Honeybar Giveaway Winner

 

….is annalene!!  Congrats annalene, I have sent you an email!

Bloggie-Palooza 3.0

As you all know, we had some very special visitors in Halifax this weekend.  In addition to Cat and Jen, we also had the extreme pleasure of having Marie and Tara come too!

 

Friday night was a special night planned in celebration of Lex’s birthday in which the main celebration took place at Taboo downtown.  The girls took advantage of one of their packages which included limo service and VIP treatment at the club.  For some reason, I have zero pictures from that night, but I also didn’t partake in the limo etc. and left a bit early cuz there’s nothing like a big ol’ preggo belly that sticks out like a sore thumb downtown on a Saturday night! lol Especially when it seems like the skirts just keep getting shorter and shorter these days! I guess I’m officially achieving “mama” status when those things come to mind! lol

Saturday was another story all together!  As far as I knew, the general plans for the group were to pick up race packs for the Bluenose, hang around to see the Public Gardens and then followed by “espresso” and some good ol’ quality time at Tasha’s place since she lives right there!  So I got into the city and met up with Lynn and then Katie where we sat in the park and had some ice cream/snacks waiting for the rest of the group.  Blackberry Messenger was a buzz trying to coordinate times and status etc. of so many ladies, and it was established that the three of us would meet everyone at Tasha’s since they were running late.

As soon as I walked into the door I saw a big bunch of pink and blue baby balloons, but you couldn’t really see anyone else from the doorway because of the layout of her apartment.  It was kind of suspicious, but I didn’t know for sure what was going on until I peeked around the corner and saw a few of my other best friends, Amy, Jacki and Lena!  All of the girls were there to throw me a surprise baby shower!!  I couldn’t believe that they would have spent their time to arrange this for me during their short stay here!  Natasha truly opened up her home poured her huge heart into soo many thoughtful details to celebrate the soon arrival of our little peanut.  I have known this girl for nearly 12 years now and she is one of the kindest, considerate, classiest and most intelligent people that I know (just sayin!)

How fitting was this button I had to wear?!

Get a load of this cake!

And some goodies! (Wish I hadn’t stuffed my face already while at the public gardens – not like that stopped me!):

There was soooo much more, but I was so overwhelmed by the entire thing, I never got any pictures.  I did get a picture on my Blackberry of a very special gift sent by the one and only Amy who sadly couldn’t join us this weekend.  Isn’t it seriously the most PERFECT thing ever??

Any of you on Twitter will appreciate that!  I was floored by it and I will be sad when the peanut grows out of it, but will definitely frame it for the wall when that happens (along with Marie’s wonderfully unique and personalized graphic baby onesies that scream “Marie” don’t you think?)

The general theme throughout the gifts was that each person was to try to bring a book for the baby that they loved as a child or had some significance growing up or just a book in general.  WHAT AN AMAZING IDEA AND THOUGHTFUL GESTURE!!!  There were some very sweet inscriptions written inside most of them which will be there for the peanut to know who they are from in years to come.  Some of them included:

• Good Night Moon
• Going on a Bear Hunt
• The Ugly Duckling
• Madeline
• Sesame Street Who’s Who at the Zoo?
• The Paperbag Princess
• If You Give a Cat a Cupcake (can you guess from who?)
• The Hockey Sweater
• If you Give a Mouse a Cookie (I wonder from who!)
• The Cat in the Hat
• Disney Storybook Collection
• Love You Forever
• The Giving Tree
• One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish
• Dr. Seuss’s ABC
• Guess How Much I Love You
• First Words
• Peek-a-boo Happy Baby
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Words
• another one in transit!

Books are SOOO important and bringing some of the favourites from the childhood and/or handpicked selections from some very special people to start out baby’s book collection was absolutely by far the BEST and most thoughtful idea for a baby shower.  What are some of your favourite childhood books?

 

A few other items worth mentioning were this Lug diaper bag from Jen as part of a combo gift with Lex. Anyone who knows Jen, know her love of great bags and it was so fitting to receive this gift with her thoughts behind it.  It’s an absolutely PERFECT diaper bag and in a beautiful burnt orange colour that I love (very manly too, so the hubs doesn’t have to feel girly carrying it ;-)

Already in the bassinet is a beautiful hand made baby blanket made by Cat’s grandmother!  It is absolutely beautiful and I feel so special receiving this.  These types of talents from older generations are so special and often lost in our generation.  It’s large enough that it will find a place on peanut’s bed long after s/he grows out of the crib:

Amongst all of the excitement, we somehow managed to forget to take many pictures, but I did manage to snag a few from Lex who always manages to capture the moment in some way:

THANK YOU TO TASHA, AMY AND JACKI AND ALL OF MY BLOGGER FRIENDS WHO BLEW ME AWAY WITH THIS GESTURE!!  It truly touched me and I thank you from the bottom of my heart ;-)

Later that evening, we hit up Lesley’s house for some “carb loading” via spaghetti dinner the night before some of the ladies were running in various Bluenose Marathon events the next morning.  I’m pretty sure I “carb loaded” more than Marie did and she was taking on the Half Marathon!  Hey, don’t underestimate the duties of standing there holding a camera ready to shoot at any given time our runners crossed the finish line! ;-)

The Bluenose was full of excitement whether you are running, walking or spectating (see how I made “spectating” appear like an activity? :-P).

Peanut’s first Bluenose:

 

I was sooo impressed by Marie’s performance.  Initially, she had jumped on board with a bunch of us who were all going to be running this race together, all of us having lost in the 100 lbs range.  It was a very symbolic event in my heart.  But as you know plans changed for me and things came up for the others and Marie ran it solo.  I was very disappointed not to be able to participate the way I wanted to, but was VERY happy to cheer her on as she represented us in spirit. It was not her first half marathon and she is a total runner at heart, but I was just as excited for her as if it were!  She did extremely well (much better than I would have aimed for) and when she hit the finish line, she looked like she hadn’t even run the race!  She’s down there a few steps after the finish line if you see her:

I think that’s Tara down there in the blue tank and hat.  At least I “hope” it is!!  I thought I got one of her at the finish line, but I guess I didn’t :-(  It was her first 10k and she tackled the challenge that was the MacDonald Bridge followed by Nantucket which is another steeeep hill!  She completely rocked it!

Sunday evening we enjoyed the best sushi in town from Doraku where I have no pictures from and that was followed by a treat from Jaime which was a dozen of Suzie’s Shortbread cupcakes that she raves and loves so much (again no pics but there you can check them out over on her blog).  The evening was wrapped up downtown where the group celebrated their big day at The Old Triangle and the Fife & Drum in which I bowed out VERY early in the evening because I was POOPED!  All that spectating, ya know? ;-P

The next morning, I was very excited to accompany Tara, Marie and Jaime to Peggy’s Cove.  It was a GLORIOUSLY bright and sunny day and perfect for them to see what is considered “quintessential Nova Scotia”.  It was a HOT 20 something degrees at 9:30a.m., so I didn’t bring a sweater forgetting how cool the wind can be at Peggy’s.  It was still perfect though and these girls looked like they enjoyed seeing the sites. In case you can’t tell, that’s Maries best “lobster” impression :-D

 

        

I kind of have this little “Travelocity knomb” thing with my baby bump! lol

      

Tara and Marie decided to live on the edge and get into the boat carved in stone EVEN THOUGH there were ropes clearly telling you to keep out! Bad.Asses :-D

It was then time for Tara and Marie to depart and Jaime and I met up with the rest of our travelers for a little Claytime Pottery session where we just hung out and painted a pottery item.  It was a nice relaxing way to relax to wrap up the weekend.

All in all it was an activity packed long weekend that went by in a flash!  Amy was seriously missed the entire time I have to say, but it was wonderful to be able to connect once again in person with our bloggies :-)

I already miss you all terribly!

Chatelaine Magazine - “Unexpected Bonus of Blogging”

 
A while ago I was contacted by a journalist who was writing an article for Chatelaine Magazine about blogging.  She was interested in my input for her piece for the June issue.  I of course was excited to participate and while I was half expecting to only make the cutting room floor, I got my hands on the June issue today and sure enough there I am!  Well, not “me” in the flesh, but a very respectable four lines of mention! :-D  I was pleased that she chose to mention the thing that I tend to emphasize the most about my experience with blogging:

Speaking of my love for my “cyberspace supporters and friends” (that’s you!), you may have heard around the blogosphere that us Halibloggers are expecting another visit this weekend from not only Cat and Jen, but also Marie and Tara!  It certainly will not be the same without Amy this time though *sniffs*
There are some good times and some serious quality time planned with the ladies, not to mention some running in the Bluenose Marathon events! 
I can’t wait to keep you all updated on our shenanigans and well, as much as I would love to, I don’t think they could possibly compare to the last time where we had some unforgettable times and I believe some late night trampoline olympics were taking place :-D

Honeybars Giveway!!

Okay so I can thank Lynn for introducing me to these phenomenal bars.  These have become a snack staple throughout this pregnancy and while I do think Larabars are great snacks as well, I have to say that in my opinion I prefer these bars any day.  Because:

• About 220 calories per bar
• Substantial serving size in comparison to other bars
• Loaded with NUTS, seeds, honey and dried fruit = CHEWY and satisfying
• Hits on all the healthy notes for a healthy and balanced snack
• REAL FOOD
• Tastes delicious
• And well, I love that they are Canadian!!  Finally a bar that is Canadian made that I LOVE and prefer over any other snack bar I've ever tried.

Why the enthusiasm? Well for starters, sorry to sound cliche, but this preggie loves to find a healthy snack that fills the hunger void :-)  I know already that I'll be snacking on these long after the baby is born because I feel like I've actually gotten my calorie bang for my buck, kills the hunger and I feel satisfied which is more than I can say for 220 calories of any other bar.

As you can probably tell, I am majorly impressed and feel slightly embarrassed for gushing so much about them and I didn't have to say ANY of that, but wanted to because I love these bars.  My favourites are the Sweet & Salty, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Trail Mix and Cranberry Delight, but I have tried them all and there isn't one that I don't like!  I didn't think I'd like the Mixed Sesame or Nutty Apricot, but I love those too!  They also have an organic line of bars.

To show my appreciation to Honeybar for their amazing product, I wanted to promote them on my blog because I love supporting Canadian companies especially.  They have sent me some samples that I have been enjoying immensely and would like me to send an entire BOX of assorted flavours to one of you guys!

As much as I'd love to keep 'em all for myself, I need to pay it forward and spread the love, so to win the giveaway, I'm giving you PLENTY of options of how to enter.  (You are not required to do all of these things, but they are options for you to gain extra entries if you are interested).

How to Enter:

*You must leave a separate comment for each entry option you choose to make*

1. Follow my blog on the side bar (Google Friend Connect) and leave me a comment telling me you've done so
2. Follow me on Twitter and leave me a separate comment telling me you've done so
3. Subscribe to my blog by email (widget along the side of the blog) and leave me a separate comment telling me you've done so
4. Tweet this giveaway on Twitter by copying and pasting this:  Win a @Honeybar #giveaway (an ENTIRE box of bars) via @angiealltheway here: http://tinyurl.com/36baack (I will be checking the tweets, but please leave me a separate comment here telling me you've done this and you can do this once per day)
5. Post about the giveaway on your blog and link back to this post and leave a separate comment with the link to your blog post
6. Visit the Honeybar website and leave me a comment telling me which bar(s) you think you'd like to try the most.

Giveaway Rules:

This giveaway is open to Canadian and US residents only. It begins now and will end on May 28, 2010 at 8 pm EST. One winner with a valid entry will be selected at random using random.org. The winner will be announced and must respond by emailing me with your contact particulars within 48 hours to qualify as the winner. Otherwise, another eligible entry will be chosen.

Full Disclosure: I have been provided with samples of these bars and choose to promote this product because it is a product I truly love.

The Skinny on Pregnancy Weight Gain Thus Far

Here I am in my third trimester and I am feeling more and more like I'm approaching the home stretch!  In general, my eating has been great and I'm making healthy choices.  My blood work spoke for itself and did me proud in that respect.  No sign of gestational diabetes (big relief), and my iron and other levels were all great with no need of iron supplements which I was really happy about.  My doctor (god bless her soul) complimented me on the results saying, "You must be a healthy eater because your iron and everything looks great!" I wanted to hug her because to me that's like saying "Wow you look great!" because I take that part to heart more than anything else.  All I could think about in my head was "I know you said you'd never slap my wrist about weight gain, but I bet you're not happy with it" so her positive comment truly meant a lot.

And the big elephant in the room is the curiosity about my pregnancy weight gain thus far that I bet many of you are wondering.   My pregnancy start weight put me into an "overweight" category which gives you the "15-25 lbs" recommendation which intimidated me from the very beginning.  The truth is, I've far exceeded that already and have gained 40 lbs at 7 months.

I mean, as much as no person is usually pleased with their weight gain during pregnancy, that truly is a little on the high side no matter how you look at it.  That's a fact.  For some reason I was a little afraid to admit to that to you guys for a while.  Maybe it was because of all of the weight I've lost somewhat in the public eye (at least to those of you who are reading this) and in a sense I think I was worried that it would "disappoint" people in some way.  But now I've come to the conclusion that such is life.  I'm certainly not the first woman to gain "more" than you are supposed to during a pregnancy and I won't be the last (feel free to chime in and tell me about all the weight you gained and lost in the comments section :-D).
   
I pride myself and my blog at attempting to convey the "real" side to healthy living and weight loss from my perspective and I will continue to do so.  I'm not "happy" about the number on the scale, no, but I certainly am not letting it overshadow all of the beautiful and wonderful things and new emotions and feelings that I am experiencing.  Weight loss and healthy living have been such a HUGE part of my life for so long, it was a surprise to me that "something else" would come along that would, dare I say, bump the weight part down a notch on the priority list and be replaced with so much happiness and excitement that I feel truly blessed in all the cheesy cliche ways.  I don't mean that keeping my weight under control during pregnancy wasn't/ isn't a priority, I am just saying that I am not focusing on it as much as I am my transition into motherhood.

I am trying not to beat myself up too much about the weight gain even though I still have 11ish weeks to go.  Wherever the chips fall when the baby is born, I will deal with it.  I have the knowledge and ability to lose it and you can be guaranteed that I will!  So I'm leaving it at that.  I am going to do my best to keep it under control for the next 11 weeks and move to the next stage of this very exciting time in my life.  I'm sure there will be LOTS of interesting blogs to come!

My performance in the exercise department is definitely not where I wanted it to be either.  It gets harder and harder to do the further along in the pregnancy I get.  It's not easy carrying an extra 40 lbs and walking is really the only thing I'm doing and I have a hard time to get my buns moving to do that regularly.  I'm ready to try out my 3rd Trimester Yoga DVD now that I'm into a a new trimester and I'm making a promise to myself that I'm going to have to just do it and deal with the fatigue and aches and pains and hopefully it will help.  It's not easy folks, I'm tellin yas and anyone who has been here knows what I'm talking about.

So there you have it bloggies, the skinny on my pregnancy weight gain!  I'd love to hear any of your thoughts and experiences if you care to share.  

As always, I value your readership and support. xoxo

On a fun note, I'm getting my buns in gear to get a giveaway post together that I've already mentioned, so stay tuned and I hope someone is ready to win a box of the best snack bars ever that are totally healthy and satisfying....move over Larabars, justsayin'!

Breastfeeding Pre-Game

Last night I was invited to join a good friend of mine who is also a new mom to attend to the La Leche League meeting that is held once a month.  I had heard about La Leche League online through several different pregnancy resources, but didn't realize that we had groups organized here.  I thought it would be a great opportunity to just listen to the other moms who are breastfeeding and gain some insight as to their struggles, tips and mindset.  I was formula fed, as were many people my age and because of that I simply don't have a lot of personal advice about breastfeeding other than from some of my friends (which is invaluable), so there's nothing to lose by checking it out.

I plan to breastfeed for all of the obvious reasons, namely because there is no denial of the incredible healthy benefits for your baby that simply cannot be replicated by a chemistry lab, so not willing to give it a serious try is out of the question for me.  Did you know that if your baby is born prematurely, your body knows exactly what to do to customize your breast milk to give your baby what it needs? Your milk will adjust and change to meet your baby's needs as they grow and develop and I find that so fascinating, don't you? 

I am a perfectly healthy product of being formula fed, however, there is research now that also suggests that breastfeeding may also lower your child's risk of obesity.  There are always other factors leading to something of that nature, but I certainly want to give my child every natural benefit that I possibly can.  Personally, I know how obesity affects your life from all angles.  (That is only one specific example per the nature of this blog.)

I also plan to breastfeed for the bonding experience.  I already feel so connected to my little peanut that it makes me teary.  But I have to admit, I have never been really exposed to breastfeeding throughout my life (as long as I can remember) and my mother was of a time where formula feeding was "the way to go" and never minded sharing that she was never really comfortable with it personally.  I have learned that the more you expose yourself to something and learn about it, the less fear you feel and the more comfortable you become.  The same goes for the "idea" of what's going to happen on our baby's birthday.  A few month's ago, I was afraid. So much so that there was a lot of crying in the beginning simply of just "fear" of the unknown.  Over the last few months I have spent my car commutes listening to pregnancy podcasts and I can't tell you how much better I feel now. Night and Day.   

I now have more confidence and I know I can do this.  I'm feeling more confident in "not" knowing what I'm doing, but still "knowing" what will be best for my baby.  I will be AM the expert (even though I'm not).

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect at the LLL meeting, but kept an open mind.  Admittedly, I did go to the meeting mildly skeptical because I was afraid I was going to be entering a room full of women who held very strong opinions about breastfeeding and while I personally do feel very strongly about my decision to try with all of my heart, I also recognize that it's not a decision that defines you as a mother, nor should you have to feel like it does, nor does it always work out the way you planned.  I have never heard from one single person that it was "easy" and came as naturally as they thought in the beginning, so I am trying to arm myself with as much preparation about what to "really" expect, common problems and how to approach them if and when they happen.  I hope that this will derail my urge to panic when and if they happen.  So in that regard, LLL is the perfect place to learn about those things.  The leader prefaced the meeting with the fact that people differ in their opinions and it's important to take what you want from the advice and leave behind what you don't want.

I was pleasantly surprised about the discussions that were had at this particular meeting.  I think one of the leaders swayed the discussion a little for my benefit as she asked people to give their experiences about transitioning into motherhood, things that they found really helpful in the beginning or things they didn't do but wished they had etc. for "the expectant mothers in room" which was ME because there was only one other pregnant woman and she already had two children.  I appreciated that very much because I felt like I could benefit directly from their advice.

In particular, there was one woman who had formula fed her first child who is now 4 years old, said her daughter loved it and is now currently breastfeeding her 8 week old, but is struggling with sleep deprivation associated with regular feedings and the difficulties with having another child to look after that makes it difficult to "sleep when they sleep" and was expressing her feelings about considering introducing night time formula feedings to help her get more sleep. (Apparently, infants sleep longer when formula fed because it takes longer to digest.)  She was expressing how this brought her a certain amount of guilt, but is really struggling with managing bringing her 4 year old to her appointments on time etc.  I noticed that no one in the group volunteered their support of that in the beginning.  Many of the moms at the meeting also had other children at home and while no one came right out and said they disagreed with that, it wasn't until the very end of the meeting that one of the leaders finally piped up and said that she should never feel guilty about any decision she makes that is going to work better for her family.

I really appreciated that she did finally say that because I find that I am now being introduced to an entirely new world of criticism and strong opinions about subject matters that are very personal to each and every person.  Parenting is such a big deal and I can see why people would hold their opinions so strongly because they want to feel like they are doing "the best" for their child.

What did you find helpful when transitioning into motherhood? What things did you struggle with the most internally?  Did people make you feel "guilty" for making decisions about breastfeeding?

Tofu Lasagna Rocked My World

I never buy tofu, but for some reason decided to try a block of the Liberte Firm Tofu that I spotted at Planet Organic.  It was nearing the end of it’s fridge life and I needed to decide how I was going to put it to use.  I thought about the “go to” stir fry, but decided I also hadn’t had lasagna in a while, so why not make a vegetarian lasagna using the tofu!

Everyone knows how to make lasagna, but I’ll share with you the way I made this one since I was having fun snapping pics as I went along and since it was a “make it up as you go” experiment!

To get started, I got my whole wheat lasagna noodles bubbling away with some added Sea Salt.  I never understand why people don’t always use whole wheat noodles.  I actually prefer them and you definitely do not lose any flavour with this substitution, if anything you gain it as well as the addition of plenty of extra healthy fibre that won’t disappear into your digestive system the instant that it hits it.  Deal? Okay sold.

I decided I was going to load up this recipe with tons of veggies and lots of big chunks of fresh white button mushrooms which I LOVE in lasagna and spaghetti. In the pan went some EVOO and FOUR sliced (not minced) cloves of garlic (which I sliced up in a snap with the garlic slicer that I got from The Pampered Chef (and totally forgot to take a photo) and infused the EVOO with the garlic.  Sliced garlic has a longer life in the pan than minced and doesn’t burn as quickly, so in this case works better to infuse the garlic flavour into the oil  Too bad I didn’t snap a pic to show off the beautiful browning garlic  The pictures don’t smell as good as real life anyway.  Eventually I’m sure there will be “scratch n’ sniff” food blog photos, but for now we’re outta luck ;-)  In my opinion, you can never have too much garlic in lasagna or spaghetti.  After only a short time when the garlic started to brown, I added a chopped:

• red pepper
• green pepper
• onion
• white button mushrooms

Here’s where you let your taste preference guide you because you can add whatever seasonings you prefer to add in lasagna.  I seasoned with salt, pepper, dried basil, dried oregano, garlic powder and since there was no fresh basil available (my favourite herb ever) nor did I have any frozen cubes in the freezer, I added a big squirt of the Basil Herb Blend from the tube.

After I let the veggies cook, I added whatever was left of my fresh spinach to the mix and let it wilt down.  I usually add thawed frozen spinach to my ricotta or cottage cheese layer that I sometimes include, but have found this to be one of the main contributing factors to making the lasagna fairly runny in the end no matter how much I squeeze out the moisture, so adding fresh spinach to the sauce was my attempt this time around.

Now I’m not “used” to working with tofu so I wasn’t sure how I was going to include it into the recipe.  Was I going to slice it thin and include it as a layer or crumble it up in the sauce?  One of the things that sometimes happens when I make lasagna is that it the sauce sometimes remains a bit runny and when you cut out a piece, sauce from the rest of it starts to pour into the empty parts of the pan.  Has this ever happened to you?  I wasn’t sure, but I figured that tofu may have a decent “absorbency” quality that may help with that, so I decided that I’d fire up the ol’ KitchenAid Food Processor (any excuse to put my “Harley” to use of course) and pulse it into fine pieces to be added into the sauce.  Out of caution, I cut the block into 5 or 6 pieces and patted with a paper towel first.

I had no idea if it was too much or too little, but I added the whole block to the mix:

Next up was adding the tomato sauce.  Choosing a good flavour of tomato sauce is always so key in making a good lasagna.  This time around I chose a can of Basil & Romano flavour:

It created a really thick sauce which I decided was probably a good thing and meant it wouldn’t leave a runny lasagna!  I also noticed that it also resembled like it already had “cottage cheese” so decided I was going to go ahead without the cottage cheese layer entirely and see how it turned out.

Of course you have to add freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano!  I add some to the sauce as well as a few sprinkles in the layers too:

I gave it a few taste tests, tinkered with some more of the seasonings above and it was ready to assemble for the oven. And just for the helluvit to ensure that the sauce would hold it’s own, I added one scrambled egg to the sauce mixture before assembling.

Layer of sauce:

Layer of noodles;

Layer of mozzarella and more Parmesan Reggiano:

Repeat all the way to the top:

Baked in the oven at 350 until bubbly and golden!  I let it rest for about 10-15 minutes after coming out of the oven and I gotta tell ya, there was nothing runny about this lasagna at ALL.  No sauce creeped into the pan or all over your plate and it tasted absolutely devine!  In fact, it was AS good if not BETTER than many meat lasagnas (including turkey) that I’ve ever made! You could fool any unsuspecting person that it was cottage cheese instead of tofu and you would never know the difference because it had the exact same texture!

So all in all this is a very healthified version of lasagna and you are in complete control of how much cheese you wish to add! 

               

Secret: I ate this every day for at least 4 days until I was forced to freeze up the rest of the leftovers :-)

Try it and ENJOY!