Month: December 2016
{friday 5}
The last time I will type “Happy Friday” in 2016, means it’s the last Friday of 2016. I’d like to make a toast to that. Raise your glasses peeps! Clink! Cheers! Drink!
✋🏻things on my mind…..
ONE – We are in cold, snowy South Lake Tahoe to celebrate the New Year. The Timothy cabin doesn’t have much snow yet, but we’re expecting to get some fresh snow today and tomorrow. The kids are ready!
This weda is currently learning how to make tamales and the cabin smells amazeballs.
(cousin snowball fight)
TWO – Bay’s #ootd, since I got so many questions about her super cute top from yesterday’s {cinnomon roll cake} post. I wish it came in my size too!
Check out the back…..
GIRLS’ STRIPED RUFFLE-HEM SWEATSHIRT
* use code: SHOPCREW for an additional 40% off. Making this top $20.99.
TWO –
THREE – The Hosterts (Salinas homies) came to town // Natrually, we met up for happy hour. My favorite hour of the day! Who knew the Embassy Suites in Sac was so fucking bad ass.
• free happy hour from 5:30-7:30
• indoor pool
• bomb room service
• big ass rooms
• walking distance to old sac
• free breakfast
I kinda want to plan a stay-cation there now.
The kids had a blast. We got to drink wine + play cards and catch up. It was perfect.
Love you guys and can’t wait for our next adventure!!
FOUR – Kaia girls, BRIK begins Monday! Holy shit. I’m so ready. I haven’t been to the gym in 2 whole weeks. I haven’t been this lazy since this time last year. No idea what I weigh, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good. Missing my morning routine + Kaia girls like crazy. Super pumped to spend Monday meal prepping and planning my BRIK goals. I’ll also be attempting a 20-day sugar free diet beginning the 2nd week of January, because dieting on your birthday is against the law.
Looking forward to seeing all the Kaia badasses bright and early Monday!!
FIVE – Links I ♥
Celebrities we lost in 2016
2016 moments in photos
2017 Healthy Food trends
Top YouTube Videos of 2016
let’s talk about the anthropologie sale. 40% off sale items….
Ordered:
Ellie Sweatshirt
Aurelia X-Back Tee
Want:
Fringed Arnhem Sweater Skirt
Ombré Noon Tee
Garden’s Repose Sleep Pants
Bria Lace-Back Sweatshirt
xoxo stacyb
{cinnamon roll cake}
You heard me right. Cinnamon Roll Cake!
Make it. Eat it. Love it!
Simple to make, crazy delish + loaded with cinnamon & sugar!!!
Perfection!
Remember Bailey got her KitchenAid mixer for Christmas? Well, she basically wants to use it every single day. My poor waistline is suffering, big time. I need to google “healthy KitchenAid recipes”
Well, it is the Holidays so I’ll just deal with it…ha!
Remember I said this recipe is simple to make? Think semi-homemade! Like doctoring up a cake mix to make it amazing.
Here’s what you’ll need:
{weekend notes}
However or wherever you celebrated, I hope you all had a wonderfully warm and cozy holiday with family and friends. Making memorable moments and lots of delicious food!
This post is a little later than I had originally planned. Due to my Holiday hangover (mainly due to lack of sleep) with a slight bottle flu thrown in there too. I mean, let’s be real. I think I toasted the Holiday with each and every person I came in contact with.
Festivities began at the Eoff’s annual Eve of Christmas Eve party.
Thanks Danny + Greta for always hosting a fun night before the craziness begins.
And I love that by the looks of this picture you can’t tell at all that we were crazily out numbered by kids. Ha!
Did you catch the girls first Mannequin Challenge? You can find it on my instagram + facebook page + the link below. So fun. And McKenna’s finger wave makes me laugh each time.
Christmas Eve we started a new tradition, which is my new favorite Christmas Eve tradition.
Timothy girls (and Alex) pedicures! The Savvy Nails crew was festive AF. And so accommodating. They made our Christmas Eve morning so enjoyable.
I played bartender…..
duh.
Christmas Eve we spent at Uncle Kim + Aunt Trish’s house. About 60 relatives from both sides of the family. It was a full house. Looks of kids + laughter + libations. Just the way Christmas should be ♥
Here are just a handful of GG’s Great grand kids.
(don’t you wonder what Ben + Eric are whispering about)
Bailey + Macie (1 month apart in age) wore the same Christmas dress….AGAIN! This has happened, I’d guess four times now? Looks like their Mom’s have really good taste!
Look at our babies.
Christmas 2007 (about 16 months old)
About 8 years later and still beautiful as ever.
Christmas 2016 (10 years old)
G I R L S
B O Y S
{what I wore}
Weekend notes + Christmas recap coming tomorrow. I was too lazy to type it up today!! The Holiday hangover has hit in full force. What day is it? What should I be doing? How many days till 2017? And why am I at work today?!?!
So, let’s talk about clothes. Cute Target tops.
What I wore. Another Target score. And that rhymes! I love it when that happens.
It’s seriously becoming a problem! I can’t walk out of Target without a quick scan over the women’s clothing section first.
Which 100% of the time results in another purchase for my closet.
{this week on xoxostacyb}
{friday 5}
IT’S FRIDAY!! Only 2 more sleeps till the elf on the damn shelf is out of my life. Oh, and Jolly ol Saint Nick makes his 2016 appearance. Not sure which one I’m more excited for….I’d say it’s a tie. I stayed up wayyyy too late finishing up stuffed mushrooms for the holidays. 8lbs of mushrooms to be exact. I’ll be sharing the recipe next week. But, until then…here’s 5 things on my mind this Friday afternoon!
ONE – Baklava
Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of filo filled with chopped nuts and sweetened and held together with syrup or honey. It is characteristic of the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire, and is also found in Central and West Asia
I have a new-found respect for this delicacy. Last night I was taught how to make Baklava. Hands down THE best baklava I’ve ever tasted. My Mom, a baklava lover, also agreed! It’s not an easy task. Layers upon layers of filo. The secret to this recipe was a mixture of walnuts + almonds. Yumm.
Georgie + Me + Norm + Nikki
{photo cred: Jim Corbett}
Big thanks to Georgia for teaching us her ways. The dinner. The wine. The Baklava. Everything. I’ll be your sous chef any day. I can’t wait to do it again next year. Yes, I just started a tradition…and invited myself 🙂
TWO – Brain teaser // This one features lines and lines of St. Nicks with sacks of goodies draped over their shoulders, each holding a lovely green wrapped present.
Which Santa is not like the others?
They all appear to be the same. Except for one! He’s carrying cash.
When you do find it, be sure to yell out, “Show me the money, Santa!”
If you can’t find it, kinda like me and want to cheat….scroll down to Links I ♥ and I’ll show you.
{another day, another vest}
Another day, another vest. Another score from my Target run last week!
{chicken tomatillo soup}
Today is Winter Solstice. AKA shortest day of the year. Who’s got time for a short day the week of Christmas?!?! Poor planning! I got shit to do.
I set out all my gym clothes last night like it was the first day of BRIK. Really it’s because I haven’t been to the gym in over a week. FML! Think I was a little nervous?!? That’s normally the only time I set my clothes out the night before.
Guess what happened? I slept through 2 alarms and woke up at 7:15 am this morning vs. my normal 4:35 am. Bay wasn’t even awake. The house was silent. I jumped up and ran around the house like a crazy lady.
Thank god the Elf was moved, the advent calendar was ready and I packed lunches last night. Still 2 hours and 40 minutes of over sleeping is un-fucking acceptable.
My dream was so crazy though. I woke up treading water?!?!? We were going down rapids in some river in the middle of nowhere and all we had were pool noodles. So random. Ha! I’m pretty sure that represents something super significant, but on the shortest day of the year – I don’t even have time to google it and find out.
Instead of having the largest meltdown of 2016, I laughed. Hard! Fuck it! Not like I was going to be on time anyway (that’s another story). All the sleep I got could have contributed to the good ass mood I’m in today too.
So it is going to literally be the shorts day of my life. So much shit to do!
After all that here’s today’s post…..
My homegirl Lisa at Lunchpails and Lipstick posted this recipe back in August. I saved it knowing I’d bust it out as soon as winter hit.
Nordstrom Cafe makes it. Pretty sure it’s not even close to a “lite” recipe though. I was pumped to see the ingredients to this were so simple and lite.
This soup was made in about 30 minutes from start to finish with the help of TJ’s!!
It’s healthy. It’s filling. It’s easy. It’s Kaia friendly. What more can you want on the shorts day of the year the week of Christmas?
This will also be coming back once I begin my 20-day no sugar diet.
Here’s what you’ll need:
{o a h u // travelogue}
Last week I found my way to Hawaii. For the first time ever. Oahu to be exact. So many peeps told me it was the least desirable island to visit. Say what? I find that to be completely mind-blowing. You mean to tell me there’s something more beautiful? If Oahu is the least desirable, then I can’t even imagine what the other islands have to offer. I fell in love with Oahu. North Shore. Haleiwa! It was a fairly short trip, leaving me with so many places I can only hope to return and explore some time soon.
Here are some of the many highlights of our stay in Haleiwa. Which means a slew of photos and captions. Some yummy places to eat and cool spots to check out.
First off, I was traveling with my long time pal, Nicole and her homegirl (soon to become mine too) Lina! We were a pretty rad traveling combo.
In October, Nicole mentioned that she would be traveling to Hawaii for work. And I was welcome to join. I’m about 99% sure she didn’t think I’d take her up on the offer. It was a surprise to me too, that it all worked out. Lets just say, I’ve dreamed of spending a December on a beach for a while now. Not just any beach, a warm tropical beach! So, this was basically my dream come true!!! A beach in a bikini (with a tall can) in the cold ass California winter. Sign me up.
The night before our trip, I was too excited to sleep. Just like the Disneyland commercial! So I did what all normal people do. I stayed up till 2am making new cutoffs. Duh!! In my defense, it’s not exactly the best time to invest in cute summer/beach clothes. So I had to make shit happen.
The flight
I made it to the airport in the morning with just enough time to slam a mini bottle of Chandon at the bar. Priorities. Remember, this was my first sip of booze in 5 frickin days. #nosugardiet. That shit was over as soon as that chandon hit my lips!
Then I hopped on the longest flight of my life. Sitting next to a mute, very religious dude (no offense, I dig God too) that was highly unimpressed with my mini bar I carried on in my purse. Did you know you can take mini bottles on a plane? Me either. I just made cocktails all happy as fuck, minding my own business. And I did something else that hasn’t happened in YEARRRSSSS…I read more than half (211 pages to be exact) of a book. And the kicker, I enjoyed it! Ha!
You’ll Grow Out Of It by Jessi Klein
Amy Schumer’s review:
Jessi Klein is a brilliant comedic mind and this book is a perfect reflection of that. It’s like having a glass of wine with the best friend you wish you had.
Maybe that’s why I liked it so much?!?!
I’m sad to report that I haven’t picked it up since. I WILL FINISH THE 76 PAGES LEFT!!! I WILL!!!
I found Nicole + Lina in the Honolulu airport and we started out adventure……
You wanna know the ONLY good part about flights leaving California at the butt crack of dawn? The two-hour time difference giving us lots of daytime + daylight for our first day!
I am the friend you have to explain to your other friends before they meet me! True story!!
In the first hour I successfully introduced Lina to tall cans + Instagram + the art of dropping the F bomb in every sentence + venmo + boomerangs! Luckily Nicole had already warned Lina as to what she was in for 🙂
Work, then play
We hit up Costco for the necessities…wine + tortilla chips + dip + cheese. What else could 3 chicks on vacay need?
We got to tag along with Nicole for just a bit on her first day of work. My iPhone pictures don’t do it any justice. This place is gorgeous. One of the most photographed sunflower fields in the world, we found out.
Peeps pay to get in on the weekends to take pictures. We got a private tour with pictures…lol.
After a little googles sesh, check out all these cool articles…..
The Beautiful Landscape In Hawaii You’ll Only See Once A Year
How to see the sunflower fields on the North Shore (before they’re gone)
These flowers even have their own FB page….
Sunflower Fields, North Shore Oahu
Our place
We found our VRBO…fucking SICK!!!
This was just the little road to our place
Check out the pano that Nicole took with her iPhone below.
(that’s me in the bottom right corner sippin my 5th cup of coffee, no doubt)
coffee till cocktails
