My Second Mother's Day

Today marks my second official Mother's Day as a mom (I missed 2014 by this much), and it was a perfect day. We woke up early, as usual, and Terry made sure to give me time for my morning wish: a workout.

You're quite mistaken if you think I finished that whole thing. I set the timer for 25 minutes but ended up taking a few breaks, and I also stopped at 20 minutes instead of 25. Also, those "bonus" minutes of walking lunges just didn't happen at all. Given how sore I already feel, it was a wise choice to stop when I did!

After breakfast (Terry made French toast--and Marshall ate more than either of us did!), we all headed toward Venice beach for donuts and a walk. A friend told me about Blue Star donuts, a shop that started in Portland, Oregon. We were at bit taken aback at the prices ($4 for one donut!), but the treats absolutely lived up to the hype. 

I chose a buttermilk old fashioned; Terry went with chocolate ganache almond. Mine won, but both were unique and delicious. Next time I want to go back with more people so we can try a bunch of different flavors (especially the apple cider fritter and the Mexican hot chocolate!). 

Marshall got a small piece and loved it!

We strolled along Abbot Kinney for a while,

and then we headed over to the Venice canals.

(running to give Daddy a hug)

(looking for the butterfly who flew away)

After such a busy morning, we got our first car nap in a very long time. Excuse the dirty mirror.

Another awesome Mother's Day treat: some gifts from people I love, including cereal, chocolate, homemade cards, a manicure/pedicure (coming soon), and a card from my mom.

After lunch and putting Marshall down for his real nap, Terry and I enjoyed a relaxing afternoon--some TV, some tidying, some food prep, some small projects around the house. 

My dinner request was homemade pizza, and I decided to tackle a copycat version of our favorite Old School pizza from Fresh Brothers (a Southern California chain). It has a spicy sauce, sliced meatballs, pepperoni, and pickled vegetables, so we made the meatballs last night (baked about a dozen of them for the pizza, froze the rest raw to use another time). 

For the sauce, I combined the pickled vegetables (we just used a jar of giardiniera from the store), diced tomatoes, and a bit of leftover pasta sauce.

For the dough, we used my favorite recipe.

And then we layered everything up with mozzarella (and forgot to take a photo of the final product).

It didn't taste too much like the original, but it was delicious and made two full pizzas, so we have plenty of leftovers for lunches this week.

And now we're chilling on the couch, catching up on Once Upon a Time and munching on some of hat chocolate I mentioned earlier. 

Some more miscellaneous fun from the week:

Saturday's breakfast: scrambled eggs with spinach and ricotta, raspberries, and toast with ricotta.

Copycat Chipotle bowls (brown rice, black beans, tomatoes, sauteed onions and peppers, cheese, salsa, guac, and yogurt.

A lunch for Marshall this week--hard boiled egg, blackberries, frozen peas, and a carrot-applesauce muffin.

These sweet, sweet teacups my brother and sister-in-law sent me for Mother's Day! Aren't they so cute? 

I recently made a batch of this baked oatmeal, which was pretty good. I still haven't found a steel-cut oatmeal recipe that I LOVE, so if you have any I should try, please let me know! I also want to try this one again with pecans instead of peanuts. I love peanut butter, but I don't love peanuts the same way, so maybe pecans is the answer.

And now I'm off to get this week started! Enjoy yours, and happy Mother's Day to all the moms, moms-to-be, and moms-at-heart. <3