Category: Family

Family, pregnancy, Uncategorized, Women

Less than a week left!

Hannah Lucio

We are so darn excited! We have less than a week left to find out if we are having a  boy or girl. I love finding out so we can be prepared and its just fun for us. I will be sure to post what we are having next week. We have been praying for a girl, since this is our last baby. But, I will be equally excited to have another boy. Boys are tough (especially today), but still fun. This pregnancy feels totally different, but I’m not counting on that as a clue. I have not really craved anything and feel a lot more motivated this time around. I am happy to be able to feel the baby moving a lot more in the the last two days. That is one of the best feelings of being pregnant. Its exciting and we are almost at the halfway point. Stay tuned for next weeks announcement 🙂

Family, Food, pregnancy, Uncategorized, Women

Pizza night!

Hannah Lucio

Since our “vacation” ended on Sunday, we are getting back to our normal routine. Saving, saving and more saving. Pizza Fridays are one of the main things. Well….homemade pizza that is. I have been taking a break and we have been eating out and ordering pizza instead. It was a nice break but I have to be honest, I love making homemade stuff. It just tastes different and better, in my opinion. I had been experimenting with recipes for pizza and its been OK. But, I finally found my old recipe that I used to make in California. I used it tonight and was so thankful to be able to find it again. I absolutely love it and am going to share the recipe with you all.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 tsp (1 (.25 ounce) pack) Active dry yeast

1 tsp White sugar

1 cup Warm water

2 1/2 cups White flour

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Garlic powder

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

In medium bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let it stand till creamy, about 10 minutes

Stir in flour, salt, garlic powder and oil. Beat until smooth. Let it rest for 5 minutes.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat or roll into a round. Transfer crust to a lightly greased pizza pan. Put in preheated oven for 10 minutes to get the bottom crust cooked a little bit.  Take out and put on your sauce and toppings. Bake in preheated oven for 10-20 more minutes until golden brown. Let pizza cool for 5 minutes before serving.

IMG_6819[1]

 

Yummy!!

 

Enjoy and live simple

 

 

Family, Food, pregnancy, Uncategorized, Women

Healthier Onion Rings

Hannah Lucio

When you think of Onion rings you would normally think of a few things: Deep fried, fat and greasy. Well….I found a recipe of the fried version and made it healthier. Enjoy!

 

Ingredients:

1 large onion, cut into 1/4 inch slices (I used what we had and it was a very small onion)

1 1/4 Cup Whole wheat flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Salt

1 egg

1 cup milk, I used organic 2%

2 cups dried whole wheat bread crumbs: recipe below

Olive oil

 

Dried bread crumb directions:

I did not have dried bread crumbs already so I made my own. All I did was take 2 slices of whole wheat bread, took the crust off and baked it at 350 degrees for 4 minutes. Use your own judgment on how long to bake them. You want to make sure you can crumble the bread into small crumbs.

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Separate the onion slices into rings, and set aside.
  3. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt.
  4. Dip the onion slices into the flour mixture until they are coated; set aside.
  5. Whisk the egg and milk into the flour mixture using a fork. Dip the floured rings into the batter to coat, then place on a wire rack to drain until batter stops dripping. (I placed parchment paper under the rack to make it easier to clean up.) Put the bread crumbs in a shallow bowl and spread out. Place one ring at a time into the crumbs, flip and coat the ring. Tap the ring as you remove it from the bowl. The bread coating should cling well. Repeat with the remaining rings.
  6. Lightly coat the bottom of the pan with olive oil. Place the rings on the pan side by side and drizzle olive oil over the rings.
  7. Bake at 350 degrees for 5 minutes, flip the rings and bake for 5 more minutes. I then turned the oven up to 425 degrees and baked for another 5 minutes. Bake until desired crispiness.

IMG_6791[1]

They were so delicious! We will be making these more often 🙂

Enjoy and Live simple

 

 

 

 

Family, pregnancy, Uncategorized, Women

My favorite workout

Hannah Lucio

I am currently almost 17 weeks pregnant. I needed to step it up a bit since the first 3 months I took it easy. I believe that in the last week of doing this workout I have been able to manage my weight gain and burn fat at the same time.

Before you do any workouts (especially pregnant workouts) I highly suggest you check with your Dr. Especially if you did not workout before getting pregnant. I worked out a lot and was really active so I have not had any issues. Also, if you feel any pain or discomfort stop immediately! I am not a personal trainer but just sharing what I currently do.  So do this at your own discretion.

On to the workout. This is a superset workout and is fun for me.

What you need:

Treadmill or elliptical

Your own body weight.

How to do it:

Jogging(my favorite right now) or walk fast on the treadmill for 2 minutes.

Pause the treadmill

I get off the machine and do 12 lunges on each side.

I do 3 sets of 12(each leg)

Get back on the treadmill or elliptical and do 2 more minutes. Keep repeating until you finish your sets.

After 3 sets of lunges I switch to plie squats

After doing three sets of squats I finish it off with 5-10 minutes of jogging or walking fast on an incline of 1.

At the end of this workout you will have completed your lunges, plie squats and over 1 mile of cardio. This may not seem like much for a non-pregnant person, but it is a great pregnancy workout. Hope you try it an enjoy! I am not sure how long I can keep this up. But, since I am in the “glory” pregnancy months this is exciting for me. This is just one of my workouts at the moment but wanted to share this specific one. Ill share more later!

 

Live healthy, live simple!

Family, pregnancy, Uncategorized, Women

Update: 17 Weeks pregnant

Hannah Lucio

We have 22 weeks left till the due date.

Our baby is the size of a Turnip.

We find out the gender in 3 weeks! We are so excited!

I can feel flutters 🙂 That is one of the best feelings!

Cravings: None, sometimes I feel like ice cream but I do not have any. I instead have fruit or yogurt. The last pregnancy all I wanted was Mexican food HA

Sickness: None. I had all day sickness for the first 3 months but it stopped almost exactly on the 3 month marker.

Weight gain: 8 lbs in 17 weeks. I’m right on target and hope to not gain as much as last time. Someday’s I am really hungry and someday’s I am not.

Workouts: For the most part I feel great! I still workout 5-7 days a week, depending on our schedule. I try to do my yoga routine that I posted on here at least 3-4 times a week. And I do weight training 3-4 times a week. I am just trying to keep up the working out since that what I did before pregnancy.

Achievements: Last week our 2 year old became mamma milk free! We/I chose to breastfeed him for over 2 years because we did not immunize him. Dr. Sears recommendation was that if you choose not to immunize your child to breastfeed them for 2 years. He only has only had 2 small cold that lasted less than a week in his entire life. Thank The Lord! I think that breastfeeding is such an amazing gift for the child and their immune system. And many other reasons.

That is all for the update! I hope to update on our pregnancy every few weeks 🙂

 

Live Happy and Live Simple

Family, pregnancy, Uncategorized, Women

Looking for new running shoes?

Hannah Lucio

I just bought new running shoes and I had to share how great they are. When I went to the store I was not wanting to blow a lot of money on a pair of shoes, but I needed long lasting shoes. A few months ago me and my husband bought target running shoes. They fell apart not even a month later. So this time I wanted better shoes. I tried on a pair of shoes that were about $40 and they felt good. I was a bit curious if a higher dollar shoe would feel a lot different. So I found a pair of $170 shoes that were on sale for $109. I put on one shoe from the higher cost shoe and one from the lower cost shoe. I could tell the difference significantly. I could not believe how comfy and amazing. It felt like I was walking on comfy pillows. I was sold! I did not want to spend that kind of money, but again I need them to last. I have worn them two days in a row and I truly believe I made the best purchase. I am 17 weeks pregnant and completed a 20 minute jog/run with no issues. I know when I wear certain shoes (like Nike) they dig into my heals. These Asics do not, they are so comfy. I am an Asics girl for sure! If you are looking for a long lasting brand and comfy shoes, I highly recommend these Asics. Its a higher price shoe but it so worth it! They are Asics Gel-Kayano 21 Lite show running shoe. Here is the link and they are still on sale Asics Gel-Kayano 21 Lite. I absolutely love the color I bought but they also have other colors to choose from.  IMG_6770[1]   I had my husband get the same type but obviously a different color ha ha

 

Live comfy and live simple

Christmas, Family, Food, Uncategorized, Women

Holiday Stove top Potpourri

Hannah Lucio

I was looking for some easy ways to make our house smell great this holiday season and I found one that I love. I make a different variety of it and today I made a similar version of what I will be doing tomorrow. This is what I added today-IMG_6719[1]

Ingredients:

1 sliced orange

1 Cup Cranberries

4 Cinnamon sticks

2 Sprigs of Rosemary

1 Tsp of whole cloves

1 Tsp ground Nutmeg

8 Cups Water

I combine all the ingredients in a pot and the heat to high until it boils. That activates the ingredients. Once it starts to boil I lower the heat to a simmer and let it fill the house with amazingness. Keep an eye out on the water and fill it up when you see that water level dropping.

IMG_6720[1]

 

 

Tomorrow I will have the same ingredients that are listed above but I will add 1 sliced lemon and 2 tsp vanilla.

 

This is a great and natural way to have your house smell amazing.

 

Merry Christmas and live simple

 

 

Christmas, Family, Uncategorized, Women

Eggnog Smootie

Hannah Lucio

I had a few things that my husband wanted me to make this holiday season and an eggnog smoothie was one of them. I found a recipe that sounded good and gave it a try. Since we live in a state that sells hard alcohol at a separate store than the traditional grocery store, I didn’t put any in this. You can add some if you like. He loved it so I had to share! A few simple ingredients, all shown in the picture below  IMG_6716[1]

 

Eggnog smoothie:

2 cups Eggnog

1 Banana

1 cup Nonfat vanilla yogurt

1/3 cup 2% milk

2 cups of ice

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of cinnamon

Put it all in a blender and blend away. It came out great, smells great and according to my husband it tastes great. Since I am pregnant I cannot tell you how it tastes, maybe next year.  This is super easy, super simple and takes a few minutes to put together. Sounds great to me!

 

Enjoy and live simple!

Family, pregnancy, Uncategorized, Women

Pregnancy Yoga

Hannah Lucio

I just started my pregnancy yoga routine yesterday and absolutely love it. I was trying to find a yoga workout that I enjoy and finally found it. Since I am only 15 weeks pregnancy this workout so far is “easy”. I am trying harder this time to stay in shape this time around. Last pregnancy I was working 40 and a lot of over time. I also was so tired from work that I barely worked out. Plus I had a tougher time with foods, cravings and sensitive to smells. So far this time is completely different. Although I was able to drop the pregnancy weight fairly fast last time, I am going to try losing weight a little faster this time since it will be summer time 🙂 I am a fairly active person as is. I typically go to the gym 6 days a weeks but had to back off a bit in the first three months of pregnancy. Its an “awkward” pregnancy time for me. I am now feeling amazing and actually do not feel pregnant at all so I am taking advantage of it. When it is not to cold I walk to my husbands work for lunch and that is a good walk. Then I go to the gym after he gets off work. So adding this yoga routine is going to help me out significantly. When I found this yoga routine I noticed that the lady is not pregnant. On the bottom of the description for the position it tells you what to do if you are pregnant. Hope you try this out, pregnant or not. This is such a great routine!   Here is the link: Molly Sims Pregnancy Yoga link

 

Enjoy and Live Simple!

 

debt, Family, money, Uncategorized, Women

We paid off how much?!

Hannah Lucio

 

When we set out on this “getting out of debt” stuff I was not very happy.

The first year of marriage and my whole life I/we never really paid attention to saving or managing my money. We spent money on things that we wanted and not necessarily needed. Ate out a lot, had a flease (a Dave Ramsey term for lease) and or car payments, didn’t budget and just wasn’t really caring about our debt. Car payments, credit cards, hair appointments, etc….we were apart of the “normal”. Well, one day my husband mentioned Dave Ramsey to me. I do not like the whole get rich quick stuff. So I did not buy into it right away. BTW Dave Ramsey is not a get rich quick guy. I was sitting down and writing the entire list of bills for us. I was trying to figure out how to stay at home with our new little one and still afford life. I almost had a panic attack when I found out that in order for me to stay at home I would need to have $1000 more a month. And that is when it hit me. We had debt and bills that were just outrageous. Then he brought back up Dave Ramsey and I said ok. I started to listen to his podcasts and it was such a relief to hear such amazing stories about people like us.

I was, at that moment, on board.

I did everything I could to cut the budget down. We traded in our flease for a vehicle that cost $20,000 less. That right there saved us $200 a month. I stopped going to get my hair done every 4-6 weeks. Being a platinum blonde is expensive ya’ll. We stopped going out to eat after church. We buckled down. We got our first baby step done and we started on baby step two. We ate on a beans and rice rice and beans budget. And no, we did not just eat beans and rice ha! I’ve actually been super healthy and was in really good shape not long after we started our budget. Sold so much stuff our dogs thought they were next. Ha! It’s amazing how much stuff we had. Well, soon enough we were all of a sudden thousand of dollar paid off. My husband worked so many hours just to get us above water and pay off this stinking debt. My husband is truly my hero, really, my hero. I really admire him. I did some surveys and mystery shopping to try to get a little more money for us. We were gazelle intense.

Thankfully, we got a job offer to transfer across the country to a beautiful state. We were able to sell our home in one month and move. Thank the Lord! It was a lifesaver. We sold one vehicle before we moved and are down to one vehicle that we barely use. My husband rides his bike to work, no more commuting!! And a great workout. We are just loving it over here. When it isn’t way to cold we ride bikes and walk everywhere. I was looking at our debt payoff so far and I was absolutely floored at how much we have managed to pay off and I get to stay at home with our little one.

$276,164.37

All because we opened our eyes and are living like no one else so we can live and give like no one else.That’s amazing ya’ll and it takes a lot of dedication. I haven’t had too much support outside our little family. I have heard that I need to enjoy and live life…..Well, we do and love our life. And, soon we will be loving it even more. People were making fun of the way we live on a beans and rice, rice and beans budget. Like Dave Ramsey says; If broke people are making fun of your financial plan, you’re on track. Let me tell you….we are a million times less stressed. I only have to pay a few things a month instead of a list HA! We do not charge anything on a credit card, so if we don’t have the cash right then, it’s a no. People say, “don’t you need a good credit score to live in this world?” HAHA NO! Cash is King, baby! We are not “normal” because of that. It’s amazing how credit cards and living beyond your means are “normal”.  Car payments, “normal”. I like what Dave says “I’m not against people having new cars. I’m against them having you. We spend a tremendous amount impressing somebody at the stoplight who we’ll never meet. It makes you broke and keeps you broke”. So true. You know the average car payment is $400 something a month. yikes! I am so thankful we haven’t had a car payment in forever. A paid for car drives a lot better….if you know what I mean 🙂

We are so fired up about getting out of debt that we are almost done. It sounds like a super long time but we should be out of debt in 1 year and some change. We cannot wait to call Dave on the day we make our last debt payment and do our debt free scream. We are on a pause since we have a baby due in June but after that its game on.

If you are where we were or you have to work two incomes to afford life…..just give it a chance. Listen to Dave Ramsey and be “weird”! I did not think this would be possible and actually thought it was just normal to have a credit card, car payment, living paycheck to paycheck and not being on a budget. I now know, I was wrong. I thank God for bringing my husband into my life and opening my eyes to Dave Ramsey.

And, like Dave always says at the beginning of his amazing show-Debt is dumb, cash is king and a paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW AS the status symbol of choice. 

 

Live simple and debt free!