Jillian Michaels

Maverick is one week away from being 6 months old (NOOOO! Not already!) and I am still 15-20 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight. Not to mention the massive amount of toning that needs to still take place. It is offically time to get serious! This is where Jillian Michaels 90 day body revolution comes in. Monday was my 1st day on the program. The 1st 7 days is a detox diet and 2 workouts a day. The workouts haven't been too hard but getting up at 4:10 am to do those workouts has been rough. Today is the 1st day i've been really sore and HUNGRY!! I broke my diet a little and had some nuts. I thought i was going to DIE! Price is doing the diet too (BUT i'm going to call him out on how much he has cheated) and weighed himself this morning and has already lost 12 pounds! IN 3 DAYS PEOPLE!!!!! I know i will not have that kind of result, but I'm hoping to and it motivates me to keep at it. This weekend will be torture with the driving, and the junk food that comes with road trips plus my sister Ashlee's fantastic baking. Luckly my dad has an amazing garden with the most delicious tomatoes EVER so i'll try to eat as much of his veggies as possible. I'm sure i'll slip a little but am going to try to stay on point. Bikini body here i come (fingers crossed :( ) XOXO Brogan Lee

Anticipation

OH BOY!! I can't wait for this weekend! The family and I are headed up to Modesto tomorrow night for my littlest nieces 1st birthday bash, The Hungry Little Catipillar style! I haven't seem those adorible little faces since February and I'm dying to hug, kiss and spoil those little cuties! I'm, of course, excited to see the rest of the brood as well. It's going to be a long drive and I'm sure there will be WAY too much junk food consumscion, but it'll all be worth it. Pictures to follow....get ready for Walling boys in BOW TIES!! I've got to do what I can with my boys clothes while I can since I can't work with tutu's, bloomers, hair bows or pink. Price hates it but I L-O-V-E the preppy matching outfits. Have a great weekend everyone! Lots of Love and Bunches of Hugs!! XOXO Brogan Lee

Walling family update

I feel like I haven't posted any recent pictures or updates of my little brood, so here you are!

Preston is now 5 and WAY to smart for his own good. Each day when he comes home from school I am amazed at what he has to say. He can write and spell his name perfectly, knows all his shapes, colors and numbers and is learning colors and numbers in Spanish (he's almost got it). He "graduates" from preschool in June and will start kindergarten in august (don't get me started in the school process, you'll be reading this blog all day!) He's in the lying phase right now and has an opinion about everything which is pretty exhausting but makes for good stories later.

Ethan is 2 1/2 and so stinking cute (they all are)! His facial expressions CRACK me up! He's now in preschool with preston and loves, loves, loves it! I am so curious as to how I ended up with two boys with such opposite personalities. Preston needs constant stimulation and Ethan will sit by himself in a room for hours playing quietly with his trucks. It makes me very curious to see how Mav grows up. Ethan is officially fully potty trained during the day (yippee) and will make it through most nights without accidents. What a headache! I'm so glad to be past that!

Maverick is on the cusp of being 5 months old. It literally hurts to say that!! Where in the world has time gone? He's now eating cereal and I'm looking to invest in a Baby Brezza baby food maker so he can start on fruit and veggies. I say invest for a reason, this thing and the recipe book and all the Utensils are well over $120. But hopefully in the long run it is more cost efficient then buying baby food and is healthier as well. In March he rolled over for the first time, got his 1st tooth and ate solids for the first time. He had his 4 month check up this week and weighed in at 19.8 pounds! He is a BIG BOY! He's in the 97% tile across the board.

Price had been home now for 4 solid months and has tons of projects going! He "rescued" an engine from the junk yard that he wants to rebuild, his Uncle gave him a motorcycle that needs work, an he's installing our ceiling fans. I'm so proud of him for getting our living room fan installed last weekend. He installed a brace, wired power to that part of the ceiling and put the fan up.I honestly thought he was going to burn the house down or hurt himself, but NOPE! I then felt bad for having so little faith in him. Deepest apologizes babe! ;)

And, well me, I'm just trying to get into shape. I've been back to work since the beginning of march and still have not lost more than 2 pounds. I'm going to the gym almost everyday an am eating 75% better than I was before. I feel like I can't diet too much or push myself too hard because I'm still nursing and don't want to give that up yet. I did my first 5k last month and have another one in 2 weeks. After that I'm going to start on 10k's and work up to a 1/2 marathon and maybe a full marathon depending on how bad the 1/2 is. Other than trying to motivate myself to eat better and work out more, not too much else is different with me.

I need to start updating on our lives more often so I don't have these big long posts. Promise....

XOXO Brogan Lee

Crockpot recap

Ok, so I am way over due to responding to my last post. Here's a quick recap of how the crockpot meals went... The chicken and dumplings was delicious! I added carrots, celery, basil and oregano. The bacon wrapped chicken and sour cream was good but pretty rich, next time i will only use one can of cream of chicken and 1/2 the sour cream. I used way more bacon (because who doesn't love a ton of bacon?!?!) and over cooked it on accident. This actually worked out ok because it didn't burn, the chicken just shredded. It was served over rice with green beans and was a big hit with our company. I enjoyed the artichoke chicken. Next time I will use marinated artichokes, add olives and more garlic. I think this would be delish served over pasta with a little shredded parm. The chili an pumpkin soup was not a hit. It was just too bland. I couldn't taste the pumpkin but Price could and thought that was gross. My mom added roasted potatoes, a little hot sauce an salt and pepper and she liked it a little. I don't recommend it.

Overall, the crockpot meals made my life a little easier and made a TON of food but to be honest I felt like I was eating too much salt and processed food. I am not a big fan of things from cans and prefer fresh veggies. After a week of crockpot food we were ready for BBQ chicken and roasted veggies again!

XOXO Brogan Lee

Crock pot

I'm in my third week back to work and am beyond tired. I'm getting up at 4:30am everyday and not going to bed until close to 10 or 1030. Maverick has been doing pretty good about sleeping through the night, but those few nights when i still have to get up for 30-40 minutes to feed him leave me feeling even more wiped the next day. This is what my days look like right now: get up, shower, get dressed/do hair/makeup, feed Maverick,wake up the boys/feed them/dress them, make Price and I our green smoothies, pack up lunch and gym bag, leave house by 640am, drop boys off at school, work 8-430 (gym for an hour at lunch), pick boys up from school, get home at 6, cook dinner, make next days lunch, get coffee ready, do dishes (if Price hasn't done them), give boys a bath, read them a book, feed Mav again, set clothes out for the next day and try to get to bed by 10. I'm exhausted again just thinking about it all! In an effort to try to minimize dishes and spend more quality time with the kids and less time cooking, I discovered a website called: momswithcrockpots.com. Almost everything can be made in the crock pot without any other pots or pans and can be left to cook all day. I loved just about every recipe but I chose 4 (ones that had very little prep and very few ingredients) that I'm going to try this week.

1) pumpkin and chili chicken stew
2) tomato artichoke chicken on pasta
3) sour cream and bacon wrapped chicken with rice
4) dump and go cheesy chicken and broccoli

Yes, we eat a lot of chicken in our house. We usually do red meat one or twice a week but it's chicken and veggies most nights. I'm hoping these made my days a little easier and cut back on the number of dishes were using/having to wash. I'll make sure to post the impact momswithcrockpots has on the Walling family and if the food it as delicious as it looks!

XOXO Brogan Lee

PB PRETZEL BITES

Happy St. Patricks day! I was not into it this year :( I failed to make the green mint shamrock sugar cookies I had planned on making, the kids weren't decked out in green clothes, I didn't drink a Guinness and we didn't have corn beef and cabbage for dinner. I'm a bad Irish girl! Oh well, there is always next year!
Even though we didn't get into the St. Patties day spirit, we still managed to do a little baking! I found a kid friendly and delicious recipe on...can you guess????? YES Pinterest! I have no idea how I manage to have all the ingredients for these fantastic treats in my house!?! (But i am oh so glad that I do) I like this one because there is no need for an oven or stove top so the kids can do just about everything. I'd say this is appropriate for kids 3-4 and up. Preston (age 5)was able to roll the peanut butter mixture into balls but Ethan(age 2 1/2) had a hard time with it. His looked more like snakes! :) Also, to make the recipe a little easier, it might be best to drizzle the treats with chocolate rather than dip in chocolate. This was REALLY messy, the pretzels started to break and it was nearly impossible to keep the kids from licking their fingers in between each dip.
All in all, this was yummy! Yet another pinterest dessert that didn't last a full 24 hours in the Walling household!












Ingredients:
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons softened butter
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• Pretzels
• 1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1.Line a baking sheet with wax paper and set aside.

2.In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat peanut butter and butter until combined. Scrape down bowl, add sugars and beat until combined. You should be able to roll the mixture into balls without sticking to your hands. If needed, add more powdered sugar until you reach a consistency that is easy to roll.

3.Roll the mixture into small balls, about 1 teaspoon of mixture for each ball, and place on prepared baking sheet. Sandwich the balls between two pretzels and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.

4.Melt the chocolate in a metal bowl over a pan of lightly simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth, and remove from heat. Dip each pretzel bite halfway into the melted chocolate and place on the prepared baking sheet. Chill in refrigerator until chocolate is set.

Lots of Love and Bunches of Hugs
XOXO Brogan Lee

Coconut Chicken salad

Prepare yourselves, because this blog is being taken over by Pinterest posts!
Last night i tried yet another recipe and it was GREAT! It was easy, relatively fast and I had everything in the house already. Ethan LOVED it too which is a major plus! We eat grilled chicken and veggies EVERy....SINGLE....NIGHT, so i wanted to mix it up a little bit. Give it a try, i bet you'll love it too!

P.S. this is another "stolen" picture....the ones on the website are just so much prettier than mine.



CHICKEN:
• 6 (about 12 oz) chicken tenderloins
• 6 tbsp shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 2 tbsp crushed cornflake crumbs
• 1/3 cup egg substitute or egg whites
• pinch salt
• olive oil spray

SALAD:
• 6 cups mixed baby greens
• 3/4 cup shredded carrots
• 1 large tomato, sliced
• 1 small cucumber, sliced

Vinaigrette:
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp white vinegar (balsamic would work too)
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard

Whisk all vinaigrette ingredients; set aside.

Preheat oven to 375°.

Combine coconut flakes, bread crumbs, cornflake crumbs and salt in a bowl. Put egg whites or egg beaters in another bowl.
Lightly season chicken with salt. Dip the chicken in the egg, then in the coconut crumb mixture. Place chicken on a cookie sheet lined with parchment for easy cleanup. Lightly spray with olive oil spray and bake for 30 minutes turning halfway, or until chicken is cooked through.Place 2 cups baby greens on each plate. Divide carrots, cucumber, tomato evenly between each plate. When chicken is ready slice on the diagonal and place on top of the salad.

Happy eating!

XOXO Brogan Lee

Chocolate covered strawberry pie

Here's another pinterest recipe!! I took the picture off the website (mine did not look this pretty). But boy oh boy, it was DELISH!! So good in fact, that I made it on Saturday, let it set overnight and it was gone by Sunday afternoon! Price and I both have quite the sweet tooth! If you like cheesecake and chocolate covered strawberries, I strongly recommend this dessert!



1 quart fresh strawberries, sliced
1 (8oz) package of cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 cups white chocolate chips
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 chocolate pie crust (like Oreo)

Melt 3/4 cup of of the white chocolate chips in the microwave (30 second intervals)for about 1-2 minutes, being careful not to burn. Set aside.

Beat the heavy cream, vanilla extract, & 1/2 cup of the confectioners sugar with an electric mixer in a bowl until it becomes thick.

In a separate bowl, beat together the softened cream cheese, the other 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar, & the cup of melted white chocolate.Gently fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture.

Spread the cream into the chocolate pie crust. (I recommend not putting all of the cream in the crust at first. There is a lot of cream and it will overflow as you stuff in the quart of strawberries.) Then, press the sliced berries into the mixture ALL over it. Find every single available nook & cranny, and shove a berry in it!

Melt the remaining white chocolate in one bowl & melt the milk chocolate in another. Drizzle the melted milk chocolate on first…then the white chocolate. Make sure the drizzles are thin and spread out because if you pour the chocolate on top (like i did) it is impossible to cut when the chocolate chips harden again.

Happy eating! I'm sure there will be more Pinterest recipes to come!

Lots of Love and Bunches of Hugs,
XOXO Brogan Lee

Rollie Pollie

Thats right! Our little pollie is a rollie!! Maverick waited until the week I went back to work to start rolling over and I missed it! :( Luckly Price happened to have the day off and caught it on film. Mav is going to be 4 months old in a few days and I cannot believe how fast time is going by! I think the best part of this video is Prices commentary. He was so excited to see one of the kids "firsts" before me. Even though it made me sad that i missed it, i'm glad that he was there to experience it. Enjoy!!

Lots of Love and Bunches of hugs

XOXO Brogan Lee

Beach day

It's the first weekend of march and the last day of my maternity leave and San Diego decided to spoil us with an 82 degree day! We loaded the kids and dog up and headed to IB. It was Maverick and Lucy's first time to the beach. Unfortunately we didn't go to Dog Beach so we couldn't let her off the leash for very long and I think she was pretty sad about it. Lucy LOVES the sand and the water and everything about being there. If next weekend is this nice, we will have to go to Dog beach to let her run around. Maverick didn't seem to be the biggest fan of this outing. I'm assuming it may have something to do with the fact that he pooped all over himself about 30 minutes after we arrived and while I was changing him he got covered in sand. I don't like when i have tons of sand under my clothes either. Ethan and Preston have really grown to love the beach. The last time we went out, Preston screamed when he got wet and Ethan started crying the minute we stepped foot on the sand and cried so hard for so long that he passed out for over an hour on the towel. This time they were so excited to be there that they were running all over the place, climbing the rocks, running into the water and digging in the sand like crazy. It made me happy to see them enjoying it so much. Now that they are getting more comfortable around the water I need to get them in swim lessons!
Oh, and I can't NOT mention Prices favorite part of the day.... Massive hamburgers, waffle cut fries and a 32 oz beer from the pier restaurant! (He hates when I take food pics so one is not included.) It has been about 2 years if not longer since he has eaten there and as soon as a trip to IB was mentioned, that was the 1st thing that came to him mind ;)
I hope everyone had a beautiful weekend to! Tomorrow I'm back to work and sure to cry at least a few times! :( I'm going to miss the boys so much and I'm nervous I'm not going to remember anything! I'll just have to cross my fingers and see how it goes!
Lots of Love and Bunches of Hugs,
XOXO Brogan lee

Pinterest

Pinterest is my new obsession! I have been on it twice and spent, no joke, about 4 hours browsing all the amazing things other people have "pinned". I made these Rolo brownies the other night and they were AMAZING! I didn't follow the recipe but I'm assuming it was more or less the same thing. I let The boys whipped up brownie mix, put it into a mini muffin pan, then they stuck Rolo's in the center, and baked for 25 mins. Once cooled we poured chocolate glaze over the top then drizzled with Carmel sauce. I highly recommend giving these a shot. I have about 40 desserts I want to try but I'm going to have to have strong will power because I'm starting back at work Monday and am going to try to go back on a struck diet and hit the gym again. But maybe every now and then I can splurge and try a new recipe. But back to Pinterest.... Get on there, search, save and enjoy! I have endless clothing ideas, meal ideas, desserts, house decor ideas and now I'm going to hop on the motivational workouts. My sister and BFF have been trying to get me to check it out for months and have been telling me I'd love it but I just never got around to it. Now that I am on it, I'm hooked! I

Breakfast tacos

Left overs can make a darn good breakfast! This is what I did with ours the other morning. I chopped up our BBQ chicken, some tomatoes, bacon, cilantro, green onion and avocado, scrambled some eggs and mixed it all together. I piled everything into a corn tortilla I toasted on the burner and topped with Frank's Red Hot (because i put that s**t on everything ;) ) and extra sharp cheddar cheese AND ta-da!!! An excellent breakfast!

"My" ladies

Super Bowl weekend the fam (minus Price) and I were in Fresno in celebration of Miss Nora Grace. Nora is my youngest niece and was being baptized and I was honored to be asked to be her God mother. My sister and her family live on the east coast and made the trip out to Cali to have Nora baptized at the same church Sydney (my other niece) was baptized at and to have the family present. I don't get to see my girls near enough and LOVE every minute I get to spend with them. Sydney is SO smart, and so sweet and so talkative and speaks so well. She amazes me! I loved spending the afternoon with her. We sat on my dads floor and squirted almost a whole can of whipped cream in our mouths and giggled! My goal is to spoil her as much as possible whenever we're together to try to gain the favorite aunt title ;) sorry Karlene!! haha! Just kidding. But I do remember when I was little and staying up way past my bed time at my Aunt Kelleys house and being allowed to eat pretzels with mustard in her bed while we watched movies. Those are the fun memories i want to create with my nieces whenever we're together!
Nora is one of the happiest little girls I have ever been around. As soon as my brother in law showed up at my dads house, I swooped her up and she was rolling with laughter. Her ear to ear smiles melt my heart! Unfortunately the little sleepy head knocked out for the majority of her visit with us and I didn't get too much quality spoiling time in, but they'll be back to California 3 more times this year and in plan to do serious Auntie damage then! ;)
Sorry there are not any action baptism shots. Because I was standing up there with the misses ( and cell phones were not allowed) I didn't get any snap shots but I did see many cameras in my peripheral vision so I'm sure I'll be able to "borrow" a few later.
A big round of applause to my sis and her hubby for raising two amazing little girls! Only about 2 more months until those little ladies get another taste of auntie spoiling 101!

Lots of Love and Bunches of Hugs,
XOXO Brogan Lee

Valentines day

Valentines day is one of my favorite holidays. Not because of romantic gestures, or flowers, or dates... I like it for the candy!! ;) chocolate is defiantly one sure fire way to win my heart. The kids and I did a few projects (as well as indulged in pounds, YES pounds, of chocolates). We decorated chocolate covered strawberries and made valentines day cards. It was cute an I was WAY impressed at how well Preston used the scissors! He cut a heart shape like a pro! Poor little lefty Ethan had trouble with the righty scissors. I need to go get him some lefty ones. Maverick was just about 3 months old and had a check up. It's no surprise that the little chunky was in the 97% tile for his weight ;) he LOVES his milk about as much as his mama loves her candy! He was 16lbs 14oz! This little man is growing so fast!!

Birthday boy

I don't know how the past 5 years have come and gone so quickly! I can't believe my little Preston Barrett Walling is growing up so fast. When he woke up yesterday morning he announced "that as a five year old, i will no longer break things, I'll be a good listener, and will help mommy daddy and my brothers". I got a kick out of that conversation!
For the past year we have been promising Preston that we'd spend his birthday in Disneyland but about a week ago he decided Chuck-e-Cheese would be more fun. I was really disappointed he didn't want to go to Disneyland and tried pretty hard to change his mind. I was unsuccessful (and pretty bummed) and really did NOT want to go to Chuck-e-Cheese so I convinced him John's Incredible Pizza was cooler than Chuck-E-Cheese. We went, we stuffed ourselves, we played video games, he got a motorcycle toy that only "cost" 1,150 tickets, and we had cake. It was a low key but nice birthday. Friday am we drove to the central valley for my littlest nieces baptism and had a family dinner for Preston and Karlene's birthday celebration. Preston was very opinionated when it came to what kind of cake he wanted. His requests: yellow bread cake with blue and red spiderman frosting from mommy and chocolate bread cake with green goblin frosting from aunt Ashlee. He asked, and he received!
Thank you to everyone who made Preston's special day as wonderful as it was!
Lots of Love and Bunches of Hugs
XOXO Brogan Lee

Our little lady

In case you didn't think I was nuts before, I have no doubts that after reading this post you'll surely think I'm off my rocker! We are now a family of six! That's right! Price, myself, Preston, Ethan, Maverick and introducing our little lady Lucy! Almost two weeks ago we adopted Lucy, an approximately 1-2 year old boxer mix, from Helen Woodward animal shelter. She was/is very under weight, had patches of hair missing, had worms and is timid around men (which all sounds so horrible and seem like reasons not to adopt her, especially given her age and the hyper reputation boxers tend to have) but she has been WONDERFUL! Lucy and Preston are glued to each others sides 24/7. They sleep together and everything! She is wonderful In the car and on the leash ( even alongside the stroller) and is learning sit and stay. After being with us for about a week, she started to get a little spunky and is now playing fetch and trying to run on my morning walked with her. She is very protective and growls at people who come up the the house when the boys or I are near her. She LOVES other dogs, women, kids and older men. So far she has had a hard time bonding with price. She growls at him every now and then but will cuddle with him on the couch, take naps with him and allows him to pet her, feed her and pick her up. Even though she growls and keeps her distance some times, She has never charged him or snipped at him. We're assuming she was abused by a younger man. Hopefully it just takes time for him to build her trust. We love our little girl and are so happy to have yet ANOTHER new addition!

Lots of love and bunches of hugs!
XOX9 Brogan Lee

A southern meal

Since I've been on maternity leave I've been trying to make dinner every night. Most of the time its kind of the same thing; grilled chicken, a veggie and a starch. Last night our dinner fit the same format but was far from healthy and had a little southern flare. We had fried chicken, Mac and cheese with bacon bits and buttered,garlic, cheesy green beans. This was the 1st time I've fried chicken. It was much easier than what the directions led me to believe. Here is a very brief description of how I did it. P.s. this is in my own words and from memory so bare with me.
1st; put several chicken breasts in a ziplock bag and pound to the thickness of choice and then cut into smaller pieces
2nd; put chicken strips in a bowl of buttermilk and let sit while you prepare the flour mixture
3rd; in a separate ziplock mix flour, paprika, salt, pepper and bread crumbs. I just dumped everything in and didn't measure anything.
4th; put a few pieces of chicken in the bag at a time and shake until well coated. Lay chicken on a cookie sheet and cover with wax paper until the coating on the chicken begins to look like a paste. I waited about 20 mins
5th; pour veggie oil in a large pot (I used a cast iron pot that worked really well) let the oil get REALLY hot before putting the chicken it. I set the oil on almost high heat for 20+ minutes. I discovered Veggie oil doesn't splatter.
6th; once oil is hot and the coating in the chicken is at the right consistency, drop as many pieces of chicken into the pan as will fit. The recipe advised to cook on hight heat until brown and then turn down to a Low heat and cover for 30 mins. I think because of how hot my oil was and how thin my chicken was, it cooked SUPER fast. After about 8 minutes, in pulled the strips out and drained on a few paper towels.
Finally, pile everything on your plate and enjoy!!
..... And I wonder why I'm not losing weight! ;)

Lots of Love and Bunches if Hugs,
XOXO Brogan Lee