how coconut oil saved my life

Okay.

that may be a bit of an exaggeration. 

seriously, this stuff is the bomb.com

unless, you've been living under a rock somewhere... I am quite sure you've heard of the benefits of coconut oil. If you have been living under a rock, you can read about some of its amazing qualities here. 

So now I will be to my reason on why coconut oil saved my life. 

This past winter lil' man caught the stomach bug at the same time as he was getting teeth then the following weeks we both were sick with bronchitis among other things. Needless to say December wasn't very fun.  With all of these things going on in his little body, he got a diaper rash. A bad diaper rash!!! I can count on one hand the times he's had some sort of rash down there. We've been very blessed. With this rash nothing was working. Aquaphor, desitin and a variety of other things I've read on the Internet. After looking all over the Internet for something to relieve my poor lil' mans pain. I stumbled upon someone saying they used coconut oil. 

I'm here to tell you folks that it works!!

We gave him a bath with baking soda in the water. Which is what we usually do when he has any type of skin irritation. Then after his bath we lightly patted his bottom to get the water off. Then put coconut oil all over. We used it instead of lotion and covered him head to toe. On his bottom we put on ALOT!!! By the next morning it was a complete 180. He was no longer red only a little pink. No more bleeding and he was one happy camper!! I also noticed the places around his mouth where the drool made him breakout were all healed!!! Can you believe that???

With all that being said you can NOT use the cheap stuff and get the same results! (Ahem LouAna I'm talking to you...DO NOT USE THE CHEAP STUFF!!) You need to get organic virgin cold pressed coconut oil. We get ours from Sam's club for super cheap. 16.00 for this big jug!!! Super great deal!!

Other things we use coconut oil for: cooking, body lotion, great for psoriasis, hair masks, lip scrubs, add to hot tea for sore throat. Honestly there are so many more. These are just what comes to mind at the moment. Oh.. I got one. Lil' man fell on the concrete the other day and used his face to catch himself. (poor kid didn't stand a chance with two clumsy parents lol) It looked bad! like i thought it would be really ugly for a long time. it has been one week since that accident and with putting coconut oil on it every night . its practically gone. just a little spot. where as a week ago it took up half his forehead.

Do you use coconut oil? If so, what do you use it for?? Let me know!!

eggs

So with Easter right around the corner. its the season of eggs. i remember dying eggs as a kid and the house smelling like eggs and vinegar. i remember seeing kids at school with dyed fingers because they had a little too much fun. either way, i love easter. i love all holidays really.

funny story: well not that funny. Mo and i have the greatest intentions with all holidays but never quite follow through. ive always wanted to dye eggs for easter. it still hasnt happened. we have a dye kid in the cupboard. last year we bought the eggs and still didn't follow through. mostly because of ONE thing.

i hate hard boiling eggs. i never get it right. the yolk is all gray and gross. the shell never comes off right. it just was uber frustrating.

but boy howdy. do i have something to tell you.

The oven. boom. So i am sure you have all seen making hard boiled eggs in the oven on pinterest and facebook. whatever. nothing new. i know i have seen it like a kajillion times. i didn't believe it could be that easy. ya know. like hard boiling eggs is hard.

no. hard boiling eggs is EASY! i'm going to be honest here and tell you the reason i finally tried it. i was wasting time on pinterest (this was like last week BEFORE lent) i ended up on LC's blog/website. i am no huge LC fan. im not, not a fan. she just is nothing really much to me. well was. im starting to dig her after this egg miracle. she had a post on there about it. i figured what the heck. i'll try it. mark my words. I WILL NEVER MAKE HARD BOILED EGGS IN WATER AGAIN!!!!

The Miracle Recipe is...

Hard Boiled/Baked Eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Put eggs in cupcake pan.
3. Bake in oven for around 30 minutes (keep in mind do this according to your oven. if yours runs hot do a bit shorter time. you get it. you are not dumb!!)
4.When there is only a couple minutes of time left fill a bowl with lots of ice and water. Plus a pinch of salt.(not the slightest idea what the salt does here)
5.When eggs are done put eggs in ice water till they cool down. Seriously use tongs to pick up those eggs. those suckers are hot!!!

I did have a little brown burny spot on the shell and the egg from where it was sitting in the pan.but the yolks were perfectly yellow and the shell came right off. so its a fair trade. also, i'm not sure why the eggs had spots on them when they were out of the oven. it came off when in the water though.



 I hope you will try this out. let me know what you think!!

until next time
xoxo
B

what what

wow. it has been a long time. so much has happened in the past year. i wanted so badly to keep track of it all and put it in my own little space. clearly that did not happen. so here we are again with the awkward "ehhh I promise to be back". I can't promise anything as I am clearly writing this to myself but I need to do this for myself. anyway back to topic...

LENT

So, today is Ash Wednesday. The beginning of lent. 6 weeks till easter. If you aren't sure what Lent is... well I will tell you.

Lent (Latin: Quadragesima - English: Fortieth) is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar of many Christian denominations that begins on Ash Wednesday and covers a period of approximately six weeks before Easter Day.
The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, penance, repentance of sins, almsgiving, atonement and self-denial. Its institutional purpose is heightened in the annual commemoration of Holy Week, marking the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the tradition and events of the New Testament beginning on Friday of Sorrows, further climaxing on Jesus' crucifixion on Good Friday, which ultimately culminates in the joyful celebration on Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This is clearly the definition from wikipedia. Do y'all remember Encarta? When did that stop being a thing? I guess right around when floppy discs left.lol. i am feeling super old. Memory lane for a second... in my senior year of high school we had to do our senior exit project on what you were going to do in your life. if you didn't pass, you didn't graduate. so that year we had to save our project and our portfolios on floppy discs. then i remember the next few months starting college and the list of stuff we would have to buy...memory sticks. i had no idea what is was. this was in 2004!!! yikes

back to lent. i like to give something up every year for lent. i am not catholic or any religion that requires you to do it. generally i feel like the odd one that does do it. i do it because it seems so miniscule. i can give up something for 40 days, i mean c'mon God gave up his son. 40 days of some little thing seems pathetic almost. I really like in the times that i am wanting whatever i gave up this year. i like to pray and remind myself of his sacrifice.so i enjoy it because it challenges myself and it connects me closer to the Big man.

So this year I am giving up ...

Yup, I am giving away pinterest. I am a pinterestaholic. I have a problem. I seriously could just look at pinterest all day and be happy. I am going to use this time to actually get some stuff done though. I always add more and more projects to the list but I never cross any off. Now its time. I am really hoping to track my progress on here with it. I should have a lot more time on my hands now. lol

until next time
xoxo
B

Friday Again!!!

Wow! I can't believe that it is Friday again. That seems so crazy to me. 

I hate that it seems like I'm only writing on Friday link up days. I want to do better than that. That'll be my November goal. 

Well, this week it doesn't seem like a ton of crazy things happened. 

1. We put up our Christmas Tree!!! 

 You know what really burns my biscuits is when people get their tinsel in a tangle because someone has the tree up early. I just don't get how me or any other person that has the tree up affects them? Ya know? Personally, if you are so worried about me and my family having the tree up in OUR home. Then frankly you have too much time on your hands. Get a hobby. 

 

*oh can we mention that this tree is older than me. So that makes this tree 28 years old. 

She looks pretty good for her age, huh?!*

 

2. I made a giant batch of beef vegetable soup. Probably enough to feed America. At least it seems that way. But it's super yummy and very healthy!!

3. I'm trying to eat healthy and somehow I had a cookie blackout. I made white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. I really don't even remember starting them. I was talking to Mo... Then I was putting dough on cookie sheets. Have I told you that they are my favorite cookies? Needless to say my healthy low-carb diet hasn't went very well. :/

4. I received my second VoxBox from Influenster! Full of goodies to try out. I'm still making my way through it. Have y'all heard of Influenster? It's completely free and you write reviews on products. Then sometimes companies send you products to test out and you tell them what you think. It's pretty awesome! You can sign up but it goes a ton quicker if you are invited. I actually have some invites left...so if you would like one leave me a comment with your email and I'll send it your way!!

 

 

5. I'm attending and helped very marginally with the planning of a baby shower tomorrow. I'm not making the diaper cake this time. It feels weird not to be doing that. I am helping with the games and decorations. I just hope mommy to be enjoys herself!!

I think that's all that has been going on. Hopefully more interesting stuff for next week. 

Make it a great week y'all!

Linking up with Darci & Lauren

Let's Be Corny

So for some reason we had a huge surplus of Hot Dogs in our freezer. So what that mean to most people is lets get the grill out.

Not for us. Clearly we say "hey. wanna fry something?"
Yeah. We are really healthy folks... =/

So, we had fried chicken and corn dogs for dinner one night. Again super healthy. Mo, has his special recipe for Fried Chicken. He was busy tending to the chicken legs (Yeah they were all drumsticks too...)

I made a bee line to pinterest.(hey why don't you follow me. c'mon you know you want to =P)

I found this recipe for Homemade Corn Dogs!

It was easy peezy. I will say I did not have cornmeal. I just used a box of jiffy and regular milk.

Tip: Get your oil screaming hot. My first few corn dogs were pretty ugly because I put them into too soon. so yeah if you want pretty ones don't rush and get your oil HOT!

 

Finished Product! Yummy! Go make these! You'll thank me! :)

Holla!!! It's Friday!!!

I am going to go ahead and warn you this is a 100% photo bomb! Here are all the awesome things that have happened to me since last Friday!!



1. It was my birthday on Saturday! I am now the old 2-7. Yeah, that's right. I keep asking Mo. He assures me I am 27 not 28. lol

                                  

 

Some of my girlfriends took me out for a lovely dinner earlier in the week. I forgot to post it then but here is my birthday dessert that night!

 

 

 

2. We made homemade corn dogs. Yumm-o. I will be posting the recipe up tomorrow! Super easy! They were totally calorie free!!! lol hahah

 

This corndog was the prettiest one. The first few turned out really ugly. I should've taken a pic of those to show you want not to do. =/

 

 

3. Mo, the wonderful husband he is got me a Silhouette Portrait! Woot-Woot! He also got me Pitch Perfect, Jimmy Buffett Lullaby CD LOVE!, and a Delicious Disney Cookbook. Lil' man got me the first movie we ever watched together Bee Movie. We watched it in the hospital together right after he was born. Awww.

 



                                           

I can't wait to get this thing fired up! Everything has been super crazy lately so I have only been able to play with it a little bit. But its awesome!!!

 

 

4. My actual birthday cake. It is clearly the best type of cake there is. FUNNEL CAKE!!!! Oh Lawd. I am drooling again. This was my first year with Funnel Cake as my dessert but I think this will be the new regular. I seriously have the best husband ever!

                                                                                                     



                         

I will be posting the recipe for this delicious funnel cake in the next week!

 

 

 

5. This is actually really late. I got my very first VoxBox from Influenster! It is awesome! Have you heard of Influenster? It is awesome! You write reviews on products and anyways they send you free stuff to review. Ummmm did I mention it was FREE!!! I've got some invites left if anybody would like to join. Email me or Leave a comment!

 





                                    

Review of all products will be coming next week.

"I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes."

 

 



 

*BONUS ROUND*

I am now a Plexus Ambassador! WooHoo!!!

If you'd like some more information on Plexus...Let me know!!

 

 

                         

 

 

Alright, y'all! I think I finally got it all out there!!! So let me know if anybody wants some Influenster invites or you want some info on Plexus!!! Have a fabulous weekend!!!

 

 

 

Week 5: Philly CheeseSteak Stuffed Peppers

Well, I am one week behind. So, why don't we just skip last week and pretend that never happened?

Okay... Now that we are on the same page...

.: drum roll:.

Philly CheeseSteak Stuffed Peppers

Get the recipe here. Super easy. Just look at the pictures.

*I'm sorry for the bad picture... and that it is half eaten... I was Hungry :(*

They tasted great and I would say they were pretty healthy too. I'm going to add Banana Peppers to them next time.

Enjoy!

Week 4: Strawberry Trifle

I got a trifle dish for Christmas and boy do I love it!! I mean it isn't very practical and is something mostly for a party or pot luck but I think they are beautiful.

So I made my first Trifle dish. A strawberry trifle! MMMMmmmmm..... I found the recipe here. I did use vanilla pudding instead of custard.

 

Enjoy!!!

Week 3: Tortellini Turkey Soup

So, the weather is back to being chilly. A high of 59!!! Yikes!!! (I am aware that really isn't cold but now that we live in the deep south and I am a huge pansy... It is cold now.)

Soup... it is this week.

The recipe I was going to make is here. Went to Publix and there was no Gnocchi to be found... So I substituted Tortellini instead. Oh yeah I used Turkey instead of Chicken. I'm going to be honest here... I never use a recipe all the way. I'm one of THOSE. Add a little of this or a little of that. I'm going to use this instead. So yeah. This would be a wonderful soup for leftover Turkey after Thanksgiving!!!

Here is MY made up version of this recipe.

• 4 stalks of celery; diced
• 1 Large onion; diced
• 3 Large Carrots; I tried to do this... but its hard. I need practice
• 3 clove of Garlic... Next time I'd use 4. I like Garlic; minced
• 4 T. of Butter
• 1/4 C. Flour
• 1 Qt. Half and Half
• 1-2 Cups shredded turkey or chicken ( I had turkey on hand)
• 1 Box of Chicken/Vegetable Stock
• 3 lb bag of Frozen Cheese Tortellini
• A huge heaping Handful of fresh spinach; slightly chopped
• S&P...and whatever other seasonings you'd like

Put your veggies in a pot with the butter and saute until they are soft. Add flour and make roux, add half & half. Let heat back up. Add meat and stock. Let heat back up. Then add frozen tortellini. Let Cook. Add spinach at the end. Let cook for maybe 15-20 minutes longer to thicken up...

Ta-Da!! How easy was that? Serve it up with some crunchy bread for dipping and wiping the bowl clean and you got yourself a meal!!

Enjoy!

 

 

^ Here is the heart shaped carrots... not great but they did end up kinda cute. Right?

 

Finished Product!!! Seriously my mouth is watering it is Soooo good!!!

Week 2: Egg McMuffin

Okay.... Again I am late. I know I said I was going to do Food Friday. I promise this upcoming week I will have it out first thing Friday Morning!!

So Here is my Food. I tried my hands at making Egg McMuffins I went from this recipe.

1. You bake your eggs for 25 minutes... I think it could probably be less. The recipe or guideline said to use a wider cupcake pan or a whoopie pan. I wasn't about to buy a new pan just to try it out. If you  had one of those pans... use that.

 

2. Cook Sausage according to directions.

 

 

 

3. After the first batch... I realized it made mine too tall. You can't really eat them unless you squish them.

 

4. So for the next batch I cut everything in half and put them on the english muffin like that. I covered it in cheese and put in the oven. It was much better that way for me. The melted cheddar held all the food together.

 

All together they were pretty good. It is nice to have some made up breakfast in the freezer.

Easy Cheesy Potato Soup

Hey All!

I hope that you had a wonderful weekend. Today I thought I would share one of my favorite recipes. Easy Cheesy Potato Soup! It is a great soup for a cold and blustery day.

Cheesy Potato Soup

   I peel and chop potatoes to fill up half the pot. You want them chopped no bigger than like 1inch chunks. You want to fill the pot with water about 1 inch above the potatoes. Add salt to the water. (Also make sure you cook potatoes with lid on because it will cook quicker and you won't lose as much water)

   In a pan, chop about half pound bacon, 1 green bell pepper and 1 Large onion. Cook till bacon is done and onion and bell pepper are sauteed.

   The other half I chop up small and fry it up for topping.

   Once potatoes are cooked. Do NOT Drain! Add the bacon, onion and bell pepper mixture to the water. Stir it all up. ( I usually put the bacon mixture in it a little before the potatoes are cooked so hopefully it will soak up that flavor. I don't know if that works but that is what I do lol)

   From here it kinda is up to you on how much cheese you use. We use a lot but I also have a huge pot so I make a little more than a standard pot but I use a whole block of Velveeta, 1 bag of shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese. ( make sure you chop the Velveeta in small chunks. It will melt better) 1 T. of mustard. Add salt, pepper and garlic powder. Once the cheese is in the pot make sure you keep stirring. It will stick to the bottom! The more you stir the better the potatoes will get smaller. You don't want huge chunks of potatoes. Just small chunks.

   Once all the cheese is melted you are done. Serve it up. I usually just top it with bacon, Shredded cheese and some green onions.

Enjoy!!!

Week 1: Acorn/Butternut Squash Soup

As part of my New Years Resolution I want to make a new recipe every week. With that being said I am going to make every Friday...(wait for it)... Food Friday! I know I am so clever.

 For this week I made an Acorn and Butternut Squash Soup. I found the recipe here but I did change it a little bit.

I decided to make this recipe just because I actually had all the ingredients on hand. We had never had acorn or butternut squash before. So why not give it a try, right?

I did cut this recipe in half and added about 1 1/2 t. of Garlic, 1-2 T. of cayenne pepper, and 1/2 t. of paprika. Also, I did not use a sweet onion just a regular onion.

This is not a soup that would be a full meal by itself. It is better to be paired with something. I would suggest maybe a grilled cheese or a panini. Something crunchy.

Overall, it was pretty good. The Hubby loved it. I thought it was okay. I thought it had a weird texture but tasted good.

 

*Sorry this is a bad picture... it was the leftovers. 

Eeeeekkkk!! My 1st Post!!

Hey! This is my attempt to start a blog and put myself out there. I have always wanted to start a blog... so here I am! This blog is mostly going to cover my new adventure into mommyhood. My pinterest addiction (can you have a pinterest addiction? Pinterest Anon? lol) which would included cooking, crafting, health and beauty. That is a really broad range, huh? I am sure I will focus on something the more I get into it. Well, I look forward to starting this blogging adventure!!