Monday, February 24, 2014

Manic Monday week 8

It's Monday again which means time for "Just Another Manic Monday!"

Be sure to check out AngelaHollie, Laura's blogs to see their Just Another Manic Monday posts.
Hope you all had a great week. I had a lot of fun this week, I took KBeaner to an indoor playground and roller skating rink! She loved it! She fell down a bunch, but would get back up and try some more, she didn't cry and didn't want me to help her to get up! haha my little independent lady.

I even roller skated a bit

She had her 4 year old well check up this week as well. They were very happy with how she is doing and is growing :) She got a perfect bill of health.

Of course at 1am that night....she started throwing up! My poor little girl, she has never had a stomach bug before. She was such a trooper though, she'd get sick, brush her teeth and then would want to play or would be laughing. We were up all night, and then at 5am I said I guess we're up for the day. KBeaner and I had a very relaxing TV day on Saturday. She fell asleep early and slept all night long and woke up on Sunday super happy and energetic!

In the indoor playground...probably where she caught the stomach bug

I was so surprised by how well she did with throwing up, when I'm sick I think I am going to die and practically have a panic attack after I throw up, thank goodness she didn't get that  from me!

Now that we're done talking about vomit want to talk  about food?? haha.

I gained 4lbs this week. Ugh. I am pretty sure it's because Saturday I was so exhausted from being up all night with KBeaner that all I wanted to do was eat, and all I wanted to eat was carbs, carbs and more carbs!! For whatever reason I couldn't say no.

I did do all of my Brazil Butt Lifts this week, today starts week 3.

I am going to try and make a new healthy snack this week, here is what I'm planning:
Salt and Vinegar Roasted Chick Peas I've made roasted chick peas before which I loved and I LOVE salt and vinegar chips, so I think this may turn out to be the most amazing food ever!!! I'll let you know how it comes out. 

For Dinners:
Apple Pork Tenderloin (in the slow cooker)
Click here for the source and recipe.

Healthy Pizza
Pork Tacos with homemade tortillas (first time trying to make them)
Cumin-Spiced Lentil Burgers with homemade buns.
Chicken Quesadillas with the homemade tortillas and a big salad
Leftovers

Hope you all have an amazing week! 

Monday, February 17, 2014

Crystal Light Container into Pen/Pencil Holder

I love Crystal Light containers, there are so many uses for them! Thankfully for me, my Mom drinks Crystal Light so she saves me her containers. Here is my newest creation!




A pen/pencil holder for the refrigerator.

Super easy and I think its super cute!!

What you need:
Crystal Light Container
Hot Glue Gun
Twine
Ribbons or any other embellishments



First take the Crystal Light wrapper off.

Starting at the bottom of the container add a little hot glue and attach your twine.

Start wrapping! I added hot glue to various spots on the container as I went to keep the twine looking neat.

Once you are finished wrapping the twine, cut it and add a little hot glue to the end. I folded my end of the twine inside of the container so that it would have a cleaner look to it.

Next I added 3 self adhesive magnets to the back.

Then you can embellish your container however you'd like!

I added a bow to mine but you could hot glue flowers on it or even leave it plain.

I am thinking of doing one all in ribbon for some of KBeaner's markers for her room and maybe make one with the lid still on so that she has an easy way of bring some small toys in the car.

If you make this please share your creations in the comments section!

Just Another Manic Monday week 7

 Welcome to Just Another Manic Monday!


Be sure to check out AngelaHollie, Laura's blogs to see their Just Another Manic Monday posts.

This week I will be introducing you to Hollie who is the last (but not least) blogger that does Just Another Manic Monday with Angela, Laura and I. I met Hollie this fall, I could tell immediately how kind she was and how we would get a long right away! Just like the other ladies Hollie has shown me so much support even though we've never met. I love you girls!!! :) OK enough of the love-fest here is Hollie...


Hey guys! I'm Hollie from Hollie Runs This. My husband and I have two busy kids that love to keep us on our toes. I started blogging a couple of years ago to connect with others while working to get fit and become a runner. My dream is to finish a half marathon in Disney World. My family loves anything Disney. My journey has had so many ups and downs like most busy moms. I've had many set backs but always seem to come back. I like to share my struggles (we all have them!!) and victories. I've made many wonderful friends through my blog. I also use My Fitness Pal. You can look me up there as holliemj.

This week I maintained my weight!

I've completed week 1 of Brazil Butt lift.. man am I sore! I forgot tough it is, but I already feel so much stronger. It maybe all mental but hey I don't care!

I was bad about following my meal plan last week...I think I only did one or two of them. This week I am going to try harder to actually follow my meal plan, I seem to do better when I follow it.

Meals:
Crock Pot Chicken served with quinoa and veggies
Tuscan Shrimp with pasta and veggies
Healthy Pizza
Lentil Sloppy Joes
Chicken quesadilla and veggies
Leftovers

Here are a couple pics from the weekend...
KBeaner practicing her ballet!

The deer that have been visiting our yard lately. It makes me so happy to see them!

Hope you all have an amazing week!!


Friday, February 14, 2014

Mini Heart Pizzas

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Hope you're having a great day.

It's just me and KBeaner today (curse of being with a chef..he's never home on Valentine's day, oh well he's making other people have an amazing day). I want to make today fun so the other day we made heart shaped pizzas!

We made our own pizza dough, here is the recipe for Healthy Pizza Dough...

Ingredients

  • 2 1/4 tsp yeast
  • 2 1/2-3 c unbleached white whole wheat flour. 
  • 1/4c and 3/4c warm water (divided)
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 2 TBSP non-fat plain Greek yogurt


Mix the yeast with 1/4c warm water. Set aside for 10 minutes. If you're yeast is good it should bubble and get larger.

While you're waiting for the yeast and water mixture, mix the flour and salt in a bowl, then add the non-fat plain Greek yogurt. Mix well. Add yeast and 3/4 c warm water. If your dough seems too sticky add some more flour. Kneed until dough is well mixed and elastic feeling.

Cover your dough in the bowl with a towel and set in a warm area to rise. I usually wait about an hour.

After the hour is up your dough should have doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees, spread out your dough on oiled pizza pans and bake for 10 minutes (without toppings) after the 10 minutes are up add toppings and bake for another 10 minutes.

If you want to do shaped mini pizzas roll out your dough (I did it on the pan I would be baking on) and use cookie cutters, I then peeled off the excess dough. Once all of your hearts (or whatever shape you want) are cut out follow the instructions above.
Here's how I did the cookie cutters


Enjoy your mini heart pizzas!!! 

Thursday, February 13, 2014

DIY Stamps: Potato and Toilet Paper Rolls

With Valentine's Day a few days away I wanted to do a fun craft with KBeaner. She loves playing with paint (who doesn't?) so I thought back to what I did when I was a kid...I loved when we would make stamps out of ordinary objects. 


Luckily we had a lot of potatoes on hand and some cookie cutters and a toilet paper roll!

What you need for this craft:
  • Potato
  • Toilet Paper Roll
  • Cookie Cutter
  • Knife
  • Paint
  • Paper
 First cut your potato in half, and push in your cookie cutter. You have two options for your potato stamp, you can cut off the outside of the potato so that your stamp image is just the heart (or whatever cookie cutter shape you have) or you can have an inverted image by removing the potato that is in the inside of  your cookie cutter. I chose to just do the first one.

For the toilet paper roll I folded so that the circle was now just a straight line, then opened it back up and bet the top of the roll in so that it looks like a heart. Super easy!

Now that you have your stamps ready, get out your paint and start stamping!! 




KBeaner found it fun to use the potato as a paint brush and drag it around. She also used the cookie cutters as stamps too.

Some of her beautiful creations! 

KBeaner and I had so much fun with this project! She did say that she liked the potato stamp better than the toilet paper roll stamp. It was a little harder to get the paint onto the toilet paper roll stamp, so it can be frustrating for the younger kids, I liked how it turned out though. 

I want to get more cookie cutters so we can make even more potato stamps... the possibilities are endless! 

Monday, February 10, 2014

Just Another Manic Monday week 6

Welcome back to another installment of Just Another Manic Monday: Menu Planning and Accountability!
Be sure to check out AngelaHollie, Laura's blogs to see their Just Another Manic Monday posts.

I had a pretty good week. I was able to stay on track most of the week, I did have my moments, but I'm only human. I did drink a lot more water and I worked out 3 times like I said I would! woo hoo! I did family yoga, and two days of Brazil Butt Lift aka a lot of squats and butt exercises and me screaming "it burns....so good!!" although I don't always think it is always so good haha. Yet sometimes I do really enjoy that burn of my muscles working, I hope that doesn't make me too weird, I know a couple of my friends enjoy it too!

If you read my last Just Another Manic Monday post you know that I gained 5 lbs. Ugh. This week I am down to 165!!! YAY!!!!! I just want to scream  I am so excited! I am down 7 lbs from last week! I think that I can safely say that my 5 lb gain from last week was mostly bloat from Super Bowl Sunday overeating.

Last year I did the 4 week plan for Brazil Butt Lift, I think I need to do it again. No, I KNOW I need to do it again! Alright I am GOING to do it again, starting today! (PS I sat here for a few minutes debating on whether or not to type this out. Thanks for holding me accountable). Here are my results from the last time I did Brazil Butt Lift.

This week the other ladies who participate in Just Another Manic Monday will be introducing me, so if you'd like to read my little bio please go check out their blogs.

For dinners this week, we have a lot of leftover chicken from last weeks meals so I am thinking I am going to do some variations of last weeks meals plus have some vegetarian meals, I am starting to get sick of chicken!

Here are my dinners...

Healthy Pizza
Giant salad with Chicken and a side of homemade bread
Chicken Tacos
Black Bean Tortilla Soup (leftovers)
Lentil Sloppy Joes
A Valentine's Day themed dinner for me and KBeaner.

Here is a sneak peek of a post I'll be putting up later this week....

Thursday, February 6, 2014

KBeaner's Fairy Tea Party!

KBeaner wanted a Fairy Tea Party! It was a huge success and was so much fun to plan! I was able to do it all fairly cheap. (PS as I just wrote that I caught that pun haha).

I showed you the party invites here.

 You can see how I made these awesomely easy and cheap Coffee Filter Flowers here

I don't have a picture of her Happy Birthday letters at her party but here is the tutorial where I showed you how to make them

Here is what her party was like....
Each one of KBeaner's friends were given a pair of fairy wings. I bought them at Dollar Tree, they are actually very nice and obviously were only a dollar!

The activity at the party was Decorate your own Fairy Wand. I made the wands out of dowels that I cut then hot glued foam stars that I cut out and put on either side of the dowel. They decorated them with different stickers. I also made swords for the boys or for any girl who did not want a fairy wand. (I'll tell you how I made the container for the wands in a post soon)

Here is the food spread....

We made Fairy Wand Pretzel Rods! I dipped the pretzel rods into melted white chocolate and then KBeaner and I decorated them with sprinkles.

The Tea Cup Cupcakes were a huge hit! They were my favorite part! I was inspired by these. I made them by making cupcakes but instead of putting them in cupcake liners I poured them into Ice Cream Cones, once they were baked (I just followed the directions on the package for baking) I cut off the bottom half of the cone with a serrated knife. 
      I bought sugar cookies at the store and "glued" the top half of the cone to the cookie with melted white chocolate. 
      Once That was on well I used half of a Peach Ring as the handle, I also "glued" that on with white chocolate. After having a few of the "handles" fall off I realized the best way to attach them would be to use the melted white chocolate but then to stabilize it with a tooth pick and let the white chocolate harden in the freezer. Once it was hardened I just gently slid the tooth pick off.
     Then I frosted the cupcakes, and KBeaner added the sprinkles. Hope you make some too! They are much easier than they look. 

Here is the Birthday Fairy Princess showing off her wings! The outfit she is wearing is her costume from her dance recital last year. Of course it would not be complete with out her Twinkle Toe light up shoes! I made the bow she is wearing. 

I hope this post has inspired you to throw your own Fairy Tea Party or has given you some ideas for your next little girls birthday party! Please send me pics if you do any of these or are inspired by them, I love seeing other peoples party stuff too! 

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Just Another Manic Monday...Tuesday week 5

Please check out AngelaHollie, Laura's blogs.

Hey it's Just Another Manic Monday... err Tuesday. I've been distracted and lazy when it comes to writing (and a lot of stuff), so sorry I'm late.


Anyways....I gained 5 lbs this week.



There, I said it!


Ugh. I didn't track, I didn't exercise really, I thought I was eating in moderation. Well obviously I was not. KBeaner had a bunch of birthday celebrations and we were visiting my hometown, can't beat Mom's homemade mac and cheese, which isn't too bad for you if you have one serving, I of course did not stop at one serving. 


I am planning on working very hard this week, working out at least 3 days this week. I am going to track those points!!!! And remember Portion control is key!

For my meal plan...
Last night we had breakfast for dinner.
Healthier Pizza
Slow Cooker Southwestern Chicken
Soft Tacos Verde with Chicken
Pulled Chicken Sandwiches with Slaw
Chicken Salad
Black Bean Corn Tortilla Soup


I found those last ones from the Today show (I'm kind of addicted to that show, have it on in the background every morning!) I loved this idea of using one Slow Cooker meal to make a bunch of other meals. I'm really excited to try it out and to see if I can think of my own recipes!

Last week I introduced you to Laura, one of the Just Another Manic Monday bloggers. This week I will introduce you to Angela! Another amazing blogger, I met her through Laura and felt an amazing kinship with her. I am so lucky to have met all three of these ladies, even though we don't see each other in person I feel like I know them and they have helped me a lot. Here is Angela.... 


Hello, friends! My name is Angela and I blog at Honey, I Shrunk the Mom. I’ve been married to my high school sweetheart for 22 years and we have two children; our daughter is 18 and our son is 14. We live in our hometown and own a local, small business where I work part time. I’ve been a yo-yo dieter for much of my adult life and I started my blog to help hold me accountable and to keep track of my journey. I have had some ups and downs since starting the blog, but I just keep plugging along! I’ve recently found a love for yoga and have started lifting weights. I have a lot to learn about both of these things but I’m having fun doing it! Although my blog was started for the purpose of journaling about my weight loss, I also share recipes (I love to cook) and I write about family life and normal, day to day happenings. I hope you’ll stop by and say hello!



Hope you all have a great week!!