4th of July Celebrations

I hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July! We didn't watch fireworks or attend any parades, but we enjoyed some lovely time with friends over the course of the day.

After Marshall's first nap, we all headed out for lunch with some of our best friends. The kids (four total so far!) are so fun to watch and play with at this age (ranging from 27 months down to 4 months), and we even managed a tiny bit of adult conversation along the way. We chose Mendocino Farms for our meal, which was tasty, but Terry and I agreed that we felt like the sandwiches were a bit small (and heavy on the bread/light on the meat and veggies). Still, we would try it again because one woman had a sandwich that was STUFFED with turkey. Which sandwich was that??

After lunch, we tried our best to get a photo with all the kids and moms and ended up with...some hilarious shots.

Oh well. (Thanks for the photos, dads!)

I did insist on capturing a little family photo:

After lunch and a nap in the car for Marshall, we headed to our Fourth of July party at my friend Amanda's house. Amanda lives in Vegas, but her parents hosted a get-together yesterday, which was so much fun! 

Marshall got to go for a swim, but he was SO excited about being in the water that he seemed to have forgotten all his swimming skills (back float, holding his breath while dunking under water, and jumping off the edge of the pool). Naturally, Terry and I are now scrambling to find a way to get him re-enrolled in swim lessons!

 I made these simple fruit kabobs with a cream cheese dip. Marshall ate about a quarter of them.

We even had some volunteers (Amanda's mom and her friend) who offered to watch Marshall for over an hour so we could really enjoy the party! While we were playing Amanda's ridiculously difficult trivia game, Marshall learned how to make a "moo" ("oooooo") sound! Super cute. And I got to kick back with this guy:

(You'll notice he changed outfits; that's because the party was actually School Spirit themed! The trivia game was crazy difficult because a bunch of the questions required us to figure out the names of fictional high schools from movies and TV shows. Harder than you think, my friends. We did not win.)

But we kind of did win, because we got to enjoy a fun day with friends, and even though I completely forgot to take a picture with Amanda, I did snap a photo of this delicious cookie. (Made by Jessika, who went to pastry school, so yeah, they're pretty good.)

We raced home to try to get Marshall to bed at a reasonable hour (7:40--not terrible, but definitely late), and then we watched Crazy, Stupid, Love for the tenth time. Love that movie. Ryan Gosling, you are a wonder.

We ate a giant cupcake while watching (way too many sweets yesterday!). The cupcake was from Sweet Arleen's a shop that won Cupcake Wars. The cake itself was only okay, but the frosting was incredible.

Marshall woke up early (in baby world, late to bed means early to rise, and Marshall proves it time and time again), so Terry graciously offered to let me sleep a little longer. I finally joined the boys at 6:45 or so, and Marshall already went down for his nap at 8 am(!), so Terry and I enjoyed a quiet breakfast: leftover berry crumble with yogurt and peanut butter. YUM.

And now it's time to enjoy the rest of our Sunday before a long week begins! Here is our meal plan:

And I'm thrilled to say I'm back to some variety in my workouts. On Thursday we did a strength workout (completed each set twice before moving to the next):

Set 1: Dumbbell Plie squat --> Biceps curl --> Overhead press (15 reps--on last rep pulse at bottom of plie squat 15 times) + 15 push ups

Set 2: Alternating dumbbell step ups (or backward lunge) with squat in between (30 reps--on last rep pulse at bottom of squat 15 times) + 15 bench dips

Set 3: Alternating renegade row (10 reps total) + 1 min reverse plank

Set 4: One-leg glute bridges (15 reps per side--on last rep pulse 15 times) + dumbbell chest press (15 reps)

Set 5: 100 crunches of choice + 30 Russian twists with dumbbell + 2 mins rest

And on Friday I put on Bob Harper's Yoga for the Warrior DVD while Marshall napped. Definitely challenging, but yoga felt gooooood on my muscles. This week I'm hoping to get in some long walks (running is taking a bit of a backseat this week after our June challenge), more yoga, and a bit of strength. 

Hope you have a wonderful week!

What did you do to celebrate the Fourth?

Are you a morning person or night owl?