Happy Hallow-Birthday to Meeeee!

Hey Hey Hey!

That's right! It's my hallowbirthday! Or is it Birthdayween? I don't know and I don't care! Today I'm celebrating 23 years of being alive! Well, I actually celebrated yesterday with my family since today was a looong work/school day for me.

Yesterday my mom cooked a delicious birthday lunch that included spaghetti and meatballs (my FAV), texas toast, salad, and cake & ice cream! Here's what was left of my cake!

I ate SO much food! It was ridic. But no worries, today I am back to my healthy ways! ;) After lunch, we all layed around watching scary movies until everyone started to slip into food comas. ;) Before I left, Mom gave me my presents!

Low-fat pumpkin lattes and pumpkin ice cream! She knows me so well! :)

My "real" present from my parents is coming in the form of new brakes on my car. They've been squealing for a while and really needed to be fixed, so today I got them done.

Chad and I went shopping for my presents on Saturday and ended up with this!

New TOMS (they're tan burlap) and two new coffee mugs, one travel and one regular

Today was just a normal ole Monday, but my kids made it better by singing happy birthday to me in the high school and middle school choirs! Chad's cooking dinner tonight and then we're going to our church's Fall Festival/Trunk-n-Treat, so it should be a fun night. :) 

While typing just now, my grandad (who we call "gaggy") stopped by to give me my present! I was so happy to get to see him. :) He gave me a jar of his homemade pickles, which are UH.MAZE.ING. And he also gave me some money. He's the best. :)

Well, I'm off to watch Chad burn down the kitchen cook a yummy dinner!

Thanks for reading! God bless! :)

Happy Halloweekend!!

Hello all! Hope you've had a fabulous week! It's Saturday morning and officially the start of the Halloweekend! And for those of you who don't know, Halloween is also my BIRTHDAY! :) So, it's kind of like my birthday weekend too! ;) I'm turning 23 on Monday, which is not really any kind of special bday like a 16th, 18th, or 21st. I don't remember the last time my bday was on a Monday though, and for some reason, having a Monday birthday doesn't really sound fun. =/ But I'm going to make the best of it! Today, Chad and I are going out to find me a birthday present, and I'm pretty pumped! I received an early birthday present this morning when I weighed-in and saw that I'd lost another 2 lbs this week! This brings my weight down to 146 pounds! But, as for my actual present, I've got a few things on my mind that I want to search for...

1. New TOMS!

I've been wanting to get some new ones for a while now, but since they're not cheap, I wanted to wait for an occasion to make the purchase.

2. New Jacket (Northface or Columbia)

Lately, I've been wearing Chad's Columbia fleece jacket everywhere, and I know it's starting to anooy him because he wants to wear it. lol So, maybe we can find one like it for me! :)

3. New Otterbox (Commuter Series)

I have an all white Otterbox on my white iPhone and have been wanting to try a new color.

4. New Boots!

Who doesn't love a new pair of boots??? :)

So there's my list of options for today.... but before we head out, we've got to go to Walmart (joy =/) to get some things that we desperately need, like toilet paper and bread. Then we're heading to the movies to finally see Paranormal Activity 3! I can't believe we are actually going to see it. The first two movies seriously freaked me out. I've always been afraid of demonic activity and things like that. My brother and I actually had a demonic experience when we were at a singing competition in Tuscaloosa. I wont go into details, but I'll tell you that we will never again stay at a Jameson Inn. *shivers*

ANYWAY....

Chad and I decided to just man up and go see it since we would end up wishing we had seen it. BUT, we are making sure to go see it during the day so that it's still daylight when we leave the theater. lol! 

After the movies we'll be shopping for my present!! :)

While at Walmart today, I'm going to pick up some kind of healthy popcorn that I can pre-pop and take with me to the movies, because Chad is most definitely going to fill up our giant popcorn bucket with buttery, fatty, movie theater popcorn, and I want to have something that I can actually eat!

So, since I didn't have any fun pictures to share with you today, I'll leave you with this....

I seriously laughed for 5 minutes when I saw this!

Hopefully I'll be back with more posts this weekend on all my birthday/Halloween activities! 

Thanks for reading! God bless! :)

I'm Going To Be A STAR!

Good morning and happy happy Saturday! I've got a busy weekend ahead of me which I'm pretty excited about! But, before I talk about that, here's a little recap of my week.

It's been a pretty good one! I was able to finally pull out my new boots, which I LOVE!

Chad and I received a free 42 inch TV from his aunt and uncle! Free is always a number that I LOVE! And look how big it is! We are pretty excited :)

And yesterday, I decided to curl/scrunch my hair for the first time in MONTHS maybe even a year! What do ya think? :)

It's almost the same as when I let my hair dry naturally instead of straightening it. So, I don't really know if the curling gel really worked? 

Well... maybe it's a little different..... 

ANYWAY...

Last night Chad and I went to see my brother and his gf Suzanne (who was one of my bridesmaids) in a show called "Songs for a New World." A lot of my other good friends were also in the show, 

and it. was. uh. maze. ing.

I definitely teared up a few times. They're all so talented and I'm so proud! Next week I start rehearsal with most of the same people from the show for an opera we're doing in the spring called "Hansel and Gretel." I'm Gretel and Suzanne is Hansel. So it should be pretty hilar to see us playing brother and sister.

Today is going to pretty interesting. Chad and I are helping a friend out by being in part of a music video that he has to make for an entertainment class. (Hence the title of this post!) I keep laughing to myself thinking about the stuff he's going to have us do. We're supposed to be a couple in love, so it should be pretty easy for us right??? ;)

After that, I'm meeting my long lost BFF Jessica (my MOH in my wedding) for lunch and then she's coming over to see our house because she hasn't seen it yet! I can't believe we've lived here for almost 5 months and she hasn't been over yet! But, she's been at school in Auburn this semester and hasn't really had a chance to come over. I'm so excited to catch up! I miss her!

This is us at one of my wedding showers :)

Well, Jeremy (our friend making the video) will be here in about 30 minutes, so I have to get ready! I can't wait to share all the deets about our "shoot" today! lololol ;)

Thanks for reading! God bless! :)

Annoying Things About Losing Weight

Okay so, weight-loss is awesome, and I'm so glad that I'm doing so well

BUT...

There are still some annoying things that come along with losing weight. 

-Like the fact that I'm always cold! 

-Or that my favorite outfits don't fit anymore.

(I guess I should learn how to alter my clothes)

But the thing that annoys me the most is when people say things like,

"you're too skinny," or "you need to stop losing weight," or especially when people say "you need to eat a cheeseburger!"

I mean, I understand that all of these statements can be taken as compliments, but until I feel comfortable with my body, I'm going to try to be fit and healthy and lose the extra weight that my body doesn't need!

 

I've researched healthy weight ranges on a lot of different sites, and it's been hard to find one specific range for my height. But, the closet I could get was between 131-164 lbs for the range, and 147 lbs as an ideal weight. So technically, I'm only 2ish lbs away from an ideal weight but could still lose another 18 lbs and be healthy. I know that people's intentions are not to make me fat or make me feel unhappy about my weight, but I do wish they could compliment me in other ways besides telling me I'm too skinny, because really, until I weight less than 131 lbs, I'm not. But don't think this means I'm going to actually try to get down to 131 lbs. I honestly don't think that weight is possible for me. lol

I just want to feel good about the way I look and feel good in my clothes. Thank you to all the people who support my journey and thank you even to the people who may have said some of the things I mentioned, because I know that you're just saying it out of love. :) 

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you guys continue to follow me on my weight-loss journey

God bless! :)

Monday Morning

Morning! Hope your weekend was awesome! Mine was great, but as you know today is Monday, so it's time for all the normal people to go back to work! Boo!

Here's a little of what went on this weekend. After my last post Saturday morning, Chad and I made a trip out to his dad's house for a little visit. We stayed for about an hour and a half before we had to leave and hit up Walmart for a much needed grocery trip. Before we when out there, we decided to try some couponing to help save some $$$. I'm not sure how much it really helped though.

What we didn't realize is that it would take us over an hour to get everything and get out. So, when we got there right at 12:00 (prime lunch time) I was already hungry. 

It was past 1:00 when we finally got in line to check out, and I was on the verge of passing out... literally. As soon as the cashier rung everything up, I grabbed a pack of Fuji Apple Fruit Crisps and ate the whole bag in probably 30 seconds. I was still starving. By this time, my hunger head ache was peaking, and I was feeling like POOP. It was awful. But, we made it home, and I scarfed down some lunch and took a nap, which made me feel so much better! :)

Later that night we met up with some friends for some Mexican food! (Fajitas... yummmm!) Then we all came back to the casa to relax and chat. We ended up watching some OnDemand TV shows. Family Guy FTW! :) Then we called it a night because most of us had to get up early for church the next day.

Sunday is one of my favorite days of the week! I love going to church, singing worship songs, hearing a sermon, and getting to fellowship with my church family (as well as my actual family). I also teach the Jr. High Sunday School class, which is an experience. But, I love them! :) Sunday night was fun because it was a special night dedicated to music. The choir sang special songs and different people in the church sang solos, duet, and trios. It was nice to get to listen to everyone and not actually have to sing myself (which Chad and I do a lot at our church), even though I love being given the opportunity to sing for my church and my God! Next Sunday is our church picnic and our band will be performing, so I'm excited about that. The picnic is always so much fun! :)

I really need to finish getting ready for work/school today. The students are all out, but the teachers have a workshop thingie to go to all day. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I guess I'll find out in a little while! Be on the lookout for a more serious post later today about an issue that I've been dealing with lately in relation to my weight-loss. It's not too serious, but it sure is annoying! But, until then...

Thanks for reading! God bless! :)

First Time In YEARS!

GOOD MORNING!! Happy Saturday! :)

I can't believe I'm actually awake and active at 8:00 on a Saturday morning. But I guess after waking up at 5:30 every morning, anything passed 7:00 is "sleeping in" for me now. Ugh, oh well! It really doesn't bother me today because I received the most amazing surprise ever this morning! As I said before, Saturdays are my weigh-in days, so I hopped on the scale this morning hoping to at least lose 2 lbs so I could hit my first goal of getting down to 150 lbs. Well I looked down at the scale today and seriously couldn't believe my eyes! I lost about 3 lbs this week putting me at a weight of 149.4 lbs!!!!!!!! Y'all, seriously. I haven't weighed less than 150 in YEARS. The last time I got below 150 lbs was in the summer of 2007. I had an emergency appendectomy and couldn't eat for days which put me at around 145 lbs. But as soon as I got better, those 5 lbs came right back! So this is the happiest I've been with my weight since then!! Can you tell I'm PUMPED?? lol

Today will be a pretty easy day. Yesterday was my father-in-law's birthday, so we're going to visit him today. Afterwards, we have a huge grocery trip to get out of the way before we enjoy a fun night eating and hanging out with friends! We all haven't hung out in a while so I'm excited! I'm reeeaaally in the mood to watch the original Footloose tonight because Chad has never seen it! And if we ever plan on seeing the new one, I want him to have seen the original first! So hopefully Netflix wont fail us tonight!

I'll be back later tonight (or tomorrow morning/afternoon) with a post on the days festivities!

Thanks for reading! God bless! :)

A Letter, Breakfast, and more Pumpkin!

Hello hello hello! Happy Friday night! Hope your day has been great! :)

Mine has been fabulous! Another very FULL day of teaching elementary music, but it's things like this that make it all worth it!

One of my 1st graders walked into my room and handed me this piece of paper that says "I love music Mrs. Kennington" It was so sweet! I taped it on the wall by my computer.

Later on at home, I was talking to Chad and randomly asked if he wanted breakfast for dinner. We've yet to do any kind of breakfast dinner since we got married, and he was all for it! So I went by Food Land to get a few things and voila! BREAKFAST FOR DINNER! :) And after making a few tweaks here and there for my part of the meal, it only cost me 317 calories! Healthy breakfast FTW! :) Here's our spread:

French toast, bacon, biscuits, coffee, and juice! SO GOOD!

And I even saved up enough cals for my latest dessert creation!

This may not look very good, but I swear to you it's amazing! I used light Cool Whip and mixed in some pumpkin, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice. After I stir it all in, I stick in the freezer for a little while to give it a better texture and then DIG IN! It's seriously so yummy!

While Chad and I were cooking dinner, I downloaded the new iOS5 to my iPhone. For a while there, I thought it had deleted all of my apps. I was freaking out so bad. But after I let it chill for a few minutes, they all came back to life! Thank goodness, because I don't know what I'd do without MyFitnessPal, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter! Whew!

This week I've been adjusting to a new "wake-up" time. I've slowly weened myself down to 5:30 am, and really, it's not too bad. I actually enjoy it! If you're part of my family, then you know how crazy that sounds. (I used to be able to sleep until 12:00 pm!) I've been using that time to catch up on all my favorite blogs (the list is getting longer and longer), drink my one two cups of coffee, and YES, even exercise! My abs are still sore from the (very few) tummy workouts I did this week. Tomorrow is weigh-in day, and the past two weeks my weight-loss has slowed, so hopefully adding this exercise will have helped my body to get rid of these last two pounds! Last Saturday I weighed-in at about 152, so we'll see how tomorrow goes.Maybe I'll hit my first goal of 150! *fingers crossed*

Until then.... thanks for reading!

God bless! :)

Catching Up

Morning!! It's pretty strange that I'm blogging early on a Tuesday morning, but I kept putting off my normal Sunday post... and then Monday just went by so fast! So happy Tuesday! :)

So I never got to share with y'all the treat I got to have Saturday night. Normally, I'm very strict to my healthy eating lifestyle and don't let myself have crazy treats, but Saturday night was the exception. I figured that just once wouldn't hurt me.... right? ;) So, it was finally time for me to try Sonic's new Pumpkin Pie Milkshake! And, Oh. My. Word. It was glorious! :) I ate every last bit of that thing!

So the next day was Sunday, and I told you guys about our youth's bonfire we were having. So here are some pics from that! It was a lot of fun, and we had a pretty good turn out! 

If you look down by the river, some of our youth are down there playing around. They look so tiny!

This was our fire BEFORE it got dark and BEFORE it reached "bonfire" status.

We all went hiking and found this really awesome cave, but the iPhone camera could not handle the awesomeness (not to mention the flash couldn't handle the darkness). So this is a pic from inside the cave looking out. The moon was beautiful that night!

Yesterday was a normal, average, everyday, blah Monday. (Why do Mondays even exist??) But I was able to find some time to enjoy an afternoon/evening cup of coffee outside before dinner. :)

So today (Tuesday) I am missing work/school for a doctors appointment I have with my endocrinologist in Birmingham, which is about 2 hours from here. For those who don't know, I have something called Graves Disease, which means that my thyroid gland is really overactive. Three years ago I had my thyroid gland radioactively destroyed (sounds horrific doesn't it??) with an iodine pill. No worries, I felt nothing! So now, I have zero thyroid hormone production in my body, which means I have to take a pill everyday to replace it. But, I haven't had my meds for the past six days which is a pretty big deal. I've had to schedule an appointment with my doc to get some more meds and to make sure everything is working properly. I'll update you guys on the news when we return this afternoon! It should all be fine though. :)

So until then.... Thanks for reading! (Especially so early in the morning!) God bless! :)

P.S. My mom just sent me this hilarious picture.

This is our terrible, awful, bad, adorable, sweet, beagle hound Buck. Aint he cute??? :)

Major Damage

Hiyah folks! Happy Saturday! :)

Hope your weekend is going great! Chad and I have been relaxing most of the weekend. Last night we grilled burgers for dinner. He had regular burgers, but he grilled my Boca veggie burger for me which was delish!

Love this scene :)

Today has been a fantabulous day! (For me at least) First, I weighed myself, and I've lost another pound which puts me at about 152! So 2 more pounds until I've reached my first goal! Yay! Second, Chad and I have been shopping for fall clothes all afternoon! And though he only found one pair of jeans, I did some major damage at Belk, Target, Kohl's, and a little boutique called Lynda's Loft. Such a fun day, and I can't wait to try out all my new clothes!!

Pictured above is:

Grey sweater dress, dark "dressy" straight leg jeans, two pairs of flats (black and brown), brown boots, big comfy quarter-length sleeve sweater, grey tank to wear underneath, long sleeve navy blue shirt, pink LC sweater, black LC "suit-like" jacket, and camel colored cardigan with ruffles.

YAY!

When we finally got home, we made ourselves some pumpkin spice lattes and have been chillaxing ever since. Dinner will be something quick tonight because I just don't feel like cooking. ;) Tomorrow we have a full day of church (where we'll be doing some special music!) and then a bonfire for our youth that night. I absolutely LOVE bonfires! It's such a fall weather kind of thing. I'll take plenty of pics for a post later! But, until then.....

Thanks for reading! God bless! :)

Hello October!!

Happy OCTOBER!!! I am so excited! I love this month! :)

So last night's dinner was a yummmmmmy baked ranch and parm crusted chicken!

It was deeeelish! And, I know I said I would be posting my healthy pumpkin pie milkshake, but ummmm.... it was definitely a FAIL. First of all, the taste was just not good. :P And second of all, the consistency was just wayyy off. I'm not really sure what happened, but I will not be trying it again. Oh well!

Breakfast this morning was a bagel thin w/ FF cream cheese, and a warm pumpkin spice latte :) I sat outside to eat but didn't linger afterwards because it was freezing!

Today has been a pretty chill Saturday. We've had Chad's nephew Bobby all day, so we haven't done much of anything..... except our ginormous grocery trip to Walmart this morning. I love filling our fridge and pantry with goodies, but I really hate having to go to Walmart. :( But, after two grocery carts and a huge bill, we are stocked up for a while!

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching college football, and Chad cleaned the house. I know, something seems a little twisted in that situation.... but, I aint complaining! ;) We decided on Mexican for dinner and went to our fav restaurant. Lovvvvve those fajita skillets :)

Now we're waiting on Chad's parents to come pick Bobby up and watching the rest of the Bama game. Roll Tide! :) I'm not really a Bama fan, or an Auburn fan, or an anything fan. I really just like to pull for most SEC teams. Anyway... I just finished preparing the ingredients for tomorrow healthy crockpot chili lunch! I got the recipe from SkinnyTaste! I can't wait to see how it turns out. :) I'll have pics tomorrow. So, until then....

Thanks for reading! God bless! :)

Oh and btw, today's weigh-in revealed a 1 lb loss for the week! Slowly but surely I'm getting there! :)