter back I closed each letter telling my friends I'd love to hear from them, but really they didn't have to write me back. I've since gotten a couple hand written letters back!...

In all my excitement about going to the movie with Lil man I forgot to take pictures OOPS!! But I was super excited to go see this movie, and Lil Man is actually very much like his brother in the fact that he loves Fairy Tale stories and he can be convinced to go to movies with me that some other boys may feel are more girl orientated!! We asked my friend Sara and her girl Summer to join us and they were very excited to join us.  It was a busy day in the theatre even though we went to the 12:30 showing.  There were a couple birthday parties and a lot of fathers there with their daughters (so fricken cute)!! And then me the mom Princess with her little Knight! I love the Cinderella story! It's great, and I'd explain how much I love it but my friend Becky said it best. You can read her description of the story here . The idea that you can keep your head when faced with so much adversity, that you can remain true to your true self and not falter and become something less ...

I'm liking up with the DC Trifecta girls, Mar, Courtney and Cynthia once again!! Have you been reading my Friday Fives?  Would you like to join, just head over to here  and read more about, I'd love to have more blogs to read!! Today's topic is Spring, my second most favourite season!! Although sometimes living in Alberta we call it messy winter, but I still love it anyways. Here are my top Five things that I am looking forward to this spring!! 1) My Baby's FIRST birthday!! I am amazed at how fast this year has gone by. I mean he's 10 months already and in two more months he will be a year, a WHOLE year!! It means I am going back to work soon, but my baby will be one and he's such a delightful little guy!! We aren't really planning anything big, but we are doing family pictures and a cake smash for him! He's my baby and my last baby too, so I am relishing these last first milestones!! 2) Running outside, in the morning!! I am a self procl...

I was never sure if I'd ever met a true Narcissist.  I mean they are so hard to pick out, sort of like high functioning sociopaths.  And there are times in my life I could have been called narcissistic where I was really only concerned with my own feelings, my own self, my own well being.  But at the end of the day I didn't only care about those things at the expense of others, I didn't step on others to get where I needed to go, but I didn't let others dictate what I wanted to do. The scary thing is that Narcissists don't see their tendencies in their behaviour. It makes them very dangerous.  Most of the time they will manipulate the truth so that it suits their needs. Do they need some one to be the bully in the story?  Do they need sympathy for a fall out of events that occurred?   Do they need someone to be the scapegoat for what they forgot to do?  Are they not the most popular person in the room and have a desire to be? I've known ...

I'm so tired of making the same old meals.  But I have some VERY picky eaters in my house, and not all the picky eaters are the children!! So I like to make things I know they will eat and things that have vegetables "hidden" in them.  Because for some reason vegetables are not at the top of the favourites list. I'm also sick of making the same things with ground beef. There are only so many tacos, spaghetti, lasagna and shepherds pie I can eat in a year, not to mention burgers.  I do enjoy all those things but seriously it's tiresome and to make something new is always exciting. So off to my Pinterest board Recipes I want to try .  There are so many recipes on there and I keep adding to them, I decided I would do two recipes this week from Pinterest and the Bacon Cheeseburger Bombs were my number one pick.  I've now moved that recipe to the Recipes I have tried Pinterest board.  The recipe can be found here if you are interested! I made them sm...

I'm still euphoric from running my 10 km last Saturday!! I am so proud of myself and I love talking about it, thinking about, reliving it and planning my next 10km run!! So here's what happened this week! Monday: Headed out for a short run, only 3 km this time after the long run on Saturday I didn't want to stress my muscles or over do it!! It was a quick run and I was able to finish it in 23 minutes not quite a personal best but I had increased my running time to 8:1 to see how I did. It wasn't bad, but by the 7th minute I was dying and that eighth minute was pretty slow.  But I did finish so it was pretty good. Tuesday: This has been the year of sickness!! I don't know what happened but I woke up feeling great, the baby and I were going to go for a walk, but then, I drank some coffee, it was a dark roast which I don't usually drink, and I got sick!! It was not a good sick, not that any are, but this was quick and exhausting!! So my plans for anything wer...

Where did the last month go? I mean it feels like it was just yesterday I was telling you that my baby was 9 months old and now I'm telling you he is 10 months!! He's lived outside the womb longer than he was in it!!! This is so not fair!! But Prince T you light up every room you enter!! You are loving and curious and adventurous!! You are a wonderful blend of personality of your brothers.  You have a calm disposition like Chandler but you want to explore every inch of your world like Lil Man!! This month you've taught us that you don't like vegetables, they just aren't your thing, unless they are raw, then you will eat them like they are going out of style. You aren't much of a fan of fruit either, but can devour a banana like nothing and will eat oranges.  Unlike Lil Man, berries are not your favourite! You are crawling and motoring around the house and you are starting to pull yourself up, no not starting you are consistently pullin...

Today is another Friday Five Link Up with the wonderful ladies Mar, Cynthia and Courtney !! Check out their blogs for some great reads!! So happy I found this link up!! It's hard for me to chronicle my days, because at this moment in time they are never exactly the same. Some I send the kids to school and relish in the silence, some Lil man is home and we are constantly on the go doing one activity or another.  Some days are weekends, everyone is home and we've got playdates and sports and activities planned. That being said, there are things I do every day, regardless of what's actually going on, they are routine and they are my favourite parts of everyday. 1) Waking up and checking my phone.  I check my phone for weather, for texts, for emails and sometimes twitter and Instagram.  I love rolling over and checking my phone before I roll out of bed, it's a way to make human connection.  It's dumb, but it's not, I also check my calendar to make sure I...

Being 35 was a new experience, hahaha, for me I've never been 35 and I'll never be 35 again, but it was an interesting year.  I had a few ah-Ha moments and few uh-Oh moments, but each moment led to some wonderful growth in who I am as a person, mother and friend. Here are three things I really learned and came to fully understand in my 35th year. 1) I can love someone and know that having them in my life is not a healthy decision.  I can disembark from a friendship, not in malice and anger but in love and happiness.  Not everyone of my friends needs to be my BFF.  And just because I don't talk to someone every day/ week/ month doesn't mean that they aren't important.  But sometimes you have people that the growth that you've each done has just led you so far apart from each other that there is no bridging that gap, you can only be thankful for the times together and move on. 2) Sometimes people don't change, and sometimes they do! Some people are so fa...

It goes without saying that my boys are my favourite wee ones.  Even if they aren't all wee ones anymore, I mean Chandler is starting to tower over me and Lil Man is turning into a boy more and more with each passing day. I still have Prince T, he's a wee little one, and I'm enjoying all his discoveries and disasters as they happen. However I've been so blessed in my life to have met some amazing kids. Some of these kids are my friends kids and I love them dearly, and some of these kids I've taught and they have just made such an impact on me with their personality and outlook on life that I'm left with profound joy that I was able to be in their orbit even for a little while!! So here are a few snapshots of some of my favourite wee ones, most of whom aren't little anymore!! These are my cousins all four of them!! Apparently we are a family of boys now since my cousin Cathy and I have only had boys and my cousin James had boys as well Here's...

So I've needed to take a little break from everything, I'm not injured or anything, and I'm still totally excited about completing this half marathon, but aside from the running, I'm not loving my workouts.  Fitting them in just wherever and doing them alone BLOWS. Blows like the snow is doing right now and I'm  in the mood to shake it up. I'd love to head out to Poplar Ridge to do their workout classes but they are at 7  and between 5-7 I'm running around my house with supper, baths, bedtime snack, and the rest of the bedtime routine so getting out of town 15 minutes before 7 is next to impossible.  So that means I need a class that's later in the day or before 5.  So I'm looking at Yoga Nation, and things at the Collicut or some of the other gyms in town.  It's much easier for me to commit to working out if I have a class to go to, it's so dumb but there you go that's me.  Live and Learn I guess....  I still enjoy working at home wi...

My full name is Jennifer Louise Lacourse.  My mom never said I was named after anyone, but my nana once told me that I was named for a saint. Now I didn't actually believe her because I was 13 and didn't really know anything about Catholicism except what I learned in my little bits of attending church and the few religion classes we took, it's not like I was named Christopher or Mary which are very popular Saints.  I've since done some research and have found two things, there is a Saint Jennifer, she is the patron Saint of Disasters, and Saint Louise is the patron Saint of Orphans. Neither my mom or dad were very religious, my dad once told me his family was Jehovah's Witness and after his dad's death at 13 Nana converted to Catholicism. Who knows sometimes people say things because they think it but they don't really know.  I don't know Nana never said anything, but my mom was Anglican and I wasn't baptized as a baby, I wasn't actually bapt...

I'm again linking up with the girls in DC, Mar, Courtney and Cynthia for the Friday Five.  I've been waiting all week to write this post and I'm so glad I get to talk about my Favourite things!! I'm going to talk about my new favourite things, things I've recently discovered and now use on a daily basis!!! 1) I've discovered some new make up palettes.  Make up and I have gone through many phases and faces in my life. For a time all I bought were the cover girl eye shadows, blushes and mascara.  Then I grew up and started experimenting with other drug store make up. I was a bit of a hoarder.  Then in the past 5 years I've moved from palettes of Make up to single colours that I would blend. I've used Mary Kay, Benefit, Arbonne and I've enjoyed them all.  But recently I've been wanting to buy a New palette of colours so I could change up my look, and I found two that I love!! I got the Sephora IT Palette for smokey eyes and Benefit Bright...