the lanes.

My New Favorite Snack...

Emerald Trail Mix Berry Blend is AAAAMMMAAZZZINNNGGG and only 120 calories per package. The trail mix includes a mix of walnuts and peanuts, yogurt raisins, granola and dried blueberries, strawberries and cranberries. This makes for the perfect blend of salty and sweet and is satisfying for a mid day snack. I just LOVE it!!

Healthy Wife, Healthy Life

It is week 2 of Healthy Wife, Healthy Life.

I feel so much better after just one week. I have a lot more energy which I give a lot of credit to the amount of water I have been drinking and my work out routine. My work out routine has given my metabolism a serious boost. Which calls for a very hungry girl! I feel like I am always hungry but I am not craving as much of the bad stuff as before.

In addition to lots of water and exercise I have been eating a lot more vegetables. I have always eaten a lot of fruit but vegetables have never been my thing. I went to the store and bought squash, zucchini, lettuce and tomatoes. Adding these items as my side dish has allowed me not to eat as much of my main dish as I normally would. Plus it adds some color to the plate :)

I have been going to the gym every night with Brady and have been staying faithful to a workout routine that I have found on line. I have also been running 2 miles every night to get my legs back into shape. I want to work my way back up to 5 miles but I know that will take some time. I am going to create a second blog for myself that tracks my work out routines so that I can keep up with what I have done and the progress that I am making. Once I get that up I will add it to this blog so if you would like to follow along you can.

Quick Recipe------>

Tacos are fun and easy to make. Regular tacos can be so greasy and messy but this recipe allows you to still eat those yummy tacos but in a healthier way so when you get up from the table you do not feel disgusting while asking your self " Why did I just eat that?". I prefer a soft taco over a hard taco so this recipe will include just that.

Healthy Tacos:

Serves 4

1 pound lean ground turkey

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon garlic salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 Tabasco sauce

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

4 whole-wheat tortillas

Toppings Include:

romaine lettuce

shredded reduced cheese (2%)

healthy sour cream = 1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt mixed with 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Instructions:

1. Spray a nonstick skillet with cooking spray and put over medium heat. Crumble the ground turkey into pan. Add the next 8 ingredients and cook, stirring and breaking up the meat with a spatula, until that meat is browned. Set aside

2. Wrap the tortillas in a towel and heat in the microwave for 15 to 30 seconds.

3. Serve.

Hope you enjoy! I know we did!!

-Cooper Lane

Summer Read Number 2 Done...

on to Summer Read 3 :)

I just finished Something Borrowed and it was very good. Emily Giffin never lets me down. Her books are always great from beginning to end. In this particular book I was so surprised by the ending! I do not want to give to much away just in case someone reading has not read the book yet.

The store is told of a young attorney, Rachel, who has always been the "good girl" who has never found true love and feels like she never will. Darcy is Rachel's best friend who always gets everything that she was and has the so called "perfect life". The story starts off with Darcy throwing Rachel a birthday party and Rachel ends up going home with her Darcy's fiance Dexter. Through the book it goes through the choices that each person has to make and in the end each has to choose which path that they want to take.

Such a great book!!
The next book on my list, which I just bought on my Kindle, is Uncharted Territori. I love, love, love Tori Spelling and her adorable family so I can not wait to start reading!!

-Cooper Lane

Healthy Wife, Healthy Life

Here it is!! My first "Healthy Wife, Healthy Life" post!! I have noticed a couple of bloggers that keep track of their goals on their blog and thought why not have my own goals to a healthier lifestyle on my blog as well. I decided to start this series of blogs to track my journey to a healthier life style, home and body. I feel like sharing it so that it will hold me somewhat accountable.

Since the wedding I have not been keeping up with the exercise and healthy eating that I was doing the months before. My clothes are getting a little uncomfortable and my energy level has gone down, which is my biggest concern. So it is time to stop just talking about it and actually do it.

My fitness & diet goals:
1. Sign up at a new gym. Since graduation I have not been able to visit a gym regularly since I am no longer a member, so it is time to sign up for a membership somewhere else. There is only one gym in town that has everything you need including great workout classes. So tomorrow afternoon when hubby is off of work we will head up to the gym and sign me up.
2. Cut back on the sweet intake. I have a huge sweet tooth!! The more I travel the more I indulge in the things that I normally would not eat at home and when I do that my brain is in routine to have that yummy treat after a meal. So this definitely needs to stop.
3. Be better at preparing healthy meals at home for the both of us. This will be the hardest one for me. It is so easy for me to pick something up on the way home or put in a pizza in the oven but this is unhealthy.
4. Drink plenty of water! This is the most important and probably the easiest to do. All i need is 64 oz per day. It sounds easy but it seems like I am never thirsty. I could honestly go all day without drinking one thing! Weird I know. So my solution to this is to buy a big water bottle that I can refill through out the day. They water bottle that I have in front of me now is 33.8 oz so if I drink two of those I am good to go!
5. Run. I remember the days when I enjoyed to run. But that just is not the case anymore. I don't know if I could even run a mile. So slow but sure I am going to get this habit back :)

This is not going to be easy with our busy schedules but I have to make it work. I will have more to tell you on next Wednesday's "Healthy Wife, Healthy Life" post.

Until then, here is to a healthy week!
-Cooper Lane

One Year Session with Photography by Lauren Lane

-Cooper Lane

Weekend Recap..

this weekend of course went as fast as all of the others but managed to get some things accomplished and have some fun.
Friday night we all went to see Eclipse. I never want to be that person who jumps on the bandwagon so I was very hesitate to watch the Twilight series. But a couple of months back Brady and I took a long road trip and needed some movies to watch in the back seat so we picked up both of the first movies in the series and we really enjoyed them. So we were pretty excited to see the new one. I honestly think that Eclipse was the best one so far. In this one Bella once again finds herself in danger of the vampires and in the midst of all of that she is also in the middle of love games with Edward and Jacob. She is forced to choose between the two.

Saturday was filled with organizing and cleaning, which will come with another blog (I came up with some really great ideas on how to organize and want to share with everyone reading). That night with nothing better to do we went to another movie, Knight and Day. This movie is with none other than Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. June Havens, played by Diaz, finds that her simple everyday life is tangled with a secret agent, Cruise. It was an action packed movie that works because of Diaz and Cruise.

Sunday was my favorite day of them all. Brady and I attended our normal church service and then headed off to take our one year anniversary photos, once those are ready I will post them on here!! Then we had lunch with his parents, brisket ummm :)

So there you have it, my weekend in a nut shell. Hope that everyone had a fabulous weekend.
-Cooper Lane

Then and Now...

In April of last year I posted this picture of our house that we bought and closed on in the middle of April. It was a cute house but needed some work. We have done some major renovations to the inside to make it feel more like home to us. The front is my favorite change. I love flowers and I love wreaths so I was excited to spruce things up.
So this is before...