Friday Off

It's day 2 of our three-day-weekend-at-home, and it's been great so far. Yesterday started with breakfast smoothies, some play time at home with Riker, and then a trip to the gym. I haven't been to the gym in SO long because my work schedule prohibits it most of the time; the gym daycare doesn't open until 8:30 am, which is when I'm already dropping Riker off at daycare. Most of my workouts the last few months have been living room circuits or videos, walk/jogs around the neighborhood or yoga at the studio on the weekends, so I was excited to finally get back on a treadmill.

I completed 30 minutes on the treadmill alternating between 5 minutes of high incline walking and 5 minutes of low incline jogging. I finished up with some arms strength training and a couple sets of ab exercises. It felt great to finally get a workout in at the real gym.

Matt's sister Missy took Riker for a few hours so we could go run some errands, including picking out Riker's birthday present and stopping by HomeGoods for some bedroom spruce-up fun.

The white summer quilt I bought in the spring was starting to be too thin for the chilly fall weather, so it was time for some new winter bedding. Normally I go with tans and browns, but I felt like we needed a  pop of color for once - red it is! I have a few small red accents throughout the room already, so the new bedspread matches perfectly. I love it!

After our shopping was done we met up with Missy, Riker and MomMom for lunch at Atlanta Bread. Matt and I split a large Greek salad and then each got bowls of soup.

There were surprisingly quite a few vegetarian options, but the carrot ginger really piqued my interest. It wasn't as ginger-y as I'd hoped, but it was still good, and really pretty.

A few more errands and tasks around the house later, and then we were off to spend the evening at our friends' Chris & Karla's house for dinner. Kevin, Heather and their girls came too. Between all three families we had 5 kids running around, and it was honestly really fun watching the kids play together and entertain themselves happily while us adults hung out and caught up. Not a bad day to spend a Friday off. :)

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Not much is on the agenda today besides yoga with the girls this morning and maybe a little bundled up beach action later today. Oh and this.

We're taking the plunge and starting to potty train Riker since he's been showing signs of being ready. Today's the first day of wearing real underpants, and he's really proud of it. Ha! I'm sure it'll be a bit crazy staying on top of him all day today, but at least the morning started out peacefully with a quiet breakfast in the kitchen while Riker slept in nice and late till 8:00 am.

The third book in the Divergent series is finally out, Allegiant, and I've been reading it ferociously for the past 3 days. I plan to finish it this weekend, squeezing in a chapter every chance I get. Addicted!

Enjoy your weekend!

Breakfast for Dinner

Well it's Thursday night, and I'm really excited because today is actually my Friday. I have a bunch of vacation days I need to use up before the end of the year, and Matt has off school tomorrow so I decided to take the day off to extend the weekend a bit longer. We have no real plans other than starting to shop for Riker's birthday presents (how is he turning 2 already?!) and having an evening pizza play date with our friends Chris & Karla, so I'm really looking forward to a nice relaxing couple of days. 

I got home from work in the city around 8:30 tonight with one thing on my mind: staying up late to watch Thursday Night Football, which never happens since we usually have work on Friday, and breakfast for dinner.

Oh, yes. I've had a super ripe avocado in the fridge since yesterday, and literally all day long I've been craving an egg & cheese sandwich with avocado on Ezekiel bread. Like, daydreaming of Miami breakfasts and thinking of this every hour since the moment I woke up until the moment I got home.

I know, it's a weird thing to obsess about all day. But it was sooo good. Everything I hoped and dreamed.

I've actually been eating breakfast for dinner a lot lately, but it's mainly been in the form of peanut butter toast or "ice cream" smoothies. I haven't been feeling up to par for the last few day - actually weeks - with a never-ending dull headache, stuffy nose, sore throat and general tiredness. Fun, right? I've been trying to push through and keep to my normal routine, but it's been tough to eat full meals with vegetables every night for dinner. Needless to say, a lot of the dinners on my meals list have gone unmade. :/ Smoothies have been my go-to breakfast, snack and lunch on many a tired day.

My two faves lately have been the strawberry and the peanut butter banana smoothies. I make them so thick that I can eat them with a spoon out of a bowl, and it tastes almost, almost like soft serve ice cream. Soothing on the throat!

In the berry one I put:

- 1 cup frozen organic strawberries
- 1 scoop Essential Natural vanilla cake protein powder
- 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk

In the banana one goes:

- 1 frozen banana, sliced

- 1 scoop Essential Natural vanilla cake protein powder

- 1 Tbsp. PB2

- 1 Tbsp. organic all natural peanut butter

- 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk

Never fails, delicious every time.

Candle Giveaway Winner

And we finally have a winner for the Diamond Candles giveaway - congratulations to Jillian Toomey! I'll email you your coupon code and you can get to work picking out your candle. 

Goodbye Truvia, Hello Coconut Sugar

Ah, Sunday morning. I love Sunday mornings every week because they're usually slow and relaxed, but today is extra relaxing because I have the whole house to myself for a few hours. After a family breakfast of egg & cheese sandwiches on Ezekiel bread, Matt left for soccer practice and Riker got picked up by his grandmom to head out for the morning. It's just me, a cup of coffee and my Food Network shows. And a little shopping as soon as the stores open.

It's been a few days since I had a chance to post, so for a quick catch-up, here's what's been going on around here.

Our little pumpkin scored himself a mountain of candy, which we've all been snacking on the last few days. I need that stuff to be gone soon.

He also scored some new Elmo slippers, which he refuses to take off when he's at home. Love that silly smile.

In addition to candy, we've also been gorging ourselves on freshly roasted pumpkin seeds, which I made after Riker and Matt carved pumpkins the other day. These are sooo much better than the ones in the store. I just tossed them with a bit of olive oil and some sea salt, then baked them at 325 for about 10 minutes. We literally stood at the stovetop eating the first batch hot off the pan as soon as it came out of the oven. So salty!

Friday night was a "free day" for dinner and of course no one felt like cooking, so we had a family night out at our local fave place, The Spot. I didn't snap a pic, but I had fish tacos and they were delish as always.

Saturday was a big day out for food shopping and errands, which of course started with meal planning. Here's what's on the docket for the next few weeks:

1. Herb Crusted Red Snapper (Old Standby - a Weight Watchers recipe I make often in the winter)

2. Southwestern Salmon (Fun - a new WW recipe I haven't tried yet)

3. "Burgers & Fries" (No-Brainer - soy for me, grass-fed beef for the boys, and butternut squash "fries")

4. Penang Curry with Tofu and Pineapple (Fun - from my Eat Clean cookbook)

5. Broccoli "Cheddar" Soup with Paleo Biscuits (Fun - also from Eat Clean)

6. Lentil Vegetable Soup (Old Standby - need to start using the 5 pounds of lentils my mom gave me when I was home a few weeks ago)

7. Tandoori Tofu with Grilled Vegetables (Fun - from the Eat Clean cookbook)

8. Miso Salmon with Salad Greens (Fun - from the Eat Clean cookbook...can you tell I spent a lot of time flipping through that book when meal planning this week?)

9. Spaghetti Squash & "Meatballs" (No-Brainer - Soy crumbles for me)

10. Crustless Quiche with Kale (No-Brainer)

11. Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai (Fun - found it on Pinterest)

12. Spinach Lasagna (No-Brainer - in the freezer from when I made two of them last week)

I also have a few other goodies stashed in the freezer for any crazy weeknights that come up.

I actually made the Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai last night, which was quite an involved process, but pretty fun to make and tasty to eat.

I love Pad Thai so was intrigued at the idea of using spaghetti squash - a favorite ingredient of mine - instead of rice noodles to cut down the carbs. I used this recipe and it turned out nicely, but both Matt and I agreed it needed more punch. We have leftovers for lunch today, so I'm going to make some more of the sauce and doctor it up a bit. We like things really flavorful around here.

During our grocery outing yesterday we stopped at a new Indian grocery store that opened up in Toms River, and Matt picked up two handmade samosas to have with dinner. They were crispy, spicy and delicious and went perfectly with our little Asian meal.

We spent the rest of the evening sitting out back by a fire. Such a perfect evening.

Once we all return back home around lunchtime today, all that's on the agenda is some laundry, football and baking. I picked up some fun new finds the other day and am itching to try out some energy bar/ball recipes with them.

Pecan butter? Say no more. And after reading the truth about sweeteners on Food Babe's blog, I've decided to ditch the Truvia that I used to rely on for baking and swap it out for coconut palm sugar, which is not processed and is all natural. I won't get into the deets here, but if you're a Truvia / stevia user, you should definitely check out what Food Babe has to say about it - very eye opening!

Enjoy your Sunday!