What Is Zumba?

{Zumba!}

Have you been caught up in the Zumba craze yet? Last year I was looking for a way to shed a few pounds but I didn’t want to work too hard, admittedly I would rather just stay the size I am instead of having to strive to lose weight and be unhappy in the process.

I had a friend who was always talking about Zumba because she is an instructor; I found a class and decided to try it out. 
Click here to find a class near you!

What is Zumba? Zumba is a dance fitness class; it is a mix of dance styles and some workout moves, set to Latin dance music (and some other random music too). It is all very adaptable so even if you have never worked out before you can do this! You work at your own pace and you do the moves in a way that suits you, all while having fun!

This was the first fitness class that I have ever attended and I was really nervous that I wouldn’t be able to keep the beat or follow the moves but when I got there I saw that no one cares what you do or what you look like! It really is all about fun and being together.

(This is one of my favorite songs to dance to, the lyrics always make me thankful for what I have!)

I have been attending my class for almost a whole year; twice a week and I have shed 20lbs! I am in love with this workout and I am so sad when I have to miss a night, how crazy is that? It doesn’t feel like a workout at all. I would say that everyone should check it out once.

Remember that everyone has a first time and no one knows all of the moves the first time or even after attending for a year! Don’t worry about what you look like, enjoy the music and keep moving no matter what!

Hottest Color of 2011

{Sexy Saturday}

Every year I wait to hear which color is the “new black” so that I can watch and see if it gets popular. Last year turquoise was voted the hottest color and I really did see that happen, it was everywhere. I think purple ended up being hotter in 2010 though.

This year the Pantone color of the year is a beautiful pink color. It is not a really bright pink that would turn some people off from wearing it; it is a darker version that seems like it would fit most people. My prediction is that this color will be a total hit! I think they are right on the mark this year.

I am not the type to feel comfortable in colors like pink and I am loving this one! What do you think of this color? What about a shade similar to this if you don’t like this in particular? 

Champagne Chicken Recipe

{Champagne Chicken}

I made this on our very first Valentines Day, at the time I had no clue how to do anything other than pan fry chicken (a skill I had just learned) and I found this recipe. I made it and it was a huge hit! I made it for the second time on Valentines Day this year and he loved it again, so I thought I would share the recipe.

I found this recipe here and you can too!

{Ingredients}

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

¼ Cup of all-purpose flour for coating the chicken

1 Teaspoon of salt

1 Teaspoon of ground black pepper

2 Tablespoons of olive oil

2 ½ Cups of sliced mushrooms

2 Cups of heavy cream

1 Cup of champagne

{Directions}

1.   Put the flour, salt and pepper into a zipper bag and place the chicken breasts in and shake them up until they are coated in a light layer of flour.

2.   In a large skillet pour in the olive oil and then place the chicken breasts in the oil and do not touch them or flip them over for a few minutes, check for browning and then turn them.

3.   After both sides are brown add the mushrooms and the champagne.

4.   Cook over medium heat, with a very slight boil to the champagne for about ½ an hour.

5.   When the chicken is tender pour the heavy cream into the pan and stir it around as well as you can (since the chicken is in there it will be a little difficult)

Simmer until the sauce gets a bit darker and thickens.

Serve and enjoy!

{Optional}

Serve over rice

Tidy Friday- Fridge Cleaning Tips

{Tidy Friday}

Spring fever has hit me, we had a few really nice days this week and it got me thinking about what I need to do around the house and believe me, there is plenty to be done! There is so much to do that I wasn’t even sure where to start!

This week I think we should clean out the fridge! I do this every month or so because I hate seeing my fridge with clutter in it, my fridge should be that of a minimalist not a hoarder.

This shouldn’t take long, maybe 30 minutes and the feeling you will have at the end will be worth it!

Like I said last week in my quick bathroom cleaning guide, start from the top and move down. This way when you are cleaning the mess is falling down to places that you haven’t cleaned yet.

                                     (Before)                               

First go through your food, condiments, juices and anything else that you may have in the fridge and get rid of anything that you don’t want anymore. You may have old food or other things that have expired or that you know you won’t need again anytime soon. I empty out plastic and glass containers and recycle them.

After you get rid of the “extras” you should move everything to the lowest shelves possible. I try to rearrange my foods as I clean so that I don’t have to leave anything on the cupboards while I clean. This way nothing gets warm while it is waiting for a clean shelf.

Pull out the shelves starting at the top and hand wash them with soap, warm water and a sponge. When each shelf is done dry it thoroughly with a towel and place it back in the fridge. Do this until all of the shelves are clean, moving your food around as you go.

Finally pull out the crisper bins, you will find that a lot of dust and dirt ends up falling into these, yuck! So clean them out in the sink the same way; warm water, soap and a sponge. While they are out take time to spray a cleanser into the bottom of your fridge and wipe it out with a towel or paper towel, it gets pretty gross under those drawers. Dry the drawers really well and put them back.

Now move the stuff from the door of the fridge onto the shelves and spray and wipe the door compartments down. If the door compartments are removable you can move them to the sink and wash them with warm water, soap and a sponge, dry them and put them back. Put your food back where you want it.

                                (After)

Congratulations! That’s it, you are done! It doesn’t take long when you just do it, although getting the energy to do it can be rough. I promise it will be worth it next time you open that door and it is sparkly! 

Cookies and Cream Frosting

{Cookies and Cream Frosting}

I looked all over online for a recipe for cookies and cream frosting and I couldn’t find one anywhere, so I found a basic recipe and changed it up.

{Ingredients}

• ½ Cup of butter, softened
• 8oz of cream cheese, softened
• 1 Teaspoon of vanilla
• 4 Cups of powdered sugar
• 2 Tablespoons of milk
• 16 Crushed crème filled sandwich cookies (I used the food processor)

{Directions}

• Cream together the butter and cream cheese with the vanilla.
• Add the powdered sugar slowly with your mixer on low, so you don’t have a powdered sugar explosion in your kitchen. 

• Add in the milk
• Mix in the crushed cookies by hand so that you don’t turn your frosting black, which won’t look great. 

I used this frosting on my chocolate cupcakes and it was amazing!

Chocolate cupcakes

{Chocolate Cupcakes}

{Ingredients}

1 Cup of butter

2 Cups of packed brown sugar

1 Cup of white sugar

4 Large Eggs

2 Teaspoons of vanilla

2 2/3 Cups of all-purpose flour

¾ Cups of unsweetened cocoa powder

1 Tablespoon of baking soda

¼ Teaspoon of salt

1 1/3 Cups of plain yogurt

1 ¼ Cups of boiling water

{Directions}

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and place paper cupcake cups in your cupcake pan or spray with non-stick spray. 
• In a mixing bowl cream the butter, brown sugar and white sugar together.

• Add eggs, one at a time, making sure that each one is incorporated before adding the next.
• Beat on high until the mixture is light and fluffy, it should take just a minute or two.

• Add the vanilla.
• In a separate bowl mix together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.
• Slowly add half of the flour mixture but do not over mix.
• Add the yogurt.
• Add the other half of the flour mixture.
• Mix the water in slowly, allowing it to fully incorporate before pouring in more to avoid a splashy mess. Do not over mix! I cannot stress that enough.

• Put into prepared cupcake cups and fill to 2/3 full

• Bake for approximately 20-22 minutes 

• Place on a wire rack to cool, if you do not have a wire rack you can lay the cupcakes on their side to cool. I frosted these with my cookies and cream frosting, yummy!

I would give these cupcakes a rating of 3 cupcakes out of 5, they were really great! 

Wordless Wednesday

(Moose in back and Tater in front)

Tell All Tuesday

{Tuesday Tell All}

I visited the “Tuesday Tell All” blog and realized that I did the wrong post this week, so here is the correct one!

The question this week was if you could pick, what talent would you choose to have and what is one talent that you do have that you are grateful for?

So I would say that the talent that I would pick would be reading minds but I would have to have a “switch” that I could turn it off and on because I know there are some things that I would not want to know!

If I had to pick a normal old talent I would choose to have the ability to sing!

I think a talent that I do have is the ability to read people, I think that I am a great judge of character. I am so thankful for this “talent”! 

Tell All Tuesday

{Tuesday Tell All}

So I found this awesome blog where she is giving a “tell all” question every week, I think it is a great idea so I am going to do it and see how it goes! Here is the first one-

“I’m sure you love your kids, I’ll assume you love your husband, You’d better love your religion but… what else do you LA-LA-Love? Share your love list”

Here is my “love list” and I am going to skip telling you the things that I love that you can’t have (my family and friends) so these are things that you can have too!

• I love sunshine on a spring morning

• I love camping

• Watching my kids play together, lovingly

• Playing in the rain

• Watching movies with my husband

The Bachelor (February 14th 2011)

{The Bachelor (February 14^th 2011) Spoiler}

{Dates}

So there are 6 ladies left and at the end of the show tonight there will only be 4 girls and next week is home town dates. Chris (the host) announced that there wouldn’t be any roses on one-on-one dates this week but there was one on the group date.

__________ 

The first one-on-one was with my girl Emily! He took her via helicopter to a private island. They talked about how nervous they make each other, it was adorable, and he told her that he cares a lot about her.

At dinner he asked her if he would be able to meet her daughter at the home town date and she said that she can’t do it because she doesn’t want to confuse her but she knows that he can’t purpose to her if he hasn’t met her daughter. She is right! Brad seemed really hurt. The sweetest thing happened right after that he could see that she was nervous so he broke the rules and told her that he is going to give her a rose and take her to her hometown! They had an amazing kiss. It was an adorable date and you could feel the love between them.

__________ 

The second one on one was with Shawntel N., they went on a bike ride through the town. They ended up at a farmers market listening to music, jumping rope, playing dominoes. They had a very natural feeling date; it was lovely because it was how they would be as an everyday couple. She told him that she is falling in love with him.

In the evening they went to a little beach area to eat dinner. He was able to open up to her about his father and he said was a really big deal and made him realize how comfortable he is with her.

__________ 

The third one-on-one was Britt. I am not feeling good about her odds of staying, I just don’t really see a connection but that is just my gut feeling. He picked her up in a yacht! They had to swim out to it and the other girls were just dying of jealousy. Britt and Brad went cliff diving, Brad was all about it but Britt… not so much, she did it though. They have really bizarre, not dating type chemistry. I think if he could send her home right this minute he would, they have a friend thing going on.

At dinner, she could not even make eye contact and they were really reaching for topics to talk about. Can you say awkward? He finally told her basically that she will make a great wife for someone but it won’t be him. He told her he thinks enough of her to tell her that he doesn’t have a future with her. Poor girl, she started kind of trying to get him to keep her and saying that they should keep trying to connect. He cut her off and said that he thought it was time to say goodbye and then escorted her off the yacht.

What a shocker! He didn’t have to send anyone home on the one-on-ones this week! She had to go home to the house and tell the girls that she was leaving.

 __________ 

The group date was Michelle, Ashley and Chantal, he woke them up at 2 o’clock in the morning to tell them they had 10 minutes to be up and ready. They found out that they were going to be in Sports Illustrated Magazine swim suit issue! Ashley and Chantal both took their tops off for their shoots and they looked fantastic. Michelle didn’t want to take her top off but did want to one up the other girls so she pulled Brad into her shoot and laid on him for her pictures. Afterwards Brad could see that it really bothered Ashley and Chantal.

The second part of the date was a pool party and Brad doing damage control all over the place. Ashley was the first to be pulled aside and he tried to reassure her that he likes her and she spent the whole time telling him that it is ok if he doesn’t pick her and that she will be ok.

Next was Chantal and he asked her if she felt the same as she did before and she confirmed that she is still in love with him.

Finally he pulled Michelle aside and told her that he is afraid that they are too much alike, he thinks that they might end up going round and round because they are both so stubborn. She told him that she feels 100% that she is supposed to be there with him.

Chantal asked him to take her aside again and confronted him about being so closed off and shut down. He told her that it is so strange to be on a group date and watch each girl being upset about the other girls. I can’t wait until group dates are over; it is lame to watch him showing no emotion!

He pulled Ashley to the side again and she was worried about him letting her go again and he kept trying to reassure her. He gave her the rose! He told her that he cares for her more than he can say and asked her to trust in what they have.

When they went back Michelle was acting like a brat and Chantal started crying, poor Brad, it was all so tough on him. He begged Chantal to come talk to him and then he asked the other girls to leave so that he could be alone with her. She told him that if he can’t choose her out of only 3 girls he should send her home. She seemed a little drunk and mean.

 __________ 

{The Cocktail Party}

Brad asked to talk to Chris before the cocktail party and he told him that he didn’t want to have the cocktail party; he wanted to shoot straight to giving out the roses. Fingers crossed that crazy pants goes!

{And the Rose Goes To}

Going into the rose ceremony only one girl had a rose- Ashley

These girls got a rose at the ceremony-

Emily (of course), Shawntel N. and the final rose went to Chantal!

The girl who went home was-

Oh my goodness, the reign of madness ends! Goodbye Michelle! Don’t let the door hit ya! He walked her to the car and asked if she wanted to talk, she said “no” and left.

Next week is hometown date week! Should be good!