My Meal Plan

We still have one dinner left from last week to make, the Chicken Marsala with crispy potatoes. Feels good to be prepared & ready to grocery shop before the pantry is empty. This week I've planned 6 dinners. I usually eat leftovers for lunch or make something simple that I have on hand. The kids usually eat a PBJ or corn dog with fruit and chips.

Dinners-

Slow cooker Salsa Chicken with rice

Chicken & Dumplings. I made this recipe today for my mom since she has a cold. I had one taste before I dropped it off, very good!

Chicken Sausage Hot Dogs, baked beans and kettle chips

Parmesan Tilapia with angel hair pasta & green beans. My sister made this last week and it looks nice and cheesy :)

Turkey Sausage with cheese ravioli and alfredo sauce with salad. One of the easiest go-to meals ever! Just brown up turkey sausage then cook frozen cheese ravioli and mix with a jar of alfredo sauce.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Trying out these Cheesy Quinoa Cakes for lunch one day. Found on pinterest.

This weekend Violet & I will be making peanut butter eggs. Should be similar to Reece's!

Also, making French Toast & Bacon this weekend. Violet & Zander love french toast.

Thank you Organized Junkie for hosting! Lots of meal plans over there :)

Gumdrop Revlon Lip Butter

After reading about these everywhere I had to try one! I went to walmart figuring they would have the best price for them. I really wanted the shade Emma Stone wears in the ad which is Peach Parfait. But there were slim pickings left at the store. I got a pale, lilac, pink shade-Gumdrop.

I decided to go with shades of purple on my eyes with a pale, pastel, lavender on my lower lash line. Used a pale pink on my cheeks. The lip butter goes on silky smooth almost like a lip balm.

I will definitely be trying more shades! Oh, and here's my new do after I let it air dry naturally. Loving this hair cut :)

CinemaScope

Snapped a few pics with my daughter Violet this past weekend. She's such a doll!

I touched these pictures up with the CinemaScope action on picnik. It's one of my favorites! Well, picnik is closing or moving to google+. Stuff I don't understand yet. My husband got me photoshop elements for Christmas but I don't have the hang of it yet.

Oh, what shall I do?! LOL. I need to get my artsy family to give me photoshop lessons.

Chopped my hair off

Over the past few weeks I kept thinking "I want to cut my hair off!" I have really course, wavy & thick hair. Takes forever to blow dry & flat iron. So, I had been wearing it in a top knot almost daily. My big hair pulled tight was giving me a headache.

I got it cut yesterday. I'm not sure the exact amount but the lady guessed at least 6 inches. I got a collar bone length bob. It's a little shorter in the back which makes my hair feel light n bouncy!

Before~

After~

I wonder how curly it will be now when it dries naturally! Sometimes it's nice to do something totally different with your hair. Glad I did it.

Meal Plan for this week

Yes, meal plan is done! That always makes me happy. I'm such a mom :) I've been grocery shopping in the middle of the week lately. Beats the crowds that go on the weekend.


Dinners will be-

Chicken Marsala with crispy potatoes. I'm hoping this will taste similar to Olive Garden's.

Lettuce Wraps with ground turkey

French Dip Sandwiches with baked potato wedges

Cashew Sweet and Sour Pork with rice

Chicken and Cheese Lasagna Roll Ups with Garlic Parmesan Edamame

I'm also making a batch of sausage breakfast burritos. And making Avalanche Bars with Violet this weekend. We have been baking together consistently on weekends. She loves it!
This is making me hungry. I need to go to bed. I've tracked my calories with My Fitness Pal for the past 22 days. I've lost a couple pounds. I really believe you can eat good food, workout & lose weight. I'm sure I would lose more if I did harder & longer workouts. But that is hard to do with 2 little ones at home with me. I'll get there if I stay consistent :)

Have a good night blog world!

(all the photos above belong to the recipe owners)

Zander is 14 Months

Check out my handsome baby boy!

He's been an official walker since before Christmas. He's super busy and loves to climb. Makes his mommy nervous every day. He can now hoist himself on top of the glass coffee table and stand proudly, yikes. I'm ready to get a soft leather one. You know the kind that opens and you can stash toys and stuff :)

He loves this Gloworm he got for Christmas. He hugs it and gives kisses.

One of his favorite things to do is find brooms or mops and then wave them around! Not good :) So, I got him the tiny, green set from the Dollar Store. But he still wants the the big ones.

We see you getting into the pots & pans! We had baby cabinet locks on the cabinet under the sink and he broke them off. He is one determined little boy.

His One Year Stats-
31 " tall
19lbs. and 15 oz.

He is still a tall baby in the 85th percentile. But he's very slim. The Doctor had so many questions. Wondering if he eats solids and how much. When I told her I was still breastfeeding she looked shocked! I don't think it's that uncommon. I know lots of moms that are still nursing. That is still the only way he will go to sleep. He eats 3 meals a day and snacks often. He tried milk in the sippy cup recently. He doesn't drink much of it. Still working on that. We had to get blood work done to check his white blood cell count after his hospital visit back in October. All came back normal. Thank God!

Zander is growing & learning. Thanks for stopping by!

How I lost 52 pounds after my second baby

Now that my baby is 13 months I guess it's time to do a post-baby blog! With both of my babies I gained 50 pounds. I'm praying I have more self control over food and laziness if I get to have a third one! I lost the weight by breastfeeding, counting my calories & running. Now that a new year has started I'm counting my calories again to reach my next goal weight. I still need to lose about 20 pounds to be at a my happy weight. For some reason I'm not sure if I want to list my weight in pounds or not. I'd like to because I always find that interesting information on weight loss blogs. But I'm nervous because of the numbers. Maybe I will after I lose more. For now you can know I'm 5'4 and my bmi tells me I'm still a few pounds overweight.

Here I am 37 weeks pregnant. I delivered one week later on November 23, 2010. You can read more about my precious boy here.

One month after having Zander with the husband. I had probably lost around 15 pounds by then.

June 2010- met my pre-pregnancy weight. Down 50 pounds! I was running 2 miles a few times a week and counting my calories most days. My calorie range was 1500-1800 since I was breastfeeding often still.

We got family portraits done in June. Scheduling these portraits in advance helped encourage me to keep trying!

And here I am now.

Check out the toys all over the living room! Just keepin' it real :D

So, now I'm down 52 pounds. But I want to lose a little more. I'm eating around 1500 calories a day and the goal is to work out at least 3 times a week. I'm still breastfeeding but I don't think that is burning very many calories now. That was another challenge because your always hungry when your also feeding your baby! Click here if you'd like the see my progress after I had my first baby. It was easier to lose back then! But I'm confident I will be at my happy weight in no time :)

Home Goals 2012

I was inspired by The Nester to make a home goals list. Felt nice to think and put it down "on paper!" Visit her blog to see more home goals.

My Home Goals for 2012

We just bought our first house this past October. You can read more about that here. I have a huge to-do list and I realize not everything has to happen at once! I really love our new place and enjoy making it more "our space".

1. Update the Exterior with shutters and paint the front door a fun color. Pretty up the landscaping. We have a "L" shaped sidewalk that needs something to soften it up.

2. Figure out how to make the office into a guest room as well. Needs to be organized better. Maybe get rid of the glass desk and gets something more functional.

3. Put a roof or something over the back porch. (can you tell I haven't thought this one through?!)

4. Finish painting our master bedroom furniture to all black. Hang up art. I see this room getting neglected because I care more about getting the kids' rooms done and the main living areas.

5. Violet's room is almost done! Just need to finish her gallery wall and throw pillows. See below. Her room makes me happy! It's bright and sweet. I'll be posting a lot more pictures once it's finished!

6. Finish painting the hallway & front living room grey.

7. Get furniture for the front living/dining. Violet always yells "mommy, I'm playing in the room that has no furniture!" haha

8. Paint and decorate Zander's room. I already bought the grey & blue paint. He will have a striped wall behind his crib and a vintage car theme.

9. Paint the movie room. My husband has free reign over this room. I trust his judgement since he used to build media rooms for a living.

10. Get curtains for the living & kitchen area. Replace rug in living room with one that doesn't shed. Hang up art in Living & Kitchen.

11. Eventually I want to replace the backsplash in the kitchen. I'm thinking penny tile or subway tile. I want to paint our light wood cabinets white. Then have maybe a light aqua backsplash. Countertops need to be updated too. They are white laminate and stain so easily.

12. Start putting wood laminate in some of the main rooms.

And I have a lot more going on in my head! But I'll end with 12 since it's 2012. This is already a huge list and will involve quite a bit of money. But I know a year from now our new place will feel a lot more like home!

Here's some pictures of projects I've completed!

Yarn Winter Wreath~
this was so much fun to make! My first time making felt flowers. I see myself making many more.

Gallery Wall in hallway~
read more here.

Violet's new room. It's got a butterfly~princess theme going on and almost completed!

First Ballet Class

(Click to Enlarge)

Violet started her "Princess Ballerina Camp" class today! This was her first class to take well besides swim lessons. She was super excited to wear ballet shoes and a bun. I love how excited she looks meeting her teacher. She had a crowd come to watch her first practice. It was me, Matt, Zander, my mom & sister Jordan. All the little girls were so cute! Violet was grinning from ear to ear the whole time. When we got home she told me I need to practice the moves with her. Such a sweetie! Can't wait for next week.

Enjoy this short clip of their warm up to princess music!