*This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are my own*

As a mother, I need shoes that are sturdy, functional and stylish all at the time. A few years ago, while pregnant with my first son, I discovered this awesome Sketchers sneakers that were just that. Plus they were perfect for my swelling feet and ankles at the end of my pregnancy. Since then, I have bought the exact same pair every year...until this year. 


I recently discovered that my favorite shoe received a revamp and is now known as the Sketcher GoStep Lite - Endure. 

Image courtesy of Walk.Run.Repeat.

 These shoes are super light, and so comfortable. I love the little details that make shoes functional. For example, they have a new "quick fit" feature that is a hole for you to loop your finger through and pull your shoes on quickly. MINDBLOWING!!

Image courtesy of Walk.Run.Repeat.

 They also have laces that don't ever have to be tied. How is this, you ask? They're actually elastic so they stretch and snap back into place once the shoe is on.

Image courtesy of Walk.Run.Repeat.

 And finally, they are black so they pretty much go with anything. I wear these to the store, around the house, while running errands; even while out on the town. These are literally my go-to sneakers these days. I bought my pair at Academy Sports down in Newnan and I haven't looked back since!

Image courtesy of Walk.Run.Repeat.

Today's #womencrushwednesday is none other than my friend and personal trainer, Moniek Richardson of Fit While Brown. This amazing woman is a social worker by day and a personal trainer by night. She is helping women (and men!) get fit - physically and mentally. Through her personal training and food prep services, she offers custom-designed workouts for any fitness levels. Her meal prep service rolled out a few months ago and is doing well. Her meals are a perfect balance of healthy and full of flavor. And don't worry if you have any food allergies or diet restrictions; all of that is taken into consideration with your meals. In addition to all of this, she also conducts counseling sessions with clients to get to the root of their weight and health challenges.

Image courtesy of Fit While Brown

I've know Moniek a long time and I'm here to tell you that her method works. She is locally-based in Atlanta (visit her website for her fitness studio and details) but also offers virtual personal trainings via Skype, nation-wide. That's right - no excuses will work with this one. If you're looking for a personal trainer, she is the way to go. You won't go wrong with Fit While Brown!

Image courtesy of Fit While Brown

Follow her on social media on FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat (username: FitWhileBrown).

Here's this weekend #turnuptuesday work. I love an at-home workout that doesn't require equipment and this is just it!

Image Source

Hello and Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a fantastic and fun weekend. I know I did so let's get to it!




Friday
I feel like Friday was a blur but I do know that it was a highly productive day for me. Between meetings, calls, and house stuff, I got a lot done by the end of the day. My early morning client conference call went over well. We were able to get a lot of things lined up for his upcoming workshop. I got some regular work done and lots of housekeeping tackled (its almost monthly report time so it was necessary. And finally, I had a potential client call at the end of the day that went really well. The day before I managed to make two trips the courthouse during lunch so that I could take my oath to be sworn in as a Notary Public (woo-hoo!).


Saturday
What a whirlwind day. I was up early because I had tons of errands to run and I ended up being away from home ALL DAY. The little guy and I took a trip to Lowes with my dad so that I could fix my tree trimmer. Once we returned, I got to work trimming branches off my tree. They were hanging over the house and clogging the gutters it was necessary. Hubby was gone to an all day meeting and I could not take waiting any longer.


Once done the boys and I headed over to my parents house for what was supposed to be an hour but turned into the rest of the day. They had a ball playing out in the wagon. The weather is absolutely beautiful and there was no way I was going to keep them indoors.


Later that day, we went home for about two hours so the little guy could nap and I could get some more work done. Once he woke up, Hubby came home in between meetings for us to run some family errands. The rest of the evening was spent gathering items and grocery shopping with my parents to prep for Easter.


Sunday (Easter)
Ok, Easter was a trip this year. The plan was for a small family dinner, which we do every year, but it morphed into this huge dinner party about 3 hours before dinner. It was bananas. I woke up at 6:00am to put my ham on (I like to cook it low and slow) which was the same time the little guy woke up for a diaper change and milk. I woke back up about 8:30 and headed over to my parents house to help with cooking. My mom and I got to work. I'll spare you the details but here's what was on the menu:

• Collard greens
• Macaroni and cheese
• Cornbread
• Green beans
• Potato salad
• Angel Eggs (we don't call them Deviled eggs)
• Fried, BBQ and Baked chicken (I know)
• Ham
• Rice
• Gravy
• Apple pie
• Pound cake

We threw down. The food was so good! We had a house full of folks and had a blast. A handful of my cousins came and it was a lot of fun. I love family celebrations. The next celebration is next month when we head to Columbus for my little brothers college graduation (!).


The Easter Bunny was good to the boys this year. They got tons of little treats including new bibles courtesy of their Godmother, bubbles, candy, and other stuff. I was exhausted at the end of the day but it was totally worth it.


How was your weekend?

That moment when you realize you scheduled your family vacation during a regular school week and not Fall break so that your kid doesn't miss a week of school...

Image source

So, now I'm left with two options: 1) move the vacation to September during Fall break but reduce the number of parks we visit, or 2) leave every thing as-is. Sigh, decisions decisions

Today's #turnuptuesday is going to focus on form. That's right, that little thing we all screw up at some point with our workouts. I hate planks. There. I said it. But they are a necessary evil so I've made a concerted effort to really do mine with proper form. This image is a great reminder and visual representation of what you should (and shouldn't) do when it comes to planks. 

Image Source

It's #womencrushwednesday! This is my day of the week where I celebrate and highlight amazing women doing amazing things not only in fitness but in the world. Today's #wcw is Serena Williams. 



Image source

I am naturally an early riser, starting my day around 5:00am during the week and sometimes 6:30 or 7 on the weekend. Just because I'm an early riser doesn't mean I like it. In fact, it takes me a good 2 hours to fully wake up. Sure, I can go about my tasks in a semi-daze and refuse to turn on any lights for about 30 minutes but its just who I am. If I could sleep until 10 and be just as productive and not to deal with kids crawling all over me because their hungry-hurt-happy-bored, I would.


So, if you ever see me out and about, or at the gym and its before 9:00am - its probably best that you don't even bother speaking to me. Trust me when I say I don't find it rude at all; you would be doing yourself a favor LOL

While I'm on the topic of travel plans, here are a few of the places we will be traveling to this year:

• Mississippi - my husband's family reunion is this year so we will be traveling to his home state for the reunion. Should be fun with lots to celebrate - my father in law is now cancer free!

Image courtesy of Google Images

• Hilton Head, South Carolina - What better way to wrap up summer than an end-of-summer getaway to the beach house. We went last year with my family and had a ball. My son asks every week if we will be returning.

Image courtesy of Google Images

• Orlando, Florida - Our big trip this year will be Disney. I am pinching every penny and saving every nickel and dime so we can "ball out" on this vacation.

Image courtesy of Google Images

• North Georgia Mountains - We haven't done a cabin trip before and I want to add this to the lineup. The entire family is considering this for later this year so more to come!

Image courtesy of Google Images

Honorable mentions:

• Memphis, TN - I have been dying to visit Graceland and I'm hoping I can convince my husband that we need to take a trip up there this summer.
• Savannah, GA -  Sometimes we just need a quick getaway and Savannah is the perfect 4 hour trip for us.

I love love love to travel. My 8 year old is a travel pro now, but the two year is still getting his feet wet (last year he went to the beach for the first time and hated it LOL). Either way, I love making this types of memories for my family.

It's time for a #turnuptuesday workout. You guys know I'm all about home workout because we working mothers are very limited on time and equipment - keeping real. I found this gem on Pinterest (because I'm a Pinterest fanatic) and thought this was the perfect workout routine. I am FAR from a morning person so this one gets the blood flowing just right. 

As always, you can make modifications to a workout how ever you need to. To go gentle on my knees, I replaced the jumping jacks with slow high knees. This is great morning workout you can do while waiting for your coffee to brew or watching the weather report before starting your day. 

Growing up, my mom was adamant about family vacations every year. Every summer, I could expect to visit some new location with my family. Those were some of the best times of my life and we have nothing but awesome memories. Now that I'm a parent, I've taken a page from my mom's book and plan annual vacations for us. Last September was our first vacation in about 3 years (!!) since our wedding pretty much took over all of our finances, then not to mention we had another baby. We did manage to take a babymoon in there but it was also our honeymoon so it was a two-fer. Anyway, this year we are back on the vacation planning. This October, we are heading off to....

Image courtesy of Google Images

That's right! The family and I are heading to sunny Florida in October for 4 days of fun. A little known fact about me: I've lived in Florida twice. One in Jacksonville and the other in Orange Park. Anyway, I've started vacation planning and have a little nifty spreadsheet I'm trying everything on. I think we are going to go with a packaged vacation special I've seen on commercials lately so that we can get the most bang for our buck. Since our youngest one is only two, he's free so HUGE savings there. My two brothers are expected to accompany us but right now, I have some planning to do!

Hey there! What a crazy busy weekend I had. I think I'm still recovering from it to tell you truth. Anyone else feel like they need a vacation after a vacation? Here we go:

Friday
The little one and I have been fighting cold and sinus issues all week and Friday was the first day actually felt pretty decent. I finished working a little early on Friday so that I could spend time with the boys. We ran some errands and picked up a few things to prepare for a birthday party on Saturday. We also had family movie night and we watched "Major Payne". I forgot how funny that movie was. My 8 year old had never seen it before and cracked up the entire time.  

Image courtesy Google Images

Saturday
Whew. Saturday was a whirlwind. It started with me getting up early to prepare for a birthday party for my son's best friend. His mama rented a party van and we were going to be in there with a bunch of 8-almost-9 years old for the entire day. Including my two year old. Lord help me. At the end of the day, the boys had a great time. Lunch at Olive Garden, a little laser tag and bumper cars, the Sonic Drive-thru in a party van, games and cupcakes and then home. By the time I made it home with the boys, I was ready to climb under the bed and pass out. Of course I couldn't go to sleep because my husband wanted to watch Planet Earth 2 so we watched about 3 episodes before calling it night. 






Sunday
As the last day of Spring Break, my husband treated us to the movies. Have you seen Boss Baby? OMG this movie was hilarious. Take your kids to see it and prepare to laugh. They did an awesome job with it. 

Image courtesy of Dreamworks

The rest of Sunday was spent relaxing and preparing for the week. I did some budget review and planning for our family vacation later this year. Besides that it was business as usual and everyone was in bed by 9:30pm. Not bad in my book!

It's #womencrushwednesday! This is my day of the week where I celebrate and highlight amazing women doing amazing things not only in fitness but in the world. Today's #wcw is Massy Arias. 




I remember Massy when she was MankoFit on Instagram. She was a woman living the life in New York and starting to get into fitness. She started with yoga and eventually explored other areas of fitness and is now personal trainer and fitness consultant in sunny LA. She's also a wife, a mother, and friend who understands the delicate balance it takes to be a working woman of today. 

She has such a genuineness to her that is rare today and is all about empowering women. I truly admire this woman and her candidness about herself and life. Be sure to follow and like her on social media:

Instagram: @massy.arias
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/manko.fit
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mankofit

Copyright 2017 Walk.Run.Repeat.