Food Lately and Cloth Diapers

Ahh...do you feel the weekend's presence? It is upon us, my friends.

And ours gets to start a little early, because Terry has tomorrow (Friday) off! Hooray! We have a few laid back activities planned--Terry is donating blood, we're going out to lunch, hopefully some exercise here and there--but it should be a quiet weekend. It's been so nice to really kick back these last few weekends after our whirlwind month or so in May and early June. Next week we'll travel up north for my dad's birthday, which is always a hectic adventure.

Lately we've really been planning and (mostly) sticking to our meals at home. I always, always, always feel better when I eat mostly homemade foods, and yet somehow I always get suckered into wanting to eat out. I guess it's a little easier, and of course there are no dishes to do, but otherwise eating out does not make me feel good. Plus, it's expensive! I love cooking, I love trying new recipes, I love feeding myself and my family with foods I know for sure are healthy. So we're making a real effort around here to eat in as much as possible.

Of course, when we're presented with an opportunity to go out just the two of us, all that effort goes straight out the window and we run to the nearest restaurant to have a conversation over meals that we didn't cook and we don't have to clean up, and that's okay too.

So with that in mind, I thought I'd share some of what we've been eating around here lately:

Our second Blue Apron meal (blurry)--Pork chops with dressed sweet potatoes

Copycat Lara bar balls--1 cup cashews, 1 cup pitted dates, 2/3 cup unsweetened coconut, and 1 tsp salt

Our third Blue Apron meal--chicken pitas with tabbouleh

Marshall's meal (here are more!) the other day--a homemade muffin, roasted sweet potatoes, cheese, avocado, and yogurt with blueberries

Lunch twice this week: salad with shredded cheese, roasted sweet potatoes, avocado, and a Dr. Praeger's veggie burger (my first time trying it--very good)

Day date with Terry! We went to True Food Kitchen for drinks. Delicious!

....And a dinner date too! We tried out The Honor Bar, and the burger was awesome. Terry had the carnitas sandwich, which was also good.

Another Marshall meal--mac and cheese, peas, and grapes. 

YUM. Now it's 10 pm and I feel like I could go back and eat all those meals right now.

I also wanted to share our progress on using cloth diapers!

We moved into our place mid-May, and we love love love our washer and dryer. I caught up on laundry that first week, and we haven't had a build-up since then. I usually do a load or two every other day, and that keeps us on top of things around here. But having laundry in-unit also allowed us to bust out our cloth diapers again, which we had put away while living in our old place (walking up and down three floors plus paying per load was not a magical combination for wanting to wash cloth diapers three times a week). Here's an update in Q&A form, with questions I had before I started cloth diapering:

How many cloth diapers do I need?
We have a total of 16 cloth diapers, which would not be enough for a newborn but is just about perfect for a 14-month-old if we wash the diapers every other day. For a newborn (and for our next child), I would want at least 25.

Do I still need to buy disposables?
For us, it's unrealistic to expect to forego disposables altogether. I always have them on hand--at home and in the diaper bag--because a few times we've needed to run the wash for the cloth and have to use disposables in the meantime. Also, if anyone else is watching Marshall, I don't ask them to do cloth, unless they want to, so I always leave disposables on the changing table and they can choose. I'd say we use around 5-10 disposable diapers per week now (we still love The Honest Company), which is saving us a lot of money for sure!

Umm...how disgusting is it, exactly? And what is the cleaning process?
I was honestly never too worried about the mess or getting baby poop on me, but I can definitely see where some folks might think cloth diapers are gross or won't get clean enough or something. But it's pretty straightforward. We store wet/dirty diapers in a hanging wet bag and keep it zipped. For a newborn poopy diaper, you just throw the whole thing in the wet bag. Once we introduced solid foods, things changed, so to speak, so now we empty the soiled diaper into the toilet and then place it into the wet bag. It's not that bad, I swear. Of course, there are the occasional diapers that require extra scraping, but I don't want to get too graphic here. Feel free to ask me for more details...

Portable wet bag (for the diaper bag)

Every two days, we run a load of diapers (just diapers, no other clothes in the same cycle...maybe that's obvious). The only gross part is taking the liners out of the diaper covers, but it takes about a minute. We have a high efficiency, fancy washer, so we set it to do a pre-rinse and a hot wash so that the detergent and diapers get lots of quality time in there. Then we set the diaper covers to dry on our laundry rack (some are dry within about two hours) and throw the liners and wet bag (that gets washed too) into the dryer when the next load of regular clothes gets dried. Hopefully that makes sense. Then we insert all the liners before putting the diapers away, to make diaper changes quick and easy.

Oh! And we use All brand liquid detergent. I tried Honest Company, but it just wasn't quite strong enough, so until I find a more natural detergent that really works I'm going with All Free & Clear.

What brands should I buy?
I researched lots of reviews and decided to try two different brands. Most folks say you keep trying one of each brand until you find one you like, so I think we're lucky we liked the second one. Charlie Banana are not our favorite, but we have six and still use them. They are fleece on the inside, which is HOT for LA. Also, we've had lots of leaks in those, so we make sure to change them after 90 minutes or less. BumGenius 4.0 are my favorite. They have an insert that folds over for double leak protection, and Marshall sleeps all night in those (up to 11-12 hours, no leaks!).

BumGenius Freetime is super easy because it doesn't use liners; it has attached "liners" that fold over. But it's also pretty bulky and seems less comfortable. All of them work from newborn until potty training because they have snaps all over and you just adjust the snaps to fit your baby.

Pros and Cons?
Pros:
- Saves us money. Diapers are pricey, and our little boy eats a LOT, so we go through a lot of diapers (I'd say 6-8 per day, and that's at almost 14 months; it was more before!). We also got some of the diapers as gifts from our registry, and we've purchased a lot of them at Buy Buy Baby using a 20% off coupon.
-  I think Marshall is a little more comfortable, but of course that could be my own idea of comfort. They just seem less hot (except Charlie Banana--see above) than disposables because they breathe a little more.
- Good for the environment. Of course, the increased water use is a concern, especially in a drought, but we have the HE washer, and we didn't notice much of a spike in our water use, but we're keeping an eye on it.
- Cute! The diapers are cute, which I really don't care about, but I get compliments on them from other moms, so there you go.

Cons:
- They do take more time. Absolutely. Diaper changes themselves aren't more difficult, but of course it's an added two or three loads of laundry per week. But then again, I almost never have to buy diapers anymore, so no more running to the store just for diapers when we get low.
- The initial cost is pricey, because each cloth diaper costs $15-20. But of course, registries help, and as I mentioned Buy Buy Baby allows the 20% off coupons. We bought ours one at a time, whenever we had an extra coupon, and we have plenty now. There are cute gender-specific designs, too, but we stuck with solids and neutral so we can use them with our next baby (fingers crossed).
- If others are watching Marshall, I don't have them use cloth, because I don't expect them to deal with tossing poop in the toilet or figuring out which snaps fit Marshall best. Also, if Marshall were in day care, I don't think cloth would be worth it because I'm pretty sure most care centers don't want to deal with cloth. The logistics seem impossible.


So there you go! It's working for us right now, and of course we're flexible if for some reason it stops working. If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me or comment below!

What have you been eating lately? 

Jacarandas in Bloom

Hello to the last week of April! Crazy, right? I love this time of year, mostly because the jacarandas are in bloom. My favorites!

Marshall is ready for summer already; he chowed down on his first corn on the cob the other day! (We were at an event for Terry's work, and one of the attendees said we should charge admission for watching Marshall eat. I agree; it's that hilarious. This kid goes to town around food!)

Speaking of food, we finally tried Bachi Burger! The really famous one is in Vegas, but they opened one in Pasadena and another in West LA. It was good! The menu has a lot of Asian-inspired flavors and some unique combinations of meat.

In other recent events...

These two are finding more and more common ground as far as entertainment goes.

Today, for example, one of Scout's toys rolled under Marshall's Exersaucer, and they both helped look for it.

 Terry found this cute Superman outfit in Marshall's closet, and it fits the little guy now. When I met up with them in the store, I noticed Terry had draped the cape over the back of the cart seat. Gotta make sure everyone knows who they're dealing with here!

(Sunday morning shopping trips are the best. Quiet stores, empty aisles, tons of parking spaces. Ideal for shopping with a baby!)

Super intimidating, Superman.

I am not really a fan of herbal tea. I want to be, but I find the flavors too strong or too floral or too something. But then I found Peet's Lemon Rose tea. It's so good! No need to add any sweetener, either. Light, gently floral but mostly lemony, and perfect for a sore throat or to just relax at the end of the day. I finally bought a box of tea bags to have at home (and did you know that you get a free coffee or tea if you buy a box of tea bags?!).

Yesterday Jenn and I met up for a girls' lunch at True Food Kitchen. She had the lasagna (we couldn't figure out how the noodles were gluten-free, but they're definitely spinach with something) and I had the inside-out quinoa "burger" because it looked so good when Katie ordered it at lunch a few months ago. Delicious! I highly recommend both meals. Plus it was wonderful to catch up with Jenn. My awesome husband took over Marshall duties and hung out on Third Street while we had lunch; he and Marshall have been getting a lot of father-son time lately!

Tomorrow we're heading to My Gym for the first time in two weeks, since Marshall is finally not showing cold symptoms. I'm actually really excited to go back to our normal routine, even though it's about to get disrupted big time. More on that later!

Hope you have a fantastic start to your week!

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.

Fay and David's Wedding and CCC Copycat Salad

This weekend one of my best friends got married! And even better, Fay and David tied the knot at my very favorite place--UCLA. (If you remember, Terry and I visited Fay and David in D.C. this year before they moved to Oakland.)

Terry and I drove up with Marshall on Saturday afternoon and met Terry's parents on campus. They're UCLA alumni, too, and we were grateful that they were willing to hang out with Marshall during the wedding--our first time "away" from the little guy. (He did great!) Truth be told, being on campus with Terry and Marshall made me pitifully nostalgic, and I couldn't help wishing we hadn't moved so far away.

The wedding was absolutely perfect. A close friend of Fay and David's officiated the wedding, and his words were incredible. They were the talk of the reception--everyone sent tons of compliments his way. He talked a lot about how different places take on special meanings. Specifically, he emphasized that UCLA (the actual spot of the ceremony!) was where Fay and David met, and now it's where they got married. They also lived on the East Coast (Baltimore and D.C.), so those places now have special meanings, too. The ceremony was touching and beautiful and perfect for the couple.

I think my favorite part was that Fay arrived in a car! After the processional, the car pulled up at the end of the aisle and Fay got out. It reminded me of the Royal wedding. The couple asked that we refrain from photos during the ceremony, so I don't have any to share, but I loved the details of the day (feel free to stop over to my friend Divya's blog for some photos, though!). Terry and I both commented on the fact that it was such a perfect day that they didn't even need much decor. They kept it tastefully understated, and it really highlighted the beauty of campus (and the beauty of the bride!).

Terry and I sneaked away after the ceremony to check on the little guy and take a few family photos on campus (we couldn't resist), and then we headed in for happy hour. One of the best aspects of the wedding was that Fay and David essentially reunited a TON of mutual college friends. Terry and I had a blast catching up with lots of people we hadn't seen in years. I even chatted for a while with one of my English major friends, with whom I took my very first AND my very last class at UCLA!

The reception was awesome, too, although Terry and I headed home fairly early. We enjoyed catching up with more people, toasting the newlyweds, devouring the delicious meal, even squeezing in a dance or two. The speeches from the best man, maid of honor, and father of the bride were awesome, too. They focused on how kind Fay and David are, which is absolutely true. In fact, I don't remember who said it, but one of the speeches said:

Be as kind to each other as you are to others.

I think that's a terrific reminder. It can be easy, once you're so comfortable with someone, to forget about kindness. But of all the people we interact with, shouldn't we be kindest to the one we've chosen to marry? After all, they have seen us at our worst, stood by us through the tough stuff, and loved us even in the hard times. It was a great piece of advice.

Congratulations to the amazing couple!

And switching subjects...

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you likely recognize that I'm not a salad person. It's strange, because I enjoy quite a few different types of salads, and I even have several salad recipes on this blog. But when I eat out, I almost never order salads. I assume I won't feel full enough, which is also almost never the case.

(Source)

Anyway, the other day, after my doctor appointment, Marshall and I met up with a good friend for lunch at California Chicken Cafe. I had never been but had wanted to try it out. I wasn't sure what to expect, but the menu was pretty well rounded: wraps, chicken pieces, salads, sides. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of vegetable options!

So it's strange, then, that despite all the options I wound up choosing a salad. The California Chicken Salad looked pretty loaded, and if I'm going to get a salad it needs to have more "stuff" than lettuce. The description said:

California Chicken Salad
lettuce with white meat chicken, feta cheese, avocado, broccoli, carrots, bell peppers, tomatoes, croutons, and plain pasta with your choice of dressing mixed in

I thought the combination was fantastic and ended up eating nearly the entire (giant) salad. If I wasn't breastfeeding, I likely would have saved half for later. It was so good that I told Terry about it later and decided to make a copycat salad at home. We already had a few of the ingredients, so it made for an easy Sunday night meal.

CCC Copycat Salad
Serves 2

• 3-4 cups greens
• 1 head of broccoli (raw), chopped
• 1 carrot (or, in my case, about 5 baby carrots), finely chopped
• 1/2 green bell pepper, finely chopped
• 3 ounces feta, crumbled
• 1 avocado, cubed
• Dressing of choice (optional)

It's a salad, so you pretty much just toss everything together. I whipped up a little lemon vinaigrette, but Terry and I agreed that the salad didn't need it. The avocado was perfectly ripe and did the trick. 

Enjoy!

Of Possible Interest:

• 5 Reasons Modern Day Parenting is in Crisis