A New Look

Time to change the background on here again. Time to change the Christmas look for something fresh and new.  Choice is limited to just background and header but I’m seriously considering getting a totally new look and finding someone to ‘redesign’ my blog look for me. I don’t want to pay too much though! Does anyone have a designer you would recommend? I know there are lots out there that do really good blogs, but if they came recommended that would make my decision easier.

So, along with a new look and of course the start of a New Year, comes the START (again) of my healthy living plan. Melissa did a wonderful blog post this past week about what to eat and what NOT to eat. She truly motivates me with her posts, whether it’s on food and health or home decor, I just LOVE her blog :-)

As always at this time of year I also look at what I eat and how I’m feeling physically. I don’t want to head towards my 50’s (only 3 years away!!) feeling sluggish and slowly gaining a few pounds here and there. You see, your body/mind thinks if you gain weight slowly you might not even notice, and you’ll let yourself keep on eating all those things you know you shouldn’t. I’ve done just that. . . since last summer I’ve packed on over 12lbs! I know, most of you think I look like I haven’t, and that I look fine but I know I have, I feel like I have. My pants don’t fit, I’ve started wearing velvet sweatpants cos my jeans don’t fit! My energy level is a big fat 0. Overall I just don’t feel good about myself, so that has to change.

Today I will get back to making a menu plan. I’ll be eating things like this for breakfast . . .

This is a cooked breakfast I made while following WW points system. Fat free beans (Heinz variety like we have in England, I buy them in the International aisle at my supermarket!), turkey bacon, ‘light’ bread toasted, mushrooms and tomato (0 points). The total points was about 4 I think.

Having spinach salads for lunch.

or soup and salad!

snacking on home made hummus and crudités

  and having dinners like spaghetti squash and Bolognese sauce. Recipe can be found HERE.

Vegetable curry and brown rice (forgot where I got the recipe! will have to start taking notes of these things).

baked ‘fried’ chicken tenders and salad

simple grilled chicken with a fresh salad and light ranch dressing

      turkey burger with salad and our ‘home grown’ green beans!

I d0 have a blog called The Healthy Den, but I think I may just scrap that and post here about my eating habits and exercise… after all it is a big part of my ‘Daily Life’

So, anyone else jumping on the ‘healthy’ band wagon? Let’s keep each other motivated.  Have a wonderful Sunday . . .  see you next week

January 1st, 2011 :-)

Had to make that my title post so I could type 2011 for the first time :-)  Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all had a fun evening last night. Did most of you make it past midnight?

We had a blast with our friends next door – what a fun night. I know you’re all dying to see photos, so here ya go  . . . .

  Do we look cute or what?  Ha ha :-) Jason styled his own hair last night, got the hair dryer out and everything! (I forgot to put my lacy gloves on in this first pic).

Remember Flock of Seagulls! He didn’t wear the bird all night, someone just popped it on his head so I took a picture.

    I crimped my hair but it’s kinda hard to see.

We put Kiki’s hair in a onesided ponytail!  

Me and my BFF – what a fabulous hostess she is :-)

and this here is Mr. Host (Cheryl’s hubby Steve).

We took our Just Dance 2 over, and everyone had a blast playing it. Maan, that is a workout and a half!

Everyone brought a little something. This is only half of it, there were crockpots full of chili and hot tamales behind me. Notice Emily in the corner there…. there was always one kid sitting next to the chocolate fountain :-)  I brought Pioneer Woman’s Stuffed Jalapenos which were a huge hit (but I’ll post about them another time when I get back to recipe posts).

 

It was a fun filled night. I hope yours was too!

Happy New Year

 

 

We’ll be going next door to celebrate with our neighbors and friends tonight. I just want to wish you all a very Happy New Year.  Thank you all for your friendship and for your wonderful comments. I hope you all continue to read along with me in 2011 :-)

I just called my family back home, it was about 9pm for them. I usually call at 6pm when it’s midnight for them but it’s often hard to get through at that time of night. My aunt calls them from Canada, my sister’s daughter calls them from where she is out celebrating…. I have to get in line and hope I get a dialing tone and not a busy signal!!!  So, no worries this year, I called ahead of schedule ;-)  but I still had them all shout over the phone ‘happy new year’, like I do every year.

Cheryl is having an ‘80’s themed’ party tonight, we girls are gonna CRIMP our hair!!!!!!!  I’ll be back tomorrow with pictures.

Christmas Morning

We’re having another relaxing week this week, Jason decided on Sunday night that he’d take this week off work too! I guess you could call it his yearly vacation because he never really takes one in the Summer time. So, we’re hanging out at home, he’s playing World of Warcraft with Kristen and I’m knitting ;-) Jason’s actually working some hours too, so it’s not all play, but he’s still enjoying the ‘down time’ with us.

I thought I’d post a few more pictures these are from Christmas, morning. I’m all ready with the camera when Kristen goes downstairs but then I realize I didn’t take any of us the rest of the day! Thankfully we got a family pic in front of the tree on Christmas Eve.

Santa’s been!

Boo waiting for his new toy to be thrown!

Her eyes lit up when she opened this wolf t-shirt from Santa!

A wolf ‘tote’ bag

Santa brought a remote control truck, just like Daddy got last year!

My traditional Christmas morning Mimosa :-) One day Kristen might join me in a glass (Jason never does!)

After breakfast we then opened stockings to each other

I got lots of great knitting books from my wishlist AND (I forgot to take a picture) a HUGE bottle of Coco Chanel Mdmselle … and of course new pj’s :-)

I ordered Jason a special t-shirt from Boo! And I made him a calendar (from Shutterfly)

Boo gets a stocking too, Kristen is helping him open gingerbread cookies!

Kristen got a stocking from us too… she’s under there somewhere :)

Well that’s certainly picture overload. I’m off to make some blog visits and catch up with you all. Thanks for dropping by.

Denise

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve 2010

 

It’s Christmas day as I post this, I hope you are all having a wonderful day. Just talked to my family back home, the day is nearly over for them, it’s after 6pm already. . .  it’s not even lunch time here! Opened lots of pressies, had Mimosas and exchanged gifts with our fabulous neighbors, having dinner with them later. There’s still a lot of the day left.

Merry Christmas

What to post about?

I think I’ve shown you enough Christmas stuff and now I don’t really know what to post about? Not much going on here other than waiting for the big day, making lists of things I need at the grocery store and watching Christmas movies at night!

Only two more sleeps for us then we have our ‘family night’ on Christmas Eve. Kristen gets to open some gifts, my inlaws come over for dinner (always something simple and easy like nibbles and drinks and chili), then it’s off to bed to wait for Santa :-)  I’m super excited. Kristen still believes (I think, although she’s questioned it a little this year, but still wants to believe Santa is real, so I’m saying nothing to the contrary, especially not at this time of the year!). 

Kristen is 10 this year, and she was 6 the last time she sat on Santa’s knee. We had actually taken her to the mall in November that year to go to Inflatable Wonderland for her birthday, and Santa was already there! (she wasn’t exactly dressed to have pictures taken, but the line was short, so we went on up to say hello to Santa).  I actually forgot I had these photos on my computer.

I love this first picture, it’s like she’s asking  “are you really REAL?” 

I had plans to go to the mall this week and have a wander around with Kristen. I hardly ever go now during the year, but I haven’t managed to get there this week either. Kristen’s friend Emily had a sleep over last night so we didn’t get up and out early (I don’t want to go to the mall later when it will probably be way too crowded for my liking), and I have no plans to go tomorrow. I have to make potatoes and chili and cinnamon rolls.

I’ll try to post one more time before Christmas Day. Hope everyone is ready for the big day or enjoying last minute preparations.

Still baking. . . .

Hi everyone, oh my gosh, Christmas is only 5 days away, I still can’t believe it really, but so excited and happy that all my shopping is done.

This week Jason is off work and we are just enjoying hanging out at home all week.  Kristen is playing with Jason a lot on the computer – doing quests on World of Warcraft together! So I have a lot of free time (in between keeping the house clean and doing laundry) . . .  I can’t seem to stop baking :-)

Made Biscotti again at the weekend, a different recipe this time, it’s one I’ve used before and comes out pretty good. They did turn out rather small though, so I’ve packaged them up two to a bag as an individual serving to have with coffee. Some of them are going in to gift boxes for the neighbors along with pretzel sticks and other chex mix goodies and chocolate spoons.

  Also made some little cookies with Hershey’s kisses, I always forget what they are called. These ones were dipped in green sugar and a peppermint kiss added to the top (the recipe was on the bag of Kisses).

I didn’t have enough green sugar though so I improvised and did some with sprinkles too… and some were left plain.

Debbie over at DebbieDoos told me about Picnik.com last week. I was asking how she added snow effect to her pictures. Have you heard of it. I had to try it out and Debbie’s right, you have to be careful, it can become rather addictive!  Here’s a little picture of Boo I added some ‘free’ effects to. . . doesn’t he look cute?

 

I’m sure I’ll have time to post more this week, so I’ll wish you all a great start to the week and hope you are all caught up with your Christmas shopping and planning. . . except you Becca (don’t panic I’m sure you’ll get it all done in time ;-)