I never ate kale until I went Paleo last year and now I’m addicted to making kale chips. They are so crunchy and flavorful. We love having them as a veggie side dish for meals. They taste great with chicken and steak. Plus they are so easy to make!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of Kale (I buy just the leafs without the stems)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• Salt and Pepper to taste. I also love to add Garlic Salt, but I’m a huge garlic lover!

Directions:

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven. I try a piece at 10 minutes and if I want it crunchier, I leave it in the oven longer. It depends on your personal preference. They are pretty much finished when they are slightly brown around the corners. Once they are out of the oven, enjoy! I love them warm.

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Post tags: chips, easy, kale, kale chips, recipe, simple

Now on to the pictures!! This isn’t all of them, mainly just family since I didn’t know if all my friends wanted to be plastered all over my blog, ha ha!

Our gluten-free cake! It was chocolate with strawberry filling, yum! My mom said the butterflies represented me and the lamb represented Emilia. Loved it!

The guys with the soon to be dad!

My mom! Even though she isn’t looking at the camera, I love this picture of her. She looks like a proud Grandma to be!

Jose’s sisters and mom I have great in-laws!

My Aunt Patt, Judy (friend of family), Grandma, Aunt Lydia, and family friend Tamara.

Even though my mom’s eyes are closed, it’s still a cute picture. Here she is with her best friend Cheryl and really good friend Hannah.

My best friend Tiffany and I, she is beyond amazing!

My brother and cousin Sarah

Jose and I, we are super excited to become parents!

My “sister” Stephanie who won the big raffle! She is my longest known friend (known each other since we were 5!) and she is also pregnant. Just 5 days behind me!

All our presents, wow!!

Opening Presents!!

I love this picture of my Grandma (on the right)

Like a true emotional pregnant woman, I totally started crying after we were done with presents because I felt so lucky and blessed!

Back home and look at that baby shower haul!!

We literally gone from having nothing to almost having everything! We just ordered out crib and changing table and once that comes in, we can put together our nursery. It feels so real now an I can’t wait for baby Emilia to be here. I’ll take pictures of the nursery as we put it together. We already picked out a paint color and will start painting this weekend. So excited!

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Post tags: baby, baby shower, family, friends, girl, nursery, party, presents

This was another recipe that was shared during our Paleo Challenge last year, but I tweaked it a bit. These are perfect for a quick breakfast or on the go. We would also make these before a road trip so we had something to munch on before and during! They are great on their own or you can top with some salsa and guacamole. Mmmm I want some now actually!

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 1/4 lb cooked ground meat or sausage
• 3 slices of bacon (or more if you love bacon like I do!)
• 1 red pepper
• 1 TBSP chopped green onions (This and the red pepper are optional, I add these or sometimes whatever other veggies I have at home)
• 1 TBSP melted better (get Kerrygold brand at Trader Joe’s if you can, it’s grass-fed and delicious. If not, than regular organic butter is fine)
• Salt and Pepper (add according to your taste)
• Silicone Cups (I got mine at Crate and Barrel but you can pretty much pick these up anywhere)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease silicone cups with melted butter. Cook the ground meat (or sausage) and bacon in a pan. In a bowl beat the eggs, then add the meat, bacon, and veggies of choice. Spoon into silicone cups. If you make exactly what is in this recipe, it will be around 7-8 muffins, if you add more veggies/meat etc then it will be more so just have some spare cups around. They don’t rise too much, so you can almost fill them to the top just leave a some space. Cook for 18-20 minutes (or when you stick a toothpick in and it comes out clean). Once these are cool, they pop right out and store in fridge!

Enjoy!

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Post tags: bacon, breakfast, egg, ground meat, muffins, quick, recipe, sausage, vegtables

I can’t believe that I am in the 3rd trimester now! Time really flew by!! I officially feel very pregnant now… like having issues sleeping, feeling huge, bloated/swollen everywhere, etc.  My rings and watch no longer fit me and by the end of the day my feet barely fit in my shoes, ha ha! At night-time, even though I have my amazing Snoogle I can only sleep two hours at a time since my hip start hurting on whatever side I’m laying on so I have to switch positions quite a bit. I’m taking it as my body’s way of preparing for me to get zero sleep when our baby girl is here, hehe. But besides all the “joys” of the 3rd trimester kicking in, we feel our baby girl all the time and it’s amazing feeling her move around in her temporary home. She is getting quite strong!  We can’t wait to meet her and kiss her little face! We had a few scares this month, but since then things are going great and we feel blessed everyday.

We have a big week ahead of us. On Friday we have my mother in-law and sister in-laws coming to visit for our upcoming baby shower on Saturday! I can’t wait to see them, especially since it’s been awhile since I saw Jose’s mom and one of his sisters. This will be their first time seeing the bump and can’t wait for them to feel Emilia kick. I’m also super excited for our baby shower so we can jump kick her nursery room. We have held out till we had our baby shower and I have been anxious to get her room ready. Plus it will be great to have all our friends and family in one place.

Then on Monday I have my 28th Week appointment and get to do the fun glucose test for gestational diabetes plus a RhoGAM shot since I’m Rh-. Not looking forward to either of those! But after our appointment, we will have family to hang out with so it will quickly be forgotten, hehe.

Happy February everyone!

Want to see my past bump posts?
24 Weeks
20 Weeks
18 Weeks
17 Weeks
16 Weeks
14 Weeks

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Post tags: 27, bump, feeling, pictures, pregnancy, pregnant, weeks

Outside of the Venetian. We got there January 8th which was their last day of having their Christmas decorations up, so we are lucky we got to see them! They had a skating rink and everything.

The whole group!

This was at Aria right after we ate at Julian Serrano, so yummy! I’ll be posting a  review on them soon.

Lizeth and I, she is such a sweetheart and a lot of fun!

The next day we went to Red Rock Canyon to take some pictures and that is also where we snapped by 24 week baby bump update!

This is my favorite picture of them!

All I see in this picture is boobs, ha ha!

Bobby let Jose drive his Audi R8 back to his house. Jose was in heaven!

Does he look excited or what?

Then we went shopping! The boys got a little crazy at Oakley! I also bought some polarized Ralph Lauren sunglasses at Sunglass Hut, been wanting a polarized pair forever.

Then we went to the Flamingo since some of us never been there. So cool to see all the flamingos just chilling there. Sorry for the bad camera quality pic, we left our Nikon at Bobby’s house after Red Rock.

Love Birds at The Flamingo

That night we went to Roy’s to celebrate Lizeth’s birthday. One of the best places I have been too by far! They did so much for her to since it was her birthday, highly recommend them. Going to do a separate post for them, so keep and eye out for that.

After dinner we went to the Stratosphere, which was also my first time going. Quite the view!

Here is a very tired pregnant woman and Jose, ha ha! Everybody did the Big Shot ride where you go all the way to the top and get dropped down. Obviously since I’m pregnant I didn’t get to go BUT I did get to hear their screams and watch them drop down during the ride, ha ha!

We were only there for 3 days, but it was a lot fun and I can never get sick of Vegas! That is why it’s nice Bobby lives there now since we can go bug him anytime and visit, hehe. Anyone else Vegas addicts like us?

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Post tags: Audi R8, Flamingo, Nevada, Red Rock, Stratosphere, traveling, vegas, Venetian

Can’t believe I’m over 24 weeks pregnant and only have 15 weeks (and 4 days!) left till my due date. It has flown by so quick and we went from “Oh we have time…” to “OMG we have so much to do and we are running out of time!” But overall I feel like this has been an easy pregnancy. I’ve had zero issues besides the normal being tired and back hurting by the end of the day.

I just got back from being in Vegas, we went to hang out with good friend Bobby. We must have missed him or something because he was just staying with us 2 weeks ago, ha ha. But we did lots of fun stuff (like taking these pictures in Red Rock) and it was nice to get away. I have lots of pictures to share from our trip so you will be reading about all that soon! By the way, this isn’t our fancy-shmancy car, it’s Bobby’s Audi R8. Jose died and went to heaven because he got to drive it around afterwards, ha ha.

Emilia has been kicking up a storm and Jose has been able to feel her from the outside since Christmas. It’s such a wonderful feeling having Jose and I feel her kick at the same time, we love her so much. She prefers kicking when I’m laying down at night or on the couch. She will probably be a night owl like I was when I was  a baby, uh-oh time for pay back!

We plan to do a 3D sonogram soon just to confirm she is a girl before she gets to snuggled up in there to move around. Guess I’m paranoid and need two sonograms telling me she is a girl, ha ha. We have our baby shower on February 4th (so excited!) and just finished registering. There is so much baby stuff and options out there. We felt overwhelmed while we registering and just decided to do the rest online so we can read reviews of items before we put them on the registry. But we finally completed it! If you guys know of any great products out there that you can’t live without, please let me know!

I feel really huge and pregnant now, but know I haven’t seen anything yet. Also feel like I’ve gained a gazillion pounds which kind of freaks me out since I went from gaining hardly nothing to seeing a number I barely recognize. But I’m sure the holidays and being on vacation hasn’t helped, ha ha. But I’ll just get on the ball again once Emilia is born and just enjoy this great time! We can’t wait to meet our baby girl!

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Post tags: 24, baby, bump, emilia, pregnancy, update, weeks

Our last sight-seeing destination while Bobby was in town was the Biosphere 2. This was Jose and Bobby’s first time there. My first time was back in March last year. Funny how Jose and I live in Tucson and we never actually went before together. But it is such an amazing thing to see and if you are in Tucson, Arizona I really recommend visiting it!

What is the Biosphere 2?

Biosphere 2 is a 3.14-acre (12,700 m²)^[1] structure originally built to be an artificial, materially-closed ecological system in Oracle, Arizona (US) by Space Biosphere Ventures, a joint venture whose principal officers were John P. Allen, inventor and Executive Director, and Margret Augustine, CEO. Constructed between 1987 and 1991, it was used to explore the complex web of interactions within life systems in a structure that included five areas based on biomes and an agricultural area and human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature.^[2] It also explored the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization, and allowed the study and manipulation of a biosphere without harming Earth’s. The name comes from Earth’s biosphere, Biosphere 1. On June 26, 2007, the University of Arizona announced that it took over management of Biosphere 2, using the site as a laboratory to study climate change, among other things. (source Wikipedia)

They have tours all day and once you join one, you watch an educational 15 minute video about the history and the goal of the Biosphere 2 and then you start your adventure. It’s really cool when you are inside because you encounter different biomes such as: a rainforest, an ocean, wetlands, savannah grassland, fog desert, and more. They show you the living quarters of the people who lived there in the 90′s and they also take you in the below-ground level technical infrastructure. It is a lot of walking, so make sure you have good walking shoes and water. Also being 6 months pregnant probably isn’t a good idea. I learned my lesson ha ha. I was dying but happy to see Jose and Bobby all into the Biosphere 2 so I keep on smiling and trucking on.

Inside the Rainforest.

The Ocean with a Coral Reef. After the tour you can go underground and see the reef with fish, very cool!

The desert… in a desert. (Get it? Because it’s in Tucson.. ha ha me so funny)

This is the tunnel that leads into the “lung” which is worth seeing! It is very huge and they let you yell in there because everything echos. But I don’t recommend going through if you are claustrophobic because you will have to leave the tour and everyone will have to walk out with you… which a lot of people side-eyed the guy we had to walk out because we were tired of walking by this time.

These are some building which I have no idea what they are since by this time I felt like cutting off my legs.

Overall it was a great experience besides me being a big ol’ pregnant baby. But Jose and Bobby really enjoyed it. It’s amazing how they can control climate, plants, etc in a man-made setting. They are also are creating a new project in there called the Landscape Evolution Observatory so I am excited to see that when it’s done.

Plus when we left we met a Gila Monster! Which is amazing because 1. It’s a Gila Monster and you rarely see them and 2. It’s winter time which is also when they are mainly inactive. He was walking across the road like he owned it and didn’t mind when we jumped out of our car and started snapping pictures. Just for those who don’t know what a Gila Monster is and meet one.. do not touch it or get to close. They bite and don’t let go. Plus they are venomous. So admire from a distance, don’t be crazy like us and get all close to it. I’ve met a lot of them throughout my life (I used to live in the middle of nowhere where we met all kinds of fun desert creatures) so I feel a bit more comfortable with them then I should, ha ha.

Biosphere 2
32540 S Biosphere Rd
Tucson, AZ 85739
(520) 838-6200

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Post tags: Arizona, Biosphere 2, Gila, local, Monster, oracle, science, Tucson

Ok… I know I post about Mt. Lemmon a lot here BUT it’s the only place where we get snow and is forest in Tucson. So we go a lot, ha ha. When Bobby was in town we took him there and it was PACKED! I’m guessing since it was after the holidays and everyone was from school. We went the day after Christmas, so I’m a little behind on posting blog updates ha ha. But I’m going to do lots of catching up so I can be current with when things actually happen, ha ha.

It was Bobby’s first time up there and he really liked it! He’s used to snow obviously since he is from the east coast, but he said it was cool to see it in the desert. Plus we bribed him with fudge and pizza, so he was happy!

Mmmmm fudge! Of course we had to get some! Holidays and vacations we eat pretty naughty and don’t always stay Gluten-free, whoops. Don’t judge me, ha ha!

This is the Mt. Lemmon Cookie Cabin. They have really great hot chocolate and pizza. They also have huge cookies but I never have tried them. But every time Jose go up there during the winter, hot chocolate and pizza is a must!

It was pretty funny, when we got our pizza, I asked Bobby if he could get me some red pepper and he picked up black pepper instead LOL. Why it’s even on a plate, I have no idea!

It’s so great to see cabins and everything back to normal up on Mt. Lemmon. Back in 2003 there was a huge fire and it burnt everything down so everything had to be rebuilt. It’s sad because you can still see some parts that are still burnt but the majority of it has recovered!

It was a great time and we were happy to bring someone new up to Mt. Lemmon! It’s very special to us Tucsonans and I always love to visit it.

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Post tags: Arizona, Cookie Cabin, Fudge, mt. lemmon, pizza, snow, Summerhaven, Tucson

January

• I made the commitment to post everyday in 2011… which lasted a whole few months ha ha!
• I started riding a lot more and picked up some new gear.
• Bought new furniture at our favorite store Crate and Barrel.
• Reported on the Gabrielle Gillfords local shooting in Tucson as it was happening. (One year anniversary is the 8th, donate here)
• Went shopping and organized my closet (which I need to do again… my closet is an absolute mess)
• I made Editors Pick of the Day on Bloggers, weee!

February

• Reported on the iPhone coming to Verizon
• Cooked my first Valentines Dinner as a Married Woman!
• Attending the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show & Shopping Expo
• Did a Review on Dyson Pet Clean-Up Kit (recommended if you have furry children!)
• Had snow in Tucson!

March

• We had a crazy March planned for us
• Joined Crossfit
• Started our Cross Country Road Trip! – Arrived in Philly and went to Atlantic City – Explored Philly – Lebanon and Hersey, PA

Ok this is when I started to slack off….

Drove though OH, IL, and Spent the Night at Springfield, MO during our roundtrip and happened to be Jose’s 30th Birthday!

Ate at Cracker Barrel and needed proof we were in Ohio, ha ha!

Ate at this family style café called Blue Springs Cafe in Highland, Illinois. Everything is BIG here and since we were on vacation and it was Jose’s birthday we went all out. Keep in mind we weren’t gluten-free and paleo at this point (that happened in April!).

Before….

After…. we took it down like champs.

Drove by the St. Louis Arch which was my first time seeing it. Hopefully one day I can actually visit it!

Yummy martini flight to end the day at Houlihan’s Restaurant in Springfield, MO where we spent the night.

We also drove through Oklahoma and Texas, we didn’t really make any memorable stops there. Although I did get hit on by a Texas Cop at a rest stop who used tattoos as his opening line ha ha.

We also spent the night in Santa Rosa, New Mexico and planned to see this amazing blue hole that New Mexico raved about….

This picture makes it look a lot greater than it truly is.. I think we were so depressed about it, I wanted a cool looking picture so I wouldn’t remember how anti-climatic it was. Yes it’s amazing that it’s not man-made, but no joke… it’s surround by concrete in a parking lot. It’s really random how it’s all set up and it took us a while to even spot it because it just looked like a water well or something. We should’ve taken a far away picture of it so you guys could see but it was just sad.

But that’s it for our road trip, after New Mexico we were home the next day. It was a blast and I would really love to do that again! Other things that happened in March (told you it was a busy month)…

• I turned 25!
  
• Had the flu for the first time in 10 years
• Jose’s mom and uncle stayed with us (which I hardly remember because I was sick in bed all week)
• Our friends Jay and Cheryl from Canada came and stayed with us
• Our kitty passed away RIP Kayla!

April

• After a crazy March, we didn’t really do much in April ha ha. But I did start to crossfit a lot more (to work off all that food I ate during our road trip) and started my first Paleo Challenge! 

May

•  Jose and I went to California over Memorial Day weekend! We visiting La Jolla and San Diego and had a great time, can’t wait to go back!

The beautiful La Jolla Beach!

We got an awesome deal on a Segway Tour around La Jolla (yay for groupon!) and it was a blast!

 We got to see tons of adorable sea lions and seals. Awww….

We visited the San Diego Zoo FREE! Some awesome woman had some free passes since she had a family membership and said we were her family, score!

Enjoying delicious food at World Famous on Mission Beach.

June

• Finished the Paleo Challenge and won 3rd place! I dropped tons of pounds and inches and it changed my life forever! I’ve been paleo and gluten-free since then.

July

• Went to Las Vegas, NV to celebrate our 1 year Wedding Anniversary!

Stayed at the awesome Vdara Corner Suite

Ate at Holsteins and many other yummy places!

Had dinner at Blue Martini, for sure check out their happy hour specials if you live by one! So yummy!

Outside the Jean Philippe Patisserie at Aria where we went to every night, chocolate nom.

Visited the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop!

Had dinner our anniversary dinner at Jullian Serrano Tapas, so delicious! I love tons of options and this place has it plus it’s fun to share tons of plates of different food.

Visited the Bellagio Gardens in the exact spot where one of our wedding photos were taken.

My shopping haul from Vegas! Little did I know, I would be pregnant in a month ha ha!

• We also through a 50th Birthday Party for my mom at one of her favorite restaurants (El Charro)

My Mom and Brother Alex

 August

• I did the Helen Meets Grace Benefit at Crossfit Northwest Tucson. It’s 2 big workouts that you do back to back with a partner. It’s 3 rounds of 400 meter run, 21 Kettlebell Swings, and 12 pullups. Then you do 30 Clean and Jerks. It was fun but it for sure kicked my butt!

My awesome partner Amy and I

Doing the Clean and Jerks!

Some of my favorite girls!

Everyone that participated! What a great event.

September

• Doesn’t matter what I did that month because I found out I was pregnant!!!! And finding out I was pregnant trumps everything! 

October

• We went to Apple Annie’s to pick out our pumpkins

We went though a Corn Maze and survived!

See Jose’s perfect pumpkin on the left? Lucky guy!

Now his pumpkin all carved, mine was not picture worthy ha ha!

• At the end of the month we went to Vegas to hang out with some friends

Breakfast with the crew!

My babe and I!

At the Red Rock mountains showing off my 14 week bump!

November

• Went off roading
• Said goodbye to the 1st trimester and loving the 2nd trimester
• Got my first parking ticket… boo.
• Baby Bump Updates! 17 weeks and 18 weeks

December

• Found the only way I can sleep now… meet the Snoogle.
• Got our Christmas Tree!
• Found out we are having a BABY GIRL!!!
• Went to the 4th Avenue Street Fair
• 20 Week Baby Bump Update
• Went on a Maternity Clothing Shopping Spree
• Our first baby keepsake
• Celebrated Christmas

Hope you enjoyed a look back of my big highlights of the year! It was great looking back but I can’t wait to go forward!

© Alicia for AliciaBlogs.com, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2011, family, friends, holidays, pregnancy, traveling, trips, vacations

Happy New Years everyone! I hope you all had a fun New Years Eve and are not too hung over this morning! Jose and I stayed in last night and like the old people we are, we went to bed before midnight ha ha! But we were woken up by fireworks at midnight so I did get my midnight kiss! We were both exhausted (I’m totally pulling the pregnant card here) and just wanted a calm evening at home because we know we have very few of those left! But we are excited to spend many future New Years with Emilia!

2011 was a great year and we did many great things throughout the year, including getting pregnant! I thought it would be interesting to take a look at last years New Years Resolutions I made on January 1st 2011 and see what I accomplished!

Main Life Goals

• My first goal is to get rid of my debt. I’m really going to push that this year and I hope to be debt free soon!  I’ve cleaned up about 80% of my debt! I’ve paid off about $30k in debt this year and I have about $10k to go! 
• I’m really hoping to get pregnant this year! That I only have so much control over, so hopefully things will work out for us and it will happen.  Finally got the positive pregnancy test in September!
• Become more organized in my house, office, and life.  I did become more organized in my house and life in general BUT not in my office space… so I kind of failed at this one but did do parts of it! So it counts, hehe. 
• Work hard and accomplish great things!  I did work hard and made many accomplishments this year!
• Work on this blog more and grow it into something wonderful. Even though I did stop posting mid-year, I picked it right back up towards the end of the year and it’s doing better then ever!
• Take lots of pictures and videos so I can remember all the great times I will have. This I really did carry out! We got a Nikon and an iPhone this year, so I have many great pictures of our wonderful adventures.
• Be Healthy and Happy. I had much happiness this year and got my health back in April when I discovered going Paleo and Gluten-Free!

Personal Fun Goals

• Loose the 15 pounds that I have gained from being a lazy butt and not being as active as I used to be a few years back. (Everyone needs a weight loss goal right?) I did lose 15 pounds and more! It took till I discovered Gluten-free/Paleo eating though! Check out my post about it here. 
• Hit the gym more, try new classes, start hiking, and just overall be more physical. Sitting in front of a computer has taken it’s toll on me. I didn’t really start working out much till I found the wonderful thing called Crossfit and became in the best shape in my life! But now I’m pregnant and fat, ha ha! But I can’t wait to get fully back into it once Emilia is born.
• Get back into my designer jeans that I love so much but haven’t gotten to wear because of my lazybutt-ness. Goal Achieved! Check out a few posts above for proof! Although I can’t fit in them now (6 months pregnant kind of do that to you, haha!), I will work towards this goal again once I have Emilia. 
• Try new things whether that will be activities, food, beauty, fashion, or life in general. I did this as well! I really tried to be fashionable, got into new kinds of foods, and joined Crossfit. 
• Travel more but do it smart and within my budget. We drove across the United States back in March, went to California, Vegas, and more!
• Have more dinner parties at our house! I did have a few dinner parties, but not as much as I hoped for! 
• Make more friends since most of my friends live on the east side and it’s like an hour away.. I’m taking applications for people on the northwest side of Tucson! Ha ha!  Met tons of great people at Crossfit and the Paleo community!
• And whatever else I decide I want to make a goal but I’m not aware of yet. I like to change my mind a lot so this list will probably change 10x. I stayed pretty well within the list and think I did great! 

Now I need to make a new resolution list! What is your new years resolutions? Check back tomorrow when I will continue remembering 2011 by doing a month to month in pictures.

© Alicia for AliciaBlogs.com, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2011, 2012, goals, new years, remembering