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b lately.

Okay so I have more recipes for you from this detox that I am doing.. I only have 3 more days and I'm ready for it to be over. I will definitely take what I've learned into my normal diet but man I miss bread, and cheese, and milk, and any other drink other than water. haha. But it's been good.

But right now here are some photos of my Brooklynn lately from my cellphone. She is getting more and more fun every single day. She is the best!

delicious.

I have officially gone 3 1/2 whole days without drinking diet coke!

Can you believe that?! Honestly, I can't. This is the longest I've gone without drinking diet coke in like 5 years... Day 1 was rough, day 2 was miserable, but yesterday wasn't terrible. I actually felt pretty good. I even went to the gym. Amazing right?! haha

As far as my eating went yesterday I had some amazing food. My friend Heather is also doing this detox with me so she came over and we cooked lunch together. We made a Mexican chicken, lime soup with avocado on top. It was amazing!! Heather isn't too keen on meat so she used half meat half beans. But I used all chicken breast. YUM. 

Then for dinner I made a brown rice, asparagus, tomato, chicken type dish with carrot soup. The main dish is supposed to be made with orzo pasta but since I can't have pasta I made it with brown rice. Turned out to be really good.

This cleanse hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. The hardest part is no diet coke and no wheat. But I am noticing a change and I feel pretty good. I have gotten a few emails about doing a post on the exact details of the detox so that is coming soon!

Recipes ::

Mexican, chicken, lime soup



Ingredients ::
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion finely chopped
6 cloves garlic thinly sliced
3 to 4 skinless boneless chicken breast cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, finely chopped, plus 2 tablespoons adobo sauce
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Juice of 2 limes
Salt & Pepper
1 half avocado, thinly sliced

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, lover the heat to medium and cook until the onion begins to brown, about 7 minutes. Remove onions and garlic and put in a small bowl. Cook chicken in pot on high heat until golden brown. Add the garlic and onion back into pot, add chipotles and adobo sauce, then stir in the chicken broth. Lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, skimming any foam. Stir in the cilantro and lime juice: season with salt and pepper.

Pour soup and place avocado slices in individual bowls.
Enjoy!



Carrot Soup ::


simmer on stove 15-20 minutes until flavors blend
4 large carrots cooked, pureed in blender
1 sauteed pureed onion
1 clove chopped finely
1 zucchini cooked, pureed in blender
4 cups low sodium chicken stock
3 tablespoons cinnamon


Brown Rice with Asparagus & Tomatoes


Ingredients::
2 cups of brown rice
1 bunch fresh asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1 lemon, zested and juiced
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic minced
Salt & pepper

Cook rice according to package.

Bring 1 large pot of water to a boil. Add asparagus and blanch, about 2 to 3 minutes, depending on the thickness of your asparagus. Place blanched asparagus in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking and keep them green.

Once rice is cooked add asparagus, and tomato halves.

Mix olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Stir into rice and vegetables. Stir in parsley.

Can be served warm or cool. Delicious both ways!

Guess What??

Every summer we move somewhere else for my husbands job. It can be hard but it can also be a lot of fun. I always get so nervous when it gets close to the time where we find out where we are going. 

But alas, we found out where we are going and I couldn't be more excited..

This summer we'll be heading too..

Fort Worth, Texas!!

I am seriously so excited. We will be right next to Dallas! I've always wanted to go there. It is going to be so much fun! And on top of that I will finally get to meet Curtis' older brother Josh, and Curtis' grandparents! Long overdue! 

I might just have so much fun there that I don't ever want to come back!
Any blog friends live in that area!? 

detox.

Today I started an 8 day detox. This is not your normal detox. It is more to curb cravings and restart the way that I eat. The portions I eat are WAY too big and I need to cut it back. I can exercise all day long but if I don't start eating right I'm never going to lose the weight that I want to lose. 

So for 8 days I will cut out of my diet, sugar, dairy, wheat, red meat and diet coke. You eat 3 decent size meals with NO snacking in between. Honestly the hardest part is going to be no diet coke. I'm insanely addicted and I've tried to stop drinking it multiple times and I've failed every time. But I have never been so determined. If I'm ever going to lose this weight I need to do it now. 

Here I am on day one. I haven't had any diet coke.. I've only had to take pain killers once. I'm actually doing pretty good. But I can't get ahead of myself.  

For breakfast I had two hard boiled eggs. For lunch I had this amazing quinoa salad. I will post the recipe at the end of this post because it is seriously amazing. Then for dinner I had a salad with grilled chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peas. It was delicious. 

And we cant forget, LOTS AND LOTS of water!!

Wish me luck!!

Ingredients ::

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

3/4 cup uncooked quinoa

1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup frozen sweet corn

2 (15-ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Directions ::

In a medium pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. When shimmering and hot, add the oinions and saute for 4-5 minutes, stirring often. Add the garlick and stir for a minute or two until the garlic is fragrant, being careful not to burn the garlic.

Add the quinoa and cover with broth. Stir in cumin, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Bring the muxture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes (or until all the liquid is absorbed).

Stir in the frozen corn and black beans. Cover and let the pot sit off the heat until the corn and beans are heated through, about 5-6 minutes. Stir in the cilantro. Serve warm or chilled.

source

zoo.

Today was free entrance day at the Zoo. Now here in Utah you wouldn't think to go to the Zoo very often in the winter because it's so cold. But it is still open. Just for shorter hours and not all of the animals are out. 

My girlfriend Lauren called me up and told me how today was free entrance day and asked me if Brooklynn and I wanted to join her and her daughter who happens to be named Brooklyn. Since today happened to actually be pretty warm (like 45 degrees. ha) we decided to go. 

It was all worth it just because the Tiger was so interactive. Rarely do you get to see any of the animal so close to the fence. It was amazing. Brooklynn loved the monkeys and now knows "what a monkey says". It's pretty cute I need to get it on video. We had a great time and it was nice to be outside.

Did you know that Brooklynn is the queen of dirty looks? She is seriously so sweet but every once in a while she busts out a really dirty look. But it's still so stinkin' cute! 

After Curtis and I were able to go on a date night to the Utah Jazz game. It was a really fun game. They went into double overtime and ended up loosing. Even though they lost it was still really fun!

Thanks Ashley for baby sitting!

Also, you should head over to The Shine Project blog and enter in my giveaway.. it's pretty awesome!

st. george

This past weekend we headed down to St. George. It was my niece's baby blessing so we couldn't miss it. On top of that, my awesome in-laws also came down for it which was such a treat. We do NOT see them enough. (hint hint :: move to Utah! ) 

Anyway, here is what this awesome weekend entailed. 

-Spending much needed time with my mother and father in-law

-Brooklynn getting to play all weekend long with all her Duty cousins

-Lots of games

-Missing the huge snow storm in Salt Lake and having fun rain.

-Curtis running the St. George half marathon because he's seriously awesome like that.

-Brooklynn getting to meet her GREAT GREAT Grandpa (yes TWO greats! pretty neat!)

-Claire's baby blessing

Eating In-n-Out and Paradise. YUM!

-Talking and laughing with family

It was a great weekend and we were sad it had to come to an end.

We miss everyone already!!

wanna help a sister out?

So I've been really sick of my hair lately. And I've decided that when I hit my weight goal I am going to make a change to my hair. Now I've done two different things in the past. Once I dyed my hair brown. And second I cut my bangs, but my hair was still blonde. I want to do one of these again. Or maybe both? What do you guys think? Do you like either of these? Or maybe none of them?! 

Let me know what you think! :)

friendship.

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately. When you get married and start to have kids your friendships start to change. Some friends you start to see less. Some you start see more. Some disappear all together. A lot of the time the change is mutual. Sometimes it's not. 


It's really hard when it's not.


It's hard when friends start start to fade into different lives and pull away. No matter how hard you try to keep the friendship going, if the other person doesn't try just as hard. It fades away.


But I have to say that I am so thankful for all the people I have in my life who have stuck with me through thick and thin. Family is most important always. But friends are important too. 


There are times in your life when the best therapy is to just go out to dinner with your girlfriends and talk, and laugh, and just be silly. I love those times. Especially with the friends that I have. This group of people is seriously amazing!


I think one of the worst things we can do is take advantage of our friends or make them feel bad. I think we should make it a goal to make sure our friends know that they are cherished. Everyone likes to feel cherished. So we should let the people we care about know that we love them even when times are hard.


And I can't forget all of you! Seriously, you make me feel so loved with all your comments. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! You are all so beautiful!






and now I'll leave you with a video that my friend Kaitlin and I made a couple years ago doing the best dance ever. (our glasses are from when we saw Hannah Montana/ Meet Miley Cyrus in concert in 3D. ha)

blankie.

Our little sweetheart is a blankie lover. But not just any blankie. She loves ONE in particular. Most of the time she just can't go to sleep without it, 

but every once in a while she wants it just to have it. 

And when she is in that mood there is nothing you can do to take this blanket away from her. I'm not going to lie, I think it's really cute. Even though when this happens she ends up dragging it all over the floor getting it SO dirty, but she is so dang precious. I love her so much I can't even handle it sometimes!!! 


...and if you notice for some reason she always likes to suck on that binkie upside down. always. HA!

HAPPY WEEKEND, EVERYONE!

frustrating.

Today started out as a great day. Brooklynn was super happy. We had a great morning playing. We both took an amazing nap and then we headed to the Discovery Gateway Museum. It was a blast! She had so much fun running around and playing with all of the different things. We got a pass today. It is the perfect place to go on cold days like today. 

The day however started to go down hill when it was time to leave. She was tired and hungry and did NOT want to leave. My little brother was with us and we headed over to the food court to get a little snack. She normally gets upset when we leave somewhere fun but usually lets it go when we leave. But I think the combination of her being tired and hungry just pushed her over the edge into full on freak out mode.

She started screaming at the top of her lungs RIGHT after we ordered our food. Nothing I could do would calm her down. She was just screaming over and over and again. So I was trying to hurry up and get out of there because I felt bad for everyones ears. Doing the best I could with the situation I was in.

As I was walking out of the food court there were two girls sitting at a table with newborn babies deliberately giving me the worlds dirtiest looks. I'm talking the meanest look anyone has EVER given me. Normally I would just blow it off. But today I was already frustrated... I stopped and said, 

"Clearly you guys don't have very much experience with children or you would NOT be giving me, a fellow mom, that dirty of looks"

and walked away.

Not my best moment. I know. Confrontation is not the way to handle things but it really bothered me. Children throw fits for no reason at all. It's not like I was just sitting there ignoring her. I was doing my best to make her happy and get out as fast as I could. She is too little to respond to threats and time out and I am not going to spank her especially if she doesn't understand why. That's just not me. 

Whenever I am in a public place and I see a mom with a child who is throwing a fit and is doing the best they can I always try and give a friendly smile. Kind of like mom code for "Hey, I know you're doing the best you can I want you to do that you're not alone".

Being a mom is not easy all of the time. 

Yes it is the best thing that has ever happened to me but it can be very hard sometimes. We don't need to be giving each other dirty looks for doing the best we can. 

It's not right. 

It is amazing how just a smile can light up someone's day when they are having a hard time. We don't know what every one else is going through. And I guarantee that if you help someone else out. You will feel better too.

gotta love instagram.

We had a good day today. We picked up my little brother from school and headed to the aquarium. I am so thankful for instagram. There are times where I just don't feel like lugging my huge camera around. I'd rather focus on running around with my little munchkin and show her all the cool fishies and penguins! But it is still nice to capture some super cute moments. So thankfully instagram was able to help me out today. Also after we went to my apartment and we might have watched the Bachelor. 

All I have to say is, the fact that he is so into Blakely and Courtney has made me think much much less of Ben. Yuck. But yes... I will still watch. HA. :)

baby tantrums

Brooklynn has FINALLY kick that stupid bug to the curb! We have gone 3 full days with no throwing up! Woohoo!! Anywho...

I would definitely say that having a 1 year old is harder than having a 2 year old. 

Not that having a 1 year old is hard. But what is hard is when she throws tantrums and is too little for time outs and to fully understand what right and wrong is. 

It seems like lately she has been gaining more and more of an attitude. It is insane. I think at this moment in time she requires a lot of attention which I am more than willing to give.

She is learning so fast and you can see it in her eyes how excited she gets when she learns something new. It makes me a very proud mama. 

She now can says: fish, jump, eyes, mama, dada, baba, nose, night night, bye bye, ball, baby, soft, and no. I even swear she said "i love you". 

She knows where her eyes, ears, and nose is.

She is so smart it amazes me every single day. Not to mention, she is getting cuter and cute every single day. I don't know how that happens!

But back to how this is a hard age...

I cannot get this girl to eat anything other than mac n cheese, waffles/pancakes, and eggs. She will eat baby food but she even is getting over that. I put so many different kinds of things in front of her and she just throws them off her tray.

It can get to be very frustrating. 

I know that if she gets hungry enough she will eat anything but I don't want to starve her! 

Any suggestions on how to get her to try new foods? I know she will like them she just needs to give them a try! 

happenings.

I have been MIA from the blog lately. Mostly because my child can't seem to kick this bug that has hit our house. It's driving me nuts. I want my poor baby girl to feel 100% again! We have disinfected the entire apartment and even rented a carpet cleaner and steam cleaned the carpets. She was perfect for one day and then thew up twice today. One time being in the car all over her car seat.. So I have no idea what's going on! Hopefully she can start to feel better soon so we can get back to fun kid filled activities! 

In other news. We have a new addition to our little family. We got our first pet. A FISH!! He is a cute little beta fish and we love him. His name is Brobee which is from one of B's favorite shows "Yo Gabba Gabba". We thought it was appropriate! It's fun to have him and Brooklynn loves him. She can almost say fish, but it sounds a little bit more like pish. I can't believe how much she is talking these days. She is so smart.

Also, for Christmas my awesome mom got me a sewing machine. I have never ever used one before in my life. Tonight I whipped it out and got it all set up. Now I just need to learn how to use it. But let me tell you.. once I learn I'm gonna go crazy. I'm so excited to start creating things! It's the perfect hobby for me! I can't wait to learn. :)

Here are a few other exciting things that are going these days ::

My girl Kaitlin just got engaged to awesome Nathan and is getting married on April 6th.

My little brother Scott is engaged as well to Brittany who I LOVE and they are getting married the next day on April 7th! (very convenient! )

Tomorrow I am going to my soon to be sister-in-law to look for a wedding dress! I am so excited!

In my family we are doing a "biggest loser" competition. I'll be doing a post on that later..

One of my best friends, Nicole had her second baby on NYE. Her name is Dakota and I'm so sad that I'm not in CA to see her cuteness in person!

Brooklynn got some super cute new shoes that I am in love with on her!

happy twenty dozen.

Yep. This year will be referred to as twenty dozen. Just let it happen. ;)

Anywho, New Year Eve was fun... Well, started out fun anyway. We went to my sister-in-laws house for tacos and cake balls. It's always so much fun to see the kids play together! They all love each other so much it makes me so happy. But we only made it to until about 10. 

Once Brooklynn had gone through 3 pairs of PJ's we realized we should get home.

So we headed on home. Brooklynn went to sleep just fine. We wanted to stay up until midnight of course to have our new years kiss. After which we went to bed.

At about 1am Brooklynn woke up which isn't totally weird. She does that sometimes. She takes a bottle and goes right back to sleep. Well tonight was different. She wouldn't take a bottle. So I changed her and put her back in bed. 

About one minute later she started hysterically crying..

 I went in and got her and she had a very full diaper that was definitely hurting her little bum and was freaking out. So I changed her again and put Barney on. I cuddled her on the couch until she calmed down. 

She finally looked like she was going to fall asleep in my arms so I got up and headed to her room to put her down. Just as I get to her room she throws up all over the place. So now Curtis is up with us too, he cleans it up while I give her a bath. It wasn't for another 30 minutes or so that we finally got her down to sleep.

We get back in bed and I cannot sleep. About 3am it hits me.. I run to the bathroom and throw up. It all went down hill from there. About 20 minutes after that it hit Curtis. 

There began a full day of mom, dad and baby all throwing up. It may be safe to say it was one of the worst days of my life. 

I think there should be a rule that if your baby is sick, mom AND dad cannot be. It was a hard hard day.

I can say that waking up this morning feeling so much better was SUCH a relief! I really really appreciate my health. Brooke still isn't feeling 100% today but she is doing much better. Not the best way to start off the year but hey, it can only go up from here!

I hope you all had a better first day of the year!

Happy Twenty Dozen!!!