Baked Oatmeal

I got this recipe by mixing together a few different Pinterest pins J

• 2 cups old fashioned oats
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• chopped strawberries
• blueberries
• 1 large egg (lightly beaten)
• 3 tbs. butter (melted)
• 2 cups milk
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat Oven to 375˚ and spray a 9x9 baking dish with cooking spray. Mix dry ingredients and fruit in a large bowl. Save some of the fruit to put on top. In a small bowl, mix together wet ingredients.

Put dry mixture into the baking dish and arrange the remaining fruit on top. Pour wet mixture over the top and gently shake the baking dish so that milk mixture settles into the oats.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown.  Add a sprinkle of brown sugar and put under the broiler for 1 minute.

Kale Smoothies

I have been making smoothies lately.  Depending on what I have in the fridge, I put in frozen berries, milk or juice, yogurt, banana, kale or spinach. 

It's amazing how much of the greens you can put in without changing the color or taste.

New Best Friends

This is Finley.  Hopefully he will be Cody's new best friend since his mommy is mine :)

New Toy

Time to learn how to use this bad boy.

Cody will be my subject for all of the practice shots :)

Christmas 2012

2012

2012 was a great year for us.  We had some major milestones and new beginnings.  

In April, we moved into a new apartment.  

In June, we got married and mini-honeymooned in our favorite summer place, L'Auberge Del Mar.

In, December, Cody celebrated his 2nd birthday and is finally maturing (slightly) out of the puppy stage.

We had our first Christmas as a married couple.

I don't like resolutions but I do have some goals for 2013:

1. Whip Cody into shape before any new family additions. (We have a few behavior problems)
2. Work off these extra lbs. I have put on since our wedding.
3. Learn how to use my new camera :)
4. Make some career changes. I need to get serious about grad school and find a new job to go hand in hand with my field of study.

I can't wait to see what 2013 has in store for us :)

New Beauty Ritual

Beauty products are so expensive and I've tried many and I never get the result my hard earned money deserves.  Lately I have been looking for an alternative.  I searched my pantry and decided to experiment.  I know that sugar is a great exfoliant, I've read on Pinterest that a lot of people use coconut oil as a moisturizer, and I've always known that lemon can be a skin brightener (aka can fade dark spots and freckles).  I was a little afraid to use lemon on my face as I have heard that it will work but can get worse if you don't use sunscreen forever after.  Well, at my age I never go without sunscreen on my face anyway so I decided it was worth a try.  

I just threw the ingredients together but an estimated recipe is: 

• The juice of one lemon
• 3-4 tbs of coconut oil
• 1 cup of white sugar

I mixed them together in a ziplock because the coconut oil is solid at room temp but your hands can easily melt it.  I just kneaded the ingredients together in the bag and tossed it into my shower to use.

I have been doing this for about a week and my skin feels really soft.  Especially in the dry winter weather.  I have not had problems with any breakouts but it's really hard to tell if my skin looks brighter.  I should have taken a before picture but I didn't.  Overall, I am happy with the way my skin feels.