April coming to a close

We are aproaching the end of April so quickly. I just can not believe it is almost May. Our year anniversary will be here before we know it. Just so crazy to think about. It sure does not feel like a whole year has almost already gone by. We had another great weekend. I can not say it was relaxing because we were hardly home to relax.

We all know the term "when it rains, it pours". Well that was true for us on Friday. My tire last week found a nail that it allowed to call home. Luckily it was caught fast enough that we only had to patch it up. But, in the meantime Justin's car decided it did not want to start so he took his car and got a new battery. We thought it was back good as new but guess what it was not! Car would not start again a few hours after being fixed and so we had to have it towed Saturday back to the people who originally "fixed" it. He picked it up today and it is back working again. It had gotten moisture in something under there and that caused it to not crank. Luckily they fixed it free of charge, YAY! On Saturday after the car deal we went and started getting prices on the stuff we will be buying for the new house. We got to go ahead and order our new couch! We picked out all the rest of our furniture we are having to buy and luckily they keep all the other stuff we want in stock at the local warehouse so they will be able to deliver it in 2 days or notifying them. We picked out our refridgerator, washer, and dryer as well. We were glad to get that all done. So now we will just continue to wait. We thought we had some potential buyers but it turns out none have made an offer. We have had 3 different showings in the past week but no takers.

The shower Saturday night was great. We had a great turn out, and they got some great stuff. We were so happy for Brad and Mary. They now have only 2 weeks left until they get hitched.

The parentals are coming for a visit this upcoming weekend. We are real excited because it has been a few weeks or so since we last saw them. So another great weekend ahead of us. Some relaxation should be able to happen for us so that is great.

That is all for now and wishing to everyone a great week!

Busy, Busy, Busy......

WHEW! Is all we can say right now. It seems like we are going and going. Wait, we are! We've had two baby showers we hosted back to back and a wedding shower we are hosting this Saturday. After this one it is our last for now. Until, someone else we love has something going on I am sure! So far they have all been very successful! Great turn outs and a great time with friends. We have not had many weddings yet but no worries that will all really start May 1st. Our good friends Brad and Mary are getting hitched that day, so we are looking forward to celebrating that special time with them. So between babies and weddings that is all we have been up to this month.

Our new house update is they FINALLY poured the foundation. WHOO HOO!! That was very exciting. They are "supposed" to start framing this week. I went by yesterday and they had the wood out there so I hope they make some progress this week on it. We have had a little excitement finally with our current home. Two different couples came by between Sunday and Tuesday to look. The first couple had just started looking but loved our home but they were still looking at some others as well. The second couple loved our home but wanted a garage and so they made an offer on the town home across the street! Real bummer! But Jennifer, our realtor really thinks things will pick up since it is crunch time with the tax credit. We will see....

I do not know if anyone checked out any of my recipes I posted on the last post or not but I am going to start posting more recipes we have tried out. We are really enjoying all of them and the GREAT factor is they are all under 500 calories. I will be posting some cooking healthier tips and what not's. I am also going to try to start really getting into the coupon clipping world so I will be posting some good links to good deals as well. This week will be the first week I am looking for some deals so I will report back on how that went.

As some of you know I love the planet and love Earth Day! It is coming up so you should really check out things in your neighborhood that might be going on for Earth Day. Also, you could always plant a tree in your yard or something like that. I have not made our plans yet but I will let you know what we do. It is April 22nd this year so do not forget. Here are some things going on here in Birmingham for us B'ham people to check out! Oh and one thing I know Justin and me are doing is going to see the movie "Ocean's" by Disney. It is going to be really cool and a portion of your ticket will be donated to Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, Disneynature and The Nature Conservancy who are helping establish new marine protected areas in the Bahamas. So you can see a movie and be helping out! For more information here is the website, Disney movie Oceans

Earth Day at the Gardens
Earth Day Parade and Celebration
Earth Day at the Botanical Gardens


Here is a really good recipe I made last weekend. Friday night we cooked out at Amy and Scooter's and I made a Bacon Cheese Dip for an appetizer and it was YUMMY!

Bacon Cheese Dip

Prep Time: 15 min. Cook time: 10 min. Ready In: 25 min.

Yields 16 servings

Ingredients:

4 slices of bacon

1 (8 oz.) package, low-fat cream cheese, softened

1 cup light mayo

8 oz. Swiss cheese, shredded

2 green onions, finely chopped

4 ritz crackers, crushed

Directions:

1. Place bacon in a large skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble, and set aside.

2. In a small bowl, mix the cream cheese with mayo until smooth. Stir in Swiss cheese, onions, and bacon. Place bowl in microwave, and cook 2 minutes. Remove, and stir well. Return to microwave, and cook 2 to 4 minutes more. Sprinkle crushed crackers on top. Serve warm with crackers.

**Ritz crackers were very good with this dip. Also pita chips could be a very good with this as well.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving Calories:239 Total Fat: 23.1 g Cholesteral: 38mg

-Compliments of allrecipes.com

Jumping into Spring!

Is it really the first of April already? I think someone has to be playing an April Fool's joke on me....hummmmm????

Well, here we are the first of April and like always our lives are running rampid all around us. We have been very busy these last few months. Still no progress on the house besides we have gone to our plan review, and both decorator meetings. Everything is offically picked out for our home. Now all we need is for them to start building it! Our close date is still set for June 30, but we are sure that will change since that is not that very long and like I said we don't even have a foundation yet. So we will see. We are just ready to see what it will turn out like. Now we know what we "hope" it will look like but you know it is nerve racking in the meantime because all we can think is "did we make the right choice?" But, we are hoping to see some progress soon though. Still no offers on our house but we aren't that concerned since signature will be buying it at closing of our new home if we still haven't sold our current home. But, it still would be very good if we could sell it on our on.

Justin has been very very busy at work lately. Working like a busy bee besides the fact he did get to play golf yesterday.....haha. Everything with his job seems to be going great still which is a blessing! My work is still going great! The boys are getting so big now and it's so much fun.

We have literally had something every single weekend here lately and our social schedule is not slowing down one bit until somewhere around June. WHEEWWW! I will need a vacation by then that's for sure. We have 5 people in our lives pregnant. Three gave birth within a week of each other and now we have 2 left. We have 7 or so friends getting married and we have only been to one wedding so far the rest are to come! So between actual weddings, wedding showers, baby showers, birthdays, and actual baby births we might have a day just to be lazy but not much. We are very blessed to have so many great friends in our lives so we do not mind being there for them at this time.

So as you can tell everything around the Rolling household has been great the only bump we have encountered lately happened to me last week! As some of you might know I, Kala Bass Rolling, has been WORKING OUT in the mornings before work, I repeat WORKING OUT! You all know I am not the most motivated person when it comes to excerise but I still haven't figured out where all this motivation has come from but I actually like it. :) So anwyays, back to the point of the story. So like I said I had gone to the gym that morning around 5:30 a.m. worked out for an hour and was getting ready for work at the gym when a girl came in and asked for a Kala Rolling. So I said, "Hey, that is me." She went on to say a police officer was up front and needed to speak with me. I started panicking immediately in my head. Why would a policeman need me? Has something happened to Justin? What could I have forgotten about that would cause police to be involved? So I went to face him and that's when I learned I had been the latest victim of a crime! Yep, some thug busted out my front passenger window and snatched my purse! I know I know, why in the world would my pruse be in the open for anyone to grab? I felt stupid because that is one thing my family has always said DO NOT LEAVE ANYTHING VALUABLE IN SIGHT! Which I always follow this rule and the one day I'm not thinking striaght I slip up and BAM it finally happens to me! :( I always have said I would not care if someone stole my purse because they would be very disappointed because I never have cash. Well that is still true except I did have $2 in my wallet. Haha. So ends up the criminal went to wal-mart used our credit card to purchase a t.v. immediately after stealing my purse and also went and filled up his car tank with gas. Luckily we got to everything else fast enough and our credit card company new something was weird so they were already in process of contacting us by then time we called them. Bad part was we had to pay $150 insurance deductible for my window to be fixed and I was without everything!!!! But this story does have a good ending at least! The thug stole a car the next day and got in a high speed chase with Vestavia police. He abandoned car and ran away. But, luckily for some reason he had my purse with my wallet still in it! Which is now still at police department. We should be able to pick it up today and keep your fingers crossed that everything is still there! We were informed yesterday that the low-life was arrested and now is facing 16 different charges, one being he resisted arrest and pushed an officer. So of course they had to beat him down with baton. HA! The officer thought we would like that! So he should be going to jail for a little while! YAAYY!

So that's our latest excitment. As I mentioned above I have been working out 3 times a week for 2 weeks now so keep thinking about me and hope I will keep it up. We also have been trying to eat healthy during the week. I will post the links to some of our favorites. I am reading a very good book right now called "The Self-Health Revolution", it's very good and really opens your eyes about what you eat. I know you are thinking it's one of those health nuts right? Actually it's not like that at all. Yes, they talk about healthy eating but it just tells you the scary truth about what we are putting in our bodies. It just encourages eating all natural food. If you didn't know you can still get good and eat snacky type food too. And that is what this book informs you about. What things are good and what is not. So you should read it, but beware you will get freaked out!

Have a great weekend and below are those recipes you should try out!

http://www.glamour.com/bbg/2010/turkey-chili
(I add bush's chili beans or kidney beans)

http://www.glamour.com/bbg/2010/spicy-chicken-skewers-and-roasted-vegetables

http://www.glamour.com/bbg/2010/turkey-burger-and-green-bean-fries

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/quick-recipes/dinner/6-quick-chicken-recipes/?page=6

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/quick-recipes/dinner/healthy-pizza/

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/quick-recipes/dinner/healthy-burrito-recipe/

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipe/turkey/caesar-turkey-wrap/

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipe/chicken/chicken-jambalaya/

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipe/chicken/spicy-chicken-pizza/

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipe/chicken/southwestern-chicken-stir-fry/

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/quick-recipes/dinner/easy-healthy-beef-recipes/?page=7

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/quick-easy/twenty-minute-meals-00000000028853/index.html

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/healthy-eating/nutrition/the-you-can-do-it-diet-dinner-choices/?page=17

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/healthy-eating/nutrition/the-you-can-do-it-diet-dinner-choices/?page=16

Keeping up with the Rollings.......

Again, time is flying by like always. Justin and I have been very busy lately and it's only getting worse each day! We have had so many big decisions and changes lately I haven't even had much time to tell anyone anything.

Justin received very exciting news about a month ago at work. His boss decided he deserved a very very nice raise which he agreed! Haha, so after that wonderful news we decided to put our house on the market to just do it. Shortly afterwards we decided to just start checking out neighborhoods and homes to get a feel for everything. So we found some homes and neighborhoods we really loved and so we went with our realtor to just browse. After going to one of our favorite neighborhoods we found out that the company that develops some neighborhoods in Birmingham called Signature Homes, which developed two of the neighborhoods we loved, offers a deal to some clients where they buy your home from you so you can build a new bigger home in one of there neighborhoods. So immediately Justin thought there had to be a catch somewhere but we were reassured by the agent that it cost nothing to just check to see if they would possible want to do the deal with us. So we said it wouldn't hurt to check. So our realtor and the agent swapped info and the agent said she would let us know if we would be able to get the deal. So that following Monday our realtor called us and told us Signature Homes had decided they would like to make a deal with us. She told me the details and I called Justin to tell him. Signture told us they wanted to buy our home and while we were building our new home we still could try and sell it on our own but at our closing on new home if our old home was not sold then they would buy it for the amount they offered. So after talking about it all we took the deal and we are currently going through the whole building a home process. We have had our first plan review meeting where we went over all the pre-framing stuff, this Friday we are having our first decorator meeting where we will pick out the exterior, floors, cabinets, and countertops. Our estimated close date is June 30th but could change depending on weather. Which it has been pouring rain all week so far so who knows. We haven't had much luck on people interested in our home but maybe someone will buy it but if not Signature is! :) So that's our current exciting news....I will be posting pictures as the house comes along.

So besides the house we are attending weddings, wedding showers, and baby showers. It has taken over my life and I literally have one of the 3 every single weekend until late June. Some of them are overlapping each other. So we are trying to make everythig possible! We have 5 people we are close to having children, includng Kris and Jeff. The remainder are all weddings and stuff. So we will be exhausted by the end of the summer to say the least.

Work is going good for us both which a major plus these days, so keep praying it will continue this way. We are hoping we can take a trip to somewhere for our anniversary but we will see.

We have been "trying" to eat healthy dinners and we like them so far. Some better than others. Of course I can not saty 100 % commited but I have to have my sweets! :)