Birthdays + Homecomings

Last week was a big week for our family. My husband returned from a three-month TDY to Virginia. It was a long, hot summer with three boys home from school. After two long days of driving, he finally made it home on August 31st. Which also happens to be my youngest son's birthday. What a birthday present seeing Daddy was for him!

All three boys were so excited to see him. He actually made it home one day before we expected. They were all pretty surprised, especially Nathan when Mike picked him up from school. So we got to celebrate Brendan's 2nd birthday together as a family. All five of us :)

Homemade pizza and chocolate cake were on the menu that night. I have to admit though, even though the cake was homemade, it wasn't exactly "healthy" per se (hello, 1 cup of butter!). I do know, however, that there wasn't a single artificial ingredient or preservative in it. It was really easy to make, too...

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Homemade Chocolate Icing

2/3 cups granulated sugar (I used raw sugar)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted

Melt your chocolate chips, then set aside to cool a bit. In a small saucepan whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa, and milk; bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Boil 1- 3 minutes until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and transfer to a small bowl. Coop completely in the fridge.

Beat the butter until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in the cooled chocolate mixture until well combined and fluffy, about another minute. Finally, add in the melted chocolate and beat again until well combined and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add more cocoa powder to taste if you'd like.

Spread on your cake or cupcakes. Makes enough for 24 cupcakes, or a double layer 8 inch round cake. Store any extras in covered in your fridge.

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I'm happy the single parenting is over. It's nice to have our family complete again. We went for a really nice, fifteen mile bike ride this weekend as a family. It's been a while since I had a chance to ride my bike.

While I rode solo, Mike pulled all three boys -- about 115 pounds :) Two boys in the back, Brendan in the front. What a workout! Welcome home, Dad :)

Say No To Horsepower. {Sometimes}

Just like any other Tuesday the boys had their gymnastics class and I had to make a post office run to ship out an order. The weather here on the Central Coast is finally starting to feel like summer. It was all the more reason for me to ditch the Mom Van today and load the kids up in the bike trailer. Just so you know, though, I put up a pretty good argument in my head about whether or not I'd do it... Haul almost 100 pounds worth of kids? 180 horsepower? Hmmm... Tough decision. Then the Healthy Jen said to the Lazy Jen, "Are your legs broken?" Ok, then.

I knew for sure I'd bike to gymnastics because it's only a few blocks away. I stowed my packages in the back of the trailer Just In Case I thought I could make it all the way to the post office. Really, it's not that far either, maybe 5 or so miles round trip.

I decided to go ahead and take the ride all the way to the post office. The weather was amazing today and the boys love to ride in that thing. So glad I did it.

As far as marathon training goes... I've only run one mile this week so far. I've mostly been doing cardio on the bike or on the elliptical trainer at the gym. Over the next few weeks I'm going to slowly get myself up to running for at least thirty minutes at a time. I found a 10-week half marathon training schedule that I'm going to start in a couple of months.

Today's Workout: Rode the bike (while hauling two boys) to run errands instead of car.