Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Thanksgiving Cranberries

I am so glad that The Man loves to cook and bake and will help me out in my endeavours in the kitchen. I bought 3 containers of cranberries to make cranberry sauce because I do not eat the canned stuff anymore since it has HFCS in it. We started making jellied cranberry sauce and ended up with 3 half pints. We canned it in the half pint jars because we are the only ones who will eat it. The kids like to turn their nose up at it. They surely do not know what they are missing. The man took some of the pulp and mixed it with some sugar and put it in the left over pie crust to make a tart type thing. We shared this as a snack after we were done cooking. It turned out good. I had too many cranberries left over so some got turned into cranberry nut bread and some got turned into a cranberry sauce type syrup and made into cranberry cream cheese. We still have a little bit of the pulp leftover and we are going to use that to make cranberry scones tomorrow to have with tea. I cannot believe that 3 containers of cranberries can stretch so far but to me that is amazing and I love the fact that we are going to be able to use all of them with no waste. How is that for thrifty?

Pie is out of the oven and it is after midnight - I think I am past ready for bed now. I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Weigh In Wednesday

Today I weighed in at 196.0 lbs. Not the great loss I was hoping for but weight wont come off without some help and I wasn't very good about helping it. LOL. My biggest challenge over this next week will be Thanksgiving and all the leftovers. My goal will to at least stay the same for next week's weigh in.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Back To Basics

I love to cook and so does The Man. It is no wonder we are overweight. :) I have started to notice that every time we wanted a new recipe we would head on to the internet to look for a recipe while my beautiful cookbooks just sat on the shelf. I wondered if the types of recipes we were looking for were in the cookbooks or not so I have decided to try to look in the cookbooks first and if I cannot find the recipe I need then I will head on over to food.com. I have been getting pretty lucky that a lot of the recipes in the cookbooks are made from staples we keep regularly in our house.

I was looking for a recipe for a pumpkin pie to make homemade for Thanksgiving and of course it is in there. Homemade pie crust and filling. I am super excited to try this.

We decided to try spaghetti squash for the first time but had no idea how to cook it and there is a recipe for that. We will be trying it for dinner tonight so I hope it turns out yummy.

I have pumpkin bread in the oven right now and that recipe came from the cook book.

The book I have been using most is a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that my mom bought for me several years back. It is similar to the book below but I am not sure that mine is this most current one.




Do you use cookbooks any more or do you find your recipes online?

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Groupon- Vitacost.com $15 for $30 purchase

I love Vitacost.com because I can order organic spices in larger quantities and have them delivered to me. I cannot figure out where to buy bulk organic spices at a reasonable amount locally, so online shopping is the way to go for me. I love that the ship to my APO address as well and can get free shipping if I spend more than $49. Today on Groupon.com you can pay $15 for a $30 groupon to Vitacost.com. Hurry on over and get this deal here.

*p.s. If you would like a referral to Vitacost we can each get $10 after your first purchase. Just send me a message.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to K, my sweet, cuddly, 3 year old. We took him out today to pick out his gift from his Nana since she was unable to get a gift in the mail to him in time. We let him walk around the store and look at all the toys and he stuck true to his love of trains and picked out another train. He is going to be super excited tomorrow when we have his party that he is getting more train things. We also got lunch and ice cream while we were out. He thought it was so cool that we let him have ice cream before his food but he still managed to finish his food off before his ice cream was gone. We don't usually let the kids have ice cream out and about, nor do we let them eat ice cream before eating something with a bit of nutrition but it is a special thing that my mom did with me as a teen for special occasions so I have decided to carry it on with my kids. I hope that the little things like this will make many happy memories for them.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Weigh In Wednesday

Today I weighed in at 196.8 lbs. This makes me very happy. I am going to try really hard over the next few weeks to lose a few more pounds because we have a Chirstmas party coming up at The Man's work and I would love to feel like I look good. I know me though and no matter how much I lose or how good I feel when I leave here I will feel ugly when I get there probably. I am jealous (I know it is horrible) of how skinny and pretty a lot of the younger and even some of the older wives are. I have been 175lbs + since I had S 11 years ago. Before I got pregnant with him I was 135-140 lbs and although looking back now I think I looked great, I still thought I was not skinny enough or pretty enough. I think a lot of it has to do with the super large chest I have always had. Even when I could wear a size 6 or 8 on the bottom, I always had to wear an XL shirt which never fit great because it fit the chest but never accentuated the waist. My ultimate goal is to lose enough weight to be able to get a breast reduction and tummy tuck. I know this will not make me "perfect" but I will not have the back and neck aches and my clothes, whatever size that might be, will fit my body better.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Bill Paying Day

I do not work outside of the home and The Man is in the military so we get a paycheck twice a month. I am the one responsible for making sure everything to do with the finances is taken care of. On paydays I feel like a chicken with my head cut off. I have to do my normal household and motherly duties and then during nap time get all the online bills paid so that I can wake The Man up and leave to go to the bank, check the mail, fill the cars up with gas, and go grocery shopping. I know that I could stretch this out over several days but keeping it to the actual day of payday doesn't let me get a chance to slip up and forget something. It also doesn't interrupt The Man's sleep that much. While I do feel like a crazy person on paydays, I do love that The Man trusts that I do a good job at keeping the household bills paid on time and food in the house.

Today, I am thankful for a steady paycheck and the means to pay our bills. I am also thankful for The Man who willingly gets up and takes care of all of the kids while I do the payday errands so I do not have to drag all of the kids with me. (Although today K gets to go shopping with me so he can pick out his birthday cake mix and frosting for his birthday this weekend.) I love my family!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Burt's Bees Sensitive

I am a BzzAgent and received a free sample to try and review. I received a box with a full size facial cleanser and a moisturizer. I dread trying new facial products because most of the time they burn or itch and turn my face more red than it already is. This new line is specifically made for sensitive skin like mine. I have used it twice now and I may have found a new product line. I have used other Burt's Bees products in the past and I like these better so far.

The cleanser is nice and smooth and doesn't have a smell which is great because I do not like strong smelling facial products. The cleanser is a bit more heavy than the one I have been using in the past. I feel like I could just use this one all by itself without a moisturizer because it left my skin very soft and moisturized.

I also have tried the moisturizer twice. This is a very light weight moisturizer. It also does not have a scent. I love having a super light moisturizer for morning so I do not start out my day feeling like a grease monkey. This worked well for my morning routine after my shower before my makeup.

Not only are these products great feeling on my face, they don't stink and they are made mostly of natural ingredients. Right now there is a coupon that you can print to use in your local store or a code to use online for the sensitive skin line. If you have sensitive skin and love natural products, you should try this.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Weigh In Wednesday - On Thursday AGAIN

198.2 lbs today. I only worked out 1 day this past week and have not been very good on watching the food intake.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Tonka XT Ricochet Tricksters R/C

I am a BzzAgent and have been provided with a Tonka XT Ricochet Tricksters R/C for free to try out and review. Upon opening the box I was concerned with how it was packaged because one side of the box is open to be able to touch the car. I quickly got over that when I started unpacking it. It was very secure in the packaging. There were cords wrapped around each of the tires holding it in very securely. The remote was in a separate compartment so that it could not move around either.

I have put the batteries in it and am waiting the 30 minutes for it to charge. I will say I am not impressed with how many batteries it takes (5AA). For my house it would have been better to use less batteries and have a wall A/C adaptor to recharge the car. We have 3 boys who are going to fight over this and we will probably go through tons of batteries with it.

TBC tomorrow after we have all gotten to try it out...

We have now tried this R/C out. It is fun and made us all laugh and smile. It goes forwards and backwards. It also goes in circles and has a trick button so that it will do tricks on its own. It can also flip over and keep going. The kids have been fighting over playing with it all day.

We love this car! The only downside is the amount of batteries used and the length of charge before having to recharge the car. The remote takes 5AA batteries and the car has its own rechargeable battery. It charges for 20-30 minutes and you can get 5-15 minutes of play time before having to recharge it. Overall we love this and will probably have to buy at least one more. I would recommend this for a great birthday or Christmas gift.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Weigh In Wednesday - On a Thursday

Today I have very bad news. I have eated too many cake in a cups and Halloween candy. The scale was up this morning to 199.0 pounds. While this is not terrible, I was doing so well til the candy and cake. I also haven't been working out due to the craziness of the house recently.