Tag Archives: nuttzo

Our Toddler’s First Green Smoothie

05/09/2015 R.C. Liley 9 Comments

I’ve been blending fruits and veggies into a pre-dinner green smoothie for my wife and I for years. But, besides Going Mom giving Avery a tiny sip from her glass, I never made one exclusively for her. Well, that just changed.

Thursday morning had her swarming around me doing the sign for milk but fussing and running away from me when I pulled out a bottle. Toddler confusion!! It only gets worse, huh?

We had bananas, and I know she loves eating them sliced and topped with NuttZo……

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…but I wanted to get her hydration needs fulfilled plus add a little extra nutrition. What better way to do that than a green smoothie?

Diligently working my way around the toddler obstruction in the kitchen, I gathered organic kale, carrots, green banana (these are great for gut health from their resistant starch), NuttZo, unsweetened almond milk, and a couple packets of stevia for sweetness.

A few minutes later, and we had ourselves Avery’s first green smoothie! What took a few minutes, felt like forever with Ms. Impatient, and she was grabbing at her sippy cup before I could hand it over.

That’s a good sign, right? I love that she’s up for drinking whatever, even if it is dark green! To avoid spillage, I made the hand-off for her little hands to better grasp and she got right to it.

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Yeah, so we need to work on how to use straws, but the main point is that she was downing her first green smoothie! I had some too, and you could definitely taste the kale, but it was anything bad, I was quite pleased with the outcome. I’m thinking she was too.

Success! Another Avery first and another meal option opened up! I ended up replacing the straw lid with her regular sippy cup lid to avoid a mess, but a mess happened regardless. She’s use to walking around the house with water in the cup and we don’t think much of it when a little spills out….different story now.

I decided green smoothies may not appear in her sippy in the immediate future, but it’s great to know she’ll drink them. There was one problem though….I made a giant batch of the smoothie and had a lot left over. Even after drinking a glass myself, there was plenty more, and the thing about fresh food is, it doesn’t last that long.

So I did what anyone would do, I turned the green smoothie into green bread. I measured not a single ingredient, but with coconut flour, stevia, peanut flour, and baking powder, I created something similar to my Green Coconut Carrot Bread. In my microwave omelete cooker, of course.

Now we have a few batches of green smoothie bread which turned out a lot better than I thought. It’s sliced and ready for eager little fingers to snack on next time she’s demanding something…….which is always!

Unless she has a Catch-Me-Kitty to keep her occupied, that is.

It’s the day before running the longest I’ve ran in a very long time, 13.1 miles. Kelley is running the 5k and G-Ma will be with Avery watching and cheering us on. We have rain in the forecast, so I’m interested to see how that will turn out.

I’m planning on running in my Soft Star Dash RunAmoc Shoes, but mine are the ones with bullhide leather soles which equals zero traction on wet surfaces. Only time will tell, I’ll be sure to update you early next week.

Until then, I have two lovely women, one my mom, the other my wife, to celebrate Mother’s Day with after the race. We went to an awesome coffee shop called Brewed almost a year ago and will go back to treat the deserving ladies. Hope Avery doesn’t make us regret waking her up so early just so we could run!

Do you have green smoothies on a regular basis? If so, do your kids have them too?

Do you have a favorite recipe or just throw things in and blend like I do?

Life

Zombie Therapy at the Gun Range

04/28/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

After cleaning everything up from our NuttZo tasting party, Going Mom and I were going to leave Avery with G-Ma so we could go to a nearby gun range. Unfortunately, my wife wasn’t feeling well and needed to rest instead.

I almost decided not to go after tearing our house apart for the boxes of ammo I know we have, but figured I could use a little shooting therapy. Besides, I could buy ammo at the store on the range anyway. It’s expensive, but if I ever find my other ammo, we’ll be well stocked for the pending zombie apocalypse!

We’ve watched enough of The Walking Dead, to know that it’s better to be safe than sorry, so I’m thinking it’s time to get my concealed carry permit. The best place to get your permit to be ready for the zombies is at https://gunlawsuits.org/gun-laws/maryland/concealed-carry/. And hey, the gun range was even selling zombie targets, so why not get a little practice in? I think the zombie kind of looks like Obama, but not sure. What do you think?

With me, I brought a .243 rifle, semi-auto .45 Colt ACP, long barrel .45 Smith & Wesson revolver, and a little semi-auto Colt .22. Of course I had to share my “therapy session” on social media because…blogging.

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Of the three handguns I brought, the revolver is my favorite. It’s accurate, less chance of a malfunction, and just looks damn good.

I’ve been around guns and hunting my entire life, so don’t think I’m just some crazy guy who has guns for no good reason. Hunting hasn’t happened in years, but I am wanting to make a trip to go deer hunting and provide my family with wild meat for us to eat. Hey, I rhymed!

The range I went to was outdoors and had an area for handguns as well as for rifles. I had to make many trips back and forth to my car, but made use of both areas since I had both guns. First, I went through rounds with each of my handguns.

That smaller target with a body profile and two red circles was mine. I only used the .45’s for practice since, lets be honest, there’s no way in hell I’d depend on a .22 to defend my sweet wife and daughter should the need arise. It was only 25 yards, but I feel pretty good about my aim with both the revolver and semi-auto.

Zombies (and real life threats), beware, I apparently take no prisoners! Feeling good with the handguns, I moved on to the .243. I just got this gun back from my ex-step-dad (long story) thanks to my mom and little brother, so it’s been a while since I used it.

This rifle has killed several deer back in my hunting days, so I was hoping the scope was still sighted in correctly. Well, you can hope in one hand and crap in the other and you usually only end up with a lot of crap. Luckily, I refrained from the latter since the scope was not totally up to par.

While two of the shots might of maimed a zombie, they do not instill enough confidence in me. Plus, I was aiming at the forehead, so I have some scope adjusting to do.

The gun range is a great places to “blow off” some steam as long as you are well aware on how to handle a gun. I hope to bring my wife back out there sometime just to get her more comfortable around firearms and be able to use them if she ever needs to. Hopefully never though!

With the price of admission and for ammo, going to the range is probably on par with a therapy session anyway, but I’d much rather shoot things than sit on a chair and talk. I came home with my targets to show my mom (G-Ma), Kelley, and Avery. They just said the zombie looked like Obama; go figure.

Do you or have you used guns before?

Have you ever hunted?

How do you feel about owning firearms?

NuttZo, Parenting, Promo

Our ‘Going’ NuttZo Tasting Party!

04/27/2015 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

You taste a lot of deliciously healthy varieties of NuttZo, obviously! This weekend, the Going Family hosted a NuttZo tasting party for our neighborhood to delight the taste buds of both kids and adults.

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My party hosting skills could use some work, but I was pretty pleased with my layout. One lucky neighbor was going to be randomly drawn to win their own jar of the Smooth Original NuttZo and I was creative enough to use an empty NuttZo jar for the drawing. Going Mom made fun of me for putting a red bow on the prize jar, but I thought it was a nice touch. What do you think?

People starting showing up and although I was excited to share the edible happiness of NuttZo, I was still a little nervous. Big thanks to my wife for helping to keep the mood light.

For days, I was driving myself crazy trying to think of elaborate recipes to create for the party, but thankfully my wife kept me in check and told me to keep it simple. Duh. It is a tasting party for a product, not a cook-off, so simple it was! But that didn’t stop me from taking things seriously, just look at that intense face of concentration!

Each attendee received a colorful bowl in which I scooped several varieties of NuttZo one at time for them to try. I offered an organic honey almond granola for as a topping for that extra crunch.

There were three NuttZo flavors for tasting; the Smooth Original, Crunchy Power Fuel (my favorite), and Crunchy 70% Dark Chocolate. G-Ma was excited to try them all with Avery!

As if it was even a question, yes, there were seconds…..and thirds.

Avery, our little NuttZo pro, probably had the most out of everyone combined! She can’t say no to NuttZo!

As you can see, Going Mom enjoyed her samples too. Oh man, she’s “Going” to kill me when she sees I posted this pic!

Overall, I’d say NuttZo was well received by our neighbors. Although, one little girl, Zoey, seemed hesitant about the 7 organic nut and seed butter spread, but her dad said she’s not a big fan of peanut butter in general.

She’s a sweet girl, so I didn’t pressure her too much. Plus, I applaud her efforts at trying to hide her feelings with a cute smirk and referring to me as “Mr. R.C.”.

The brand new jars were all severely depleted, as they should be, after the tasting party neared an end.

We only had one thing left to do, pick a winner for the NuttZo jar giveaway! Drum rollllll….

Congrats to Jason, and his two little girls, Natalie (pictured) and Zoey! His wife, Jennifer, had to work, but I know the entire family is excited. I handed out coupons to everyone and Jason said he was excited to pick up another jar to have a work for a healthy snack.

Skip the chips and keep a jar of NuttZo and spoon around for a healthy snack. You can eat a whole bag of chips and still feel hungry, and it’s easy to add up to 500 calories of processed food fast! But NuttZo, full of healthy omega fatty acids, protein, and deliciousness, will keep you satisfied after just 2 spoonfuls. What more do you need?

I’d like to thank everyone who attended, my wife for helping out so much with hosting and cleaning around the house, and of course, the entire NuttZo team for providing the jars for tasting as well as the giveaway. I’m honored to be an ambassador for such a great company, and love that they are big supporters of Project Left Behind which helps small orphanages around the world.

On behalf of our Going Family (rocking our personal NuttZo shirts), we appreciate everyone for their support and for sharing the #NuttZoLove! Now go try some NuttZo and #LLYMI! That’s “Live Like You Mean It” in case you didn’t know. 😉

P.S.: If you’re questioning the higher price of NuttZo, here’s a good article that might help you feel better about skipping 2 trips to Starbucks and grab a jar of NuttZo instead.