Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Tuesday.

I love the mornings. Especially when I get to wake up before the kids and have a few minutes to wake up and drink my coffee in the quiet.

And as soon as I typed the last sentence a kiddo walked out and joined me on the couch to snuggle.

Sunday, December 09, 2012

Christmas tree veggie tray

I've seen these made with broccoli but raw broccoli is not my favorite and it doesn't agree with me so I made my own version. I peeled 2 cucumbers and sliced them up and then laid them out in a tree pattern. Then I decorated with cherry tomatoes, carrots, and bell peppers. It took me maybe 15 minutes to make the whole thing. I served it with guacamole and some ranch. Nom Nom. What's your favorite healthy holiday dish?

Saturday, December 08, 2012

The coolest kid. Ever.

I seriously have two amazing children. They're kind and intelligent and hilarious and I just love them more than anything. Today Amelia got to be an extra in a movie for a friend of a friend. They needed kids and Amelia volunteered. So this morning Mia and I ran errands, picked out gifts for friends and did some cleaning. Then we drove to Long Beach for this movie. She had so much fun. After they wrapped, it was late and we were hungry so we stopped at Denny's for dinner. We talked, and laughed and Mia said it was "the best day ever". Then we got on the freeway and drove back home while we rocked out to Taylor Swift, Adele and P!nk. And while we were driving on the 22, singing (yelling) "we are never, ever, ever getting back together..." I started to think for a moment that I'm truly blessed. Did I have fun being at the movie shoot? Eh, not really. It wasn't my thing. Did I totally enjoy seeing my daughter having an amazing time? Heck yeah I did. I'm so thankful that someday my kid can look back and say she got to be an extra in a movie.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Yeah, he's a mamas boy...

Anthony came and got in my bed tonight. He brought his blankie, a comforter and two pillows with him and now there's not room for me in my bed. If there were any blankets left in his bed I'd go there...

And then as he's snuggling me I say good night my sweet boy. And he replies, "Good night my sweet mama."

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Aww

Anthony told me, "I love you mama. I'm gonna marry you someday." He's such a sweet boy.

Do you ever just want to scream?

It started off as one of those days. Ya know what I mean? From the time I woke up things were going full speed and not in the direction I wanted. The kids had made themselves cereal, and a big mess for me. I got the dishwasher going, and laundry started, and then the power went out. Vacuuming wasn't going to happen, and neither was my shower. I was irritated. And then for whatever reason, I decided to stop stressing.

That little voice in the back of my head reminded me to enjoy this day with my kids. I don't have many days home where we don't have plans. So, it's noon. We're in our pj's. The power came back on and the laundry finished and the dishwasher ran. I scrubbed one bathroom. The other is still dirty and my couch is covered in clean laundry and ya know what? That's okay. I can vacuum tomorrow. The clean laundry can sit one more afternoon. I'm going to go make a craft with my kids. And we'll probably make a mess. And that's okay too.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Late!

So technically I missed a day because its 2AM and I'm just now posting. But I'm saying it doesn't count because I haven't slept yet. Breaking dawn 2 tonight. It was great! I had so much fun! Next up I wanna see Les Mis.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies

So yummy! I got this recipe from allrecipes.com I messed with it of course, and it turned out pretty well. Here's my version of pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies.

Ingredients


2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 (15 ounce) can LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

*1 12 ounce package ( or 2 packages see note below) NESTLE® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels *

1 cup chopped walnuts

Vanilla Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1tsp cinnamon


recipe yields 36 cookies

Note about chocolate chips. The original recipe called for 2 bags of chocolate chips. I made it that way a few times and it was just so chocolatey that it overwhelmed the pumpkin flavor. So I halved it and my family likes it much better. If you really love a lot of chocolate try it with two bags. Let me know which way you like it best!
Directions

PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
COMBINE flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Beat butter and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in pumpkin, eggs and vanilla extract. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets.
BAKE for 15 to 20 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. (18 minutes is perfect in my oven) Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely. Drizzle or spread with Vanilla Glaze.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Sing it!

Ant is walking through the house singing at the top of his lungs, " 'pidaman, pidaman, does whatevah a pidah can..." He loves his Spider-Man....

Monday, November 12, 2012

A day off..

No school for the kids and no work for J today, so I got some cooking done (super yummy make ahead burritos, they I'll post about later this week) and j and the kids worked in the yard. The peach tree is no longer taking over the patio. Yay.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Wait, whose jeans are those?

I want to post a picture because its hilarious. I went to Zumba and J dressed the kids. I came home and Anthony was rocking his sisters skinny jeans. They're 3 years apart but almost the same height and wait. Apparently Mia's pants ended up in ants room and so that's what j dressed him in. I want to post the picture but someday it would probably embarrass him so I won't. It was pretty funny though. :-)

Oops.

I missed a day. I was laying in bed, almost asleep last night, and it popped into my head that I hadn't blogged yet. Next thing I knew it was morning. Oh well! :-)

Friday, November 09, 2012

Aww

Mia had a rough day today and now she doesn't feel good. So she's snuggling her daddy. :-)

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Boys!

Did I ever post about our latest trip to the hospital with Ant? He was running around at the school and tripped, caused his sister to trip, and they tumbled over each other and he landed on the back of his head on the concrete. I heard his head smack and saw it bounce and knew the wailing was imminent. He screamed bloody murder. I took him into the office to get an ice pack. Then we realized it was bleeding and the lump was huge. Like it completely freaked me out how large this mass on the back of his head was in 2 minutes. One of the ladies in the office felt it ( I thought she'd reassure me that he was fine) and she said take him to the hospital. Go. Now. So we went to the ER. They were sweet and we were seen in a relatively short time. They took 4 X-rays of his skull, (possible skull fracture is not something you want to hear in regards to your child). Luckily the X-rays look good, they just decided it was closed head injury and maybe a mild concussion.

The doctor gave us things to watch for to make sure he didn't have a brain injury and his final words of advice were for the boy to avoid bouncing his head on the concrete for at least a week. I'm pretty sure this boy is gonna make me go prematurely grey.

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

People are crazy!

I'm glad the election is over. All day on Facebook and twitter and in tv ads, I've been listening to so much hate. I get that you're happy your candidate won. And I understand that you are upset that your pick lost. But let's act like adults. Calling names, posting derogatory things in all caps every few minutes isn't helping. It's part of the problem. We're all so divided. And really the president isn't the only one with power. We have tons of elected officials and local and national levels you can't place all the blame or all the praise on one person. If you're unhappy do something about it. Volunteer your time to the things that are important to you. Let your representatives know what's important to you and work to get them to support those causes. Give your money and time to those causes. But enough of the hate and meanness.

I had to mute a few people on Facebook tonight. Name calling isn't cool. Hopefully I can remember to unmute them later, it's mostly people I generally have respect for.

Monday, November 05, 2012

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Zzz

It's been a long day. I went to Zumba this morning and got my workout on. I do aqua aerobics, and the couch 2 5k running program each week and Zumba by far makes me the most sore and tired and sweaty. Yay for the calorie burn!

After Zumba I ran home, got my shower, put some laundry away and got dinner ready for the crockpot. Then I grabbed the kids and headed to a birthday party for one of ant's friends. After the party I ran home to pick up Jeff and went to stir my pasta sauce in the crockpot and apparently, I didn't plug the crockpot in. So I plugged it in, got everyone in the car and headed out to the middle of nowhere to visit my grandpa. He's in his 80's and lonely so we try and visit him when we can. At 4:30 or so I was starving and it occurred to me that with the time change my body thought it was 5:30. So we stopped at some funky fast food Chinese place and got dinner. I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out. Dinner for 4 at $16 and none of it made me sick. I've been trying to avoid eating out and anything off of my food plan. I completely avoided all the yummy food at the birthday party so I was frustrated to have to eat out. I did good, I just had 1/2 cup or so of whatever chicken and veggies dish they had that wasn't breaded and fried.

I used to spend so much time thinking about food and eating. Now it's more focusing on the healthy foods and avoiding the hypoglycemia.

Now we're headed back home and the kids will get a bath, I'll tidy up the house and do the dishes. If I'm lucky I'll have time to sit and watch a show and fold some laundry before I fall asleep. And hopefully my crockpot spaghetti sauce will be finished by bed time.

Saturday, November 03, 2012

Robots!

We went to a local library for a demonstration on robots. We took neighbor child too and the kids had a blast. The coolest part was a remote control wall-E. He talks drives around and moves like wall-e.

Friday, November 02, 2012

Nablopomo!

It's national blog post month. Are you participating? Leave me a comment and I'll visit your blog too. :-)

Thursday, November 01, 2012

Carving pumpkins!

We carved pumpkins with some friends from Anthony's school. The kids had a blast. :-)

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween.

We had so much fun tonight. The kids dressed up and went trick or treating but the most fun was handing out candy. We sat out in front of the house and the kids had candy duty. Jeff brought the iPad out and found Halloween songs on YouTube. Stuff like monster mash and purple people eater. The kids danced and chased down the trick or treaters before they got to our house. Good times. :-)

Saturday, October 27, 2012

If you see me other places online you've probably already seen this...

Then you've probably already seen these but here's my latest loss pics. I'm around 145 lbs down. Not too much further to go now.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Saturday, October 06, 2012

My new favorite, super easy, cake mix cookies

I don't really eat cookies much anymore, too much sugar makes me feel like I'm going to die, but these were amazing. After I listened to Jeff and Anthony go on about them I had to try one myself! (Amelia doesn't like chocolate so she didn't have an opinion. Weird child!) They were so yummy and they're super simple.
Preheat the oven to 350.
Mix together the following

1 box of cake mix (I used devils food)
1/2 cup of butter (softened)
2TB of oil
2 eggs
Then stir in 1 cup of chips (I used store brand semi sweet chocolate)

Drop by rounded spoonful on to a cookie sheet, and bake for 8-10 minutes. Mine were perfect at 8.5. Cool on the pan for few minutes then transfer to a wire rack. Or in my house just leave them on the cookie sheet, they'll eat most of them before the second batch is out of the oven!

I'm thinking I could make these with a strawberry cake mix with white chocolate chips or a butter cake for a sugar type of cookie. Have you tried this kind of recipe? What flavor combination would you make?



Monday, September 17, 2012

Trying something new..

I miss my blog. But I'm rarely on my laptop so I found an app for blogger. We'll see how this works. It's been so long since I posted. Everything is good here. J still works a lot. Mia is in second grade and Ant is in a prek like program. I spend a lot of time working in classrooms and shuffling kids between school and home.

My weight loss is still going well. I'm down 140 lbs. Crazy.

Ill close with some recent photos.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

What's for lunch.


Lunch meat and cheese rollups, I stick a plastic stick through them and slice into 1" pieces. Accompanying the roll ups we have strawberries and a cutie orange. She also had goldfish and a graham crackers with nutella. I think she also had a yogurt and milk that day.

Peanut butter and honey star sandwich, strawberries,cucumbers, pears and baby carrots. The little container has salad dressing to dip the veggies in.



This was Anthony's school lunch one day, he has a really early lunch so it's more of a snack and he usually eats again at home later. Flower shaped PB&J, cucumbers, strawberries and pears.



Goldfish, a butterfly peanut butter and honey sandwich (it wouldn't fit as a whole butterfly so it's folded in half. My lunches are definitely not super elaborate. I don't have time.) a cutie orange and some cucumbers. The yellow container had a few m&m's in it.

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

A day at the beach...




Last weekend we went to HB to watch a play my friend's daughter was in. She was great. We weren't allowed to have camera's in the show though so I have no photos. It was so nice to see everyone though. I miss my friends over that way. Our kids have all gotten older and we just don't see them that often anymore. So after the show we had a late lunch at Jeff's favorite restaurant at the beach. We love Woody's. Although it's gotten a lot harder for me to eat there. When I was pregnant with Amelia I would eat chili fries and a chocolate shake for lunch. Gee I wonder why I gained so much weight? lol. It's always fun to take cell phone pictures in the booths...



After lunch at Woody's we headed to the real beach. I love the pier in HB. It was nice and cool out. Not a ton of people on the beach (the pier and downtown HB were packed though) I didn't get a lot of great pictures because it was sunset so the light was weird. And J was obsessed with getting a picture of the kids and I in front of the curfew sign. I think he took seven of them.









It was such a nice day. I love the beach. And I love it even more when it's peaceful. We looked for shells, wandered around, got sand all over and just had a nice time as a family. I need to remember to spend more time at the beach in the winter.

Monday, February 06, 2012

Menu Plan Monday

Here's what we're eating this week, what are you having? Some of the recipes can be found below.

Monday: BBQ chicken sandwiches, on wheat sandwich thins, with sweet potato fries, cucumbers
Tuesday: Salmon, brown rice, broccoli,
Wednesday: Cowboy Stew (new recipe, we'll see how it goes) Salad
Thursday: Creamy Red Potatoes and Chicken (another new recipe,)
Friday: Leftovers/Eat out
Saturday: Broccoli chicken casserole
Sunday: Enchiladas


I have this huge list of slow cooker recipes that a friend sent me years ago, it's got hundreds of recipes. However, there's no mention of where they came from originally. Both of these recipes come from this list. If you know where it came from or if this is your recipe, tell me and I'll give credit. :-)

Creamy Red Potatoes and Chicken
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 8 hrs
Ingredients
1 1/2 Pounds Red Potatoes -- chunked
8 Ounces low fat cream Cheese
10 3/4 Ounces can Cream of Potato Soup
1 Envelope Ranch-style Dressing Mix
12 Ounces Chicken Breast Without Skin -- cut into strips
Notes / Directions
Place potatoes in slow cooker. Beat together the cream cheese, soup and salad dressing mix.
Stir in chicken strips and spread over potatoes (or just stir all together). Cover and cook on Low 8
hours, or until potatoes are tender. Stir once after 5-6 hours. Stir before serving.

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 381 Calories; 15g Fat (35.5% calories from fat); 25g
Protein; 36g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 84mg Cholesterol; 626mg Sodium.

Makes: 6 servings
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 8 hrs
Ingredients
1 1/4 lbs beef stew meat
4 potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 4" pcs.
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 (28 oz.) can Baked beans in BBQ Sauce
Notes / Directions
Mix beef, potatoes, onion, salt and pepper in 3 1/2 qt. to 4 qt. slow cooker. Spread beans over beef
mixture. Cover and cook on LOW 8-10 hrs. or until beef is tender.

Per serving: cal 370, fat 12g, sat fat 5g, chol 65mg, sod 1030mg, carb 46g, fiber 8g, prot 28g
Points: 7

Did you post your menus this week? Need more menu inspiration? Go visit Laura at orgjunkie.com for more great menu plans. And leave me a comment if you planned your menu this week and I'll stop by and visit you too.

Friday, February 03, 2012

The ice cream cone cupcakes



Amelia wanted ice cream one cupcakes for her birthday. I remember having them one year when I was a kid, so I went on a mission to find a recipe. Here's what I ended up with.



I made two batches way ahead of time because I wanted to make sure it was going to work how I wanted it to. Make up a batch of cake batter, just like you would for cupcakes. I used boxed cake mixes. I tend to splurge on the icing, not the cake for my kid's parties. For the party I made two dozen chocolate and two dozen white with sprinkles.

Use a cupcake pan and put the ice cream cones in the pan. Fill 2/3 or so full with batter. It's okay if you have batter left over, you don't want to fill them too full. if they get overfilled, the cupcake will cook over the top and make the cone all icky.



Bake them according to your cake recipe directions for cupcakes. I cooked 24 at a time, with the cones in two pans on one rack in the oven. Because they're taller than cupcakes, that seemed to be the best way.



After they cool they just need to be frosted and decorated. I used the same buttercream recipe I always use for my kids cake. Half got dyed pink and half I left white. I had a hard time storing the finished ice cream cone cupcakes. My cupcake holders weren't tall enough. So I had 2 dozen in a cupcake holder with foil over the top, and toothpicks holding the foil off the icing. The other batch ended up in a big cake holder, and they kept falling over. I'll have to figure out a better way to store them next time.