HEALTHY note.

Today, I have just really been thinking. After all of the Reese's, cake, snickers, and just chocolate in general that I eat, It's time to give up some sweets. All these things are so bad for your body and the AVERAGE American consumes 2-3 pounds of sugar a day! This sounds so crazy, huh? Well, it's true! It's time to make a change!

I haven't decided to cut out all sugar, but I just want to get away from the candy and chocolate for a while. If I could give up sweet tea, then that would be another plus, but it's one thing at a time.

I was watching the Bachelorette tonight and following that show came the season finale of Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. I haven't watched the show all season, but was interested to see it! I missed the ending because half way through the show I went a jumped on my treadmill! Yes, I got on my treadmill and ran 1.5 miles. I was running about 2 months ago and got up to about 3 miles... but it has been probably 2 months since I last ran, so I have to get back up to that point.

Also, after Dad passed, I have been trying to make myself a healthier person. I cannot stress to anyone enough how important your health is. I think that a lot of the reason Dad passed was because of his weight. It seems like obesity is just becoming more and more of a lead to deathly situations. Obesity can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, fatty liver disease, and eventually a heart attack in some circumstances. I'm sure there are many more effects of obesity, but this is what I found. Isn't that horrible! We all need to make a change and try and create a healthier society!

Sorry for the rambling, but it's just what is on my mind tonight.

xoxo,
A futuristic healthier Lauren!

Gigi's Birthday CELEBRATION!!

Saturday, July 9th, my family all gathered for a wonderful celebration.... I bet you're all wondering what the heck we were celebrating..

MY GRANDMAW'S 70TH BIRTHDAY!

Isn't that such a blessing? God has blessed her with 70 years of life! I hope that I look as beautiful as she when I reach that age!

My grandpa had been planning the big SURPRISE (Yes, that's right! We surprised her!) for like a month. He was so worried that she would find out, but everything turned out great. She had no idea! He just told her that he was taking her to dinner, just the two of them. Of course you know she asked who all was going to be there, but paw paw sure played it off well!

It was My grandma, grandpa, My uncle and aunt with their four children, My other aunt and uncle, josh, Amanda, My aunt Sue (gigi's sister), My Uncle Francis (gigi's brother), Billy, My brother Lane, his girlfriend Naomi, and me! A group of 19 made it without her even knowing! :D

SURPRISE!!! She was so happy!

 I had been stressing the whole day because I hadn't gotten a birthday gift, and I was making my Grandma's 70th birthday cake! Of course, I wanted it to be nice!

The birthday cake with all of her gifts!

My cousins Phillip and Nathan

My aunt and my Mom!

My Uncle and Aunt

My cousin Josh and his girlfriend Amanda!

Grace and I

Naomi and My TWIN, Lane!

Blake and I!

Isn't she cute!

Aunt Sue, Aunt Billy, and Uncle Francis!

My sweet Gigi and I!

The special people! My Gigi and Paw Paw!

I have such a sweet family and I wouldn't trade them for the world! I love it when we gather together for family celebrations and wish that we were allowed to do it more often! I must add that our family is spread out all over the south, so it is difficult for us to get together. I have far too many pictures, but tried to get as many as possible before blogger cuts me off! haha! I usually don't take many pictures, but I have been trying to use my camera more often to catch memories like these! AND TO BLOG WITH THEM! :P

The three children and my grandparents!

Uncle bill, cousin Grace, and Aunt Lisa!

There is one special person that is missing from these pictures and that is my daddy! Daddy, I miss you so much and wish that you were here with us, but I know that God is taking good care of you and you were surely celebrating in heaven on that special day! I know you loved each and every one of us as we love you! :)

The whole crowd. (Minus my brother)

 Lane had to leave early for some military stuff. I hope that you all enjoyed the dinner just as much as I did! We had some great food and a great time! Thanks to everyone that came and special thanks to my paw paw for thinking of such a wonderful idea!

Happy belated birthday to my Gigi! She turned 70 on the 13th! Meant to create this post that day, but i've been so so busy with summer classes being rushed and finals coming up!

xoxo,
Lauren

Our 4th of July Celebration!

To start off this blog post, I stayed up all night Sunday night because I was just completely overwhelmed with things to do. I had volunteered to help my friend work a family and friends July 4th party Sunday night for 4 hours, reaching home around 10. I had a little bit of homework due Sunday night by midnight. I had thought about it earlier before the party, so I did two of the assignments and left the easy one for after the party. After I arrived home, I did the last assignment! whew! Thank goodness that was over with. I always seem to stress about homework and things to do with school, and then when they're done I'm asking myself why I ever stressed over something so small!

I always love to color coordinate my outfits with my holidays, so when I realized I needed to wash some clothes that is what I did. This lead me to pulling an all-nighter! I washed four loads of clothes, cleaned the kitchen, living room, and dining area, baked a cake, and watched a movie. When the time came closer to five I began to get ready for our big day! I threw on some blue jean shorts, a red tank top, and a white shirt! RED, WHITE, AND BLUE! I just love it! I went outside and watered my lovely garden, ran to wal mart for a few things, went and fed mom's cat, and came home and baked a breakfast casserole all before everyone awoke! Man, I felt like I had accomplished something!

Hashbrown, sausage, cheese, egg, and crescent roll! YUMMM!

 I had never made breakfast casserole before, but I wanted to try something new and fast. I've never really been much of a breakfast person. If I do eat breakfast, it's normally something like pancakes or cereal; never a REAL breakfast!

Finally, we got on the road headed to Winona! I was plum tired, but made it safely because I didn't trust anyone else to drive my vehicle on 55N on a holiday! I had a feeling we would have for sure gotten a ticket! Boys tend to drive a little on the fast side! So we made it to Winona around 10 something and had a nice little conversation with Justin's Granny. Before you know it we were all starving again, but that was sure to go out the window after a dinner at grandmaw's.

Aidan and Granny before cooking lunch!

The many huge delicious steaks!

YES, you must have a baked potato with a steak! DUH!

I didn't get a picture of everything, but we ended up having salad, steaks, baked potatoes, broccoli and cheese, homemade Texas garlic toast, and banana pudding! Man were we stuffed. That's actually not even the word for it, more like hurttingggg we were so full!

Trevor. This was after eating. Doesn't he look so happy! NOT!

Aidan doing what he does best! This was also after eating!

As you notice, we were all lounging around in the living room! It was really time for a nap!

Granny has many sweet animals! She has three dogs inside, and two baby kittens that I could have squeezed to death they were so cute! I kept repeating the fact that Bella needed a friend since our old cat had passed a while back! Bella sure gets lonely sometimes! Poor kitty. Well, I couldn't help myself, pictures of the animals were a necessity!

This is Breeze!

This is old Winnie! She might have possibly been feeling like us!

I couldn't tell you the names of the horses. There are plenty of them. I didn't get anywhere near the pictures to cover all of the animals, but I just love them! Animals are a delight to have, especially in the country! It was such beautiful land and a beautiful day! We loved every minute of it and hope to have some land in the country ourselves one day! Hope you all had a wonderful fourth of July like we did!

xoxox
Lauren

MY SWEET SUMMER GARDEN!

I've always wanted a garden, but knew they were a little trouble to keep up with and I definitely don't have much space for it. I talked to Justin about it and he was willing to go to Lowe's and get things for me to start a garden. When this conversation was over, you can only imagine how excited I was. This was kind of a last minute thing, so it's moving much slower than most. I can't seem to have much patience with it because my grandma's garden has already produced most of her vegetables and mine only has two vegetables so far, that aren't ready to pick. I've caught myself getting aggravated, but have to remember I just planted it a little less than a month ago! Anyways, I've always thought about the future and all of the things that I will have with my family, and a garden was definitely one of them. I have been following another blog of this lady's that lives in an old log cabin, sews some of her children's clothes, has a farm, lives on much land, and cooks homemade things constantly! I just love it! I'm all about conserving. Some of you may think I am weird, but I enjoy the small things in life!

As I mentioned earlier, I have been getting quite frustrated with my garden because all I had seen for a while was a tiny jalapeno that was slowly growing! I walked out to my garden a few days ago to check it out while on the phone with my grandma, and I found a tiny green tomato! One itty bitty tomato! I would have a picture to show of that tiny tomato, but I accidentally deleted it from my phone! OOPSSSSS!

Two blooms on one of the tomato plants! 

Cucumber on the left, squash on the right!

Bell peppers on the right, tomatoes in the back, and habanero (sp?) on the left!

As you can see, my plants aren't too big yet. My tomatoes aren't even ready to steak yet. With this being my first garden, I will admit that I'm not too talented with the green thumb! HELP! I'm open to suggestions on gardening! I finally got the ho out after it today because the soil on top was just looking pitiful! After a good mixer upper, it looked dandy! I even accidentally cut off a small branch on my squash plant. WHOOPSIES! Got a little ho happy! :P

There she blows!

This is my project in the making! I have spent some time on it today. I'm learning slowly. I've learned not to water it until the sun goes down! It's a little rigged up with chicken wire, but chicken wire is much cheaper than regular fence! I'm a bargain shopper. If it works then it's fine with me! Hopefully here in another month or a little less, I will have a happy colorful garden! Full of yellow, green, and red vegetables. I will be a happy Lauren if it turns out!

xoxo
A new and improved gardening girl!