Long Weekend and Mr. Smee

On Thursday evening we opted to avoid cooking to prevent heating up the apartment even more, so we assembled BLTs for dinner.

Friday night Terry attended his high school's football game, so Marshall and I were on our own. I almost never give Marshall his bath because Terry is the Bath Master, so it was extra special and super fun!

Saturday we attended a memorial service, which was really lovely. It included military honors, which I've never had the chance to see, and I thought the ceremony was so touching. We were out most of the day and made it home for dinner and bed for the little guy.

Today we "slept in" by Marshall's standards (6 am!), so we ate pancakes and headed out for a long walk to the farmers' market with our neighbors. But not before making fun of Scout for choosing the most ridiculous lounge spot ever.

 I accidentally dressed Marshall like Mr. Smee.

How cute are these photos Terry took?

 We scored the three bags below for only $5! And the three types of hummus are SO good.

Then we cooled down with smoothies--frozen spinach, frozen berries, yogurt, peanut butter, milk.

Terry and I took advantage of Marshall's nap with some chores and errands, plus Day 2 (yeah, that took a week to get to the second video) of the 30-Day Challenge for Yoga with Adriene. It wasn't too crazy, but I tweaked something in my lower back and have been hobbling around a bit all day.

When Marshall woke up, we took him to the splash park!

He was pretty into it! And thankfully it wasn't too crowded, so we didn't have to worry about big kids trampling him.

Back at home, we made pudding, and Marshall played with the whisk.

We did leftover Greek couscous salad (greens, couscous, feta, cucumber, tomato, red onion, garbanzo beans, red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and lemon juice), and then once Marshall went to bed we prepped some food for the week: grilled peppers and onions for lunches (to wrap up in pita with hummus) and this recipe for overnight slow cooker oats to enjoy for breakfasts.

Meal plan for the week:
 - Ina's risotto with grilled chicken and green beans
- soup of some sort
- lots of leftovers :-)

Workouts should be better this week because we're allegedly heading toward some cooler weather. Maybe a jog or two to celebrate? Hopefully more success with the 30 Day Yoga Challenge?

Happy start of the week to you! I hope it's a great one!

Getting Out in LA

Happy Monday to you! Today I'm writing during Marshall's nap; we'll see how far I get before he wakes up. Lately he's slept anywhere from 60 minutes to three hours, so I try to be ready for anything.

In an effort to get out of the house and stay out of the (admittedly not-too-hot) heat, we finished up our weekend yesterday with a lovely visit to the Getty. It's $15 for parking but otherwise free, and it turned out to be great for our little wanderer to walk around. He only had one minor meltdown in the Rembrandt room, so we called the day a success. Terry and I agree that it's always nice to get out to enjoy the unique attractions LA has to offer, but it's so easy to make excuses--we're not feeling well, it's too hot/too far/too something, it's not toddler-friendly, whatever. But days spent hanging around the house tend to feel dull and we all get restless, so we're adventuring out a bit more.

Marshall was absolutely enthralled on the train!

View from the Getty

Staring at the moving sculpture

Lots of walking!

This morning, since Terry's at jury duty again, we had the morning all together. I made fried eggs to enjoy with our toast and plum slices this morning.

Then we walked to the park :-)

I love the park early in the morning because it's so quiet. Of course, I like it when Marshall can meet and interact with other kids, but it's nice when I can let him explore on his own without my having to worry if a big kid will accidentally knock him down. 

As it's Monday, I'm eagerly looking ahead at the rest of the week. I finished up that pathetic meal plan I started yesterday:

Monday: Pesto, goat cheese, and grilled vegetable (onion, zucchini, plus roasted red bell peppers) sandwiches on whole wheat

Tuesday: s (mostly so we can have leftover soup the rest of the week for lunch!)

Wednesday: Out! Special treat :-)

Thursday through Saturday: Hello Fresh! Meal (I completely forgot to cancel my subscription, so we have another week coming at us)

And for workouts, I'm slowly feeling well enough to get myself moving again. We walked this morning, and I got some major shaky legs from a Pilates-inspired workout at home tonight. The other day I did my EMOM 20 (Every Minute on the Minute--6 push ups per minute), plus a bunch of different biceps and shoulder exercises in between. I still feel a little sore today, which is nice, considering I've barely done any sort of workout in almost three weeks. So much for an active summer, huh?

Today's adventures: lunch (more meatball pita pizzas because they were amazing), finding new sunglasses for Marshall, and the grocery store. 

Any exciting plans this week? I am loving that Terry's on jury duty, because his days are shorter and we get more time with him in the mornings! Maybe we'll all feel well enough to take advantage of the cool morning weather and head out for a run one of these days...

What I Ate (and Did) Wednesday

Well hello ladies and gents. I scored myself NINE solid hours of sleep last night by going to bed and somehow bribing the baby to sleep through to six o'clock without any wake ups at all! Thank you thank you thank you, Marshall! I woke up feeling one million times better, and I'm well on my way to 100%. 

I started the morning thinking I'd participate in What I Ate Wednesday, but I didn't get photos of everything, so keep that in mind. I also still don't have a huge appetite, which almost never happens, so it's significantly less food than I'd normally eat. Breakfast was a fried egg, a biscuit with jam, and a bite or two of banana that Marshall so sweetly shared with me.

We spent a chunk of the morning playing around the house and my big-eyed boy let me take a photo of his sweet face. He's 14 months tomorrow (today, if you're reading this on Thursday), and I can hardly believe it!

Mid-morning, to fend off that nap a liiiiiittle longer (we're transitioning to the one-nap schedule, but he's not quite ready to make it to 11:30 or noon, so we're moving it back a little at a time), we headed to Target, where they have wide aisles and friendly staff and plenty of room for a toddler to, well, toddle.

And toddle he did! Up and down the aisles. Note to self: The toilet paper/paper towel aisle is perfect for a 14-month-old to practice walking. Nothing breakable or tiny.

Then Marshall crashed hard for an almost-three-hour nap. Yes, when they say "good sleep leads to good sleep," they are not kidding. Sleeping through the night almost always leads to an awesome nap the next day, which then leads to another great night of sleep (knock on wood). If that cycle could just always continue, we'd all feel perfectly rested around here!

I prepped Marshall's lunch while he was sleeping and munched on 3/4 of a peach. It was SO perfectly ripe!

We shared leftover couscous Greek salad for lunch, plus the peach above and some pineapple. Then Marshall had some work to do: moving his toys from one box to the other. 

He's weird.

For some fresh air we headed out for a walk, sunglasses on to protect our eyes. And our identities. 

I whipped up a batch of Fitnessista's latest creation. I quadrupled the recipe (why not?), but not the maple syrup. They were plenty sweet! Oh, and I didn't have almond meal or protein powder, so I just omitted those and they turned out fine.

Freeze-dried strawberries were new to me, but they are insanely sweet! I don't think I'd eat them on their own. Marshall loved them, so I guess that's something. In this recipe, though, they added a nice sweetness. I crumbled two on a bowl of yogurt with some peanut butter this afternoon, which was delightful.

We spent a good hour reading in the afternoon (Marshall's books, not mine, which is sad because mine is My Life in France by Julia Child and I absolutely love it so far), and then when Terry got home the boys hung out while I made dinner. 

BOOM.

I had a craving for meatballs, and Terry read my mind and said meatball subs, so we put them on the menu this week. When I got sick I worried I wouldn't get to them, because if I had felt as badly as yesterday I would've ordered a pizza instead. But with health back on my side I threw on an apron (too late, as always--must I splatter myself before I remember to wear an apron every time?) and got to work. I have made meatballs before, but I can't remember them being phenomenal, so I tried my own recipe. I looked up a few online to see what they have in common (at least two types of ground meat, breadcrumbs, and salt and pepper were really the only commonalities), and then I turned to my Sicilian friend Jenn who knows all Italian food better than I do and asked what she does. With a few tricks (no breadcrumbs! toast the bread, then dip it in water, squeeze out the excess, and rip it into pieces), I went with:

- 1 sauteed onion and 4 cloves garlic, allowed to cool (I would use half an onion next time)

- 2 hot Italian sausage links

- about 18 ounces ground beef (more or less would've been fine; it was what I had)

- 1 teaspoon each of dried parsley and dried oregano

- salt and pepper

- 3 pieces of bread prepared the way I described above

- 1 egg

All mixed together by hand and rolled into balls, browned 1-2 minutes on each side on the stove (big pan, lots of olive oil, medium-high heat), then set on a baking sheet to cook the rest of the way through at 350 degrees in the oven (about 8-10 minutes). I left some out to cool to freeze for later and threw the rest in a pot of jarred marinara sauce, simmered about 20 minutes, and threw 'em on some rolls with mozzarella and lots of sauce. Delicious and hearty meals, and quite tasty meatballs, if I may say so.

For dessert I had one more strawberry ball and am calling it another semi-early night. Hope you had a lovely Wednesday! 

Best thing you ate today? Mine was for sure that meatball sub. Such great comfort food!

Keeping Cool and Plans for the Week

Hello and happy week-start to you. It's sweltering here, and we're starting to get a sense of how our new place handles heat. Verdict: Not very well. It's not bad on a warm day, because we don't get too much direct sunlight, but if there's no breeze and the air outside is just thick and hot like this weekend, we're in for a rough time. Thankfully, we have fans and cold water, so we're just muddling through.

We took a midday break today to grab some ice cream at new-to-us Beachy Cream. Their ice cream is all homemade, and our peanut butter fudge + hot chocolate flavors were deeeeelicious. We even gave Marshall a few bites! 

How is it that kids always manage to get food all over, even when they just get a bite or two? Good thing it looks adorable. Also, Marshall now officially loves his sunglasses. At first he just wanted to rip them off, but now he rolls with it!

Unfortunately, the little guy was under the weather for most of the weekend. He came down with something toward the end of the week and even got a fever last night. He slept pretty restlessly, but some teamwork and lots of comfort got us all through. The timing is tough, because it's SO hot so he's likely even less apt to sleep well, plus coughing keeps waking him up. Poor guy.

The poor sleep and short naps meant an afternoon nap was absolutely necessary (he has pretty much phased out the second nap!), so I got to hang out on the couch reading my latest book, which I borrowed from my sister-in-law. I'm reading My Life in France by Julia Child, and so far I LOVE it. Well hello, it talks about Paris and food, so I imagine it doesn't get much better.

The rest of our weekend was mellow to the point of boredom. Honestly, I think we're so used to planning ahead and having at least one big activity every day that when we stumbled upon this free weekend with no plans we sort of fell into a slump. Among the heat, Marshall being sick, and our lack of planning, we couldn't think of a single thing to do. So we hung close to home, wandered around the mall, took a walk or two, hit up the farmers' market, and tried to stay cool. We ate a lot of leftovers, too, so aside from a delicious batch of chili (Terry's creation), the food was pretty uneventful, too. I didn't even really work out because I wasn't feeling great. Talk about boring, right?

So anyway, here's to a better week ahead. We have plans for some good meals:

Crunchy Vegetable Sesame Noodle Salad

Homemade meatballs (I'm planning to just wing it as far as a recipe...but I'm sure Ina has something) for meatball subs

Homemade biscuits for egg sandwiches (made them tonight for dinner, so leftovers will be breakfasts)

Couscous Greek salad, similar to this one but using couscous instead of quinoa

For workouts, we are continuing with the theme of consistent but smart, incorporating plenty of rest as needed but still hitting all the essential aspects of fitness: strength, long slow cardio, flexibility, and interval/HIIT work. 

Monday: yoga

Tuesday: 20 min jog + 20 min walk

Wednesday: Upper body strength

Thursday: Lower body Tabata + strenth**

Friday: Long walk 

Saturday: Probably something quick because we'll be up north to celebrate my dad's 60th! Woo hoo!

**Last week, we did a Tabata workout at the park (we alternated while one of us hung out with Marshall and the other completed a round of the workout):

20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest:

Squat jumps

Tuck jumps

Jumping lunges

Plie squat jumps

(Repeat = 4 minutes)

That's one round. Then we rested and the other person went and we did it again for a total of 8 minutes. 

PLUS: 25 walking lunges (repeat x2 for 75 total)

My original thought was doing it for 16 minutes total (HA!) plus more leg strength stuff, but apparently we're not in that kind of shape yet. So now our new goal is to keep repeating this workout each week until we can build up to those 16 minutes. I'm still mixing up the other days of workouts, so hopefully it won't feel boring, but it'll be nice to see some progress (hopefully) as we build our endurance. 

Okay, I'm off to shower and get into bed early to ensure I don't get whatever Marshall has. Hope your week starts off wonderfully! Here's to cooler weather! 

Spontaneous SD Weekend & Plans for the Week

Hello friends! Hope your week is off to a great start. Can you believe it's almost April? Terry's birthday month! Hooray!

Around here, let's back up a bit, because I get to decide what we discuss here. Friday was a pretty rough day. I desperately wanted to go for a run, but when we got to the park Terry found a screw in one of our tires. Thankfully, despite a fairly long wait, we got the tire repaired (instead of having to replace the whole thing), and they didn't even charge us! WHAT?! I thought it was a joke. We also used the long wait to walk a bit to lunch, so I did get my exercise after all.

Terry had to work down in San Diego (both days, as it turned out), so we made a family trip of it and all drove down Friday night. I feel like there's never a good time to throw a baby in a car for two hours, but we try to start road trips when Marshall is ready for a nap or for bedtime. In this case, we went to his usual swim lesson, ate dinner and packed at home, and then hit the road after Marshall's bath, right around bedtime. Of course, we had to wake him and put him back to sleep when we arrived, but then he slept through from there, so we all got some rest.

Terry's call time was six a.m. both days, but Marshall has been waking up around 5 or 5:30 lately anyway, so it worked out that he was our alarm clock. We dropped Terry off at work on Saturday and then headed out to enjoy our day. I planned to let Marshall nap in his stroller during a walk, but I learned an important life lesson: When your kid doesn't fall asleep for the first 45 minutes of the walk (at which point you stop into Jimbo's for a juice and a Lara bar for sustenance), then you have to keep walking once the little dude is actually asleep, which leads to a 6-mile walk and 12,000 steps before nine a.m.! Luckily San Diego is perfectly gorgeous, even in (especially in?) the suburbs of North County, so I enjoyed lovely views during my walk.

Delicious!

We popped into a few stores later in the day, grabbed a late lunch, and met Daddy at the park after work.

The next day was more of the same, but less walking and an earlier end time for Terry, so we headed back home. We kept last night super mellow--roasted sweet potatoes, leftover crock pot chicken, black beans, shredded cheese, and some salsa verde. And then some roasted Brussels sprouts. Why not?

Today by the end of the day, we all needed some fresh air, so we hit up the local park. Terry took some photos of our little dude. I can't believe how much he's grown since our first times going to that same park!

He did this after watching a bird, so we assume he's brilliant and knows how to flap his arms.

Look at that tiny bug in there! You can barely see his teeny head!

Alright, folks, tomorrow is Tuesday. Here's our plan for the week, food and fitness-wise.

Monday

Breakfast: Sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts (leftovers) with an egg on top, plus a pumpkin muffin

Lunch: Out

Dinner: tomato bisque with salad and bread

Fitness: Light walk at the park

Tuesday

Breakfast: Oatmeal

Lunch: Leftover chicken and sweet potatoes for Terry, leftover soup for me

Dinner: Mac and cheese and broccoli and peas

Fitness: Yoga!

Wednesday

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with toast and fruit

Lunch: Out (Mom & Marshall), Leftovers for Terry

Dinner: Veggie quesadillas

Fitness: Long walk, maybe jog a little?

Thursday

Breakfast: Overnight oats

Lunch: Sandwiches, fruit

Dinner: Breakfast for dinner! Frittata? Waffles? Who knows?

Fitness: Full body strength workout

Friday

Breakfast: Leftovers from Thursday night

Lunch: Who knows?

Dinner: Eggplant parm

Fitness: Jog at the beach

Hope you have a wonderful start to the week!

Catching Up and Marching On

Happy March, everyone! Honestly, February was not my best month, so I'm looking forward to a much better one this time around. So moving on from my major lack of posts last week, we're on a roll with two in the first two days of March! Let's play catch up...

My parents came to visit for a few days last week and got to join us at a My Gym class!

I took advantage of my mom's presence and had her help me buy a ton of wine at BevMo (5 cent sale for the win!). Terry and I are helping to organize a big reunion for a range of years from our college summer job, and I got to be in charge of alcohol. We hit up Costco for beer and came in under budget for everything, so then we bought more. :-) 

Speaking of beer, I took my parents to True Food Kitchen, one of my favorite restaurants, and tried this organic Pilsner. It was delicious and tasted like Prague. :-) (I only had sips of beer while in Europe last time because I was pregnant, but I got the idea and loved them all!)

This weekend I completed a full-body strength workout, and it felt fantastic! I wrote "30 minutes," but I was way too optimistic. Reality: I did it twice through, but 20 minutes is better than nothing! It was tough and my hamstrings were nice and sore the next day.

My friend's mom is becoming an amazing photographer and asked if Marshall could model for her, so we went out on Saturday morning for a little photo shoot. I took this glamour shot on my phone. Hers are better.

Saturday night Marshall got to hang out with Jenn and Justin while Terry and I attended an awards dinner (my stud of a husband got an award with his team at work!). We had fun dressing up and hanging out with adults and pretending we weren't too tired to stay up past ten. I even got all fancy with my hair and tried a side ponytail.

Turns out side ponytails are SUPER in right now, because I saw about thirty others at the party. Oh, well. At least I'm up with the trendy kids (er, engineers and engineers' wives).

Saturday night was Marshall's first time being babysat with non-family, and he did great! (Unless Jenn is lying, but I'll take her word for it.) We had no sleeping option for him, though, so on Friday we went shopping for a travel crib. We never bought a play yard, even though it seems like everyone has one, because I couldn't figure out what we would use it for. Well, once Marshall grew out of his co-sleeper, we decided we wanted something he would fit in for at least another year. The Pack 'n' Plays seemed so little, and since Marshall is a pretty tall kid, we decided on the Joovy Room^2. It's huge and simple and exactly what we needed. The Pack 'n' Play would have been great if we needed more bells and whistles, because they have options for changing stations for newborns or little napping cocoons, but with our small house we never needed an extra spot like that. So I think this option will work great for when we go places where Marshall will need to sleep, and it should work for at least a year or two!

Oh and here's a photo from the dinner we attended:

(Blurry, because hotel lighting is less than awesome.)

Yesterday I had meal-planning block, so we made it a super quick grocery trip, but I think we'll still eat well for a few days. Bananas, milk, salsa, bell peppers, canned tomatoes, spinach, frozen broccoli and peas, Ak-Mak crackers, tea, heavy cream, and tortillas.

Our only planned meals this week:

Sunday: blueberry pancakes, veggie chicken quesadillas, tomato bisque

Monday: leftover blueberry pancakes, leftover bisque, chicken legs with this quinoa squash pilaf my mom suggested from Trader Joe's (frozen section)

Tuesday: leftover veggies from Sunday with eggs, out to lunch, leftover chicken and pilaf

Wednesday: who knows? 

We'll figure it out as the week moves along.

And now for some miscellaneous photos:

Scout is not allowed on the kitchen counters (pretty much our only no-cat zone), but sometimes when I feed Marshall he climbs up there because he knows I can't do anything about it until I'm done feeding the baby. Such a butthead.

On Friday I got to be the one to take Marshall into the pool for swim class. It was SO fun! I was nervous (Terry was a competitive swimmer and even taught little kids, so he's more confident with dunking an infant in the water than I am), but we did well. Pre-class family selfie!

Marshall now grabs the cart like this pretty much every time we go shopping.

We got a travel high chair like this one and practiced with it at home. It attaches to a regular chair and holds him up. So funny!

And that's it for today! Hope your March is off to a fantastic start. I'm determined to make this month a great one!!!

When was the last time you went to a fancy party? 

What's your favorite beer or wine? Beer: Beach House Amber from Strand Brewing Company. Wine: Frank Family Zinfandel (red) or Alpha Omega Chardonnay (white), but I'll take champagne over those any time, probably J Vineyards.