Hubbys promotion to CW2

Two years ago my hubby switched over from enlisted to Warrant officer in the US Army! The extra money was nice Ill just throw that out there at the beginning. lol Its also been challenging because he has more responsibility and can get a little grumpy. fast forward to a couple weeks ago and he got promoted to CW2! I didn't really know that having a reception with food after was a thing you do for when someone gets promoted. So with a  week to prepare I whipped some stuff together.

Aaron orderd 10 Pizzas from Anthonys and a massive meat platter. I made homemade sauce with home made meat balls. They were a hit. I made a crockpot full and they were the first thing gone. We had lots of sodas and beer too of course.

We also stayed up the whole night before making pretzel dogs. I made the pretzel dough home made of course and then we wrapped those little smokies. Guess what? I freaking forgot them at home! So he brought them into work the next day and they were a hit. I made a million chocolate chip cookies, and some sugar cookies. Im famous for my cookies here so that was a given.

We also ordered a MASSIVE cake. Like it fed 100 people lol We had so much left over that we brought it to the Shalom house here in Korea. We got the privilege of throwing a Christmas party for disabled Korean children. It was awesome and they really loved the cake!

Col Lawson took his W1 patch off and I put on the new CW2 patch. I punched him good too..not once but twice. Had to make sure it was good and on there ;]

Whole 30 journey week 1

Just getting started January 1, 2015 HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I am no photographer keep that in mind lol

SNACKS: I snack on hard boiled eggs, veggies in EVOO, & nuts throughout the day. If I took the time to note every time I did this blog would be way too long.
I also need to take in more protein to keep my muscles growing so I will be starting back up with my protein shakes in week 2.

We made it a whole week!!!! A whole week on WHole 30! Yay@!!!!

Day 7: Breakfast: peppers with almonds and cucumber with EVOO and balsamic, and hard boiled eggs.

Lunch: leftover chicken thighs with green pepper and spicy mustard wraps. (yummy!)

Dinner: Acorn squash with crushed pineapple cooked in the center. My fav way to eat it! Sweet potatoes and steak.

Ive never seen white sweet potatoes until I came to Korea.

 Weird right?

 I added some EVOO and crushed garlic to the potatoes and they were on point!

Day 6: My cravings are basically gone. Im not sitting around thinking about sweets! Its amazing

Breakfast was walnuts, fresh pineapple, peaches, a piece of bacon and two eggs.

 

 

 

Dinner was left over pork pot roast in my leftover home made sauce. Fabulous I might add! With carrots and sweet potato fries cooked in EVOO

 

Day 5: Aarons LtC is retiring so we had to pay $17 for our meal. I ate it. I did not post a pic, but it was mashed potatoes, chicken, and green beans. I did stay away from the keg (it was hard!) and the sweet tea and drank water.

 

 

Day 5: My cravings for sweets are basically gone! The only thing I was really cravin was Pizza.

For breakfast I had a strawberry banana smoothie with flax seed.

My lunch. (I wasn't feeling anything today. Eating "plain" food really started taking a toll on my taste buds. I just wanted to eat cheesy pasta or chicken with bbq sauce. I should have made myself eat but what evs. It is what it is. Im still learning. Its ok to make mistakes

Dinner was at the Warrior club for the promotion like I mentioned.

Day4:

Breakfast was ham and eggs with butternut squash hash browns. Super yummy

 

 

Lunch was grilled spicy mustard chicken with cucumber in EVOO and balsamic vinegar. (that's my lovely grill pan)

 

Dinner was a WINNER!!! We had Paleo meatballs and homemade sace on spaghetti squash. It was to die for honestly! Ill be making my sauce this way from now on as well as my meat balls. Ill make a recipe link for it.

Officially made it to day 3 with no screw ups. (ok once last night I popped a piece of gum in my mouth not thinking for a total of 5 minutes or less)

^^ spoke too soon. I ate a fun size butterfinger. I failed..I have no shame in my weakness because I killed it at the gym. Did a killer shoulder/back/ab workout and finished off with cardio. I know its so bad to give in to temptation, it goes against whole30 and all of what its about. Im human what can I say.  Plus side I did lose two inches on my waist. Probably losing all that sugar bloat lol

Dinner: Crockpot pork, green beans, and butternut steak fries <----(SOOO GOOD!) Seriously these "steak fries" are THE bomb!

Lunch: Im not sure if salami is whole 30 compliant Im guessing probably not. I just couldn't bring myself to eat anything else for lunch but I was starving. So salami, spicy mustard, and avocado wrapped in lettuce. It was heavenly =] Even Guias liked it.

 

 

Breakfast was yummy. Bacon so I could my eggs in the left over grease. (I dump most of it out but save a tiny bit) Blueberries and strawberries. It was filling and yummy.

Day2: I have already learned SO much about my eating habits after only a day. When my kids or husband for that matter test me I want chocolate. When I irritate myself I want some baked goody. We usually end the night watching a movie. We also snack. Ill usually make something! Baked goods made from scratch are my go to. It takes me 15 min to make cookies from ingredients to baked. I make them ALL the time. At LEAST once a week. Again after only one day of Whole30 Im already dying for something sweet. A cookie with vanilla ice cream sounds amazing =[


I also had to completely throw out a kitkat. I had half left and it was tempting me so I dropped it in the gym parking lot haha

 

It was taunting me so out it went out the door. I was so close to failing I could taste it in my mouth haha

Dinner was really good. We had a Tbone, acorn squash w/ fresh pineapple &cinnamon (it definitely helped curve my sweet tooth. I was suffering big time!), & asparagus. We split the steak and I also cooked up chicken so everyone had enough. I really need to get more protein in my diet. I started adding more a few months ago and Ive made serious gains in the gym! Now I want more!!! lol

Lunch: So boring..I had left over chicken and broccoli lol

So for breakfast I had a sweet potato casserole. Super yummy! It looks like a lot but its the smallest casserole pan ever! With a glass of lemon water.

Day 1: Its only half way through the day and Aaron is complaining hes hungry. I told him to go bake a sweet potato or eat some veggies or nuts. At no point should the man be hungry lol I accidently started to eat a bite of dry special K strawberry cereal (I was pouring the kids some) I spit it out don't worry! Little habits like that are going to be hard to break. I also noticed I didn't eat all my kitkat yesterday. In my head I was like "oh its not the first in the states yet" then I decided not to break the rules only 12 hours into the challenge lol

Dinner: Balsamic chicken with veggies and bacon, (intended on making this yummy sausage but looking at the ingredients it has brown sugar so had to pop it in the freezer and pulled out chicken thighs) mixed cauli flower, broccoli, and carrots, and tiny sweet potato.

I will do a separate post for the recipe

Lunch: red pepper, celery, cucumber. Veggies were seasoned with s&p EVOO, and balsamic vinegar. Grilled Chicken. (seasoned with turmeric, salt and pepper) I use my Emeril cast iron grill pan to cook my chicken and steaks! Then I finish off cooking in the oven. They get the grilled taste and are always juicy! However my apartment gets quite smokey.

I got home from the gym close to 1300 and was starving. SO I snacked on some walnuts and almond slivers

Breakfast: Avacado with two eggs and a banana. I planned on saving the little bit of avocado filling for a tuna taco at lunch but Aaron threw it out before I could save it. Shame on him! ;] I was really excited to give this a try that's why it was my day 1 breakfast. I was definitely impressed but I over cooked my egg. Ill probably cook it around 12 minutes next time. I scooped a small bit out of the avocado and cracked an egg in side each half. I added s&P and it was perfect and creamy. The egg was just a little over cooked like I mentioned. I cooked mine in a really small pan to keep the avocado from falling over. You could just put it on the rack but Im not very graceful so  Id probably spill egg all over the oven lol

I don't plan on weighing myself during the challenge. I did this morning for a starting point! 135 yikes! No not really. I have a lot of muscle. I am a little jiggly from all the carb loading I did preparing for whole 30. I took advantage of carbs, yes I did. My jeans aren't as flattering as Id like right now but that's from being dumb and eating too many sweets and massive dinners over the Holidays. I was in the best shape of my life about 4 months ago. I visited the states for two months and then has pneumonia and was out another almost two months. I fell behind some. I still went to the gym of course I just couldn't workout as hard as I usually do. Anyways, Im ready for Whole 30 to change me <333

Also lets just bring up the elephant in the room before there actually is one. Ill post a pic of my very TINY counter. I have barely any room to work. I have white cabinets and white floors. Don't be surprised if sometimes my pics look like a freaking cooking horror scene lol

Our Whole30/protein grocery haul

We took on the task of shopping for our Whole 30 challenge. We paid out the butt for vegetables and squash let me tell you! lol Not it wasn't that bad at all really. We spent about $100. Ill go ahead and list what we got with that. 2 spaghetti squash, like 5 acron squash, 1 butternut squash (it was the last one), lemons, fresh green beans, fresh broccoli and cauli flower (cant wait to try cauli mash), cucumber, sausage, BACON!! I know youre not suppose to have a lot but lets be real, I need bacon, White sweet potatoes, orange sweet potatoes (yams,) onions, cabbage, romaine lettuce, lots of chicken, frozen mixture of cauliflower carrots and broccoli, a Kitkat a butterfinger, two Mt. Dews, and some dishwasher tablets. Hey gotta get that last bit in before we deprive our bodies of our favorite candy bars ;]

As far as the protein goes we Got Muscletech brand Mass Tech. That ran us about $170 but as you can see we got three big bottles and Alpha amino (Cellucor) and STRAWBERRY MARGARITA preworkout. Im so excited to try it! One of my followers on IG recommended it so Im excited to give it a go. Aaron really wanted to try this mass tech stuff so he could turn into a "brick wall" as he put it. I don't drink protein every day. I try to just eat meat to get it. Sometimes though I drink a shake after a hard workout and I just feel like Im doing my body good. Muscle Tech, milk chocolate is by far my favorite. I usually get the Nitro Tech stuff. Ive tried other kinds and they are gross! I usually blend a whole frozen banana, almond milk, and some peanut butter to make a smoothie like shake. I also tried it with just blending frozen strawberries and almond milk. It tasted like cordial cherries. Super yumm

Im excited to start whole 30. Im a total newbie to the Paleo life style. I don't have access to a lot of Paleo ingredients either. Like almond butter and flour and stuff like that. So we will start with Whole30 and then go from there. I hope to get on and blog every day about how I feel and what we ate throughout the whole day. As well as include recipes =D

Whole 30 Countdown

Count down to Whole 30 I am so very nervous about starting Whole 30! I don't want to fail. Im also scared Ill do it and it wont amount to anything and Ill have wasted a whole month of eating yummy food. I have a really bad habit of baking cookies. Granted I get rid of a lot by sending them to work with hubby or giving them to friends. Ultimately though I eat about a dozen myself over a course of two days. Whole 30 will eliminate that issue ;] I love sweets itll be hard. I also love dairy! I drink at least 8 oz with dinner usually. I spent a good chunk of my life living on a dairy farm. It comes with the territory. I love cottage cheese and cheddar cheese. We had leftover cheese from the meat tray for Aarons promotion ceremony. Ive totally been snacking on that. So my two favorite things, baked goods and dairy have to be eliminated. =[ Depressing. Ive heard so many great things about whole 30. I want to feel good in the gym. Ive been feeling so sluggish. I hate that. My lungs still hate me from having pneumonia too. I just want to feel healthy again. Oh and I want to see my abs again. I have gone into carb overload the past month. Ill admit it. I knew this challenge was coming up and I just went buckwild with the carbs. At least Im not as bad as Aaron. He drank a 12 pack of coke and Mt Dew over the course of a few days. Anyways, I want to document it because I know its a challenge that a lot of people want to face but are too scared. I remember when my friend was doing whole 30 about 6 months ago I looked at her like she was dumb. My thoughts about it were something like, "Im not about to take away the foods I love, I will surely fail." Now I want to do anything and everything to get my body right! If changing to a more paleo lifestyle gets me there then that's the way its going to be! Oh and another big challenge is a LtC is having a retirement party that we are going to. Its $17/plate. I have to buy the dinner and what if nothing on it is whole30? What will I eat? I may have to cheat that day. Its stressing me out lol I almost just don't want to go because of it.

Im lame I know..

I have been so busy doing absolutely nothing that I haven't kept up with my blogging =/ If I feel I had a boring day why would I want to write about it? Anyways really the past few days we have just hung out.  Over the weekend we went to Yongson and went shopping and then this week Ive basically organized and cleaned and played with the kiddos.  We went to a craft day and made cookies one day.  We are making cookies again right now ;] I had a FRG meeting that went well..Cant wait for later I will be attending my second crossfit class! I want to go religiously but with baby sitting in the morning and having my own kids its just soo hard! That's that for my boring post of the day! I will be posting my Thanksgiving meal recipes next week! Those will be fun posts ;]

 

 

Banana bread

We LOVE banana bread and muffins in this household. So when viva mart (a little korean grocery store down the road) had over ripe bananas for 980 won (around $.95) I decided to buy all of them!

This is my favorite banana bread recipe! I always try to find a better recipe, but this is the  recipe I always come back too =]

3 ripe bananas room temp
1/2 C to 1.25 C sugar (depends on how sweet you want it!) I use 3/4 Cup
1/3  cup melted butter (some people use vegetable oil, not me! always butter)
1 egg beaten (you dont want it to freeze up your butter)
2 tsp vanilla (I use real vanilla but extract works)
1tsp baking soda
.5tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 C flour + 1 Tbs
2 Tbs Cinnamon

For topping:
1/4 C sugar/cinnamon mixture

Your going to butter your loaf pan (about .5 TBS) and then dust it with the 1TBS of flour

Mash up your bananas. Add your melted butter and stir to incorporate them..then add your vanilla, egg and sugar and mix until nicely blended.

Mix together all the dry ingredients. (flour,salt,cinnamon,BP, BS)

Then your going to combine the dry and wet and mix just until incorporated.

Forgot to mention your oven should be at 350 F
Pour your batter into the greased, floured pan. Take your cinnamon sugar and sprinkle it over the top.  This is going to give the top of your banana bread a nice crunchy sweetness =] I use cinnamon and sugar in like all my breads lol

 

Your going to cook your bread about 50-60 minutes..watch closely! I test mine by touching the top and seeing if it gives and just by the appearance. I don't like sticking a knife in because if its not cooked all the way when you check then you get this weird line in your bread that doesn't cook right. So use a tooth pick! Anyways you don't want to cook it too long or it will dry out and that's no bueno. Cook it to short and you have a mushy bread. Cook it just right and your tooth pick will have like a crumby mixture on it and that's when you pull it out.

When you've determined its done cooking, let it rest in the pan for ten minutes! Its still going to cook a few minutes because of the heat and that's what you want! I even put some aluminum foil over it.  After the ten minutes flip it out and then right side up and there you have it! I totally forgot I was blogging by this point I was chasing after Guias, Achilles and his friend lol 

When I remembered I was down to the last piece haha

Now I have lots of bananas peeled and in the freezer for my next batch! =]

Please comment if there is any confusion! I'm not the best at giving directions!

hello Yongson!

Our Saturday started off not so well.  Hayden, Achilles friend..woke up at 0620 which led to Achilles waking up and then Guy. So at 0630 we are all awake! I made some banana bread and we all ate a whole loaf of bread and muffins lol The boys played nicely the entire morning until a bouncy ball gets involved! Hayden was playing with this pop up toy and Achilles was throwing a bouncy ball around..we Hayden got ahold of the ball and wouldnt give it back to Achilles.. What does Achilles do? Lashes out at Hayden and puts huge gouges in his face! They brawled for a second and Achilles got a little time out for that one! I have an angry child when it comes to people taking his toys..I try my hardest to get him to share and be nice, or come tell me when somethings not going his way but when they are two its a bit hard to teach. We turned on despicable me and they watched it for a minute and then went back to playing..I made them this little house out of a cardboard box and they loved it!

                      Yes I look like a dweeb, No I don't care! Aaron's taking me on a Road Trip!!

Aaron asked me if I wanted to make a trip to Yongson and I of course agreed because they have a way bigger PX and the commisary is huge! For a comparison, Camp Casey is the size of Tops and Yongson commisary is the size of Wegmans. By the time we got out it was like 3 and it took us 2.5 hours to get there! Its a long story but it was mainly stop and go traffic and it SUCKED! We get there and Aaron gets pissed off right away because they make you show your ID when you walk into the PX and they also wanted to see my rations card which I didn't have with me.  He didnt like that Koreans were telling us that we couldn't go into a PX. I see where his problem is.  I was quite pissy myself because I didn't need to use my rations card when Aaron was with me so whatever. We went into whats called the four seasons and that had all the toys..Achilles and Guy both got to pick out a toy =]
Dinner was Manchu wok for Aaron which was nasty, and I had Subway. The boys shared with us.  Now the most exciting part about this trip was that we were headed to the commisary! I couldn't wait! We get there and there is a case lot sale.. we are looking around in heaven and a worker was like "we are closed but go inside quick and they will ring you out" So we booked it in there running around trying to find dog food (Chief needs Kibbles n Bits or he gets sick and they only sell the small bags where we live) We get 60 lbs in dog food, 20 lbs in cat food, and like 30 lbs in cat litter and check out.  It was really depressing that we couldn't look around.  I wanted to slowly go in and out of every isle haha

Our trip home only took about 1.5 hours thank God! It was nice though because Aaron and I took advantage of the kids sleeping and chatted.

Best part we came home and skyped with family =D