Watch What You Say

Having a toddler is the biggest mirror to your own behavior - what you do, what you say, how you react to things, etc.  It can be both amusing and horrifying.

We are officially being careful about what comes out of our mouths these days, because Ben is repeating EVERYTHING we say.  

Lately, we are particularly noticing some of the phrases Ben has been repeating and then incorporating into his own vocabulary:

"Hey guys, what are you doing?"

"Sup"?

"Guess what"?

"Hey, watch this"!

When he bumps into us lately, I've notice he will laugh and say "Oh, sorry Mama!", which sounds like "Oh, saucy Mama" because R's are hard sometimes. :)

And my favorite, from this morning when he had been up since 4:45 and refused to go back to bed, "You are bugging me" - which, BTW, he REALLY WAS :)

Meal Planning: Week of June 30th

Review from last week:

Not pictured, but we tried the Quesarito on Friday as planned and it was everything I wanted it to be.  Definitely my new favorite take out item.

Tomato soup was great on Monday.  Greg put some Costco meatballs in his, and he is on to something there.  #NextLevel

I opted for the vegetarian + fish plan this week for Blue Apron.  The risotto was alright - not a favorite, but I've learned I really like pea shoots.

The salmon over couscous was really delicious.  The fava beans and olives really complimented one another.  

On Thursday, Greg sauteed up some halibut (marinated in tequila and lime) and had his with chipolte cream sauce (nonfat greek yogurt + mayo + chipolte peppers in adobo sauce) while I had mine plain with this amazing salad.  I have left over goat cheese cream sauce that I just might pour over every meal I eat today.  Including my cereal.

Tonight I'll either clear up the leftovers in my fridge or make the last Blue Apron meal from last week (the ramen).  I'm thinking I could wait and have it for lunch this weekend - hoping all of the ingredients keep well!

Plan for next week:

Saturday: Greg and I are going to see John Legend at Chateau Ste. Michelle on Saturday night (so. excited.) and are planning to either have a picnic dinner at the show, or go out for dinner beforehand.  

Sunday: I saw this recipe for Chicken Ropa Vieja posted last week and knew that it would be something Greg would love. 

Monday: Leftovers of the chicken - "burrito bowl" style - over cabbage with maybe some black beans, cheese and rice added in.

Tuesday: Blue Apron Meal: Grilled Steak Tacos with roasted salsa verde and black quinoa "pilaf"

Wednesday: Blue Apron Meal: Buttermilk fried chicken sliders with homemade pickles and coleslaw 

Thursday: Blue Apron Meal: Crispy sweet corn & pea fritters with remoulade and pea shoot salad

Recent Photos

Due to Ben doing such a great job of giving up his bottle and binky, I wanted to reward him with a new truck.  The fault is all my own, but our house is slowly being taken over by vehicles of all shapes and sizes.  :)  

And speaking of trucks:

Greg dressed Ben up as a mini-Greg last Saturday when I was away.

Loving on Beau, my old hippo.

Reading in bed with daddy.

Outside the Lego store at the mall.

Ben brought me a stack of books one afternoon and said, "Mama read this one".  So funny.  And of course, I did.

A friend snapped this picture of Ben and Greg at Laryd's birthday party and it's my new favorite picture of them together.

A few pictures Callie snapped of the girls and Ben.  Out for gelato to celebrate Mira's last day of Kindergarten:

Playing at the park before the girls' dance lessons:

Lisa's Bachelorette Party

Lisa and Evan are getting married in August, so this weekend she (and 14 of her girlfriends) celebrated at Alderbrook Resort and Spa!  On Saturday Morning, we all drove down to the Hood Canal.  It was a surprisingly quick drive, which was great.  

Upon arrival, we learned about a reservation mix up (their mistake, not ours) and one of the cottages we had rented on the waterfront was not in their system!!  After a momentary freak out, they were able to make it up to us by letting us stay in a large house up on their golf course.  So the party was back on track!

We started the day by having lunch in the wine room at the resort.

Next up was wine and oyster tasting:

After returning to the house, we had Happy Hour - including the hilarious signature cocktail created by Crystal:

And finally, we had dinner (followed by lots and lots of drinks and games and good times).

Meal Planning: Week of June 23rd

Review from last week:

Last week was quite delicious, and fairly healthy, I must say!

The cedar plank salmon was amazing - so glad we finally picked up the planks to make this.  I paired it with roasting carrots and some baby potatoes I found in my fridge that needed to be cooked up quickly.  Rosemary on potatoes and carrots so great, BTW.  I'm officially CONVINCED I MUST make an herb garden soon.  Need to research that....

Camarones a la Mexicana.  Oh my.  So good and spicy and perfect.  

Saturday was cold and rainy and the perfect day to make our favorite tomato basil soup.  I also made a batch of the summer chopped vegetable salad that will be a new obsession of mine this season.  Yum.  If you invite me to a BBQ, please expect me to arrive with this.

Father's Day dinner grilled by Greg!  Side note - ever since Ben stopped drinking milk every morning and evening (he really only drinks it at night now), his appetite and willingness to try new foods has increased!  I love it.  (Don't get me wrong, he is still picky, but things are improving I think).

This baked pasta with sausage and spinach was a big hit with all of us.  Greg was a little hesitant at the spinach (he must have forgotten that he likes vegetables now), but the flavor was great and this was dinner 3 nights in a row.  I'm glad I decided to make the full recipe :)

Since I had run out of chicken, I picked up a roasted chicken from the store to go with our mashed sweet potatoes and snap pea salad.  Is anyone else as confused as I am when it comes to sweet potatoes vs. yams?  

Plan for next week:

Friday: Taco Bell. I'm not kidding when I say that I've been thinking about trying a Quesarito all week.  Friday will be the night.

Saturday: I'll be out of town for Lisa's bachelorette weekend on Saturday evening.  We are staying at Alderbrook Resort and making our dinner as a group in one of the cottages we are renting.  Perfect, right?  I've been asked to be in charge of our dinner, so we will be having Blood Orange Salmon and I think the squash/mint/feta salad that I've made recently.  Greg and Ben will be attending a friends surprise (pizza) birthday party that evening.

Sunday: I'm planning on heading to Costco on Sunday when I get home, so I'm thinking we will just pick up something to throw on the grill.  Dinner TBD.

Monday: Crockpot tomato soup and grilled cheese.  We forgot how good this was - must have it again!

Tuesday: Blue Apron Meal: Lemon & Pea Tendril Risotto with Saffron & Microgreens

Wednesday: Blue Apron Meal: Pan-Seared Salmon over Whole Wheat Israeli Couscous with Fava Bean Olive Relish.

Thursday: Something easy like Costco ravioli or tuna helper :)

Friday: Blue Apron Meal: Spring Vegetable Ramen with Garlic Scapes, Shiitake Mushrooms and Boiled Egg.

RIP, binky

We said goodbye to our beloved friend last night.  YES, the argument could certainly be made that this should have happened a long time ago - but to that, I say WHATEVER.  This beautiful, plastic creation has been a source of comfort to my little guy and resulted in daily 3+ hour naps and wonderful nights of sleep for a very long time :)

As with nursing, and then the bottle, while I knew the end was coming, it ended with a quick in-the-moment decision and I'm not looking back - no matter how tough it might be.

The reason I decided to just rip the band aid off (so to speak) was twofold:

1) Ben already was not going down for the night well for some unknown reason.  He sat up chanting "I want mama and dada's bed" 50+ times in a row (no exaggeration) and required us to go in and get him 3 separate times over the course of an hour or so.  We already weren't sleeping, so why not just do it now.

2) His binky was so chewed up that I was starting to fear it was becoming a choking hazard.  Once that occurred to me, I had to get rid of it.

I'm pretty sure we have never seen him cry as hard as he did last night, but eventually he fell asleep with us and I managed to transfer him back to his bed.  Nap time wasn't quite as bad today, but he refused to lay down and go to sleep for about an hour.

Soon, I know it will be a distant memory.

Milestones.  Ugh.

***UPDATE on 6/17***

Ben went to bed last night with zero problems. No asking for the binky, no arguing about wanting to sleep in our bed, no muss/no fuss.  We read three books and followed our normal bed time routine and that was it.  I'm a little shocked and beyond proud of him (and completely relieved).

Father's Day

We feel lucky every day that Greg is in our lives - but it is always nice to have a special day dedicated to it each year!

Our day was pretty routine, except on this day I let Greg sleep in a little and made him breakfast :)  We went to the mall to let Ben walk around, Greg went for a run when the weather cleared up, and we finished the day grilling burgers.  As a gift (to himself), Greg had one of his golf clubs fixed up.

Greg, I hope you feel our appreciation and love every day - but a extra special THANK YOU for being the most fun and funny dad around!

Meal Planning: Week of June 16th

Review from last week:

The lemon-parsley thighs meal was great - particularly the salad.  I don't know that I had ever consumed zucchini and yellow squash raw before, but sliced thin and tossed in olive oil, feta and mint - unbelievably good (and easy - which is even better).

Ben opted to have a granola bar instead:

When Hilary was in town, we ordered a Kale Caesar salad when we went out to dinner - apparently she had had one recently and it was a new favorite.  It was so good that I wanted to recreate my own.  The dressing was a bust so I ended up improvising and googling other caesar dressing recipes and it all ended up pretty tasty!

Cedar plank grilled salmon - yum.  And also, try a little rosemary on your roasted potatoes or carrots and a little white truffle oil on your arugula salad and you will feel a professional chef.

Finally, this chicken wedge salad was amazing and so easy.  I don't think I had ever made blue cheese dressing from scratch before but I certainly will be doing it again.  

Plan for next week:

I wasn't feeling the Blue Apron menu this week, so we skipped it again.  

Friday: Camarones a la Mexicana.  Yes. Please.  With a huge side of guacamole and a margarita.

Saturday:  Grilled flank and the zucchini/squash salad I had last week as a side dish. 

Sunday:  Father's Day!  Since Greg LOVES to grill so much, he wants to make cheeseburgers for his own special meal.  Who am I to stop him?  I'm hoping he throws some scallops on the grill for an appetizer, too :)

Monday: Summer Vegetable Chopped Salad.  I'm going to make a large batch of this for dinner with plans to eat leftovers of it for lunch the following few days.

Tuesday: Tomato basil soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Wednesday: Baked Pasta with Spinach and Sausage (halving this recipe).

Thursday:  Chicken with mashed sweet potatoes and snap pea salad.

Our weekend in photos

I've found that doing a quick weekend recap is a great way to create space on my iPhone.  Post here and delete.  Perfect.

I came home from work on Friday to these gentlemen mowing the lawn.  As much as it pains me to admit it, I'm really NOT outdoorsy (at. all.) so it's wonderful that Greg is.  And for the most part, he enjoys having his little sidekick with him when he has things to take care of in the yard.  In an effort to get outside with Ben more, I think I will try throwing down a blanket (in a nice, shady area) and bringing out my laptop to allow Ben to roam free while I WFH.

Saturday morning, Greg prepared for his run while stretching in the front room with Ben. Not pictured, when Ben fell over backwards.  It was hilarious.  Also not pictured, when Greg left for his run and Ben stood in the window crying "Dada runs and BEN RUNSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS".  

There was a touch-a-truck event up on Monroe on Saturday that I had been really excited to take Ben to.  In typical Ben fashion, the more excited WE are to do something (Disneyland, Gymnastics, this event) usually correlates to him having an epic meltdown of some kind.  Greg and I joked on the way home (after a very short visit) that we should consider ourselves lucky that Ben is so "simple", and enjoys all of the free things in life: parks, family walks, throwing rocks into the water, and of course, digging.

Ben was not feeling the whole "waiting your turn" aspect of the truck event :(  Impatient like his mama.

On our last trip to the grocery store, I picked up a pad of plain white paper for him to write/color/paint on.  On Friday evening, I let him go nuts with the paint outside and after he was done, I thought they might be cute "abstract" paintings to frame :)  Kinda fun and definitely the right price.

On Saturday evening, Rachel and Raleigh came over to eat dinner with me.  Correction - Raleigh came over to NAP, as he did so for over an hour.  But before he did, Ben enjoyed running around him, snatching away every "baby" toy he could from Raleigh, and even got down to "crawl" up next to him.  I can't wait for them to be 2 and 4 and to watch them play together.

On Sunday morning, we went down to the Bothell Landing park so that I could go for another run.  I kind of hate how much better shape Greg is in than me.  It's pretty motivating living with someone that does hard physical labor Monday - Friday, and THEN feels the need to get a 5+ mile run in each weekend.  

So anyway, I ran 1.5 miles and considered it a major victory and then we followed Ben around the park for awhile.  

That cowlick, though.

After running some errands, we thought we would test out bringing a toddler to the Woodinville wineries to do a few tastings!  Surprisingly, this was very well received - AND he even was given a sucker which bought us extra time.

Finally, on Sunday evening we went over to my friend Susan's house for a BBQ!  Susan and I did teacher training together, along with Glen (pictured below) and several other people I still keep in touch with.  Susan (in the glasses) owns Bindi Yoga in Lynnwood, and Lydia (pictured below) recently opened up Leela Yoga studio in downtown Bothell.