Caution: short week ahead

My work weekend is over, I taught three days of classes, helped with a two year old's birthday party, and assisted in a theme change-over and I have a short week ahead of me. I filling in for a co-worker who's in Ireland (jealous!) this Friday and next, so I'll only be home Tuesday through Thursday. Nevertheless, I'm determined to make all the dinners I have planned. I ended up skipping a couple last week, but I'm alright with that. 😊

Anyway, here's what I have planned for next week...

Tuesday got off to a lazy start so far, the boys had eggs and bananas, then we read books and listened to the news

After nap #1 we had lunch, I had a salad and the boys had toast with bananas and apple sauce.

I steamed some carrot and apple pieces (separately) for the freezer during the afternoon, the boys had another nap after daddy got home, and I got some chores done too!

They had butternut squash pieces and rice cakes for dinner, and split a jar of peas. (I need to get some frozen!). I made chicken cashew stir fry for the grown ups, we were almost out of hoisin, which I had to improvise around, and I added snow peas, it turned out pretty good!

Recipe here: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324716825049/

All in all it was a good, relaxing day at home with my men ☺️

Solids and stuff

On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I teach play and learn classes at Gymboree. It's a nice opportunity for the boys to spend some quality time with their dad, and a chance for me to shake up my regular routine (and make a lil $$) the kids I teach are 9 months-2 years old and I also do birthday parties for 1-5 year olds. It's such a great oppertunity to meet other parents and caretakers as well as the awesome kids, and it feels good to be able to help the adults connect with and learn about their little one's development.

Tuesday is my first day home with the boys this week.  I decided to start giving them solid meals today, mostly because they have 4 teeth each now, but also because we're currently out of baby food. 😁

They had scrambled eggs, sliced pears and toast for breakfast...

...bananas and rice cake for lunch...

...and lightly mashed potatoes, butternut squash cubes and kale chips for dinner.

I also made up a new menu for this week!

I'm already a bit off schedule. I made the enchiladas last night, but everyone went to bed early, so we'll be having those for lunch this week. 😃  I did make the salmon tonight though, and it turned out great! 

Salmon recipe here: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324716857575/

Horseradish mashed potatoes recipe here: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324716951564/

The kale was just sautéed and steamed with grape seed oil and salt & pepper.

Friday for me

Fridays are my 'Sundays'. I work Saturday-Monday and stay home with the boys Tuesday-Friday. Our main car is in the shop, and I have to drive the truck to work tomorrow. It's a stick shift, which I can handle, but the truck has no power steering, so I'm going to be practicing my strong arm skills a little later on tonight.....

All in all it was a productive day. Fridays are always a little bitter sweet, I really like my job, and I feel like it's good for me to get away for a few days, and make a little extra money, but it always makes me a little sad to not be with the boys during the day.....I mean, look at Hunter, my little den creature! How cute is that face??

Always creeping under the furniture!!

Speaking of the boys, they both have two top teeth and two bottom teeth now, so to celebrate, they had a solids only breakfast! Scrambled eggs and toast! Yay!!

I also made a really delicious dinner tonight! Porchetta with tomatoes, olives, garlic and Marcona almonds w/ rosemary & Kale

Porchetta recipe here: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324717081185/

For the topping, I toasted the almonds (half cup or so) in a large, rimmed, oiled skillet, then I added the olives (1/3 jar, drained) and the roasted garlic from the porchetta (just squeeze the cloves out of the halved heads right into the skillet) and some rosemary needles. Stir around a min or so until fragrant. Then add tomatoes (do not drain!) some salt and pepper and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated. At this point, I added a handful of kale and turned the heat off and covered while I prepared the plates and sliced the porchetta. I then put 2-3 slices of porchetta, and topped with a generous amount of the topping.

Topping ingredients

Bon Apitit!

Procrastinating some

Today I had a lot of chores around the house planned, but the boys slept until almost 10, so I took full advantage and slept in too. 

I've been thinking a lot about balance and about how hard it is sometimes to stay motivated to do certain things, even if they're really good for you. I wish I was the kind of person who could rise with the sun, drink a warm lemon water before doing some yoga and making a smoothie while catching up on current events and leading the kids through a mess free art project, all before 11 am, but I not, and, quite frankly, I kind of hope that sort of person doesn't actually exist, it's too much to live up to! However, I did get most of the chores done, rescheduled a few, and actually got the boys dressed before noon ;)

Lazy day

The last two days it was sunny and 60 degrees, definitely not typical for January, however, today, my firs day off of the week, it was overcast and in the 50s, which is still, more like April, but it was a good day for sleeping in, haha, jk, the boys were up at 8:30, seriously though, it was a good day for laying low and lounging around with my two little men.

Today was also the 70th anniversary of the liberation of aushwitz, 

which fed the sort of somber day, I read news reports about it, and contemplated the ways in which I can help be a person working for a better tomorrow, to ensure this sort of thing never happens to the marginalized of society ever again.

We also listened to the radio to help keep the mood calm and not to 'dark', and I downloaded the first episodes of season 4 of Scandal (obsessed!) which I later devoured once Dave got home.

Speaking of devouring, I made a great mustard & leeks chicken recipe, and this awesome beet/green bean recipe too.

Mustard chicken recipe: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324716961827/

Beet carpaccio with green bean salad recipe: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324716959332/

Turned out great!!

It's what's for dinner

Hey-o! I've recently been making dinner menus for the week, I'm a list maker, and it helps me to use things up before they go bad! Anywhoozle, tonight I made white pizza with grilled onions and mushrooms, bacon, roasted kobocha squash, and spinach. I've made the white sauce before, and it's so good! Definitely not low fat, but I mean, the best things usually aren't, amirite?

I don't make my own dough, I use the trader joes herb pizza dough already made, you can make your own (obvi) or you could do it with a cauliflower crust if you have a good recipe for that, please share! I've yet to get it just right.....

Back to the pizza, sauté a small yellow onion, sliced into rings, and mushrooms, any you like, (I used shiitake, sliced) with some olive oil, 2-4 Tbsp. Then fry up your bacon, I used 3 strips for 2 pizzas, I had half a kabocha squash roasted, from a previous meal, so I peeled and sliced up half of that (1/4 squash). I also pre grated half a round of hard mozzarella. I put a pizza stone in the oven and preheat to the highest setting. I flatten the dough into a 10-12 in round on a well floured board (I need to get one of those pizza boards, I had a heck of a time getting it off my cutting board and onto the hot pizza stone) then spread the white sauce. Then spread out the onions and mushrooms, then chop up the bacon and sprinkle it around, spread out the squash, then cover everything with mozzarella. Slide it onto the pizza stone and bake for 8-10 min, let it cool 5 min then sprinkle raw spinach on it, let cool 4-5 more min, slice up and serve!

Roasted kabocha squash: http://pinterest.com/pin/502151427173321089/

White pizza: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324716090222/

 

These two little guys were standing by, no pizza for you, just yet! ;)

Twinning, to me

I've been slowly sharing about my experience carrying, birthing and now raising identical boy babies. I was nannying for two of the most amazing little humans I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and pregnancy while definitely a reality for me, was still abstract, and mostly just really uncomfortable.

 My belly grew much faster than I had thought possible, even though eating was something I did out of necessity only.  I always felt at least slightly sick to my stomach, but I had to eat every two-three hours or so, otherwise it got much worse.  I won't get into any more specifics here, but, like all pregnancies, I was a mix of your mostly average, run of the mill grab bag of symptoms at first. I made the adjustments I needed to make dietary and lifestyle-wise and soldiered on. 

When they told me I was growing TWO babies, I'll admit, I was thoroughly freaked out. This was going to mean a way bigger change than I was mentally prepared for. Me and a little against the world was something I could handle, but with two, I was out numbered!

This was going to have to be a much bigger commitment than I could handle on my own. However, my BF assured me he was still on board, so we embarked on our version of the insta-family. Turns out, we make a pretty good team, and everyone in both our families were super thrilled about our new, well, life.

I was going to be 35 years old when they made their way into the world so this qualified me as 'advanced age' and, with the whole twin thing, (turns out they were going to be monochorionic, diamniotic ('mono/di') identical twins, pretty rare) and the fibroids, I was considered high risk.

I also developed gestational diabetes and I ended up having to rely on western medicine WAY more than I'm really comfortable with, but I followed my gut (haha) as much as possible and, overall, was happy with my experience. My boys decided to come earlier than we had anticipated, baby A ruptured his sack, and at 31 weeks, 5 days they pulled them out. They weighed a bit over 3 lbs and almost 4 lbs at birth. Due to the fibroid placement I knew early on that I would be having a cesarian birth, so I didn't get to hold them or see them for a couple hours, and when I did get to see them, I could only touch them a little. 

I didn't hold them until they were a couple of days old and only for a couple hours at a time. I went home after 3 days, and they stayed. I felt really guilty about going home to sleep every night, but now I'm glad I did. I gave myself time to recover fully, but every day for at least a few hours I would get myself ready, go to the UW NICU and hold and feed my tiny babies.