Post-Joke Pizza

After our bosses attempted to play a joke on everyone at work regarding the complete reorganization of our company (which was an epic fail since our bosses couldn’t hide their smirks), we got to enjoy an April Fools’ Day pizza party!

Woohoo!

The pizza was delivered from a downtown pizza place that serves very large pieces of pizza along with buttery garlic knots.

Normally I would nab a slice of the veggie pizza, but I’m pretty sure all the veggies on that particular pizza were canned and canned veggies creep me out.

Instead I opted for plain ol’ cheese!

Cheesy

Tastyyy

I also enjoyed a garlic knot and some thick tomato wedges on the side.

Garlic Knot + Tomato

It was taaaasty and a nice little treat to kick off such a wonderful (birthday!) month.

Apparently a lot of you out there have April birthdays so YAY for a fun month ahead!

Birthday Statistics

After reading about so many April birthdays, it made me wonder which month is the most popular month for births and what day is the most popular day…

• August is the most popular birth month.
• Tuesday is the most common day of the week for a baby to be born.
• October 5th is the most common birthday. (This is Ryan’s birthday!)

This is the kind of stuff you never need to know but are oddly interested in… 😉

When’s your birthday?

Increasingly Clear

It’s becoming increasingly clear that I have found my wedding dress. I am in looooove!

After work yesterday, I met my mom at Something Blue, a bridal boutique in Orlando to try on two very different dresses. (Ryan, do not click  any of the upcoming links, just in case!)

The front runner is a James Clifford dress. It’s wonderfully romantic with lace and a classic feel. (Sorry, no pictures or links directly to this one because I really think it is the one and I can’t risk Ryan seeing it! Also, when I asked him if he would be too tempted to look at the dress if I put a link up, he said, “Yeah, bad idea,” and added, “That’s not fair anyway! They should have to wait to see it just like I have to wait!” 😀 Feel free to get mad at him… but not too mad. 😉 )

Also, for those of you “in the know” about wedding dress designers… did you know James Clifford and Jim Hjelm are the same person? It’s a fact!  

The other dress is a Justin Alexander gown. It’s a much “bigger” dress with more of a princess look. Though you can’t see the detail in the picture I linked to, the bodice has beautiful lace all over it.

Here’s the way I described the two gowns to my friends: The James Clifford dress is me. The Justin Alexander dress is who I want to be. 🙂 I know it’s silly, but I’ve always been a more “classic” dresser… nothing too showy or funky. The James Clifford dress is pretty, simple, soft, classic and will still be gorgeous in 50 years. I guess it’s pretty apparent which one I like more, huh?

Now I just need a man’s opinion! My dad will see me in the dress over the first weekend in March, and with his thumbs up, the dress will officially be the one! AHHHH! I’m so excited. I’ve visited a bunch of bridal boutiques without much luck and it feels good to finally feel excited about such gorgeous dress.

Dinner

After wedding dress fun, my mom and I drove to the Hilton Bonnet Creek hotel to meet up with my dad for dinner at La Luce.

In Front of La Luce

Our waitress brought out a bread bowl filled with doughy bread. I ate a couple slices of the olive loaf, which was delicious.

For my main course, I ordered the marinara pizza. Hey, sometimes lamb chops or sea bass just won’t do! 🙂

Pizza, Pizza

The pizza was very tasty and the crust was my favorite part. Yum.

My dad’s dish was the “pick of the night” though. His seared citrus salmon was amazing!

For dessert we split warm berry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. When I say we “split” it, I mean my mom and I dominated this dessert.

Dessert

Watch out for a woman with a sweet tooth! 🙂

I’m off to hop in the shower… see ya in a bit for breakfast!

Relaxin’

I find many different activities relaxing. I genuinely enjoy cooking and baking and find that making cookies from scratch soothes me (as does eating the cookies).

Today consisted of quite a few relaxing activities. What better way to kick off a Sunday than with a big ol’ pancake breakfast?

I made a big batch of fluffy pancakes using half apple cinnamon pancake mix and half Bisquick Heart Smart mix.

Pancake Mixes

These two mixes really complimented each other and the pancakes tasted great!

Cookin' Cakes

Doctored Up

After a satisfying breakfast, Ryan and I took Sadie to the dog park to run around for an hour or so. I find the dog park oddly relaxing as well. I love watching dogs run around and just be dogs. They’re so funny!

Sadie found a ball to play with almost immediately.

"Throw It!"

"Come and Get It!"

Woohooooo!

The weather was a little chilly outside, but I was bundled up and didn’t mind. Sadie ran around like a mad woman. Chilly weather makes her extra frisky.

After the park, we came home and did some chores around the apartment. Laundry: Done! Dishes: Done!

When Ryan went off to soccer practice, I headed out to Hallmark to pick up a card for our six year anniversary tomorrow. Yowzaa! Six years! 😀

I came home and felt like bakin’. I made some blueberry protein muffins that turned out okay. Nothing phenomenal, but still tasty enough to enjoy.

Protein Muffin Batter

Baked Muffins

Muffin!

Protein Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 c. old fashioned oats
• 1/2 c. oats blended in the food processor (or oat flour)
• 4 scoops protein powder (I used All the Whey cupcake batter protein powder)
• 1/2 c. applesauce
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• blueberries (fresh or frozen)
• chopped pecans (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all of the ingredients together before folding in desired amount of blueberries. Pour into muffin tins lined with muffin liners and bake for 15 minutes or until tops become slightly brown.

I ate two muffins which kept me full until lunchtime.

For lunch I enjoyed a lavash pizza with broccoli, plum tomatoes and mozzarella cheese.

Lavash Pizza

Pizza Close Up

I wish I could make pizzas like this at work for weekday lunches! We need an oven in the break room. 😉

Later this afternoon, Ryan and I went to go see New Moon at the discount movie theater near our apartment. The theater shows movies that are out of the main theater, but not yet available on DVD. I love this theater because you can still enjoy a movie on the big screen, but tickets are no more than $3 each (on Tuesdays they’re $1!).

We split a medium popcorn. Why is movie theater popcorn so darn delicious??? (The butter… duh.)

We got home a little before 7 p.m., and I chatted on the phone with two of my girlfriends who live up north for a while. Why does talking to someone who lives so far away make me miss them even more? 😦 I wish I got to see my best friends from high school more often.

Who are you missing today?

Separate = Healthy, Together = Not So Much

Separately each person in my family is pretty healthy. We really do love eating fresh and nutritious foods, but it seems that when we get together we all decide to throw in the towel on healthy foods and go for the gold!

Last night’s dinner = pizza party!

Cheese Please!

Veggie Pizza

I had two slices of cheese and one slice of veggie pizza. We ordered the pizza from one of those fantastic hole-in-the-wall pizza joints. Those skeezy places really do make the best pizza.

Sadie made sure to do all of her tricks on command to get a couple bites.

Sit! Stay! Down! Shake! High five!

Tricks for Treats

Psycho Sadie

Treat Please

After dinner we gathered in the living room to hang out, talk and watch the Colts play the Ravens before digging into the tunnel of fudge cake for dessert.

Tunnel of Fudge Cake

 This cake was so moist and delicious… almost brownie-like. My mom and I thought the chopped pecans were an excellent addition. Mmm, mmm. By 10 a.m. this morning, this cake was gone! 😀

Today

This morning Ryan and I had to get back to Orlando before noon because he had soccer practice. We made a fast breakfast of smoothies.

Strawberry Banana Smoothie

Into the smoothie went:

• 1 large frozen banana
• Milk
• 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
• 1 big spoonful strawberry sorbet

Of course I topped mine with whipped cream.

Whipped Cream

Creamy, cold and satisfying.

Right when we arrived in Orlando, Ryan headed out to soccer and I went off to the gym. I was feeling lazy and just wanted to read the celebrity gossip magazines I took from my parents’ house, so I opted for 40 minutes of easy cardio on the elliptical, followed by 10 minutes on the adaptive motion trainer.

It is absolutely gorgeous outside today, so we’re off to take Sadie to the dog park! Lata!

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

A pizza crust made with cauliflower? This can’t taste good… but it DOES!

Magic, I’m tellin’ ya.

Ryan and I tried this recipe several months ago and were amazed at how fantastic the crust turned out.

We decided to spend our Friday night in, eatin’ pizza, staying warm and messing with Sadie. 😉 (Maybe those lingering Christmas decorations will come down tonight…)

Ryan and Lil' Miss Sadie

To make the cauliflower pizza crust, we first riced cooked cauliflower in the food processor that I got for Christmas (thanks Mama!) until we had one cup of the prepped veggie.

Cauliflower

We then added an egg and a cup of light mozzarella cheese to the cauliflower and mixed it until the ingredients formed a “dough.”

Pizza "Dough"

After pressing it onto a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray and sprinkling the dough with spices, we baked it at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Pre-Cooked Crust

Ready for Toppings

We then took the crust out and topped it with the pizza toppings of our choice (lots o’ veggies puh-lease!). We stuck the crust back into the oven, placing it under the broiler until the cheese melted.

Topping His Half of the Pie

Pizza, Pizza

It smelled fantastic.

We split the pizza in half and dug in. Bon appetit!

Cuttin' the Pizza

My Plate

Dessert

For dessert we split two little bowls of banana soft serve (just frozen bananas blended for a while in the food processor)… one plain banana and one chocolate banana. Can you guess which one I enjoyed more?

Answer: Chocolate. Always chocolate.

Soft Serve Banana

Chocolate Banana Soft Serve

This evening has been quite delicious!

Hope you’re all enjoying your Friday night. Happy weekend! 😀