My little Angel is getting so big!!!!

Happy Memorial day to all!!  I hope you are having a nice and relaxing long weekend.  It has been a while since I have done a post on Ivy and since I know that is why most of you check this blog I figured now would be a good time to give some updates on her and show you some videos and pictures.  Well to start, Ivy is pretty much potty trained now and has been for about 3 weeks.  She still naps and sleeps in a pull up as she is not old enough to learn to hold it through her sleep yet.  I am very proud of her she did it all on her own and when she was ready!!  They say girls potty train earlier then boys.

She doesn't even look like a baby any more.  She has changed so much just in the last few months, see for yourself!!!

 

She is no longer afraid of the vacuum and now loves to help me.

 

When we go to the parks she can now climb the rope walls small and big ones!!!

 

She has been developing some relationships with children her age. Here are a few pics of her playing with her friend Dabo at the park this weekend!!!

 

Here are just a few fun things we have been up to over this past week.  Rainy day fun!!! She loves playing dress up in her princess outfit I made her. We were playing in her room with her kitchen and having coffee and cake (pretend of course).

 

Some days she likes to workout with me!!  It just depends on her mood and what workout I am doing.

 

In our house we make Ivy clean her own handprints off the sliding glass doors!!

Of course I am just kidding.  I am very blessed to have a child who loves helping around the house.  She may be 2 and not do it the way it needs to be done, but I let her do it and don't discourage her or criticize.  I have read that if you discourage or criticize and child's work then when they get older they will likely be harder to motivate to help around the house. 

Her are just a few other cute pics.   We have been having lots of fun with her and love every minute of her.  We are so blessed!!!

I hope you all have a great week!!!! 

 

Day trip to Metz, France

I can't believe May 1st has marked a year since we arrived in Saarbrucken.  May 1st is a holiday in Germany, it is their labor day.  Kevin took off the 2nd because we planned on taking a trip but never got organized enough to plan one.  We ended up having a nice 4 day weekend and on Saturday the 3rd we decided to take a day trip to Metz, France.  It's about an hour train ride from Saarbrücken.  We arrived late morning.  When we got off the train we took a walk towards the center of town.

When exiting the train station there was this unique building and I think they mentioned it  on the tour we took what it was but I seriously don't remember ( Yes, I know that you gave me a travel journal mom, but I just didn't think about it on this trip and plum forgot to bring it, lesson well learned).

On our walk we passed the Port Serpenoise ,the Triumphal Arch.  If I remember correctly this was the gate that was put up during the Roman era.  There use to be a wall but the Germans took it down and left the gate.  I am sure there was more history about it but that is all I remember.

 
Further down the street we came to a nice little fountain in a square with a garden.

At this point the weather seamed nice so we enjoyed a walk and headed to the Cathedral.  Before entering the Cathedral there was a mini train parked outside.  We didn't get any pics of it but if you go to Metz, I recommend it.  It's a bit pricey I think approximately  6€ per person and for Ivy it was 4€.  It's about a 45 min train ride.  It drives you through the town and gives you the history.  It's quite informative.  We learned so much about the Roman, German, and French histories, as well the corresponding  architecture in Metz.  

After the tram we went inside the Cathedral of St. Stephen.  I don't know about you but one of my favorite things to do is go in churches in these older European cities.  They are just beautiful and you just don't get a lot of this in the US. 

Just outside of the Cathedral was a market.  I think its like here where it must go on during Saturdays.  It was over around 1pm if I remember correctly.  If you are ever in Metz and the market is open I would check it out. They had anything from clothes, cheese, hand made baskets, farmers produce etc.  We got some cheese, but everybody was closing up shop.  Had we gotten there earlier we may have gotten more. 

The weather was colder then we had thought it was going to be and we were not dressed properly.  So it took a few things we wanted to do off the list.  We had wanted to walk down by the river and do more outside activities that we had planned so we hope to go back  one weekend since its  convenient.  We decided to check out La Cour  D'Or Museum.  We were skeptical at first but just wanted to get warm.  I like art don't get me wrong but it was portrayed as an art and history museum. We were afraid it was going to be mostly art.  We were so glad we went.  Neither of us took any pics and I can't really tell you much about the history as it was all in French.  However, if we could read it , I am sure it was very interesting.  Just walking through the museum was exciting enough.  This is something I would recommend. They had items on display that dated back from when the Romans were in control of Metz.  Down stairs on the lower level (the basement) they even had some old Roman city structures. 

Then we went to dinner at really nice restaurant but I did not take my travel journal, unfortunately and I can't remember the name.  It was on the main square with all the restaurants.  Kevin thinks it has potato ( in French) in the name.  It was reasonably priced and the meal was delicious.  Kevin got duck and I got some sort of beef in gravy with potatoes.  French food is so tasty either way but for the price we paid it was just divine

Here are just a few pics of the Train station from the train ride around town.  Originally the train station was built for the military.

  Its quite an attractive building.  I am sure this will not be the last time we visit Metz as there were a few things we didn't get to do due to the colder temps.  I hope you all have a great Memorial day weekend!! I will hopefully post a few other things over the next few days.  Take  care!!

Healthy Banana Ice cream

We all want our cake and eat it too as well as lose weight.  Now that is possible so to speak.  I love ice cream as most people do and I sure do miss my ice cream maker.  I have some healthy looking recipes to go in one and I can't wait to try them.

Now you are wondering how is ice cream and healthy in the same sentence and how is it you are going to make ice cream without an ice cream maker. Well its very simple and I am excited to share it with you. 

Here is what you will need a blender,  bananas and milk ( almond milk is the healthiest choice and I have yet to find it here)

There are many recipes out there. I have altered this one to make my own and you may want to play with it yourself. 

Here it is:  First you peel and slice 3 bananas.  You put the slices on a plate and put them in the freezer for at least 3 hours. 

When its time to make the place the bananas in the blender add milk and blend.  Now the milk part is up to you.  Some people don't add the milk but I like it a little creamy.  The most I have added in was 1/4 cup of milk.  You don't need to blend it very long.  Just enough to make it creamy.

Then you place it in a container and freeze for at least 2 hours.  I make mine early so its ready by dinner.  Scoop and serve!

 

Very tasty and very healthy.  Note:  Bananas do contain high natural sugar so as with anything eat in moderation.  I get about 3 servings out of this and when I put it in my fitness pal here is what the values are:

 

Calories   Carbs    Fat    Protein  Sodium  Sugar

Total:	353	84	3	6	34	46
Per Serving:	118	28	1	2	11	15

Total being if you ate the whole thing and per serving for one helping.  I used whole milk so with Almond milk the results would be different.

There are many different flavors.  Kevin likes his simple.  I think I may start making 2 batches and making his simple and exploring the flavors.  I have added 1 tsp of vanilla extract to make it like vanilla ice cream but I still have to play with it a bit.  Keep checking the recipe section for different flavors and more healthy sweet treats so you also, can have your cake and eat it too!!!!

Exciting New Changes to come to this blog!!

Hi all, I am very happy to share with you some new changes I will be making to the blog.  Bare with me as it could take some time to get this together and organized completely. 

First, I will tell you why I am making the changes.  I have been doing great things in my life like, exercising, eating healthy, traveling , Trying to get closer to God etc.  For a few months now I have wanted to share things with you but wanted to be more organized about it.  I want to share the exercises I am doing and how they are helping, I want to share recipes , maybe books that I am reading and so on and so on.  I thought wouldn't it be a great way to blog more and share what is helping me make changes to my life in addition to what I normally blog about.  This got me thinking about organization and if I wanted to keep this blog or move on.  I have had some fears that the changes will not work so I haven't  really posted much yet.  So what better way than to just dive in and see how it goes. 

As of now there has not been any changes but you can look for those starting next week.  Blogger suggests getting the label app and going back and labeling my old posts and new posts. That way you can look under the labels to find a recipe etc.  It would still be regular posts but you could look up specific things.  Well, that just seems like a lot of extra work.  So I have been doing some further reading and here is what I am going to try.  I have no idea if this will work,if it doesn't then I will do it the hard way and label.

Here is what to expect.  I am going to add tabs to my blog. Right now you will see a Home tab.  That is where all my posts will be posted as normal. So when you open my blog you will just see posts.  I will add tabs like : recipes, travel, and exercises.  I will do a post on what I want to share  and then I will link it ( assuming I can ) under the correct tab. 

Why am I doing this?  Well, I figure if are trying to think of a dessert or meal to make and you remembered something on my blog, then you can just go under my recipe page.  Instead of going through pages and pages of posts.  What if you have a friend that is going to Amsterdam and you want to share with her or him what we did and where we stayed. Then you can just go under the travel tab. 

I know this sounds a bit off coming from me, but here it goes any way.  I really do like posting and I know I promise to post more and I never do.  Its just that I do what to share  a lot and I know a lot of you are on here to see what we are up to and pics of Ivy.  I really do want to share some exciting recipes and exercises with you. I know you can find that stuff on other blogs, pinterest and so forth.  I have found some things that have really worked for me in exercises etc and I am so excited that I want to share what has worked for me and how you can have your cake, eat it too, and lose weight!!! 

So I am going to start this after Mothers day.  You will still see my usual posts as well.  I am just going to add some other things and make this blog a little bit more exciting!!! I hope you like the changes.  Feel free to tell me either way!!!  Hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to sharing some new things with you!!!!!

Happy Easter from Amsterdam the final post!

 

Hello all, its been a busy crazy week.  So here is the final post about Amsterdam and Easter.  Well, the next day was Sunday ( Easter) .  We really didn't have any plans except to go to church and Kevin woke up really sick.  So we pretty much went to and English reform church, it was a beautiful church.  Here are some pics of Ivy all dressed up in the hotel room ready to go in her pretty Easter dress.

The service was very nice.  The Pastor was an Interim from Scotland.  He gave a great kids service as well. He told how the egg symbolized the tomb in Scotland and on Easter day they roll the Easter eggs down the hill and a symbol of the tomb being rolled away. I thought was a very interesting way to look at it.  Here are a few pics from outside the church and in the courtyard.

We had a nice lunch after and then we just enjoyed the gorgeous day walking around town at our leisure.  It was a nice way to spend Easter Sunday.  Here are just a few pics from the day.

Then we had pizza for dinner and went back to the hotel to relax. The last full day in Amsterdam was rainy.  We had planned on getting up going to a place that served an English breakfast ( very delicious if I do say myself) then we were headed to the Rijksmuseum and then the Van Gogh Museum.  The Rijksmuseum was quite large and had a lot to see. So we never made it to the Van Gogh Museum.  Here are some pics of the outside, a Rembrandt, Van Gogh , and Ivy's favorite thing there.

There was this room of miniature ships.  Ivy loved this room and one display in particular. There was a ship that was cut in half with different layers.  On each floor it had miniature videos playing so it look like little people on the ship. She was so fascinated by this.

We had an early evening as Ivy was run down and now sick.  We headed back to the Hotel and turned the TV on to see if there were any movies to watch and relax.  When you first turned on the TV there was a rocking song from the hotel with their menu screen.  I was beebopping on the bed and Ivy thought that was fun and wanted to do that "Do that" is what she says.  So she climbed in bed next to me and we started jamming.  Kevin thought it was cute so he took a video of it.

 

 

We had a nice but tiring trip and we were all sick.  Ivy came home to a little Easter basket with a few cheap sand toys and a tiny Chocolate bunny.  We did die eggs this year but I never got around to posting pictures on that either. We had a very nice trip but we realized that we missed a lot of things so if we ever go back we know what we want to see.