Here Comes the Sun

I’m looking forward to summer foods like…

Juices and Smoothies:

This Sunshine Juice is my coffee (no offense to my beloved cappuccino) ;) There’s nothing I crave more than fruit and juices in the summer.

juicercarrot2

Watermelon.

Oh look!! Another juice! The juice left from scooping out watermelon makes an amazing summer drink. As for the rinds? We let the ponies chew on them and get the rest of the watermelon off ;)

413watermelon

Salads.

Giant salads with lots of cold toppings are perfect for lunches. Or dinner. Or breakfast, or anything really!

salad

salad

Strawberries.

When I was little, my sister and I always went to the Pick-It-Yourself strawberry fields once during the summer, and filled our baskets until our arms could barely lift them.Then it was jams, jellies, pies, smoothies- and we still had to freeze lots of them!

strawberrybreakfast2

Iced Teas.

Starbucks Iced Green Tea No Syrup.

tea

Cold Oats.

When temps get high, overnight oats and oat parfaits start to transition in…

paleonola parfait

But in all honesty, I still like to make hot oats even when it’s 90 degrees out ;)

511oats

Grilled (or roasted) Veggies:

Glazed with balsamic vinegar. Grilled corn, veggies, and chicken all scream summer to me.

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Gelato.

I don’t think I have to explain that ;)

CAtripgelato

I have about 2 weeks left of school and am getting the summer anticipation- love that :)

Have a great day!

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WIAW- Lately!

Happy Wednesday loves! Another Wednesday means another…

I didn’t take a pictures of a full day of eats all week, so a “recents” post it is :) Those are always fun to write anyways!

Recent Breakfasts:

Greek Yogurt “Powerbowl”: Plain yogurt, honey, berries, almonds, and some random cereal! Photo taken halfway through- I guess it’s better late than never haha.

yogurt

I keep seeing this sweet potato-Greek yogurt-nut butter combo everywhere, and have been wanting to try it. A leftover baked sweet potato meant that this combo happened: Sweet potato, almond butter, yogurt, banana, and hemp seeds.

sweetpotato

zazu

Yeah…It might sound gross, but I swear it was good! And that picture of the Zazu? Melts my heart.

Recent Lunches:

Salty PB and organic jelly on whole wheat, aka heaven between 2 slices of bread ;)

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A Zaba’s bowl of brown rice, black beans, fajita vegetables, and guac. Zaba’s is like Santa Claus when it comes to guacamole- they are so generous! ;)

zabas

Recent Dinners:

We had company and were running late, so dinner last night was courtesy al la grocery store! Cornbread, collard greens, and chicken made a beautiful spread.

picmonkeycornbreadetc

Now if only I could tell him I cooked it all… ;)

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On the simpler side, salads topped with veggie burgers are always staples around here, especially recently. Hilary’s Veggie Burgers, which we bought at Whole Foods a while back, have been the brand.

veggiesalad

Desserts/Snacks:

Chocolate, nuts, dried fruit, crackers- all the usual suspects.

Products:

Kiss My Face all Natural Conditioner- I found this at Marshalls believe it or not for 4.99 instead of 10.00, and it was quite the steal.

kissmyfaceconditioner

Hilary’s Veggie Burgers: When I read the front of the package with all of the things it was free of, I honestly didn’t expect much. Wrong. These are really, really good!

veggieburger

Also, this weather has been great. It was so nice the other night that we had dinner on the porch. I love this time of day:

sunset

Have a fantastic day!

Sunnie

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Marvelous in My Monday #3

Hi there! Here’s  to another marvelous round of Marvlous in My Monday.

Marvelous is… PB and Jelly. No surprise there! Sunday started bright and early with a 6 AM breakfast of PB and J toast, fruit, and an egg. I was going to take a picture of the rest of my breakfast, but then I got hungry. It happens ;)

pbandj

Marvelous is… the weather being warm enough to bathe the doglet outside. Because giving him a bath in our shower takes about 10 people haha. He hated us for giving him one, but soon forgave us with about 5 minutes of playing with him afterwards.

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Marvelous is…Starbucks Iced Green Tea, no syrup. Simple but so good.

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Marvelous is… blooming flowers. We went to the other side of town for a horse show, and I swear it felt like we drove to a different state. The area around the horseshow is always so lush and green, and these were gorgeous!

PicMonkey Collage

We had to get pictures haha.

me

Marvelous are…Buddy and Lego. They were both amazing this weekend! Thank you times a million to their owners for letting me ride them always.

buddy2

Marvelous is… Trader Joe’s. Lunch at the show was a wrap spread with TJ’s Roasted Garlic Hummus.

tortilla

Marvelous are…simple salads. After taking care of the ponies and finishing up, we headed home. We had stopped ino the grocery store to grab a few things the night before, like avocadoes, and my mom had crockpoted a soup. Crockpots, I love you. Having dinner ready is the best thing ever.

Dinner was a simple salad with tomato and avocado, as well as balsamic and olive oil.

salad

And Crockpot Chicken Soup. I love ramekins, but let’s be real- you end up refilling them 5 times haha.

soup

 Fresh and Easy also has these really cool infused olive oils that come in flavors like Greek, Italian, and Spanish- definitely want to try next time!

oil

Q: How was your weekend??

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27 Random Loves

Happy Friday!

I’m taking you guys all the way back to preschool today with an alphabet post.  Singing the alphabet song makes the letters easy to remember, but you better believe I had to sing it a million times while I typed the letters out for this post ;)

Ready?

A: Aprons

zazapron

B: Babies. Our friend’s horse just had her foal a few days ago!

baby

C: Carrots

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D: Dogs

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E: E-Cards

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F: Figs

figsincrockpot

G: Good Times

meandzaz2

H: Horses!

lego!

I: Ice cream.

CAtripgelato

J: Jam

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K: Kittens. Really, who doesn’t?!

kitten

(source)

L: Lord

cross-of-christ-0101

(source)

M: May

flowers2

N: No more AP Exam.

binder

O: Oats

219oats

P: Photography

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Q: Quiche

quicheheld

R: Roses

flower1

S: (Giant) Salads

yam kale salad

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T: Toast

almondbuttertoastbreakfast

U: Uvas. Okay, it’s in Spanish! But it still counts :) I love grapes, red or green

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V: Visiting family and friends

lulu

W: Whole Foods

wholefoods

X: Okay, you stumped me. To be fair, I didn’t have much to choose from. You’d better believe I Googled it ;)

xxx

Y: Yogurt

413breakfastyogurt

Z: Zazu. Thank you Zazu for making the letter Z much more manageable. ;)

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Before I go, congrats to our Hylunia giveaway winner, Sloane!

Have a MARVELOUS weekend :)

Sunnie

 

 

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WIAW- Beach Bum Here I Come

Good morning loves!

I am in a really good mood today. I could have something to do with the fact that

a.) we’re 2 days away from Friday

b.) Zazu just gave me a puppy kiss

and/or

c.) it’s official that we are going to take a little trip to Hawaii over summer! We’ve been wanting to for almost 10 years, but for some reason or another it just hasn’t lined up. We started saving and planning, and I couldn’t be more excited, especially after seeing all the breathtaking pictures of Amanda’s trip to Hawaii. Seriously, trip come faster.

On an equal level of excitement, it’s WIAW ;) Let’s get the party started.

Breakfast

Another bowl of pumpkin banana oats with a pool of almond butter. Before I started blogging, I usually ate oats plain, or mixed with some sugar. The blog world has introduced me to fancy oat concoctions that taste like dessert, like this one:

511oats

Lunch

Lunch yesterday was a little hassled, so ended up being almonds and unpictured crackers, and then later a Siggi’s and an orange.

orange

Snacky lunches are the best anyways since I ride the ponies right after, and eating something big before exercise never goes over well. That’s why I like to take advantage of the weekends…

Saturday’s lunch of Amy’s Soup + salad + avo. I only had half a can of Amy’s left in the fridge, so I played soup extender and added  just about everything but the kitchen sink to bulk it up.

5amys

Dinner:

2 bowls of chili, courtesy a la mi abuela. Topped with avocado, and paired with some corn tortillas.

chili

Dessert:

We were out of chocolate, so a 9 PM spoonful of PB was dessert.  There was a time when I would’ve never had PB for dessert, much less eaten dessert- craziness!

pb3

Snacks/Products

I wish I could give you guys a review on this Pure Bar, but I haven’t tried it. I like anything blueberry, so I’m pretty sure it’ll be good :) Snacks have been granola bars, mostly.

pure

I won’t be writing a posting tomorrow as I have a history exam Thursday. I’ve  been studying a lot, but there is just so.much.to.know. Tonight will be spent with my nose in a book!

e-cards-school-procrastination-homework

(source)

I love e- cards ;)

Happy WIAW and thanks to Jenn at Peas and Crayons for hosting!

Sunnie

 

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Balsamic Roasted Squash and a Side of Random

Hi guys!

So this is completeyl random, but I’ve been having some crazy dreams lately. Anyone else? Not only that, but my alarm clock on my phone has been fading into my dreams, so I keep waking up later than I need to. Case in point: yesterday morning my alarm was going off loud as ever, but it turned into a  siren in my dream, and I didn’t wake up. Maybe I need to go to bed earlier haha. At least I had this guy ready to grab on my way out the door and saved me from being late! Overnight oats with blueberries and chocolate granola.

overnightoats2

A recent lunch of random leftover pasta, a banana, and almonds. Making a big batch of pasta is amazing. You can use the leftovers for anything!

5pastalunch

After school and the barn, I had to take care of this guy:

blogdog!

I haven’t blogged about the blog dog in about 7 days! I think that’s a new record. I was on my tag page yesterday and stumbled upon my most used tags. Zazu was number 1.

zaz

I’ve successfully taught him how to walk around my garden instead of jumping up and plowing through it. Success!

zazugarden5

Dinner of baked chicken, lentils, and balsamic roasted zucchini and squash. The squash was so good, and reminded me of grilling it all last summer.

5dinner

Here’s the quick recipe:

2 small medium zucchini or yellow squash

1 tsp. salt

pepper to taste

2 T. olive oil

1 big T. balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 400. Make the sauce by combining vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper. I added some rosemary too.

sqashdressing

Slice squash into about 1 inch slices

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Pour sauce over them and mix well. I don’t know what I was thinking when I used a plate for this part- vinegar ended up everywhere, so I recommend using a bowl ;)

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Bake (at 400) for about 20 min, turning halfway through. It turns out looking like this!

squashplate

I topped off the whole shebang with a mint leaf from out front yard. My mom planted one mint plant and it went crazy! No complaints over here- I love it!

mint

And finally, a recent dessert was yogurt+ honey+ blueberries. I’ve been eating these so often that I feel like I’m going to turn into a giant blueberry like that girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory did ;) I think I watched that movie a thousand times growing up- watching Charlie run home with the golden ticket always made my day haha!

bloobs2

And don’t forget to enter my Hylunia Skincare Giveaway!

Have a lovely day <3

Sunnie

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Marvelous in My Monday #2

Good morning!

I really starting to love these Marvelous in My Monday posts, which make Monday so much more fun ;)

1.) Marvelous is…Mother’s Day! Such a good day for appreciation and family :)

flower1

2.) Marvelous is…fruit. I’m pretty sure fruit is going to be in every Marvelous in my Monday! PS have any of you heard about the 30 bananas a day diet? Even though I love fruit, I can’t believe that’s a real diet!

berries23

3.) Marvelous is are…the ponies. I am so lucky to have these guys in my life. Yesterday when I got to the barn, Lego and Buddy were turned out together and were galloping through the sprinklers ;) They took forever to groom, but it was so worth watching them have fun! Old pic, but I don’t think I’ve shared this one with you guys and I love it.

legobridle

4.) Marvelous is… stopping by The Farm, a farmer’s market, on our way. We bought a jar of raw honey, which was really cool because the man had his beehives on site, and did everything himself. They had a ton of apples there and really good jams

thefarm

And they also had a rooster who kept following me around, which was not so marvelous, because roosters scare me haha.

thefarmrooster

5.) Marvelous is…the sunrise!

5sunrise2

Especially when paired with a blueberry smoothie.

blueberry

6.) Marvelous is… Leigha over here at Minou Girl organizing a “Run for Boston” 5k, and then raising over $2,000. Way to go!

7.) Marvelous is…easy lunches. Lunches the past three days have been veggie burgers and salad w/ hummus. It doesn’t have to be complicated to be delicious ;)

511salad

And Marvelous is hearing from all of you guys on the Hylunia giveaway, which is still open! I love each and every one of your comments.

Before I go, just wanted to let you know that I’m experimenting with a little advertising, hence the ad below. I’m only showing one ad per page right now, and not sure if I’m going to continue with it quite yet. We’ll see! Have a MARVELOUS day! Thanks to Healthy Diva Eats for thinking up MIMM!

Sunnie

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Popping In with Mother’s Day Muffins

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

I love my mom so much- she is such a great supporter and does so much for my sister and I. Every year on mother’s day we make some sort of breakfast for her. It’s evolved a from the time we were little and would make her burnt eggs and a yogurt, bt the tradition is still holding strong ;)

Along with some gorgeous fruit….

berries4

My sister and I whipped up some muffins! PB Blueberry Whole Wheat Muffins, to be exact ;)

muffinsblueberry

Vegan Blueberry PB Muffins

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp each baking powder and baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 mashed banana

1/2 cup honey (agave for vegans)

1/4 c. almondmilk

1 big T. Peanut butter

1 cup blueberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375. Mix wet ingredients (except blueberries). Mix dry ingredients. Slowly pour dry into wet, mixing until smooth. Make sure PB is evenly dispersed. Then, gently mix in blueberries.  Pour into muffin liners and Bake for about 13 minutes or until done. Top with extra peanut butter and blueberries :)

muffins

These are pretty darn good! I still haven’t made the perfect muffin, but I think I’m getting closer! I love the blueberry overload in them, and the peanut butter? Well peanut butter is just always a good idea ;)

muffinsblueberry3

Have a fantastic rest of your weekend!

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Friday Giveaway Fun: Hylunia Skincare!

Question: What’s better for a Friday post than a giveaway?

Answer: Nothing! ;)

Especially when it’s Hylunia Skincare, which is a line of high-quality body and face care products. Hylunia sent over their Grapeseed Exfoliating Scrub, their Facial Cleansing Gel, and their Facial Day Lotion, all of which I was excited to try out!

all

Let’s start with the basics.

1.)- Ease: Their website is great and can direct you to products based on your skin concerns. Acne? Check. Dry Skin? Check. Sun damage and cancer? Check and check. So you can probably understand why I went on their website and didn’t realize that a good 20 minutes had gone by ;)

Untitled

2.) Quality: Hylunia is: Vegan, holistic, natural, clinical, and free of all these pesky things:

label

3.)Products: The lotion couldn’t have come at a better time with this hot and dry weather.

lotion

I loved how light it was- not heavy at all. Your lotion shouldn’t be one of those things that weighs you down in life ;)  It blended easily and lasted all day. Mission accomplished.

hand

The Grape Seed Exfoliating Scrub was next, and Hylunia was so generous! #birthdaycameearly

grapeseed2

What I loved: The big exfoliating pieces. The ingredients. The effectiveness.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the scent, though, or maybe the lack of scent. (All of Hylunia’s products are fragrance free.)

The ingredients:

Distilled Water, Proprietary Surfactant Blend , Ground Grape Seeds (Fine Ground), Bentonite Clay, Extracts of Bilberry, Sugar Maple, Sugar Cane, Lemon and Orange, Hyaluronic Acid / Hyaluronic Complex Solution (plant derived), Anti-Microbial ComplexTM and Dimethicone.

The cleansing gel was simple and light.

gel

4.)Price:  Hylunia is on the pricy side. A bottle of the facial cleansing gel costs $27.00, although, a little does go a long way.

Thanks to Hylunia’s generosity, you guys get the chance to win all of the above products!

To enter, just leave me a comment letting me know which one you are looking forward to trying out the most!

For additional entries, you can do one, some, or all of the following. Just let me know which one(s) you completed by leaving a comment.

A random winner will be picked next Friday.

Best of luck to all of you and…

Agreed! ;)

Sunnie

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WIAW- The Short and Sweet Edition

Good morning loves!

Just popping in for a minute for today’s WIAW, since I have a pile of homework staring right at me ;)

Here’s the deal: I always put effort into making breakfast and lunch, but sometimes dinners go on the back burner for me. Some nights just call for cereal. Or Chipotle.

Most of the time though, I have a few 20-minute dinner ideas I always keep ingredients for in our pantry.  Pasta, frozen salmon, and whole grains are easy and fast to whip up. This week’s dinners have been short and sweet, thanks to leftovers and some thinking ahead!

Let’s go all the way back to Saturday, shall we? It seems like an eternity ago! I was babysitting, so threw together a packed dinner of a random veggie/hummus wrap, string cheese, and orange. Done, done, and done.

cheeselunch

On Sunday, thanks to some timing mishaps, leftovers were on the menu! 2 slices of my Spinach/Mushroom/Whole Wheat Crust Quiche along with a green salad made for a fabulous ten minute dinner.

morequiche

Monday night was courtesy of the Whole Foods prepared foods section. When we went last week, I bought this Butternut Farro salad, and somehow it got put in the butter drawer. Needless to say, we were happy to find it ;) I paired it with another green salad (and some hummus of course).

butternutfarro

Tuesday night’s dinner took 15 minutes start to finish, and was a huge hit. Brown rice pasta was boiled and sauce was simmered with some chopped organic chicken breast and garden basil. Then the two were mixed and showered with parmesan. Heavenly.

pasta

I also managed to take a few snacks/desserts pics:

Greek yogurt/blueberries/granola for pre-riding snackage.

snack

And a homemade apple pie pre-baking :)

applepie

Before I go, I have a few of the latest things I’ve bookmarked for some good old blog-lovin’! Kelly’s BBQ Veggie and Pineapple pizza, Amanda’s Fig and Date Oatmeal Bars, Kim’s Mango Yogurt Oats, Sarah’s Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes, and Heather’s PB Mug Cake all sound (and look!) amazing.

Happy WIAW!! :)

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