Chocolate Treat

Want to eat a guilt free chocolate treat?

Try this.....

Chocolate Amaretto Treat

**Warning this includes plain greek yogurt which might be an acquired taste so I suggest adding some all natural honey to sweeten it up

Ingredients- makes 2 servings
1 cup plain greek yogurt
1 tbs coco powder
1/4 cup vanilla soy milk
1 tbs peanut butter (if your ok with the calories you can add more)
1 tbs almond extract
blueberries for garnish
cinnamon for garnish

 *PB and cinnamon not pictured. As you can see I shop at giant eagle and walmart lol. I really like GE's fuel perks :)


Mix all ingredints in a blender or food processor
Pour into cups
Add blueberries and sprinkle cinnamon
Place in freezer for 40 minutes
Enjoy- it has the texture of ice cream :)


-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Avocado, tomato, and egg white wrap aka ATE wrap :)

As usual I was on pinterest and saw a pin for an egg white and avocado wrap. When I went grocery shopping I made sure to get the ingredients and planned to make the meal one night this week.

Well tonight was the night and let me tell you the picture does not do it justice.

I added to the recipe of course :)

ATE Wrap
3 avocados, pitted and shelled
2 roma tomatoes, cubed
8 egg whites
2 tbs low fat cottage cheese (try not to get too much liquid in your tbs)
5 whole wheat wraps
1 pinch of salt
1 cup parsley, chopped


1. Mix avocados, tomatoes, and salt in a bowl
2. Heat pan, add egg whites and scramble
3. Add cottage cheese to scrambled egg whites heat for about a minute (when cottage cheese starts getting runny turn off the heat)
4. With a slotted spoon remove the egg whites/cottage cheese from the pan and into a bowl
5. Add parsley to the remaining liquid in the pan and heat for a minute until parsley cooks down
6. Lightly wet and heat wrap (I microwaved it for 20 seconds so its easier to fold and doesnt tear)
7. Spoon avocado mixture on wrap, then egg white mixture, then top with cooked parsley
8. Fold in the sides and then roll the wrap up and enjoy

*Be careful because there might be extra liquid in your wrap so when you eat it do so over a plate or you can be like me and hold your baby on your hip and eat the wrap with one hand over the sink.

-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Ch Ch Ch Chia!

Chia seeds are absolutely amazing!- Chia pets are cool too but thats not what were talking about. In fact I have no clue why chia pets are called chia pets and not clay pets or grass pets.

Want to know more about Chia Seeds? Click here.

Here are some recipes I have made with Chia Seeds.

These are the seeds I have got them in my grocery stores organic section near flax seeds.

*Hydrate Chia Seeds- 1/4 cup seeds + 2 cups water. Mix them and then set in refridgerator for a few hours. They will start to gel in 10 minutes but to fully gel let them soak up the water longer. Chia seeds are ok to eat raw or hydrated. If you hydrate them it is easier for your body to absorb all their nutrients. Hydrated seeds will yield about 17 fl.ounces and will last 3-4 weeks in the fridge.

1. Chia Breakfast-
            1 tbs. hydrated Chia Seeds, 1 cup greek yogurt, and half a banana.Mix them together and enjoy! Make sure you drink with warm tea or a glass of water.


I will add more as I make them :)

-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Classroom Organization: Binder Clips

I am going to be starting my student teaching soon and I am so excited. I am really eager to learn and teach. Since I had some free time and I love pinterest so much I have been going crazy pinning stuff for my future classroom or ideas to use for student teaching this fall.

Check out my pinterest boards

One of my favorite ideas I got from pinterest is to use binder clips to organize papers. You better believe I will have tons of these when I have my own classroom and they are so cheap and effective I will probably have my students use them too.

The supplies you will need:
Labels
Sharpie
Binder Clips
Clear Tape(optional)

 Finished Product!

So I can use these to organize all the stacks of paper I will have :)  These are two sided so the first picture is side 1 and then the second picture is side 2. The tape is optional I didn't use it here but to keep your clips lasting longer you could wrap clear tape around them.


-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

You Probably Won't Get Skinny Eating This

So just what the title says....you really probably won't get skinny eating this so why did I make it?

I'm trying to eat healthier which means mostly good vegetables and fruit with some carbs but let me tell you I made this fried rice for my husband (the white rice is for me) I tried it and found I really couldn't put the spoon down. Yum whole eggs and soy sauce. Plus my favorite veggie is peas.

How to make:
Its simple of course! I used natural ingredients and used only a bit of oil and the sodium that is already in the soy sauce. This is the best fried rice I have ever made.

Ingredients: (I am not putting the amounts because I dont measure when I cook and you might like more of a certain ingredient in yours when you make it)

Long-grain White Rice
Peas
Eggs
Soy Sauce
Green Onion
Olive Oil
Garlic


1. Cook the rice. I just emptied the bag into a pot and added water, enough water to cover the rice and fill the pot up about 2 inches. Sorry that I dont measure things.

2. Heat up a skillet with a little bit of oil and some minced garlic. Heat until garlic is brownish.

3. Add rice (drain out excess water before adding), chopped green onion, and soy sauce to the skillet. Watch and continuously stir the rice so it doesn't burn.

4. Cook peas (I used birds eye steamable peas).

5. In the skillet push everything to one side. On the empty side crack your eggs (I used two). Using your cooking utensil scramble the eggs until cooked. Then with your utensil chop the eggs up in the skillet and mix with other ingredients already in the skillet.

6. Add peas to the skillet. and turn off the heat asap.

Enjoy!


*I barely used garlic so you could eliminate that from the recipe- the soy sauce kind of overpowers it or I just lost my taste buds.
**My husband says don't eliminate the garlic because even though I didnt use enough to be able to taste it apparently it enhances the flavor no matter the amount you use......I will leave the decision up to you to use it or not. :)

-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Product Test: Command Strips from 3M

Product Test: Command Strips from 3M


So my husband saw that 3M started making command picture hanging strips and he decided to try some for the new house- did I mention the wall colors the previous owners chose are pretty but unreasonable hard to match and believe me we tried. He liked the idea of not putting a bazillion nail holes in our new walls!

So I was skeptical at first. I just couldnt reason spending over 2.00 to hang a (only one) frame when it cost 2.00 for a whole box of nails.

He went around using them to hang stuff and I kept rolling my eyes. Then I got the genius idea to make frame collages- meaning I had a bunch of frames and laid them out in a certain pattern to hang on the wall. It looked great laid out on the floor but when it came time to hang them I noticed some frames were cheaply made and either had no hook to hang them on or had a flimsy one. So instead of installing hooks on the back of the frames we used those little command strips- wow my world was changed. I loved them. They were so easy to stick on and if you messed up and hung the frame a little unlevel you could so very easily reposition the frame on the wall strips. Simple!- and you know thats how I like it haha.


I would definitely suggest that you try them. I hear there is a coupon on the 3M website too!

Tonight were going out and getting more :)

Here's what we did.....

-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Free Downloads

I recently just signed up for Teachers Pay Teachers :) what a seriously awesome site! Currently I have 3 products listed and I hope to list more. By the way all my products are free! Since I am a new member I want to gain some credibility by listing my products for free. Maybe after a few good reviews and followers I will offer larger products for a small fee. Until then everything is and will be free on my site-take advantage of it now.

All I ask is that you dont steal my work.

View my store

Please excuse the horrible photo of myself at my store- I need to update it :)


-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Popular Pregnancy Workout and Others

So when I was pregnant and had all the time in the world---hahaha---I made a workout chart for pregnant women. I had every intention of actually doing this workout but honestly I never did it for more than 2 days straight. I posted it on pinterest and it has actually been such a hit- I think maybe 100+ people have repinned it.

So here it is (click the pic for the pinterest link)

If you want I can post the document link so you can print it out maybe? Just let me know in the comment section.


And here are some others pregnant or not.......remember I am not a body builder or physician so I'm telling you do not strain yourself doing these, do what you can :) I will be adding more I have to test them first.

You would do the workouts for the entire commercial. Example a food commercial comes on so the whole time I would do crunches and then a car commercial comes on so then I switch to pushups. After 20 commercials you can stop or start over.

-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Work Out Those Legs

I have recently found a new love for working out. Now that I have a nice basement to work out in and tons of post pregnancy weight to lose I have forced myself to stick with it and in one week I lost 4lbs- which has really motivated me.

Also I am obsessed with my phone now-not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I'm constantly on there logging my info for Noom and Water Your Body and late at night I like to check out pinterest and repin workouts and healthy recipes.

So the other day I was looking at my workout board on pinterest and I decided to try some that I had pinned. This one exercise routine in particular really kicked my butt and made me realize that I need to push myself more when working out if I want results. I am 23 years old there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to complete this workout but the first day I did it I really had to take my time with it.

The other day I posted on facebook "I wonder if the people that pin workouts on pinterest actually try them and know how hard some of them are?" Well I for sure know how hard this one is. I love it though and it really does work out your legs and butt.

So you try and see if you can do it :)

I am willing to try it again and I am hoping I will be much faster at it!



-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

P.S. feel free to comment below and tell me your favorite workouts- I love trying new ones.

39 Flowers

This summer has gone by so quickly and unfortunately with a baby it is hard to spend time in the sun (yes I know it causes skin cancer) and outside because the bugs. Somehow I have managed to have a little bit of time to snap some shots of my flowers. This is a new house and the previous owners spent lots of time and money on landscaping it. While I dont really care for the hundreds of hostas we have I am happy that they have planted some really pretty flowers and flowering plants. Ever since I realized how much I love photography (back in high school) I have always loved taking pictures of flowers. I love taking pictures of people too but flowers are a little easier because they stay still and always smile haha.

One thing that has been really cool to watch is the change my flowerbeds have gone through since the beginning of spring when we moved here. Now you probably cant tell from these photos some of the changes but I wanted to share these because I think they are beautiful.

One bad thing about enjoying still life photography is that I have tons and tons and tons of pictures worthy or being printed on a large scale of beautiful flowers and now I have to choose only a few for my walls (because too many photos can be a bad thing). Oh boy my life is so tough! Hahaha.

Enjoy and feel free to post a comment below letting me know your favorites.  These are not all pictures of flowers theres also some of some garden decorations and trees in my backyard.

***Please do not copy, download, crop, edit, or print these photos without my permission.....basically dont steal them, they are my art and belong to me I took them not you :) ***


Early Spring-

Late Spring-

Early Summer-

I hope you enjoyed looking at my pictures. I was really lucky to not have to spend any money on my yard this year (besides the waterproofing project that required mulch-which I am not blogging about because that was an expensive and complicated project). Simple enough.

-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie