She Is Eating Again!

So Natalie has just not been into food lately! She will have a couple bites and then be done. And then drink lots of milk! I would like to wean her off of daytime breastfeeding if I can. So far it isn't happening. But then again it is not something I am actively trying to do. Yet. Anyway....I am getting off topic. This morning I decided to make a healthy green smoothie and some quinoa for our breakfast. I had some collard greens from a meal I made a couple nights ago. This was my first time that I can remember eating collard greens and I thought they were okay but not great. As leftovers I ended up taking out the greens and eating the rest because they tasted so bad to me. And yet....I put them in my smoothie because that was all the greens I had! So a little green and lots of fruit. It wasn't super terrible but I can't say I liked it. But Natalie did! She even liked the quinoa. And made a terrible mess with it all. But she ate plenty. Good job Natalie!

Enjoying Life Now

So I am always trying to improve myself. Usually I think most about improving my health and my weight! I often come across pictures of me from a few years ago and think. Wow! I looked so good then, why did I let myself gain so much weight? But I also remember that at the time I didn't feel like I looked that great! I remember wanting to lose weight. Haha. Life is crazy. Here are some then and now pictures. Is the difference as obvious as I am thinking it is?

5 years ago

4 years ago

3 years ago

2 years ago

1 year ago (I was pregnant...)

Now

I am still trying to get healthier and lose weight. It is a constant struggle for me. But... I am working on it....still :) The more I want to get healthy for just being healthy rather than just trying to lose weight to look a certain way, the easier it gets. Though it is still not easy. I find that reading about health, trying new healthy recipes, and trying new forms of exercise are all things that have helped me get and stay motivated. Anyway,  the reason for writing this post...looking at pictures where I think I looked better but remembering at the time that I wanted to lose weight made me realize something. I am trying to get healthier and there is only so much I can do at a time. I need to appreciate myself today! I need to live more in the moment and enjoy what I have. I am blessed in so many ways! That is what I should focus on! So it can be hard for me but I think I have a new goal of appreciating myself now.

Natalie's Birthday

Natalie had a birthday!! She turned one on December 19th! I can't believe it. Has it really been one year already? Wow! We were lucky enough to have Sama's mom come out from Texas for a few days to celebrate. We made Tamales and a delicious pico de gallo for Natalie's party. There was lots of cake and presents and even a pinata! Natalie had a good time but didn't want anything to do with her cake. I made her a cupcake smash cake, but she cried when we gave it to her. She was a little tired by then.

Natalie has had a good year. She has been growing like crazy and learning new things and she is healthy. She is fun to be around and we just love her so much! Here are some pictures from her first year!

In the NICU; luckily she didn't stay there for long 

Blessing Day

First walk

Cloth Diapers; I can't believe she was so small!

4 months old at Daddy's graduation

Natalie's first trip to Canada

In Canada with her Abuela

First 5K

Pumpkin Patch!

First Halloween

Learning to feed herself (and loving it!)

She LOVED playing with these limes

Natalie loves any kind of glasses! She puts them on, takes them off, lets you put them on, takes them off you...etc. We can play this game for a long time before she gets tired of it!

This pretty dress was one of Natalie's birthday presents. It is so cute.

Church Christmas Party. Natalie still won't go to strangers so I got to be in her Santa picture :)

 Too tired for cake

 Cupcake pinata (I made it myself!)

 My sister made the cupcakes. I had planned a fancy cake but I ran out of time and things had been so crazy I just didn't care! The ugly cake was delicious though! At least the cupcake cake was pretty cute. My mom helped!

In case you couldn't tell, Natalie's theme was cupcakes! I looked online for a cute outfit (that was a decent price) and just couldn't find one. Of course now that her party is over I see cute cupcake stuff EVERYWHERE! Oh well. I ended up buying the iron on cupcake that she has on her shirt. It was cheap and still cute!

Daddy's little princess

On her actual birthday we took her to Cold Stone and she got to eat some ice cream.

Too Long

Wow it has been too long since I have written. I am quite the slacker when it comes to blogging. But I would like to be better! It is nice to look back and remember what has happened in my life. I would like to have this for Natalie to read someday too. So here is my pledge to work harder on this!

Good Food

Guess what? It is 11 AM and Natalie is asleep. She has been sleeping for an hour and a half and she is STILL asleep. We normally just get 40 minute naps around here. It is so crazy I *almost* don't know what to do with myself. Almost.

First I made some yummy snickerdoodle cookies. See the recipe here. I thought I would only get through part of the process, but nope. Here I am!

Oh wait. Here's a tip. Don't blog about how your baby is still asleep because then she will wake up. Oh well. We got an hour and a half!

Anyway, I wanted to blog about some of my kitchen experiments! I'm trying to be healthy and all and still enjoy dessert so here's the latest. Sorry my pictures aren't that great but oh well.

Yesterday I made some fudge! I adapted it from Katie's recipe. I used coconut butter, banana, 1 TB chocolate chips, a little rice milk, cinnamon, salt, and a little agave. I would like to try a version without banana because it was VERY banana-y. But good! And fudgey. Very fudgey.

I made a green smoothie this morning! Yeah. Sorry for the picture. Maybe I should have omitted? Anyway, I had mangos and pineapples and so I googled for a green smoothie with those ingredients and found this recipe. I had all the ingredients so I gave it a shot. And it was YUMMY! I used to buy these creamy mango Popsicles from our local mexican store and I loved them. This tasted so similar! Even with spinach. Yep. It is true. Creamy dreamy mango smoothie: green edition. I also thought for sure I would be adding sweetener (you know me), but this was great on its own. And though the picture doesn't show it this way it was a bright PRETTY green smoothie. And I thought, hey I should make this around Christmas time for Natalie, nieces, nephews, etc. and call it a Grinch smoothie! I thought I was super clever and then googled it just to see. Nope, I am not super clever. Oh well. I still think it is a fun idea!

Sorry no pictures of the cookies. They are super delicious though. And if you follow the link above you will find some pictures there. They are yummy!

Cajun Pasta

So last week was Sama's birthday! We planned to go out to dinner. He chose T.G.I Friday's because he loves the cajun pasta from when he used to always get it when I was a server there. So we found some awesome 2 for 1 coupons online and went on our way. Only we soon discovered that T.G.I. Friday's near us was closed. Forever. Sad day. So we went to Olive Garden instead and Sama promptly sent me some an email with some links for the famous cajun pasta. Tonight we tried it!

Yeah, it didn't really taste the same. But it was delicious! Sama says the original was creamier. Mine wasn't at all creamy. We have some leftovers though so tomorrow I am going to change it up with some coconut milk. I think it will be yummy!

This is the T.G.I version. I didn't get a picture of mine but will try to remember to tomorrow. I'll post the recipe if it turns out!

Chocolate-Covered Katie

So a few weeks ago my sister found out she has Hashimotos disease. Now she is eating gluten free. I have had a lot of fun experimenting with gluten free recipes for her. Her son has dairy and corn allergies. So there are a lot of tricky things to adjust with recipes sometimes. As I have mentioned before, I am trying to eat healthy and lose weight. A lot of people told my sister that they lost so much weight being gluten free, but that wasn't happening too much for her. Probably because I kept baking her cakes... So I started looking online at some healthy gluten free blogs. I came across some I really like. These are my three favorites so far:

1. Chocolate covered Katie: Oh how grateful I am to Katie! She has such yummy looking recipes that are HEALTHY!Yay! Not all gluten free, but many of them are. I made her Ultimate Chocolate Fudge Pie today. It is great! It does have tofu. I know what you're thinking....tofu? In chocolate pie? Umm....no thanks. But seriously, it makes it great. And I am not a tofu person. I don't eat tofu! So if I am okay with it, then anyone can be :) I didn't have the same kind she mentioned and I did get a very very slight aftertaste, but it probably wouldn't if I had had the right kind :) There are a lot of things I am looking forward to trying on here!

2. Elana's Pantry: I found this because I was looking for healthier cake recipes since I am into cake decorating but don't want it to be quite so unhealthy. They look great, but I haven't tried any yet. She also has a cupcake recipe book out that I would love to get! The only trouble is that since it is gluten AND sugar-free/low sugar the ingredients in some of the recipes can get a little pricey. That's because it uses alternative (not synthetic) sweeteners that have a lower glycemic index than refined white sugar. Oh and almond flour. THAT is pricey! Sounds like they are worth it though if you can afford it.

3. Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Sugar Free: So this is more extreme since it is without so many things I am used to eating. But it does actually have some yummy looking recipes! Desserts plus lots of others. I really like her views on how she eats and why and why. Very interesting to read about.

Hope you enjoy checking out some new blogs. I was excited to find out there were "sugar free" sugars. Does that make sense? No of course not. I just mean sugar that is sweet and (so I have read) delicious without being as bad for you! Who knew?