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"lil sis"
It’s been a busy few weeks for my fam. Birthday parties, funerals 
, baby showers…the whole gamut of events have been keeping us out and about. The little downtime we’ve had on the weekends, we’ve been spending it on gardening and playing outdoors since the weather has been so nice.
I’ve been wanting to start a veggie garden for the LONGEST time (three years to be exact), and finally I just took both girls by myself one day to Lowe’s and bought a bunch of plants and herbs. They helped me plant them with their handy dandy gardening tools from Daiso and Disney gloves from Lowe’s. We passed the gloves, and I saw my oldest get a quick glimpse of them and she immediately turned around and marched right back to see why there was a princess picture on the box. Marketing tools…we are a sucker for them!
Anyhow, to my surprise, our peppers have already sprouted and I can see small tomato buds starting to form!
The girls love to water the plants every day. I planted basil, and maybe it’s because it’s from “her” garden my oldest wants to pick the leaves and have me cook with it. I’ve used it as a topping on her spaghetti and I even cooked it with some chicken and garlic. She ate it right up! Unfortunately, my youngest isn’t too fond of it. The main reason why I bought basil is because my friend introduced me to eating bagels with cream cheese topped with a slice of tomato and basil. SOOOOO delish! I’ve been eating it for breakfast for about a week straight. Not sick of it yet! Hopefully when the tomatoes and bell peppers grow, they’ll both want to eat those too.
I can’t wait for tomorrow and to post pics from my girlfriend’s baby shower. Along with some other girlfriends, I’m helping with planning a baby shower for one of my oldest friends – we met in 4th grade! I’m excited for her since it’s her first child. I’ll be taking pictures of the shower and posting them after!
Lastly, I made a custom doll for a special little girl, and both me and my oldest are smitten over her. My daughter was begging me to make her one too. Sigh…how can I say no?
Hello Kitty Big Sis Doll + a removable tutu because we all need a ballerina HK doll at one point in our lives! Finished product of the doll to be posted on Instagram this weekend (@lilsprinkles)~
Have a great weekend everyone!
-lil sis
Ok, so now what? That’s what I was thinking Saturday night after Bottle #6 of my last day of the Nekter Juice cleanse.
I did the two day Nekter cleanse and on Sunday, I felt a couple pounds lighter and felt a lil more energetic than normal. However I do have to point out I felt pretty light-headed the first day. It went away the next day, and I felt rejuvenated on the second day of my cleanse.
It usually takes me half an hour to pull myself together to get up in the mornings on the weekends. The hubs will take the girls downstairs to get breakfast ready and will give me that time to snooze about 4 or 5 times. But I didn’t have to this time around. Was it the detox cleanse? Does the combination of the Nekter juices miraculously change the way your body feels? Who knows? I only did a two day cleanse (they have up to a 5 day cleanse), but I have to say I felt better about myself this past weekend – mind, body, and soul. Just giving me that renewed focus to start eating healthier and continue with running is what I really needed.
I weighed myself this morning at work, and I still am three pounds lighter. Woot woot! I could definitely tell because my pants are not as tight. Let’s face it; a big reason why I wanted to do this was to get a kick start in losing some weight. I was so nervous about introducing foods post-detox. I could just see myself chowing down Sunday morning. I was good though! I kept reminding my hubs to REMIND me that I couldn’t eat like my normal self. Both big sis and I are foodies and can pig out!
I read up a lot on what foods to eat post detox because I wanted to end it the right way and gradually introduce foods. My Sunday diet consisted of:
- Breakfast: 1 egg, Half of an avocado, a few slices of apple
- Lunch: Spinach salad, cup of tomato soup
- Dinner: Sushi/Sashimi (haha, I caved?) I was good though and didn’t eat my normal portion of sushi. I stayed away from soy sauce too. A lot of websites don’t recommend introducing fish because of the mercury but instead eat organic poultry if you’re going to eat meat.
I didn’t snack in between. I guess I didn’t have to or have the urge to. I did drink a lot of water in between which is a difficult thing for me to do. I’m not much of a water drinker, but it was hard not to. I got used to drinking from the cleanse that it was just natural for me to want to drink water on Sunday.
I spent the night washing my lettuce and broccoli and cutting up carrots and putting them in freezer bags, so I can eat that for my dinner this week. I bought some cashews and sunflower seeds to incorporate into my diet for my protein. Guess I’m going part-raw for dinner. I mixed my own salad dressing – some Sesame oil and Rice Wine Vinegar to make a Korean Salad Dressing. I opted for no Soy Sauce and no extra sugar since the Rice Wine Vinegar has sugar added.
I don’t know how long this new diet will last, but if this has changed my husband’s perspective on eating healthier than I will continue this for as long as possible! He actually cooked last night a fairly healthy lunch to take to work today – wild grain rice with shrimp. Packed it with a Diet Coke. I still have to work on that with him. I do have to say my craving for a soda disappeared after the cleanse, which I credit the detox for. They say one of the benefits of detoxing is that it curbs your desire for sweets. I’m a once a day Diet Coke drinker, and I’m hoping to kill that bad habit now along with my daily dose of caffeine. I don’t know about eliminating my morning coffee, but as I’m writing this I’m happily drinking green tea. Let’s see how the afternoon goes.
Anyhow, the hubs has agreed to eat my fruit that I cut up for him for breakfast and hopefully he’ll sign up for his work gym by the end of this month. I think my nagging of living healthier and constant stories about how high cholesterol can really be a big problem later in life has finally paid off. Haha.
Guess that’s what happens when you get older? No more thinking about partying but instead thinking about how to live a healthy lifestyle! Well there you have it…my post detox living is going better than expected. No crazy stomach issues, no head aches. Happy Monday!
P.S. Check out the shop later – new dolls will be added!!!!
-lil sis
Here we go! I decided to do a much needed detox cleanse for myself. I think my body needs a break from all the crap I’ve been eating lately. Really. I’ve been trying to buy more green foods especially for me and the hubs because I want us to start taking care of our bodies. How else do we do that unless I stock up my fridge with what we should be eating. I’m sure we’ll cheat now and then during the weekends, but maybe this cleanse is what I need to get back on track.
Anyhow, my girlfriend told me about this detox cleanse and after reading up on it online here, I decided to give it a go.
The Nekter Cleanse IS
- A simple and natural way to flood your body with more vitamins and nutrients in a single day than you would normally consume in an entire month.
- A path to healthier eating habits, less sugar and processed food cravings which in the future may lead to weight loss and an overall positive well-being.
- A delicious blend of approximately 15 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables that will help promote clearer skin and increased energy levels.
- Designed to reset your system back to its natural state, flushing out toxins, and creating a clean slate from which to start building a healthier and happier YOU!
(Taken from their website)
I’m excited to try this out. After this cleanse, hopefully I’ll feel motivated to keep up with eating more raw foods and kick out the processed ones.
Kicking off the weekend with Day 1 of my cleanse! Happy Friday!
-lil sis
What are Stickygrams? Well, it seems like everyone is now on Instagram! And if you’re like me, I love the filters and the cute apps that make your pictures look that much more appealing. Stickygrams create Instagram sized magnets of your Insta pictures. You just log in with your Instagram logon, pick the pictures you want, and wait for your cute magnets to come in the mail. 
I’m all about de-cluttering lately, so I took down everything from my fridge and posted my Stickygram magnets. The girls have had fun putting them in order, making shapes with them on the fridge, telling stories about each picture, etc. I have one magnet where Tabi was less than a year old. Wow, I’ve been on Instagram for awhile now!
I have a $2 off code: FRIENDKW2P.
Just wanted to leave ya with a drawing my girl made.
I thought she was practicing her letters, but she said it’s the picture of Jesus’ cross and the place where he died aka the tombstone (I’m assuming based on the picture). He wasn’t there alone but with friends. 
Hope everyone had a wonderful and beautiful Easter!
-lil sis
The hubs has been talking about buying a RipStik
(via Amazon)
We see so many neighborhood kids riding them, and my hubby’s friend has one and has supposedly lost his “love handles” because of Ripstiking. It just looks like fun and something for him to do when the kids are riding their bikes around the neighborhood. It’s like a skateboard but only with two wheels versus four, and you don’t need to use your legs to push off to ride it. You have to move your legs/feet back and forth to get the caster board to move.
He finally caved and bought one + a helmet because of course the hubs is all about safety first. Once the kids were down for their naps, we watched a two minute You Tube video on how to do it and got started. After watching him practice, I was SO DETERMINED to master this (better) than the hubs. After 1.5 hour of practice, I can confidently say I know how to ride it! The hubs can do it too, but I think I look a bit more advanced than him! Haha. His body just moves differently, and if anyone has seen my hubby’s dance moves it looks a bit like that. More wormish though. But honestly, we both look super silly doing this, so hopefully with practice we can get it down so we look like the 8-9 year neighborhood kids.
Mom on a ripstik cruising down the street!
And another one with me still in my dinner outfit – maxi dress, faux fur jacket, and swapped out my sandals with my sneakers. I needed to get one more ride in to make sure I remember what I did the afternoon before.
Do you know how excited we were to accomplish learning something new!? Even with my fear of falling, I kept at it especially after seeing my hubby get the hang of it. I can see how kids learn more quickly than adults. They just don’t have the same fear – they go for it without thinking any thoughts at all about failing. I need to be like that more.
We treated ourselves to homemade sangria! Bobby Flay’s Arnold Palmer Sangria was super delish! The iced tea part sounds kinda odd, but it was actually really good! We added more wine than iced tea and lemonade. Yum!
-lil sis
I met up with a close girlfriend at the mall on a weeknight to have some girl time and also for some much needed retail therapy sans kids. It made me miss the good ol days of shopping with your friends and not having to worry about being on a time crunch. I parked at the OG spot in the J.Crew parking structure which then made me reminisce about my days as a J.Crew employee with my girlfriend. She was a floor employee and I was the cashier. Fun times. I swear though, J.Crew’s prices went up because I don’t think I could have afforded their clothes as a college kid even with the employee discount.
Anyhow, we hit up Via de France to get their Spinach croissant, and my girlfriend got their Cheese Challah bread. We did some MAC window shopping, and then we made a bee line straight for Crystal Court to Anthropologie. Ahhhh I love Anthro. Although their sale section was slim pickings, I did find a super comfy dress for $39.95. It looks almost like it’s denim material but it’s not. If a dress has pockets, I’m usually sold on it!
I usually don’t buy full priced items ever at that store because it’s just way too pricey. But I caved and bought the AG Stevie Ankle Jeans. I’ve never put on a pair of jeans where I thought wow, these are the perfect fit and length, it’s incredibly comfortable, and they give the illusion that my legs look a little skinnier than normal. Haha just the latter would probably have sold me on them but all the other factors just made it impossible to put them back on the hanger.
(via Anthropologie Magazine)
I can’t wait to wear them tomorrow. I don’t do OOTD posts ever, but I might just have to snap a pic of my jeans and post on Instagram -@lilsprinkles. 
-lil sis
I was feeling under the weather on Sunday evening. The symptoms eerily reminded me of being pregnant (vomiting + headache), so I took the day off on Monday. Nope, I’m not pregnant though!!!! I felt better Monday and went to the market because I was craving Korean Chicken Noodle Soup, also known as kalgooksoo.
I followed the recipe from Korean Cuisine, and it turned out pretty darn good! The girls ate it up without the kalgooksoo sauce, and my husband devoured the noodles with a generous amount of the sauce.
On a side note, I often wonder about the writer of the Korean Cuisine blog because she had cancer. My heart goes out to her family because towards the end of her blog, she started writing about her personal life and the struggles of going through chemo and raising her kindergartener. She stopped writing in 11/2011. I read her blog often because her recipes are easy to follow, and every time I googled about making a certain dish, she would pop up. The blogging world is so funny sometimes…you feel like you know someone after reading a few of their entries especially when it gets personal. Anyhow, I think about her sometimes and wish her and her family the best.
The chicken stock was more than generous, and I froze many pouches of stock for future use. I still have some in my fridge for tonight. Gonna make the fam some miso-chicken soup + baked California roll tonight. Now that I can breathe through my nose, I’m starting to get my tastebuds back. I’m kinda sad though – I lost a couple pounds this week from my lack of appetite and eating porridge and soups all week. I hope the pounds don’t come back with a vengeance.
Leaving you with a happy weekend picture when the girls got to ride in the cockpit of the Monorail at Disneyland. Who knew that you could sit there? The hubs kept mentioning to me that we had to be first in line so we can sit here (sometimes he can be such a kid), but it was quite cool sitting up front and having a panaramoic view of the park. Not to mention, no one else got to sit there except for us!
-lil sis
Sometimes it’s nice to actually go into a physical store to shop versus shopping online. The ability to touch the products, see the colors in person, feel the quality, etc it’s just a nice change of pace. So when I discovered Daiso Japan, I was like a little girl in a candy shop. If you’ve never heard of Daiso, I can compare it to like an Asian version of a 99 cent store but the prices are $1.50 for most items and of course the stuff is just cutified by 100x!
I only had about 15 minutes to shop because I stumbled across this place towards the end of my lunch hour. I had to Instragram my shopping experience, so I could go back again next week.
My favorite section – the gift wrap section!
They had washi lace, all sorts of ribbon, and the cutest wrapping paper!
Who wouldn’t want to dust their house with these cute animal lint cleaners? Adorbs!
The houseware section was another favorite, and I can’t wait to go back and pick up some boxes and containers to organize. They had these adorable trays with a huge design selection – polka dots, stripes, floral, cutesy character designs. And what’s more awesome is that they come in different sizes!
I wanted one to use as my makeup tray and got one for the girls to organize their lotion and their beauty stuff. Beauty products for the kids include their lipstick aka Aquaphor lip balm and their comb.
I also picked up some bento items for their lunches. $1.50 for most of these items seems pretty reasonable to me! If you don’t have a Daiso near you, you can also shop online.
I think these pinwheels would be great for goody bags or stocking stuffers. They’re sturdy and colorful and pretty large in size. The girls loved them.
And here they are in their shared room. Love those moments when they play well together and it’s only giggles I hear.
Today is Day 5 of my baby sleeping in her big girl bed, and so far it’s been good. I’m in shock that she’s adjusted to this transition so well because Lila was the exact opposite. She had THE toughest time staying in bed. This girl just rolls with the punches!
-lil sis
We transitioned our 27 month old to her big girl bed in her sister’s room on Saturday night. We accepted the fact she might/they might take an hour or two to fall asleep, and we were prepared for that. We set up the monitor to watch the girls, and it was a hilarious sight to see. My oldest would tell her to hurry up and sleep because she was being loud and then ask her questions like, “Do you like your bed?”, “How come you keep screaming?”, “Why are you ripping the pages off your book?”. Unlike most kids who like to sleep with a stuffed animal, Tabs likes to sleep with a book. I had to go run in there and take the book from her. My mistake for not giving her a board book to sleep with that night!
In the end, it took her about an hour to fall asleep and her head was at the foot of the bed on top of the covers. It’s a start?!
Now that the girls are in one room, I’m itching to rearrange some rooms in my house. I’m hoping to use the furniture I already have and not have to buy anything new unless it’s for the wall. I decided to lay my white Expedit horizontally in the playroom so that I can display some stuff over it similar to this Pottery Barn Kids playroom.
I found a plain chalkboard which reminded me of my school days from Overstock.com, and I wanted to pair it with some square magnetic boards from PBK.
I’ll throw in some artwork that I bought awhile ago and add in some artwork that the girls bring home from school, and I should have one entire wall covered. It’s always nice to change things up a bit because it forces me to de-clutter and update stuff around the home.
-lil sis
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
Over the weekend, my oldest and I made some more melted crayons, but this time we added glitter to them to give it a little something extra. We made these for Tabi’s classmates, and Lila’s classmates got some goody bags filled with snacks.
My little helper at [...]
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
Over the weekend, my oldest and I made some more melted crayons, but this time we added glitter to them to give it a little something extra. We made these for Tabi’s classmates, and Lila’s classmates got some goody bags filled with snacks.
My little helper at work:
Baked these guys in the oven at 300 degrees for 17 minutes. Waited for them to cool for 20 minutes, and they popped out so easily.
Too bad I didn’t have more white crayons. I think they look so pretty with white mixed in!
Happy Love Day! You can find our melted crayon hearts pic on Instagram too. Finally created a lil sprinkles account, so follow us at @lilsprinkles. Next up is to sign up for the Vine app. Help! Can’t keep track!
xo – lil sis
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