The Waxhonian Chronicles: January 2016

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Ground Beef Asian Lettuce Wraps

So, Steve and I have been doing a "dry" January this month!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know - it stinks!!!!! Although, we did cheat and have a drink last Sunday while watching the Panthers game. It was the only day, I promise!!!!

As far as food goes, we have been eating lots of protein, veggies and fruit. While we haven't cut out all carbs, I've been trying to come up with easy low carb recipes and of course have turned to Pinterest to help with that.

I made these Ground Beef Asian Lettuce Wraps this past week and they were delicious! It is sort of a mix up from a bunch of different recipes I found. The best part is I already had all of the ingredients in my pantry!! I think you will find most of you will.

Ground Beef Asian Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients:

1lb lean ground beef
1 onion
2 to 3 Tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch (I used flour b/c I didn't have cornstarch)
2 Tbsp cooking oil (I used sunflower oil)
Boston Bibb Lettuce (I used Romaine leaves as they don't sell Boston Bibb Lettuce here)

Place cooking oil in pan. Add your garlic, ground beef and onion. Brown meat until no longer pink. Drain excess fat. In the meantime, mix together ginger, soy sauce, water and cornstarch until well blended. Add meat mixture back to the pan. Add your wet mixture to the pan and cook for an additional 2 to 3 minutes.

I served multiple lettuce leaves on a plate and split the meat mixture between Steve and I into two bowls so that we could add however much we wanted to each leaf.

I served it with roasted parsnips!

YUMMO!!! I think this dish took less than 20 minutes to pull together. I think it will quickly become a part of our day to day rotation! So easy!

Enjoy! (Sorry no photos, I literally inhaled these things!)

Lottie's First School Disco (Dance)

If I haven't mentioned it before, Lottie LOVES school. She has really adapted so well in her new surroundings and at just 4 years old is reading, writing and learning so many words. I just love hearing her sounding out her words and the look she gives me when she's "nailed" it. Proud mama over here.

She has especially loved making new friends and was so excited to be attending her first school "disco". I love that they call it a disco over here vs. a dance. Too cute!

In preparation of her big school disco, we painted her nails and applied lipstick! :) Can't believe my first born is getting so big!!!

She had a ball. Steve dropped her off at school at 6:15 p.m. and picked her up at 7:30 p.m.

Here she is just before her first Christmas disco at school...................................

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Christmas in England!!!

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I know I have been on a blog break and everyone keeps asking when I am going to do an update (well, the few that actually read this), but the truth is that I have just been so busy running around after the kids doing school runs, workouts at the gym, homework, looking after Stella, looking for work myself, etc., the last thing I've wanted to do after getting the kids to bed at night is blog.............

Sorry!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel like I'm so behind on my posts, so I'll keep them short in hopes of catching up!

Christmas in England............

If you received a Christmas card, then you probably recognize this photo. Grandma bought them their Christmas jumpers and skirts. She is constantly buying them clothes (usually about 3 sizes to big). :)

My girls........... that Stella and her "cheese" face kills me!!!!

I guess they really do love one another! Between the pinching, hitting, pulling of hair, tattle tailing, wrestling, etc. I swear sometimes you would never know! :)

Our tree made it!!! Steve made fun of me for shipping our tree and all of our decorations, but I received so many compliments from friends saying our tree was amazing. Still going strong after 14 years!!!

Grandma and her girls!

Granddad and his girls!

What can I say about this Santa other than, AWFUL!!!!!! These Santas here just do NOT compare to our Santas back home! I mean the Monroe Mall Santa had to have been better than this guy! Here they have something called, Santa's Grotto where you visit Santa. They decorate sheds, buildings, etc. to the nines to make it feel very Christmassy, so you would think that if they are going to go to all that trouble, they would find a plump old man with a beard to play Santa. Nevertheless, the guy was nice and as usual Stella didn't want anything to do with him. I had to hold her in order to get a photo of her even remotely close to him. The only reason she let me do that was because she saw that he gave Lottie a gift. :)

Bradgate Park.............. one of the most beautiful places! They have deer just wondering around, ducks swimming in streams, beautiful ruins, waterfalls, etc. It is just the most fantastic place to walk around. It is always very busy with kids riding their bikes, scooters, people walking their dogs, etc. Stella and I love to walk through it all when we spend one on one time together.

Just before Christmas, I did the Loughborough Santa Fun Run 5K. It was so much fun to run with over 1,500 Santas and see the sites of Loughborough! Surprisingly I ran the entire thing without stopping. If you know me, I prefer boxing, MMA, HIIT and power lifting type workouts, but this was fun. I am hoping to do a couple of obstacle course races this year in England!

This race was a nightmare for Stella being as she HATES Santa!!! She would barely let me hold her and poor thing didn't know which way to turn because everywhere she looked there was a Santa. Steve and I were cracking up. Even the dogs were dressed as Santa. :)

Just before Christmas, I had one of Lottie's mates (Lily) over to bake and play.

A Pinterest goodie right here........ Decorating waffle cones like Christmas trees. Perfect for small kids.

We also made brownies and put some yummy icing and raspberries on top!

Then the girls decided to make their own concoction! GROSS! It smelled like vomit!

A few days later, we had Lottie's 2nd cousin Blake over and Sophie. The girls adore her. She is like a big sister to them! So sweet!

We baked more goodies!!! YUM!

Stella looks really enthused!!! :)

Twas the night before Christmas!!!

In England, they typically leave Santa mince pies and whiskey. I threw a shot of milk in there as well along with a carrot for the reindeer. Santa sure did enjoy his whiskey and mince pie!! ;)