San Diego Photographer | maternity, newborn, baby, child & family photography
My baby turned into a toddler yesterday. Ugh, heartbreaking right?! I just happened to be taking these pictures for a review I wrote for Pediped, so obviously the shoes are featured but I thought she looked too stinking cute not to share them on my blog with you guys. Happy Friday everyone!
So the past few months have been a long road to getting my life back. I have lost 30 lbs and feel like a whole new woman. I am still a good 10 lbs from my pre-child weight but I am a heck of a lot closer to being Brianne again and whole lot less the fat mom I had become. I am sure you all want to know my secret and well, like always, there really isn’t one. Unfortunately I have no miracle cure for you. I 100% changed my eating habits. I had to detox from my sugar addiction and I started eating “clean”. I quit all processed foods for 30 days, no sugar, no starches and ate only a very select few veggies, fruits and meats. I quickly saw a major change in my body, all of which wasn’t happening with just exercise and trying to eat healthy over the last 2 years after giving birth to my youngest.
I am now about 65 days into my new life and feeling wonderful. The best part is my husband did this journey with me and we both feel great together. It was rough to start but has evolved into a new lifestyle, which we both enjoy for the most part. For now, we still avoid processed foods but have a much bigger variety of food we eat. Most meats, veggies and fruits are allowed. I love eggs too! I also eat sprouted grain breads (Ezekiel brand or Trader Joe’s brand) with natural peanut butter. Other than that, we still avoid starches, carbs, sugar (we do eat small increments in things, but nothing major) and we feel much healthier. I confess that I have cheated a tiny bit over the holidays. Couldn’t reject my mom’s yummy cheesecake, so I had a small portion. And I shared a few gingerbread boys with my girls while at Disneyland. I have also had frozen yogurt a couples times, I just watch my portions and don’t do it often. I still want to live my life, I just want to be in control now. And I finally am!
Anyhow…this led to me to needing a good crustless quiche recipe for breakfast since we can’t have starch/carbs. I take my breakfast with me to my job everyday and I am very tired of my hardboiled egg and grapefruit combo. I am a creature of habit for sure but even I am sick of that same old meal now. I scoured the internet and finally found a recipe that seemed like something I would like. I made a bunch of changes since it was more of a casserole and didn’t say exactly what to use but it gave me a starting point. I decided I wanted ham steak, egg and a good cheese. I am a HUGE cheese fan. I chose a yummy aged gouda while on a trip to costco today and boy did I choose right!
Here is the crustless quiche making process photos and then recipe to follow.
Crustless Mini Breakfast Quiche
½ Kirkland Ham Steak
1.5 cup shredded aged Gouda
6 eggs
salt & pepper
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
heavy cream
Preaheat oven to 350 degrees.
Dice up ham steak into tiny cubes.
Shred aged gouda.
In large measuring bowl, add 6 eggs, 2 tablespoons dijon, a dash of salt (you can skip this if you want, since the ham and cheese are already salty, but I like me some salt) & fresh ground pepper, however much you like. Add the heavy cream til you get to the 3 cup line. Whisk together.
Spray muffin pan with canola spray, this is VERY important.
Put enough cheese to cover the bottom of each mini muffin. Add cubed ham til you get near the top, but still a bit below it. Pour your egg mixture over the cheese/ham contents til you get to the top. Add a sprinkle of cheese on top of each one. Gently poke each quiche with a toothpick to make sure the egg mixture has gone down into the entire thing.
Cook for 25-30 mins on 350. Turn oven to 450, move the muffin pan to the broil area and broil for about 1 min, watching closely to just slightly brown them. Remove from muffin tin immediately to avoid over cooking and allow them to cool on plate.
This made 3 full trays of 12 mini quiches, obviously 36 total. I packed them in sets of 3 in snack bags for breakfast. Kept enough out for a few days and froze the rest.
I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as I have. It is SO good!
I most definitely have a soft spot for teeny babies and this sweet guy was just perfectly little and so full of cuteness. He was such a good sleeper for me and honestly was a total joy to work with. Thank you for spending your day with me, it was great getting you know your new family of 3. I hope you adore these!
Is this not the most loveable little face or what?! hehe.
These two look way to good to have a 2 week old baby. I look worse 2 years after giving birth then they did at our session today. NOT fair.
I am so lucky to be able to watch these sweeties grow up. Looking back at all the images I have taken of them over the years literally makes me teary. And yup, their gorgeous mama is one of my closest friends and I am obviously equally lucky to be able to take pictures of her too. I love that this year was focused on her connection with her babies, there is no more special relationship on this earth, believe, I know. And I can see the love pouring out of these images. Even with a nightmarish migraine, I managed to still smile and enjoy my time with them, as always.
She couldn’t help but throw in the occasional cheerleading jump, LOL!
I can’t believe this time in our lives is already here. I can’t believe my first baby is now a kindergartner. It just seems almost unreal. She is growing too fast and has become such a beautiful big girl, no longer looking like a baby. I must use the term “big” loosely since she is by far the smallest kindergartner at school. I know it is normal to feel a bit sad when your child enters kindergarten but I also felt extremely proud. I was so proud of how well she did, being only 4 years old entering school and knowing what a wild child she is normally. I was so happy to see her doing so well and to see how excited she was to be there. This is just one of many exciting next steps to come in our lives. Here are a couple pictures from that special morning. She demanded she wear her Hello Kitty shirt with an apple, in honor of her first day of school.
It was still pretty much dark out and raining! You can see the streetlights are still on.
This is her buddy Alex from daycare, the son of our awesome daycare provider. We are so lucky to have Alex in Olivia’s kindergarten class, they are so excited.
and here they are on the bench outside of their classroom, waiting to go inside.
