Weight loss progress

I am the girl who decided I wanted to lose weight right around the holidays, so I decided to diet, right around thanksgiving too! It was very difficult but I was so tired of the baby weight from baby number two! I started on November 12th 2013, I had previously had great luck with weight watchers after baby number one so I have it a second chance. 

So far so good! I am 15 pounds down, not as much as I would have liked but I can see and feel the difference, plus not bad for the holidays lol. My first time around I lost 25 in the first 7 weeks but this time has been a little more challenging since I am still breastfeeding part of the time. 

Weight watchers is an amazing program where I can eat the foods I love but just watch my portions better and become more informed in what I really am putting into my body. 

My goal is to lose another 30 to 40 pounds and I am wanting to be there by Sophia's first birthday which is May 7th.

Here is my progress so far! The top which was November 12, 2013 and the bottom was today, January 7, 2014.

Not a bad start to the new year and can't wait to post more progress pictures!

A quick happy 8 month birthday to princess Sophia!!!! Poor baby has a cold but always has a smile :) 

Chalk Boards!!!

I love Chalk boards and how much you can do with them. They are so easy to decorate and add a great pop of flair to any home. not only are they decorative but they make easy ways to put up task and to-do's. They can be used for wedding, in homes, in offices, and many other places.

They are so inexpensive and easy to find, I happened to find mine at my local TJ Max but they are at Marshalls and ross and many other places. Mine was like $15 on clearance and the prices range depending on size. 

We are still working on our artistic side a little bit lol but we had so much fun with it. 

The board came with a thing of white chalk but i went into Audrey's stash of sidewalk chalk for our colored options. Seeing as Davids Birthday just passed we went to Pinterest for inspiration and came up with special decor just for him.

So there you have it, some of our chalk board creations, hopefully more to come in the near future and will do a new post with lots more pictures.

Celebration of Life and Heart break of loss

The start to the new year has been a very bumpy one! I am hoping it is not a sign to how the rest of the year will go. December 30th we celebrate a life, the life of my boyfriend and father to my daughter's David! So here is a belated Happy Birthday post! We love you.

Now to make things clear David is not the bio dad of Audrey, but he is her father and is a great man, we wouldn't have it any other way. David is however Sophias bio dad, which is hard not to see lol, I have even had people question me on Sophia being adopted but no she is mine too lol.

Davids birthday turned out to be a good day despite him having to spend the day at work, we went out and had a nice Thai dinner at a local restaurant, and I have found that I am very fond of Thai food!!

New Years eve however was brought to a halt when we received news of the passing of a close friends husband. The Family had been on Christmas vacation up North and had all gotten sick with a virus, they were able to get back to South Fl but in between frequent hospital visits the husband had a heart attack. This family is devastated and the heart break is tremendous. Loss is something that we all have to deal with and it is never easy, Life is so short and we never know when it will come to an end, while this is such a terrible tragedy and there is now a wife and multiple children left without and father and a husband, I have come to realize that it is time to savor everyday and every moment with those that we love and to not take advantage of the time that we have because nothing is forever. 

My first resolution for this year is going to be to not let the little things get me in such an up roar and to just enjoy life, love my family, and build a strong relationship with God. Just the first of my many resolutions but definitely the most important!! 

My Honeys Chai Tea

After a long day at work for him, and a day filled with teething a cleaning and chasing an almost 3 year old around, to say the least my honey and I are pretty tired by the time we sit down for dinner. In my previous post i shared our side dish for tonight which was a Fresh Picked Zucchini and Yellow Squash Au-gratin. It turned out amazing and was so yummy! So after dinner I am still sitting at the table with the girls and he is in the kitchen making something to drink. He brings to the table this amazing cup of of warm goodness! Its this Chai Tea with milk foam and cinnamon on top and it smells heavenly!

To say the least after he allowed me to taste his tea he was right back in the kitchen making me one. So my delicious surprise is to share with you his very own 5 min Chai tea recipe.

1)We have a Keurig which makes this so simple and quick! He doesn't use a specific Chai Tea but these are the three that we keep stocked up at the house so you can use a tea bag or a K-cup. We brew an 8 ounce sup of hot water straight from the Keurig or use the K-cup and brew the tea.

2)Add on full spoonful of Raw Sugar and stir until it is all mixed in. 

3)We have a milk frother which can be bought seperate from the Keurig and they are not to expensive. The frother does the milk in 4 ounce increments so he does 2 ounces heavy whipping cream and 2 ounces 2% milk and froths it using the hot setting and when that is done he froths it again on the cold setting, he says he likes his milk "extra frothy" lol or in other words a more dense foam.

4) If you used a tea bag you remove it before adding the milk, but then you just add the milk, sprinkle a little bit a cinnamon on top and Presto!!! You now have an amazing cup of Chai tea :)

  

The finished product, you may notice that his is already half gone lol but I could not leave his cup out of the picture. Even though that is technically my cup, I collect coffee mugs and David brought this one back to me a few months ago when he went to Wisconsin for work.

Fresh Picked Zucchini and Squash Au-gratin

I live in a quite ideal location, a small are about 20 minutes south of Miami, I get to enjoy the best of both worlds. I can head about 20 min north east and have everything the big city people enjoy and love, or i can just walk out my back door and have the country and open land as far as the eye can see.

Today is all about the country part and one of my favorite things. U-pick vegetable stands and fields, they are everywhere and offer wide varieties of fresh, home grown, fruits and veggies. 

I was able to get a ton of fresh Zucchini and Yellow Squash for almost nothing. I am in the process of trying to eat clean and get back in shape after having baby number 2 and also trying to provide better meals for my family which also means trying to get my almost three year old to enjoy her veggies.

This recipe was simple and quick! Since I had such a large quantity of squash this recipe made a large serving dish amount that is going to last my family for a few days. 

Ingredients

2 tbls of butter 

5 cloves of garlic

3 medium to large Zucchini

4 medium yellow squash

Salt and pepper for taste

1 cup of either half and half or heavy whipping cream (the heavy whipping cream will give a more creamy texture and the half and half will not be as thick and creamy)

2/3 cup of mozzarella cheese 

4 to 5 tbls of parmesan cheese ( I used the shaved kind but you can also use the grated kind if you prefer) 

2/3 cup of plain panko bread crumbs

1) Preheat the oven to 425 F

2) Dice the garlic and set aside (I love garlic so i go heavy with the five cloves but you can cut down and use how ever many you want).  Cut the zucchini and squash in round slices, I made my slices about 1/4 in thick so they don't fall apart when cooking. 

3) In a large saucepan melt the butter, add in garlic and veggies and saute occasionally stirring to make sure they cook evenly. Add salt and pepper as desired, I cooked the veggies for about 7 min leaving them still pretty crisp but not raw. 

4) Stir in the 1 cup of cream and cook for about 5 min until the cream begins to thicken. 

5) Add in 1/3 cup of the panko, stir in and add cheese, mix together and then transfer half to the baking dish. Sprinkle some of the parm cheese and top with the rest of the veggie mix. 

6) Top with the remaining parm cheese and panko bread crumbs, Bake for 20 to 25 min or until the top is a golden brown color. Let cool for a few min and serve. 

Like I said before I love love love garlic so I went a little heavy on the garlic but that is my taste. Everyone is different so if you are not a fan i would not recommend the 5 cloves, maybe try 1 or 2.

Mmm love those colors! Now I cooked mine to keep it a little crisp when the dish was complete but if you want to have a more soft dish I would recommend sauteing the veggies a little bit longer until they are more tender.

The halfway mark where I added the parm before topping with the other half of the sauted veggies.

 Right before it went in the oven! Topped with panko and cheese and ready to go.

Now like I said before, I am trying to get back to my pre prego fit self as well as trying to please the family with some not so bland meals. I am following the Weight Watchers plan, this is an amazing plan that allows me to eat with my family and still splurge on some of my favorite food. So for this particular dish I just watched my portions! This is still a healthy dish and my family loved it so I hope yours does too :)

Possible blogaholic in the making...

My insomnia has lead to many ideas and tonight I have acted! Both of my children and my boyfriend are sleeping, while I sit here awake listening to the snore of a shih-tzu. I can already tell that this whole blogging thing is going to be fun but will not be helping in my current dilemma of not being able to sleep at night even though I am tired...must be a mom problem! I am already an instagram and pinterest-aholic, I was swooped in and easily addicted and now i am on the verge of adding yet another addiction (yay me!). I am a lover of food who struggles with the great divide of wanting to eat healthy and be fit but loves to eat things that are not to good for either of those goals. I love crafts and diy, I can search pinterest all day for them and have so many ideas of things to do but don't get nearly as much done as I want to. I am currently in college but only part time and still figuring out my major, I am a full time mommy of two beautiful girls Audrey who will be 3 at the end of March and Sophia who will be 1 at the beginning of May. I am a very scatterbrained person but I love to write and do so too quickly so please be forgiving of my future spelling and grammar mistakes (something I am working on improving) So this will be my very first blog post that no one but myself is reading! Haha I find that funny but I hope that in a few months I will have other people reading my post and hopefully become the a blogaholic that I want to be :)

My two little ones, I love them to death and even though they sometimes make me feel like I might go crazy, I have no idea what i would do without them.