Long time.. once again

I forget to write on here, my apologies life can get busy. I honestly haven't been doing to much the holidays just passed and well that was full of travel, food, family which is always nice. I suppose I can post some pictures of those events. I'm a bit tired now my daughter Grace hasn't been in the best mood since let's see December? Yeah it's horrible news my sweet, content baby is now the devils spawn, well not quiet but she sure is a handful. I've heard her cry these past 2 months more than I have since she was born. So life has been hard, and at time depressing but I'm surviving. I've decided to try my best and continue to eat healthy and at some point exercise again so hopefully that energy will come soon. In case you haven't noticed this Grace is very popular in this blog :)

Grace with her cousin New Years Day

 Grace a gift from her grandpa on my side of family

 Christmas is here

This here is Thanksgiving at my parents. Isn't she a doll? :) 

I would post pictures of our trip to MO, but Chris has most of the Christmas pictures on his phone.

I'll try my best to update my blog!

Fitbit

I'd really like to get this! If only someone would buy it for me and I'd also like a watch with a heart rate monitor. Thank you!

Pancakes!

they never fail to come out fluffy!

I couldn't sleep last night so I was up pretty early and I decided to make pancakes since my husband was heading to work by 4:30, so I got up at 3:30 and made pancakes!

I made them from scratch and I always use the same recipe, it's great!

Here's the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/good-old-fashioned-pancakes/detail.aspx

I love ALLRECIPES.COM!

Lentil Soup - Lebanese Style

I made lentil soup differently today and I think it tasted great! With a couple of alterations I made this soup my own.

My yummy soup!

Alterations: 

Used brown lentils instead of red (because I used the ones we had)

Instead 3/4 cup lemon juice I added small amounts at a time and tasted 

Added 1 cup chopped spinach

Added coriander spice

Added more cumin 

Added more cayenne pepper

Recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/lebanese-style-red-lentil-soup/detail.aspx

If you like lemon flavored food you'll like this, if you don't you might just exclude the lemon juice!

Run, run, run...

Running is something I'd like to someday day be good at and dedicated to. I wish I just had it in me to run miles, but I don't which is unfortunate so I have to train and some how find the motivation to keep at it. What sucks about this transformation is that I picked horrible weather to do it in, almost winter and full blown winter in middle of my program. If I get through this program that consist of 9 weeks of running/ walking that shows dedication. 

The program I decided to use is called C25k Pro and it's an app on my phone that trains a beginner how to run. It consist of run/ walking for 3 days a week in a 9 week spread. It's pretty much a program that has you walk say 1 min, then run 2 mins for 30 mins every other day. Every week adds more time running and less walking until you get to the 9th week, which by that point the program has you running the whole 30 minutes. 

So as of right now I'm on Week 2 Day 1, but I have decided to go ahead and start over because I have n't been running consistently every other day. Tomorrow will be  Week 1, Day1 and I will post again tomorrow about my experience I will say that my initial first week I had a lot of knee pain hopefully this wont be the same issue. 

Adios! 

Botanical Garden, Fort Worth

Our first time all together at the Botanical Garden.. more like the inside conservatory!

(it's too cold to walk around in this weather)

Chris and Grace doesn't she look warm :)

wow do I look big, remind me to never wear such a loose coat!

Grace was sucking away at her fist.

I decided to hide behind her.

Chris' favorite plant! Look at the squared leaves.

Grace and that fist!

Great day spent with our little family!

Pictures taken by Chris.

Fettuccine Alfredo & Bread

I made fettuccine alfredo with chicken yesterday and it tasted fine, but just wasn't that flavorful. I also made bread that came out "just fine" and I blame the flour for that!

So yesterday I found a blog (again) with tons of recipes promoting health & fitness and (I'm a sucker for those) since I to am trying to live a healthier life style, I decided to try out her recipe, but as I said earlier it was a bit flavorless in my opinion and I think it had a lot to do with everything being fat- free or low fat which is less calories and that's good for me, but bad for my taste buds. It for example asked for fat-free cream cheese, low fat milk well not necessarily asking for BUT suggested the use of these items and I of course was a go for that! Anyhow I'm not saying it was bad it was quite delicious I could eat it again without any alteration but people who want flavorful fettuccine wont get it here, at least not with this recipe. Here are the recipe and some picture of my pasta!

(Here's the recipes for the Fettuccine Alfredo, some might like it more than other, but on the plus side it's healthier then the regular one and I would eat it again. Also I added chicken and cherry tomatoes to mine)

http://mamagrubbsgrub.blogspot.com/2011/12/fettuccine-alfredo-with-mushrooms-and.html






This was dinner and my lunch today that included a smaller portion of pasta and green tea!

On to the "BREAD"

I found a website with instructions, pictures and all and I still managed to mess up somewhere because my bread didn't get very big and I'm thinking it had to do with the flour. I bought whole wheat grain bread flour (me TRYING to be healthy) so it was very grainy and dry. I think next time I will use regular bread flour if I can find it, for some reason I didn't see it in Walmart. Anyone know how it looks? I didn't see one called "bread flour" but bread still tasted good just not big enough to make sandwiches. This bread came out more like bread you eat with meals and wipe your plate clean with lol.

Here are some pictures.

I combined the hot"ish" water with flour, salt, sugar, yeast, oil making what they call the "sponge"

(not in that order)

Then I keep mixing more flour and kneading for about 8 mins! You need some elbow grease for that

oh bread maker where are you....

Went on a run since it need 45 mins to rise...

45 mins later...it has risen! Wait it's not that big :-/

What went wrong??

I kneaded then left in a warm spot covered with a moist cloth!

 I then "punched" it and divided into two bread pans and placed it in a warm place and let it rise for awhile.

Next placed in oven

After about 45 mins I got 2 small loafs of bread! They are tasty, just not big but not to shabby for my first attempt at bread making WITHOUT a bread maker.

This is Chris doing a comparison with his big finger...oh so tiny!

Recipes I used: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Bread-without-a-bread-machine/?ALLSTEPS