Recent foods! Yum!

I know I said I would post these awhile ago... So here they are!

These are some of our most recent and oh so yummy meals... I have more photos but have not gotten them on my computer just yet... Hope you enjoy and that it doesn't make anyone too hungry.....

Greek Meatballs

Chicken "Noodle" Soup with Rosemary Dinner Rolls

"Honey" Ham with Cabbage

My Mom's Breakfast "Hash" and Eggs

My Breakfast "Hash" and Eggs

Parmesan Crusted Pork with a small salad and Sweet Mustard Dressing

4 "sauces" I made the other day...
Ranch Dressing - 1g carb per 2Tbs
Russian Dressing - 0g carbs per 2Tbs (family favorite!)
Sweet Honey Mustard Dressing - 1g per 2Tbs
Dill Sauce - 1g carb per 2Tbs (used with fish!)

I saw the following on Facebook and figured I would try it out... It was not as easy as it looks! The dang noodles kept breaking on me! LOL... The 5 year old loved them though!

Just before they started to cook!

On their plates!
They each got 5 chunks of hot dog to start and the baby got a couple that were cut up for him!

A close up! Next time I will need to cook them longer!
The noodle inside the hot dog was still super crunchy!

That is all I have for now. My youngest has decided he does not need to sleep when others do...

~TTFN!

Back in the saddle again!

So, today marks my first day "back in the saddle", the dieting saddle that is.

And I brought a buddy! My Husband has also joined the diet train! Yippee!!!

We have not weighed in yet, but that is because I have not yet put him and his information into the scale yet... Soon!

For breakfast we had a very yummy Broccoli and Cheddar Firtata that I found the recipe for on Egg Land's Best website. I will try to find it again and update with a link at another time. We also had bacon! Mmmm... Bacon! LOL

Lunch was a yummy hand crafted salad! Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, broccoli, scallions(green onions for those who don't know), olives, mushrooms, feta cheese and ranch dressing top it all off with chili powder and pepper! Some hard boiled eggs would have gone great with this salad! (They are cooking now!)

Dinner will be Chicken Continental! Chicken, Ham and Asiago Cheese! New to me, but my Mother had it while visiting my Sister and she loved it. Best bet, I will too! Add some salads and steamed veggies and we are good to go!

When I have them all ready to go I will post photos of dinner! Have to make it and take them and eat it first!

~TTFN!

A Month of Thanks Days 4, 5 and 6

Day 4: I am Thankful for Brown Beverages! Specifically Diet Dr. Pepper, Coffee and Low-Carb Hot Chocolate! Yum! I pretty much  live off of these liquids all the time! The Hot Chocolate however is only this time of year. It is a Slow Cooker drink that even my kids enjoy! How do you make it? I will tell you!

Low-Carb Hot Chocolate:

1- 1/2 Gallon of Chocolate Almond Milk

1/2- 1/2 Gallon of Almond Breeze Almond Milk

2 to 3 Cinnamon Sticks

2 to 3 Tablespoons of instant coffee

Place Almond Milk and Chocolate Almond Milk into a large slow cooker and mix in coffee with a whisk. Add cinnamon sticks and let set on high for 2 hours or low for 4 hours. This will make the home smell yummy and you will have a tasty drink! (Side note: there will be a sort of film on the top. Just use your whisk and mix it in, that part is still good!)

Enjoy!

Day 5: My friends! No matter what is going on in life I know I have several friends I can turn to to vent or to listen to or simply to have someone to talk to! My friends all have great advise and sometimes dumb ideas that just make life that much more fun. I am not sure what I would do without them. And, so no one gets offended, those dumb ideas are never a bad thing. I am sure I have had my fair share at times as well. So, to all those who I call friend, Thank You for always always being there for me! I wouldn't be able to function without you!

Day 6: I am thankful today for Kidd Kraddick in the Morning! I know I will always have a morning laugh as long as they are on the radio. I am glad that they are also on television now and I can go to Dish Nation any time and see their videos! This makes for a bunch more laughs! To actually be able to see the fun they are having and be able to laugh right along with them! If you have not heard of them, now is a good time to get to listening. They are having their Kidd's Kids trip to Disney for terminally ill children on Thursday. This is an awesome trip that they do every year and it always makes me cry! But it is something great! Take a listen! Or look! LOL

~TTFN!

A Day Out... And in some pain!

Started off my day by poaching eggs for the first time! Yippee.... Not! Turns out, I do not care for them! But, they were on my meal plan for the week and I felt I just had to attempt them once. And I will not be attempting that mistake again! I was not thrilled with the process or the outcome! Here are some of the photos from my breakfast today...

Poached eggs on Tomato, Avocado and Muenster:

Eggs poaching for my Mom!
She likes her yoke more runny than I do,
but I didn't get them cooked enough either... Oops!

My eggs waiting to be poached!
These are "farm fresh" or Spokane fresh at least! LOL

2 slices of tomato, 1/2 an avocado and 1 slice of muenster cheese!

Top with poached eggs, salt, pepper and Paprika and enjoy!

We had to go do our banking thing to do and at the same time my face was still hurting! I managed to keep myself "medicated" but that only helped so much! After the bank we were able to stop by Wal-Mart for cat food, we found they had none as we were getting ourselves ready to be out and about for the day and then I made a quick stop over at our favorite Fruit and Veggie stand! (The name escapes me at the moment but it is in the Wal-mart/Skippers parking lot) The guy there was great and had all my veggie shopping list filled within minutes! I had to modify my Cherry Tomato purchase slightly because he doesn't carry them, but I was able to pick up some Golden's that are super yummy! And I think I got way more of them for $5 than I do of the Cherry Tomatoes at the store! 

Happy as a clam, playing with cantaloupe container!

After the store stops we headed to a park to eat lunch and then the kiddos got to play. Me, I just wanted to sleep or cry... It was a toss up at times! The boys have the park routine down really good now! They help carry the cooler and whatever else we need to the decided eating spot, they sit down and eat all the food they are given and then they get to go play! The baby eats his baby food or nurses, depending on how long it has been since he got to nurse. 

After lunch and play time, none of them wanted to leave!
Thus the glares!

We ended up leaving before I had planned because I looked over to see my oh so sweet 4 year old pushing another child off a toy because he wanted to play on it! I was needless to say not happy about that. When they asked why we were leaving I told them what I saw and that I saw the 2 older boys just stand back and not do anything to stop their brother. They of course denied the entire thing. I guess because I am a Mom I am now suddenly blind! Ha ha... yeah, okay! Finally I got them to stop complaining and just get into the car. This is always the hardest part for them. They tend to throw fits and continue to complain until they think they will get their own way, which is never! 

When I am out with my kids I tend to go a little bit too picture crazy I think! But, Hey! Pictures are memories! And I want to make sure my kids have a lot of really good long lasting memories as kids! I fiddled with my "not-so-smart" phone the other day and created some neat photos with borders and text on them. I posted one of the baby on my last post that is actually the background on my phone right now. I had a photo of all 4 boys and myself, I think I looked HUGE! But that had to change when I found a better picture to put on there. LOL! Yesterday I put my phone into the camera mode and then I turned the Sepia effect on! I love this kind of photo. They always look really good in my opinion. Some of them are blurry because old age started to set in and my hand was starting to shake pretty bad. I took several of some of the same poses, but here are the ones I felt turned out the best out of all of the Sepia Photos I took..... One of each of my Handsome little boys of course.... 

My soon-to-be 8 year old!
Getting to be a pretty handsome little fella!

The 6 year old...
He looks a lot like his Daddy!
Oddly enough, somewhat like My Dad as well! LOL

The 4 year old,
I do not know how to get him to stop making that scared look.
He does it every time you go to take his picture.

8 months old!
I can not believe he is already 8 months old!
He is getting way too big, way too fast!
Love him! 

All of my kids teach me something new each day. How to love, care and just be grateful for everything I have in life. I may not have a large expensive home (a couple more bedrooms would be nice) or a lot of money, but I love my family and I would not trade any of them for all the money in the world! My kids, my Husband, my Mother, my Sister, my Brother-in-law and my new little nephew who will be here in a few short months... I love you all so much and I can not imagine a world without any of you!

As far as my low carb diet goes, I have put myself back on the 2 week induction but I think I will stick to the induction meal plans for a little longer. My mother and I are restarting the current week due to stopping on Thursday because I could not eat. I do all the cooking, so unless I cook the meal for my mom she ends up eating different and in the long run that isn't such a great idea for this diet. I lost around 6 lbs in the last 2 weeks and I would love to lose a whole lot more. In fact, I need to lose a whole lot more. So, I ordered some Zumba DVDs! Yippee! They should be here in the next few days (7-10 days for the payment program)!!! I paid $14.95 for 7 DVDs and a set of 1 lb weights. I get them for 30 days and then if I keep them I make 3 payments of roughly $25! Pretty nifty deal as long as they help me get to exercising and loosing even more weight! The weight I lost the last 2 weeks was with no actual exercise. Walking around a store for an hour is not real exercise in my opinion. LOL However, it is fun to do! I think with that added exercise and the good eating lifestyle I should start slimming down rather well! I know I need to get a full body photo up here, but... I hate my gut and I am not sure I want to show it to the world! LOL. I may be brave enough some day soon. Only time will tell. I think that before it cools off outside I will get a photo taken so that it can be a photo of me in my suit. Those are what you always see people in in the dieting ads isn't it? Oh well, I will think about it and everyone can be surprised or disgusted when I post it!

Chillin' in his stroller chewing on his strap!
As always when he can reach them!

~TTFN!

Food! And more...

"Egg Noodle" Mac & Cheese!

 Starting out today.... Some of my favorite meals! Yippee! The first is a Low-Carb "Egg noodle" Mac & cheese. Great, not so quick, meal that my entire family LOVES!  We have actually had these about 1-2 times each week for the passed month... It really is that big of a hit for us. Basically, it is eggs, cheese, Lil' Smokies and cream. Plus a few dashes of nutmeg and a few more dashes of chili powder! Yum! Makes it oh so delicious! Even my kids gobble this meal down. It used to be that if we said Mac & Cheese, it meant the stuff out of the blue box... Yeah, you know the kind I meal! My oldest was so bad about it that he would not eat any type of Mac & Cheese unless it was "Character shaped" and out of a blue box! Until "we" (my sister) got him to eat "Spokane Noodles" (or Elbow Macaroni, because that is all they make in Spokane, WA. Or so he was told! LOL) . From then on it was OK to eat "Spokane Noodles" but only when he picked them out at the store because we FINALLY got some delivered to our store! Essentially, I stopped buying the special kinda because it was all they would eat and I would like for my kids to develop taste buds at some point! Now, as the oldest gets, well, older, he has started to try new things and in turn, his brothers follow in his foot steps! He tried this meal first (loved it) and then the 6 year old tried it (loved it) followed by the 4 year old who still has the jury out! The last time we had this meal (last night) I got my 4 year old to try just a few small bites, to decide if tonight was the night he was going to start liking it. Nope! He ate a hot dog and a hot dog bun (separately) and that was dinner (Dessert was Grape Jell-o). What got me started on not really giving the kiddos a chance to "pick" the meal for the evening was when my 7 year old asked if he could have some of Grandma's "Chicken" (it was pork, but we told him it was chicken). This was amazing to me. This child has only wanted to eat boxed Mac & Cheese, cottage cheese, cheese, boxed Salisbury Steak and a few other random things. He tried it, and loved it! Since then, not a meal has gone by where he didn't eat exactly what we did. And he didn't complain.

Pork and Asparagus (Yum!)

My son keeps telling me that he wants to try more and more new things because I really can cook (to his surprise!) Most of the time he prefers my Mother and I's "diet" food to the food he is eating. For example, we were having breakfast for dinner and I had made a low carb Dutch Baby Pancake(oven baked pancake) for my mother and I to eat and the kiddos and my Hubby were having regular old fashioned pancakes. Well, he wanted part of the Dutch Baby and after trying both decided that he really didn't like the "normal" pancakes. We also no longer buy "sugared" maple syrup anymore. There really is no point in having 2 different kinds of syrup in the house when it doesn't hurt the boys to have just a little less sugar for breakfast! This kiddo just never stops amazing me and I am sure that the end of that is nowhere in sight. He is a very bright boy. He even has requested that he get $2 extra on Tuesdays at school so that he can get a second helping of tacos at lunch time. Since there are only a few weeks left of school, why not! This is their last year at a "Brick & Mortar" School. Might as well let them make the best of it, right?


In other news for me...

We bought a printer to go with our nifty Internet capabilities! Woo-hoo! This is actually helpful because now I can just print my sister's Baby Shower invitations from home, rather than drive into town and pay to print at Kinko's! We also ended up picking up a really neat printer too! It has wireless printing, or eprint, so that we do not have to be hardwired into it to print from it. Another cool part to that is that we can email information from our phones (such as photos) to the printer! Well, the rest of my family can, my phone is pretty lame and doesn't send the picture all the way through! (Bummer!)

I tried to get a photo of the printer to load so that I could show everyone, but it doesn't seem to want to show up! So, it is an HP Officejet 4622 series if you want to see what it looks like! (for those who don't know or don't live here! LOL)

I managed today to purchase my outfit for my Sister's Baby Shower. I am very pleased with it. Since the shower isn't until July, I feel accomplished in having one more thing done! Also, I will be able to nurse the baby easily an still look good while doing so! I tried on 2 of the same thing but the green, yellow and blue just looked best on me. I also picked up a new tank that looks great on me! I never would have thought to try on anything with horizontal stripes because normally they make the person wearing them look 20x their regular size, but both the outfit I got AND my new shirt have horizontal stripes and they look great on me.

I also picked up a couple more pieces of material today for a couple more projects. Along with yet another ball of yarn! I have been crocheting something for awhile now and had been debating on how to do the trim. I could have used something that I already had at home, but this just about jumped off the shelf and screamed, "Use me for that! Use me!" So, I bought it! The fabric I found is my new favorite! It has Owls all over it! I keep gravitating towards the Owl water-proof material used to make cloth diapers too. I have no idea what it is about Owls and baby print that has me so obsessed, but I love it! If I could get my hands on many different kinds of Owl printed fabrics, I'd be a Mama/Auntie in heaven! I would seriously dress my 6 month old is all Owl clothing if I thought I could actually afford to buy all the material from the craft store! This stuff is so cute, I can hardly stand it! Now, if I could only win the lotto, I could buy the fabrics and then maybe grow a craftier side and make a bunch of Owl baby gear! LOL! For now, I stick to what I got! I have a few small projects to complete before my Sister finds out the baby's gender in 2 weeks. And then it is all out "gender specific" projects! Some of the things I am making for her and her baby I will be making the "testers" for myself and my baby!

Little Man is 6 months old now!

Speaking of my Little Man! He has decided that this week should be the week to cut 2 more new teeth! His top 2 front teeth started to break through this week and with that comes drool and both him and I have head colds as well! I notice this time around, that when he was cutting his bottom 2 teeth, him and I both got sick then too. Same type of thing, feels and sounds like a head cold. Stuffed up nose and sore throat with a tiny cough to go with it. Hopefully, his teeth will come fast and him and I will both get better. This type of cold is the type that causes you to e extra tired and with 4 little boys, that is an issue!

In addition to everything else today and this week, my Hubby started mowing the lawn! Yippee! I say started, because our ride on mower was broken until yesterday when our neighbor fixed it and got it running again. He was unable to finish because the belt for the mower blades broke! Literally shredded and came off in chunks! Yuck! Not a pretty picture. So, my Mother stopped in at Baxter's Auto Parts in town while we were in that area. They said they would have the part in 1 hour. So, we went shopping. Came back in 1.5 hours and still no part. Left, and went to another store, this time across town. And when we came back, still no part. Found our way to another store and then back to Baxter's and 4 hours later, part was ready! When we got home I took the boys to play at a friends house so that they could swim and jump on the trampoline and I could visit with their Mommy. Also so Hubby could finish mowing the lawn. Well, the part we were in town so long waiting for... Too long... Can't be used! Gotta get a new one! So, Lawn... Not mowed all the way! (sigh) Hopefully tomorrow it can get finished. We will have to wait and see.

That is all for now. Hopefully I can make it back in here to fill everyone in on more "Me Details" sooner than I did from the last post. I will try to start posting a little something even if it is literally a little something! For now... Enjoy your week! 10.5 more days of school left for the little ones! Yikes!

~TTFN