Foodie Friday | PB&J Breakfast Smoothie

Hi Friends!

I know this week's blog posts were kind of unexciting. I did a quick Essential Oil Haul on Wednesday, and today I'm sharing a quick smoothie recipe that I've been loving. I was super busy this week, so I didn't plan much for blog. I did, however, make an amazing smoothie earlier this week that I was obsessed with. I shared photos on IG, but I thought I'd share the recipe with you guys in more detail.

This PB&J smoothie is super healthy and perfect for breakfast!

Ingredients and Directions
-Add 1-2 frozen bananas into your blender. If you don't have frozen, just use fresh.
-Chop up 5 strawberries, more if you want and less if you don't. Add into blender.
-Add a scoop of peanut butter. I use a tiny bit less than a tablespoon. Again, add more or less if you want.
-1 pitted date. You can leave this out of you don't have one, but it adds some good sweetness.
-1 tbsp of both chia seeds and hemp seeds. If you don't have these that's okay too, but I encourage you to try them- they had tons of great neutrients!
-1 cup of rice milk, or milk of your choice. After you add in the milk, fill up with water as needed.
-Optional- add in some protein powder if you like it in your smoothie! You can also add in some greens for some extra vitamins and minerals.
-Blend away and enjoy!

This is sooo good and tastes just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

Do you have a favorite smoothie recipe? Share it with me in the comments!

Chai Tea Latte | The Best Homemade Chai You Will Ever Drink

Happy Friday!

I'm a huge lover of Chai Tea Lattes, they are the perfect treat if you don't feel like drinking coffee, but still want something sweet. Since Starbucks and other coffee shops can be expensive, I wanted to try and make my own Chai Latte, and I found an awesome recipe that is way better than ones from coffee shops!

What you'll need:
-2-3 Chai tea flavored tea bags. I use the Bigelow Vanilla Chai Tea (Teavanna has amazing loose leaf Chai if you can get it! If not just choose one from your local grocery store).
-1 to 1.5 cups of water (1 cup for 2 tea bags, 1.5 cups for 3)
-1 tsp of cinnamon
-2 cups of your choice of milk (I use rice milk)
-Sugar your taste (I use raw cane sugar)
-Vanilla Coffee creamer of your choice to taste
This recipe is for 2 servings. The extra tea bag/water is use depending on how large you coffee mugs are.

Directions:
-Use your coffee maker to brew your tea. Place your tea bags and tsp of cinnamon in a coffee filter. Add the 1 to 1.5 cups of water and press brew/start on your coffee pot. You can brew them on the stop top but this method is super easy and only takes a minute or two.
-In a sauce pan heat up the 2 cups of milk. Add in your sugar to taste and stir. If you are using liquid coffee creamer, add this in as well to taste. If you are using a powdered kind, wait until the milk is hot and then add it in to taste. I use a tbsp or two or each.
-When the tea is done brewing and the milk is hot, pour them both into a mug and it's done! You can add whipped topping or extra cinnamon on top of you want.
-If you want an iced chai latte, put this into the fridge to cool down and then pour over ice!

This recipe is super delicious and I definitely recommend trying it if you love Chai lattes!

Do you love Chai tea or Chai lattes? What is your favorite recipe?

Friday Favorites | Current Lifestyle Favorites

Happy Friday! Who else is happy that Spring is here?! I definitely am, even though I don't exactly trust that it isn't done snowing yet. We did have a nice day earlier this week where it was in the 50s, but that quickly turned back into the 20s. None the less, I know warmer weather is on its way, and that definitely has me excited.

I thought I would do a Friday Favorites today and share some lifestyle things that I've been enjoying.

First though, I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to all of you who left me such sweet and encouraging comments on post earlier this week on cruelty free makeup. All of the great feedback really meant a lot to me because it was a post that I was honestly nervous out of my mind to post. I love you all for the encouragement you showed me!

Back to my lifestyle favorites. Honestly, not much has been going on in my life lately. I feel rather boring as these might not be the most exciting things that I've posted before, but hopefully some of you will get some enjoyment out of it! Even though nothing too exciting has been going on, I have been working on some projects that I'm crazy excited about. These things have been taking up a lot of my time and thoughts but other than that, here are the things that I've been into!

Favorite Recipe || One of my go to dinners is tacos. I've been making these like crazy. All it has in it is black beans, corn, rice, and salsa. I cook my beans and corn while my rice is in my rice steamer. Once they are all done, I mix everything together with salsa and taco sauce. I add guacamole to a tortilla and add in the mixture. It's so soo good and simple. Also, a lot of you asked in my last 'what I eat in a day post' if my husband eats meat or plant based with me. He does eat meat, but also eats most of the plant based meals that I make. So sometimes when I make this, he adds in taco meat as well. If you want to make this recipe and want meat also, just cook your taco meat and add it on top of the mixture, also add cheese, sour cream, lettuce, etc. as you wish! However, this is amazing as it is, and I hope you all try it out this way too!

Favorite Workout || Hubby and I have been doing P90X. We're trying to change our lifestyle and workout and eat healthy. This workout program is definitely not easy, but I'm excited to have a program to follow! I'm sore as hell as we speak (as I'm typing?) but I'm also excited to get in shape and do good for my body.

Favorite on TV || Is anyone else a Survivor fan?? I've seriously been watching this show since I was like 10 when the first season came out. I got my husband into it as well, and this new season came on tv 3 weeks ago and its sooo good!

Favorite Game || I don't think a lot of you are into games but I'm definitely a nerd at heart. We bought the new Nintendo Switch and I'm completely obsessed with the new Legend of Zelda game. It's so good and we've been anticipating this game for what feels like years! Honestly, this has been taking up a majority of my free time, I'm not going to lie.

Favorite Quote || And lastly, I'm ending this with my favorite quote. I read this the other day and it really hit home. It's something that I needed to read and keep in my mind. I don't think that I've had the best focus lately, and that has been something that has gotten me down mentally reading this quote has definitely help get my mindset right!

I hope you all enjoyed my current lifestyle favorites!

And now I have a question for YOU! For those of my blogger friends who make videos, what video editor do you use? I had some issues with iMovie the last time I tried to use it, and I will try it again, but I'm looking for some other options. I'm seriously the least tech savvy person in the world, and I get super discouraged when I try to figure out things like movie editors and can't figure them out. My husband has a nice one on his computer but it seems really complicated. I would like something easy to use. And I really need to stop using the 'I can't figure out my movie editor' excuse as to why I'm not making videos!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend! Do you have any fun plans? Let's chat in the comments!

Friday Favorites | End of January

Hi! Remember me? No? I don't blame you. I don't think I've even gone this long without posting here on my blog. I think I will be doing a life update post soon explaining why I've been such a slacker lately. On a kind of positive note, I did film two videos and one of them was my beauty favorites for 2016. But on a not so positive note, after I was down filming I couldn't get my iMovie to work, and I ended up updating my computer software and then got myself into a big old computer mess. Needless to say, I was frustrated and have been ignoring the issues. I'm going to try to fix it this weekend or early next week so I can at least get the videos up that I filmed!

Back to today's post! I'm sharing some Friday Lifestyle Favorites (boring, I know!). So let's get into it.

Favorite on Netflix || I've been bing watching Shameless like crazy. I'm in season 2 right now and I'm really enjoying it. Although I did have an urge to rewatch Gossip Girl the other night, so that might have to be my next show.

Favorite Snack || I've been obsessed with eating date rolls. These are sooo good and I love the coconut sprinkles on the outside. Please excuse the stupid shadow in my picture of these, it was late and dark and when I tried to re take the picture it just didn't look as pretty being half empty.

Favorite Kitchen Item || Ok this is a kind of random and weird favorite to share, but my mother in law got me these awesome cutting boards and I'm slightly obsessed with them. The wooden part is made from bamboo and it has different plastic inserts that you pull out and can place on top of the bamboo. So it's basically a 5-in-1 cutting board and you can use the different colors or wooden part for different types of food!

Favorite Purchase || I bought a protein powder to put in my smoothies and it's the Garden of Life raw organic protein in the vanilla chai flavor. This stuff is awesome. It's all plant based and it's a very clean protein so there's no extra crap in it that a lot of protein powders have.

Favorite Quote || I absolutely love this simple yet powderful statement.

I hope you all enjoyed my Friday favorites! What lifestyle things have you been loving lately?

Friday Favorites | Current Lifestyle Favorites

I haven't been the best blogger lately, and I've been seriously slacking on my posts these last two weeks. But I do have a few posts and videos planned for after the New Years, so hopefully I can get my shit together. I also plan on doing my top 16 or 2106 next week after Christmas is over, hopefully in the form of a video, but my camera is saying 'unable to record' at the moment.  I'm going to try my best to fix it, but if I can't I'll definitely have my yearly Favorites up in a blog post instead. For now, I'm just going to share some current lifestyle favorites since I haven't done a Friday Favorites post in a while!

Favorite Recipe
I've been trying my best to eat healthier lately because I've been eating like utter crap for the past few months. I've been making taco salad for dinner and lunch and it's been one of my favorite recipes lately. Probably not the healthiest (because Doritos, man) but still healthier than a lot of things that I've been eating. For this I cook up some corn, black beans, and green chilies (ground turkey for hubby), and add in some taco seasoning while it's cooking. Put the mixture on top of some lettuce, add a bit of cheese, some chopped bell peppers, crushed Doritos, and toss is with some taco sauce. It's so freaking good.

I've also been drinking smoothies like crazy. My absolute favorite smoothie consists of a frozen banana, almond milk (use regular milk or which ever kind you like), 4-5 pitted dates, a spoonful of peanut butter, and some cinnamon. Also so freaking good.

Favorite on YouTube
I've been loving all of these 'boyfriend does my voice over tags'. They are hilarious! My favorite one so far has been fromCasey Holmes I told my husband that we should do it, and all that got me was a look that said 'are you crazy?'

Favorite purchase
I have been wanting to read the Law of Attraction for soooo long! Hubby bought me some books as an early Christmas gift and I cannot wait to read this. I definitely think that is is going to be an amazing book to read going into the new year.

Favorite Quote
This quote is truly amazing and really spoke to me.

So this is it for my current favorites! I hope every one has an amazing Christmas if they celebrate!

I'm linking up with Amanda from Meet @ the Barre and Lauren from Style Elixir

Friday Favorites | End of October

I can't believe October is over in a few days! Is anyone excited for Halloween? This is the first year we don't have any Halloween plans to dress up and go to parties, but we will pass out candy since we get a ton of trick or treaters in our neighborhood. I'll be sad to see October go, but I'm always excited for November because of Thanksgiving and the Holiday season that follows!

Today I'm sharing some Friday lifestyle favorites again this week, and I'm linking up with Amanda from Meet @ the Barre and Lauren from Style Elixir

Favorite on Netflix || I've been into re watching some of my favorite shows lately. I just finished 90210 for the second time, and now I'm re watching The Vampire Diaries. I haven't watched season 7, or the last half of season 6 yet. I figured I would start over from season 1 since its been a while and I didn't remember enough of what happened. I'm completely obsessed again, and its also a good show to watch this time of the year for fall/halloween!

Favorite Natural Product || My body has finally gotten use to wearing natural deodorant. It took quite a few times of trying and I'm happy that I can wear it now. I was having an issue of getting irritation from it, and I couldn't figure out if I was allergic to the deodorant or if it was part of the detoxing stage when you cut out all of the bad chemicals that are in regular deodorant. I had a lot of bumps, irritation, and rash under my arms and it was super painful. This took me 3-4 times of trying it, getting irritation at the irritation and switching back to my normal deodorant, and then back to the natural to get use to it. The kind I'm using is from the brand called Schmidt's and I have the Lavender Sage scent. It smells freaking amazing. I definitely want to try out more brands when I finish this one up. Anyone have any recommendations?

Favorite Recipe || I've been obsessed with making veggie lasagna. Its been a staple in our dinner routine for the past 3 weeks. Its so simple and easy to make too- boil your noodles, and while those are boiling cut up  your veggies, add them into a skillet with your pasta sauce and let it cook for a few minutes. I use zucchini, spinach, and mushrooms. When everything is done, add a little bit of sauce on the bottom of your baking dish, add the noodles, cottage cheese, the veggie and sauce mix, mozzarella cheese, more noodles and repeat. If you prefer meat in your lasagna, then you can replace the veggies for meat, or mix in the meat with the veggies. I can do a more detailed post on my recipe if you guys want to see it!

Favorite Project || We are currently redoing one of our bathrooms! When we moved into our house almost 5 years ago, we re modeled the whole thing, except for the bathrooms. Since we are building a house soon, its time to get the bathrooms done so they are more appealing for when we sell our house. We picked out paint and tile for the floor, and here is a sneak peak, but I will definitely share some before and after pictures when its all done!

Favorite Moment || We've been wanting to go to the apple orchard all this season, and we ended up going to a smaller one near our house last Saturday. We didn't pick apples or anything fancy, just bought some cider, donuts, goodies from their store. I wanted to do a full post on something like this, but since the one we went to was small and didn't have a crazy amount of stuff, I thought I'd just share on here. We bought some caramel apples, raw honey, and apple butter too.

Do you have any lifestyle favorites that you want to share? Let's chat about them in the comments!

Friday Favorites | Lifestyle

Hi! How was your week? Anything exciting happen? Tell me about it!

I'm sharing some Friday Favorites again this week, and I was trying to do these every other week or just once a month but I've been a bit stumped on my blog lately. I can't seem to be creative and think of anything good to post. If you guys have any suggestions or particular things you want to see (beauty or lifestyle!) let me know in the comments!

Today I'm linking up with Heather from Life in Leggings and Lauren from Style Elixir

Favorite on Youtube || I started watching Alyse from the Raw Alignment  on Youtube and I'm completely obsessed. Anyone who is interested in a natural lifestyle then definitely check her out. She lives a very minimal lifestyle in Hawaii. She posts about fitness, natural products, minimalistic living, healthy food videos, etc. She also made a Facebook group called Raw Alignment Community which is totally awesome, and a place where people can chat about all the kind of stuff that I just listed. I know not everyone is into this kind of stuff, but her videos are really amazing and really informative and she has a great mindset and point of view on things!

Favorite Creation || Last weekend I made some smudge sticks with my best friend out of sage and it was super fun. It was our first time making them, and she got some fresh garden sage from someone local who grows it. They were easy to make, but I think I might have use too much string to wrap mine LOL. Now I have mine hanging out and drying out so I can burn them. 

Favorite Gift || I have been wanting some crystals for so long. I have some tiny ones (pictured above with the sage) but I was really wanting more chunks of crystals. My dad has always collected rocks and crystals so he gave me a few small ones that he had. I got two chunks of Amethyst, and another one that I believe is Citrine, but I'm not 100% sure.

Favorite Inspiration || I've been watching a ton of Halloween Makeup tutorials on Youtube and looking on Pinterest at them too. I kind of want to film some tutorials, would you guys be interested in seeing some? No promises, as I've been really lazy with filming lately, but it's definitely something I'm considering doing!

Favorite Quote || I'm finishing up with my favorite quote for this week. I really loved this one and found it super inspiring and beautiful!

What are your lifestyle favorites this week? Let me know in the comments! Have a great weekend!

Friday Favorites

Hello and happy weekend!

Today I'm sharing some Friday lifestyle favorites for this week. Nothing too excited has been going on, but I do have a few things to share for favorites. 

I'm linking up with Amanda from Meet @ the Barre

Favorite Purchase || Hubby kindly bought me two books that I've been looking forward to coming out for a while. I've been waiting for the new Nicholas Sparks book called Two by Two for so long. He's one of my all time favorite authors, I've read all his books! And the second book is the illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Sectets. I own the illustrated version of the first book too. Since I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, these illustrated versions are a must have for me in my book collection. 

Favorite Inspiration || I joined a challenged on Instagram called the 28 day self love and care challenge. This was created by Sophie Gray who is a fitness instructor and holistic nutritionist, I've been following her for years and have always admired her. For this challenge, we get an email everyday stating what our task is, and then we can post about the task on Instagram to be entered to win prizes throughout the challenge. So far the tasks have been super simple, such as stating some daily gratitude, writing in our journal, or go outside for some fresh air. 

Favorite on YouTube || I've mentioned before that Kayln Nicholson is one of my favorite YouTubers. She did a video on how to start a healthy lifestyle that I really enjoyed. I've developed some not so healthy habits lately so this was some good advice and motivation. She's also doing a video a day for the whole month of October! 

Favorite Snack || I've been obsessed with eating yogurt with a chopped up banana in it. It's been a go to snack for me or part of my breakfast everyday. My favorite yogurt is the Wallaby organic Greek yogurt in the vanilla flavor, and the strawberry is amazing too. If you're a yogurt lover, definitely try these out. I don't buy these often because I try not to eat too much dairy, so these are a nice treat for me once in a while.

Favorite Moment || Last Sunday my husband and I went to our favorite bakery for breakfast and then we headed out to our property to check and see if there was any pretty changing leaves yet. We also were going to stop by an apple orchard and cider mill but they were super busy, so we did a huge grocery shop instead! It was a fun and nice Fall day. Hopefully this weekend we will make it to the cider mill. 

Do you have any lifestyle favorites this week? Share them with me in the comments! 

Friday Favorites | End of September

Can you believe today is the last day in September?! My favorite month of the year is over, which kind of makes me sad because it flew by. I love October too, so I'm excited for this upcoming month!

For today's Friday Favorites, I'm linking up with  Amanda from Meet @ the Barre

It's been a while since I've done a Friday favorites post, so I thought I'd share some things I've been enjoying this past month. Most of them are Fall-ish things, like a lot of my posts have been lately. 

Favorite thing for Fall || My favorite thing during Fall is to have pumpkins on my porch! It makes me so happy for some reason. My mom brought us two of them, and last year I actually grew my own in my garden (on accident) so that made me happy. No pumpkins growing this year, but I'm happy to have two of them. 

Favorite Recipe || I made some pumpkin banana muffins with walnuts and they turned out so good! I used this recipe.  I know there's been a ton of articles recently that canned pumpkin isn't rally pumpkin, and that other squashes are aloud to be called pumpkins etc. But the canned pumpkin I have has only one ingredient in it- pumpkin. So regardless if it's pumpkin or squash, I'm just happy there's not a ton of extra ingredients added into it. 

Favorite Purchase || I bought some new Fall candles from at brand that I found at Walmart called 719 Walnut Avenue and these seriously are amazing. I bought some last year too and I was blown away that they were just as good as B&BW candles, they have the same packaging and they have three wicks in them as well. But they are under $5! The scents I picked out are Caramel Cinnamon Roll and Country Market. Both smell so so good.  

Favorite Moment || We were able to go to the Renissance Festival last weekend. We had lots of fun and the weather was perfect. I got to see my cute little niece there, who wore her Elsa costume. Me and Hubby dressed up like always too. I was a little hard to take photos everywhere because it was super crowded. We met our best friends there too, and it was their little one's first time there.  

 Favorite Quote || I'm going to finish this post up with my favorite quote. I really liked this one and thought it had a great perspective! 

What are your lifestyle favorites for he month of September? Let me know in the comments! 

Friday Favorites | Hello September

Happy September everyone! I was so excited yesterday because my favorite month of the year is here, and that also means Fall is on the way. I can't wait for all things  My mind is still in summer mode, which is normal for me until Labor Day is over or until the middle of September, but I can't freaking wait. I want cooler weather, I want boots and sweaters, I want the leaves to change colors and fall, I want to go to apple orchards. And PSLs, I'm coming for you. 

All things Fall talk aside, let's get into my Friday Favorites. I'm linking up with Amanda from Meet @ the Barre  and Lauren from Style Elixir  this week! 

I really have been up to much, other than playing the new World of Warcfrat expansion all week. It came out Monday night (technically it was Tuesday at 3 am) and I stayed up till 10am playing (LOL, I'm crazy?). That's honesty all I've been doing, but I will spare you all the nerd talk, and tell you about my lifestyle favorites that I've managed to find time for. 

Favorite Fitness || Last week I started doing yoga again and ahhh did it feel good. Me and hubby have made a pack to start eating better again (I know I've said this a thousand times, but for real) and I've wanted to start doing yoga every morning to start my day off with. Since its been a while, I decided to do Yoga with Adriene's 30 days of yoga to get back into it. I've done some of these videos already but I've never completed the whole thing. 

Favorite Fashion Inspo || I was on Pinterest and was looking at cute outfits that were a little Fall-ish and I fell in life with a few of them. My style is pretty basic and I loved the way these were super simple but still stylish! 

Favorite Essentail Oil || I've been loving Frankincense. It smells amazing and so good for so many things. It's great to diffuse, and it's also works amazing for skin care. I've mixed it in with my coconut oil at night time a few times and it was super nice. It's also a great oils to use for stress and anxiety since its mood lifting and suppose to balance emotions. I like to rub it on my wrists and forehead while I'm doing yoga. 

Favorite Food || I made this awesome taco chili the other day and it was sooo soo good and so easy to make. All I did was take a pot and add a can of black beans, pinto beans, refried beans, a can of tomato sauce, a little bit of veggie broth, and chopped up green pepper, and two cans of green chilies. After it was done I added some green onions and served it over some white rice. It was so easy to make and can totally be changed to anyone's preference. You can add taco meat or chicken, leave of some of the beans if you don't that many, add cheese, a can of tomatoes, etc. The refried beans do make it super creamy though, and depending on how thick you like your chili then play around with the amount of veggie broth you put it. This could totally be made in a crock pot too!

Favorite Quote || I shared this one on my Instagram a few weeks ago but I really love it!

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day

 Weekend? Do you have any plans? What are your lifestyle favorites this week? Let me know in the comments!