back that azz up

Ooh she so excited, it's #backthatazzup Friday! 

It's Friday! We made it. What a tough week it has been for our country. Boston Marathon attack, Texas explosion, Midwest flooding. My heart goes out to all affected. It's crazy how much can unfold while we are peacefully sleeping. When I wake up in the morning, I lay in bed for a few minutes and check my email, Instagram, Facebook & Twitter. Twitter is normally last cause it takes the longest, but when I got on FB I started to see all the breaking news in Boston. Seems it was an act of terror, 2 brothers, one just a kid. My eyes are glued to CNN. Can't we just live in peace?
This week has gone really well with eating better. Hope to start working out on Monday. Who is on My Fitness Pal? Looking for friends! I feel like I'm slacking on my recipes, but if you follow me on Instagram, you will see some of what I've been eating. 
Monday  lunch: an apple  dinner: turkey italian sausage (1 link) with peppers and onions & baked zucchini  drank 65 oz of water
Tuesday lunch: quesadilla, with chicken on wheat tortilla (not too healthy, but I went out for lunch with my dad) dinner: i can't remember drank 65 oz of water
Wednesday lunch: hard boiled egg no yolk & tomatoes dinner: baked chicken with parmesean, tomatoes on the side and sweet potatoes sprayed with pam/sprinkled with cinnamon drank 65 oz of Jillian Michaels Detox Water
Thursday lunch: tomatoes with basil and ezekiel sprouted grain bread sprayed with pam/sprinkled with garlic & oregano dinner: 4 oz lean beef grilled and wrapped in lettuce, topped with tomato & onion, sweet potatoes on side (pam & cinnamon) drank 65 oz of Jillian Michaels Detox Water
(All seasonings I've been using are no salt, love Mrs. Dash. And Pam is the butter spray)
Hope everyone has a great weekend. Catch y'all on Monday for Weekend Shenanigans with Sami!

when i grow up

Linking up with Whit (I Wore Yoga Pants) & Erin (Two Thirds Hazel)

Go ahead and hit play and enjoy!
When I Grow Up..
I want to live in Chicago and be a Sugar Plum Fairy in the Joffrey Ballet "The Nutcracker"

And live in something like this in the Gold Coast neighborhood.

Spend my days shopping on the Mag Mile while my hubs is at work.

And eat pizza/mexican/anything.. all day everyday.

And still manage to look like this

When I'm not walking around the city, hailing a cab or catching the train, i'll drive around in this

We will have season Cubs tickets and play hooky from work, Ferris Bueller style.

 Later in life, we will move to the 'Burbs and have our 2 children in a home like this with a huge wrap around porch with no neighbors in sight, but still keep our city brownstone.

Mr. Big Shon will surprise me with this closet. 

 I'll live in the kitchen being Betty Crocker, Paula Deen

Just making delicious meals & baking my life away. Hell maybe I'll have Paula IN my kitchen.

(and still have Julianne Houghs body) 

I'll watch out my huge windows overlooking the backyard while my children play outside.

 At night we will relax out here and enjoy the simple life.

And since I can't have a pet leopard, we will have one of these kittens, or 2!  

What do you want to do when you grow up??

bringing sexy back

I first want to start on a serious note and say my thoughts & prayers go out to Boston. It's unfortunate how cruel of a world we live in, I don't know whether this was an act of terror or some sick individual who lives a f-ed up life and wants to ruin others on their path of destruction. Personally, I don't think it was an act of terror. Time will tell though. I love life. I live each day to it's fullest. My husband and I are raising our children to be kind, non-judgmental people, who accept everyone, but how do that, when there is evil out there? I am terrified to raise my kids in the world we live in today, but I always say you can't live in fear. So we will not.

How youuuuu doin? With that said, who heard NBC has supposedly confirmed a new season of Friends in 2014? But no word if all the cast will return. I wonder if this is true, if so I cannot wait.

Anywho, our weekend was fun. Friday was, can you guess? FIESTA FRIDAY! Saturday we went shopping and got the kids new shoes. I was also lucky enough to get the Sperrys I've been lusting over for far too long thanks to Shon. Afterwards we went to one of our favorite restaurants for some hibachi & sushi. Nom Nom Nom. We spent the night at Shon's brothers and our kiddos were able to play while the adults hung out. I was also finally able to try the Bud Light Straw-Ber-Rita. A+++++ perfect drink for the summer, for cooking out, softball games & concerts...for anything!

Over the weekend, I also decided I was ready to get my booty back in shape. You know, bring sexy back. Last year I did the PINK METHOD, it was amazing. I lost 20 lbs in about 3 months. Then my grandmother passed and I sort of fell of the wagon. I stopped working out (was doing it 6 days a week) Well I've gained about 10 back. I've never been one to have to worry about what I eat or my weight, but having children in addition to getting older, changes everything. I don't hate my body, it is what it is because of the miracle of life, but I want to feel more confident. We don't eat fast food and don't drink soda, so that is a plus. We eat out maybe 1 night a week. I don't cook too unhealthy, but some nights are obviously worse than others. I don't fry anything, except the rare occasion we have fried chicken. I do fry the taco shells for <Fiesta Friday> but that is something easy to fix. I'm not going to go crazy, I'll give myself a cheat day and it's all about portions too. Then there is snacking, OOOH snacking. I work from home so I am constantly wanting to have a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Now this and that will be replaced with fruit and veggies. Come join me on my journey!

One day while pinning my life away, I stumbled across Jillian Michaels 7 Day Detox Drink. You don't replace meals with a drink, you keep eating as usual and drink a certain amount throughout the day, for 7 days.

Jillian Michaels 7 Day Detox Drink

• 60 ounces of water
• 2 tbs lemon juice
• 1 tbs no sugar added pure cranberry juice (I got mine in the organic section)
• 1 dandelion root tea bag 

I took 8 of the 60 ounces and brought to a boil, put the tea bag in it and covered it for 15 minutes. I let cool to room temp and poured into pitcher with the other ingredients (tea bag as well) Make this each day for 7 days. I'm on day 1, the taste isn't too bad, just tasted like watered down lemon tea. Stay near a bathroom, you will have to pee a lot, but it's working!

Another thing I pinned, making hard boiled eggs in the oven. I always mess up hard boiled eggs. I can definitely throw down in the kitchen, but 2 things as simple as a grilled cheese and hard boiled eggs, I screw up.

Preheat to 325 and bake for 30 minutes. I put mine in a muffin pan. Now in the mornings I can just grab an egg and go! This morning I had one, with a cut up tomato and some pepper.

Success! Oh and I'm not a fan of the yolk so I try to get most of it out.

Working out is the next step. Once I get going, I love it. I actually get mad if I don't wake up sore. I feel like it wasn't a successful workout. Call me crazy. 

Be sure to follow me on BlogLovin! :)

Linking up with Shanna (Because Shanna Said So)

winter, you may be excused.

It's time for #backthatazzup Friday

Ah Friday, we meet again. This time you have brought cold weather, I do not like it sir, not one single bit. No softball, no warm weather, no college basketball and I had to turn the heat back on. yeah winter, you may be excused and spring, stop being a sloppy drunk. This morning while on the phone with Mr. Big Shon, he asked if I thought I was Carrie Bradshaw. Confused, I asked why he would ever think that. He said because of blogging. Way to rain on my parade, I really thought I was her. 

Hello baseball season. GO CUBS GO.  He doesn't seem too thrilled about the record so far.
I really want to go to the Region/Chicago for the day. Like so bad it's painful. I want some Portillo's (if you don't know what that is, you aren't living yet) I want to visit my grandmas graves (hello serious side) Whenever we go up, it's usually for a Cubs game. As much as I want to go to a game, I just want to do a bunch of random things. Hence, the reason to just move up there, then we wouldn't have the issue of cramming everything into a day or two. Have I mentioned how much I love that city?

Moving on, my biggest obstacle of the day so far is whether or not to eat in or go out. Whichever we don't do today will be done tomorrow. Can't complain about that being the biggest of my worries right now, but I can't make a decision, ever. I hate doing it.
Wednesday miss thang had her tumbling class and she did a back bend from standing and kicked over. One step closer to a back walkover. Proud mama here. As shutter happy as I am, I really need to step up my game at her classes. We had a huge thunderstorm roll in, a few at that. One brought golf ball size hail. We were lucky to be south of the storm and miss the hail. Thank goodness, because my car is in the garage 90% of the time and when the hail hit, I was at tumbling. Phew.
Stromboli

• pizza dough (i like to use trader joes dough, but just used the canned dough found by the biscuits)
• pizza cheese (i used a pizza blend)
• pizza toppings (i used pepperoni, pepperocinis, green pepper & onion)
• garlic powder, oregano
• pizza sauce
• parmesean (optional)

Preheat oven (& stone if using one) to 350. Lay dough out on clean surface. Apply pepperoni, peppers & onions (or whatever you are using) top with cheese. Roll up, this may get a little messy. Press the ends together, sprinkle with seasonings. Bake for 20 minutes. Cut and serve with pizza sauce and top with parmesean!

ENJOY!!

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!!!!!

sorry i'm not sorry

Linking up with Shanna (Because Shanna Said So)

It's been a minute. I have been so busy with the gorgeous weather and running around with my kids that I have seem to put my blog on the back burner. Sorry I'm not sorry :) Ok well I kind of am. I just looked and haven't blogged since the 2nd. How do you busy moms find the time? The rest of the week last week was good. The weekend was even better. Gorgeous weather, our favorite pizza Saturday night and the park on Sunday. 

Speaking of pizza, our favorite place is in the town we used to live in. It's not far, but not exactly close enough to WANT to go pick pizza up from. I tweeted them that I wish they would expand and open one in our area, I get a reply that says stop by and I'll buy you a pizza. Luckily we were out and about at a softball game and I had already placed an order to pick up. I replied and said we were on our to pick up a pizza. I get there and it's on the house. Awesome people, great food and proof that twitter is a necessity! 

Seriously though Indianapolis people, check out Greeks Pizza (especially the Fishers location!)

So yesterday, thanks to Sami (Sami's Shenanigans), I found myself browsing animal gifs on tumblr.

 I laughed so hard at this. No really, I couldn't stop. It's totally something my spastic dog would do.

Who watched the ACMs? Of course I did. Obsessed with country music plus Blake & Luke hosting. Hello.
They were great. I loved the performances and the fashion.

Hey boys.

This dress isn't my favorite, but she can't really do wrong in my book.

 This is a pretty standard look for Eric, minus his hat. But I loved it.

My new Nick & Jessica. LOVE.

 She may not be the best dressed but she is so damn cute.

 I don't know what he and his stylists were on to accept this outfit.

No, just no.

Tim looks handsome, but what is Faith wearing? The length is awful and awkward.

And those shoes. SMH

best dressed:

Kacey Musgraves

I love everything about this outfit.

worst dressed:

Shania Twain

My nineties self is upset for saying this, but girl ... what is goin on? Cowboy boots, not hooker boots. 

And from one curly hair girl to another, straightener. It's the ACMs, not just another day in the park. Oh and you've been out of the scene for some time and rolled right back in lookin the same.

 one last thing:

If this moment didn't get you, then you have a soul.

How was everyones weekend and how is your week so far??

Thursdays Recipe: Stromboli

weekend update & april fools

A little late, but better late than never!

Linking up with Sami (Sami's Shenanigans)

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. We sure did. The weather was absolutely beautiful seeing as how the week started off with 10 inches of snow. That's what you get in the midwest. Completely unpredictable weather. Nice weather results in birds using your car as a bathroom. No? Just me? Ok. But seriously, I don't know who I pissed off, but as the saying goes "birds of a feather, shit together." That's not it? Oh. The picture doesn't do justice either. It was so embarrassingly noticeable, I scurried over to the car wash as fast as I could.

Happy Friday to me!   

What better way to kick off the weekend than Fiesta Friday? Rhetorical question, there is no better way. Guess what I forgot again? Margaritas. FAIL. Who does that? Me I guess, not intentional. Speaking of drinks, I want to try the Bud Light Lime Straw-Ber-Rita or whatever. Looks like a perfect drink for all the softball games and tourneys this summer

Saturday I took my little dude to get his Justin Bieber-ish hair cut off. He's had haircuts in the past, but this one made me shed a few tears. There was so much hair on the floor it was unbelievable. He looks like such a big boy now.

Then Saturday evening happened, my beloved Buckeyes lost to Wichita State. SHOCKER (get it?) That's my team and I'm still mourning, but I'm also upset because now my bracket is donezo. And what could top the horrible loss this weekend? Freakin Michigan WINNING. Biggest rival, the team I despise the most.... my husbands team. They won on Friday and again on Sunday taking them to the Final Four. Which means I lost a bet and I pretty much hate life. Not really, just that aspect of it. I hate losing, I hate being wrong. Especially to my husband. With that being said, pour a little out for my homies and let's go Louisville. Bandwagon? Absolutely not. After what they went through on Sunday, I hope they win it for Kevin Ware. Oh and an alumni from my high school plays on the team. Just representing.

Easter was perfect. The kids slept together in the princess palace. They were so excited for the Easter Bunny to arrive. We put the baskets and empty eggs by the door. Then I'm asked about carrots. CARROTS?! FAIL. We didn't have any. Why? Because we decided to use them in the 10 inches of snow for our snowman. Whoopsies. They drew pictures and left a glass of water instead. Good enough. They stayed up late and woke up early. It was like Christmas all over again. They found their baskets fast, opened ripped through their goodies then went on an egg hunt. We went to my parents for lunch, played outside and did a gazillion more egg hunts. Such a good day.

April Fools, ahhh. Something I never get in to, simply because I hate being fooled. This year, I decided to try and pull one off. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. 

I couldn't keep it going too long, so I commented that it was a joke. Needless to say, I still have people texting me about it (today), thinking it's true. I'm gonna go ahead and give myself a good ol pat on the back. Did you pull off any good ones or see any good ones yesterday?? 

Hot Roast Beef Sammies

• 1 lb deli roast beef (I asked them to carve is super thin)
• hamburger buns
• cheese (I used deli provolone)
• sauce (I used horseradish spread, spicy mustard, mayo, garlic  powder and onion powder all mixed together, enough for a pack of buns)

Preheat oven to 350. Spread sauce on top and bottom of bun. Stack some roast beef on with a slice of provolone and wrap in foil. Repeat for all. Put in oven for 15 minutes. Easy peasy dinner

(Sorry for the lack of picture, we were starved)

ENJOY!!