Family, Food, post partum, pregnancy, prenatal, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women, workout

Simple Two Ingredient Ice Cream

Our family absolutely loves ice cream. If I could eat it all the time and not get fat, I would. But since ice cream is fattening I wanted to try making banana ice cream that I see online a lot. I was skeptical at first but once I tasted it, oh man is it good! I tried strawberry ice cream first and will be testing out different flavors very soon. It is very inexpensive and so darn yummy, you should try it out. It is also toddler and nine month old approved. They absolutely love it! 

Ingredients:

Bananas 

Strawberries

Directions:

Wash, cut the tops off the strawberries and put them in a freezer bag and freeze

Peel the bananas, cut into pieces, put them in a freezer bag and freeze. 

Once frozen, take the bananas and strawberries out. 

Put the bananas in the food processor and blend for about 3 minutes or until it has a smooth/ice cream like texture. 

Out in the frozen strawberries and blend for a minute. It really depends on if you like chunks of strawberries or just smooth. So really gauge the blending on your liking. 

Done

Scoop and serve. It’s hard not to eat a lot at once 😜
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Family, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women, workout

Question for Contact Lens wearers

I have googled a lot about this and want to just ask people my question instead.

I have been wearing contact lens for about 7 years now. I used to not have dark under eyes and have been trying to get to the bottom of it. I have heard diet and age and sleep. I had dark under eyes before kids and have the same exact sleep so it is not kids, HA. Or sleep. My diet is way better now also. But honestly, I think that I may be allergic to the materials in the contacts I wear or the solution I use. I wanted to ask if anyone else has this issue? I am considering going contact lens free for a while to see if it gets better.

Have you had issues with dark under eyes form wearing contact lens? Please let me know either way!

 

Thanks!!

 

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Stay at Home Mom

Homemade baby food

I make baby food at home for our little one currently. I love to make their food at home because I know what ingredients are going into them. Many times the grocery store baby foods have so much junk in them, our little ones do not need that for their first foods. Also, making baby food is so simple and easy. I cooked peas, sweet potato, applesauce and pears for our little one and he liked it a lot. I really like to keep things simple and our kids need healthy foods in the beginning of their lives. I believe it sets their taste buds up for enjoying good foods. Yes, my toddler does not eat healthy 100 percent but he also loves veggies still. You do not need special baby food tools to make it, just a blender. I think marketing these days try to make us parents feel like we need special everything. No we do not, we need to just love simple. It really keeps stress and anxiety at bay. That is what I try to do in life and it really helps. 

  1. Just figure out which foods you want to start feeding them. 
  2. Put a little bit in a sauce pan, fill up the pan with filtered water to the top of the ingredient. 
  3. Cook until tender. About 5 minutes or so.
  4. Set it aside to cool off a bit. 
  5. Put into a blender and blend until super smooth.

 And done! 


Try it out, don’t be intimidated and don’t put so much pressure on yourself. We already have so much in the world 🙂

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Family, Food, post partum, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women, workout

Family favorite meal (lose weight meal) that is budget friendly and healthy

We all have days when we are not feeling our best. We feel bloated, fat and just down right yucky. When I start feeling this way I make my favorite meal and eat it often. Mainly at dinner time. After eating it for dinner the first night I feel so much better the next day. This is also my key way to losing the baby weight this time around also. I lost the baby weight twice as fast this time around. The first time it took me a bit longer. It tastes really really good too! It is approved by my husband and toddler also. So this is our go to meal. It is simple, easy and budget friendly. We are doing Dave Ramsey’s Snowball so this is a great meal on a lower meal budget.

Ingredients:

1.5 lb Organic Ground Turkey (From Costco, or 1 lb package from the store)

2-3 Cans Black beans

3 Bell Peppers

4 Tbsp Taco Seasoning

Organic tortilla chips

Cast Iron pan. You need to add everything together. A dutch oven would work just fine also.

This meal feeds us 3 for about 4 days.

Directions:

  1. Cook ground turkey on stove and set aside. *picture below

2. While turkey is cooking cut up Bell Peppers *picture below

3. Cook the bell peppers for about 10 minutes on medium heat.

4. Drain 1-2 cans of black beans. Depending on how many cans you put in your recipe. If you put in 3 cans, drain 2 cans. If you put in two cans, drain 1 can. Make sure to put in one can of black beans, not drained, into the recipe.

5. Add the cooked turkey, black beans and taco seasoning to the bell peppers. Mix together and cook for about 5-10 minutes.

Done!

 

Enjoy! And enjoy often! I hope this concoction makes you feel better as much as it did for me.


 

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Family, St Pattys Day, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Easy Playdoh Recipe

This is the easiest fast and most simple playdoh recipe. Every time we make it I have our toddler pick which color he wants. Today he wanted lime green, that’s my boy!! Its a very cool color and not so boring. To me. Try it out!

 

Ingredients:

2 Cups All Purpose flour

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 Cup Salt

2 Tbsp Cream Of Tarter

2  Cups Water

Food coloring (lime green: 18 yellow to 3 green)

 

Directions:

  1. Mix Flour, salt and cream of tarter in large bowl and set aside.
  2. Boil 1 1/2 Cup water and vegetable oil together. Put in food coloring of your choice and mix with whisk.
  3. Slowly pour liquid mixture into flour mixture and mix with wooden spoon. Be careful not to mix to fast. Also, make sure to mix thoroughly.
  4. Once cooled, put onto counter and knead well.

Done!

Easy, simple and fast. Enjoy and have some fun with your kiddos! Life’s to short to always be busy. Slow down and enjoy this ride. Kids need us to be present not to get present.


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breastfeeding, Christmas, Family, Food, post partum, St Pattys Day, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Red Velvet Baked Donuts with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ok, so I have to get this out of the way. My donuts are not red because the recipe calls for 1 Tbsp of red dye and we had 1/2 Tbsp…..so we used all the dye colors HA! They are green and might do this for St Patrick’s Day coming up.

I found this recipe about 1 minute after my son and I decided to make donuts. They are amazing!!! So good I wanted to eat way more than one at a time. I highly recommend recipe for baked donuts.

 

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar

1 1/2 tsp Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Baking soda

1 1/4 cup Unbleached all purpose flour

1/2 cup Buttermilk (I used almond milk and vinegar to make mine)

1/2 cup and 2 tsp of vegetable oil

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp vinegar

1 Tbsp red food coloring

 

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:

1 cup Powdered Sugar

1 oz Cream Cheese

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp of almond milk or regular milk

 

Directions For The Donuts:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Spray donut pan with non-stick spray
  3. In a large bowl add flour, baking soda, salt cocoa powder and sugar. Mix and set aside.
  4. In a medium bowl, whisk together; egg, buttermilk, vegetable oil, vanilla, food coloring and vinegar.
  5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk together. Do not over mix but mix enough so you do not have clumps in the batter.
  6. Fill the donut ring, I filled it to the top of the donut mold but not high enough to cover the middle.
  7. Bake for 12 minutes. Take out of the oven and let them cool on a cooling rack for a few minutes.

Directions for the Cream Cheese Frosting:

  1. Combine the Cream Cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla in a bowl. Mix (whisk) until all together.
  2. Add 1 tsp of almond milk or regular milk and mix until creamy. If you need to add more to get the perfect consistency, add a very small amount at a time.

I dipped the cooled off donuts in the frosting until coated on one half of the donut. You can add sprinkles if you like. And oh my goodness….they taste amazing!! Enjoy!!

 

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Recipe From Homemadehooplah.com

 

 

Family, Food, post partum, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women, workout

Super-set workout I love

I have found my new favorite super-sets. I actually made it up as I went because I want an awesome workout daily! I typically have about 30-45 minutes a day that I can workout and I want to get muscle definition. Because I do not have a lot of time I put my workouts together and boy does it burn! I absolutely Love Love Love it! The number one reason people tell me they cannot lose weight is because they do not have the time. I feel ya, but honestly, we all have time. We just have to make it. So I really want to encourage you to start somewhere and go workout. If you do not have a gym membership (another huge excuse I hear) then buy dumbbells from Target or Walmart and workout at home. I did not have a gym membership for 4 years and finally have one again. Before the gym membership I had 2-10lb dumbbells that I worked with. It is not a lot but it worked for me. I was able to lose my baby weight the first time with at home workouts, walking/jogging outside and eating better. If you really want it you have to believe in yourself and do it! At first it sucks but honestly it is the best thing you can do for yourself. Get healthy, get fit. Ok so on to one of my amazing workouts….I have a few but I will share the one I did today and post the rest later. Now remember these are super-sets not one set, rest, one set, rest. No resting involved. I rest my muscle when I workout a different muscle.

Back workout Superset

Bent over row with palms facing your body, return to starting position

Bent over row with palms facing each other, return to starting position

Bent over reverse fly, return to starting position

Repeat for a total of 12

Rest: Just kidding! Do 20 lunges each side

Rest: Nope

Do the Top super-set again

Do 20 more lunges each side

Do the super-sets again

Do 20 more lunges each side.

Done!

On to the next workout, abs and legs. Do these workouts all in one set, this time you rest for one minute in between.Remember super-sets, its a better burn and a faster way to get all your muscles worked.

Grab a Mat:

30 crunches

30 side crunches-each side

50 bicycle crunches

20 push ups

20 side plank dips/lifts

50 outside leg lifts

50 inside leg lifts

20 side plank dips/lifts on opposite side

50 outside leg lifts on opposite side

50 inside leg lifts on opposite side

Rest one minute and repeat for a total of 3 sets

Remember to stretch, I am not very good at the whole stretching thing. I typically skip it if I do not have time, but most people need it.

I really hope you try this workout and if you have any questions just ask!

I have been doing this workout for two weeks now. Between this workout and the other ones I will post I have been seeing results faster! I am 8 months postpartum and have recovered faster this time around and am now at the toning and improving my body part. I just started working out with heavier weights and see a big difference. I am not skinny and not super toned just yet 😜 I absolutely love working out and love to eat. So finding a balance has worked for me. I posted two picture of me from this morning. 

1. My tank top is to big on me now, huge. 

2. I am not toned as you can tell but my muscles are getting bigger, thankfully! 

3. Don’t buy targets workout clothes with drawstrings. It literally bunches up around your waste and make me feel like I have a bigger stomach 😟

4. Trying to take a “flexing” picture after your workout leads to a blurry picture hahaha 
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Family, Food, Stay at Home Mom

Brown Rice veggie Sushi

Out of trial and error I have truly found the best brown rice sushi rice recipe. Because I absolutely love to share when I find a good thing I couldn’t help but share this one. Sushi rice is not really “healthy” so I wanted to find a recipe I could make at home with brown rice. The first recipe I used was rated 4 stars so I tried it out. Oh my goodness, gross! It was dry, insanely salty and just all around disgusting. I then tried a different recipe and boy is it yummy!! I made vegetarian sushi for my husband and I last night. I surprised him and he loved it! It is super easy and I hope you get the same yummy result that we had.

Brown Rice Ingredients:

1 2/3 Cup Water

1 Cup Brown Rice (I used Della Organic Light Brown Rice from Costco) *picture below

3 Tbsp Rice Vinegar (I used Nakano Organic Rice Vinegar) *picture below

2 Tbsp Sugar (You could get away with 1 Tbsp)

Instructions:

1.In a medium saucepan (I only have a dutch oven size from Pioneer Woman and it worked great) bring water to a boil then add rice. Stir and lower heat to low and cover. Cook for 25 minutes or until tender.

2.In a small saucepan; add vinegar, sugar and salt. Cook on medium heat until sugar dissolved, about 2 minutes. Make sure to stir occasionally. Put pan aside to cool off a bit.

3.  Once the rice is done cooking slowly and carefully stir in the vinegar mixture making sure to coat all of the rice.

4. Set the rice aside to cool down before making the sushi.

 

Ingredients I used for making veggie sushi:

1 Medium size Cucumber

1 avocado

Brown Rice Sushi from above recipe

4 Seaweed papers (the pack I bought had 10 papers)

Sushi mat but not required. It is easy to use plastic wrap to put under the seaweed.

You cannot forget Soy Sauce, we only use   Kikkoman soy sauce

 

Instructions:

  1. Peel the cucumber skin and cut the cucumber in half. Cut the middle part of the cucumber out, it will look like a boat. Then cut the cucumber, lengthwise, into thin strips. Set Aside *picture below
  2. Cut the avocado in half. Take the seed out and take the skin of the avocado. Put the avocado, cut side down, and slice the avocado into thin slices. Set Aside *picture below
  3. Put a piece of plastic wrap (Or sushi mat) down on a clean and dry counter. Put one Seaweed paper down. Wet hands a bit ( Wetting your hands will prevent rice to stick on your hands) and then hand put the rice onto the seaweed. Put a very thin layer of rice on seaweed. Leave about 1 inch of the seaweed on one of the longest side of seaweed free of rice. *picture below. About 1 inch on the opposite side put about 4-5 thin slices of cucumbers. Put about 4 thin slices of avocado on top. *picture below. Slowly roll up the sushi tightly starting on the side with the veggies. Once you are rolled up to the side of the wrap with no rice at the end, wet your finger and wipe the seaweed end and seal together. Set Aside.
  4. Repeat step 3, I was able to make 4 rolls.
  5. Once finished, take a sharp knife and cut the rolls to your desired size. I like my sushi 1 inch thick.
  6. Plate and Enjoy!

 

I hope I explained it in as much detail as needed. And I hope it is not confusing. If you need clarification on anything just ask! I can try to explain it better.

I hope you enjoy the sushi as much as we did! I love love love this veggie sushi and completely believe it taste like the sushi get from the restaurants. I now do not need to spend a ton of money going out to eat sushi 🙂

*You can use any veggies you want, those two are my absolute favorite! I could eat this daily!

 

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Family, Food, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

“Perfect” Sweet Tea Recipe

This is a recipe I have been making for my family for a while now. This is our favorite “perfect” sweet tea recipe.

Ingredients:

8 cups Water

3 Family Size Lipton Iced Tea bags

2 Cups Sugar

4 Cups of Ice

3L Pitcher

 

Directions:

In a small saucepan boil 2 cups of water. Once boiling add the tea bags and bring to a boil. Bring to a boil again, let it boil for 2 minutes. Once the 2 minutes are up take the tea bags out and add the two cups of sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 more minutes. Once the 2 minutes are up turn off the heat and set pan aside to cool off a bit. Fill the Pitcher up halfway with ice (about 4 cups) and add the rest of the water, 6 cups. Pour the tea/sugar mixture in the ice water pitcher and stir.

Done! Easy Peasy!


I hope you enjoy the Sweet tea as much as we do!

 

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Family, Food, pregnancy, prenatal, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Homemade Tortilla’s

Making tortillas at home is super easy. I also really love the fact that you know every ingredient that is in them. Takes about 30 minutes from beginning to end so you can make them last minute.

 

Ingredients:

4 Cups All-Purpose Flour

1 tsp Salt

2 tsp Baking Powder

2 Tbsp softened butter (I used salted)

1 1/2 Cup Water

Directions:

Put flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl and whisk together. Put the softened butter in and whisk together well. Add the water in slowly and mix together. Place onto a lightly floured counter. Knead the dough for a minute or two and then divide into 20 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.

Preheat a large cast iron pan (Or skillet pan) over medium heat. Roll a ball into a thin round tortilla. Place onto the preheated pan and cook until it bubbles, about 1-2 minutes. Flip to the other side and cook for another minute. Place warm tortilla onto a plate covered with parchment paper. I place a dry and clean kitchen towel over the cooked tortillas.

And, enjoy!

 

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