Amazing friends and great food Part 1

On Friday, I got to spend the day with two of my best friends, Dianna and Laura, both of whom went above and beyond to support me on my Paleo challenge.  In fact, all of my friends have stood by me on my Paleo journey. Maggie made me veggies at our play date on Thursday and kept her delicious looking brownies away from me. Tonight, Cari brought over dinner and was conscious of my diet(look for more on this in Part 2).   I am so incredibly lucky to have these woman in my life. I truly do not know what I would do without these ladies. They are my sanity, my saviors, and my partners in crime.  I feel so blessed to have such amazing friendships with all of them.  But what makes me the happiest  is that my children get to grow up with their children.  These women are my family, and I love them all!  Shout out to all my other girlfriends who I do not mention in this post; I feel the same way about all of you too. 

Dianna came over for a play date on Friday and surprised me with a Paleo treat.  She knows that I have a major sweet tooth and that the lack of sugar is what I struggle with the most on Paleo. She is amazing.  She knows how much I love carrot cake, and she found a recipe for carrot cake balls. She made a few adaptations to the original recipe, but they were still so good.  She said they were easy to make, but they sounded really complicated to me. She had to grind nuts for goodness sake. She is an avid baker, so I'm sure she put this recipe together in no time flat. However, I am still so grateful that she took the time to make me such a thoughtful treat.

 Carrot cake balls rolled in coconut

We had a fantastic time watching the kids play and gossiping about the wedding! We are both so excited for Eric and Michelle, but we are also very excited for us! Ten years ago we met at West Aurora High School and instantly became BFFs. We have been attached at the hip ever since, and being her best friend is absolutely the best. BUT now, we get to be sisters and best friends!!! I know technically not really, but if she's my sister in law's sister, then wouldn't she be my sister something removed?  Official or not, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!

After a great afternoon with Dianna, I jumped on the road to go to Laura's 31 party.  Laura is my oldest(as in length of time not age) friend and one of the only people who knows all of my deep, dark secrets.  We have been through so much together, and she has always supported me!  In fact, we even were pregnant together. Her son Mason was born 36 hours before Peyton. During our pregnancy, Laura and I would constantly text or call about what we were eating.  Thankfully, I always had her to justify and support my decision to go to Sonic everyday that summer for a strawberry lemon slushy. For real, I went everyday from June through August, and I had an extra 36lbs to prove it! 

Laura is doing a Paleo challenge this month as well, so even though she was hosting a party she chose to keep the majority of the snacks healthy and Paleo friendly.  As soon as I walked in she was super excited to show me the food options, and I was super excited to see some of my favorite things on the table. In fact, she loves me so much that she bought shrimp cocktail.  Laura HATES shrimp.  The fact that she opened up the package knowing full well that shrimp juices could get on her hands was a huge labor of love.  I was enormously grateful and ate about 10 shrimp to show my appreciation. She did have brownies which I actually had no desire to eat and a spinach artichoke dip that looked awesome with all it's melted cheese on top, but I didn't want that either. What I wanted was the irresistible fluff fruit dip that was set amongst strawberries, pineapple, and melon.  I know how good the fruit dip is because Laura makes it all the time, so I couldn't even pretend it was gross.  So I caved and dipped two strawberries very sparingly into the delectable dip.  It tasted better then I ever remember it tasting, so I told Bonnie it was time to step away from the food table and go to the couch.  I had a great time at the party catching up with Bonnie and seeing Laura when she wasn't busy being the hostesses with the mostest.  I also got a super cute bag to lug all of our crap to t-ball games this summer. Peyton is extremely high maintenance  and requires a lot of stuff to keep her busy for the hour long baseball game.  So this bag will hold all her snacks, coloring books, leappad and various other trinkets that she brings along. I can't wait to get it, and the bonus is that I get to see Laura and Bonnie again soon so Laura can deliver it to me!

 Laura's Spread

The AMAZING fruit and Fluff dip

 

So Friday proved that even when entertaining or when being entertained, I can stick to my Paleo way of eating.  I was really good all day.

Breakfast: Coffee and a banana

Lunch: Four honey turkey, avocado, pickle and brown mustard roll ups with apples and pears on the side.  I also had two of the carrot cake balls that tasted amazing especially since they were cold and firm from being in the fridge. 

Dinner:  I chose not to eat before going to Laura's since I knew she was going to provide snacks. I ate a ton of carrots and celery dipped in guacamole. I also had a few pieces of summer sausage. As stated above, I ate easily 10 shrimp with a little bit of cocktail sauce and then I ate a lot of fruit. The pineapple and honey dew were so ripe and sweet that the fruit was much more appealing to me then the brownies!

Snacks:  A package of fruit snacks and a few chocolate chips