Winning at pinning, food, ch. 2

I was supposed to do this yesterday, oops. We got busy doing nothing in particular and I never got to it.  But here is another winner, winner chicken dinner recipe from pinterest that we love.

Mini Chicken Pot Pies:

 Ok, pretty freaking easy:

*Bisquick (my hub does this part and mixes 2 batches worth to get 12 mini pies, also stick with the only use water kind, I buy a big box because we use it for tons of other things which I'll feature here as well!)
*Diced chicken
*Add your own  diced veggies ( we used carrots and potatoes the first time, but the carrots were still crunchy and I don;t love cooked carrots, so we just used the potatoes the second time. You should nuke the potato in the micro for 7 mins to get it tender)
*I thought of this genius idea of using cream of chicken soup as the traditional "gravy" for the pot pies, and let me tell you, it was fabulous!! I used about a tbsp and will try 2 tbsp's next time!
*Shredded cheddar

preheat oven to 375
Mix up your 2 batches of pancake mix and fill a greased (or pam or whatevs) muffin tin with 1 tbsp of mixture

Add veggies and chicken
Add cream of chicken soup on top of veggies and chicken

Cover with 1 tbsp of batter
Add a sprinkle of shredded cheese (or you can mix it in with your chicken and veggies)
Bake for 25-30 mins (they should be a nice golden color)

These are so good, and you can make them and freeze them for later (apparently) and also mix and make different types as well. My little guy even loves these kid sized friendly "muffins"

Enjoy!!

It's all for science

So, last week I had a bad week.  And by bad I mean that I didn't lose any weight.  I didn't gain any either, but I did work out 4 days for what seemed like nothing.  Boo.  I was sooo ridiculously hungry all week and I had no idea why.  Was it from working out so much? Was it from not eating as much as my fat A is used to? Or was I just hungry for no reason at all?  Then the answer became very clear, something that I didn't anticipate, Aunt Flo showed up.  I was wondering when she'd return, usually right around nine months post-partum my OB said, but my Aunt showed up a few months early.  It's cool, I'd rather get this show on the road and get back to normal. But since the mystery was solved (and copious amounts of food was eaten!) I have resolved to be much more proactive this week. 

I have decided to take it up a notch since now my knee (praise the Lord!!) is feeling much better.  Work outs will still be 4 days a week BUT an hour long each day, with weight training added in.  And I am starting a 3 day "military diet" tomorrow. After I complete it, I will let you know the results and give you the deets, but for now, let me be your Guinna pig.  You all probably know that my philosophy is never about finding a quick fix, it's about slow and steady wins the race, but I'm looking at this as a "detox" of sorts after my naughty weekend, and as usual, I will probably slightly modify it to meet my needs.

I am close to hitting my first goal, losing all weight gained from Lucas, I have 11 lbs to go and plan on killing that this month.  Then it's off to conquering my Ethan weight gain, which will end up being about 38 more lbs...yikes!! But the goal is to have that gone by Jan 1st!! Then to my Everest!! The final 30-50 ( I may hit a certain wight and be cool with never reaching my soft goal weight) To which I promise some gnarly before and after pics, but there's no way in H-E double hockey sticks I'm putting up before pics without there being some afters to show as well!! Yikes! Stick with me kids, this is the real deal this time!

Winning at pinning, food, ch. 1

Heyo....So lately I've been making some food and crafts that I've gotten off of pinterest and I really want to share some of it with you all because stuff this awesome! This is the food part of this "series" I'll probably also do a craft series. It depends on how much y'all like this part. So, feedback??

This week's recipe is one we tried last week and it was so sublimely tasty I wanted to share it first! We ate the whole thing and I could have made two and eaten one by myself! Here is the original link, as I never follow a recipe to the T, I love having a little room for creativity so I just follow the basics. Thanks to emmalinaviolet.wordpress.com for the original recipe and photos, because credit is due where it's found!

Buffalo chicken garbage bread (or as I'm going to call it, Buffalo Chicken Calzone!)

1 tube of premade pizza dough (or any pizza dough, rolled into a rectangle, I get the Pillsbury stuff)
1-2 cups diced chicken (ok, I didn't really measure, I use the frozen diced Tyson chicken and eyeball it)
2 cups of mozz cheese ( I only know this because 1 bag of shredded cheese = 2 cups)
Hot sauce
ranch dressing ( or blue cheese if you prefer...)

Grab that pizza dough and roll it out to form a rectangle, let that bad boy sit for about 20 mins.

Spread dough with a layer of ranch, here I didn't measure either, I used a basting brush and brushed on probably about a half a cup of ranch, if you use too much it will definitely overpower the roll.

Toss the (cooked) diced chicken in hot sauce, use as much of the hot sauce as you'd like here, we went easy on it this round, next time we will use much more for that extra kick! Add chicken to dough, here you can also add more hot sauce if you'd like, experiment!!

Put shredded cheese on top of all this deliciousness, you can use all 2 cups or as little as you'd like, but if you like  cheesy, gooey goodness, use 2 cups, it's perfect.

Roll that beautiful creation up like a burrito, it will be sticky so be gentle as to not tear the dough.

Bake at 425 for 20-25 mins, it should be nice and brown on the outside, but apparently sometimes it can be doughy on the inside, ours came out perfect at 25 mins.

Eat the crap out of this yummy stuff! If you try this one, please let me know how you liked it!

The frustration station

Week two of get thee less fattimus:
Total lbs lost: 5
Days exercised: 1 :(

This knee injury has been major lamesauce.  My knee is getting worse everyday, the pain has reduced me to tears the last three days.  I did go have it checked out on Tuesday and x-rays were taken as it was pretty swollen and I am still waiting to hear back from the dr's office.  I am pretty sure it's bad news bears though. The way it feels, this will not be a simple case of R.I.C.E!! (rest, ice, compression, elevation) And seriously nothing has made me more depressed these last two weeks than not being able to move more! For the first time in a looooooong time I have been so motivated to work out only to be unable.  I have to say that thankfully, eating much better has been paying off for me or I would be doubly pissed off! It still hasn't been an easy road in the dieting half though, there were a couple of days that I was really freaking hungry! I just had to choose very wisely and pray, pray, pray for the strength to get through this!! And I am kicking ass!

Now the plan of attack going into week 3, lots of ab and arm strength training.  I will also start doing some resistance band training as well, going back to my dancer days and all the pi-yo stuff used to do, to get the muscles shredding! But I am pretty sure cardio is out. :(..... If only I had a pool!!!! Or access to one in the near vicinity! Which I do not. Booooooooo!

This week I could sure use some positive thoughts, well wishes and prayers for the knee to magically heal itself. (And also for me to not need the "S" word)

On the road again...

Holy crap! Look who came out of blog retirement!! That's right, I'm back! (for now). After having baby #2 I really wanted to focus on raising my two darling children for a while, and I am pretty sure no one was reading my stuff anyhow.  But now, the dust has settled in life a bit and I missed bearing my soul to the Internet! 

Also, it has taken me about 4 months (post partum) to finally realize, I am done being the angry fat chick.  So we are on the road again, the road to wellness.

I don't want to say I have a number in mind when it comes to my actual goal weight, and thinking about almost 100lbs to lose is a little daunting, so the plan for the moment is eating better, much better.  This week I have cut back on calories, mercilessly tracking away via spark people and keeping within a 1700-2000 calories a day range (only because I'm breastfeeding or that would be more like 1200-1500).  As just two days, I had lost 2 lbs already, and I feel great! By eating more fruits and veggies, I can already feel my body gaining more energy, and craving less junk! It's wonderful because if you've been reading all along, you know that sugar is my downfall. Eff off sugar, I don't need you! (ok, maybe just a little bit...) so this is truly a miracle of epic proportions.  I am also drinking a metric fuck ton of water.  Each time I finish a meal, or finish a round of nursing thing 2, I try to chug my 24 oz cup. I currently work out by running to the bathroom every thirty seconds. Ha! But that seriously helps curb the cravings.  My meals are currently looking something like this:
1 cup cereal with 1% milk and fruit in the am, no sugary shit either, we stopped buying any kinds of kid cereal months ago.
crystal light energy or an iced coffee to drink and a granola bar as a snack
a salad with chicken or steak meat and 2-4 cookies ( I still need a little sugar) or a lean cuisine meal for lunch
water, water, water, water
healthy dinner with lots of veggies, mostly new recipes I have gotten from pinterest, peppered in with some oldies, but goodies. And I usually top that off with 1 cup of ice cream (I looooove my desserts, and I usually eat a HUGE bowl of ice cream in a sitting, but have since started eating stuff out of Ethan's little guy dishes to control portion sizes and crazy enough, I am satisfied!!)
Aaaaaand that usually come out to about 2000 calories.

I have been wanting to work out and spent Monday and Tuesday totally depressed because I managed to hurt my knee this weekend, rendering me pretty useless. But I did start walking, quite modestly, Wednesday and again today, and hopefully my knee will get over being lame and heal itself so I can start running 3 days a week.  The plan will eventually work up to running 3 days a week and doing Jillian Michael's 30 day shred 2-3 times a week as well. But, baby steps, yo!

So here it begins. And I freaking mean it this time!

To Rapture with love

So, I know I haven't been blogging up a storm lately, but I will come out of retirement soon!!!But now for a very shameless plug for my favorite photographers....

The work is great, I had a huge zit that Emily "took care of", my husband and son were in a horrible mood, but you'd never really know from these photos.

They are very professional and give you the freedom to print out your photos where ever you want.

If they can make this rag-tag bunch of misfits look great, imagine what they will do for you and yours!! You can find them here!

When April Fool's jokes go wrong...

It was intended to be a pretty harmless, ha ha, joke's-on-you-peeps type of thing.  I mean, you've gotta love seeing everyone post stuff on facebook to the likes of, uh-oh, we're pregnant or we're moving or Sammy is in the hospital with a terrible case of herpes or something on April first.  And I was no exception, I mean, I had a pretty damned believable (apparently VERY believable) story for the day so I ran with it...

Ethan, March 18, 2008

It started with me posting this picture, of the day my son Ethan was born, 4 years ago and saying, "Lucas decided to come on April 1st instead of April 10th" or something to that effect. I must admit, every one's reaction made my day.  When will I ever get to pull a prank like this again? It was so worth it.  And I still have no regrets! In fact, I am still laughing about it.

Well, karma is, as they say, a bitch.  Now through out my entire pregnancy, my blood pressure ran a bit on the high side.  But at my Dr's appointment on the 29th, it was pretty high, so high I was thisclose to being sent into the hospital to be monitored.  So when I got home, being the good little phlebotomist/medical assistant that I am , I decided to monitor my BP daily to make sure all was well in the world.  It was pretty normal every day, until Monday morning. Not wanting to be a worry wart, or hypochondriac I didn't want to alert the media right away.  I tried to rest a bit, still not going down. Tried to drink a bunch of water, still not going down.  I finally had to call my mom to seek her opinion on the matter. Should I call my doc or not? The verdict was call, just to err on the side of caution.  The office then told me to head on down to the hospital, get checked out.

If anyone knows my husband you can imagine the phone call I had to make to him as he was at work. 
Me: "Hey babe, how soon will you be done at work?"
Him: "Bout 30-45 mins, why?"
Me: "Well...Not to worry but my blood pressure is pretty high and the doc wants me to go to the hospital sometime soon. But finish what you're doing, then we'll leave whenever you get home."
Him: panicking "Um, what do you need me to do , should I leave now? Let me go tell my boss. (enter boss name here) I um, my wife is I mean her blood pressure is high, we have to go to the..."
Me: "Calm down, please."
Him: "I'm just going to finish up and um I , um we are uh..." insert more panic-panicy panic talk...
Me: "Please just relax, they are probably just going to monitor me and send me home ok, please don't freak out and end up getting in an accident on the way home."
Him: "Ok, I'll be home soon..."

Him not coming home right away gave me time to pack my bags, shower, chill out and get ready to go.  I seriously thought that at the very least, they'd watch my BP, send me home and possibly do the section the following day.

I was pretty much calm and collected the entire time.  Not really worried because I felt totally fine, normal even.  I mean I had had it with being pregnant that was for sure but I didn't actually think that that night I'd be having a baby.

Once we got to the hospital I had to leave my husband in the lobby while they checked me in.  The charge nurse was horrible and basically blew me off like I was one of those stupid patients who worries about everything.  She told me that I'd have to go to a room and try to "calm down" while they waited for another nurse to be called in and take care of me.  Once I was in that room, no one came in and took my BP until the nurse who was called in arrived.  The first hour I was there was the most terrible "service" anyone could have ever had.  By the time my nurse took my BP, it was 175/101. Pretty dang high, so much for calming down!

Once everything was said and done, my doc decided the best way to cure pre-eclampsia was to just deliver the baby. So that evening we prepared to have our son.  Sometime after I had been hooked up to all the monitors and such, I ended up going into labor anyhow, and they had to start me on a drug called magnesium to help control my BP.  Now, Mag hurts like hell when it's running through your body and between the IV meds, the BP cuff squeezing the crap out of my arm every 15 mins and contractions, shit hurt real freaking bad! I was pretty miserable! It was a trifecta of horrible-ness I'd not wish on my worst enemy! The time could not come any faster for that spinal block!

Once we actually got to the OR, our surgery was delayed due to a woman having twins in the room next door, au-natural mind you.  It was actually pretty cool hearing twins be born, and I for one minuet wanted to have twins myself. Just for one minuet...But the time came and everyone was happy and laughing and having a good time.  It was seriously such a positive feeling, I was very pleased at the entire OR team. Much better than my last section.

At 8:34, p.m. Lucas was born.  He looks just like his big brother did, but with dark hair and that Italian skin color (Vs my and E's very pale German). He has been great at nursing, great at sleeping and has a very active colon. 

Lucas, April 2, 2012

I wrote this post in January of '11 about the fear I felt about not having enough room in my heart to love another child.  It wasn't until that moment he arrived that I knew that was so out the window.  The heart is a wonderous thing, it grows to accommodate.  Now I can't imagine my world a mere 8 days ago with out this beautiful boy in it.  Having my boys with me, curled up on the bed watching TV or whatever together is the most perfect thing I could ever imagine.  And I'm so glad that this April fool's joke tried to get the best of me, because I couldn't have been happier with the results!