First day!

We survived our first day! Layton (nephew)  went to the babysitter for the first time. It was my first day at nursing school ((:

Confessional Friday

 I am linking up with Leslie from A Blonde Ambition for Confessional Friday (; the topic is how I would spend my most perfect day.....ahhh can a girl dream of a perfect day or what! 

These days I have been so tired so to start I would actually sleep in (its unheard of here lately) and then get breakfast in bed. Probably those pancakes that Kaitlyn put up yesterday would be great. My house would be magically all clean, so I would want to go shopping. I love shopping. So off to Waco for some new clothes, makeup and of course things for our home. I would spend the evening with my hubby at our favorite mexican restaurant On the Border enjoying a nice margarita and some sopaillas.  We are pretty simple people and this day may sound like a normally day to some but our life for the last year has been completely insane and nothing short of extraordinary all at the same time. When I think of my most perfect day it always includes the ones I love (:

Y'all have a blessed weekend!  

Pumpkins and Campfires

Y'all I am just so excited for FALL...I guess this year is extra special because this will be our first fall in our home and I truly can not wait to decorate it. It has always been a favorite time of year for me, probably because I secretly LOVE to decorate. Today I am going to share a few of my favorite fall recipes (from Pinterest of course) and DIY projects from blogs (:

Pumpkin French Toast 

I actually pinned this , this morning but everything is already on my grocery list (:

This is a FREE printable from eighteen25 Girls they have a few color options to choose from and if you search their blog there are lots of free printables and DIY stuff. 

This looks sooo yummy. We always need something to take for a get together or to a kids school party and Keri has the recipe.

 I also have this wallpaper from my phone (; Just email it to yourself and save it as your wall paper

Also came from eighteen25 Girls and there is another one for halloween (:

P.S Have a blessed day!

Ellie Mae

Meet Ellie Mae

Some of you may know from my instagram, my hubby graduated from paramedic school last week (; In June he found this small kennel of chocolate labs and had emailed the owner talking to her about buying one of her pups. With him finishing school and me starting I told him maybe now wasn't the right time.If y'all are friends with me on Facebook you know that he since then has tagged me in probably 50 photos of chocolate labs. Little did he know soon after he told me about this kennel "Texas Prairie Labradors" I emailed her myself and let her know I wanted to get him a puppy as a graduation present. She was so excited! So the puppies were born 6/6 I drove down to El campo on July 8th ...which is 4hours from our hometown to visit and pick a puppy out. D had NO idea. Donna and Alan were seriously some of the nicest people I had met. I told them about the plan and it was time to pick a puppy eeek. I truly wished that I could have told D and let him pick his puppy because I was so nervous I wasn't picking the "right" one. I knew he wanted a female so we limited that down but there were 5 to choose from. So I narrowed it down to these 2...

ALL of their puppies are adorable and perfect. I decided in some way I needed to let D pick his dog. I ask Donna to send me an email with the 2 I had narrowed it down to and I showed the picture to D and said that she had just uploaded the picture to fb with the only 2 females left from Maggies liter. (he had decided on Maggies liter)  So he looked at the picture and sent me a text and said the one on the right is gorgeous, which was the runt I emailed Donna and let her know that he had chosen. A little while later we are talking and somehow he says something about the puppy on the our left, I said I thought you liked the puppy on the right he said well their right..........OMG at this point I was so ready to tell him haha. There was another family that got to pick before us and thankfully they didn't pick our Ellie. So without him knowing on August 3rd I told him that I was taking my cousin from Lake Jackson back home and went and got the puppy (; Great wife award. I had also put together a surprise party for him at one of the local restaurants that has a patio. So we had planned to eat with his family that night and then TA-DA surprise our co-workers and lots of family and friends. I had to give him the dog pretty fast because it was hot and she was in a box (: 

He was so excited! 

So expect lots of pictures on the instagram (: 

Guest Blog a couple weeks ago

Hi Heart Shape Sweat friends, 

Today I am guest posting for Kristine while she is spending time with those precious boys of hers all 3 of them (;

Since Kristine is so athletic I choose to write about my fitness journey. 

All through high school I was not really skinny but not fit either. I played sports until my junior year and then decided that it was not that important anymore. I had played outside of high school as well and think I was most likely burnt out. I graduated and went to Lubbock to attend college. My college lifestyle was definitely not the healthiest so of course I gained about 15 pounds. During college I signed up for  yoga (: which btw if you have not tried it you should, people joke that it is not a workout but I disagree.  Other than yoga I chose to work full time so no other activities. At this point I was super unhealthy, fast food, wine, college life=not good. I moved back to my hometown in 2008 nothing changed really besides my weight up a little more. In 2009 my magical year I started working out with a friend of mine who I worked with. We had a Biggest Loser Challenge at my work and that offcially started my workout journey. I won (: I lost 12 pounds in 6 weeks, an awesome start! 

Brittni(friend from the bank) was not athletic at the time  so we started from scratch. Literally girls scratch like walking almost 80% of the time and that was not our original goal. We got addicted to running and ran everyday after work, some days I would run twice a day because it felt so good. I felt so good about myself, inside and out. It was such a stress reliever to know that during those 40-60 minutes no one would interrupt me and I could have the music as loud as I wanted and have my OWN thoughts. It was amazing. 

This was one of the first couple of races. 

Brittni and I did our first race in September 2009 and I got 1st in my age group, if that isn't the boast any of us runners needed. It was a small race but still first is first. After that we started signing up for races around the adjoining counties, we lived to run. I will add that we were not changing up our routine for the most part we changed our course occasionally but not the workout. Our pace improved by about 15 seconds max. After about 8 months straight of running 5-6 times a week I started making excuses to not go and run. I look back now and know that I was so burnt out on running. I am way to outgoing to only run and not try anything else. 

So fast forward to the end of 2010... I met my now hubby D, so of course I made every excuse possible to not work out and  to spend time with him. I once again put all that weight BACK on. If any of you have been in my shoes it's like that weight appears over night. I never notice how much weight is back until it's too late and BAM it's going to take a while to get it all off. It is so discouraging.

D and I got engaged in 2011 and married in 2012 throughout our engagement I worked anywhere from 3-4 at a time just trying to put my self through college, so no workouts again. I briefly hired a trainer during the engagement but just could not keep up with the demanding work schedules and the exhausting workouts. 

Here we are 2013 I have made goals for this year( I will share on my blog soon) . I want to be the girl who loved to run and have my own time, but I also want to help other people feel the way I do about running. Y'all if you have never run/walk/biked/swam laps I challenge you to get out of your house for 40-60minutes twice a week. I would love to see pictures of you working out and your opinions. I am in no way a trained fitness anything but I am a small town girl who has always struggled with my weight and I promise I will help you stay motivated. We need motivation and honestly the best motivation is to see someone else doing it and not making excuses. 

Exercise can clear your head like nothing else.

(After the Color Run in Austin, TX (: 

I hope all you ladies come and visit me at my blog (: