Hooded Towel

I am a sucker for hooded towels, so I thought why not make some for Briggs as he grew out of the cute ones we were given at his baby shower.  They also make a quick and easy gift!
 What you'll need:
- 1 bath towel
- 1 hand towel

Take your hand towel lay it horizontally in front of you.

Cut towel in half.  You only need half so you can save half for another towel if you would like.

Find the center of your bath towel and pin the half of your hand towel in the center and sew the two towels together.  I like to have the already hemmed edges together.  I also like to have the tag of the towel on the inside when the towel is finished so I keep that in mind when sewing the towel together.

Fold the towel in the wrong direction (if you care about where the towel is) and sew the top of your hand towel together to create the hood.

Turn your hood out.  I like the look of the towel on its own, but I really wanted to make Briggs a Mike Wazowski towel after I made a Toy Machine monster one for my nephew.  To do the eye, I grabbed a white, light blue and navy blue wash cloth.  Cut out the circle to the size I wanted it to be and sewed those all together!

Sorry my model did not want to stay still!  Enjoy this super simple craft!!

Glitter Ornaments

So I have begun putting up Christmas decorations, I just couldn't wait until next week!  Anyways, a theme-ish thing we are doing with are tree is Harry Potter.  While making my snitch ornaments I was trying to find the best way to do it.  I knew that I wanted the glitter inside the ornament but all over.  I couldn't get it to stay just by it self, I tried modge podge, which only dried white on me and was a pain to try and get all over so I probably used more then I should have.

Today I had an Ah-ha moment.  For dance performances when I used glitter I would hairspray it to my face to make it stay, so why not inside the ornament.

All you do is take your ornament you want to sparkle (with the top of for the inside)  and point the hairspray nozzle inside and do a few short sprays.  Then sprinkle the glitter inside and give it a good shake with your finger over the opening! Let it dry and pour any glitter that did not stick in a cup or back in the container.

 Happy Holidays everyone and look out for more Christmas decorations this year!

Chicken Molé Enchiladas with Mango Black Beans and Quinoa

On Sunday I asked Sean what he wanted for dinner, he said my Enchiladas, but sadly we did not have all of the ingredients.  But that gave me an idea... MOLÈ Enchiladas!! These bad boys are my favorite thing, I know that they sound weird but trust me.  We also had some mango black beans when we went out to dinner recently and were hooked! So I recreated them... they were supposed to go on rice, but, we didn't have that either so quinoa was the next choice and worked out nicely!  Here is the recipe.

MOLÈ Enchiladas
Ingredients:

Sauce
1 jar of Dona Maria Mole Sauce
1 can chicken broth
1-2 cups water (you can also just use more chicken broth)
3 Tablespoons peanut butter (Optional, but delicious)
2 cloves garlic
dash of salt

Chicken
Flour tortillas (corn is ok too)
3 cups shredded Monterey Jack Cheese

Combine ingredients for the sauce and simmer until the jar of mole is melted.  Start with just one cup of water though, add more until it is a pancake consistency (that's at least my preference.) Save 1/3 of the sauce and set aside. Cook your chicken any way you would like.  Combine chicken with sauce (not the 1/3) and a cup of cheese.  Now you can either layer the enchiladas lasagna style or roll.  I am impatient so I tend to layer.  Cover with remaining sauce and cheese.  Bake at 350° until the cheese bubbles. 

Quinoa (or rice) and Beans
2 cans Black Beans
1/2 jar Mango Salsa (we had a habanero one)
Quinoa or rice

Combine beans and salsa, you can add salt to if you wish.  Let it heat and set aside.  Cook your quinoa or rice.  Serve the black beans over your quinoa or rice. 

Enjoy!  I am seriously addicted to the flavor of this meal!

That Endometriosis Life

I can vividly remember the day that my Endometriosis began.
I was 16, a soon to be junior in high school, and went to bed on a summer night after hanging out with my girls!  Suddenly, I found out that I was pregnant and I was not sure how that happened.  I accepted it though and went through all nine months of pregnancy.  Then it was time for me to have my baby and I felt every bit of pain that was involved in my labor and delivery.  I had a beautiful surprise that I had not one baby but two, oddly, one was black and the other white.  When I left the hospital and returned home I awoke in my bedroom at my parents.  Now no longer dreaming my body was still in as much pain as I had dreamt I was in.  So my logic told me it wasn't a dream and I walked around my parents house looking for my babies, don't judge me it was like 4 A.M. so I was not in a right state of mind.  When I realized that everything had been a dream I was so confused why my body hurt so badly, hunched over barely able to move pain.  From that day on I continued to get that pain.
What is Endometriosis?  Simply put its scar tissue that forms because of endometrial cells being where they should not.  Its such a weird disease (fitting since my body is known to be so weird)  they do not really know much about it, like exactly how it gets there or how to really treat it.  They do know a couple of things though which is helpful.  It can be extremely painful, though not for everyone, and it can cause infertility. 
When I got that news that I may never have a child I was heartbroken it was all I ever wanted, I mean come on I had that vivid dream and then at least one a month after that.  Luckily, I found a loving man who still thought I was worth something after hearing that news since not everyone would want to deal with that.  I am so blessed however that even with having Stage 4 Endo (after my diagnostic surgery, my doctor drew a picture of uterus and just started to dot all over it, even outside of it to show me how much scar tissue was there) that Sean and I were able to have our beautiful son Briggs so quickly into our marriage.  There are times though when I get sad seeing how easily friends and family are on to baby number two because I am not sure if we will get that opportunity.  But I know that The Lord has a plan for us and will accept any blessing or trial he sends my way.
I have dealt with this pain for so long that I can ignore the mild days!  But those days seem to be growing few and far between.  There are days when my body is particularly rude to me and I am physically and mentally exhausted, even nauseous from the pain that I am in.  I am still figuring out how to manage it on the really bad days, but here are some things that I have found helpful to take the edge off.

• Treat yo'self to an amazing bath with a Bath Bomb he seems to be magic with any pain.
• Get massaged from someone who love you!  (Sorry for the lush plugs) I love this Massage Bar
• Eat some chocolate, or your favorite caffeinated beverage (Dr. Pepper for me!)
• Watch your favorite movie with your handy heating pad on HIGH
• Most importantly relax your mind as well

Relaxing is very important.  When I am in pain and do not feel up to being out of bed, I tend to get down on myself about being a bad mother and wife.  Unfortunately Endo does affect my life, even though I wish it didn't,  sometimes I need help to watch my baby boy because I physically need that time to myself.  As a wife its hard knowing that I cannot be intimate with my husband when the pain is bad.  But I have to remind myself that there are still more good days then bad (even if those good days have pain) and that I am doing the most can with my situation.  I am so blessed in my life that I even hate to complain (I do though) when something is not ideal for me.  But again, my Heavenly Father has a plan for me and has a purpose for my life, this is something that I will always treasure!

Skinny Mac and Cheese

There is nothing like homemade Macaroni and Cheese, but lets get real do we even want to think about how many calories are in it?  No, that will just make us sad.  So here is a recipe that is about half the calories!

Ingredients:
2 cups multigrain elbow macaroni
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons  all-purpose flour
1 1/12 cups skim milk (warmed)
8 ounces shredded low-fat cheddar cheese (about 2 1/4 cups)
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of pepper
1/4 cup of panko crumbs or whole wheat bread crumbs
*Optional for the garlic lovers 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic

Instructions:
1. Preheat butter
2. Bring a large sauce pan of water (salted if you wish) to boil and cook pasta according to directions.
3. While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat.  Add the flour  and cook, whisking constantly until golden, about 2 minutes.  Continue whisking and add the milk in a slow and stead stream.  Bring the mixture to a stead simmer, whisking constantly, and whisk until thickened, about 2 minutes.
4. Drain the pasta in a colander.  Remove the sauce from the heat, add the cheese and stir until the cheese melts. Immediately add the hot, drained pasta and stir until well coated.  Stir in Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and garlic if you love it. 
5.  Place oven on broil.  Place your mac and cheese in an oven safe dish and sprinkle the bread crumbs over the top.  Broil until the crumbs are golden and crisp, about 1-2 minutes, be careful not to burn the top.

Enjoy that comfort food without the guilt!!

Happy Birthday Banner

So our little Ham recently turned 1 and I have been getting a lot of questions from some lovely people about this banner that I made.

 

 

Well it was really simple to do.  I had some left over burlap from making Christmas Stockings last year.  So I just cut a triangle pattern out and traced on the burlap to get the pennants.  Then I stenciled the letters on.  When the paint dried I folded the pennant over ribbon and hot glued (it has since been sewn but I did it the night before and was too tired to sew) the sides together!  It did not take very long and will now be used for every birthday!

Salsa Chicken

I was given this super yummy and super easy recipe from a co-worker.  Lets just say its probably one of the greatest inventions known to man! 

Salsa Chicken
Ingredients:
Chicken Breast
Green Salsa (about half a container for each salsa)
Red Salsa
Sweet Salsa (we used a mango habanero.)
Salt (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
Garlic (to taste)

First I needed to grab out that crock pot, which I have never used before,  set it to low.  Pour all of the salsa in as well as the salt pepper and garlic.  Give it a stir.  Then add the chicken.  Sean and I used four extremely large one which come from the freezer section of Costco. Then cover the crock pot and let it cook for six hours. Grab your egg beater and use it on low to shred your chicken inside the crock pot, it won't take long as the chicken just falls apart.  Then serve however you wish.  Here are some ideas on how to serve it.
Chicken Quesadilla
Chicken Burrito
On top of rice
Chicken Taco
Pulled Chicken Sandwich

However you serve it you can't go wrong this easy dish is so delicious I like to eat it plain!!

Henna Hair... WHAT?!

If you know me you know that I am pretty Bi-polar with my hair color, though I have never made my hair pink or purple (I want to I am just scared!!), I do change it often between red, brown and blonde.  My go to color is always blonde though.  When I got pregnant my hair just went nuts, what was once a wavy curl became something rather special looking.  I decided to try to re-train and make my hair healthy again so that my curls can come back to life.  Obviously this would take a long time if I keep bleaching my poor hair, so Henna caught my eye.  I did not think it was possible to do this since I really enjoy my blonde hair as Henna can sometimes cause some funky colors to come out of processed hair.  I work at Lush and my manager one day told me that she bleaches our Henna out fine this is because we do not use metallic salts in our Henna line.  I was sold.  If I could bleach it out I would do it.  So let me tell you about why I made this decision.
When you dye your hair using Henna its not like a typical dye.  Typical dye will change the color of the hair it touches from the inside out.  Henna is like staining furniture,  you just coat your hair in color.  Why is this good?  Well just coating your hair in color is less damaging the opening and closing the cuticle of you hair a thousand times.  Also, like staining, the integrity of your hair is kept intact.  This means that any highlights, low lights or gray hairs will be coated with color but you will still keep that dimension in the finished color.  Henna won't give you the all over one color, but will have lighter and darker sections based on the highlights and lowlights you had before.  Then to top of the whole not going to damage your hair Lush puts their Henna in a brick of Cocoa Butter!! YUMMY! So anyways here is my Henna process.

 I figured out the type of color that I wanted, I knew I wanted something more coppery but I am coming from blonde so it was going to be a multi coat process.  Day one I coated my hair with Caca Rouge  which is a pretty simple process. 

1: Break up large chunks of the henna.  I cut off two squares and put it in a heat proof bowl and placed that in bowl in a larger bowl.  Then I added hot water to the bowl with the Henna inside it and to the bowl it was sitting in.  Think of it as a double boiler, or just use a double boiler!  Let the Henna sit in the hot water for a bit to start melting it down and mix until it becomes a brownie batter consistency (I made mine a little bit thinner because I thought it was easier to spread.)  Then coat all your hair with it, starting with your roots makes the process easier.  If you want a vibrant red wrap your covered hair with cling wrap for a darker color leave it uncovered.  Then leave it on your hair for two to four hours.  I decided to sleep in mine though so the cocoa butter could really penetrate my hair.  When I shampooed out the next morning this was my result.

 

It was a little too Fred and George Weasley so I decided to do one layer of Caca Marron on top the next night  and this was my result!

Sorry about the awkward pictures I feel weird when I take selfies! haha!  Also my hair was tied back and that is why it looks so funky in the picture! But on a serious note, I LOVE the color that came out!  I am going to keep using Henna on my hair at least until all of the blonde is out of my hair.  I will for sure recommend using it to anyone who likes a red, brown or black hair color!
*Its important to always do a strand test just to make sure nothing funky will happen.  Enjoy and check out the Lush Henna's!

Date Nights

Throughout our relationship Sean and I have always done the same thing when it came to spending time together, we watch T.V., movies, play video games and card games.  Don't get me wrong I love doing those things after a long day of work, school and of course hanging with Briggs all day its nice to have that lazy time where we don't have to get dressed up or do my hair and make up.  There are times though when I go crazy because we have done the same thing all week, but we still get into the same routine.  So I decided to come up with a date night jar to help us be creative for the times when we say, "I don't care, what do you want to do?"  We spent a night coming up with a list of fun activities which for the most part do not require us to go out and buy anything.  Here are a couple of things that we have done so far.

1.  Carved Soap
This is just as simple as it sounds.  We each grabbed a bar of soap and a knife and began to make some "art" with it.

2. Made a Fort and watched some scary movies.
I am a sucker for a good scary movie so it was fun to cuddle up in our lovely fort!  I know I said we were trying to avoid watching movies but this was more interactive as we made an amazing piece of architecture!

3.  Love Mugs
Ok so I don't really know what to call this so I just wrote the first thing that came to my mind.  We grabbed these mugs at the dollar store and began to write on them with sharpies.  Sean chose to write about our love story and I wrote the lyrics to our first dance together which is "Never Let Go" by Hanson ( I am so lucky that he was game for that!)  After we were done we baked them in the oven at 350 for 20 min.  Now we have these cute mugs.

4. Caramel Apple Spice Starbucks Copy Cat
So we got this amazing hot chocolate maker for Christmas and we put it to great use.  To make it you just combine apple juice, caramel and clove.  This bad boy mixes, heats, and froths it for us but you could easily do this on the stove.  Then top with whipped cream and more caramel.  Oh its so good!

5.  I don't have a picture for this but it was a fun night.  We went to a thrift shop and had a $10 spending limit and went out separate ways.  We each picked out a gift for the other.  Sean on this occasion found a super cute bread box and I scored a badminton set.  This was a very fun one.

Well there are just a couple of things that have come out of our date night jar.  I will post some more as we do them. Have fun shaking up your routine.

Brigham Turns One!

So back in June our sweet little Brigham turned one.  I cant believe how fast the time has gone!  He is a miracle in our lives and that is for sure.  If you know me you may know that I have stage 4 endometriosis.  To put it simply its scar tissue all over my uterus, bladder and intestines.  This scar tissue causes serious pain in my body, some days its all I can do to get myself out of bed.  I am lucky and extremely happy when I have a day that I do not get to experience the pain.  Besides daily pain it can cause infertility, in fact I was told it would be very difficult for me to get pregnant as the scar tissue pretty much covered everything.  Sean and I were married in April of  2011 and in October 2011 (Sunday of General Conference in fact) we had the most wonderful surprise of our lives, we were PREGNANT!! I truly felt the Lord blessed me with the thing I wanted most in my life, to be a mother.   The excitement about being parents seemed to grow everyday.

  At 12 weeks we went to a high risk pregnancy center to just take a look and see if everything was going smoothly.  Going in we didn't think we would do the blood test to see what the risk of having a child with down syndrome was because we did not care, however we changed our mind and decided it would be good to be prepared.  It turns out we had next to no chance of having a child with down syndrome.

 They then began the usual examination and we discovered a few issues.  First I had placenta previa, which means the placenta was in the way of the birth canal so they wanted to keep an eye on it.  Then it was that I had a Bicornuate uterus that was also Septate.  What that means is my uterus was heart shaped instead of the usual pear and then there was a wall dividing it further into two pieces.   This meant that Brigham had a high chance of pre-term labor (as early as 25 weeks) because he had half the space and it was oddly shaped he would just run out of room.  It also meant needing a C-section because the chance of being breach was so high. Being Bicornuate or septate alone  would make it hard to get pregnant but combining them together and with my endometriosis it was a complete miracle that I was pregnant.

  Later we discovered that Brigham's umbilical cord was a two vessel cord instead of three.  Now this means a couple of things, first that could be a major sign indicating down syndrome and it could also mean that he would not get enough nutrition, so he would be smaller and may need to be delivered via C-section.   While these things seemed to make our pregnancy a little scary we still felt blessed to have this baby become a part of our family.

 The Lord truly had a hand in our little mans life because he was born at 39 weeks at 6lbs. 15oz and 19 inches long which surprised even the doctors!  I love him more then he will ever know and I hope that I can raise him to be the man he is meant to become!  Anyways here are some pictures taken by canico studios of his birthday party!

Sock Pants

My absolute favorite pair of pants that Brigham has ever worn are sock pants!!  I am a sucker for skinny jeans especially when little babies are involved so I saw a pin one day of super cute pants for my sweet boy made of socks and thought well that has to be the most brilliant idea ever.  So I made them and as soon as I put them on him I was obsessed!  I mean look at how cute he is!!

What you will need:
a pair of socks (got a pack of men's basic black socks from walmart but women's socks have really cute patterns)
scissors
some means of sewing

What to do:

1.  Simply cut along the heel of both socks

2. Cut off the toes

3.  Turn sock inside out. Sew the right sides of the socks together adjusting towards the top (where the toes were) for your babies waist

4.  Turn sewn socks right side out
5.  Fold over the tops so the cut edge is inside the pants and sew the waist

 

 

I hope you enjoy these super simple, super cute pants!

OK just one more of Briggs because he is just too adorable!



*photos of Brigham by Canico Studios

Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken with Potato Stuffed Tomato

ok you are probably thinking what??  But trust me this is tasty and super simple to prepare.

Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken

Ingredients:
Chicken Breast
Garlic
Brown Sugar
Lime
Red Pepper Flakes
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil

Instructions:
Mix together all the ingredients to your taste and sprinkle on top of the chicken and bake at 500 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Potato stuffed Tomato:

Ingredients:

Mashed Potatoes:
Any potato you like
garlic
salt
pepper
butter
milk

Tomato (the bigger the better)
Salt

Instructions:
Boil your potatoes, when they are tender drain the water and add garlic, salt, pepper, butter, and milk as well as any other ingredients you prefer in your mashed potatoes.
Core your tomato ( you want it to look like a bread bowl but its a tomato bowl instead!)  Sprinkle it with salt on the inside.   Fill it with your mashed potatoes and broil it until the potatoes brown.  Take out of the oven and enjoy!!

Happily Ever After

Yesterday was mine and my sweethearts 2 year anniversary (I know its a day late but we ditched school and were out and about all day celebrating.)  Sean and I both went to Green Valley High School he was a year ahead of me.  I remember the first time that I saw him at early morning seminary I thought "that is the cutest boy I have ever seen."  I crushed on him silently all of high school but we never spoke to each other or hung out together.

 Shortly before Sean left on his mission to the Philippines we started to hang out because my little sister was crushing on his best friend Jason.  I never had such a connection with someone.  I mean instantly I felt like this kid was my best friend.  I had so much fun with him and he treated me so great, then came the lame road trip that he went on.  As he left he said he would give me a call when he got back... lets just say he never called me and went on his mission!! RUDE!!

  After being out in the field for a few months Sean finally wrote me to apologize for what happened before his mission.  We then began to write each other.  Every time I got a letter from Sean it seemed to come at the most perfect time in my life.

 

  I was dating this boy up at school, whenever I prayed about it the Lord told me to talk about marriage with him,  this was a very hard time in my life and I lost a very, very dear friend in the process.  Did I mention that the entire time Sean was on his mission Kelsey was passing me information and reminding me of  Sean's importance in my life! 

When fall of 2010 came around I was planning on moving home to have a diagnostic surgery done on me, my boyfriend at the time and I broke up.  I moved back home, had the surgery and felt this sense of peace with the end of that relationship.

 Sean came home from his mission and I anxiously waited to see him, I had this all planned out.  My best friend Kelsey and I went shopping and bought the perfect dress to wear to his homecoming talk, I would walk in wearing "the dress" my hair and makeup done perfectly and Sean would be in awe.  It did not go down like this at all.  Sean called me and invited me to play wallyball with his family this meant I would be in sweats, hair in a pony and no makeup (also me looking ridiculous as the surgery I had was in my stomach and I wasn't fully recovered)  I had such an amazing time.

 Let me sum up from here, after 1 week we knew we would get married,  we were engaged in December and Married in April 9, 2011 the best day of my life!!

  I don't know if I could ever fully express how much I love this man, the Lord truly blessed me in having this amazing man as my eternal companion.  He makes me laugh harder then anyone ever has, I mean he full on gets me to wheeze which has never happened before.  He is so loving and patient with me as well as the most amazing father I have ever seen.  Sean wanted me despite my being "broken" and has made my world so amazing!  I love him so much and look forward to an eternity together!  He is my happily ever after!

 

Photos taken by Canico studios