Par-tay and AccBLOGabili-tay

What up girls! I hope you're doing great!

We went to this cute girl's 30th B-day party (the cute one on the left) on Saturday night and had such a great time. Her Hubby did a fabulous job! She even got to ride a motorcycle for the first time! We got to see so many old Bible Study friends we haven't seen for too long. And the cute one in the middle, Ms Joelle, holding our little bundle of sweetness. =) I always have such a great time with that fun girl. I wish we got more pics, we were too excited to share lots of laughs with friends. We had so much fun chatting and catching up and look forward to seeing everybody again soon!

[oh boy not a good angle for me=)!]

I'm sorry I didn't post AccBLOGability last week when I said I would, it turned into a bit of a tiring week (I know you're sad, stop wiping your pretend tears).

I am on a mission. Next Edition just came out of the shoot 11 weeks ago and I gained 50 pounds during the preggy. =) So I'm trying to melt it off through eating well and exercising. I've lost about 28 pounds so far! And we've been in transition from moving and having a baby recently so I need to get back to having consistent quiet times and reading again!

I have to do it to stay accountable and would love for you to join me in any of the areas!

Reading the Bible

I haven't started back up yet... I know... We pray pretty much all day, each time we eat (which is a lot ha!), naptimes, bedtime, snacks=), and it is more than just thanks for the food=). I'm trying to figure out which Old Testament book I want to read again along with some Proverbs too. And I want to get the Power of a Praying Wife! What are you reading?

Eating Well

We're doing pretty good peeps. Trying to cook and eat at home as much as possible for our thighs, bootays, and to save moolas=) If you like cod let me know, I'll post a super easy recipe next time! But how about boosting our metabolisms! I'm no health expert (so please share if you are!) but found several sites including this one on ways to boost (click for how)!

[1] Grapefruit [2] Green Tea [3] Yogurt [4] Almonds [5] Coffee (not toooo much=)) [6] Turkey [7] Apples [8] Spinach [9] Beans [10] Jalapenos [11] Broccoli [12] Oatmeal [13] Soymilk [14] Curry [15] Cinnamon [16] Salmon, Tuna

Exercising

We're still walking or playing tennis almost every day! And we found a beautiful state park to go for a hike along the river last weekend. I've lost 3-5 pounds since last we spoke!! We need to get a digital scale, I try to trick myself by not zeroing out the scale, I put it a couple pounds up for further motivation (if I don't have enough already=)!) ha!

[oh I look so short, squatty, and my eyes are closed, but look at the background=)!]

How are you doing?? Happy Week Blogettes!

End of Summer Special Treat

You know I love me some sweets! And I am always up for trying new recipes (sweet or not!) especially when I know the nutritional facts.=) Yes, I'm a looker upper. I always look up the nutritional facts before I eat or cook something. It can be devastating. I used to just look and eat it anyway! I just wanted to know what I was eating... then I would look and decide if it was worth it, if I was upset about something, then in my mouth it went (don't tell me I have food issues=))... and now I look and if the ingredients are not so good, or too high in cals or fat, I put it down. I might frown as I do, but down it goes (see I can be good).

The Hubs loves strawberry shortcake so I had to find a recipe before summer was gone. My Dad was visiting last week and loves it too, so it was the perfect time. I love a good excuse to try a yummy new sweets recipe! And as we all know, when you're with great friends and fun family the calories don't count! [don't tell me it's not true!]

Allrecipes dot com has ratings, nutritional facts, and reviews for all (most) of it's recipes! It's a great site.

So this was the recipe I tried! It's not the traditional soft smooshy little cakes, it's a... sconelike yummy buttery pastrylike cake. And it is yuuuummy!

INGREDIENTS
`3 cups all-purpose flour
`1/4 cup white sugar
`4 teaspoons baking powder
`3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
`1 cup butter - whoa, I know! I cut it down and it was still yuummy
`2/3 cup heavy cream - I saved some more cals and use light Cool Whip!
`1 egg, beaten
`3 cups sliced fresh strawberries - throw in some extras if you have 'em, can't have too many
`3 tablespoons white sugar - I cut out a few granules here too =)

DIRECTIONS
`Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
`In a large bowl, mix flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder and cream of tartar. Cut in butter with pastry blender or two knives. Stir in cream and egg. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 2 minutes. Press into a half-inch thick sheet. Cut into squares. Place on baking sheets.
`Bake in preheated oven 20 minutes, or until golden. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons sugar over sliced berries.
`Let shortcakes cool before splitting and filling with sugared berries.

343 calories per serving BUT after cutting down on the butter and sugar, and used light Cool Whip instead of heavy cream, you're golden! Just roll with me on that. It tasted great, we didn't miss anything! Next time I would cut down on the cream of tartar (some reviews say cut it!) and cut a tsp of baking powder.

And because you 86ed all of those extra calories ;),... stack a little vanilla ice cream, then strawberries, light Cool Whip, and top it off with a dollop and a strawberry! Find something to celebrate and enjoy!! And please e-mail me if you have any questions about the recipe!! I used my kitchen LOVE, my Kitchen Aid Mixer with the pastry blade.

*oh and when you have leftovers, 'cause you'll want to =), just pop the shortcakes in the oven for a couple minutes to warm and crisp them back up, then slice 'em, stuff 'em, and enjoy 'em, again =)

Fall Sales

Thank you so much for your comments about your cameras! Keep 'em coming if you haven't seen the post yet! I'll tell how Operation Ramen for Rebel plays out=)!!

I love fall clothes. Jeans, cute long sleeve tops or sweaters, scarves, love scarves, cute boots, cute coats (fall dresses and skirts that aren't in my wardrobe yet=)). I would love to dive into these yummy fall sales but I won't be making many purchases until I am back to (around=)) my pre preggy weight and when our budget hasn't been hit by a meteor of insurance bills=). But for our viewing and drooling pleasure...

BR. If you have a BR card, you can get 1o% 0ff on Tuesdays, use the c0de TUESDAY10, through the end of October! (and any of the partner stores I think=))

Gap. It's been so long since I've been there but they've got some cute stuff. I think some other bloggettes might have posted a couple of these, but I can't remember (I'm sorry, I'd love to give you credit! I think Erin posted about the long sleeve comfy top on the right=)) Try EXTRA15 for 15% 0ff when you use your Gap, ON, or BR card expires Monday.

Ann Tayl0r L0ft. Most of their pants aren't the best fit for me but they have cute stuff and great sales and coupons! Try 104002172 code for 15% 0ff over $75 online. I'm not sure about the shirt dresses but I think they're kind of cute.

JCrew. We luv JCrew. Comfy, great quality, great fit, their pants are usually a good fit for me, and cute, but they can be so expensive. We each have a few things but would love to expand our JCrew repertoire. When we go we head straight to the sale section (for every store really=)) and with their coupons in hand. We really want to hit the outlet that's a little over an hour away soon. Maybe after 10 more lbs=).

I am obsessed with dresses or skirts with pockets. Love them! I think I only have one dress and one skirt, but I think they are so cute!

And you will not see me in the bikini but I like the pattern=)

Target always has cute tops to choose from and some pretty good prices too=).

And the fun and gorgeous mama-to-be Lyndsey from All Things Fluffy Fashionable and Famous posted some super cute items from Old Navy! Including this cute jacket that was not only on clearance for $11.25 but I also had a 1o% coup0n and a $10 cash back, so I got two tops and the jacket for just over $11!!! All of the clearance items are an additional 5o% 0ff in stores! And/or use the code SAVE20 to save 2o% 0ff women's orders over $1oo online.

Now I would love to find the perfect Fall and Winter boot (for an NCF kind of deal=))! If you found "the ones" share me a link or a site! =) Happy Fall shopping!

Operation Ramen for Rebel

I don't know how it was in your family but my Mom took pictures like she had amnesia and had to document everything to remember it happened=). She was "The Picture Woman."

And it was one of those things where we would be hanging out with friends, out to eat, or at or going to an event, and Mom would say wait, smile! No wait, let me fix your hair. Wait, tilt your head down a little. Wait, your arm looks funny, move it like this. Wait, move over here in front of this tree. Wait, let me fix your hair again. Now smile. And we would roll our eyes and say, Mo-om (you know the drop your voice and pronounce Mom like it is two syllables). And then later we would say... can we have a copy?? ha!

Then I got older. And I became, "The Picture Woman."

Now I'm the one that whips out the camera for anything and everything. And ever since I started blogging. Forget it. It's on. And I'm talking about the camera. It's on all the time. ha. Must take pictures. Of everything. Everything is picture worthy and everything is bloggable.

My Mom smiles or says I'm not picture ready, and my Dad's side of the family laughs everytime they see me start to unzip the camera case, saying here she goes again, ha!, and they may or may not smile for me, unless I make them laugh first. =)

So we got a point and shoot, a Can0n Elph, many years ago. It's a great, small, easy to whip out at a moments notice, oh look something cute, must take a picture kind of camera. And it's how we take our videos too. BUT I've always said in the time it takes to snap a pic, that precious, sweet, cute little, adorable, quick baby smile is gone. Or you get the end or just ended goofy face. So...

I'm going to eat these for a few months...

For this... Remember they used to be 10/$1 =)! And look they even came out with this... haha

I have been wanting a Can0n DSLR for years! I have been looking on craigslist, ebay, anywhere to find a good deal. Meanwhile Hubby's been saying our camera works great, is it really that much better? Well first, remember the precious smiles we miss, and second, well yes of course it is=)! And thankfully during BabyBoy's b-day party, our friends were taking some shots with there rockin' camera, [with the continuous shooting, my favorite!!]. Hubby asked, ok, are the pictures and photo quality really that much better? Both the husband and wife said, oh yes. I just stood there laughing, hitting Hubby on the arm, saying seeeee! hahaha! Thanks C and AO! Hubby said, ok, find the best deal and we'll have to save save save. Where's the Ramen?

Do you have a Canon? a Rebel? a DSLR? Do you love it? I've read tons of reviews on all of them! But I would love to hear from you too! And how about the lenses??

Vacays!

Vacation #1

I'm so excited!!! We're going to Arizona! To visit my family and some of our friends!! And introduce Next Edition for the first time =)! We leave soon and we're going for just over 2 weeks! My Aunt Dottie planned a big family pool party and bbq at her house and we are so excited! I can't stop talking about it! Yaaaay! We're going to fly with two little ones=)!

Vacation #2

My Dad is in town=)! So far we've playing, and laughing a lot, getting our tennis on, taking walks to the courts and playground, and we went for sushi, of course!! We had to go, this place [I've raved about before=)] is amazing, he said he's never had salmon nigiri that just melts in your mouth like this! We found out his plane was late after we got to the airport so Hubby had the great idea of going to a park nearby to let BabyBoy run around and we got watch the planes take off too! It was so much fun and it was gorgeous!

Hubby, the little ones, and I went to our old friend's little girl's Bat Mitzvah on Saturday! Her reception was a Luau. The big boys were (unintentionally) matching (BabyBoy got dressed first, ha!), they looked sooo cute!

Lots of laughs and smiles!=)

I am so incredibly behind on your blogs! I have hundreds and hundreds to read. Hundreds! I can't wait to catch up on you soon! I hope you're doing great! AccBLOGability back next Monday. I hope you're doing well, keep up the good work! And slow down on the blogging, I can't keep up with you=)! Have a great day girlies!

Fall TV

I am so behind on all of your blogs!! My Dad is coming into town today=) so I've got lots more to get done before he gets here! Operation Scrub and Clean didn't last too long yesterday because poor little Next Edition needed extra cuddles, a warm bath, and some more snuggles after his dr appt in the afternoon. I hope to get to reading all about what you've been up to very soon=) Now onto an important mind numbing relaxing evening hang out with the Hubs cuddle chat laugh and eat subject!

All of the Fall premieres are upon us. Are you excited? Here is what's going to be on around here. Now keep in mind that we don't have cable (or DVR, gasp! I know, we're in the before God created the animals time), just the major networks, so you have to tell me what we're missing, haha!

TV is our chill out at night time after the little-uns are in bed (well the big one and in between the little one's meals=)). We are so lucky we get to spend so much time together throughout the day and if Hubby is out at meetings, then we talk on the phone. =) My Mom and sister always used to make fun of us. We always say, we'll be newlyweds for forever! And I'm way off topic. Anyway... we talk, we laugh, we giggle (ok he doesn't giggle because "i'm not a girl"), we cuddle, oooh, and we have dessert and SNACK=) So grab your clicker, remote, or your channel changing device, here we go.

Monday

source source source source source

Oh my there's a lot of flipping on Mondays. We're hoping H0use is a good interesting main characters driven story line. Sometimes it wasn't enough about H0use and the characters, you know it got repetitive, but the main character storylines were interesting. And weren't you waiting for "the kiss", too bad it wasn't real=) We weren't really into H0w I Met Y0ur M0ther for a while but it really is pretty funny, some episodes more than others of course, but good show. The Big Bang The0ry was not that great for a while but it's also a pretty funny show. We like comedies. DWTS is fun even though the dancing isn't as good as SYTYCD. It's fun to see the few celebs you might be interested in each season dance it up. And if they can keep Lie T0 Me fresh with new ideas, it'll be a great watch too.

Tuesday

source source

Great shows. Great. Gotta watch and flip fast=)

Wednesday

SYTYCD results. We love music, singing, dancing, and all things dorky in between. So Glee seems like such a fun show. Whenever we watch America's T0p M0del I secretly wish I could be on it. I do.

Thursday

source source

We weren't so sure about B0nes at first, but it's pretty funny. All of the characters are really well developed and they work well together and all do a great job. And I thought that Parks and Recreati0n did not look funny and then we started watching them online because we had nothing else to watch, sorry Amy P0hler, and it turned out to be pretty funny, for the most part. There are a couple funny characters. At one point we had started watching Fring e but in every show there was a really grusome scene so we stopped watching.

Friday

... a Red Box?

We also dig some Wheel 0f Fortune and Jeopardy while we're getting dinner ready or before BabyBoy goes to bed sometimes. And if we are home I love watching cooking shows on Saturday afternoons. And it's football season now too! We've always been into the NFL more because though we went to a great school, we didn't have a football team, sigh, we had a better basketball team. So we have to root for all of our friends' teams=).

Did I forget anything? And what am I missing on cable, I'll have to watch those fun shows vicariously through you! Tell me about 'em girls.