Gobble Gobble

Its almost Turkey time... there are not enough ways to express my love for this holiday, mainly the delicious food. I am obsessed with it. I CANNOT wait. The weekend has been rough for me, I had the flu or something HORRIBLE Friday. It hit me like a ton of bricks around 4 pm. I started to finally feel better later Saturday only to wake up Sunday morning to a serious MIGRAINE.. Oh the pain, agony, and terror. It was AWFUL. I popped a bazillion Excedrin Migraines, which all failed me miserably and only left my stomach in knots. The room spun, my head throbbed, every movement the kids made had me curled up in a ball wanting to cry. I went to bed as soon as the kids did (this was after the 3 little naps I took). I woke up at 4 am where I remained with my head in the toilet for an hour. NOT FUN! However... that is what it took to put an end to this migraine. Today was a little "off"... mostly tired, a little achy but all in all so much better! Just in time too.

Tomorrow my sister, her significant other and their children will be driving to Cali to spend this awesome holiday with ME! I am so excited. It is hard having my husband gone ever but especially right now with all these holidays coming up. I hate it. I want him here with me more than anything. He is truly my BEST FRIEND. Having my baby sister here will definitely help me get through this thankful holiday! And I do have a lot to be thankful for. One thing being that dang migraine is GONE! HA HA!

So here is where I get excited... coming up with a menu for our little Thanksgiving feast. What's going to be on your plates? What are your must haves?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Nutritional info for the recipes I posted :)

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: 1 muffins

Amount per Serving

Calories 88

Calories from Fat 32.0

% Daily Value *

Total Fat 3.55g

5%

Saturated Fat 1.21g

6%

Cholesterol 46.67mg

15%

Sodium 174.13mg

7%

Total Carbohydrate 11.24g

3%

Dietary Fiber 1.71g

6%

Sugars 1.4g

Protein 3.85g

7%

Est. Percent of Calories from:

Fat

35%

Carbs

51%

Protein

17%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calories needs.

This is for the Pumpkin Muffins... if making 12 muffins..... (I think I ended up with more though!)

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: 0 loaf

Amount per Serving

Calories 174

Calories from Fat 10.7

% Daily Value *

Total Fat 1.19g

1%

Saturated Fat 0.37g

1%

Cholesterol 35.83mg

11%

Sodium 266.07mg

11%

Total Carbohydrate 35.39g

11%

Dietary Fiber 3.66g

14%

Sugars 18.43g

Protein 4.01g

8%

Est. Percent of Calories from:

Fat

6%

Carbs

81%

Protein

9%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calories needs.

This is for the banana bread!

Yummmmmmmmm

HOLY HEAVEN....

I have found two really amazing recipes... well I found them, then I altered them to suit my needs and came up with something AH-MAZING! I must share them with you!

A couple of weeks ago I made these:

Pumpkin Muffins with cream cheese

2 Eggs, beaten

1/2 C pumpkin

1/2 C Almond breeze

1/4 C butter (or applesauce)

1 1/2 C Oat Flour

1/3 C Splenda

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix first four ingredients together, ad

d splenda, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. In separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt together. Mix into wet ingredients. Pour into muffin tins. Set it aside and mix the topping.

Cream Cheese Topping

3 ounces cream cheese

1 tbsp splenda

1 tbsp Almond breeze

Add a spoonful of the topping to the unbaked muffins. Bake on 400 for 20-22 minutes!

Super yummy! Super pretty to look at and they freeze really well!

After our Vegas trip this weekend, we came home to some over ripe banana's... which means... whooo hoooooo... banana bread. But not just any banana bread, the BEST, EASIEST, HEALTHIEST banana bread you have ever had. SOOOO goood, my kids can't get enough of it!

Banana Bread

2 Cups Whole Wheat flour

1 tsp Baking soda

1/4 tsp Salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 C butter (or applesauce)

3/4 C Splenda brown sugar mixture

2 eggs, beaten

2 1/3 C over ripe banana's (I used 4 small banana's)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray bread pan with Pam baking spray. I ended up making 3 mini loaves, and 6 muffins out of this recipe (one is missing because I ATE IT). In a large bowl combine flour, baking soda, and salt. In separate bowl cream together butter, sugar. Stir in eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and bananas, add to the flour until moistened. Pour into bread pans or muffin tins. Let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. Bake until toothpick comes out clean.

For one large loaf bake 60-65 min

For mini loaves bake 20-22 minutes

For muffins bake 20-22 minutes

Honestly hands down the best banana bread I have ever made. My kids can't stay out of it. I froze two loaves and have already had to thaw one of them, tastes fantastic!

A Possum, Opossum... whatever!

I just posted this to my family blog... I found it worthy to share with you all too... welcome to a day in my life!

So... as most of you know BJay is away on business. Every time he leaves me for any reason some weird creatures show up to torment me. This is nothing new. It started back in the ARMY days. He would go out in the field and suddenly my house would be infested with lizards, or turtles would just randomly show up outside my door. True story. Strange. Well why in the world should this time be any different? So for about a week now I have been hearing things outside at night. Nothing too crazy, just the normal "creature" sounds. I am well aware of the 10 Raccoons we have living out there, but they hardly ever make their presence known. And when they do they are not nearly THIS noisy. So here I sit at night, all alone, kids in bed, TV on but muted so I can HEAR all the sounds and get myself so freaked out that there is no possible way that I will sleep. Why? Oh... I guess I am a sucker for TORTURE. So finally well into the wee hours of the morning I fall asleep... usually forced, with a headache and shortly after I wake up to annoying critters running around what seemed like at first was behind me (where just outside my bedroom wall is a little shed). UNTIL LAST NIGHT. Let me just tell you how this went.

Put the kids to bed around 8. Sat down to unwind, relax and watch Dancing with the stars. WHEN SUDDENLY... crashes, bangs, LOUD noises all around my house. I am now in a cold sweat, heart racing, shaking in my boots scared out of my mind. I rush to look out the sliding glass door to my backyard. Can't see a thing. So I calm myself down just to do it all over again. This went on for a while. I finally started chatting with my sister on Messenger. Asking for advice because by now I am in tears. Never been so TERRIFIED in my life. I kept imaging that it was crazy people trying to lure me outside to kidnap me. I know... I have a very active imagination... and I watch way too much TV. My sister who is ever so calm and not at all scared of anything mostly just told me to "RUN. COME HOME. GET IN THE CAR. CALL THE POLICE!". See calm. So as I am contemplating calling the police I decide maybe I should use the bathroom before I do. Just in case. As I am walking back from the bathroom I hear it again. This time I am right there by the window I rush over and sure enough there it is. A big HUGE NASTY Possum. This thing is HUGE. As big as a full grown cat. Back to Messenger I went to tell my brave sister what I discovered. As I am doing this there was another crash this time right outside my living room window. This scared me soooo bad that I attempted to run like hell only my foot got stuck in the cord of my laptop and my attempts failed when I ended up on my face. Awesome, you big chicken.

I did however feel much better at least knowing that it was a Rat on steroids and not a murderer, aliens or anything of that nature. Then I started researching this nasty creature, and what I read I did not like. Back to being TERRIFIED. I forced myself to sleep around 1:30 am, only to be awoken at SIX AM by the pitter patter of critters RIGHT ABOVE MY HEAD. Loud, clear as day... they are LIVING in my attic! The kids heard it too only they thought it was Thimbletack from Spiderwick living in the attic.

Exterminators come tomorrow. Not soon enough. I hope I can endure another sleepless night. P.S the pictures do not even come close to doing the size of this creature any justice. I could not zoom, it was too dark and my camera obviously wasn't happy about what it was taking a picture of either because it just would not cooperate with me.

"Firm" believer

Pretty good week so far.... had a few really good workouts... the fact that I can't squat, bend down or sit without wimpering makes me feel oh so good :)

Anyone ever done "The Firm" videos? Can I just say that I LOVE them. I don't love a lot of videos. In fact I am pretty picky as to which ones I will waste my money on ;) Anyway, I have a few of them, and I haven't done them in a while but as I sat here Tuesday afternoon I just thought I am going to DO IT... just get up off this couch... put the laptop down... and do a video! I am so glad I did. I forgot how much FUN they are and how good of a workout I get from them. My legs were JELLO, my heart was racing, I was dripping in sweat and it felt amazing! Now I am reminded that I don't NEED a gym to feel good, I can do something each day even though I can't make it to the gym.

So do you all have any favorite videos that you turn to when the gym isn't an option?

Pump-it up-kin

Hi all!

First off a recipe... today I was just craving PUMPKIN... its that time of year where I just can't get enough of it. I wanted something GOOD :) I found a recipe for Pumpkin muffins and altered it to suit my diet needs and what I got turned out pretty darn good! Here is what I did....

1 egg + 1 egg white
3 cups Oat flour
1 cup splenda brown sugar mix
1 cup Almond breeze
1 cup pureed cooked pumpkin
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tablespoons splenda
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
¼ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon ginger

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.

2. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl; mix until smooth.

3. Fill sprayed muffin tins with mixture until ¾ full. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean.

I didn't have all the seasonings so I used my Torani SF Pumpkin Pie syrup along with cinnamon, and all spice in place of all the spices. I also threw in 1/2 C of SF chocolate chips to keep the kids smiling... what.... you don't believe me? I swear it was ONLY for the kids ;) Nuts... I should have added NUTS! Didn't think of that until now. Oh well... next time!

Anyway, today was my gym day... I had plans to hit the gym at 4 with my girlfriend and at 1:30 I got the call. "Hello... Mrs. Brown? This is so and so from such and such... your daughter is not feeling well, she has a temp of 99 and says her tummy hurts". Sigh... there goes my workout. Good thing my job is very cool with things like that! So... I am about to pop in one of my favorite workout DVD's and get my sweat on. Hopefully my baby girl (who by the way has not stopped eating since we got home today... ahem... sour stomach???? hmmmmm) is feeling better tomorrow so she doesn't miss school, and... I don't miss the gym on my ONE DAY OFF this week!

Quickie

Where have I been? Truth is... I have no clue!!! :) Things have been a bit nutty around here and we have been having lots of fun with my mom here and birthdays and just the normal daily activities. I am however hoping for things to slow down just a bit! I need some down time!

Lets see.... a few updates.... I went to the Doctor to get some tests done, I wanted to make sure that all of this dieting and supplementing hasn't done any damage to my thyroid or anything else. Tests are in and I am healthy as can be. Good news! PHEW!

I have been able to hit the gym a few days a week too, that has helped mentally! I still have a ways to go but I am on the right track. I also have been getting the "itch" you know the one I am talking about. I miss the stage... I miss the drive, the passion... however I can't even think about that right now with everything else I have on my plate! Maybe Spring???? I may try out bikini for a season and see how that goes. We shall see.

I am trying out a few new recipes this weekend so I will be posting my reviews on that! Stay tuned!!!!!