On Wednesdays we wear…what?!

September 27, 2013 by writeitdownjess

I have to admit, when we implemented “On Wednesdays We Wear Yellow” in support of Alex’s Lemonade Stand Fund’s Million Mile Run, I went to my closet, looked around, and gulped.

Problem numero only: I don’t own yellow clothing. That is to say I own none. Nada. Zilch.

How is this possible? I’m the girl who can talk myself into a new pair of jeans when I have over 40 pairs waiting for me at home (seriously. I counted). I’m the girl who, when it’s been more than a few weeks since I’ve gone to the mall, starts to feel disoriented and a little lost. Westfield is my North Star, my point of orientation. My walk-in closet is packed – packed, people – with clothing and handbags and shoes. Oh, my! Or as Mister Jess would say, oh, brother.

So how is it that I’ve ignored an entire color on the spectrum? Whether purposeful or accidental – the jury is still out on whether yellow actually looks good on me – I am yellow-less. They do not call me mellow yellow.

And though we’ve seen so many of our amazing Scoot readers wear yellow on Wednesdays in support of ALSF, I’ve been feeling kind of like a dud for not contributing. Clothes are my bread and (yellow) butter. How do I remedy this? I asked myself. If I’m not going to wear yellow, what can I do?

The answer was simple, my friends: I can shop. Oh, how I can shop.

So I did just that. I took to the internet and I shopped. More specifically, I window-shopped on Polyvore, an addictive website where you can create “looks” via mood boards, and whipped up four different boards for four of my favorite types of exercise.

Ready? Here we go!

Yoga

Get your om on with a sunny top and yoga mat. Bonus: these adorable TOMs say “Inspire.”

Running

It’s all about the details with this one: yellow laces, yellow headband, neon yellow shirt, and sunshine on your shoulder!

Dance

If you’re inclined to dance in a structured forum instead of in front of the mirror at home, these sweet splashes of color will get you noticed in class.

Training at the Gym

Love fitness, love Glamour (the yellow headline totally counts)!

So, okay, maybe I don’t wear yellow. Maybe it makes me look a little sallow and washed out. I can’t help it that jewel tones are my thing! But now that I’ve created these fun, yellow-inspired looks, I can rest easy that in some way, I have worn yellow.

I’ll go ahead and leave the actual yellow-wearing to the rest of you gorgeous people.

Do you look good in yellow? Tell me about your favorite item of yellow clothing. Or, even better, show us on Instagram @scootadoot!

A few of our favorite things…

September 25, 2013 by Meridith

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.

Just as Rodgers and Hammerstein shared a few of Maria’s favorite things in The Sound of Music (personally, I don’t get all that jazzed about brown paper packages tied up with strings but, hey, whatever floats your boat…), we asked our Team Scoot a Doot members if they’d like to share their favorite running things with you. While there’s no singing and dancing, they are still quite amazing!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLfSF-1NLJQ&w=640&h=480]

Megan’s blog. T witter. Instagram.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC6-hGEFwB0&w=640&h=480]

Lisa’s blog. Twitter. Instagram.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O6Q1h0VIdc&w=640&h=480]

Heather’s blog. Twitter. Instagram.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADuCnhCt3G4&w=640&h=480]

Jan’s blog. Twitter. Instagram.

Just a few of our many awesome team members! Thanks for the vids, ladies. You rock!

From the get-go we’ve said that we are looking to collect miles and funds. Some of our team focused on one or the other but a couple of our members did both and we’re super grateful for it!

We’re currently at 37 team members.

1,317.90 miles.

1,090 dollars raised for Childhood Cancer Research.

It’s absolutely incredible what we’ve done so far this month and we could not have done it without each and every single person on our team. You’ve all put your hearts into this and we know that within the final six days of September, those numbers will be going up even more!

As a thank you to our team’s top fundraiser, we’ve put together a little prize package giveaway of a few of OUR favorite things. We’ve given hints via Instagram of some of the prizes but here’s a better peek to check out the goods.

Many thanks to Sweaty Bands and Lace Locker for their contributions! There might be a couple more surprises added to this too… wait and see what we’ve got in the works.

Let’s go the distance within these next six days!

Do good, feel good!

Recipe Box: Lemon Buttermilk Loaf Cake

September 20, 2013 by bec2point0

When we first started talking about coordinating posts for the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Million Mile Run (check out the Scoot a Doot page, if you’d like) and there was mention of recipes with lemon, I knew exactly what my contribution would be. Maybe it should have been harder to choose, since I love lemon, and cook with it often, but this was a no-brainer for me.

Cake. (See. Total no-brainer). Cake is almost always the answer. And sometimes the question. (Cake? Cake. CAKE!) So, without further waxing poetic about my love of cake, let’s get cooking!

This is adapted from an old Weight Watchers recipe, from the Takeout Tonight cookbook. Long before Points Plus, so I don’t know those values. And I played with it a little. Because I’ve never met a recipe I didn’t think I could make better. I love baking, love the way it makes the house smell, and clearly, love the finished, baked product. But baking is like science. All the measuring and precision. I’m a ‘throw some in there’ kind of girl. But for the purposes of this recipe, I kept that in check. Mostly.

Lemon Buttermilk Loaf Cake

Ingredients:

1-2/3 cup all purpose flour (mod: the recipe calls for 1-1/3 cups all purpose and 1/3 cup whole wheat flour. If you do this, you’ll want to use whole wheat pastry flour. I skipped the wheat because I just had regular and I don’t like eating bricks).
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
5 TBSP butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 egg whites
1 TBSP lemon zest (basically, the zest of one good sized lemon).
1 tsp vanilla (mod: I just threw some in. It’s vanilla. I was feeling whacky.)
3/4 cup buttermilk (mod: I hate buying buttermilk for recipes because it only comes in quarts. I use a buttermilk powder that gets reconstituted, or you can make your own buttermilk).
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 TBSP fresh lemon juice (I just juice the whole lemon I just zested and use that)

Preheat oven to 350 and spray an 8×4″ loaf pan with cooking spray. I like the cooking spray with flour built in to avoid sticking. The actual recipe calls for cutting out wax paper and putting it in the loaf pan, but I’ve never bothered and I’ve always had perfect cake. Plus, I’m super lazy.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.

With an electric mixer on medium, beat the butter, granulated sugar ,egg/egg whites, lemon zest and vanilla in a large bowl until well blended.

With mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk until just combined.

Pour the mixture into the loaf pan and bake for 50-55 minutes or until done. Place pan on wire rack.

Before

And after!

Mix powdered sugar and lemon juice ( you may have to add additional juice). Spread over hot bread. Let cool for 20 minutes. Carefully remove bread from pan to a serving plate.

Let cool completely.

EAT.

Now, I forgot that the glazing gets done when the bread is hot, so I went to bed. And now it’s morning and I’m debating whether I should glaze or not. Probably no. The glaze is delicious and makes the cake more lemon-y, but I promise, it’s good without it.

If you’re thinking you can skip your trip to Starbucks for a slice of lemon cake…well, you can, but this cake isn’t the same. It’s not overly sweet and it’s not light or fluffy. This is a dense cake, but delicious, and not terribly bad for you, so all in all, it’s a winner in my book!

Hope you guys enjoy!

Million Mile Run: On Wednesdays We Wear Yellow

September 18, 2013 by scootadoot

We don’t usually do wordless Wednesday posts because we are a wordy bunch. That said, these pictures need few words…

http://welcometothenuthouse.com/

http://mandmpage.blogspot.com/

http://thisgirlashdoesstuff.blogspot.com/

http://thefinelinellc.com/

https://heatherinthemiddle.wordpress.com/

http://www.theclassycrafter.com/

http://runstretchgo.com/

http://jenniferspen.wordpress.com/

Happy Wednesday!

xo Team Scoot a Doot, Million Mile Run

Million Mile Run: On Wednesdays We Wear Yellow

September 18, 2013 by scootadoot

We don’t usually do wordless Wednesday posts because we are a wordy bunch. That said, these pictures need few words…

http://welcometothenuthouse.com/

http://mandmpage.blogspot.com/

http://thisgirlashdoesstuff.blogspot.com/

http://thefinelinellc.com/

https://heatherinthemiddle.wordpress.com/

http://www.theclassycrafter.com/

http://runstretchgo.com/

http://jenniferspen.wordpress.com/

Happy Wednesday!

xo Team Scoot a Doot, Million Mile Run

Best Lemonade Ever… No, Seriously!

September 9, 2013 by Meridith

As you probably know by now from our blog posts, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts we are participating in Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation’s Million Mile Run. ALSF raises funds and awareness for pediatric cancer research. If you’re wondering why, exactly, we need Childhood Cancer Awareness month, please check out the infographic from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia at the end of this post. I learned a lot that I didn’t know and think that you might be surprised too!

But first, my family and I have hosted two Alex’s Lemonade Stands at our home for the past two years. I thought that I’d share our lemonade recipe. You might be thinking… lemonade from a mix is easy and convenient, why don’t they do that? You would be correct. But if you’ve met me, you know that I roll with the Type A crowd; why do something easy when something hard can be done? Fortunately, this lemonade isn’t too hard and it’s also deemed as the “best lemonade ever”. No, really, it’s first the first recipe that shows up when you Google that phrase!

Of course, we can’t just make one serving of the best lemonade when we are hosting a lemonade stand. That’s crazy talk! Especially when we need to fill our ridiculously large glass carafe.

The “small” version calls for 1 3/4 cups of sugar, 1 1/2 cups of lemon juice and 8 cups of water. However, when we MEGA-SIZE it, everything jumps up. If you ever want to hold a lemonade stand of your own and make a large amount of lemonade… this is how we do it (cue Montell Jordan).

Ingredients:

7 cups of sugar
32 cups of water
6 cups of lemon juice (we use a combination of freshly squeezed and bottled. The squeezing of lemons is a favorite activity for my boys!)

Directions:

In a large pot, combine sugar and 4 cups water. Bring to boil and stir to dissolve sugar. Allow to cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until chilled.
Remove seeds from lemon juice, but leave pulp. In the carafe, stir together chilled syrup, lemon juice and remaining 28 cups water. (If you have a carafe like ours, make sure the nozzle is CLOSED before you do this. Yeah. Yeahhhhh. That’s all I’ll say about that little blunder.)
Ice and slice! We usually buy bags of ice for both the carafe and each cup of lemonade. Add slices of lemon to the carafe to make it extra delicious.

My husband and I decided to try to make an adult lemon beverage for this post. We settled on a Gin Fizz.

But, um, the finished product tasted like lemon flavored cleaner. Or ~~maybe~~ it was a “guy” drink that I just didn’t enjoy at all because he drank his. And mine. So I can’t in good conscious share the recipe. You just let me know if you want it. (You don’t.) (Or maybe you do. If you like drinking lemon flavored cleaner. Not that I have anything against lemon flavored cleaner as cleaner… just as a drink.)

And hey, if you’re looking for a delicious sounding foot scrub for after those long runs or if you just need a little pampering, check out Sara’s post at The Classy Crafter.

Now for the most important bit of this post…

Childhood Cancer Infographic

Lemon is the New Pumpkin – Alex’s Lemonade Stand Million Mile Run

August 27, 2013 by Meridith

Way back when, summer was my favorite season. The break from school, swimming, the hot weather, family vacations and bonding time… I mean, what could be better?

While I still appreciate summer, I’ve really come to appreciate all that FALL has to offer. In fact, it’s moved to the top slot in the seasons list (sorry summer).

September is next week and while it’s still technically summer, we’re winding down with summer and preparing for the start of school. My kids are excited to meet their teachers and see their friends on a more consistent basis (I know some are already back in school in some parts of the country). The air conditioning has already been off more days than it’s been on this week and I’ve been breathing in the refreshing cooler air. Of course, the cooler air is also GREAT for running as well; it’s not so stifling and I don’t HAVE to get out there at 5:30 to run.

My favorite quarter mile stretch when you can actually see it!

I haven’t even mentioned pumpkin flavored treats. Because yes, I do love all the pumpkin flavored treats.

However, pumpkin is going to have to hold off just a tad bit longer because we Chicks are still embracing the LEMON.

Yes, that’s right, when we first heard about Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation hosting its inaugural Million Mile Run we knew we had to get in on the action!

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and we want to help spread awareness about a cause which we hold near and dear to our hearts. What’s the Million Mile Run all about? Are we all going to really run a million miles in September? Check out this video!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjZruV37FfY&w=640&h=360]

Throughout the month of September we’ll be logging our miles for the Million Mile Run. If you’d like to join Team Scoot a Doot and help raise awareness for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, we would LOVE to have you. Fundraising is certainly encouraged but not mandatory; we want to spread the word and make a difference! EFF CANCER!

What else can you look forward to when you join us for the Million Mile Run?

On Wednesdays We Wear Yellow – pink might be where it’s at for Mean Girls but we’re Nice Girls here and we’re going yellow on Wednesdays. Join us and we’ll highlight pictures shared here, Instagram, Facebook, EVERYWHERE! (I don’t have much yellow in my wardrobe so this will be a particular challenge for me.)

Lemon-y Goodness – drinks, recipes, and whatever other good stuff we can find to share with you that has to do with lemon! Lemon juggling! Lemon bowling! Because lemon is the new pumpkin. We’re bringing lemon back, yeah!

Fundraiser Giveaway – while fundraising isn’t a requirement to participate, if you do and you’re the top fundraiser, we’re putting together a special little prize pack just for you.

You can register any time in the month of September but obviously the sooner you register, the sooner we can count your miles toward the goal. And bond. And make s’mores! And tell stories around the campfire.

Your miles count whether you’re walking, running, or skipping (if you’re skipping, please take a video because I want to see someone who is able to skip a mile). And since we know many of you are runners, walkers, skippers and jumpers, there’s really no better way to get involved.

So… what are you waiting for? Are you ready to get your miles on and spread the word about the Million Mile Run? Do you have yellow clothing you want to share with me on Wednesday? Join us with the #MillionMileRun and together we can make a difference!

http://www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/115748

Do Good, Feel Good: Out of this World Alex’s Lemonade Stand

June 18, 2013 by Meridith

Last week, I wrote about our first Alex’s Lemonade Stand. This past weekend we hosted our second annual event.

The goal this year was to beat last year’s total of $566.

This kiddo wants in on the action. He wants his name in lights.

Which we did.

By a lot.

Not by a couple of hundred… but by over double.

Despite it being Father’s Day.

And with the assistance of my bro-in-law, Matt, who said he’d shave his hair and beard to help raise more funds.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmEdo5eQ_7c&w=420&h=315]

No longer looking like he’s on Duck Dynasty.

We raised $1,292.35 for Alex’s Lemonade Stand!!!

Because when life gives you lemons… you make LEMONADE!

A couple of tips we followed to make our stand a success:

Send fliers home to all the students at school! There are nearly 500 kids in Pook’s elementary school. After getting the “okay” from the higher ups, we made copies and sent them out to each class. Next year Littleberry is getting in on the action and hopefully we’ll be able to expand this to his school as well.
Set up an online donation page through Alex’s Lemonade Stand. This was a key step in our success as many of the donations to our stand came from far and wide. Even if people couldn’t partake in a delicious cup of lemonade, they were able to take part in the giving.
Take advantage of the fundraising kit! Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation sends out kits a couple of weeks before the stands are being held with information, giveaways like lemon shaped silly bands (the kids loved these), papers to fill out names to show participation, bandannas, and balloons.
Post to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter throughout the event. Live updates are especially fun because it makes those people who are far (see number 2) feel like they are part of the action.
Have a really amazing person who is willing to shave off his hair! In other words… Gimmicks! Bells and whistles! Razzle dazzle!
Ask for donations – don’t have a set amount for lemonade. Whatever someone can give is the perfect amount; nothing is too big, or too small.
Instill the love of helping others within children early on and show them that hard work pays off. This weekend was exhausting, busy and incredibly gratifying.

Mix. Pour. Find a cure!

How have you given back recently?

Do Good, Feel Good: Alex’s Lemonade Stand

June 10, 2013 by Meridith

My Pooks is a sensitive kid.

This is both a good and difficult quality to possess. He cares too much; he cares with his whole heart. Sometimes it gets him in trouble (when he cares too much about what his classmates think rather than standing on his own two feet)…

And sometimes, most times, it’s absolutely glorious.

No, he will not fix your computer. Which is probably good for everyone involved.

In March of 2012, Pooks announced that he wanted to hold a lemonade stand.

Now, I don’t know about where you live, however, March in New Jersey isn’t exactly prime lemonade stand weather. It might have still been snowing at the time. When I mentioned this to him, his response was “Well, okay. When can we do it?”

I asked his motivation and naturally, he wanted to make money. I’m all about the American Dream but he is healthy, happy and wants for… not much.

Or rather, he wants a lot, gets some and we say “no” to the ridiculous.

I saw the opportunity to turn his dream of a lemonade stand into something special, something more. So, I told him about Alex’s Lemonade Stand and how he could help other children; children who are sick. We looked at the website together, we watched videos together. We read books together. And, just like that his dream got grander and it was no longer solely about himself.

It was about carrying out Alex’s dream.

It was about helping others.

We registered our very first annual Out of This World Lemonade Stand to benefit pediatric cancer research.

And we got working!

Building

And working.

Publicizing

And working.

Lemonading!

And working some more!

Best little cup carrier this side of the Mississippi.

Until finally…

After all the hard work of preparing our Alex’s Lemonade Stand, we got to work some more! Within two days through the generosity of friends and neighbors, near and far, the Out of this World Lemonade Stand raised $566 for pediatric cancer research.

Let me repeat that because that’s AMAZING. $566!

Enjoying a cup of lemonade after two hard days of work (don’t worry, he had more than a cup over the two days!).

The thing about kids, especially kids who’ve got eight years of experience behind them and many more in front of them, is they feel with their entire hearts. It’s up to us to steer them in directions where they can use those feelings, those hearts, to accomplish great things.

We’ll be hosting our second Alex’s Lemonade Stand this coming weekend. We’ve been talking about it since we packed up the stand last year and the goal is to reach (and hopefully surpass!) $600.

We can and we will! (I’ll do a follow up post next week.)

What sort of philanthropic endeavors do you take part in? What organizations speak to you; which do you hold near and dear to your heart? How do you volunteer your time and your efforts? I want to hear all about it!

Scootadoot

fitness, food, friends, fun

Tag Archives: alex’s lemonade stand

On Wednesdays we wear…what?!

A few of our favorite things…

Recipe Box: Lemon Buttermilk Loaf Cake

Million Mile Run: On Wednesdays We Wear Yellow

Million Mile Run: On Wednesdays We Wear Yellow

Best Lemonade Ever… No, Seriously!

Lemon is the New Pumpkin – Alex’s Lemonade Stand Million Mile Run

Do Good, Feel Good: Out of this World Alex’s Lemonade Stand

Do Good, Feel Good: Alex’s Lemonade Stand