Meal Planning: Week of September 16th

Review from last week:

 

Instead of chicken gyros, we opted for smoked BBQ chicken with peach/mango sauce.  Delicious.

 

 

The creamy tomato basil soup was really good, too.  I used less than half of the cream the recipe called for, but I didn't notice much difference!  I took half of it over to Rachel's house and Greg and Ben ate it at home.  Greg told me Ben ate an entire bowl of it, and said "dip" every time he dipped a cracker into it :)

 

 

The steak and eggs recipe was delicious, too, and took approximately 7 minutes total to make (if you don't count the time I spent burning the first round of bacon, nursing my minor burn wounds from splattering oil on myself from the pan, and trying to get all of the residual smoke this created out of the kitchen. Still, worth it).

Recipes for this week:

 

Sunday: Cod, Tomato/Lemon Quinoa and roasted asparagus.

Monday: I have a butternut squash that I purchased mistaking it for a spaghetti squash, so I'll be giving Butternut Squash Soup a try.

Tuesday: Maid-Rites and sweet potato fries - I read about this recipe on another blog, and OMG it sounded good.  And since it's apparently a Midwest recipe, I figured Greg would approve.

Wednesday: Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken

Thursday: Cobb Salad Pizza 

Friday: Left-Overs or out to eat.

Work Retreat at Suncadia

 

On Monday afternoon, I got on the road and drove to Suncadia for my 2 day/2 night work retreat.  Our staff of 16 (who is spread all across the state) only gets together about 4 times a year.  I really only have the opportunity to see my coworkers who are based at the HQ on a regular basis, and there are only 7 of us - of which many are often out for meetings, travel, or working from home.  It is kind of amazing what technology has allowed us to do in terms of operating a business in such a disconnected way, at least in terms of face to face time.

 

However - there are some things that really do require time together, and sometimes, it's best to do that away from the day to day distractions at home.  We also have a new employee, my boss, so it was the perfect time to get away, focus, and put together a plan for the 4th Quarter, along with our goals for 2014.

 

I had been put in charge of organizing our retreat - finding a (somewhat) central location, reserving rooms, organizing "fun" activities, and getting the food and drink squared away.

 

After several of our choices closer to the middle of the state had been booked, we decided to go after Suncadia - who just happened to have had space for us.

 

We all arrived on Monday afternoon at various times.  After checking into our (amazing) condos, a few of us grabbed a drink and took in the spectacular views.



 

Next up, I had organized a cooking demo.  Our entire team took part in assisting the (hot) Suncadia chef in preparing an Italian feast.  He later clued us in to the fact that he had already pre-made our entire meal, and that often times, the food these groups prepare gets eaten by the staff ;)  Probably a good idea.



4 of our Project Managers

 

Me, Shauntel, and the chef

 

 

 

Linda, me, Shauntel and John (our Prez)

 

 

The entire IW team enjoying our meal.

 

The next day was a full day of meetings.  THIS was the view outside our conference room.  Luckily, we had several break out sessions that required small group work - so we got to hit the patio for those.

 

On Tuesday evening, we had dinner and drinks out on the lawn at sunset, followed by S'Mores around the campfire.

 

 

 

 

At the end of the night, Patric treated us to some piano tunes.  At all of our conferences (really, whenever he can get his hands on a piano) he will play for us - all improv, always impressive.

 

To answer your questions:

 

Yes - we got a lot of work done.

 

Yes - we enjoyed our fair share of wine.

 

And yes - I enjoyed the shit out of that giant soaking tub :)

My Typical iPhone Photo Dump

It is probably pretty obvious by now, but I take about a zillion photos of Ben every day.  I can hardly ever bring myself to delete them, either.  My phone serves as a reminder of all of the fun (and sometimes not so fun) things we did each day, and I never want to erase them :(

 

Anyway, here are the latest:

 

This weekend, we had an issue with some of our electrical wiring.  We spent approximately 7 hours trying to figure it out ourselves on Saturday.  Much to our frustration, we got super close to fixing it, but not quite 100%.  (Unless we wanted our hall light controlling the power to all three of the bedrooms) ;)  I have to say, we did learn a lot just by messing around with things and trying to figure out what the problem was.

 

Maureen and Vitaliy came to our rescue today and after 30 minutes, everything was back in working order :)

 

Here was Ben's attempt at "helping" daddy:



Ben is the first one to clap and throw his arms up for "TOUCHDOWN".  

 

Popcorn Snack.  He couldn't get enough.  So much so, that even when he broke to drink some water, he was holding a piece of popcorn at the corner of his mouth so he could eat some immediately when he finished drinking.

 

Story time:

 

I snuck into Ben's room after seeing him laying strangely in his crib.  He was so totally passed out with his mouth wide open that I had to snag a picture.

 

Grumpy in the car:

 

Ben had a meltdown the other morning over something, but when he finally calmed down, one, BIG crocodile tear remained.

 

First time eating cereal with milk and a spoon!  He was so careful!

 

 

My work from home days have been switching around a bit lately, and I've managed to work from home on a few Wednesdays - AKA Garbage Days!!  Ben and I got out for an early morning walk and stalked the garbage truck around the neighborhood.  

 

At the park, this is Ben (and Greg's) favorite game.  Greg will pretend to accidently get kicked by Ben each time he swings forward, and they will do it over. And over.  And over.  And Ben will just about die laughing each and every time.

 

 

There were a few kids hiding inside this tire making silly sounds for Ben.

 

Over Labor Day Weekend, we had the Nikonovs and the Cougans over for a BBQ.  The kids were thrilled to have their number 1 playmate in the house :)

 

Kitty hunting with Maeve.

 

Took a trip to the beach and threw rocks:

 

Dragging a broom around the garage.

 

Playing with cars (Greg's from when he was a kid) and tools with dad:

 

Painting with Mira and Maylee (at Callie's):

Who Wore it Better?

Ben?

Or Madonna?

 

A little back story here:  Ben has randomly started putting things down his shirt.  The other day, he grabbed these bottle lids out of a drawer and put them down his shirt.  I couldn't stop laughing, which of course amused Ben :)  

Meal Planning: Week of September 9th

Review from last week:

I'm such a fan of spaghetti squash now, and apparently so is Ben.  He sat on Greg's lap and ate bite after bite (with the "big" fork).  So satisfying.

The chicken tortilla soup was another hit for the whole family, and I was able to enjoy it for lunch for a few extra days!

I seriously wish I could make buerre blanc sauce and put it on every dish, but that amount of butter just isn't right.  (Unless my Mother in Law, Marcia, is in town cooking for us, in which case calories don't count and we just sit back and ENJOY delicious, buttery meals) :)  Anyway, we occasionally will make it to go on our fish and it's so good.

 

We also had major success with the Chicken Mole recipe!  I had mine with roasted brussels sprouts w/ pine nuts and prochiutto. 

 

 

This next week will be an interesting one.  I'll be away at a work retreat on Monday and Tuesday night, returning too late on Wednesday to worry about cooking anything for dinner.  Combined with our plans to travel up to Bellingham this Sunday to spend the day and have dinner with my friend Kate and her family and a wedding reception next Saturday night, that leaves only a few nights to meal plan.

Since I'll be working from home on the days that I am not away at the retreat, I figure I'll throw together something delicious for Greg and Ben to have on Monday and for left overs.

Monday:  Creamy Crockpot Tomato Soup.  Perfect for the boys to have with grilled cheese sandwiches.

Thursday: Chicken Gyros

Friday: Minute Steak with Fried Egg and Warm Arugula Salad

 

Another Vocab Update

 

It has been a few weeks since I gave an update on Ben and his speech progress!

 

To start, we had our follow up appointment with the Ear Doctor.  The fluid that was in his ears before has completely cleared up, and the hearing test proved his hearing is perfect.  This was such a relief.  Greg had a lot of ear problems as a child - lots of tubes which resulted in scarring and long-term (but minimal) hearing loss...or, you know, "selective hearing" that I think a lot of husbands suffer from - so we were both relieved that Ben didn't have the same issues that would require the tube procedure.

 

We are continuing to meet with Ben's speech therapist an average of one time/week.  The majority of our meetings focus on different strategies to help encourage Ben to talk.  It's pretty interesting how some kids (like Ben) can get through an entire day without really NEEDING to say many words.  We generally give him milk and food before he has an opportunity to ask for it and we know exactly what he wants and doesn't want by the way he points at or runs away from something.  When we ask him a question, he will generally answer with "uh huh!!" or "no ma".  So one focus is on attempting to create situations where he will have to ask us for something.

 

Another strategy we have learned is to "OWL".

 

 

“OWL to Let Your Child Lead”
Observe
Wait
Listen

Research has shown that children learn language best when they are allowed to lead a conversation and communicate about what interests them. The OWL strategy will help you follow your child’s lead so that he’ll be more likely to stay in the interaction with you and get the practice and feedback he needs to build his communication skills.

(From http://www.hanen.org/Programs/For-Parents/It-Takes-Two-to-Talk.aspx)


With that said, Ben continues to surprise us with words and sentences when we are least expecting it!  A few weeks back, while playing in his room, Ben brought over his now-snug bear suit and gestured that he would like me to put it on him.  He then started to pull shoes out of his shoe bin and tried to put them on his feet.  He then stated very clearly, "put shoes on and go bye-bye".

He has regularly been saying "up" and "off".  Last weekend he said "close the door".  In the car, he will point at the door and say "this is a door", or to the road and say "this is a truck".  (He often will point to items and say "this is a _______").  He said "nana" for banana, and "open" referring to the car door.

Another new trick of his is to repeat several words we say in a row.  For the LONGEST time, when babies months younger than he is would do this, Ben would essentially REFUSE to repeat a word after me.  Suddenly, a few weeks ago, he would repeat 10-15 in a row, including some words he had never tried to say before.  He now happily agrees to do this with me every day.

He still is not at all interested in saying animal sounds and has never attempted to sing, but he LOVES when we do them for him.  Yesterday in the car, Greg and I both were singing the alphabet song to him at the same time and Ben thought it was HILARIOUS and awesome.  I also noticed that he loves to hear the birthday song sung, as it is usually sung as a crowd of people, so we will try to simultaneously sing songs to him more often.

I'm eager to discuss his speech development with his doctor later this month at his 2 year check up.  While I still do not feel like he is talking as MUCH as some of the kids his age, I also can recognize that he likely talks MORE than some of them.  And he definitely talks a lot when he has something specific to say :)