I cannot believe Hunter’s birthday party is less than 1 week away.  I am such a procrastinator… other than cleaning up the house a bit and yard work, I have not gotten to too much prepping.  In the decor department I’ve almost finished the banner. I still have so much more I want to make!  Good thing I work well under pressure.  Maybe that’s why I haven’t decided on what kind of cupcakes to make yet?  I think I just need to not have time left to flip flop between decisions and it’ll come to me.  Oh the tough life decisions.

How was your weekend?  We have been a tired family here the past couple of days.  Jacob was working on getting over being sick (which he got from Hunter), Hunter was tired and had a couple early morning wake ups, and I just felt tired right along with them. Hence the lack of preparation.  Oh well, what can you do?  I the midst of all that, I did get a little bit of cleaning in.

From around the time I got pregnant I began trying to clean with more natural products.  Vinegar is always a good all purpose cleaner, but Jacob absolutely hates the smell and vetoes the idea whenever I use it.   I had to come up with something else.  So I did.

Originally I made up this concoction as a cleaned for our hardwood floors.  I ended up liking it so much I use it all over the house.

Homemade Natural All Purpose Cleaner

• 20 oz water
• 1.5 TBSP Dr. Bronner’s pure castile soap
• 1 TBSP rubbing alcohol

Combine ingredients in a spray bottle.  Shake to combine then spray and wipe down with a rag.

I use this cleaner for:

Floors (hardwood, tile and linoleum)
Silks
Counters
Toilets
Walls
Baseboards
Tabletops
Toys
Pretty much any hard surface

It smells amazing from the castile soap.  I use the peppermint variety.

The all purpose cleaner is great for surface cleaning, but what about deep stains?  I have to admit, when it comes to cleaning my tub and shower, I never do it as often as I should.  I’m never a preventative cleaner there, I’m a reactive one.  Before I started using my next cleaner, I would have to use tons of that powder comet cleaner and scrub like crazy to make it cleaner.  Now I have a natural cleaner that doesn’t smell like bleach, works amazingly and actually makes me want to clean my shower more often!

Homemade Natural Tub Scrub

• 2 TBSP Castile soap
• 2 TBSP baking soda

Combine and stir together in a small bowl.  It should thicken up like icing.  To use, spoon a little onto your scrubber, and apply to the damp area.  Scrub for a few seconds, let it sit for 1-2 minutes and then rinse off.

The first time I used this tub scrub I was amazed.  It made my shower and tub the cleanest it had been in a loooonnngggg time with less elbow grease.  Plus it’s minty fresh smelling.  Much better than breathing in chemical fumes while cleaning.

Want to include your Make it Monday post?  Add it below!  To read more about Make it Monday, or to get the image and info click here.

Do you have any natural cleaning tips and tricks?  Do you clean your shower/tub often?  Are you a procrastinator like me?  

Hope your Monday is starting out well!

Heather

At the end of my strength class yesterday we did a bunch of rolling out on stability balls + spelling different things (like ‘I love to workout’ and ‘Heather is awesome’) while rolling out on the ball.  Holy abs.  Try it and see how your abs feel the next day… and make sure to spell Heather is awesome, I think that’s the one that did it.

I get so obsessed with fonts.  I go looking for just one and I end up downloads wwaaayyyyy too many.  I download all of mine from dafonts.com for free.  Here are 10 of my latest favs for FUN FONT FRIDAY 2nd edition!

For more fun font inspiration, check out the first FUN FONT FRIDAY!

When were your abs sore last?  Are you an ab roller?  What do you use the stability ball for?  What are you up to this weekend?

Heather

In order to strengthen your core, you don’t have to do hundreds of crunches.  In fact, you can do zero crunches and still get amazingly strong abs.  How you ask??  With planks!  They are my favorite core exercise.  I like them so much, I joined in on a plank tower after one of my classes a while back.  We know how to have fun.

Recently I was looking through some progress pictures and thought it would be fun to show a change over the last few months.  Here is a picture from January (8 months post baby).

And next is a picture from April (11 months post baby).

I typically only spend at most 5 minutes out of each classes specifically working abs.  But whenever I have the choice, I do it with planks.  They obviously help define and strengthen!  That’s also why push ups are an awesome full body exercise- you’re in a plank (hello core work) during them!

I’d also like to note, while you can do as many planks, crunches or core exercises as you want, abs will stay hiding until diet is in check.  Abs really are made in the kitchen, so if you want to see a [2-4-6-8] pack, make sure your diet is where it needs to be – balanced with clean eats.

Whether your abs are hiding or showing, it is still always important to keep them strong.  Core strength supports your body, help protect your back, keeps you in good posture and helps you maintain good form during all other exercises.  So let’s work them for all of those reasons!

If you are new to exercise just do this 5 minute plank series one time.  Take rest as you need it.  Once you are ready to move on, repeat another time.  And if that’s not enough, do it for a 3rd time!

And because I like sharing other workouts and exercises, here is one from Kristin at STUFT Mama – give her plank up and over exercise a try!

Want to see YOUR workout included in Workout Wednesday?  Next week we are covering legs, so be sure to email me your leg workout including the link to it (heather.englund@comcast.net).

How often do you work your core?  What is your favorite ab exercise?

Have a great Wednesday all!

Heather

Jacob will sit down on the ground with a book, and Hunter walks on over and sits down right next to him or on his lap.  He’s snuggled up close soaking in the book, and just being super sweet with his daddy.

Love these two.

When Jacob gets home from work, he tries to get as much play time in with Hunter.  This usually frees me up to get dinner started or just have some Heather time.  But on those days I plan ahead and start dinner in the crockpot I don’t have to be in the kitchen, I can sit on the couch right next to them and just watch.

While today’s recipe isn’t a crockpot dinner recipe, it is made in the crockpot, but for an after dinner treat of berry cobbler!

I’m not going to lie, pictures of the cobbler cooking in the crockpot are not flattering to this dish.  I’ll show you.  Once it is done:

Once you have taken most of the cobbler out:

Good thing I’m basing this recipe on taste, not looks!  It was delicious, especially serves over nice cold vanilla ice cream.

I got to thinking about why you would use a crockpot for this recipe.  The prep time takes just as long as oven made cobbler and it takes longer to cook.  Well, it was a hot day when I made it, and not having to turn the oven on was glorious.  Summertime dessert making in the crockpot is the way to go.

Crockpot Berry Cobbler

adapted from here

Ingredients

• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 2 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup natural cane sugar, divided
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 tbsp canola oil
• 1/8 tsp sea salt
• 2.5 cups fresh or frozen raspberries, thawed (or any berry)
• 1.5 cups fresh or frozen blackberries, thawed (or any berry
• Vanilla ice cream, optional

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine 1 cup flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, baking powder and cinnamon. Combine the egg, milk and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened (batter will be thick). Spread batter evenly into a 5-qt. slow cooker coated with oil.
• In a large bowl, combine the salt and remaining flour and sugar; add berries and toss to coat. Spread over batter.
• Cover and cook on high for 2 to 2-1/2 hours or until a toothpick inserted into cobbler comes out clean. Serve with ice cream if desired.

I may have skipped ahead in my 50 crockpot recipe list to share, but I’ll get back on track with the next one!  This one was pretty tasty and I just had to share.

Have you ever cooked dessert in a crockpot?  If so, what did you make?   Do you love watching a dad with his kiddo?

Tomorrow I’m sharing PLANK workouts.  If you have one you want me to include, please email it to me (heather.englund@comcast.net) along with the link for where to find it.  Thanks!

Heather

Now, on to Make it Monday!

If you are anything like me, you’ll want to print this out and tell your husband to do this in your house.  But, if your husband is anything like mine, he won’t want to see it and will just figure it out on his own.  It’s like asking for directions, men just won’t.  Maybe he’ll use this tutorial and the pictures as inspiration???

Recently Jacob installed a new to us, old back door in our house.

Along with the door install, he added some fancy shmansy molding above the door.  The door was already really cool, then the molding took it over the top and made it fit in even better in our old house.

Here’s how you (or your man) can do this, in just 10 easy (or challenging, depending on skill level) steps!!

Gather your supplies.

• exacto knife
• pry bar
• liquid nails
• nails and screws
• electric drill
• hammer
• miter saw (10″ blade)
• finishing nails
• nail set
• 5″ x 1″ wide molding (width based on need)
• decorative molding (width based on need)
• caulking
• paint

Step 1) Take an exacto knife and run it along the paint between the existing molding and the wall.

Step 2) Isolate where the existing nails are and pry the molding off of all 3 parts around the door (top and both sides).  Make sure you are careful to not break the existing side molding, as this will get put back on.

Step 3) Cut a straight horizontal line across both pieces of side molding, at the top (if it is angled like ours was).  Run your liquid nails along the back of the molding.  Hold it there to allow the liquid nails to set.  Use your finishing nails and hammer them into the existing door.  Use the nail set to set the nails into the molding.  Repeat on with other piece, so both side molding pieces are reattached.

Step 4) Measure the width between both outer pieces of side molding.  Cut your large 5″ x 1″ top molding piece, allowing 2 extra inches (which will be 1 inch on each side).

Step 5) Run your liquid nails along the back of the molding.  Put it in place above the door.  Make sure it is evenly spaced.  Hold it there to allow the liquid nails to set.  Use your finishing nails and hammer them into the existing door.  Use the nail set to set the nails into the molding.

Step 6) Take 3 small pieces of remaining top molding and drill screws them into the wall above the molding (at both sides and center).  Make sure the pieces are not taller than your decorative molding.

Step 7) Measure by the base and cut your decorative molding at a 45 degree angle (using the miter saw), the same length as your top molding.  Use liquid nails to put it onto the small pieces of molding.  Have someone hold it (this is where I got to help!!) while you very delicately hammer in finishing nails and finish it with the nail set.

Step 8) Measure by the base and cut two small side pieces of decorative molding, cut at a 45 degree angle.  Attach with liquid nails.

Step 9) Caulk around all of the molding, so there are no gaps showing to make it look like it is one big piece.

Step 10) Once the caulking is dry, paint all of the molding.

And that is it!  10 steps to an awesomely improved door or window!

Right next to the back door is the dining room.   The two windows in that room have the same molding too, which Jacob did a couple months ago.

It made such an improvement to the very blah looking dining room.

Want to include your Make it Monday post?  Add it below!  To read more about Make it Monday, or to get the image and info click here.

What did you do over the weekend?  Any fun projects or crafts?

Heather

I’m excited to get them into the ground and filled with dirt.  Also, I have kale and cucumber beginning to sprout in my DIY egg shell seed starters!  Hooray for 2 year old seeds to still grow!

Today is another Secret Recipe Club reveal day.  This month was super fun for me.  I was given Jennifer of Peanut Butter and Peppers!  Jennifer is a blogger I’ve known since before Hunter was born.  She even guest posted for me once he arrived.  Jennifer loves food and shares so many yummy looking meals, snacks and treats.  I seriously just want her to come and cook for me.  Like every day.  Personal chef????

Okay, it will probably be a no, so I guess I’ll make some food for myself.  The recipe I chose as a no brainer – bircher muesli – AKA overnight oats!

With the warmer temps around here I’ve been eating less and less hot oats -  and that makes me sad!

Soaking your raw rolled oats in liquid (yogurt, milk and juice) plumps them up and ‘cooks’ your oatmeal for you.  No hot stove required.

Jennifer’s bircher muesli is a bit different than previous overnight oats I’ve made.  Normally I go with banana and peanut butter, but here, the flavors are bright and fresh.  OJ and pineapple juice + fresh shredded apple set the tone with natural sweetness.  I went ahead and amped up the fruity flavors with a fig and orange zest Chobani bite.

Bircher Muesli
Serves 1

Adapted from peanut butter and peppers

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 small apple, grated
• 1/4 cup juice (combo orange and pineapple juice)
• 3.5 oz fig and orange zest chobani bite (or plain yogurt)
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp raisins
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1. Add all of the ingredients in a bowl; mix well. Cover and refrigerated for at least 8 hours.

And it’s all ready and waiting for you in the morning!  So so yummy, thanks Jennifer!

Emily at Chobani was so sweet and sent me all four Chobani bite flavors to try.  And try I have.  Here are my order of favorites: raspberry with dark chocolate chunks, coffee with dark chocolate chunks, caramel with pineapple chunks, and lastly fig with orange zest.  Obviously, I love me some chocolate!

Last thing before I head to bed -  tomorrow (Monday) is Make It Monday!  What are you sharing?  Read more about it on the Make It Monday page – I hope you’ll join in!

What is your favorite warm weather breakfast?  Do you make breakfast the night before often?  How was your Mother’s Day?

Until next time,

Heather

We love our old house.  The main floor has a lot of old craftsman features to it.  At one point there was an addition put on, where the kitchen and dining room are.  That first year in our house we remodel the kitchen, which we absolutely love.  The dining room has been pretty blah looking for the most part, but we have been working on changing that.  A nice new touch?  A new (well, old) back door!

It looks like it fits in, right?  Here’s what we had before.

A couple weekends ago we found a sturdy old solid wood door at the rebuilding center in Portland to replace the current one.  I should probably stop using we’s now… since I didn’t replace it.  My awesome handy husband somehow fitted the warped mis-sized door into the existing door frame.  It was the right size at the top, then got wider towards the bottom.  Waaaaaaaay more work than he thought it would be.  Once the door was in, we painted it white.  We’re back to we now.

In addition to the paint, Jacob replaced the door knob with a black one.  Not only that, he also added the molding above the door, just like he did in the dining room window shown below.  And what’s so very cool about this door is that the actual window in the door matches the hanging window in the dining room perfectly!

And finally, a side to side, before and after.

That’s all for today.  Just wanted to share a change in our old house.  And to brag about my handy hubs.   And lastly, there may be a fun Make it Monday tutorial coming on Monday for how to add molding above your windows or doors… maybe.

What do you think?  How old is your house?  Do you like older or newer houses?  Or if you’re somewhere other than a house, what would be your preference?

I sure love the new door, and all the extra light it lets in!

Heather

Why do high intensity interval training (HIIT)?  Why not?!  You can exercise for less time (compared to steady state), but get awesome calorie torching benefits.  Because you are having to push yourself really hard with short amounts of recovery, you burn more calories in less time.  You work in the anaerobic zone.  Anaerobic means without oxygen.  While you are breathing, you are working so hard that your body is having to pull energy from other parts of your body to keep it going.  That’s why it is an effective fat burner.

Today I’m sharing one of my workouts I did on Monday.  As far as the exercises go and brain power needed, it’s simple – all you do is SPRINT.  However, it’s a tough cookie.  10 rounds of sprints, with equal work and recovery.  After 5 I was spent but forced myself to keep going until all rounds were done.  I felt annihilated, but at the same time great.  It’s fun to be pushed!  However, it didn’t help that I chose to do it at 2:30pm… on an 85 degree day… with the sun shining down… sometimes sprinting up a hill.  Phew, it was a doozy!

If you are new to exercise, you can just do 4-5 rounds as a place to start.

Another one to try for an indoor non-sprint HIIT workout is this 15 minute workout from PurelyTwins.  You get even less recovery time and do some fun exercises while you’re at it.  Thanks girls!

Do you do HIIT workouts?  What is your favorite one?  Links are welcome!

Workout Wednesday next week will focus on PLANK workouts… anything involving a plank – email me (heather.englund@comcast.net) your workout if you’d like me to share it!

Heather

Pancakes are not messy though!  And are quite delicious.  These blueberry yogurt protein pancakes are delicate ones made with mostly blueberry chobani, oats and eggs.  Soft and thin pancakes.  If you’re looking for fluffy pancakes, these are not them.  As they cook the sugars in the blueberry begin to caramelize and give you the color that looks almost burnt, but they aren’t burnt!  Just make sure to use a well oil pan or non-stick griddle pan.  Since they are so delicate, any sticking will make them turn ugly quickly.

And we don’t want ugly pancakes.

Side note: is it weird to you that raspberries have little hairs growing out of them??  Kind of to me…

I made a double batch (which makes 8 pancakes) thinking that I would have enough left over for another breakfast during the week.  Wrong.  I ate 3.  Then Hunter ate 2.5 pancakes!  That boy LOVED them.  We’ve also been chowing down on fresh raspberries, which are currently my favorite berry.

Add a smear of your favorite nut butter on top (PB for me!), throw on some fresh raspberries and gobble these yummy cakes up!

Blueberry Yogurt Protein Pancakes
makes 4 pancakes

Ingredients

• 6 oz blueberry Chobani (or any greek yogurt)
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda

Directions

1. Pre-heat a greased pan to medium heat or griddle to 325 degrees.
2. In a food processor (or blender) add all the ingredients.  Blend until smooth.
3. Pour batter into 4 pancakes (they will spread).  Flip when the top bubbles.  Cook another 2-3 minutes on second side.

Tomorrow is another installment of Workout Wednesday!

The focus is on HIIT workouts.  If you have a favorite one, email it to me (heather.englund@comcast.net) and I will get it included in the post!

What is your favorite berry?  Are you a fluffy or thin pancake person?

I am already highly caffeinated and have about an hour before Hunter wakes.  Time to see what all I can do in that time!

Heather

We’re working on creating a space in our front yard for 2-3 garden boxes.  And I’m hoping at least one of them gets built as a mother’s day gift for me. So much wishful thinking here today.

In anticipation for the aforementioned garden boxes, I started some seeds.  A little more about the actual seeds at the end.

I didn’t think of using egg shells as the seed starts on my own.  My sister in law Chelbe actually told me about the idea.  So thanks for the inspiration Chelbe!

What you need

• egg shelf halves (rinsed and dried), as many as you want
• empty egg cartons
• potting soil
• seeds
• scissors
• sharpie
• needle

The how to

Step 1) Gather your supplies.

Step 2) Write on the carton what you will be planting.

Step 3) Using the needle poke a tiny hole in the bottom of each egg shell, then fill the egg carton with egg shells and put potting soil (about half way full) in the egg shells.

Step 4) Drop your seeds on top of the potting soil.

Step 5) Cover the seeds with more soil.

Step 6) Repeat with as many egg shells and cartons your have to fill.  Water daily!
    

I planted seeds for tomatoes, cucumbers, leeks, broccoli, kale, eggplant, brussel sprouts, basil, chives, oregano, parsley and cilantro.  The thing is, all of these seeds were left over from 2011… so they’re 2 years old.  I’ve always wondered if saving unused seeds from a previous year will actually work.  So this is my experiment!  If they don’t grow at all I’m only out the little bit of potting soil.  And if they do grow, I’m excited to know I can save unused seeds!

Lately I’ve been doing a ton more crafts, DIY projects and indoor + outdoor projects in our 100 year old home.  Today is the first day of my weekly Make it Monday series!  Starting next week I’ll be adding in a linking tool for anyone that wants to participate and link up their Make it Monday posts.  I figure the weekend is a good time to work on projects and while they are still fresh in our mind we can share them on Monday.  If you want to participate and don’t have a blog, email me about (heather.englund@comcast.net) it and I can get your project included as well.

It can be any type of project that you make… a tutorial, just a picture of something cool you make.. the sky is the limit!  Let me know if you have any questions about it.

Did you do any crafts or projects this weekend?  Is Make it Monday something you would want to participate in? 

Heather

Dinner’s this week have been definitely not very planned.  Check out the final week in my planning from last month…

Yeah, the last week just didn’t happen.  I also didn’t go to the grocery store, which is why our meals were not as planned.  Here’s a look at some things we had.

Bacon and brussel sprouts tortilla layer pie.  I’ve made tortilla pies before, so for the filling I just switched it up.

I used 1 piece of chopped bacon + 2 cups chopped brussel sprouts.  I sauted both first.  Then I layered everything together (tortillas, brussels, parmesan) with the egg mixture.  Check out a similar recipe for how to make it.

An even more simple dinner was this beef enchilada spaghetti.  I had no clue what this was going to turn into when I tossed beef and enchilada sauce in the crockpot, but it actually turned out really well.

One pound beef roast + 1 jar enchilada sauce go slow n low in the crockpot all day.  Shred beef.  Cook your box of pasta.  Add 2 cups frozen corn in with the pasta the last minute of cooking.  Drain pasta + corn, and pour it into the crockpot with the beef.  Add 1 can drained and rinsed black beans.  Stir in 1/3 cup plain yogurt + 1/2 cup parmesan cheese.

For starting with no plan in the morning, I loved how this one turned out!

We also had chicken caesar salad + bread and pizza using some 5 minute bread (dough).  I topped the pizza with BBQ sauce, pre-cooked chicken sausage, onion, parmesan cheese and feta.  Last night was our leftovers night, so a super simple dinner.  And that’s how I made dinners work for me this week!  While it went really well, I am excited to go grocery shopping today.  We’re desperately lacking in veggies.

Even without finishing off my month of meal planning perfectly, I still loved this idea!  Since I stocked up on meats I was easily able to pull extra meals together with what I had on hand.

Last night I worked on a meal plan for May.  Here it is if you’re looking for dinner inspiration!

I changed the categories a bit.  Instead of 5 categories with 4 recipes in each, I went with 4 categories and 5 recipes in each.  I got rid of casseroles and salads, and included grilling.  It’s heating up here (going to be in the 80s this weekend!), so less cooking inside and more grilling outside is going to be a good thing.

Links to some of the recipes:

• crockpot chicken and mushrooms
• chickpea flour crepes with veggies
• crockpot berry cobbler
• crockpot bombay potatoes
• strawberry broccoli salad
• kebab salad
• brussel sprout burgers
• pretzel crusted chicken nuggets
• crockpot zucchini and tomato pasta
• jamacian chicken and mango salad
• tamale pie
• mozzarella sticks
• crockpot lime chicken tacos
• crockpot cheese burger meatloaf
• asian chicken salad (if there is one recipe to make no questions, it is this one)

How do you make meals when you don’t have a plan or recipe?  Do you like winging it in the kitchen?  Does it normally turn out?

This morning I taught body pump, ran tons of errands with Hunter and now… it’s nap time.  Maybe I will take a nap too??  We’ll see.  But in reality I will probably head outside and do some yard work.  Slowing down kind of isn’t my thing.

Happy weekend everyone!

Heather

This has been a pretty exciting month in Hunter’s world.  The biggest change?  He is a WALKER now!  Which makes taking a picture of him extremely difficult, especially if I want him to stay in one place for more than half a second.  Out of our two photo shoot attempts, I ended up with 3 pictures that were not blurry and with him looking at me.  The runner up picture:

This one cracked me up.  But, since he’s now a walking machine, I wanted his 11 month picture to be of him standing.

Playing at the park is a new adventure.  Staying sitting?  No more.  Mabel (who is more of a walking machine!) and Hunter – aren’t they the cutest together?  That picture was from last week, and his walking wasn’t as stable.  Every day he gets better and better on his feet.  Now he’s traveling all the way across the house without a problem.  He still gets excited sometimes and tries to run, which makes him fall, but then he just stands back up and walks again.  He walks more than crawls now, although crawling is still the fastest way to get to something….

Like a box!  Hunter sees a box.  Hunter climbs on a box.  Hunter stands on a box.

Swinging is still super fun, especially now that we found a new park just a couple minutes away from our house.  I think we’ll be spending a lot of time there this summer!  There is a huge grass area I’m sure he’ll love running around in.

One more new development this month is a pretty cool one.  Long afternoon naps!  From the beginning Hunter never really napped long.  He’s been more of a cat napper.  Well, last week something changed and all of a sudden he started taking 1.5-2 hour naps.  They don’t always happen (yesterday was 1 hour and Monday was just 20 minutes), but it’s been more often than not.  He always wakes after 20-40 minutes, cries for a few minutes, and then goes back to sleep.  Let me tell you, this afternoon nap thing has been awesome.  I hope it’s something I can continue to count on!

His morning nap is still short.  Anywhere from 20-45 minutes.  Nighttime sleep has been great.  He goes down around 7:30pm and wakes between 7-8am.  A good long stretch.  I’m watching to see if he sleeps a bit less at night when he takes  a long afternoon nap, or if that makes no difference.  In the morning, sometimes he’ll wake a bit earlier, like today at 6:30am, but then after a few minutes of crying, will go back to sleep.  We started our day at 7:20am today, after him waking twice (6:30 and 7am) and going back to sleep.

Our little man Hunter loves to be messy.  And loud.  Both at the same time are even better (like the pic above).   We’re still following baby led weaning and he rocks at feeding himself.  He’s beginning to have some preferences, like preferring more flavorful foods over bland food.  Plain black beans?  Spice it up with some garlic!  Plain scrambled eggs?  Nope.  But add some parmesan cheese in there and he gobbles them up.

We were out a couple weekends ago and Hunter being able to sit there at the table with us while feeding him food from our meals was so nice and easy.  He still gets food on the floor, but I think that comes with the territory of having a baby eat at a restaurant.

He’s nursing twice a day: first thing in the morning, and before bed – around 7:30am and 7pm.  One more month and I’ve made it to my goal of a year!

Since he’s nursing less, I’ve seen a huge increase in how much water he drinks.  I leave a couple sippy cups out and he tends to just see them and drink.  Thankfully I don’t have to force it down!  At meals I’m trying to offer a regular cup more, but the sippy cup is offered there too.

I cannot believe he is almost 1 year old!  Time has flown by.  Less than 3.5 weeks until his birthday party… I’ve almost finished the invites (which look reallllly cool in my opinion) for his vintage newspaper themed party.  More to come on that as I make the decor and it gets closer.

Hunter says banana (banana-na-na), Joe (sounds like doe), mama, dada and no!

What new milestones will happen next month?  We’ll see!

Moms: When did your kid learn to drink from a cup?  Everyone: What’s the weather like where you are at?  I keep reading about snow in May!  It’s sunny here.

Have a great Thursday!

Heather

This is when the crockpot comes in handy.  Even on warm days, crockpots are life savers.  You don’t always have to make a soup in the old crocker.  You can make a typical meal that would be cooked on the stove in a pan – like this beef and broccoli – but with much less hands on time.

The one ingredients I wasn’t too stoked on was the beef consomme.  I tried to find a recipe for how to make it at home, but found nothing that looked quick to make.  Quick and simple was needed since I didn’t have too much time that morning.

Anyways… I highly recommend this dish.  Jacob and I gobbled it up.  Serve with some rice or your favorite grain and lots and lots of broccoli.  The more the better.

Crockpot Beef and Broccoli

from Chef in Training

Ingredients

• 1 lb. boneless beef chuck roast, sliced into thin strips
• 1 cup beef consomme
• 1/2 cup soy sauce, reduced sodium
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp water
• Fresh broccoli florets (as many as desired)
• Hot cooked rice

Directions

1. Place beef in crock pot.
2. In a small bowl, combine consomme, soy sauce, brown sugar, oil and garlic.  Pour over beef.
3. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours.
4. In a cup, stir cornstarch and water until smooth.  Add to crock pot.  Stir well to combine.
5. Blanch broccoli florets and add to the crock pot.  Stir to combine.
6. Cover and cook for an additional 20 minutes on HIGH or until thickened.
7. Serve over hot, cooked rice.

Yesterday I began trying to take Hunter’s 11 month picture…

It has officially turned into a challenging task!  Today is a new day, and we’ll get that perfect picture.  Or at least, a less blurry.

Do you tend to spend more or less time in the kitchen with nicer weather?  Or does it not make a difference?  Anyone have a recipe for beef consomme?

Heather

My first loaf on Saturday to share with friends.

And then a small loaf for us last night.  5 minute bread is my favorite!

Before I get into the topic for today, I want to announce the winners to the final Chobani + Champs giveaway.

Case of Chobani 6oz cups

Case of Chobani Bites

Case of Chobani Champions cups

Case of Chobani Champions Tubes

Congratulations all!  Send me an email (heather.englund@comcast.net) with your address and I’ll forward it on to get your prizes sent out to you.  Thank you all for entering and participating in my week of birthday giveaways!

If there is one thing I am not an expert on, it’s lawn care.  Or plant care.  Or gardening.  Or controlling the ever growing and exploding black berry vines.  So pretty much anything outside.

In the 5 years Jacob and I have owned our house, we have neglected our yard.  It was actually really nice when we first moved in, and then it all went down hill from there.  In the past we have tried to keep up with it, but since we never got to the maintenance stage, the crazy amount of up front work always got the best of us and we gave up.

But things have changed now.  We have a little man that’s going to love running and rolling around in nice grass.  We also have a birthday party here in less than 1 month and it would be nice to have the yard looking better.

While Jacob and my dad worked on fixing the lawn mower, pressure washing in the front and back, tackling some black berry vines, trimming branches and cutting down weed explosion in the back, I put in some work in the front lawn.

It is not that big of a space, but dang there were a lot of weeds!  I don’t want to use too many chemicals in the lawn since Hunter already likes to play out there while I’m weeding, so I put in the effort and began getting the weeds out of the yard.  By hand.  This little tool sure helped!

We’re going to be ripping out half of the lawn and putting garden boxes in, so I only had to work on getting weeds out of the left half.  Still, I filled up more than 3 of these 5 gallon buckets!

As I was pulling out weeds, I realized how mossy the grass is.  It may look like we have lots of grass, but it’s pretty much half moss.  Once I finished the weeding (half done with Hunter out there on Saturday, the other half during his nap on Sunday), I spread moss killer.  Once the moss is dead (a few weeks????), I plan to fill the holes to level it out, plant some new grass in those empty spots and continue on with the care.   And what that care entails… well that is still to be determined.

I’ve actually been enjoying working out in the front yard.  Hunter is pretty good about staying on a blanket most of the time.  He has started wandering a bit more, but it’s at a slow pace.

How are you with lawn care?  Do you enjoy it?  Do you have any awesome tools that make the job easier?  I didn’t even know about that weed puller tool until my friend Megan showed me on Friday.  It’s genius!

Heather

There won’t be 1, 2 or 3 winners for the final giveaway.  Nope, for this giveaway 4 people will be winning some Chobani or Chobani Champions!  Why not end with a bang?

I love Chobani.  Hunter was a fan too.  Now you can enjoy some!

Giveaway day 5: CHOBANI or CHOBANI CHAMPIONS

You can win 1 of these 4 prizes:

Case of Chobani 6oz cups

Case of Chobani Bites

Case of Chobani Champions cups

Case of Chobani Champions Tubes

How to enter

It’s all about liking and sharing this time!

Leave a comment for each – the more comments, the more chances to win!

1. Tell me what you’re most looking forward to this weekend.
2. Like on Facebook: FitMamaRealFood and Chobani Champions
3. Follow on Twitter: @FitMamaRealFood and @Champions
4. Follow on instagram: FitMamaRealFood and @ChobaniChampions
5. Follow on pinterest: heather.englund
6. Share this giveaway on your blog + the birthday giveaway picture above.
7. Share the link to this giveaway on twitter (@fitmamarealfood), facebook, pinterest, instagram, etc.

Winners randomly selected and announced Monday, April  in the AM.  Open to US residents.

And not that you have to do this to enter, but you should check out the Chobani Champions blog – it’s super cute and they’re always sharing yummy recipes + great tips!

The winner for yesterday’s bestowed giveaway is Amy!

Congrats girl!  Send me an email (heather.englund@comcast.net) with your address to get your prize sent out to you.

I’m taking the weekend off, then I’ll be back with my regularly scheduled blogging on Monday!  This has been a fun week, not only on the blog, but sharing treats with all of my classes too.  I hope you all enjoyed it!

Have a fantastic weekend.  I’m off to teach body pump, then Hunter and I have a play date and sunshine to enjoy.  Talk soon!

Heather

I brought some mini chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting to my cycle class.  Hunter and I enjoyed a long walk.  I got super caffeinated from my free birthday coffee from starbucks.

So energized that I cleaned up the house, cleaned the bathroom, swept the floor and chopped down a bunch of black berry vines.  Maybe I need extra coffee everyday….

We had some family over last night for dinner and a trip to get froyo.  Pretty great night.

Last week I received a box from Bestowed in the mail.  Bestowed is a company that helps you discover healthy foods and lifestyle product.  For $19 a month you’ll be sent a box of 5+ new foods/products.

In my box I received KIND granola, hemp hearts, eboost (hmmmm afternoon coffee replacement??), oloves, gnu mini bars, nektar honey crystals and a $25 gift card to itrain (where I plan to download some music from!).

Right away I was super pumped about the granola.  I love KIND bars.  And the granola did not disappoint.  I’m not sure how I only ate one little bowl.

I already had a big costco bag of the hemp hearts, so I know that will get put to good use.

I also tested out the mini gnu bars.  A little chewy and a little sweet.  Pretty good but definitely mini.  I could eat 2-3 at one time.  I’m excited to try out the other products, especially the oloves for a savory snack and honey crystals in my oats or coffee.  Thanks for sharing with me Bestowed!

Want to win your own Bestowed box?

Giveaway day 4: 1 month subscription to Bestowed

How to enter

Leave a comment for each – the more comments, the more chances to win!

1. What is the latest new snack or healthy food product you have tried?
2. Share this giveaway on your blog + the birthday giveaway picture above.
3. Share the link to this giveaway on twitter (@fitmamarealfood), facebook, pinterest, instagram, etc.

Winner randomly selected and announced Friday, April 26 in the AM.  Open to US residents.

If you want to sign up with Bestowed use the code 5OFFBESTOWED01 to save $5 off of your subscription.

The winner of yesterday’s Ellie workout top is…

Hooray Erica!  I know you’ll get some good use out of this as a fellow body pump instructor!  Send me an email (heather.englund@comcast.net) with your address and I’ll get your prize out in the mail right away.

We’re almost to the end of the our giveaways.   The final one tomorrow will be a big one with lots of winner, so be sure to check back for that!  I hope your Thursday treats you well!

Heather

I’ve been eye balling so many awesome workouts lately.  I don’t want them to get lost so I’m sharing them today!  Not only are they quick and effective, you need no equipment for them.  At all.  How many to choose from?  7 – one for every day of the week if you want!  One from me and 6 from my blog friends.

What I love about this workout: it starts out easier and ends easier (less reps) + you combine cardio with strength.  Since you complete it as fast as you can, when you do it again another time, you can see if you beat your first time.

What I love about this workout: Michelle and Lori created this full body workout.  You don’t need much space, and by challenging yourself for speed you work even harder!

What I love about this workout: Another workout by Michelle and Lori.  Those girls have awesome looking arms, so if they’re telling you all you need is 10 minutes to shape the arms, this is one to save.  Plus you get some extra core work too!

What I love about this workout:  Katie has some fun workouts.  This one isn’t long, all it takes is 20 minutes (or less depending on how quickly you get through the first half!)  Plus wall sits are amazing!  Love that she threw that in.

What I love about this workout: So technically this isn’t a no equipment workout, but you sure can make it one!  Just omit the dumbbells and do body weight exercises for this lower body burner.  Tina, I love that you go through this workout 5 times!

What I love about this workout:  More core work from Katie.  Planks and burpees.  Enough said.

What I love about this workout:  Tabata workouts are amazing.  They are fast and furious.  Especially when they work cardio, upper body, lower body and core!   In this one you work for 16 minutes, so 4 tabata rounds.  How does a tabata work?  20 seconds on (high intensity go-go-go work), followed by 10 seconds of rest – 8 times.

What I love about this workout: I was totally drawn to this workout because of the title – who’s your mama.  Then after I moved past the name, I loved the moves.  Another tabata.  Quick and effective.  For the plank rows you would typically use a dumbbell, so to keep it equipment free I’d sub in mountain climbers.

There it is, 7 workouts for your endorphin fueling pleasure!

Do you have any no equipment workouts you love?  Please share!

Alright, the second part of the title -  Ellie’s workout gear!  Recently I became as affiliate with Ellie, which means they sent me some gear to try out.  Awesome, I love free clothes.  First up were the dark matter leggings.

I’ve worn them twice now, and am in love.  They are sooooooo comfortable.  I wore them on Friday to teach body pump, and then proceeded to wear them the rest of the day.  Yes, I’m gross, I stay in my sweaty workout clothes.  Monday I wore them again for body pump and yoga.  All day in them and I still loved them.  They are forming, but not tight.

Plus I like the lines on them.  Sometimes when I wear them the bottom left line is off to the side, and sometimes it’s over my shin like the right side.

I was also sent the black swan tank.  It wasn’t the one I picked out, and since there was confusion about the top I’m actually getting a different one sent to try out.  I’m not the biggest fan of the style on me personally, so here’s where you come in.  I got to keep it, but I want to share it with one of my readers!

Giveaway day 3: Ellie Black Swan Tank (size small)

How to enter

Leave a comment for each – the more comments, the more chances to win!

1. Tell me some of your favorite no equipment exercises or about your favorite workout clothes.
2. Share this giveaway on your blog + the Ellie giveaway picture above.
3. Share the link to this giveaway on twitter (@fitmamarealfood), facebook, pinterest, instagram, etc.

Winner randomly selected and announced Thursday, April 25 in the AM.  Open to US residents.

If you are interested in Ellie workout clothes, you can save 20% on purchases with my link!  They also have a pretty cool deal where you sign up as a Fit Fashionista and for $49.95 a month they will send you 2 tops, 2 bottoms or 1 of each, of your choosing.  I’m trying to convince Jacob to let me do this….

Lastly, the winner for yesterday’s coffee lovers giveaway is Sarah L!!

Sarah, send me an email (heather.englund@comcast.net) with your address and I’ll get your prize out in the mail right away.

That’s all I have for you today.  I baked some mini chocolate cupcakes last night.  I just need to frost them and I’m taking them with me to cycle.

Have a great Wednesday all!

Heather

1. Hunter’s first birthday is rapidly approaching.  Over the weekend we picked out a theme, which heavily relies on newspaper.  I think it’s going to be pretty cool.

2. I’ve been feeling super crafty lately, which is why I’m okay with all the newspaper crafts for his party.  My mom and I have been sewing, and I’ve been making lots of silhouette animal art.

3. I’m thankful for all the sunshine this week.  Our yard need lots of love to get party ready.  Yesterday I got in 15 minutes.  Every little bit helps!

4. This morning I’m subbing a step class… haven’t taught one of those in a while!

5. Hunter still has no teeth.  Anytime he’s grumpy, we think it’s teething.  Eventually it will be, right?

6. My birthday is tomorrow.  I am making cupcakes, but can’t decide between carrot cake or chocolate… or both?

7. I’m going to be 26.  Not an eventful year like last year’s 25.

8. We booked a camping trip for June.  Hunter will have just turned 1.  So. Excited.  And so thankful he’ll be more of a walker than a crawler then.

9. Our cat likes to start meowing for food around 5am.  That is not something I get so excited over.

10. Today I am thankful for coffee.  I am every day.

Do you love coffee?  Do you love french press coffee like me?  I use my french press every day for my coffee.  Thankfully I get to savor my coffee here at home in the mornings.  No rushing off to work.

Have you heard of the Xpress cup?  A couple years back I won a box of these.  And since then I’ve used it one time.  They’ve been sitting under my desk taking up space.  Well, no longer!  Today you have the chance to win your very own Xpress cups.

It works the same way as a french press, except you drink straight out of the cup you make your coffee in.  Your coffee grounds go in, then you pour your hot water over.  When you’re ready to press it, you put the lid on with the golf tee looking thing, which presses the grounds down to the bottom.  And then drink away.

Giveaway day 2: 11 Xpress french press cups AND a $5 Starbucks card (oh yeah!)

How to enter

Leave a comment for each – the more comments, the more chances to win!

1. Leave a comment telling me about your coffee maker, or what kind of coffee you like to get.  Or if you don’t drink coffee, do you like tea?  Tell me about it!
2. Share this giveaway on your blog + the birthday week giveaways picture above.
3. Share the link to this giveaway on twitter (@fitmamarealfood), facebook, pinterest, instagram, etc.

Winner randomly selected and announced Wednesday, April 24 in the AM.  Open to US residents.

And for yesterday’s chocolate trail mix cluster giveaway, the winner has been selected…

Congrats Jennifer!  Send me an email (heather.englund@comcast.net) with your address and I’ll get your goodies out in the mail right away.  I hope the chocolate doesn’t melt!

Although I love the french press, Jacob really wants to get a chemex coffee maker.  Does anyone have one of those?  Do you like it?

Heather

This week is my birthday week!  Typically I’m not a big fan of celebrating my birthday, but for some reason this year I am.  And to celebrate I want to share some goodies with all of you.

Everyday this week, I will have a different prize to win.  The giveaways will only last 1 day.  So it will be announced in the morning, then the winner will be selected the next morning when the new giveaway goes up.

Not only is it giveaway week on the blog, I’m sharing goodies will all of my classes this week.  Today they’re getting chocolate trail mix clusters.  They are soooooo good!

And since most of you won’t be in my classes, the first giveaway to kick off the week is one dozen chocolate trail mix clusters!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED

Giveaway day 1: one dozen chocolate trail mix clusters

How to enter

Leave a comment for each – the more comments, the more chances to win!

1. Leave a comment telling me when your birthday is and something fun that you like to do.
2. Share this giveaway on your blog + the birthday week giveaways picture above.
3. Share the link to this giveaway on twitter (@fitmamarealfood), facebook, pinterest, instagram, etc.

Winner randomly selected and announced Tuesday, April 23 in the AM.  Open to US residents.

Now, if you don’t want to wait to win, or if you don’t win since there will only be 1 winner, you can make these for yourself!  They are suuuuuuuper easy.

Chocolate Trail Mix Clusters

makes about 25 clusters

Ingredients

• 1 bag dark chocolate chips
• 2 cups raisins
• 1 cup dry roasted peanuts
• 1 cup raw almonds, chopped
• 1/2 cup roasted sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Directions

1. Fill a medium pot with 2 inches of water.  Place a large glass bowl over it.  Make sure the bowl does not touch the water.  Place on the stove over medium heat.  Add the chocolate in.  Stir as it melts.
2. Once melted, add in all the remaining ingredients.
3. On wax or parchment paper, drop about 2 tbsp of the mixture.  Repeat until no more remains.  Allow to harden.  You can also place them in the fridge or freezer to cool faster.

I made a triple batch of these.  They won’t last long!

Alright, time for the giveaway week to begin!  And if you were wondering, my birthday is Wednesday.  Giveaways before and after.  It works out perfectly.

I am off to teach body pump and fitness yoga today… and share some chocolatey goodness.

Heather

And with that, I’ll leave you with the winner to last week’s giveaway of 1 case of Chobani Champtions… lucky #13…

Congrats Kaitlyn!  I’ll be sending you an email shortly to get your prize out to you.

Have a great weekend all!

Heather

And I’m sure glad I did.  The soup was actually really good!

The downside to this soup is the sodium content.  Between the kielbasa, chicken broth and cream of mushroom soup, there is way more sodium than I would typically eat.  I thought about ways to reduce it, and make it just a little better for you, and came up with making my own cream of mushroom soup, which is super easy by the way.  I followed this recipe, but used regular milk instead of cream or evaporated milk.

After all the chopping, opening of cans and pouring, your soup is ready to go into the crockpot.  Then 6+ hours later, it’s time to eat!

Even a skeptic like myself liked this soup.  Just make sure to have a gallon of water nearby the chug down as you chomp down.  Enjoy!

Crockpot Sauerkraut Soup

adapted from here

Ingredients

• 1 medium potato, cut into 1/4 inch cubed
• 1 pound kielbasa, diced
• 1 can (32 oz) sauerkraut, well rinsed and drained
• 4 cups chicken broth, low sodium
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup (or make your own!)
• 1/2 pound fresh mushroom, chopped
• 1 cup cooked chicken, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 celery ribs, diced
• 2 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp dill weed
• 1/2 tsp pepper

Directions

1. In a crockpot combine all ingredients.  Cook on low for 6+ hours, or until the vegetables are tender.
2. I served this with crusty bread and crispy kale chips.  Great sides!

Are you wondering if you won the giveaway?  The winner will be announced this afternoon (so you can still enter!) along with a little something to look forward to over the weekend.

Do you like sauerkraut?  If so, what do you eat it on?  What’s a strange food you love (yes, I think of sauerkraut as strange)?

Heather

Between 9 and 10 months we made a big switch in our daily nursing routine.  At 9 months he was nursing 4-5 times a day.  Then at 10 months we dropped down to 2-3.  Now at almost 11 months we are just at twice a day.    When I originally made the switch to less than 4, I had lots of questions, so to the internet I went searching… and I came up disappointed.  I couldn’t find that much info on when or how to do it.  So I went with my mommy instinct and dove in.  While I am no expert in nursing or babies, I thought it would be helpful to answer the questions that I had, in hopes I can help another mom out there.  This is what worked for Hunter and I.  Remember, every baby is different!

I should also note that Hunter does not feed on demand.  While we do follow the baby led weaning approach for his food, I did not follow the ‘let him nurse whenever’ approach.  We have a flexible routine, which I’ll outline, but it’s still a routine none the less.

When does Hunter nurse?

In the morning before breakfast.  If he wakes before 7am, I’ll have him play for a bit until 7am, then we nurse and have breakfast.  If he wakes after 7am I nurse him right when he wakes.  He nurses again at 7pm before getting ready for bed.

When did you know that Hunter was ready to drop a feeding?

A few months ago I remember reading about some other babies that nursed just twice a day, that were the same age as Hunter.  I thought to myself, I don’t think Hunter will ever get there!  Well, at the time he wasn’t ready.  He was eating solids well, but still I think his solids vs. nursing was split 50/50.  Then around 10 months (or a little before), I decided one day to just try nursing 3 times – morning ,mid day and before bed.  On that day he instantly made a switch to eating more solids.  He didn’t fuss about nursing less, it just seemed natural.  I was already at the point where he was eating solids first, and then nursing.

How old was he when he dropped a feeding?

Between 9-10 months he dropped down from 4-5 times a day, to 2-3 times a day.  Now at 10 1/2 months he only nurses twice a day.

How did we drop the feedings?

Cutting out the midday feeding was a more gradual thing.  He would eat lunch between 11-12pm, then I would nurse him about an hour later.  He didn’t always seem to need it, but I did it anyway.  Then one day we were busy and I just forgot.  Thankfully he didn’t seem to mind.  For a couple weeks he would want it (he’d get fussy), so I’d nurse him.  Then last week I just decided not to anymore and it’s been fine.  He eats soooooo much food.  I think nursing has become more of a comfort than anything for him.

Do I pump now that he is nursing less?

When we first went down to 3 times a day, I was still pumping.  I wanted to make sure my milk supply stayed up in case he really wasn’t ready to nurse less.  Then on the days I only nursed him in the morning and night, I pumped midday.  Now I don’t pump midday.  I have seem a huge decrease in my milk supply, but I figured that will happen as he needs it less and less.

Nursing and solids, how does it work together?

When Hunter first starting eating solids, I would always nurse first, then offer solids.  Then as time went by I picked one meal a day to offer solids first, and then nurse.  Then as we continued on over the weeks I’d offer solids first at more and more meals, to where he was always eating solids first, and then nursing.  I tried to make sure solids and nursing were within an hour of each other, so that it was a big meal, instead of two separate snacks.

When will I stop nursing?

My goal was always to nurse to 1 year, and I know we’ll make that goal.  After that, I”m not sure.  This is probably a selfish reason, but I want to get pregnant again, and breastfeeding has definitely been working as birth control for us.  I’ll see where we’re at when he turns a year.

I hope this is helpful to you nursing mamas out there.  Please let me know if you have any questions I didn’t answer!

Have a great day.

Heather

Do you remember when I meal planned for an entire month?  Well I’ve made it more than half way through my list (a couple more have been marked off since this picture).

I’ve also gone rogue and not cooked off my meal plan.  Sometimes I just don’t feel like making what I’ve planned, but mostly I’ve been lazy about grocery shopping which means I’ll either modify based on what I have on hand, or make something different.  Last night I went with something different – thai peanut chicken pasta.

I’ve been going through old post and updating the links + reinserting pictures that have disappeared.  While doing that I’ve rediscovered some recipes from the past.  One in I was super excited to find again was my thai peanut chicken wrap.  Peanut sauce is where it’s at.  While I didn’t have any wraps on hand, I did have whole wheat spaghetti.  And with that, the pasta dish with peanut sauce was created.

Thai Peanut Chicken Pasta
Serves 4

Inspired by thai peanut chicken wrap

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts, grilled and chopped
• 12 ounces whole wheat pasta
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced
• 1/2 white onion, sliced (although green onion would be great here too!)
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• peanut sauce – recipe below

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. Add the oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add in the bell pepper and onion.  Saute for 5-7 minutes until soft.  Add a pinch of sea salt here if desired.
3. Make your peanut sauce while the veggies are cooking.  Once soft, add in chicken to heat through.
4. Once the pasta is done cooking, reserve 1/2 cup pasta water.  Drain remaining liquid from the pasta, and add it to the pan with the veggies and chicken.  Pour peanut sauce and pasta water over the pasta.  Toss to coat everything, then sprinkle the sesame seeds over.

Peanut Sauce

makes a little less than 1 cup

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup creamy natural peanut butter (mine had a little sea salt in it)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce, low sodium
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 1 tsp maple syrup
• a squirt of sriracha

Directions

1. In a microwave safe bowl combine the water, peanut butter and soy sauce. Heat on high for 1 minute, then whisk to combine.
2. Whisk in the remaining ingredients. The sauce will thicken up naturally after a couple minutes, so make sure to let it sit for a few before serving.

We all devoured multiple servings.

Are you a fan of coconut oil?  Recently I became an affiliate with Nutiva.  Today they are running a Tuesday organic crazy deal.  Here’s what you get for $19.99:

The sale ends tomorrow morning at 9am.  I’m stocking up on my coconut oil.  I need it for my PB coconut no bake bars I’ve been making like crazy.  If you end up ordering from Nutiva, I’d love it if you used my link!

Lastly, the Chobani Champions giveaway is still running through Friday.  Make sure to enter and win some yummy yogurt!

Are you a fan of peanut sauce?  It’s pretty much my favorite thing.  Happy Tuesday all!

Heather

Then I just continued on.  I wanted to make more no kneed artisan bread (to make up for my mistakes), so I got that dough started.  I baked up one loaf and have enough dough in the fridge for 3 more.  Even with expired yeast, it turned out amazing!

Last week I made a batch of peanut butter coconut oat no bake bars.  Jacob and I devoured them.  This week, I doubled the batch + washed and cut a bunch of strawberries.

I was going to prep some spicy black bean burgers for tomorrow’s dinner, but instead we went to the park for a little swinging since the sun came out to play.

And lastly, I made a salad.  Not a green salad, a creamy crunchy salad.  A highly adapted this salad I found at From Grandma Loy’s Kitchen – my super secret blog for this month’s Secret Recipe Club reveal!

This salad almost didn’t happen.  For days I’d been eying her molasses cookies, pumpkin oatmeal drop cookies and pina colada macadamia oatmeal cookies.  You can see where my mind was.  But at the last minute, I decided against it.  I wanted to prep something a little more wholesome for us, so I went searching through her salads.

This one was super simple.  You throw all your veggies and beans together in a bowl, mix up your creamy dreamy dressing, and toss in some cheese.

Hunter and I ate it for lunch, then Jacob had it along with a couple tuna melts for a late lunch.  Verdict?  We loved it.  The bite size pieces were perfect for Hunter, I loved the cool crunch, and Jacob… well I’m not exactly sure what he liked about it but he ate it all and said it was good.  For a healthy dish I call that a win!

Waffles, bread, bars, strawberries and this salad.  I’d say that’s a pretty productive (and delicious) Sunday!

Creamy Corn and Bean Salad

Adapted from here

Ingredients

• 4 cups frozen (defrosted) corn
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/4 cup mayo
• 2 tbsp plain yogurt
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 2 tsp dried onion flake
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In a medium bowl combine the corn, black beans and red pepper.  In a smaller bowl stir together the mayo, yogurt, sour cream and spices.
2. Stir the sauce in with the bean mixture, along with the cheese.  Chill in the fridge.  Serve chilled or at room temperature.

How was your Sunday?  Did you prep any food for the week?  What did you make?

Heather

Another way?  My lactose intolerance went away!  The intense stomach pain I used to get when I’d eat ice cream, yogurt and cheese was no fun.  And plain old  milk was the worst.  I guess something switched in my body and everything started working like it should again.

Yogurt was back in my life and being consumed at full force.

You can imagine my excitement when this arrived at the doorstep one day.

Oh I will handle with care.

Inside –> TONS of chobani champions!  It was time to share my CHO love with my little guy.

We received four flavors: vanilla chocolate chunk, orange vanilla, very berry and banana honey.  Since Hunter’s still under 1 year, I went ahead and claimed the banana honey for me.  No honey for the little guy yet.  At least that’s what I’m telling myself (maybe I just wanted it….).

Since Hunter can’t really tell me what he thought about them, I will interpret.

Very berry -  devoured (means he liked it)

Vanilla chocolate chunks – devoured again (he reaaallllyyy liked it)

Orange vanilla – spit it out (I don’t think he was a big fan)  He’d take a bit, but then spit it out.  Then he’d proceed to take another bite (thinking it would be different??), then spit it out.  The way he’d spit it out was pretty funny – with a big smile and almost like he was blowing raspberries.

Hunter’s cousin Caden was over one day, so we tried to share, but he wouldn’t even try it!  Oh well, more vanilla chocolate chunk for Hunter and I.

Unlike Hunter, I can actually talk, so I’ll tell you what I thought about them.

Vanilla chocolate chunk – My favorite!  Anything with chocolate is awesome.  The chunks are so little you get them in every bite.

Banana honey – Subtle honey, yummy banana flavor.  Not like an overripe banana at all, which I do not like.

Very berry – I only got a taste since Hunter ate most of these, but again, good!  Not much sweetness which is what I like in my yogurt.

Orange vanilla – I’m with Hunter on this one.  Not my favorite, but hear me out.  I am not a fan of orange and vanilla together. You know those orange creamsicle?  I do not like them one bit.  Luckily Jacob does, so he’ll get to have these.  I’ll probably see if Hunter likes them in a few weeks too.

Chobani is all about real food.  Real ingredients.  Real taste.  What I liked about the champions actually more than my chobani I buy at Costco is that it’s 1.5% fat.  0% is fine because it’s all they have at Costco (it’s a good price there), but I’d love for them to carry 2%.  This girl likes her fats!

How about a fun Friday giveaway?  Yeeeesssss!

*****GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED****

You can win your own case of Chobani Champions cups.  It includes:

• One 4-pack of Vanilla Chocolate Chunk
• One 4-pack of Banana Honey
• One 4-pack of Orange Vanilla
• One 4-pack of Very Berry
• Two additional randomly selected 4-packs

Obviously, you don’t have to have kids to win.  This yogurt is very much adult approved.

How to enter

Leave a comment for each entry.  The more comments, the more chances to win!

1. Tell me your favorite flavor of yogurt, or favorite topping, or both!

2. Share this giveaway on your blog, twitter (include @fitmamarealfood and @Champions), facebook, pinterest, instagram… however and where ever you want to.  Each share is an extra entry!

A winner will randomly be selected next Friday, April 19th.  Open to the U.S.

Hope you all have a great weekend!  Tonight is date night for Jacob and I.  The perfect way to end off the week.

What are you up to this weekend?

Heather

And two weeks ago I continued to eat sugar each day.

I failed in the detox part.

But really I won.

You see, I didn’t cut out all sugar.  My goal was to detox the processed sugary sweets from my diet.  As in, those cookies pictured above.

Which I did!  Instead of mindlessy munching on cookies, I thought about what I really wanted.  Was I hungry?  Okay, eat some real food – apple + peanut butter.

Was I thirsty?  A spinach, marionberry and banana will do the trick.

Did I just want something sweet?  My chobani peach yogurt can help with that.

Sometimes a handful of dark chocolate chips were I really wanted… so I had it.  Whoops!

I never truly cut out sugar during this detox.  I actually had a loaf of lemon poppyseed bread that I baked up the day before the detox.  I probably should have just put it in the freezer, but instead I munched on it a bit each day.

Even though I never cut sugar out completely, I regained the control I wanted.  I felt like I was unable to stop myself once I got started eating cookies, but now I can stop again at one.  Or even have none.  I guess it was more of a recalibration than a detox.

I found out that if I really listen to my body, it tells me what I need.  Sometimes all it takes it slowing down for a moment to hear what it’s saying.

How would you have done on this sugar detox?  Failed, but won?  How’s your week going so far?

Heather

Not crusty.

Not artisan.

Not really bread my husband likes, so I end up eating all of it.

I tend to get stuck on the whole wheat bread thing.  If I’m going to make it whole wheat, it needs to be 100%.  Zero white flour.  Because it’s better for you.  BUT…. I eat white bread at restaurants, I eat it at other people’s houses, and I even eat it when I buy it to go with our cheese and wine.  I’m not going to lie, it tastes good!

Then on Monday it hit me… if I’ll buy some fancy crusty white bread, why not just make it?  Just because I’m making bread doesn’t mean it can’t be white!  And so the attempt began…

Have you ever heard of the book artisan bread in 5 minutes a day or healthy bread in 5 minutes a day?  I have the latter one (because I like to be healthy).  Well, the concept is to create a no kneed wet dough that can be refrigerated for up to 14 days.  You make a big batch of dough, so that when you want to make bread, you just cut off a piece, let it sit and then bake.  I wanted to make their master recipe to just start with the basics (and because my friend Alissa made it once when we were at their place – it rocked!).

The internet is a wonderful thing.  On the author’s website I found how to make it: master recipe for artisan bread in 5 minutes a day. I’m not going to share the recipe on here, mainly because it’s in depth and the link above is wonderful.  I am however going to show you how it turned out and tell you some mistakes of mine.

Do as it says, not as I do…

• I ran of out of white flour so I used 4.5 cups white, 1.75 whole wheat and 2 tbsp vital wheat gluten.
• Half of my yeast was expired… but it still rose a ton so that must have not mattered!
• I do not have a pizza stone like they suggest baking it on, so I just baked it on the sheet pan on parchment.  The sheet pan was not preheated in the oven.
• I also don’t have an oven thermometer like they say to use…
• Salt – use as much as they say.  I’m not sure why, but I only put like half the recommended amount of salt in.  I also used sea salt since that’s what I had on hand.
• I couldn’t find my food scale so I just guessed at how much a pound of dough was.

So after all that… how did it turn out?

Still a success!  It LOOKS crusty, although it is not.  The crust was soft.

The inside texture – perfect and soft.

The flavor?  Bland.  Again, go for the recommended amount of salt.

The husband – he ate it!  Although, he said it was bland too.

The pride –> YUP. 

I still have enough dough in the fridge for 3 more loaves, so to make it taste better, I’ll add salt on top of it before it bakes, since I can’t really add it into the dough now.  Maybe some olive oil and rosemary too for a little more flavor.

While this isn’t going to become an every day bread (I need my whole grains!), it will be nice to have with salads throughout the summer months.  We ate it with salmon caesar salad.  And THAT was delicious.

Have you ever made crusty bread?  How did it turn out?  Do you follow directions better than I do?

I have always wanted to make a baguette.  I think once I master the crusty loaf, that’s my next challenge!

Happy hump day all.

Heather

This stage he is in now —- the crawling from room to room, chasing the cat around, pulling everything off shelves, leaving a whirlwind mess behind him, standing, stepping, smiling, and making funny faces stage —- is so much fun!  Every month it keeps getting better and better.  His independence is growing at a rapid rate.  He’s gotten so good at just playing by himself.  Even though he’s independent, he is still my little cuddler.  It just has to be on his terms.

His crawling is crazy fast.  He pulls up to stand in a second flat.  Now he’s also balancing and almost to the stage of taking a step.  Beginning on Sunday he started balancing, then moving one foot forward like he is about to step, but then he falls.  I bet this is going to be changing quickly.  Once the steps starts, the running begins!  I can just picture him running around screaming at the top of his lungs with a huge smile on his face.  Chasing after the cat of course.

One thing I haven’t really talked about are how the animals and Hunter along.  We have a dog, Joe, and cat, Stoner.  Joe’s a jealous kind of dog who likes attention, and for a while was not doing too well with Hunter.  Joes worries about Hunter when he cries, but then is annoyed by him at times.  Nothing ever happened between them, but he’d growl at Hunter.  Not okay.  Now he’s doing much better and will let Hunter pet him, pull on his tail and bounce on him.  When he doesn’t like it, he gets up and walks away.

Our cat Stoner, surprisingly does amazing with Hunter.  Hunter pets and pulls his fur, lays on top of him and chases after him.  Stoner will just lay there like nothing is happening, and then once he’s done being played with, he gets up and walks away.  Hunter then goes after him and he just keeps slowly walking away.  Not even like he’s trying to get away from Hunter, just like he’s deciding where he wants to lay down next.  Again, super impressive.

{{ Lindsay – Hunter LOVED your cheesy mexican quinoa }}

This month we dropped from 4-5 nursings to 2-3 a day.  The day I decided to try it out, Hunter instantly ate so much more food.  Makes sense, he’s a hungry boy!  He was already a good eater, and cutting the nursings to just 2-3 made him a great eater.

A typical day with his new nursing schedule:

• When he first wakes in the morning (ranges from 5am-7am) I nurse him.  If he wakes before 6:30am I can typically put him back to bed for another hour or two of sleep.
• After he’s up for the day, breakfast is usually around 8am.
• He takes a morning nap, then lunch happens anywhere after that from 11am-noon.
• If he’s going to nurse again, it’s an hour or so after lunch.  Usually I will if he’s fussy, but if he’s fine I’ll just pump.
• After his afternoon nap I feed him a snack, typically around 3:30-4pm.
• Dinner is anywhere from 5:30-6pm, and then a final nursing session at 7pm before we get into our bedtime routine.

The average hours of sleep a night –> 12.5.  I love that.  He’ll be asleep around 7:45-8pm, and then wake for the day between 7:45-8:15am.  Typically.  Sometimes it’s less, but usually not more.  The boy likes his nighttime sleep.  Naps, not so much.  He takes two a day, and they are between 20-45 minutes.  Short and effective I guess!

With the nicer bit of weather we’ve had (yup past tense there as I look out at the rain) I’ve been trying to get us outside more.  He does really well sitting and playing on a blanket in the front yard while I get a bit of weeding in.  Sticks help to entertain the kid.

Swinging with his BFF is a fav still, and just getting to play with Mabel in general.  He crawls all over her now and is definitely more rough than he used to be before he was crawling around.

Hunter still has no teeth, and no real signs of teething lately.  A-okay with me!  I wonder when his fuzzy blonde hair will fill in?

How many hours a night do you sleep?  Has it changed over time?  Like for me, before Hunter I typically slept for 6-7 hours a night and felt great.  Now?  I feel a bit tired on 7 and function better on 8 hours.  9 hours makes for a great day.

Heather

This past one seemed to fly by (when do they not?).  Thankfully I got to enjoy it.  Thursday afternoon/Friday all day I was fighting some stomach bug/body ache that left me pretty much on the couch or in bed all day.  Or as much as I could with a crawling kiddo who was also a clingy kiddo.  I got my class covered on Friday and prayed I’d feel better for the launch the next day.  And the day of rest worked!  Saturday I woke up much better and ready to teach two classes that day.

When I got home from the workouts, Jacob and I had some chill time before heading over the my brother + sister’s house.  I think Hunter caught my bug and was not feeling well Saturday night, so after a rough night we had a lazy Sunday morning.  I even got to sleep in a bit since Jacob got up with Hunter.  Love that guy.  I curled my short hair for the first time since I’ve cut it.

I thought it turned out cute!  We went to Costco and Chuck’s for some groceries later the day, then more chill time the rest of the day.  Again, just what we needed.

Bodypump 85!

I love launches.  It is so much fun introducing a new workout to members, and this was one especially exciting.  There were lots of new challenges in release 85.

Before I get into it, if you aren’t familiar with bodypump and what the heck I’m talking about, check out the body pump section on the group fitness page to read what it’s all about.

For this launch I wanted to do something fun.  It takes me a while to come up with a creative idea, but I figured it out in time.  Super sweet headbands!  I bought some bright green, pink and blue stretchy fabric, cut out strips and my mom and I wrote a bunch of encouraging words on them.  I thought they turned out well and pretty much all 45+ people in class wore them!

Body pump 85 breakdown:

Warm up – Heartbreak on Hold

A fun and lighthearted warm up song.

Squats – Antidote

The intensity in this song matched the intensity you felt in your legs.  Just two sets of work.  LONG sets with tons of bottom halves.  Your legs want to stop after just one set, but that’s not an option.

Chest – Uprising

I’m a big fan of Muse, so I loved this song.  I also l.o.v.e.d the new challenge in this track – working from the bottom.  Two out of four of the sets of work are from the bottom range to the top.  It adds a huge challenge! 

Back – The Rhythm of the Night

Back is always fun, especially when you have both power presses clean and presses.  Tons of overhead work = big cardio effect.

Triceps – Let it Roll

This was a happy song for triceps.  You needed the happy song to keep you going.  The challenge was to keep your back weight on the bar for the tricep presses.  I tried it once during practice and barely made it.  Something to work up to for when I’m teaching it!  Bar work + dips + extension leave nothing left in the triceps.

Biceps – Blow Me (One Last Kiss)

This track killed the biceps.  It was a bit longer than normal, with a really long last set.  Super fun song by Pink with lots of intensity.  Really made our biceps pop for the pictures below.

Lunges – Spectrum

While I was not a big fan of this song, especially the first half of it, the new challenge that came with the lunge track made it turn out okay.  Okay, better than okay. The plyometric straddle jump.  Holy cows, it leaves nothing behind in the legs.  You do one set of 16, take a break, and then finish with another set of 16 at the end!

Shoulders – This is How We Rock!

Walking push ups + 16 single push ups.  That’s how the intensity in this track starts, and it just keeps building on itself.  Two sets of work with the plates and then finishing with bar work.  Heavier than normal makes it tough to finish.

Core – One More Night

The big focus for the core track was on upper and lower abs, not so much obliques this time.  Lots of leg extensions and lifts with the plate targeted both parts.   And two days later I’m still feeling my abs .

Cool down – Forever

Great song for the cool down.  It slowed everything down and gave the muscles what they needed after all the work.  Although, for an instructor, the flow of the choreography is a bit confusing.

I was so proud of everyone and loved the energy of the class.  I team taught with Suzanne, which never disappoints!

This morning I’m off to teach body pump again, but since I’m not team teaching I have the entire release to teach… hoping it goes well!

Here’s to a happy Monday and a fit week!

Have you tried the latest release?  What do you think?  What was your favorite workout of the weekend?

Heather

While changing the look, I noticed a few pages have been very neglected lately.  Not just topic wise, but also with the look and ability to find things easily.  That’s changing today!

My group fitness page is now looking a bit better, and also has more info for all you group fitness instructors (or wanna be instructors too!).  Today I’m adding more to the page with a new cycle ride.

Wednesday is always my cycle day.  I’m off to teach it in a couple hours.  I love every sweaty minute of it.  This ride is from last week’s class.  We did lots of racing, and lots of competing.  Here’s the workout + music that went along with it.

Even if you don’t teach cycle, you could totally use this as a personal workout.  Just hop on a spin bike, grab your headphones and take off.  Remember to race hard and fast.

If you’re a cycle/spin instructor, join my facebook group!  We’ll be sharing rides, playlists and ideas.

Do you love cycle?  Indoor classes and/or riding outside?

I don’t ride outside that often, since I don’t really have a bike, but I would loooooove to go on long rides with Jacob.  He’s much faster than I am, so I have to race to keep up.  And that’s a good thing.

Happy Wednesday all!

Heather

Yesterday I spent some time obsessing over new fonts. I love pretty fonts and love love love that I can download so many awesome free ones from dafont.com. Free is my favorite price. If you are a little font obsessed like me, I think you’ll like what I’m about to share.

Here are 10 of my favorite new fonts. It is FUN FONT FRIDAY after all!

Do you love fonts as much as I do? What’s your current fav?

I’m planning a blog makeover this weekend, so if the site looks funny for a bit, don’t worry it will look normal again. Well, a new normal!

Heather

This month I’ve taken a burden off my shoulders.  If I don’t have something planned or at least in the back of my mind for dinner, it turns into this mad dash of throwing something together, while I’m trying to feed Hunter at the same time.  Evenings are so much more relaxed when I’m a girl with a dinner plan.  Now I’m a girl with a month of dinner plans!

I’m not sure where I got this idea in my mind to plan for a month, but once I thought of it, I had fun doing it!

1. Figure out how many meals a week you will cook

I know I won’t cook dinner every day.  We tend to have leftovers in the house, so one night we might eat those.  Other times we could go out/over to someone’s house for dinner.  I like to keep a couple days open.  I planned to cook 5 nights a week.  In reality, I alternate between 4-5 times, but by planning 5 I’ll have extra meals to go past the month.

5 meals a week X 4 weeks = 20 meals to plan

2. Break the meals into categories

20 meals may sound like a lot, but when you break it down into categories, it’s actually pretty easy.  It also ensures you have variety each week.

My 5 categories: crockpot, vegetarian, casserole, salad and miscellaneous

Crockpot

• beef and broccoli
• honey sauced chicken
• chicken and mushroom
• santa fe chicken
• berry cobbler (not a dinner, but something on my list to make!)

Vegetarian

• cheesy mexican quinoa
• skillet millet stuffing + eggs
• spicy black bean burgers
• tamale pie

Casseroles

• enchiladas
• curry rice and chicken
• italian mac n cheese
• bobotie

Salads

• salmom caesar salad
• chicken, blue cheese and pear salad
• asian chicken salad
• antipasta salad

Miscellaneous

• salmon feta and quinoa patties
• pizza
• stuffed bell peppers
• steak with chive butter

The recipes without links are one I’ll come up with as I make it.

3. Go online and find recipes

Since I’m working through a year of crockpot recipes, that category was easy. Recipes are linked above.  If there is no link then I’m coming up with the recipe on my own.

I created a bookmark on my phone – meal planning – and saved all of the recipes for the month there to make them easy to find when I go to cook.

4. Grocery shop to have the main ingredients on hand 

I find grocery shopping for an entire month a bit overwhelming, but I wanted to take a little pressure out of each weekly shopping trip.  I looked through each recipe and added up how much meat, beans, chicken stock and grains I needed.  Then I picked it all up at the grocery store.  I filled the freezer with the meat I know I’ll need, so when it’s time for that meal, I’ll just have to pull it out and not have to worry about running to the store.

Each week I’ll look through the recipes and see what vegetables and small items I need and pick those up.  Hopefully that makes for a smaller grocery trip.

5. Break out each week of meals

After I had all 5 categories of recipes filled up, I just took one meal from each of them for the week.  So every week I ended up with a crockpot, vegetarian, casserole, salad and miscellaneous recipe.  So easy!

Last thing I did was print off the handy list below.  Each time I make a meal I’ll cross it off the list.

How do you meal plan?  Have you ever tried meal planning for an entire month? 

I hope these recipes/ideas help spark some dinner excitement!

Heather

The other 5%… I guess I’ll take the blame for. I’ve just had no self control lately! I know they are not good for me, but ever since he brought the first box home I’ve been eating them, every evening. If it’s not those cookies it’s some other type of sweet.

This control of sugar over me had to stop!  TODAY.  Time for a reset.

Reset back to where I have control over what goes into my body.

Reset to keep these intense nightly sugar cravings away.

Reset and feel better. I’ve been dealing with a daily dull headache from the afternoons on through the evenings… possibly from all the unnecessary sugar? Maybe, we will see.

The plan: detox the processed sugary sweets out of my body. When the craving kicks in, fight back with something better for me.

I always work better with a plan. I have a few routes to try out here and see which works best for me.

A) I could eat something naturally sweetened to fulfill that craving, and begin to lessen the intensity of it by staying away from overly sweet treats.

B) Try something savory to see if that kicks the craving.

C) Toughen it out.

I don’t like C….

I know cookies and treats aren’t the enemy, they’ve just gotten a little out of control lately. I tend to fall into routines. This routine just isn’t one I want to stick with.

Day one starts today. Wish me luck (and will power!).

Does this happen to you? Do start eating sweet and then your body gets used to eating them and craves them even more at the same time every day?

Heather

How was your weekend?  Ours went by pretty quickly (they always do), but was pretty great.  Saturday involved teaching a couple classes in the morning, a long walk with the hubs, kiddo and dog, and then having some friends over for wine + cheese.  Sunday we started the day off with a couple hours of yard work.  It was actually really nice getting out there pulling some weeds and cleaning up the front yard.  Hunter happily sat and watched in the stroller until he needed to go down for a nap.  We ran a couple errands, then finished the day off with a date night, ending with froyo.  Yum.

Hunter even got put to bed like a champ by my mom.  Pretty nice way to finish off the weekend.

Now it’s back to reality.  I’m working on finishing up my meal planning for the month, but before I share that I owe you all another crockpot recipe.

I am almost caught up on sharing my weekly crockpot recipes, which I definitely got behind on.  I have two to share.  To continue the order (which is how I’m making all 50 of the recipes), it’s time to talk about chicken.  Apricot chicken.  The recipe itself is super simple – gather four ingredients, then cook it low n slow for a few hours.  The thing I didn’t like so much was the onion soup packet and catina dressing.  Since I’m trying my best to make more homemade, real food ingredients, I did the same here.

Online I found a recipe for homemade dry onion soup mix.  I followed the recipe, except for when it called for beef bouillon, which I subbed for my fresh bouillon cubes from the freezer.  For the catalina dressing I followed this recipe.  Simple and tomato-y tasting.

The only pineapple-apricot jam I found at the grocery store had lots of additives in it, so I went with a more basic apricot jam.

Did you catch all that?  Just four ingredients… and I’ve changed three of them.  Good thing I didn’t change the chicken too!

Crockpot Sweet Apricot Chicken

from chef in training

Ingredients

• 6-8 skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup apricot jam
• 1 cup catalina dressing *
• 1/4 cup dry onion soup mix *

Directions

1. Place chicken in the crockpot.  Mix all other ingredients together and pour over chicken.
2. Cook on low for 4-5 hours. Serve over rice with vegetables.

*follow the links to the recipes above to make your own

Had I not made all those changes, would Jacob have like this one more?  I’m not sure.  Meat + fruit are not really a combo he prefers.  While Jacob wasn’t a fan of this dish, Hunter and I really enjoyed it!  The chicken was a little sweet + very saucy.  We ate it on top of rice and vegetables.  It made for a super simple meal, even with my extra dry soup and dressing preparation.  The next couple days I threw the leftover chicken on top of salads with creamy blue cheese dressing.  I’d highly recommend that!

If you’re a fan of fruit and meat together, give this one a go.  But if you’re like my hubby, I’d try the sesame honey chicken.  Both are saucy, just with different flavor profiles.

How was your weekend?  Do you like fruit and meat together?  One thing that comes to mind is Thanksgiving turkey and cranberry sauce, mmmmmm.

Heather

As you all know, I love to workout.  I love coming up with workouts, I love doing those workouts on my own, but most of all, I love helping other people workout.  One of my favorite types of classes to teach is boot camp.  It gives me free rein to do whatever I want.  A couple hundred squats, and then some more lunges?  Sure why not.  Jumping, jumping then more jumping?  Don’t mind if I do.

One thing I always like to keep the same in my classes is not much downtime, especially in my 45 minute classes, which tend to fly by.  Less rest = heart rate staying up = more fat burning.  So if you give this workout a try (and I hope you do!), rest as little as possible.  But do remember, just like I tell my classes, take extra recovery time if you need it.  It’s your workout.  Listen to your body.

Videos for some of the exercises:

squat jumps

punches with a band

pendulum lunges

plank rows

jump lunges

mountain climbers

I hope you give the workout a try.  If you do, let me know what you think!

What are your favorite kinds of workouts to do on your own?  Or, which group classes do you love?  Do you moan and groan when instructors tell you to do squats, then more, and then more again….

Heather

It seemed like so much of this month was focused on sleep.  Both bedtime sleep training and nighttime sleep training are done and still going well!  He consistently sleeps anywhere from 10-12 hours a night.  I find that if he’s going to sleep 12, he’ll wake around 5:45am to eat then go back to sleep for another 1.5-2 hours.  This morning I actually decided to just stay up instead of trying to go back to sleep to have a little bit of morning productive time.

While he sleeps great at night, naps are a different story.  I think he’s in the process of transitioning from 3 to 2 naps.  He naps in the late morning around 10:30am, then again in the afternoon sometime between 1-2pm.  His evening cat nap is hit or miss lately. If he naps, it’s a short one around 4:30-5pm.

Hunter is definitely a cat napper, usually lasting 20-45 minutes.  It’s really rare that he naps longer than that, but it has happened on occasion (Saturday marked a 1.5 hour morning nap!).  I guess if I had to pick I’d much rather have a good nighttime sleeper, and a not so good day time napper.  He tends to cry more for naps than bedtime, and never gets in a comfortable position.  Maybe once he’s fully transitioned to 2 naps they will change again.  We’ll see.  I can’t complain though, since he’s a super happy kid throughout the day and not overtired, so he must be getting enough sleep as he needs.

When Hunter was a little baby we used to give him naked time… and we still do to this day.  After bath, before bed, I’ll let him roam around naked for a bit.  It’s pretty cute and thankfully he doesn’t pee on the carpet that often.

We’re down to 4-5 nursing sessions a day now, and he eats solids 4 times a day. I try and have him always eat solids first now, since we’re at the stage where he’s getting most of his nutrition from solids and less from breast milk.

Here’s what it looks like:

5:45am nurse (this is the biggest nursing session of the day) *

7:45am breakfast, then nurse around 8:15am

11:15am nurse, then lunch around 11:30am (normally I have to nurse first since I have to leave to teach)

2:30pm afternoon snack, then nurse around 3pm

5:30pm dinner

7pm final nursing of the day

* If he wakes around 6:30am for the day I’ll nurse him when he wakes, then do breakfast about an hour later, combining those 5:45 and 8:15am nursings into 1, which gives us 4 nursing sessions for the day.

Hunter is such a good eater.  He loves food and eats a big variety of foods.  Still, his favorites are avocado, banana, cheese and black beans for sure.  He really likes meat too.  Anytime I give him beef or chicken he gobbles it up.

I am finding that my milk supply is starting to decrease, which is okay since he’s not needing as much.  On the days he only nurses 4 times, I’ll pump at 10pm before going to bed.  I tend to only get about 1 ounce then.

Some of his favorite things

Swinging in the sunshine, and going on walks.

Crawling like a torpedo.  He decides where he wants to go, and charges full speed with his head down!  Yes, it does result in him running into things, head first.  I’m sure it makes him more wind resistant crawling that way though.

Pulling up to stand, then testing his balance limits.  He’s officially starting to let go and stand on his own for a few seconds at a time now.

Books.  He looooooooves books.  We can easily sit through 5-6 books and typically it stops because I’m tired of reading. He gets really into just sitting, listening and looking.

Evenings have become such a funny time with Hunter.  After dinner, something switches in him and he’s insanely energized and go-go-go.  Even more so than during the day.  He’ll do laps around the living room and through the kitchen.   He has a ball and smiles like crazy.  Jacob and I just laugh and soak it all in.

We still do baths in his little tub.  I tried a bath in the actual tub over the weekend, and he was sooooo scared (he’s had one before than resulted in a water face plant).  He kept standing up, which was a no-no.  Maybe because his feet would slip easily that made him scared?  We’re going to get a grippy mat to keep him from slipping.  I ended up getting in the bath with him, which was the only was he was okay with it.

Hunter still has zero teeth.  He’s had 1 top tooth barely poking through for a couple months now.

He knows the word ‘no’ very well as we teach him not to get into things around the house.  We really didn’t do much baby proofing, other than putting up a gate.

At his 9 month check up he weighed 19 pounds, 4 ounces.  His height was 27.5 inches.  He’ still right on track with his 25th percentile weight chart and somewhere between 25-50th percentile in height.  My little boy just keeps on growing.

I think we’ll have a walker before 1 year, but we’ll see!

When did your kids begin walking?  That’s when the real craziness will begin.

Happy Monday everyone.

Heather

A couple weeks ago I left off with an update on bedtime sleep training.  Nighttime was our next step in sleep training.  We decided to jump right into it.  While training Hunter to sleep through the night, I also dropped the dream feed too! Here’s how it all started.

Hunter’s 9 month check up consisted of us mostly talking about sleep (I had been getting up with him at night 2-3 times for loooonnnngggg stretches).  Jacob and I wanted to get our pediatricians take on letting him cry at night.  She was totally down with it, and reassured us that babies won’t be emotionally scarred by crying for long periods of time.  She also assured us that it really is in his best interest.  Teaching your baby to sleep through the night, and put themselves to sleep gets harder and harder the older the baby gets.  She said the best time is before they are 1 year, and after that habits get harder and harder to break.

Our plan was to put him down like normal for bedtime (between 7:30-8pm), and then after the dreamfeed, let him cry if he wakes in the middle of the night.  I had my notepad by the bed so that when he woke me I could write down the time instead of trying to remember how long he’d been crying in my middle of the night daze.  I also planned to just try and focus on getting myself to fall back to sleep during the nighttime crying.

Day 1 of nighttime sleep training (which was actually also day 7 of bedtime sleep training):

7pm nurse + start bedtime routine (bath, baby massage, books, singing)
7:50pm in bed (put down awake) – he had a rough time falling asleep, waking + crying 3-4 times
9:10pm asleep
10pm dreamfeed + back to bed
12:30am the crying began… but just for 10 minutes!
5:50am awake for the day

Day 2

6:55pm nurse + start bedtime routine
7:45pm in bed
8:10pm asleep
8:50pm woke, 5 minutes of crying, put himself back to sleep
Sometime between 11:30pm-12:45am (I forgot to write it down until the morning) he woke and cried a few minutes and went back to sleep
5:45am awake for the day

*no dreamfeed

Day 3

7:20pm nurse + start bedtime routine
8pm in bed
8:15pm asleep
…….. no middle of the night crying!
5am wake + nursed on just one side + put back down semi-awake
7:45am awake for the day

Day 4

7pm nurse + he got to stay up longer, we were out and away from home
9:30pm headed home, he fell asleep in car, then stayed asleep when I moved him from the carseat to crib at 10pm
10:30pm awake and crying… for a long time
11:20pm finally back to sleep
5:35am woke + nursed +put back down semi-awake
8:15am awake for the day

Day 5

7pm nurse + start bedtime routine
7:55pm in bed
8:15pm asleep
5:45am woke + nursed + put back down semi-awake
7:05 awake for the day

Day 6

7:20pm nursed + start bedtime routine
7:45pm in bed
11pm woke, cried a couple minutes, then fell back to sleep
4:15am woke + nursed + put back down semi-awake
7:30 awake for the day

* I decided to try cutting out the dreamfeed because he wasn’t really staying asleep for it.  Plus, I just had this feeling that he didn’t need it anymore.  Thankfully I was right!

Notes

• It looks like I only recorded for 6 days.  After that we knew that he got it.
• In reality it took him about 2 days to figure it out.  The night he cried for 50 minutes was probably just because we kept him up so late and he didn’t get to fall asleep like normal.
• 4am was my cut off time.  If he woke before then, I’d let him cry.  If he woke after 4am, I’d nurse him and put him back to sleep (unless it was morning time).
• I think starting with bedtime training taught him how to self soothe, which he then figured out how to do in the middle of the night too.
• When he wakes and cries we don’t go into his room.  No comforting (it seems to make it worse when we go in), we just let him figure it out.   We never really set a limit for how long we’d let him cry… it kind of turned into ‘just let him cry until he gets it’ – he needs to go back to sleep on his own to learn.
• So many times we wished we had a nighttime video monitor to see if he was okay.  We knew that he was, but as the crying would continue or pick up in intensity (usually at bedtime), that’s when we would begin to question ourselves.
• Jacob and I were a team on this.  I can’t imagine how difficult it would have been if we weren’t together and on the same page.  We kept each other strong throughout it with our end goal in mind – solid nighttime sleep.

It’s funny reading through how it was then, and seeing how it is now.  He’s consistently sleeping from 7:45-8pm (with 0-10 minutes of crying at bedtime) until about 6-7am.  When he wakes I’ll nurse him and typically he’s pretty awake and ready to start the day, but there have been a couple times lately where I was able to put him back down and he’d fall back to sleep until past 8am!

I am so glad we decided to sleep train.  Hunter’s a champ and made it so much easier than I thought it would be.  We anticipated lots of crying at night, but thankfully, that wasn’t the case.

Anyone else with a similar experience?  Or the opposite?  Did you try sleep training and have lots of tears?  Sharing is caring!

Heather

Honestly, there really isn’t a secret or trick that will help you lose weight.  Every body and everybody is different.  One thing that may work for me may not work for you, and visa versa.  With that said, here are some tips that may help you get in the direction that you want to go.  They’re great for anyone looking to lose weight (not just after baby), or to live a healthier lifestyle.

1. Stress less about the weight

This one may seem odd, but stress and worry really does the opposite of what we want.  Stress increases cortisol levels in our bodies, and high cortisol levels can make it more challenging to lose the pesky pounds.

2. Only weigh yourself once a week or monthly

This goes along with number one in a way.  Weighing yourself everyday doesn’t really show the entire picture.  Weight (especially in women) can fluctuate a lot daily.  Seeing the number go down can be exhilarating, but then seeing the number go up can be a downer, especially if you’re putting in a lot of effort.  Watch the scale less and focus on how you feel.  The number on the scale is not the entire picture.

3. Lift heavy weights

Muscle is a fat burning machine.  The more we have, the more calories we burn.  Do not be afraid the lift heavier weight.  And yes, that means more than those 1, 2 and 3 pounds dumbbells, ladies.  Weights should be challenging.  Get a little sweaty while you lift.

4. Sweat everyday

Consistent exercise is key in weight loss.  A little bit everyday goes a long way, even if it’s just 10-15 minutes.  By making it a daily habit, you’re programming your body to want more.  Trust me on this one.  Once you start to feel the effects of a bit of sweating each day, you will want more.  Not only for your body, but for your mind too.

5. Eat often

This may just be me, but my body craves food often.  Jacob makes fun of me all the time for always eating.  I never leave the house without a snacks on me, in my purse, in my car… sometimes in the diaper bag.  I don’t leave home without them because I know what I turn into if I don’t eat.  A grouch no one wants to be around. Also, being prepared away from home helps me make better choices.

6. Balance your meals

We don’t want to just eat all carbs, or all proteins, or all fats.  We need balance in our lives and in our meals.  Eat from every food group.  More on that in this post.

7. Drink water like you depend on it

…. because you do!  Did you know that our bodies are mostly made up of water?  Did you also know that when you begin to feel thirsty, it’s too late and that your body is already beginning to get dehydrated?  Always have water near you and sip on it all day long.

8. Slow and steady it goes

And that’s how you do win the race.  Quick weight loss could mean quick weight back on.  Slow weight loss makes it easier to keep the weight off in the long run.  That’s the real goal.

And because it’s fun, here they are all together!

What are your tips for weight loss after baby? 

I’m hoping to share some of my favorite core exercises soon!  Any fitness requests?

Heather

9 months ago I gave birth to my sweet baby Hunter.  9 months before that I became pregnant.  That’s an entire 18 months where lots of changes were going on in my body.

Here I am pretty much newly pregnant, at 10 weeks.

And in almost the same clothes now, at 9 months after having a baby.

Side by side comparison.

Notes

• My hips are still a bit wider
• Arms are looking much stronger
• Weight is almost back to pre-pregnancy (4-6 lb above)
• Lots of my pre-pregnancy jeans are still tight
• My hair is much cuter!

I kept some goals in mind that I wanted to meet at 9 months post baby.  I figured it took 9 months for my body to grow and change, it should take about that long to get back to its pre-pregnancy state.

Weight goal: About 5lb over my pre-pregnancy weight.  <- – CHECK!

I’m hovering 4-6 pounds over where I was before becoming pregnant.  I figured with nursing I would need to keep a few more pounds on.

Fitness goal: Feeling stronger and fitter than before. <- – CHECK!

Yeah… very vague, I know.  I just wanted to make sure I was keeping up with my exercise, both for my body and my mind.  At the time Hunter was born I didn’t know I’d be teaching 10-ish classes a week.  With all that, it’s been no problem getting my exercise in.

How did I lose the weight?

They say nursing will do that for you.  Nope, it really didn’t for me.  I didn’t start seeing much of a change until about 5 months after.  I believe that coincided with more exercise and specifically, more strength training.

I am much stronger than I have ever been, and I definitely attribute that to teaching bodypump 4 times a week (Wondering what bodypump is? Check out the post on it!). Not only am I stronger (I can lift more weight), I have more muscle.  Just as I tell everyone, muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does, so the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn sitting around and doing nothing.  That’s why strength training is so important!

I’m going to share my teaching schedule.  If it wasn’t for teaching, I’d be curious to see what my workout schedule would look like!  I am most definitely not telling you that you need to workout this much, this is just to share what I do.

Monday – bodypump and fitness yoga
Tuesday – strength + range of motion (SilverSneakers)
Wednesday -  cycle and bootcamp
Thursday – bodypump and sculpt + tone
Friday – bodypump
Saturday -  total body conditioning + bodypump
Sunday – R.E.S.T.

*I randomly throw in a short run… like 1-2 a month it seems.

** Also, I would not recommend doing so much strength training day after day.  It’s always a good idea to give your muscles a day of rest in between to recover.

Fitness is only half the challenge, food is where the real change comes from!

I feel like I eat all the time.  Exercise + nursing + my love for food leaves me huuuuuuuuungry.

I try to eat mostly good for me foods + something not so good for me each day.  A treat of some sort.  Some days there are more treats than others.

Here’s a look at what I might eat in a typical day:

Morning: coffee with milk 2x, custard oats with peanut butter

Pre-teaching: raisins

Post-teaching: chobani flavored yogurt + whole grain sprouted toast with avocado

** more raisins again if I’m teaching 2 classes that day

Mid day: lunch is typically left overs (enchiladas, burger (beef or black bean), big salad) or a tuna sandwich… something easy

Afternoon: this is where I get suuuuuuuper hungry, from about 2-4pm.  I’ll snack on string cheese, a banana, cereal, oatmeal, cookies… really whatever I can get into my mouth

During dinner prep: a glass of wine

Evening: dinner varies – the last few nights have been meatloaf with baked potatoes, salmon pasta salad with asparagus, cheese and bread… tonight we had beef tacos and asparagus.

Late night snacking??  Not much anymore.  When I’m giving Hunter a bath in the evening I’ve started brushing my teeth and flossing then too.  After that I’m good about not snacking!

+ Lots and lots of water all day long.

I’m really finding that when I listen to my body and eat what it wants, I feel satisfied.  Now that I think about it, I’m also not overly full even when I tend to eat everything in sight.  I like that.  I guess I naturally fell into intuitive eating.  I tend to get hungry about every 3 hours, and just make sure I get as close to balanced as I can with protein, carbs and fat.

Hooray for intuitive eating!

Miscellaneous

At 9 months Hunter is nursing 4-5 times a day (typically 5) with no nighttime feedings (I need to share that nighttime sleep update!).  I am surprised that my cycle hasn’t returned yet.  Nursing is definitely working as birth control for us.  I’m hoping as we continue to drop feeding over the next few months it returns so we can get into baby making again!  Yup, we want kiddos close in age.  I also feel good about getting pregnant again since I’m so close to my pre-pregnancy size too.

Lastly, I put together a side by side comparison of the change from 1, 3, 5 and 9 months.  It’s pretty cool seeing my progress like this.

Do you strength train?  Nursing mamas, when did your cycle return?  Would it be hard for you to resist these cookies in the afternoons too?

Heather

PS: I added a new page –>post baby body<– you can find all posts related to this topic there.

Oh geez.

Whenever I’m browsing through a new blog’s list of recipes, I instantly zone in on things to bake.  I can’t help it, I love baking!  Then testing too…

Erin’s blog Wholesome RD was no different.  Erin’s a new mama just like me.  Her little guy was born in May 2012 just like Hunter.  I remember getting comments from her when we were both pregnant and just living through the moments at the same time.  Now, we’re living through energetic little boy land at the same time!

Okay, I’m going off track.  The reason I was looking through her recipes is because she’s my secret blog for this month’s Secret Recipe Club!  Surprise Erin!

I debated between the cookie dough balls and campfire cookies.  Since I’m not a big marshmallow fan, balls I went with!

With all of the baking I’ve been doing, you would think I’d get my standing mixer out and place it up on the counter where it rightfully belongs.  Nope.  I’ve been going old school with a bowl and whisk.  So, while my directions tell you to use  a whisk and hand, you can also make these cookies (much more) easily with a standing or hand mixer.  You choose.  It really doesn’t matter which way, as long as you make them.  Because they are divine.

Her original recipe used almond butter, but peanut butter is always in full supply here so I used that.  I also reduced the flour a bit by swapping in some cocoa powder.  Making them extra chocolatey.  Yum

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls
Makes about 20 balls

Adapted from WholesomeRD

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup creamy natural peanut butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup natural cane sugar *
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl combine the butter, peanut butter, sugars and vanilla.  Whisk until fully combined.  In another bowl combine the remaining ingredients, except for the chocolate chips.
3. Stir the dry ingredients into the peanut butter mixture.  Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Scoop dough with a spoon and form into balls.  Place on an un-greased baking sheet.
5. Bake for 10 minutes.  Cool on sheet, then move to cooling rack.

* I read the recipe wrong when I was making it.  It called for powdered sugar, but I used natural cane sugar out of habit.  I think the powdered sugar would just yield a softer cookie.  Obviously my mistake worked too.

Are you crazy about baking like me?  What kind of recipes do you hone in on?  Eating too many cookies lately too?  Only me?

Tomorrow I’m sharing my 9 month post baby body update!

Have a great start to the week!

Heather

Cheddar broccoli soup is delicious. Broccoli topped with cheddar cheese sauce is genius. These egg muffins? Right up there with those, but soooooo much easier.

I seem to have a thing for 3 ingredient recipes. Pancakes, cookies, tuna cakes (okay that one really has 4, but one is just a spice)… now I have some  breakfast/snack/lunch anytime egg muffins too!

Cheddar Broccoli Egg Muffins
Makes 6 muffins

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup steamed broccoli (or frozen broccoli that’s been defrosted)
• 1/2 cup sharp cheddar, shredded
• Sea salt and pepper to taste (about 1/2 tsp each)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat a 6 hole muffin tin with oil.
2. Chop broccoli and place it in a bowl with the eggs and sea salt + pepper if you desire those. Whisk together.
3. Pour egg mixture into muffin tins and divide cheese evenly among them.
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the eggs are set.

Notes

You could sub any veggie or cheese here, but I’m  particular to the cheddar broccoli combo.

Have a great Friday! It’s sunny here and Hunter is calling for another walk to the park to swing.

Pure happiness.

Heather

Not a fitness instructor.  Not a friend to get together with.  Not a mom zooming around.   No clocks.  No reminders.  Just a mom.

And I loved it.

We hung out in our pjs all morning.

We made music in the kitchen with spice shakers, old wood spoons and the bottom of a grill pan.

I baked in the kitchen with Hunter at my feet.

We took a stroll to the grocery store for a few items, which actually turned into a run since the rain picked up getting Hunter a bit wet.  Whoops!

There was lots of snuggling, reading books, and me getting a bit teary thinking about my little guy (hormones…).

It was a beautiful day and not like one we’ve had in a while.

I was scheduled to teach a class, but luckily found someone to cover it.  I just needed a day.  A day to just be a mom.

I can’t actually remember the last day I was just home with Hunter.  No plans.  I teach 1-2 classes a day, except on Sundays, but on that day Jacob is home and we have church, so it’s just not the same.  With classes in the mix we’re always on a schedule.

I’ve always wanted to be a stay at home mom, and now that I am/have been, I realize, I don’t really stay home.  Hunter and I are always on the go from one gym to another, or back home then out again.  We run errands in between everything and occasionally throw in a play date, although those are becoming a bit of a rarity with these busy days.

My struggle: I love everything I do.  All of my classes, all my participants.  It’s what I’m passionate about!  But what do I love more?  Being a mom.  I feel like I’m taking it for granded.  This time when Hunter’s little and calls ‘maaa-maa’ when he’s sad or can’t see me is fleeting.

All this has been weighing on my heart lately.  Lindsay’s post on no longer being a zoom zoom mom (<—– read it) brought it even closer to the front of my mind.

I don’t really have a plan for change.  Maybe I’m just being a bit selfish with all my teaching.  It’s what I want to do, not what I have to do.  Do I need to make a  change? Or maybe every once in a while I just need to take these days.

To just be a mom.

Because there really is nothing better.

Heather

Let me start out by telling you, bedtime is going great.  We’re 1 week in and he’s figured it out.  We still have a couple things to work on (naps and middle of the night), but we’ll get there.

It’s funny how a baby’s sleep can change daily.  Hunter started sleeping through the night at 11 weeks and was golden until about 4 months.  We hit a sleep regression, probably some growth spurts too, and sleep never got back to as good as it was.  He could still sleep through the night, but then sometimes he wouldn’t.  He was becoming a bit of a wild card.

At six months sleep started getting worse.  Then he became mobile; crawling, pulling-up, and standing.  After this, not only did he start waking up multiple times a night, getting him to bed was starting to take an hour of rocking/nursing/whatever I could think of doing.

Thanks to reader Maggie, I found the site Troublesome Tots and read A LOT about sleep training.  Jacob read some too and got on board with what I wanted to do – cry it out.  Troublesome Tots has soooooo many good reads + tons of information on cry it out.  Here are a few, but there are definitely more articles I’m not linking to.

Are you ready for cry it out?

The Ferber vs Weissbluth CIO smackdown

How to cry it out: bedtime edition

What you need to know about sleeping through the night: part 1, part 2 and part 3

So bedtime was our big issue.  Our goal was to have Hunter put him self to sleep.  I knew lots of tears would be involved in the beginning so I told myself we would commit to doing it for a week.  That way I couldn’t stop early as my mommy emotions kicked in.

Our plan: start Hunter’s bedtime routine about 30 minutes before bed.  Routine [nurse, bath, baby massage, book, singing then into bed]  Bedtime is usually around 7:30-8pm.

Day 1:  He cried for 1 hour total before falling asleep.  During that time I went in 2-3 times and laid him back down on his back (Ferber style – read link above), but that really just seemed to make him more upset, so we switched to the extinction/weissbluth method (leave and stay out – again, read link above).  After being asleep, he woke 40 minutes later, I fed him and he went back to sleep.  We were up multiple times that night.

Day 2: 45 minutes of crying and the start of sleep sitting.  So so sad to see him doing this.  Once he’s asleep I go check on him, and he was just sitting, rocking forward and back asleep.   Eventually he turned himself into a forward fold asleep.  Then he woke 30-40 minutes later, so I fed him and he went back to sleep.  Same as the night before, lots of waking, but it was particularly challenging getting him back to sleep.

Day 3: Around 45 minutes of crying.  I kept him up just a little bit too long + we had company over.  I could tell he was a little overtired going to bed, and then woke 30 minutes later after falling asleep.  I fed him, he went back to sleep and another night of nighttime wakings.

Day 4: The turning point – he was a very tired baby all day and was not napping well, which made me think it would be a worse night than the previous.  But I was wrong!  It took just 20 minutes of crying/noise making and he was asleep on his belly (his preferred way to sleep).  Falling asleep on his belly was a first since we started this.  Also, he didn’t wake after 30-40 minutes!  I decided to just see what happened instead of doing a dream feed.  He woke at 11:30pm, after 3 hours of sleep.  I fed him and he easily went back to sleep.  Then he didn’t wake up until 7:40am!

Day 5: New record -  less than 10 minutes of crying and again, asleep on his belly.  However, he woke up after 45 minutes.  Fed him + back to sleep.  Lots of nighttime waking, with a long almost 3 hour stretch of me trying to get him back to sleep.  He just kept waking every time I’d put him back in his crib.

Day 6: Around 10-20 minutes of crying, and he stayed asleep past the 45 minute mark.  I did a dream feed at 10pm, wishing and hoping he’d stay asleep, but we were up 3 times again.

Day 7: Today -  he keeps falling asleep in an uncomfortable looking position and then waking up again.  However, tonight we’re starting nighttime sleep training too (we got our pediatricians blessing that it’ll be a-okay yesterday).  Hopefully it’s not as rough as I’m anticipating it will be.

I feel really good about our nighttime routine, and Hunter’s ability to put himself to sleep now at bedtime with just a typical 10-20 minutes of crying.  I think after those first 3 days he really started to get it a little more.  We’re just going to continue to be consistent and know that we’ll make it through this stage.

I’ll share more on how nighttime sleep training goes once we’re into it a bit.

Sleep well my friends.

Heather

Hunter isn’t just good at eating, his diet rocks.  Not that he chooses it himself, but I’m glad to see that he likes healthy foods.  He eats lots of veggies, fruits, healthy fats, a variety of both meat and non-meat protein, whole grains, and not much salt or sugar. And again, he loves it.

Once we aren’t babies anymore, when does all of this change?  Is it at our first birthday when we slam fistfuls of sweet sugary cake into our face?  Or go headfirst into the cake?  Does it start when we begin watching TV commercials with food ads geared towards kids?  Do the processed foods revamp our taste buds to want salty and sugary foods?  I don’t really have an answer for those questions, but I do have some tips on how to get back to where we once started.

Eat like a baby – Five steps to eating a healthier diet

Step 1) Eat small meals throughout the day.  Shoot for 5-6 mini meals.  When I feed Hunter I don’t really distinguish between breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks.  I offer him the same amount of food at each meal.

Step 2) Eat slow and stop when you begin to feel full.  This one is key!  Meals with Hunter take a good 20-30 minutes, but I could scarf down food in 5 minutes flat if I wanted to.  Eating slowly allows your stomach to tell your brain it is getting full.  That takes about 20 minutes.  So eat slow and once you begin to feel full, STOP!  By following baby-led weaning (click to read part 1 and part 2), Hunter’s allowed to stop once he is done eating.  He pretty much always has some food left on his tray, and that’s okay.  It’s his way of telling me he’s full when he stops eating.

Step 3) Have a fruit or vegetable (or both!) at every meal/snack.  Take some time to prep them ahead (washing/chopping/steaming/roasting… etc.).  I find the hardest part for me is once I’m hungry wanting to grab something quick, and if those fruits and veggies aren’t an easy option, I’m less likely to go for them.

Step 4) Have a variety of food on your plate.  Shoot for a balanced meal of carbohydrates (whole grains, fruit and starchy veggies), fat and protein (vary with meat and non-meat sources).  Just like Hunter’s mid morning snack I talked about above, it was balanced.  Carrot for the carbohydrate, and chicken thighs for the fat + protein.  You don’t always need three different things, some foods double in categories.  My snack I was eating, toasted whole grain bread with mashed avocado, needed some protein so I threw on a little chicken.  The carrot just rounded it out with some extra veggies.

Step 5) Break the rules sometimes.  Yup, you don’t have to eat 100% perfect all the time.  There are going to be times you want some chocolate or brownies (like tonight when Jacob made a batch… mmmmm), or some salty chips if that’s your thing.  Then go for it, just don’t make it the majority of what you eat.  Hunter’s had a couple tastes of sweets (mango coconut bread comes to my mind), but it’s not an every day thing, and it wasn’t like that was his whole meal.  It’s all about balance, and balancing out what you eat, trying to tip the scale to the healthier side.

I know there are days when I’m no where near following these steps, but I make a goal to do my best.  It’s not about being perfect, it’s about striving to eat healthier, feel good in the process, and be happy while you do it.

When do you think babies/kids/adults taste buds change? 

Have a great night!

Heather

Tuesday was such a beautiful and sunny day.  February is technically supposed to be winter, but I’ll take these spring like days anytime I can get them.

On this sunny day Jacob, Hunter, Joe and I all went to Marine Park and played around a bit at the play ground before setting out for a long walk along the river.

Hunter had the best time swinging for his first time.  He smiled and clapped his hands together.  We both loved pushing him.

He didn’t seem as excited about the slide… kind of no reaction.  The swing was where the fun was at.  After the long walk, it ended with a few drops – typical Washington fashion.

When we arrived back home I wish I could say I had a warm meal waiting for us in the crockpot, but I didn’t.  I didn’t plan that far ahead in the morning.

BUT, with a few minutes in the morning, YOU could have one of these yummy soups waiting for you at the end of the day.

Cold weather not required.

Crockpot Southwestern Beef Stew
from taste of home

The picante sauce give the beef stew a little different flavor from your average beef stew.  A good change though!  We really liked this along with crusty bread and kale chips…. mmm kale chips.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 jar (16 ounces) picante sauce
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 4 medium carrots, cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1/4 cup cold water

Directions

1. Place beef, picante sauce, potatoes, carrots, onion, chili powder, salt and cumin in a crockpot.
2. Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours or until meat and vegetables are tender.
3. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into stew. Cover and cook on high for 15 minutes or until gravy is thickened.

 

Crockpot Chicken Tortilla Soup
adapted from  chef in training

Super easy and super yummy!  This recipe makes a ton of soup.  We ate it two nights in a row then I froze the rest, which filled 2 quart jars.

Ingredients

• 2 chicken boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cans fire roasted diced tomatoes
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1.5  cups frozen corn
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cans low-sodium chicken broth
• 1-2 cups of water
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp chile powder
• 1 tbsp ground cumin

Directions

1. Place all ingredients except the chicken in a crockpot.   Put chicken breasts on top of mixture and make sure they’re at least partly submerged in liquid. Cook on high 6-7 hours or low 8-9 hours. Before serving remove the chicken breasts from soup and shred, if needed, (sometimes they’ll just fall apart on their own, but sometimes they need some help). Return chicken to crockpot, stir to combine.
2. Serve with tortilla chips, sour cream and cheese – or quesadillas like I did.

** Both recipes were made a couple weeks ago, so while I did get to enjoy them, it just wasn’t on that sunny day.

Do you enjoy soup in all weather, or just when it’s colder?  What’s the weather like in your area?

Heather

My latest trip to JoAnns was no different.  I went in looking for flannel fabric to make cloth wipes for my sister in law Chelbe – she’s having a baby girl next month!  Right as I walked towards the fabric section, I saw it.  It was the perfect fabric.  Flannel, but I couldn’t use it for wipes.  It was just too pretty.  The pattern reminded me of so many of her pins for baby Emma’s room.  I purchased a yard of it, still not knowing what I’d use it for, but I knew I needed it for something.

Over the next couple days I kept thinking about what to make.  I did a little pinteresting (totally a word….) and was inspired.

A cork board!

Instantly I had a vision of it.  White frame, the fabric with criss cross ribbon.

Here’s how it came together.

Step 1) Gather your supplies.

• frame
• roll of cork backing
• wood glue
• hot glue gun
• fabric
• scissors
• pen
• staple gun
• optional: paint, iron, ribbon, push pins, brown paper to cover back

Step 2) My frame was wood colored so I took it apart and painted it white.  I wanted the frame to look older so I just did a light coat.  It’s okay if a bit of the original color comes through… we’re going for a vintage look here.  Optional step if you don’t need to paint your frame.

Step 3) Cut out the cork board.  Lay the backing for your frame on the cork, trace around it, then cut it out.  Depending on the thickness of your cork you may need to do this twice.  I did.  To test if you need two layers, push a pin into the cork and see if it’s already the right thickness.

Step 4) Glue your cork to the frame backing.  Use wood glue.  I tried with a hot glue gun and it did not work.  Place the glue on the backing, then press the cork on to it.  If you have two layers of cork, repeat with the glue on the cork, then lay the second piece right on top of it.

Step 5) Grab a bunch of heavy books or photo albums and place them on top of the cork while the glue dries.  Wait at least 20 minutes.

Step 6) Cut out the fabric.  You can use the frame as a guide for size.  Leave an extra 2 inches on each side to fold over the glue to the back.  Iron if necessary.

Step 7) Once you have waited 20 minutes, lay your fabric on a flat surface (right side down), place your cork board on it (cork facing down), centered.  With your hot glue gun ready and heated, glue the corners down first.  Next, glue all the sides in.  Make sure to pull the fabric tight.

Step 8) If using ribbon, cut the pieces you want and lay them across the cork board (right side up).  I figured out the length for one, then cut 5 more of the same length.  Once the ribbon is laying how you want it to, using the hot glue gun, glue them attaching to the sides.  The frame will cover the glue once it’s on.  After you glue the sides, flip it over and glue the ribbon to the back as well to really secure them on.  Remember, pull the ribbon tight!

Step 9) Push your pins in where the two ribbons connect in the center.

Step 10) Last step!  Get the staple gun out.  Place the cork board in the frame, flip it over and staple to keep it together.  The staple has to go through both the frame and cork board backing… so I learned.

DONE!

Or…..

Step 11) To make the back prettier, cover it with some brown packing paper or a brown grocery bag.  Staple the paper over it.  I didn’t do this last step (because I was lazy), but it would give the cork board a more finished look.

Now you are DONE!

I feel like I really got into the zone with this one.  It was fun to come up with this idea and actually make it. A big thanks goes out to my mom for helping me and bringing supplies along.

If you already have a lot of the supplies on hand making a cork board can be very inexpensive.

Purchased items:

Frame – $4
Roll of cork – $12
Fabric – $5

Total – $21

I still have a lot of cork and fabric left over so I can make more cork boards or use them for another project, which makes the real cost much less.

Have you ever made a cork board?  Do you get sucked into craft stores like I do?  What’s the latest crafty project you did?

Heather

I can confirm that.

New this month:

Hunter is crawling!

Hunter is climbing!

Hunter is pulling up to standing!

Hunter has a top tooth beginning to pierce through!

Hunter is all over the place!

Pretty much the instant he started to crawl, he became more independent.  And now gets into everything.

When he hit 8 months, our world changed.  Even more for the better if that’s possible. He’s so much fun and just loves to play.  Especially with his daddy when he gets home from work.  His laughs and giggles are the best.

Like I said, he’s pulling up to standing.  Whenever I go get him from his crib, he’s peeping over the top rail.  Too cute.  All the pulling up and standing also means more falls and bonks on the head.  Luckily, the crying is always quick to go away.

We had a few days of fussiness after he got a flu shot last week.  That was also the week we found a tooth beginning to come through on the top, so I’m not sure if it was really the shot.  You can’t see the tooth, but you can definitely feel the sharp point.  He didn’t want to eat much solids during then, just nurse more, which makes me think it was all the tooth.

Baby led weaning is still going well!  He looooooooves feeding himself.  Although he’s super messy.  I hear some kids don’t like to be messy.  He is not one of those kids.  He still nurses 6 times a day.  We haven’t really cut down the number, but I can tell he’s not nursing as much as he used to since he’s eating more solids.  We’ll see when they cut down.  I’ll just roll with it until then.

He figured out how to eat out of a Sprout pouch without making a huge mess.  He just sucked all the sweet potato and white bean out like it was his job.  That is his job, right?

Although food is going well, sleep sure is not.  Maybe it’s teething, but nighttime has been rough.  We’ve had a couple nights this week where I’ve been up with him every hour.  I nurse him once or twice during the night if he’s having a tough time getting back to sleep, but most of the time I can just cuddle and rock him back to sleep.  I’m hoping this passes.  I miss my sleep, but also I’m sure he’s tired.  I can tell he’s a bit more fussy throughout the day from poor sleep.

He’s also beginning to fight naps.  I’d be so happy if he put himself to sleep, but now that he doesn’t want to nap and fights them, I have to rock him to sleep.  I have nothing against crying it out, I’m just really bad at it.  I always cave in.  It hurts my heart to have him cry with no progress to him falling asleep on his own.  I probably don’t stick it out long enough….

At the end of the month he’ll be going in for his 9 months check up.  I’m so excited to see how much he’s grown.  He feels much heavier, and if I had to guess, over 20 pounds.  We will see though!

Happy 8 months Hunter boy.

Heather

Special because they’re made with black beans! Hehe. I’ve made bean based sweets before, so I had an idea that they would turn out good. And for bean brownies, they were yummy! After my taste testing I found the recipe on Rebekah’s blog Food, Family and Fun, my secret blog for the secret recipe club this month! I loved looking through her blog and always have such a hard time picking which recipe to make… then I typically end up
with something sweet. What can I say, I like my treats.

I’m a big fan of her philosophy “If the ingredient list includes items my third-grader can’t read or pronounce, we don’t need to be eating it Amen! I can read all the ingredients in this recipe… thus I ate it.

Straight out of the oven sampling.

Black Bean Brownies recipe from Family, Food and Fun

Ingredients

• 1 (15 oz) can black
  beans
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup flour *
• 3 eggs
• 3 tbsp oil (I used coconut)
• 2 tsp
  vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp instant coffee granules
• 1/2
  tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate
  chips/chunks **

Directions

1. Preheat
   oven to 350°.
2. Drain beans in a colander and
   rinse very well. Put beans in a blender with all other ingredients
   except chocolate chips and puree until completely
   smooth.
3. Pour into a greased 8 or 9″ square
   baking pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out
   nearly clean.

* The original recipe did not call for flour, but there was a note that adding 1/3 cup flour would give the brownies a more typical brownie texture. I may try it without this the next time.

**Next time I would definitely mix in the chocolate chips throughout the batter, and also use mini chocolate chips so that they’re distributed all the way through. I enjoyed the bites the most when it had chocolate chip on top.

Have you ever tried black bean brownies or any other bean based sweet?

Heather

We have a bit of safety stuff to do around the house today (put up a gate at the stairs, cover outlets, put latches on doors/drawers) now that Hunter’s on the move. Once he started crawling, the next day it was all about pulling himself up to standing.  Geez, that means walking is next….

A mobile baby means I have to keep an eye on him at every moment. He wants to get into e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g and moves so fast.  The crockpot is even more my friend now, and especially this recipe (one of my year of crockpot recipes!).

Just and few ingredients go into the crockpot with the beef. You let it cook and soften, then put the filling (from the crockpot) into tortillas, smother it was sauce (left over from the crockpot) and cover with cheese. Easy peasy.

I covered mine in lots of guacamole and had a bed of lettuce underneath it all.  It added a nice crunch.

While there is an extra step, filling the burritos, it’s still a super quick meal.  Serve with all your favorite mexican sides!

Smothered Chili Colorado Burritos

Adapted from chef in training

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs stew meat
• 2 1/2 cups homemade enchilada sauce (or 1 (19 oz) can red enchilada sauce can)
  
• 4 frozen or fresh homemade bouillon cubes (or beef bullion cubes)
• refried beans
• 5-7 burrito size whole wheat tortillas
• 1 cup shredded cheese

Directions

1. Put beef pieces into crock pot. Top with bouillon and enchilada sauce. Cook on low for 7-8 hours, or until meat is very tender.
2. When beef is done (very tender and flakes off when stirred), taste and add salt, if desired.
3. Make sure beans are warmed through. You can use canned refried beans or homemade refried beans.
4. Smear about 2 heaping spoons worth of beans on to the center of each tortilla. Add about 1/2 cup of beef, give or take, and roll into a burrito.
5. Place burritos into a greased 9×13 baking pan until it fills the pan. Pour some of extra sauce over the tops of the burritos to smother them. Place cheese on top.
6. Broil until cheese becomes bubbly, approx. 2-4 minutes.
7. This recipe makes about 5-7 burritos depending on how big you make them.

Of all the crockpot recipes we’ve been eating it’s definitely one of our favorites!  I’m thinking about doing a round up ranking of the first 10 when we get through them.

With that, enjoy your Sunday!  Look out for something sweeter tomorrow.

Heather

At 8 months old, here’s a typical lunch.

• Black beans
• Avocado
• Steamed carrot and broccoli

And he ate all of it! Plus some extra avocado from my plate. He pretty much just uses his pincher grip now to pick foods off.  Thank you baby led weaning.

{picture of Hunter not from yesterday’s meal}

Speaking of avocado from my plate, here was my lunch.

Tuna, black bean and oat patties. So simple and delicious topped with a little mango salsa and eaten with tons of avocado.

Tuna, Black Bean and Oat Patties

Makes 2 servings

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp oil (olive, canola or vegetable)
• 1 large can of tuna in water (7 oz), drained
• 1/2 cup cooked black beans
• 1/3-1/2 cup rolled oats (depending on the amount of liquid you drain from the tuna)
• 1 egg
• Lots of old bay seasoning (2-3 tsp??)

Directions

1. Begin by heating a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil to the skillet.
2. Combine remaining ingredients in a bowl.  Divide into 6 patties.  Cook 3 at a time.  Allow to cook for 3-4 minutes on the first side, flip, then cook another 3 minutes.
3. Serve with salsa and avocado!

What are you and/or your munchkin eating today?

Heather

A couple days ago you may have receive an email for this recipe, clicked on the link and nothing was there.  My bad!  It wasn’t ready to publish until now.

Finding the balance between keeping meals homemade, fast and with real food ingredients has been a line I’ve been balancing lately. I would love love love for so many of our pantry staples to be homemade. I would also love another 10 hours a day. Neither of those are going to happen, but with baby steps I’ll get closer and closer.

It started with enchilada sauce, now I can add homemade bouillon to the mix. It’s definitely not at all like traditional bouillon.

For one, it’s fresh. No dehydrated cubes or powder here. Second, it has no salt. Now, the original recipe I based this off of called for salt, but I figured I could add that into the dish separately instead of from bouillon. It gives me more freedom. Without further adieu, bouillon!

Homemade Salt Free Bouillon

Adapted from 101 cookbooks

Ingredients

• 8 oz leeks, rinsed and chopped
• 7 oz carrots, peeled and chopped
• 6 oz celery, chopped
• 2 oz shallots, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 oz sun dried tomato, minced
• 1 tbsp dried fennel seed
• 1/2 oz fresh parsley, chopped

Directions

1. In a food processor add the leeks, carrots, celery and shallots.  Pulse until combined.  Add in remaining ingredients and pulse until it’s semi smooth and uniform in size.
2. Use right away, keep in fridge for 1 week or freeze.

Note ~ I froze one ice cube tray full of bouillon, then once it was frozen I popped out the cubes and stored them in a freezer bag. The remaining 2 cups that was left I stored in the fridge and added it to pizza, enchiladas, and a couple other dishes.

So now that we’ve made enchilada sauce and bouillon, we can make these crockpot enchiladas!  The next thing on my list the share.

Hope your week is starting out on a great note,

Heather

A domestic bug.

Not only did I make a huge batch of enchilada sauce, I also made some fresh, salt free bouillon (coming next). Both for one crockpot recipe (coming after the bouillon ) Whenever I make sauce, I like to start with a huge can of tomatoes from Costco. Typically I go for crushed tomatoes, for things like tomato sauce and chili, but for enchiladas I needed something a bit more smooth. Tomato sauce it was!

Since I used such a huge can, my recipe is based off of it. You can halve or quarter the recipe if you don’t want to make so much. Enchilada sauce is actually quite simple to make. You’re basically just making tomato sauce spiced, and a little less tomato-y with the addition of water or broth. To keep it thick (and not watered down) I started with with a roux of oil and flour.

My original plan was to can the extra pints of sauce. My mom gave me all her canning supplies so I was set on that front, now just to know what to do. I read through the canning book she gave me, then consulted with my friend Megan on it. Turns out canning is pretty specific as far as acidity of the food and using a canning specific recipe to ensure it cans correctly (to keep bacteria out)… so instead of canning I froze the extra. Next time I will plan ahead better so that I can can it!

One reasons I wanted to make my own sauce was to keep the salt down. Since Hunter is eating more and more with us I have to adapt a little bit. He doesn’t need any salt, which means we’ll just be eating less salt too. Not a bad thing. The only salt in the recipe was already in the tomato sauce that I used, but you could definitely use a salt free tomato sauce (or make your own) to keep it be completely salt free.

Homemade Enchilada Sauce

Makes enough sauce for 1 large 9×13 dish of enchiladas (20 ounces) + 6 pints to freeze

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 flour
• 106 ounces tomato sauce
• 3 cups water
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 2 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp each: garlic granules, onion powder and pepper

Directions

1. In a large pot over medium heat, combine the oil and flour.  Whisk together until flour is dissolved.  Cook for 1 minute.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer on low for 15-30 minutes to allow flavors to meld and sauce to thicken.
2. Use sauce immediately and freeze extra (one cooled).

I’m very excited to keep adding to my real food pantry! It’s more work than just opening up a can or jar (although here I did start with canned sauce…), but I figure if I make a big batch each time, over time my pantry will be stocked with homemade staples. Definitely worth it to have homemade foods on hand. Better for you and better tasting!

What do you make in big batches for your pantry?

Heather

Things have really taken off the past week.  Something just clicked, and now he eats like crazy. Those first couple months were definitely about exploring. He didn’t quite understand that food made his belly feel full. Now, he most definitely does.

He’s gone from gagging down really soft pieces of fruits/veggies, to now gumming a lot more variety. The food still needs to be soft, but not super mushy. Before I would get a little nervous when he’d put a huge piece of banana in his mouth. Now, he still puts the whole thing in but can break off and ‘chew’ pieces. Even though he has no teeth in yet, that doesn’t stop him from eating and breaking food down.

A new development are his pincher skills – using his thumb and index finger to pick foods up. He still mostly grabs with his entire hand, but for those little peas he’s starting to pick them up one by one.

For a little while I was having him eat oatmeal with me in the morning. I would cook mine up with either sweet potato or banana, and pour some into a bowl for him. Spoon feeding for us is still more work most of the time than I want it to be, so I tried something new earlier this week. I cooked up extra oatmeal with sweet potato, poured it into a bowl and let it cool in the fridge. It looked like this.

A bit more congealed.  Since it wasn’t as runny as warm oatmeal, he could pick up the pieces!

I did a similar thing with quinoa. I combined cooked quinoa with some mashed yam, which created a paste that he could easily pick up! Now when I make a grain like quinoa that would be really difficult to pick up, I can just mash some veggies into it and he’ll eat what we’re eating. That’s what I love about baby led weaning. It makes meals so simple!

Here’s a list of foods in categories that he’s tried and eaten.  Honestly, over the next month I think it’s going to grow a ton as we add more actual meals in.

Vegetables

• Yams/sweet potatoes – steamed sticks or mashed with a grain
• Broccoli – steamed
• Carrot sticks – steamed
• Peas – defrosted

Fruits

• Banana – ripe pieces or mashed with grain
• Avocado – pieces
• Pear – pieces with the skin removed
• Kiwi – ripe pieces with skin removed

Proteins

• Egg – cooked into oatmeal or this pancake
• Tofu -firm pieces
• Black beans
• Beef – fully cooked pieces
• Ricotta
• Plain yogurt

Grains

• Oatmeal – regular, not baby
• Quinoa – cooked inwater with garlic granulates and Italian seasoning (no salt)

I’m sure there are more foods he’s eaten, but these are the more regular ones he eats so they come to mind. He’s had a few different fruits/veggies from jarred baby food but they are far and few between. When I make something that we’re going to share, I always omit the salt since he doesn’t need it. I don’t really miss it either.

How much food does he eat?

I couldn’t give an exact amount that he eats at each meal. I just keep offering him more food if he finished what he started with. Some food always ends up on his lap, but less is getting dropped onto the ground. I know he’s done eating when he begins hitting and pushing the food around on his tray. That’s when it gets really messy!

After each meal I offer him water from his sippy cup. We’ve tried drinking out of a cup a couple times and water ends up everywhere. Practice makes perfect though!

I always nurse first, then offer solids, with the exception of dinner. Since be eats dinner about 2 hours after his last nursing session, I give him solids first, then offer another nursing session after that if he’s still hungry.

Here is Hunter’s meal from last night.  It was his first time trying beef, which I sauteed in a pan.  We were having burgers so as I was preparing our burgers his meat cooked away, giving it time to cool before we ate.  Along with that he had some yam/quinoa patties (mashed yams and cooked quinoa sauteed together).

He ate about half of that, but I did nurse him before his dinner since he was a bit fussy.

That’s where we’re at for right now.  Feel free to ask any questions.  I am no expert in baby feeding, just a mom trying to see what works!

Heather

I got behind on posting the weekly crockpot recipes, but I’ve still been making one a week.  Since I’m behind, you get a double dose of goodness today.

First up: crockpot cafe rio chicken

I had high hopes for this recipe after the delicious cafe rio sweet pork… and it did not disappoint!  Six simple ingredients into the crockpot, shred the chicken and it’s ready to top whatever you want.  I made it into a yummy pasta dish, which I’ll share the recipe for below.

Crockpot Cafe Rio Chicken
recipe from Chef in Training

Ingredients

• 2 lbs chicken breasts
• 1/2 a small bottle of zesty Italian dressing
• 1/2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 pkt ranch dressing mix (mixed with 1/2 cup of water)
• 1/2 tbsp chili powder
• 1/2 tbsp ground cumin

Directions

1. Place all ingredients in a crock pot. Cook on high 5-6 hours OR on low 8 hours.
2. Shred with fork and serve in salads, burritos, tacos…etc.
3. You can also double or triple this to make extras for freezing. Then simply thaw and reheat for a fast and delicious meal.

Pasta portion

Ingredients

• 6 ounces whole wheat pasta
• 2/3 cup plain yogurt (greek or regular)
• 1/2 cup mozzarella
• optional: a squirt of sriracha

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.  Drain and return to pot.  Add yogurt, mozzarella and sriracha to the pasta, heat on low until it is melted together.
2. Mix with cafe rio chicken.

For myself I heated up some frozen peas for a little green.  I forgot how much I love peas!  Jacob isn’t a fan so they’re never allowed in meals.  Luckily I have Hunter around who will eat them with me soon.

Loved this meal.  Will definitely make it again and double like it’s suggested for freezing!

Last week we ate a meal that was a bit more involved, but still for a crockpot recipe pretty simple: chicken parmesan

We don’t eat chicken parmesan often in our house, so my standards for a crispy chicken aren’t that high.  The chicken was not crispy, but it didn’t matter.  The flavor was amazing, and preparation was simple too.

Crockpot Chicken Parmesan
recipe from Chef in Training

Ingredients

• 2-4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• 1/2 cup italian seasoned bread crumbs (I used panko and added 2 tbsp italian seasoning to it)
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 egg, beaten
• sliced or shredded mozzarella cheese
• favorite jarred marinara sauce *

Directions

1. Spread the 1 tbsp of olive oil into the bottom of your crockpot.
2. Beat the egg with a fork in a separate bowl.
3. Mix the bread crumbs with the seasonings and the parmesan cheese in another separate dish.
4. Dip the chicken into the egg, then into the bread crumb mixture, coating both sides with crumbs, cheese and seasonings.
5. Place the chicken breast pieces in the bottom of the crockpot.
6. Layer 2-3 slices or 1-2 cups of mozzarella cheese on top, depending on how much cheese you like.
7. Cover chicken and cheese with entire jar of marinara sauce.
8. Close lid and cook on low for 5-6 hours or high for 3.
9. Serve with your favorite pasta.

* I ended up just using the pasta sauce I had on hand, which was probably equal to half of what the recipe called for.  While our chicken parmesan wasn’t very saucy, it still cooked up great!

We ate this with whole wheat spaghetti and pan cooked mushrooms.  The chicken breasts I used were pretty big, so we had leftovers for the next day.  Less cooking and a tasty dinner.  Again, another one I would make again!

Will all the crockpot recipes turn out this good?  We will see!

This week’s crockpot recipe: smothered chili colorado burritos

What have you been cooking up lately?

Heather

This week my go to lunch has been quesadillas. It’s nothing new or monumental. Cheese heated in between 2 tortillas. However, I do try to throw a little something special into them making a plain old quesadilla fantastic.

Salsa Veggie Quesadilla
serves 1

Ingredients

• 2 whole wheat tortillas
• 2-3 handfuls shredded mozzarella (about 2/3 – 1 cup)
• 2-3 tbsp salsa (I used mango salsa)
• 1/4 cup diced, boiled yam or sweet potato
• 1/4 cup diced avocado

Directions

1. Place a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Lay 1 tortilla down, then half the cheese followed by salsa, yam, avocado, remaining cheese and top with the second tortilla.
2. Cook for 3-5 minutes, until the bottom is golden.  Flip and toast the second side (another 2-4 minutes).
3. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then slice and enjoy!

This ‘recipe’ is more of a method than anything.  Ingredient measurements are guesstimates and you can swap in or out whatever you like.  Just wanted to share my meal with anyone in a lunch rut!

The great thing about this meal is that Hunter ate with me.  Instead of him having the quesadilla too, he ate some of the fillings – avocado and yam.  No extra prep on my end for that one!

I’m off to teach cycle then we’re going to swim!

Have a great day!

Heather

Now at 7 months he’s such an active boy!

And most definitely very boy-ish too. He loves hitting his hands on things, grabbing whatever he has near him then hitting it on the ground… making loud crazy noises. I can only imagine the mischief he’ll get himself into!

Hunter has his da-da-da’s and ba-ba-ba’s down. He’ll randomly throw out some ma-ma-ma’s too. Just this week he discovered that he can make his voice sound raspy, and he also likes the sound of his cough. If he coughs once or twice, he turns it into something fun to do with a big smile on his face.

He is so close to crawling. This month has been big in the mobility department. He went from starting to roll over last month, to sitting, now he rocks back and forth on his hands and knees, can crawl a little backwards, pushes up from his belly to seated and really any day now is going to take off moving. Guess it’s time to baby proof.

Since my last post on sleep, it’s gone much better. Thank you for all your encouraging comments and advice! It’s always nice knowing I’m not the only one out there.   The last few days we’ve been out later making getting to bed on time tough. He’s fallen asleep between 9-10pm, waking me between 5-6am to eat, then he goes back to sleep waking up around 8:15-8:45am. It’s actually been nice having a bit of time in the morning. I really appreciate the 6+ hour stretch of sleep. Makes me feel normal when I get my sleep! We started sleep training last Friday which has it’s ups and down, but that’s a whole different post.

Hunter and food. Baby-led weaning began really well, then the holidays came around and I got lazy, mainly not wanting to create a mess away from home, so I spoon-fed a bit more. Sometimes he’ll take the spoon, most of the time it’s more a struggle than I think it’s worth it. We restarted Hunter feeding himself and it’s really taken off well again! I need to be more diligent about giving him the opportunity to eat at least once a day. Lunch time or afternoon is usually a time we’re home so that’s becoming our consistent meal time. Banana is by far his favorite food to eat, but avocado and pear are up there too. This week I’m going to boil some yam sticks for him. We tried soft peas but his thumb-finger coordination isn’t there just yet. They mostly just got smashed.  His favorite non soft food is celery to gnaw on.  Jacob put some in the freezer and he went to town on that.

He’s still a great nurser. He nurses about 6 time a day, going anywhere from 2.5-4 hours between session. These are the typical times though: 5:15am, 8:15am, 11:30am, 2:30pm, 5:30pm, 8:30pm.

The best thing about him is his big smile. He really is such a happy baby. We were very blessed!

8 months will be here in no time, especially since he’s actually 7 1/2 months old now.  I’m behind!  Oh and last thing, I feel like he’s gotten much heavier lately.  We won’t get a weight on him until his 9 month check up, but he’s really beefing up!

Happy Monday everyone!

Heather

Today I’m here for your tips/advice!

Hunter used to go down for the night around 8pm. He would sleep through the night, or wake up for me to feed him. That’s not so much the issue. Now when he goes down around 8pm, he wakes up 45 minutes – 1 hour later like he just took a nap. Trying to get him back to sleep after that is a struggle to say the least. Last night was the worse it’s been, finally getting him to sleep around 11:20pm. I think teething may be part of the issue, but there’s another piece to it. His wake up time used to be around 6-6:30am, now it’s pushed back to 7:30-8:30am, probably from him getting to sleep later.  It just seemed to happen one day.

We’ve been pretty blessed with how good of a sleeper Hunter has been, but this one is throwing me for a loop!

Any tips on how to get him down for the night and into night time sleep, not just for a nap? We’re trying to get more of a nighttime routine going… probably just more consistency would help.  I think I’ll also try and keep him up a bit later tonight and see if that helps… thoughts?

Thanks!

Heather

For Christmas I received these cool tortilla bowl makers. All you have to do is put the tortilla in the mold (you can see part of it in the picture below – upper left).  The tortillas took about 8 minutes in the oven and I had perfect bowls for our tasty dinner.  I added some shredded cheese to the bottom.

This was step 2.

Step 1: make the pork

Crockpot Cafe Rio Sweet Pork
Adapted from Chef in Training

Ingredients

• 2 pounds pork roast
• 1 can cola (NOT diet)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 (4 oz) can diced green chilies
• 1 (10 oz) can enchilada sauce

Directions

1.  Put the pork in a reclosable bag to marinate, pour in half of the can of cola and 1/2 cup brown sugar. Marinate for a few hours.
2. Drain marinade and put pork, 1/2 can of cola, water, can of chiles, enchilada sauce and garlic salt in crock pot on low for about 7-8 hours.
3. Shred pork.  Serve in fun tortilla salad bowls!

Step 3: make the dressing

Creamy Tomatillo Dressing
Adapted from here

Ingredients

• 1 packet of ranch dressing
• 1 cup mayo
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 tomatillos husked and diced
• Garlic powder (just a few shakes)
• juice from 1 lime

Directions

1. Put ranch dressing, mayo and buttermilk in a blender and blend until combined.  Add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
2. Keep in sealed container in the fridge.

**I actually halved my batch and it still made a good amount.

Step 4: assemble everything.  Here’s what went into our tortilla bowls:

• refried beans
• pork
• romaine lettuce
• tomato and avocado
• tomatillo dressing

I need to star this recipe.  It was that good!  My pork likely didn’t turn out as sweet as the original recipe since I cut out a lot of the cola and brown sugar, but since my version was amazing, I think I’ll be sticking with it.  Plus the actual process had less steps.  Always a bonus is my book.

Crockpot recipe for week 4: Cafe Rio Chicken

Today was my first day back to teaching/exercising after almost 2 weeks off (being sick kicked my butt ).  I’m excited to get back into the swing of things and into a routine again.

How was your Monday?  Hope it went well!

Heather

Hunter was definitely spoiled with lots of clothes and many new toys to play with.

And a bouncy red bull to ride.

I feel like there’s a toy overload upstairs now.  Time to move a pile to the nursery for him to play with down there.

We had both sets of parents, 3 brothers, 1 sister and 1 nephew over.  Not all at once, but still, I think that’s the most people we’ve had in our house at the same time.  Thankfully it wasn’t too crowded.  Cozy

I planned an easy meal to make on Christmas day, crockpot salsa verde pork.  The selection for week 2 in my year of crockpot recipes.

I just threw the 5 ingredients in the crockpot when I woke up and it was waiting for me by the afternoon.  A quick shred of the pork, prepping of the burrito fixings and lunch/dinner was served!

Crockpot Salsa Verde Pork

Recipe from Chef in Training

Ingredients

• 2 lbs pork sirloin or loin roast (I used pork butt roast)
• sea salt
• 1 (16 oz) jar Salsa Verde
• 1 (4 oz) can diced green chilies
• 1 tsp. ground cumin

Directions

1. Spray slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Generously sprinkle salt all over pork roast. Place in slow cooker.
3. Pour jar of Salsa Verde over pork roast. Next add the diced green chilies and sprinkle the cumin over top.
4. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours.
5. Shred pork and stir back into the sauce. Serve as a filling for tacos or burritos with your favorite toppings!

What I liked

• few ingredients with awesome flavor
• not too spicy

What I didn’t like

• it was a bit fatty, but that’s because I used a pork butt roast

Week 3 recipe: Cafe Rio Sweet Pork

This has been fun so far!

Hope you have a great weekend.  We’re onto Christmas celebration #2 this weekend with my family.  Should be fun!

Heather

On a not so cool note, I got sick over the weekend for about a day and a half. It laid me out which meant finishing my shopping on Christmas Eve. I’ve never done that before, and surprisingly it wasn’t too bad. Now Hunter’s a bit sick. Poor little guy.

Anyways, time to get cooking. I’ve got a breakfast strata, banana marionberry bread and fruit salad to make for breakfast, then crockpot salsa verde pork and burrito fixings to prep for lunch/dinner. But first, must make coffee!

xoxo

Heather, Jacob and Hunter

I believe I was looking around on Pinterest, or maybe it was Facebook… where ever it was I came across this link to a post on Chef in Training for 50 slow cooker recipes. I browsed through them. They looked tasty and crockpots always mean simple. I started to think about which one I wanted to make. But then I thought, why not all?

With 52 weeks in the year and 50 recipes, that gives me just about enough for one a week. That’s one day a week I don’t have to think about what’s going to be on the table. I’ll just go straight down the list, one at a time, no picking or choosing. Keeping it simple. I like simple.  Quick and simple have become staples around here with my happy little monster here.

So for week 1 here’s  what I made.

crockpot honey sesame chicken

Ingredients

•  2.5 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast (or thigh)
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 4 tablespoons diced onion
• 4 tablespoons ketchup
• 2 tablespoon sesame oil (recipe calls for canola)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• 4 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 6 Tablespoons water
• Sesame seeds (I forgot this)

Directions

1. Season both sides of chicken with lightly with salt and pepper, put into crock pot. In a small bowl, combine honey, soy sauce, onion, ketchup, oil, garlic and pepper flakes. Pour over chicken.
2. Cook on low for 3-4 hours or on high 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 hours, or just until chicken is cooked through.
3. Remove chicken from crock pot, leave sauce. Dissolve 4 teaspoons of cornstarch in 6 tablespoons of water and pour into crock pot. Stir to combine with sauce.
4. Replace lid and cook sauce on high for ten more minutes or until slightly thickened.
5. Cut chicken into bite size pieces, then return to pot and toss with sauce before serving.
6. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve over rice or noodles.

Notes

• I cut the recipe in half since I only had about 1.5 pounds of chicken on hand – cooked on high for 1.5 hours
• Forgot the sesame seeds, so I’m glad I added the sesame oil for the flavor
• Served it over bulgar for me – sushi rice for Jacob, with a side of avocado and coleslaw mixed with a little bit of asian dressing + a dab of mayo

What I liked

• the flavor was amazing
• chicken with tender
• all ingredients I already had on hand

What I didn’t like

• not being able to start the crockpot in the morning with the short cook time – I still had to throw it together after a day of teaching/xmas shopping
• my sauce didn’t thicken up like I would have liked, and I had it on high for double the time it called to thicken up

I shared the link to the 50 slow cooker recipes on my Facebook page and already my cousin Andrea is following along with one a week as well. I think it would be so much fun if more of you followed along too! I’m planning to share a bit about each recipe, so if you end up making it too you can chime in! And if you don’t want to participate, at least you’ll get to see how a ton of crockpot recipes turn out.

Next week it’s onto slow cooker salsa verde pork.

Do you call your crockpot a slow cooker or crockpot? Do you love your crockpot as much as I do?  Want to participate in the 50 crockpot recipes?  One of them is eventually a cake….

Happy Friday!

Heather

We sure did. On Friday I got my second tattoo that I’ve been waiting to get since before Hunter was even born. So glad it finally happened!

On my arm a little owl and verse – He was a might Hunter before the Lord.

Hunter was a champ the whole time and mainly napped on Jacob. That was great, but then it was kind of tricky getting him to sleep once we were home.

Saturday I taught total body conditioning and body pump. We had Jacob’s parent’s over for dinner and we all enjoyed watching Hunter eat. That boy cracks me up.

Sunday was a nice family day at home. We watched two movies – Christmas Vacation and Ted + had lots of time together relaxing and in the kitchen too.

Finding time for fitness as a new mom

I remember when I was pregnant I thought I would be able to do it all. I’d still be blogging every day (hmmm ya that hasn’t happened), dinner would be a fantastic creation all the time, the house would be clean… all that kind of stuff. Little did I know how full my hands would be with this crazy little kid.

He’s gotten a lot more independent lately and happy playing with his toys, which gives me a tad more time to get things done, but still not much.

I know if I wasn’t teaching my exercise classes throughout the week, I would have trouble fitting that in. I feel so lucky that my workouts are already planned into my week and I just can’t skip out on them if I don’t feel like it. Believe me, there are days I’m tired and it’s the last thing on my mind.

However, not all new moms have that luxury. That got me thinking, how would I find time to make it happen if I wasn’t teaching?

Here are 10 ways:

1. Limit the workouts to short, high intensity workouts
2. Wake up 20 minutes earlier and start the day with my workout
3. Plan the workout for his first nap if he wakes up earlier than normal (like today!)
4. Plan a stroller workout date with another mom
5. Go for a run with the jogging stroller
6. Workout DVDs – pause as needed if he’s awake and they allow me to turn my brain off
7. Family walk together when Jacob gets home
8. Workout with Hunter as my 16 pound weight – keeping it simple – squats, lunges, push ups, crunches, etc.
9. Do some serious cleaning
10. At the end of the day if I haven’t gotten to it, do a yoga video once Jacob gets home

I think the key for me would be making it happen earlier in the day. This little guy wears me out with him go-go-going all day long!

Lately I haven’t been running as much as I’d like to, but my teaching schedule is going to slow down a bit for the next couple week with the holidays so I’ll have to plan in #5 on one of my non teaching days.

Are you a mom, new mom, or just a busy lady? How do you fit fitness into your routine?

Heather

Time for another monthly update on my little man Hunter. I have loved every stage since he’s been born, but now that he’s playing, interacting and getting more of his own personality, it’s been especially fun.

New this month:

Rolling over! It all began a week or so ago and now he rolls like a champ.  Only to the left though.  It’s so fun watching him roll over to actually get something he wants.  He’s much happier being on his tummy when he’s the one that gets himself there too.

Sitting, and preferring to play that way.  I get some me time on the couch in the morning while he plays by himself.

We’ve started solids and he’s actually eaten some. You can read more on that in my baby led weaning post, but I’ve seen banana, pear and avocado come through, and the little bit of spoon fed veggies changed his poos color. I try to do some type of food eating/playing every day, although that doesn’t always happened.

Hunter had his first full day away from me on Sunday while I was at a turbo kick training. He was a champ and took his bottles from Jacob so well. He was even grabbing for the bottle and hold it while he ate. Zero tears and zero fighting it. They had lots of fun playing together and even headed out of the house to sushi. I missed my little man, but was happy to see he did so well!

No more infant sling in his bath tub. We’ve gone to sitting! He can play a lot more easily now.  Bath time is still his favorite.  He can be grouchy before a bath, but once he’s in there it’s all smiles.

Da-da-da-da-da-da. His favorite thing to say and his face looks hilarious when he’s concentrating on talking.

He’s such a cuddler. He used to fall asleep while I’d hold him in the cradle position, now he likes to rest his head on my chest or shoulder and fall asleep like that. It is the best. He’s always done that for Jacob and now me too.

We nixed the infant car seat for the stroller runs.  He chills out like a big boy now.

Grocery shopping is a whole new experience too with him up in the front.  He always attracts lots of attention.  Good attention.

For the most part he’s still sleeping pretty well.  He typically sleeps about 9 hours a night.  We still have random wake ups, like last night, but it could be because of all the new foods we’ve been introducing, or maybe he’s teething too.  He’s been gnawing like crazy and a bit more drooly.

At his 6 month check up he was right on his growth chart (23%) at 16 pounds 2 ounces.  I forget how tall he was, but still right on that 50% growth chart.

He’s been awake a lot more.  It went from 1-2 hours of wake time, to 1.5-3 hours.  A nice big jump with way more happy play time.

Child watch has also been going much better the past couple weeks.  A good change from last month.  It could be because of timing, I’ve been teaching more 9am-ish classes compared to noon classes… or maybe he’s just getting more used to it.  Whatever it is, I’ll take it!

All in all, he’s just a super happy boy.  We definitely got lucky there!

Happy weekend all!

Heather

When I was pregnant I read a lot about the book Baby-Led Weaning.  All I knew was that babies fed themselves, opposed to being spoon fed.  I picked the book up at the library and after getting half way through it I knew I liked the idea of it.

What’s the idea behind it?  Allowing babies to learn to feed themselves when they are ready to and able to eat, instead of being spoon fed foods on the parents schedule.  It’s baby led, which gives them control of when they start to eat, and what they eat.

By letting baby feed themselves they should become less picky eaters, says the book.  I get that.  They get to explore foods at their own pace, trying lots of different tastes and textures you just can’t get from a jar.  And from watching Hunter so far, whatever is in front of him he definitely wants to explore and try.

My big driver for wanting to do this was just not having to spoon feed.  No ‘spoon airplanes’ trying to trick him to get food into his mouth.  Plus I just thought it would be, again, easier if he’s just eating what we are eating.

A few things of importance to note from the book.  Definitely not everything, just a few that come to mind:

• soft finger foods are easiest in the shape of sticks – softer than you would want to eat them
• it’s going to be messy, very messy – I highly suggest having a dog around to eat the food up off the floor
• your baby will gag/choke as they learn – it’s how they learn
• check that there aren’t any pieces left in his mouth when you’re done eating

So the big worry with this – choking.  A huge concern for Jacob.  A concern of mine too, obviously I don’t want anything bad to happen to Hunter, but I guess I am just a bit more relaxed that Hunter will know what to do.  The book tells you that a babies gag reflex is really close to the front of their mouth, and as they get older and learn to eat it moves further and further back.  So while it may sound like he’s gagging/choking, really the food is no where near his throat.  I can  confirm that.  Hunter’s gagged and after letting him make noises trying to clear it, I stuck my pinkie in his mouth to get the chunk out and it was right in the front of his mouth.

Now with all that said, we have done a little spoon feeding the past week, but really only because I have lot of free baby food.  Spoon feeding goes kind of how I thought it would.  It’s much more work than having Hunter feed himself.  He sometimes spits it out and doesn’t open his mouth.  But at the same time, I’m not really forcing him to eat a certain amount, just trying things out.  Plus he really loves playing and exploring foods, so I will definitely stick with that as the main way.

So far he’s tried pears, banana, sweet potato, yam, carrot, broccoli, turkey, green beans and my green smoothie.  All in just a short time.  Yup, not really following the try one food every 4-6 days.  But that will have to be part 2 of this post.

Any experience with baby led weaning?   Please share!

Heather

Lots of fruits and veggies.  Fruits to snack on, veggies mainly for salads and snacking.  I cleaned the lettuce and made as huge salad to keep in the fridge.  Into it went romaine lettuce, spinach, celery, cucumber, carrot and avocado.  It’s definitely made eating veggies easier having it all ready and just having to grab it instead of having to make it every time.

We ate kale chips one night and steamed broccoli too.

I tend to eat a lot of peanut butter toast, or peanut butter oatmeal if I’m hungry and in a hurry.  Not much protein in there.  Last week was not only about upping my fruits and veggies, but also about balanced meals, which need to include protein.

I picked up a couple  different yogurts and some sharp cheddar for snacking.

Hummus and cottage cheese too.

Hard boiled a bunch of eggs.

And prepped some tofu to throw on salads.  I pressed it for a couple days then sauteed it in sesame oil with garlic and red pepper flakes.  Simple and tasty.

I still have lots of my protein snacks ready in the fridge which will help me start out the week right until my next prep day on Tuesday.

Any suggestions of protein packed snacks to add in this week? 

Mini egg n veggies muffins might be on the list.  We’ll see!

Happy Sunday all.

Heather

How was your thanksgiving and weekend? Our fun filled long weekend ended Sunday. Thanksgiving #1 with Jacob’s family, then Thanksgiving #2 with mine on the day after + lots of games and crafting.

Chelbe and I started with some snow flake wreathes. I plan to make some more along with a tutorial. Pretty cute for just $2! Wood glue is definitely not recommended for this project.  It doesn’t dry clear.

We also made green wreaths, stamped wrapping paper and made holiday cracker-poppers. This is always by far my most crafty weekend of the entire year.

Onto a different topic for the day – diet. I began to elude to my not so perfect diet in my last post, but after a weekend of far too many indulgences I feel the need to just kick my butt back into gear. Restart and get back on track.

My mom motivated me a bit with how wonderful her fridge looked after a trip to the grocery store.  She’s also restarting and loading up on goodness.

See… so much produce!  I did some sampling of it while I was there… top notch.

This morning I’m off to the grocery store to stock my fridge (although not as full since we’re trying to save $$ at the same time) with lots of produce and prep easy to grab snacks and mini meals, .  . I’m glad to have a mostly free day to get this started and actually do the prep I talk about.  It’s going to be very helpful.

One easy snack to sneak those veggies in to is a smoothie.  So much spinach in there but you sure wouldn’t know it!

Be back with more soon.

Heather

NOTE: Email subscriptions are back up!  They’ll look a little different now but I hope this post came through your email (for the past 6-7 that you may have missed, you can find them listed in the recent posts on the right side bar).  Please leave a comment and let me know if you received it!  If you aren’t subscribed to receive the posts via email you can do that on the left side bar underneath Hunter’s birth story.  Please let me know if there any any issues getting subscribed to email.

I’ve read it and also said it before, you can’t out train a poor diet. While I don’t think of myself as having a poor diet, it definitely hasn’t been the best lately. It’s been very bread heavy.  Not that I have anything against bread. I love bread, but it doesn’t make for a very balanced diet.  I need my balanced meals – protein – carbs – fat.  All together at every meal/snack.  Balanced filled with v.e.g.e.t.a.b.l.e.s.

Veggies make me feel light, young and energized.  All great things.  Not only do they make me feel wonderful, they are so so good for the body.  Packed with vitamins and minerals, they’re healing too.  One reason I think I rarely get sick is because of all the fruits and veggies I typically eat.  I felt sick for about 2 days a couple weeks ago.  That’s a lot for me, and probably from the lack of veggies!  Hunter’s had a little cold and Jacob has one.  I must fight it with veggies!

At the grocery store yesterday I picked up my favorite veggie fighting arsenal —> spinach.

It’s super versatile.  Throw it in smoothies, eat it as a salad, scramble with some eggs, add to casseroles… there is so much you can do with this green leafy vegetable.

I started my new balanced veggie filled meal yesterday at lunch with a simple stir fry.

Egg n Spinach Stir Fry
for 1

Ingredients

• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup leftover cooked brown rice
• 2-3 handfuls spinach
• 1 tbsp yoshidas sauce

Directions

1. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat with the sesame oil.  Scramble the eggs until set, then add the rice and spinach.
2. Cook until about half the spinach is wilted.  Drizzle on the yoshidas sauce and stir to combine.

Protein, carb and fat?  Check!  Veggies?  Check!  Delicious?  Check-Check!

I’m off to teach bootcamp then water aerobics, with a green smoothie in between!

Do you fall out of eating balanced meals and veggies like me?  How do you get back with it?

Heather

I spent a couple hours entertaining myself on pinterest during our drive home from some friend’s house last weekend. Basically until the battery on my phone was down to 3%. I’m feeling very crafty right now and want to make tons of homemade things. Here are just a few ideas!

Very cool string art idea.  Another word for xmas though.

This dish I’m about to share with you is egg heavy, and a.m.a.z.i.n.g. Jacob and I first had it at his grandma’s house. We then ate it again the following weekend. I couldn’t get the recipe from her fast enough!

It may not look like much, but this chili-egg puff melts in your mouth. It’s basically lots of eggs, cheese and cottage cheese. A little bit of green chilies add a touch of heat, but nothing too dramatic. I can’t handle much heat and it was just right for me.

Not only is it the most amazing egg casserole (really!), it’s crazy simple to make. I threw it together in just a few minutes (grating the cheese takes the longest). You bake it, let it sit and bam you’ve got a chili-egg puff to feed a crowd. A good idea for the day after thanksgiving if you are cooking breakfast for a lot of people.

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we have!

Chili-Egg Puff
serves 10-12

very slightly adapted from Grandma Bernice

Ingredients

• 10 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 pint (16oz.) small curd cottage cheese
• 3/4 lb jack cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 2 cans (4 oz cans) diced green chilies, drained

Directions

1. Beat eggs until light and lemon colored. Add flour, baking powder, salt, cottage cheese, jack cheese and melted butter, blending smoothly. Stir in the chilies.
2. Pour mixture into a well-buttered 9×13 baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or center appears firm.
3. Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Blog updates

I was informed that my posts are no longer coming through via email. When my blog was down a week or so ago something with that must have gotten messed up as well. I will be sending out an email to all that were subscribed once I get the problem figured out. Hopefully soon!

My old blog, Get Healthy with Heather, is expired and gone from the world of the internet. I still have tons of links going back to that site I need to redirect. If you are looking for an old recipe and can’t find it, or it takes you back to the old site, just shoot me an email or leave a comment and I’ll get you the link. Lots of things to fix up over here.

Happy Friday!

Heather

What made me remember about that year of baking was the popover recipe over on Rebecca’s site a dusting of sugar. Why was I over there drooling over all her delicious goodies (seriously, so much good stuff!)? She’s my secret blog for this Month’s Secret Recipe Club reveal!

I was a huge fan of the limited number of ingredients in her recipe.  Plus, they are things I always have on hand anyways.  I got to work on them while Hunter was hanging out on my back for the first time.

The mix of egg, milk and whole wheat flour quickly came together.  It reminded me of a crepe batter.  Similar consistency and ingredients.  As I started pouring the batter into the heated mini muffin pans, Hunter decided he was over being on my back.

First tray… kind of messy.  Poured while trying to bounce Hunter.  Not a good idea.

Second tray… a bit better!  He was off the back and into the jumperoo.

My second tray not only looked better, it seemed to bake better too.  I filled them about 3/4 the way full, while the first try was filled about 1/2 way full.

As far as the flavor goes, there really isn’t much to them.  Just like with crepes, you typically add toppings or fillings to them.  I feel the same way about these.  They’re a base to add to.  I think next time I’d add some cheddar cheese and jalapenos for a savory popover, or maybe shredded apple and cinnamon for a sweeter popover.  The possibilities are endless!

Whole Wheat Mini Popovers
Adapted from here

Makes 24 mini muffin popovers

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup milk
• butter to put in tins

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Place your pan (I used 2 mini muffin pans) in the oven while it preheats.
2. In the meantime, in a medium bowl beat eggs slightly, Beat in flour and until just smooth; being careful not to overbeat. Remove pan from oven and place a piece of butter in the bottom of each cup. Fill custard cups 1/2 full.
3. Bake at 450 degrees F (230 degrees C) for 20 minutes. Decrease oven temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and bake for 10 minutes more. Immediately remove from cups and serve piping hot.

Have you ever made popovers before?  What flavors would you add in to amp them up?

Heather

And has turned into this little boy!

After the initial weight loss of giving birth, I hadn’t lost much more. It took a while for me to fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes, but around the 4 month mark things started changing. I began losing a little more weight and shrinking. I was much more excited about the shrinking part. I have this whole wardrobe of clothes I haven’t touched in quite some time, so wearing them again has been fun.

As far as the numbers go I’m 15 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight (still a pretty consistent 3 pound/month weight loss), but really I hope to only lose 5-10 more pounds, which is really nothing in the grand scheme of things. Since I’m so close to where I want to be I won’t really be doing much different than I do now. Between teaching (which is to majority of my exercise) and nursing I burn lots of calories.

Throughout the day I feel like I’m always eating to keep my energy up, and until recently I’ve been eating really well. I feel like the past couple weeks haven’t been my best. Buying a huge bag of Costco trail mix maybe wasn’t the best idea. I’m grabbing handful after handful a few too many times. I need more vegetables in my life again. That’s my biggest goal for the month – more veggies! Eat better! Easy as that, right???

Okay, picture time.  Here’s my picture from 3 months…

And now from 5 months…

Another view from 3 months…

And more recent 5 months again…

It’s not very visible in the pictures, but my abs are beginning to get more defined again.  They also feel much much stronger.  6 pack after baby?  Now that’s a goal I’d like to achieve.

That’s all for now.  I hope you enjoy your Friday and weekend!

Heather

We had a brunch with Jacob’s parents and grandma. Hunter was of course the star of the party. He even got a gift to open! A just because gift, not really for turning 5 months old.

He loved playing with the bag and eating the tissue paper.

That’s what’s new this month. Everything goes into his mouth… fingers, toys, and his favorite thing of all, cloth. Especially cloth with his thumb at the same time.

He is so much fun and brings so many smiles to my face every single day. It’s such a blessing to able spend my days with this happy little boy. My favorite thing are his laughs. They’re so goofy and contagious.

He’s staying more and more alert these days. He stays awake in the car much longer than he used to. Typically he’s up for about 2 hours before needing a quick 45 minute nap.

Naps are still about 45 minutes long throughout the day, except for in the rare occasion they’re double that. Typically at my mom’s house… he naps soooooo well there. We’ve been starting our day around 6-6:30am lately, and after about 1-1.25 hours he needs a nap.

I still take him to childwatch with me at the gym when I teach. He’s had a bit of a rough time there lately with being sad. Not sad like he misses me (well, maybe) when I leave, but he just cries. No fun for anyone. Last week I was determined to make it better so instead of feeding him at home before we left I fed him in the parking lot once we arrived, brought lots of his toys + an extra blanket to be swaddle in if needed. I was glad to ear that it went well with zero tears! He got to jump and the other kids played with him and kept him distracted. Distractions work well!

I had high hopes it would go well on Monday, but that wasn’t the case. 40 minutes of crying himself to sleep. We’ll just take it day by day and keep trying different things. I feel bad for him and the gals watching him. He’s such a happy boy, but in childwatch not so much.

Hunter went through his first little cold a couple weeks ago. He got it from me, and I got it from Jacob. Running nose, sneezes and nighttime waking was the worst of it. Not too bad, especially considering he’s around other kid’s germ multiple times a week.

He’s been totally into Joe lately. He loooooves Joe. He loves his ears. He loves his fur. He loves watching him. I think they’ll be best of buds.

We attached the booster seat to a chair at the table so he can easily hang out with us while we eat. At dinner the other night he had some toys to play with, but he was starting to get sleeping so it wasn’t the most fun. In the morning I put him there while I snacked on a hard boiled egg and apple. I shared a few slices of apple with him to play with.

He grabbed them a couple times and threw them on the ground. Good thing Joe was there to pick it up! I think that will become his permanent spot near the table for the next few months/years.

Hunter typically nurses 7 times a day now. On a rare day he sleeps in he may eat 6 times them 8 the next day. It all evens out. We actually started having a little trouble with nursing 3-4 weeks ago. He would be fussy and not stay latched for long. I realized that he was becoming increasingly distracted, even just by me talking. I started nursing him in the nursery more and away from people when we were out. Less noise and things going on=a better nurser! So thankful for that!

I unofficially weighed him last week (in clothes + diaper) and he weighed 16.5 pounds! At 4 months he was 14 pounds 7 ounces, so up quite a bit. He gets shots this afternoon so we’ll get an official weighing of our little guy then.

He’s becoming a master at sitter. He looooves sitting. We’re still not rolling over, but we’ll get there when we’re ready. We do naked time every night and he gets to close to rolling over. Any day now!

We’re still swimming a few times a month. Last Friday my mom and nephew Caden joined Megan, Mabel and I. He’s still loving the water!

Do you have any tips for making childwatch a little easier on our little guy? I don’t know if it’s a specific thing that sets him off, or just being away from me.

Happy Wednesday!

Heather

Happy halloween!

We aren’t the biggest celebrators here.  We don’t get costumes or go to parties.  We don’t pass out candy, but that’s mainly because Joe barks like crazy whenever anyone knocks at the door.  We didn’t even buy Hunter a costume.  However, that’s because we had a couple hand-me-downs from his cousin Caden and one from his grandma Debbie.

Today Megan and Mabel came over and we had a little baby pumpkin party.  First we took some pictures with the pumpkin.

Little cowboy and ladybug.  So sweet huh?

Then it was time to play with the pumpkin guts!

Mabel wanted to devour the pumpkin and seeds.  She went crazy!  It was awesome.  She’d jut herself towards the bowl of pumpkin guts and as quickly as she got there, the pumpkin would head towards her mouth.

Hunter was a bit more reserved.  I think he was starting to get a bit sleepy then too.  He was happier once he had his pacifiers.  He’d occasionally grab at the pumpkin guts and the plastic he was on top of.

Once the pumpkin party was all over both babies were a bit orange and needed baths.

After the baths, nice and clean again!

It was lots of fun watching them play with the pumpkin.  Something new and exciting!

Do you get into halloween?  Did you carve any pumpkins?

Heather

Hunter officially turned 5 months old on Sunday.  Crazy right?!  I plan to take his 5 month photos today once it’s a little lighter out and have an update for ya’ll later this week.  Plus I’ll be sharing my 5 month post baby body update and comparison pics.  I haven’t taken them yet, but I’m pretty excited to see if there are changes from previous months.

Yesterday while I was prepping dinner, a potato and asparagus frittata, I was left with a bigger piece of asparagus.  I had previously steamed the asparagus so it was already soft.  I decided to give it to Hunter to see what happened.  I strapped him into the booster seat (it was on the ground but can be attached to a chair), and put the piece of asparagus down.  It took him a few seconds to even notice it.

But once he saw it he grabbed onto it, but did not bring it to his mouth.  Instead he just started hitting it, breaking it into pieces and slamming his hands on the yellow tray in front of him.  He’s been a very hitty little guy.

I thought, maybe just maybe he’ll try it, but it was more of a toy at this point.  By the end we had some nice asparagus mush left on the tray.

It was super fun to watch him play with his food.  I bet he had fun with it too.

We don’t plan on introducing solids until he’s 6 months, shows an interest and can sit up well on his own.  He’s getting much stronger with his trunk control.  This was a couple weeks ago at the library story time, and just yesterday back at the library he kept himself up much straighter and was less wobbly.

While we still have another month or so until he begins solids I’ve started reading up on it a bit more.  I picked up Baby-led Weaning from the library and began reading it last night.  So far I’m just through the intro, but am excited to learn more!  I’ve always been a fan of letting the baby feeding themselves opposed to spoon feeding them.  I think it will save time/money (not making baby food/buying it) and also be less frustrating (him refusing to it).  Plus half the fun is playing and discovering your food!

While he didn’t give the asparagus a try, we’ve given him some pieces of apple, grape and cucumber to suck on.  He loves the juices and flavors!  Jacob gave him some english muffin on Sunday… not a first food I really want for him.  Time to get that man on board!

We have a high chair, but I think I’m going to attach the booster seat to a chair at the table.  Hopefully this motivates us to eat dinner at the table more often too.

Do you have any experience with Baby-led Weaning?  Any tips for introducing solids to your little one?  What were their favorite first foods?

Heather

Jacob’s the poor sleeper in our house. He does not feel rested or like he gets enough sleep, and wakes up a lot during the night. That’s just no fun and I love my hubby so I want him to feel good and energized.

I decided to take it upon myself to help him sleep better. Things that are easy for me but he needs a little encouragement with – exercise, drinking water, eating consistently, less caffeine in the afternoons/evenings.

Yesterday we started with exercise.

(Hunter questioning this exercise thing…)

The thing with making exercise stick is finding something you love to do. For Jacob that’s cycling. However, not cycling in the rain. That gets tricky right about now since it’s been pretty rainy.

He’s done (and I believe enjoyed) P90X, but it’s a big time commitment that just wouldn’t happen right now. So what kind of exercise do we need????

Something short and effective. Ah ha! Something like my 10 minute total body workout? I think so! The pressure of the clock keeps the intensity up. A wife sitting there channeling her fitness instructor-ness shouting words of encouragement to keep good form is one way not to slack either.

What was Jacob’s first workout? Here’s what I had him do.

First warm up for 5 minutes (jogging in place, running up and down the stairs, etc).

With the clock set for a 10 minute count down, he went through as many rounds as be could.

• 20 high knees
• 10 push ups
• 5 single leg squats (each leg)

Repeat!

He almost made it through 9 rounds, finishing 8 + 20 high knees + 13 push ups (a few extra for the finish).

What’s better than that was the sweat at the end! He was definitely pushing it while Hunter and I cheered him on.

The big question… did he sleep better? Well I haven’t actually had the chance to ask him since he left for work really early, but he was asleep by 9pm which is a good sign!

Do you find that exercise helps you sleep better? Do you sleep well? About how much sleep do you get a night?

Heather

What’s more exciting than seeing the number go down on the scale is feeling the difference. I’m beginning to shrink and it’s great because….

I’m fitting back into some pre-pregnancy jeans!

Not that I mind the elastic waist of maternity jeans, but they were starting to be a bit too big.

Since we’re here today talking about weight loss, let’s chat about something that I think is key to changing your body.

Strength training.

Lifting weights or your own body weight will help you create muscle. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat. Muscle is also more dense than fat, so although you may weigh more or see no change in the scale, you will feel smaller as you start to add muscle and lose fat. Sounds pretty cool right? I think so.

But also remember to make it challenging!! You want to feel the challenge when you strength train. I’ve said it before and will say it again, challenge creates change. If it’s to easy and you’re not really making your muscle work, they aren’t going to be changing and growing. We want to make them work.

This is why I lift heavy weights.

My strength training consists of teaching body pump twice a week and bootcamp once + more if I cover extra classes.

Thoughts on lifting and weight loss? How often do you strength train? Do you like to challenge yourself?

Heather

While I was meal planning and looking through my google reader I came across Jessica’s easy crockpot chicken and dumplings. I love my mom’s chicken and dumplings, so I knew I just had to try it out.

The recipe was a bit different that my moms though, but also a little healthier (we’ve got veggies!), which I always love. I started the chicken part in the morning, then before I left to teach in the evening I added the dumplings in.

Jessica’s recipe called for white flour in the dumplings, but since I rarely have any in the house I subbed in whole wheat flour. I also added celery to the mix since I had it on hand too.

The meal was excellent and super simple, but didn’t really remind me of chicken and dumplings. It was more like a delicious chicken soup with a bready/doughy topping.

Perfect for chilly nights!  We went back for seconds which means it was a winner!

Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings
Slightly adapted from here

Ingredients

• 1 onion, diced
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts and/or chicken thighs
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp whole wheat flour
• 46 ounces low-sodium chicken stock
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1/2 cup whole milk

dumplings

• 1 1/8 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp natural cane sugar
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 2 tbsp cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 cup whole milk

Directions

1. In the bottom of your crockpot, layer onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Season chicken with salt and pepper then lay them on top.
2. Heat a small saucepan over medium heat and add butter. Once sizzling, whisk in flour and cook for 2-3 minutes to create a roux, until it’s golden in color. Add in 2 cups of chicken stock and mix well, bringing to a boil. Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring, then remove from heat and pour over the chicken and vegetables. Add remaining chicken stock, put the lid on and cook on low for 6 hours.
3. After 6 hours, turn the crockpot heat onto high. Using forks or kitchen tongs, lightly shred the chicken breasts. (This should be easy since they have cooked so long.) Stir milk into the crockpot, then recover while you make the dumplings.
4. In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and pepper. Crumble in butter with your fingers and rub into the flour until evenly dispersed and coarse crumbs form. Add in milk, stirring well just until a sticky dough forms. Use a tablespoon measure and add small scoops of the dough into the crockpot, starting by placing them around the outside first, then the inside.
5. Cover and cook for another 1-1.5 hours, until dumplings are cooked but soft and not longer raw in the middle. Taste and season additionally if desired.

Have you ever made chicken and dumplings? Has it been rainy where you live?

Heather

I usually wait until the day before I’m teaching a class to plan it out. Maybe that’s so it’s fresh in my mind?

Baby shower on Saturday? Make the gift Friday night.

Secret Recipe Club post scheduled for Monday morning? Bake on Saturday! Not as bad as waiting until Sunday, but still, pretty close.

For October I was assigned Sarah’s blog Everything in the Kitchen Sink to sneak around and bake/cook from. She has all her recipes neatly organized in categories. As I was looking through them I kept coming back to the first section – breakfast – specifically the orange carrot bread. I looked through a few more recipes but knew that was the one for me, so I book marked it. And it stayed bookmarked… it waited and waited. Then Saturday came around and I got to see what it was all about.

The ingredients came out. I quickly mixed them together, the only change being made was subbing in a little orange juice for some of the yogurt. Just about 3 tbsp since I ran out of yogurt.

I poured my 2 loaves and they got to baking. After 50 minutes in the oven they were done, but before I could dig in I had to leave for the babyshower. When I returned it was bread tasting time. First bite… mmmm. Second bite… mmmm. So delicious and surprisingly moist for having no added oil or butter. I’m glad the recipe made 2 loaves because after 1 day, an entire loaf was eaten… mostly by me but Jacob helped too (thankfully). We’ll make the second last most of the week, hopefully.

Orange Carrot Bread
makes 2 loaves

Ingredients

•  2 1/2 cups carrots, shredded
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup greek yogurt (I used 3 tbsp less yogurt and subbed in OJ)
• 1.5 cups natural cane sugar
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoon orange zest
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoon cinammon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Directions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees.
2. First beat the eggs until lighter in color.  Add the sugar, yogurt (OJ), vanilla, and orange zest, combine.  Then add the grated carrots.
3. Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.  Add to the wet ingredients.  Mix until just combined.
4. Coat 2 loaf pans with oil, and divide the mixture evenly into both.
5. Bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center.

Maybe I just work well under pressure?  With the case of this bread, it definitely turned out well for me. And Jacob too.

Do you put things off until the last minute?  Favorite quick bread?

Heather

One thing I’ve always wondered about making is baked beans. For some reason this delicious food always seemed out of reach. Then about a week ago I got to thinking… I can totally make baked beans!  All I need to do is find a recipe that looks good and give it a try.

I searched the Internet and found this recipe for Boston baked beans. I had all the ingredients on hand except for beans and bacon, so once I got to the store I started prepping it the night before. First step – soak your navy beans.

This is where my first mistake started.  I have a visual memory, and from a quick glance at the recipe I remembered seeing 2 associated with the beans.  I assumed 2 pounds navy beans so that’s what I purchased and began soaking in water the night before.  The next morning I took a look at the recipe to see that it wasn’t 2 pounds, but 2 cups.  Whoops!  After a quick oh no moment, I went back to the internet to see how big of a mistake I made.  Turns out 2 cups of dry beans equals 1 pound, so I only doubled my recipe.  No biggie.

I wanted to use my crockpot instead of leaving them in the oven for many hours throughout the day.  Mainly because I was going to be gone during the day and I can leave the crockpot going.  Instead of cooking the beans first like the recipe says, I just added them into the crockpot along with all the other ingredients.

Here’s what went into it (I doubled everything here):

• 2 cups (1 pound) navy beans
• 1/2 pound bacon, diced
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 3 tbsp molasses
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

Along with that I used my bean soaking water to cover everything.  My crockpot was dangerously full at that time.

I cooked it on high most of the day (9 hours).  I was worried the beans wouldn’t cook through, but thankfully by the end of the day they were soft.  And I’m also glad it never boiled over.  That would have been a mess I did not want to deal with.

We had TONS of baked beans on hand!

I asked Jacob what he thought, and he said while they were good, they seemed like they were missing something.  I agreed.

My plan for the next day was to figure out what that missing ingredient was and actually bake them.  Then I got busy and just decided to add BBQ sauce (half a bottle) and bake.  Lazy Heather mistake.

They thickened up even more after being in the oven at 350 degrees for 2.5 hours.  Unfortunately, Jacob said they were better before I added the BBQ sauce.  Bummer.

Still, they tasted good, but are definitely not up to can quality.  Baked beans from the can are delicious.  We love them.  I want to match that taste, so another day I’ll be attempting baked beans again.  In the mean time I’ve got more baked beans to eat.

Have you ever made baked beans from scratch?  Do you have a winning recipe?  Please share!

Heather

We’ve been watching our budget again. Yes, again. We seems to go through spurts where we save-save-save, which leaves a little more wiggle room in the bank account, then we go a little crazy spending too much on clothes or stuff for the house. A bad cycle to get into. However, when we do go a little crazy spending, it tends to revamp our mind set to save. I think we end up winning in the end… we’ll say we do.

Back to the food! I originally made these tuna cakes with the sole purpose to use my mango salsa on top of them. I really just wanted to eat that salsa but not so much by the spoonful. I wasn’t that worries about how they’d turn out as long as they tasted okay… and I had my salsa.

Not only were they delicious with the salsa, they were great on their own! I’ve made them a lot of times now. Sometimes I top with avocado, sometimes with cheese, I’ve eaten them alone, but my favorite is of course, with mango salsa.

4 Ingredient Tuna Cakes

Ingredients

• 1 can (7 ounces) tuna in water, drained
• 2 eggs
• 1/4-1/3 cup chickpea flour * (depending on how much liquid is left in the tuna)
• 2 tsp old bay seasoning

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl with a fork. It shouldn’t be too wet or too dry.
2. Heat a skillet (cast iron preferred) over medium-high heat and coat with oil.
3. Place 4 even patties in the pan. Cook on one side for 3-4 minutes, then flip. Allow the second side to cook another 3 minutes. Both sides should be golden brown.Top with favorite toppings!

* I’ve only used chickpea flour in these because I really like the texture and flavor, but if you don’t have it on hand I’d suggest oat flour (ground rolled oats) or breadcrumbs.

What would you put on your tuna cakes? Do you tend to cook with a few or lots of ingredients?

On a totally different note, I entered Hunter’s picture into a contest at local radio station for Portland’s Cutest Baby.

I’d love your vote! Follow the link to vote for my cutie: vote for Hunter!

Thanks all!

Heather

Activities

He loves playing and laughing.  We love making him laugh, so we’re always being goofy around him.

Just last night he was bouncing around on Jacob’s shoulders, and I caught the most awesome thing…. drool!

Swimming and bath time are always a blast.  We went swimming for the first time last Friday and we’re going again today.

Hands are a tasty accompaniment to any activity.

He jumps like a crazy kid.  Seriously, that boys LOVES to jump.  Our neighbors gave us some of their kids favorite toys, including the jumperoo, and I see why it was their favorite.  It’s just such a blast for him. He’ll spend 30-40 minutes at a time just jumping away happily the entire time.

Tummy time is now fun for him, especially when he has someone else’s new toy to look at.

He has lots of play dates with Mabel.  She enjoys tugging on his ears, and more recently, stealing his paci from his mouth and putting it in hers.  Aren’t they just so cute together??

Sleep

He sleeps 10-11 hours a night, usually.  I preface the usually here.  Two nights ago he woke me at 3:30am, then last night at 1:30am and 5:30am.  I think he might be going through a bit of a growth spurt now too.

He goes to sleep around 9-9:30pm and wakes between 7:30-8am, usually.

He’s a wonderful napper now too.  He’ll just fall asleep in your arms when he gets tired.  Or if he’s not wanting to sleep like that, he gets a little fussy, his eyes get red and he starts tugging on his ears.  All we do then is swaddle him up, give him the paci and he’s out!  We still swaddle him for most naps, but no longer for nighttime sleep.

Nighttime waking

Jacob will ask me if he wakes up hungry in the middle of the night, and I’m not sure if he’s hungry, or just had trouble falling back to sleep.  I always just feed him.  I don’t want to try and force him back to sleep if he woke up hungry.  I figure that’s why he wakes up, and he always goes back to sleep easily after he eats.  He doesn’t seem to turn it into a routine when I feed him in the middle of the night.  If he was constantly waking at 3:30am just because it was that time, I may try something different, but since it varies so much I just roll with it.

Food

We don’t plan to introduce solids until he’s at least 6 months, but what we have started doing every once in a while is give him a little piece of fruit to suck on. So far he’s tried apple, grape (cut in half) and cucumber, and has enjoyed them!  He can’t yet hold the fruit/veggie in his mouth by himself, so we do it.  He sucks up the flavor and really likes it.  I think he’ll be excited about new flavors when we get there!

In addition to nursing, he’s been taking a bottle sooooooo well.  He struggled a bit the first couple times, but now he’s a champ at it.  He even holds onto the bottle.

He’s a pretty good nurser, but usually in the evenings he get pretty fussy and pulls off a lot + gets frustrated.  A lot of the time when he’s fighting it I have to stand and nurse him.  Maybe he likes the movement?

I love this picture because he looks so big!

Remember how little he was just 3 months ago?  Such a big difference.

I think he’s starting to become a little copy cat.

Daddy does something…

Mommy does something…

Then Hunter copies it…

On Monday he had his 4 month check up.  As the pediatrician always says, he’s perfect (of course ).  He got 1 shot (Tdap) and 1 oral vaccine (rotovirus).  No reaction to them this time, which I was happy about, and he only cried for a second when he got it.

Latest stats:

• 14 pounds, 7 ounces (25th percentile)
• 25 inches long (75th percentile)
• head circumference 16 inches (50th percentile)

He is definitely not chunky, but very long!  I don’t worry too much about his weight being on the lower end.  Jacob was tall and skinny when he was little, plus he’s been consistently growing every month.  I have a feeling all the jumping he does burns a lot of calories too.

He wears size 3-6 months in most things, but definitely outgrows his pants quicker with the big cloth diaper butt.

He has rolled over once so far, from his tummy to his back.  We’ll see when all the rolling begins!

That’s the latest with out little man. Wonder what 5 months will bring.

Heather

When I initially started teaching body pump I was already pregnant, so I kept my weights the same from the get go, not wanting to add too heavy of weights the further along I got in my pregnancy.  Once I got back to teaching it took a few times for those same weights to feel comfortable.  I added a bit more on for a few tracks, but nothing that really made me work.  Since I instruct I want to make sure my form is a good example.  My worry was that if I added too much weight I’d compromise that.

The thing with body pump, and lifting in general, is that your muscles get used to that consistent challenge if you never change it up.  That’s when you may start to see a plateau, and strength gains may halt.  I want to get stronger and keep that challenge going.

Challenge creates change in the body!

During the release on Saturday I upped my squat weight a bit, and boy did I feel it!  My legs were not only shaking during, but the next couple days after they were very sore.  Then when I taught body pump last night I upped all my weights.  I knew I’d be able to do it.  I just had to get my mind there.

Here’s my new weight selection for body pump (total + the bar):

Warm up: 15lb (10 before)
Squats: 40lb (35 before)
Chest: 25lb (20 before)
Back: 30lb (25 before)
Triceps: 20lb (15 before)
Biceps: 15lb (would alternate between 10-15)
Lunges: 15lb (10 before)
Shoulders: 15lb (10 before)

It will be fun to see where my weight selection stands in a few more months of body pump.  As long as I’m keeping the challenge going, wherever that stands, I will be happy!

How do you keep the lifting challenge going?  Do you switch up your weights often?  Or do you tend to stick with the same weights because they’re comfortable? 

I challenge you to increase it this week and report back how it goes!

Heather

Distracted.

Unmotivated.

Uncommitted.

All words that describe my recent stint with blogging.  All thing you have probably noticed with my recent posts too.  They’ve been few and far between, and definitely not my best work.

Today I’m here to tell you I am recommitted!  Jacob is the biggest supporter of my blog, and the words he shared with me last night really got me thinking about just how distracted I’ve been with it.  I kept using the excuse that I didn’t have time to post (ya know, baby and all), but in reality when I used to post almost every day my days were much busier.  Because they were busier (full time job, teaching, spending more time in the kitchen, working out + time with the hubs, friends and family), I really had to manage my time.

Now that I’m not working full time (although a baby definitely is a full time job!), I should have more time.  But I seem to get less done.  I think it’s because the pressure of packing so much into the day is gone.  I have more time at home, which makes me think I have all the time in the world.  Reality is, I still need to manage my time and keep myself to some sort of a schedule.

I looooooooove schedules.  I also love lists.  Together they keep me sane!

So what did I do last night?

Well I made a list!

Now I’ve got some structure for the day, and less Gossip Girl will likely be watched.

Just like before with those busy days, I need to P.L.A.N when I’m going to get things done, like blogging first thing in the morning again.  My brain is fresh and distractions are at a minimum.  Plus it gives me time to say hello to my blogging friends, who I’ve been missing!

Have you recommitted yourself to anything lately? 

The same goes with fitness a lot of the time.  It’s easy to get out of a routine if you miss a few workouts, but just like me with blogging, jump right back into it!  Recommit!

Talk very soon.

Heather

Yesterday Megan and I took Mabel and Hunter swimming for the first time. It was such a blast. When we arrived at the Y we got them in their swim diapers (imse vimses). They were already excited. Hunter went speedo style, Mabel in a cute suit.

The water temp was in the upper 80s. Super comfortable to be in. Hunter kicked his legs, splashed, jumped around and had a grand time swimming.

It was toddler time when we there, and other than a little girl swimming with her dad and the lifeguard, we had the pool to ourselves. Probably a good thing for their first swim.

We swam for 35-40 minutes, and could have gone longer, but I had to get ready to teach. The babies got bundled up in their towels. Still super happy!

I took Hunter to child watch, and instead of napping like I thought he would, he stayed away the entire time! Once I got him in the carseat headed home he passed out. I brought him inside and he stayed asleep in his carseat. He never stays sleeping in it once we get inside. Never. Yesterday, he slept for over an hour in it! Then later on Jacob and I ran an errand. He fell asleep for the hour in the car, then another 30 minutes once we were back home – still in the car seat!

All the kicking, splashing and adventures of a new activity wore the little guy out. We will definitely be back!

Are you a fan of being in the water and swimming?

I sure am. Love being in the water, which I end up doing at least 3 times a week now.

Have a great weekend!

Heather

For this one 10 minutes is all you need.  Since it’s timed and super short you want to make sure to push yourself.  You get out what you put in, so remember to put in effort and you’ll be rewarded!

Here’s what you’ll need to do.

Set a timer for 10 minutes.  Warm up for a few minutes (okay so the workouts takes a little longer than 10 minutes ).

Once you’re ready START!

• 20 high knees
• 10 single leg squats
• 5 pull ups
• repeat as many times as you can before 10 minutes is up

Cool down and stretch a bit.

How many rounds do you think you can do in 10 minutes?  I did 10 rounds + 20 high knees and 10 squats.  Try and beat me!

If you don’t have a pull up bar sub in push ups for the pull ups.

What do you think, do you have 10 minutes for a workout?

Heather

Our little family left the house for a getaway this weekend. No where too far, just up to my parent’s lake house. The parents (or grandparents to someone else) were there too. We went up for the sole purpose of spending time with my folks and relaxing. Recharging. We played pinochle (love card games!), BBQed a few times, slept in (Hunter too!), went to church, watched some games and shows on tv, began working on a craft and just had a great time.

Of course lots of cuddles too.

I love going up to the lake, but the lake ends and the week begins. This week I’m adding new classes to my teaching schedule! I’m loving the variety each day.

Monday – water aerobics
Tuesday – body pump
Wednesday – water aerobics
Thursday – cycle
Friday – water aerobics
Saturday – body pump
Sunday – total rest day

Saturday I’m launching the newest body pump release – 83.  That means there’s going to be lots of learning, memorizing and practicing happening this week.  It’s all fun stuff though!

How was your weekend? Looking forward to anything this week?

Heather

7:30am Hunter and I head upstairs and I feed him.

Then he’s one happy kid.

Hunter goes into the bouncy chair while I start on my breakfast and grab another cup of coffee. Don’t want to waste it.

Once my pancake is cooking we head downstairs for a diaper change and to get dressed for the day.

Back upstairs, he goes on the play mat while I finish up my breakfast.

It’s ready!  Egg, banana and corn flour pancake topped with peanut butter and poppyseed. I was out of oats (for my typical pancake), but the corn flour tasted surprisingly well! Breakfast with Hunter while he plays.

At 8:35am he’s starting to acts a little sleepy (rubbing his eyes and making some whiney noises) so I give him his paci and blanket, and moved him to a fuzzy blanket on the couch. I turn on the lullabye music and hope he falls asleep quickly. Normally he doesn’t nap that soon after waking but we were going to the library reading a little later so a quick nap was necessary.

After a couple times of putting the paci back in, he fell asleep at 9am. I was blow drying my hair so he must have pulled the paci out again and still managed to fall asleep without crying.

That gave me 20 minutes to get ready before we needed to leave. Non workout clothes (not like me), make up and hair done!

At 9:20am I slipped Hunter into his car seat (he even stayed asleep!) and we left for the library. We got there basically at 9:30 when story time was starting. Megan and Mabel were there too. I totally forgot to get pictures of Hunter and Mabel together. We sang, listened to books being read, bounced our babies, played with scarves, popped bubbles and did a little playing with toys/books at the end.

When story time was over at 10:15 I fed him in a chair at the library. He was starting to get a little fussy during story time with his nap being cut short earlier, so feeding was kind of a fussy time too. But, we did it. He seemed much happier after. Diaper change then we went and grabbed some books. Two for Hunter, three for me.

I’m excited to read Carrots ‘N’ Cake!

After the library we picked up a loaf of bread at Oroweat (for just 1 buck!), then spent a WIC check at Freddies. Hunter was so sleepy at the grocery store. This was right before he fell asleep.

Kinda looks a little mad.

Then he was out.

Once we got home I hoped he would continue sleeping since he hadn’t got any good rest yet. I laid him on the fuzzy blanket with paci and blanket, but it didn’t work this time. He was fighting sleep, crying, and then something happened that made him really upset. He pooped for the first time that day! It was soooooo much later than normal.  He typically goes first thing in the morning, but not today. Maybe that’s why he was being fussy… a little plugged up? He got changed and was still tired so I tried getting him back to sleep on his own while I tried eating lunch.

That wasn’t happening. I swaddled and rocked him to sleep. After a good 10-15 minutes he was finally out for the count at 12:25pm.

While he napped I finished my lunch, made a bunch of phone calls and paid some bills. All fun stuff

An hour later at 1:25pm he woke up hungry. I fed him and this time he ate much better. He was calm and didn’t cry. It’s amazing what a good nap can do.

Once his belly was full we played a bit then it was bath time. This was definitely the funnest bath he’s had yet! Hunter likes baths, but now I think he loves them. I even threw a rubber ducky in with him.

Lately I’ve been kinda bad about getting his baths in on a regular schedule. I think it had been a week since he got one last. Luckily little babies don’t really get dirty. At least that’s my defense.

Quick PB and J for me, hands for Hunter.

At 3pm I needed to be at a new gym I’m going to be teaching at to do new hire paperwork, so 15 minutes before 3 we were on our way. He napped on the way there so he was all smiles when we arrived. Everyone thought Hunter was so cute. After about 30 minutes he got a little fussy so the paci came out. I bounced him on my knee and he fell asleep. I love how that works.

Back home at 4:15pm and it was time for him to eat again.

Daddy’s home too!

I finally got around to cleaning the kitchen while Hunter watched and bounced away. Right before that I had a snack of oatmeal with peanut butter to recharge my battery.

5:30pm Time to begin working on dinner. Super simple pizza on whole wheat dough (from the freezer), tomato sauce, sliced chorizo sausage and mozzarella. Served with a side salad and finished off with tons fresh plums from my parents house.

Hunter falls asleep on the couch at 6:15pm for 45 minutes.

At 7pm I feed him, change his diaper and get him into PJs before we head out for a short walk. Jacob and I should definitely do this more often. I love talking with the hubs. We get distracted a lot in the house, so walking and talking is just what we do. It’s my favorite.

8pm We’re back and watch some Pawn Stars on Netflix. Hunter’s kind of fussy, but not too bad.

At 9:05pm I begin to feed him since I’m getting super sleepy. By 9:30 he’s done eating, we go downstairs, I put him in bed unswaddled (our latest new development!) and be wakes (typical). This time he’s pretty calm so I just close the door and hope he puts himself to sleep.

Jacob and I get ready for bed and don’t hear anything from Hunter which means he went to sleep!

10pm lights out!

5:30am Hunter wakes us up crying. He’s ready for breakfast.  I feed him and change his diaper in between sides. Sometimes he’ll go back to sleep when he wakes up early like this. Today he was awake, so we got up and headed upstairs to get my breakfast + coffee going and make Jacob’s food for the day.

It’s still dark in the house while Hunter begins to play.

Time for the day to start all over again.

Heather

Past day in life posts:

Day in the life with a 1 month old

Day in the life with a 2 month old

Last week he went in for 2 shots (HIB and Prevnar) and had a couple rough days. I’m not sure if he had a fever since I never took his temperature, but he was definitely warmer and pretty sad. We had lots of crying those 2 days. Lots of sleeping during the day too, but he did begin to wake up in the middle of the night to eat again. That was tough on me for sure.

I’m so glad we decided to spread his vaccines out. He’s basically receiving half of them each month, instead of twice as many every two months. I go in more often, but since he had a bit of a reaction to receiving these this time, I’m happy he didn’t get the usual dosage.

At that 3 month shot appointment he weighed 13.2 pounds. Up 1 pound 7 ounces in a month!

Annnyway… Hunter’s been so much fun!

He’s began squaking, like all the time an super loudly. He must have just figured out how to do it and thinks his voice is super cool.

He smiles and laughs so much.

His hands are his favorite chew toy. He’ll fit his whole fist in his mouth then chew and drool all over them.

Drool has definitely increased substantially.

Naps with dad are his favorite naps.

He’s still sleeping through the night, with the exception of the little blurp he went through after his shots and random times he wakes.

His head control is crazy good.

He loves jumping in the jumperoo, looking at himself in the mirror, having books read, bath time and batting at moving object.

I picked up a swim diaper and hope to take him to the pool soon. I think he’s going to love it!

Soon he’ll be 4 months old, which is closer to 6 months than newborn. That’s just madness! Time is going too quickly.

Heather

I make potato hash all the time. It’s simple, cheap and most of all deeeeeelicious. Thanks to this month’s Secret Recipe Club secret blog Robin, Restored, I have a new twist on it.

Robin recently changed her blog to focus more on her health and being healthier. I am a total fan of that, keep it up Robin. And thanks for sharing your recipe for hashbrowns and apples, we loved it! I made a slight adjustment to the recipe, but the special addition of apples were still the same.

Apple and Potato Hash
Serves 2-3

Ingredients

• 3-4 red potatoes, diced
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 apple chicken sausages, cooked and sliced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 apple, diced
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• sea salt and pepper
• 1-2 eggs per person

Directions

1. Preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat with the olive oil. Add the potatoes and a pinch of sea salt. Sauté for 15-20 minutes until the potatoes are crispy on the outside and soft in the inside.
2. Add in the sausage and onion next and sauté for 5 minutes. Stir in the apples, paprika and sea salt + pepper to taste. Heat the apples through, then pile on plates.
3. Add a touch of oil to the pan and cook the eggs your favorite way. Top the eggs on your hash and enjoy!

Have you ever added apples into your hash? It’s a fun and tasty addition!

Heather

First I wanted to see my mile splits. Just like this.

Next I would like to be told when I reach a mile and my pace so I’m not looking at my phone much during the run.

Lastly, I didn’t want to pay anything for it.

I found all those things in Endomondo! A reader actually suggested I check it out when I mentioned my running app (mapmyrun) didn’t show me my mile splits. Since then it’s been my go to app for running.

It’s super simple to use. You just press and go. Another feature I like is the auto pause, which comes in handy for stop lights or running with the jogging stroller and stopping to adjust Hunter.

It saves all your history (if you create an account) so you can see your improvements over time. At least that’s the goal. . Looking through the history you can view your route, run info and mile splits.

Best of all it’s totally F-R-E-E! You know I love that price.

This weekend we’re at the beach with Jacob’s fam. The annual run with cousin Paul happened this morning. Last year we did sprints, this year we tackled 5 miles. The voice on Endomondo was motivating…. we kept getting faster and faster with each mile. By the end we were pooped (me more than him), but it sure was fun to run with someone and be challenged to run faster and further.

Do you use an app or running watch/GPS to track your runs? Which one?

Have a happy weekend!

Heather

Once he fit in them, they worked perfectly the first month. Yes, poop gets on the cover and I’d have to wipe it out, but at least it was staying contained. Then all of a sudden we kept getting more and more leaks out the leg holes. I’d strap him in nice in tight in the covers, but leaks were still happening. If he had pants or anything with a leg on, it would have to get changed. He’d be sitting on my lap and all of a sudden my leg would get warm and wet – Hunter pee.

Frustrated was definitely one of the ways I was feeling. Cloth diapers are an investment, and for them to not do what they are supposed to do was disappointing.

Jacob suggested I go to Cotton Babies to talk with them about it, so I did. He went with me to make sure I was nice. Of course I’d be nice.

I told them the problem, we went through our washing routine (read it here) and she suggested I strip the diapers. The stay dry microfiber inserts can get a build up in them, which causes them to repel liquid instead of absorbing it. I didn’t really think it would do anything since my washing routine was going well and I was using clean rinsing detergent and no fabric softeners… so I thought.

I got home, looked at our lint sheets and they clearly state fabric softener on the box. While I don’t put the dryer sheets in with my diapers, they’re used with all our other laundry. Could it be leaving a coating on the dryer then transferring to the diapers? Mmmmm.

I picked up some disposable diapers and began stripping the diapers. All of my cloth diapers, including pocket and all-in-ones (even though they weren’t having any problems) went into the washer on HOT with 1 tbsp blue Dawn dish-washing detergent and about 1/3 cup bleach. After the cycle I kept running HOT cycles until there were no more bubbles. I think I ran about 10 cycles and finally decided that was enough of hot water to waste. Instead of putting them in the dryer I used my new nifty octopus drying hangers from Ikea.

Once they were dry the true test came. Would they continue to leak? Would I look like I peed my own pants when really Hunter peed on me? Would I still be frustrated and annoyed? Would I stop asking questions and give you an answer?

They held up! Leaks are now gone. Poop and pee stay in the diapers, which means less outfit changes and less frustrations! I’m so so SOOO happy it worked!

Maybe this is happening with your cloth diapers too. If so, I hope this is helpful. One thing to note is I have an old top loading washing machine. If you strip your diapers in a new HE washing machine, the instructions I got from Cotton Babies said to use 1 tsp of Dawn, instead of 1 tbsp. Just so you know.

Cloth diaper users – have you had to deal with anything like this? And how do you handle frustrating situations with stores?

I know I would have been nice even if Jacob hadn’t said anything… I was just super frustrated but I’m always nice.

Heather

First, the pictures!

Looking back at the previous couple months I can start to see some changes happening, which is nice. Mostly in my arms and a bit in the middle. The tummy’s still squishy, but a little less than before.

Jacob needs to work on his picture taking skills… they’re a little blurry. Not cool Jacob. Not cool.

This is really the one you wanna see… baby!

Okay, enough distractions, here’s how I did on my 2 month goals.

• begin running with Hunter in the stroller once, but hopefully twice a week (got the okay from his pediatrician!) – most weeks I’ve gone once with him, then once running intervals on the treadmill. Last week however, zero running happened
• start to see some weight loss – I am! I’m down about 3 pounds from the month before
• limit beer and/or wine to the weekend for special occasions (I think this will really help, I’ve been enjoying wine or beer many nights throughout the week) - I’ve been doing this too… maybe that’s part of the reason I saw a change in the scale
• begin incorporating a short, high intensity workout at home once a week (less than 20 minutes) – totally forgot about this one, but I’m going to plan one for tomorrow morning!

I feel pretty good about how I did on my goals. Time for some new ones though.

• Continue with the running and limiting of alcohol.
• Start incorporating the short, high intensity workouts at home. They’ll be good for the weekends when I tend to not exercise as much, or just don’t feel like taking much time to exercise.
• Prep more mini meals to easily and quickly grab. This is going to help me make better choices than a bowl or two of cereal every day when I get super hungry after waiting too long to eat. I need to get back on my eat every 3 hours schedule. Helps me keep my energy up and feel good.
• Find the P90X DVDs and add in some of those workouts. I really like the challenge, and want to be able to do a pull up again.
• My brother is doing P90X right now, so he has a pull up bar in his house. A couple weeks ago we were there and Jacob and him were being all guyish checking to see how many pull ups they could do. I tried to be all cool and do a chin up, thinking I still could, and I barely budged up the bar! At 5 months pregnant I could still do one, so for some reason in my head I thought I’d be able to. Wrong. Now I really want to be able to do one again, so that’s a goal for this month.
• Since I’m now starting to see the scale move down, continue with that. Slow and steady wins the race.

Those are my goals… now time to find those DVDs!

How’s your weekend going? We’re seeing lots of family and friends which is super nice + the extra time with Jacob (love holiday weekends!) has been awesome.

Lastly, thank you all for your sweet comments on my new job + cutting down on posting. They warmed my heart.

Have a great one!

Heather

Living life.

Loving life.

I never mention my full time job much before – it was payroll. I paid people, that always makes them happy. And now I’ll likely never mention it again after this post since I’m not going back. I had 12 weeks off for FMLA when Hunter was born, and towards the end I let them know I was planning to stay home. That was an exciting day.

I’ve always (always always) wanted to be a stay at home mom. Probably because my own mama was so awesome it made me want to be equally awesome. For a long time we didn’t know what was going to happen when Hunter was born. Would I have to go back to work full time? Part time? Would Jacob have to switch to the night shift so he could watch him while I worked? I didn’t even want to think about daycare. Then God answered our prayers and he got an amazing full time job. I got to be a stay at home mama!

Now Hunter’s my full time job. The best job I could ever have.

I love being a homemaker. Although I’m not the best at keeping on top of it yet, I’ve begun to actually enjoy all things involved with keeping up the house. Laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, making the bed… all things I used to dread (well except cooking) now don’t seem that bad. The house still seems like a mess, but it’s more of a controlled mess now.

All that in its own could be enough to fill a day, but I still manage to continue my fun part time job. Teaching fitness classes! Between my classes and subbing I’ll typically teach 4-5 a week. Hunter either goes to child watch or gets watched by one of his grandmas and I get paid to make people sweat! Ahhh I love it so much. Getting my workout in doesn’t hurt either. There is so much I love about teaching group fitness. The fun atmosphere. Challenging people to work hard – myself included. The music. The sweat. The moaning and groaning that turn to smiles. It’s crazy that I get paid to do something where I enjoy every minute of it. Pretty lucky right?

So where does this leave me and fit mama real food? Well, it seems it’s taken a back seat lately. I’m not saying I’ll give it up, because I enjoy sharing our life, my workouts and yummy foods too much give it up. Plus I don’t want to miss out on all my blogger pals. I’ll just be scaling it back to probably just a couple posts a week. Who knows, there may be days I’m popping in every day, there may be times I’m gone a whole week. I just can’t stress enough how amazing life’s been lately, and I want my blog to be something that I look forward to, not a chore. Ya know? Hope you still continue to follow along! If you aren’t subscribed to receive posts by emails I highly recommend it. That way you’ll know when new posts are up.

Have a wonderful middle of the week! We’re off to work on getting me a new car. No minivans here!

Heather

So much has been changing with Hunter these past couple weeks.  And yup, I’m talking about in the sleep department! It all started on a Friday night when he was 10 weeks, 5 days old.

We went to bed, nothing out of the ordinary. Then around 2am I woke up, but Hunter didn’t. I checked on him to make sure everything was okay and went back to bed. Again, I woke up at 4am. Hunter was still just fine sleeping away. It wasn’t until 5am that he woke to eat! He went a good 7.5 hours between feedings that night. The next night was 8 hours.

Somehow it just clicked and throughout the week he’d go 7-8 hours between feedings. We did have a couple random nights when he woke up between 2-3am, and I thought that he might be reverting back, but that didn’t stick (luckily!).

Then once he hit 12 weeks, something else happened. His nighttime sleep began extending to 9-10 hours between feedings, with the occasional 8 hour night. At the same time he instantly became a better day time napper. It seems like every other day he takes a loooonnnnggg nap. Like 2-3 hours and at least one. sometimes two of them.  Most naps are little cat naps lasting 45 minutes though.

Something else exciting – he’s beginning to fall asleep on his own without me doing anything.  AND we’ve stopped using the swing to lull him into a deep sleep.  He’s totally entranced by the swing and sleeps so well in it, but with a mini vacation in the near future I wanted to make sure he could sleep well without it.  No way are we bringing that along with us.

Our feedings have magically turned into a 3-4 hour combined schedule, which means now he’s eating only 5, maybe 6 times a day.  His wake/play time lasts anywhere (happily) between 1-2 hours.

I think part of the reason he’s become a much better day time napper is all the extra activity and moving around he does.  He’ll play on his mat…

and loves his jumperoo!

In addition to all the other interactive activities we do each day.

He wakes up super happy and goofy first thing in the morning, and is pretty happy all day too.  All the extra play and sleep sure is good for him!

I have to say, Baby Wise totally worked for us. I didn’t think he’d begin to sleep through the night for a long time, but just like the book said, he did at 10 weeks.  I know the 3 hour eat-play-sleep schedule isn’t right for everyone, but it totally worked for us.

If I compare those first few weeks, to 6 weeks and even to now there’s been a continuous improvement.  Not that it hasn’t taken work to get him where he is now, but the work was so worth it.  I’ve got a happily sleeping baby (at this moment too in fact!), which means a happy mama too.

In other exciting news, Hunter’s going to have another cousin come March!  Our family just keeps growing.  There are going to be so many babies and kids in the near future.  I can’t wait!

I taught bootcamp this morning and am about to work on the backyard for a bit until either Hunter wakes or I fill the yard debris bin.  Hope your weekend is going well!

Do you have a big or small family (immediate or extended)?  Anything fun going on this weekend?

Heather

Then one day our friends brought some pork over to BBQ.  We prepped it at our place, making a dry rub, and ever since we’ve been in love!

Dry rubs are soooooo simple and pack in tons of flavor.  I will take simple whenever I can these days.

Dry Rub for Pork
Makes enough for 1 pound

• 2 tbsp flour (whole wheat is what I typically use)
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• 3/4 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp all spice
• 1/8 tsp clove

Combine in a plastic bag, add the pork and shake to cover.  It tastes best when cooked on the BBQ, but if I’m cooking it inside on our grill pan, I heat it to med-high, add a touch of oil to the pan and cook on both sides for 3-5 minutes (depending on the thickness).

Do you eat pork?  How do you like to prepare it?

Heather

So what can you do with your little baby (other than snuggle and kiss and cuddle)?

Sing songs!

We’ve been all about music lately. I sing along with them and move his hands, feet and body with the music. Sometimes I’ll add in different fabrics that I’ll wave around with the song too.

Some of our favorites: head, shoulders, knees and toes, the wheels on the bus (you sign in this song too!), if you’re happy and the animal noise song. YouTube is awesome for finding kid songs.

Tummy time with mirrors

Tummy time isn’t Hunter’s favorite thing, but we do it anyways. He’ll typically last about 1-5 minutes before he is done. One way to keep him interested is having mirrors in front of him and getting down on the ground with him.

Play airplane

I’ll ‘fly’ him around looking at different things around the house. He likes going quickly up in the air, but really doesn’t like the dropping feeling.

Mimicking

Hunter likes to copy what I’m doing – like sticking out his tongue!

Reading books

I wondered when he’d start enjoying this and actually looking at the books, and it was around 11 weeks. I’ll put him on my lap and read 2-3 books a couple times a day and he actually looks at the book.  I’ll point things out as we read along.

I want to pick up a black and white book too. He was totally entrances by the one at our friend’s house (well not so much in this picture, but he was ).

Play time with other babies

Hunter and Mabel notice each other now! They have play dates every week or two, which means Megan and I get some hang out time. It’s cool that they’re only 8 days apart because they develop and change around the same time.

I can’t say I came up with all this stuff on my own. We went to a teaser class for baby sensory and got so many ideas!  Mainly the singing and different fabrics for them to feel and see.

All the extra activity definitely does tucker him out.  Just a little bit ago as I was adding pictures to this post, bouncing him on my knee he just fell asleep.  Never has he done that before!  That was even after 8+ hours of continuous sleep last night.  What a champ.

Hunter’s little girlfriend Mabel will be over again later this morning for some more play time. We have so many more toys to show her!  Hopefully they both get tuckered out from lots of playing and fun.

What kind of activities do you do with your little baby? Hunter’s almost 3 months now so still a little guy.  The fun is just going to continue on and on!

Heather

First, I thought once I popped Hunter out I’d instantly feel light and running would be a breeze again.

Negative.

Second, I figured since I did well running with a jogging stroller, once I ran just by myself I’d feel light, fast and zoom on by.

Nope.

Here’s a look at my run with the jogging stroller. I knocked out 4 miles in 38:04 with an average mile pace of 9:31. I felt challenged during the run, but also really enjoyed it. My mile splits (almost) all kept getting faster as I went along. I ran in the morning and the temp was around 70 degrees if I remember correctly.

Here’s a look at my run yesterday. No jogging stroller, just myself. I covered 3.56 miles in 37:26 with an average pace of 10:31. I ran in the afternoon almost 2 hours after eating lunch. The temp was 77 degrees.

The opposite of what I expected happen. The run was harder and slower! Granted I ran when it was hotter, I didn’t have water with me (although I stopped at a water fountain) and I ran in the afternoon with more food in my stomach.

The whole run felt so much more challenging, but not fun challenging. Sometimes when a run is tough I’ll notice I’m running much faster than I thought. That’s a reason for it to feel tough! This time I was just having a bad run. All I wanted to do was stop. I ended up walked a block, then told myself I could make it the last half mile home without stopping. Hardest half mile ever. All I wanted was to be done. When I finally made it, I was just drained. It was crazy!

Pushing past expectations

One thing yesterday’s run did was not discourage me. It made me want to work harder! The run really did suck, but working through a hard run makes the next one better.

I shouldn’t have expected it to come so easily. I know if you want something, you’ve got to put the effort in and work for it. I want to be a stronger runner, so I’m going to keep working at it.

Not giving in and stopping when it gets tough.

Not thinking it will come easy.

Not making excuses.

Time to work for what I want! Feel great running, challenge myself and become a stronger runner again.

How do you push past your own expectations and challenges? Fitness relates or not.

Heather

So here’s some of what’s new:

• Hunter started sleeping through the night last Friday!  He’s been going 8 hours at night, which-has-been-awesome.  Tuesday night he got me up at 2am (which was odd), but all the other nights have been 8 straight hours.
• I was doing really well on the $200 grocery challenge, then I went running, ran some errands and went to costco (hungry).  Bad, bad idea Heather.  I left after spending $113 (I went a little crazy there), I’m well over my $200 mark.  I haven’t added it up, but had Costco not happened I know I would have been super close to my goal.  Update to come soon (I hope )!
• I’ve been doing a lot of yard work during Hunter’s long afternoon nap.  When we bought our house 4 years ago the yard looked awesome – green grass, not over grown and not filled with angry blackberry vines everywhere.  Now… kind of the opposite of that.  I’ve slowly been working away at it.  Little bits at a time make it less overwhelming.  It’s still nothing pretty, but I’m hoping to get there.  Plus by next year where Hunter’s running around I want him to have a nice yard to play in.  Kids sure are motivation, huh?
• Jacob and I have started to go to the Y gym as a little family. And that’s what this post is about.

When we’re there, Hunter goes to child watch.  Almost every time he’s been a major champ with no melt downs or freak outs.  Luckily the one time we had to get him early we were just workout out, and I wasn’t teaching.  I have this great fear Jacob won’t be there when he has a melt down and I’ll have to leave my class to get him.  I hope that never happens!

Typically Jacob goes to the weights section and I’m either on the treadmill, lifting weights too, spending some time foam rolling or doing a circuit in another room.  I’m a wild card.

If I’m on the treadmill, no way am I running long distances.  I just can’t stand anything more than 2-3 miles on there.  I get so bored, which is why I’ve got to do sprints on the treadmill.  They keep me focused since there is a constant change and constant challenge.  Plus time just flies by!

I thought this workout was super fun and with the varying intervals of recovery and sprints I was definitely never bored!

What’s your favorite treadmill workout?  And tell me, what’s new with you?

I’ve been slacking on commenting on all my blogs, but I read them all the time when I’m nursing!  I may not make it to my computer much but my phone is always handy.

Heather

For the past couple weeks I’ve received so many zucchinis in my CSA, including that honker up there. It was so big, I knew it wouldn’t be for eating. Once zucchinis get pretty large they get kind of seedy and not as tasty for eating on their own. But if you bake it into something, it doesn’t matter how big or small the zucchini is.

I grated the zucchini using my food processor. It took just a couple minutes. So much faster than grating by hand.

I made 2 loaves of zucchini bread, 2 dozen mini zucchini cheese muffins, zucchini brownies and zucchini pasta salad with just this one (HUGE) zucchini. All in one weekend too.

I found the recipe for zucchini bread on The Bad Girl’s Kitchen… who just so happened to be my assigned blog for this month’s Secret Recipe Club! Min’s site is kind of unique. She has readers submit recipes as well that you can find on there.  A fun place for friends to gather and share recipes.

In typical Heather style I changed the recipe to suit my needs. For a coconut hint I subbed in coconut oil for the canola and applesauce, threw in some shredded coconut, subbed in whole wheat flour for the white and reduced the sugar.

I’m happy to say it turned out super tasty! Jacob thought it was too vegetable-y, but he’s crazy. I brought a loaf to our friend’s house on Saturday and it got good reviews, especially from kiddos.  I made sure to have them tell Jacob how much they liked it, and that he was crazy.

Chocolate Chip Coconut Zucchini Bread
Adapted from this recipe

Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups grated zucchini (original recipe called for 2 cups)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut **
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips (or chunks)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease (2) 9×5-inch loaf pans.
2. Stir together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon & nutmeg
3. In a large bowl, whisk eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar and honey and continue beating until well blended. Stir in coconut oil, vanilla, zucchini, coconut and chocolate chips. Make sure everything is well mixed. Stir in sifted dry ingredients until just combined. (Don’t overmix — just mix until all the dry ingredients are moistened and no large lumps remain, some small lumps are okay). Pour into prepared loaf pans.
4. Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in pans.

** I used a combo of both small shredded coconut and large flaked coconut.  I definitely prefer the small shredded kind in here.  You get the taste without a large piece of coconut.

If you like zucchini in your sweets (and why wouldn’t you?!), then you should totally try Maria’s chocolate chip zucchini brownies. They were amazing too!

It’s totally zucchini season right now.  What have you made?

Off to run this morning with the jogging stroller and some friends!  I’m excited to try out a new running app too.  If I love it I’ll be sure to share.

Heather

I just went back and read through Hunter’s 1 month post. It was fun to re-read what it was like then. Things have been changing so much lately, and definitely ALL for the better.

New developments this month:

• SO MUCH smiling
• he makes tons of noise – he’s definitely becoming a talker – I even got it on video (below)
• much more independent – can hang out and play by himself a lot more
• sucking on his hands – watching his hands – beginning to grab small objects with his hands
• he’s happier in his car seat – he used to cry almost instantly when we’d put him in there
• he loves watching TV (although I really don’t want him watching it)
• he does really well with people he doesn’t know – so far no problems with child watch at the gym!
• his neck is much stronger
• no more tears at bath time – all smiles now
• he takes a pacifier much better now, but still isn’t obsessed with it

And the video of Hunter saying hi!

I just love that kid.

He had his 2 month well-baby check up and got his first shot too. As far as growth goes, he weighed 11 pounds 11 ounces, and was 23.75 inches long. Right on track.

Instead of receiving the standard 5 (I think) vaccines at 2 months, the pediatrician and I decided on an alternative schedule. She called it the Sear’s schedule. I found this page online, which is what the first 7 months will be like. Basically instead of going in for shots every 2 months, we’ll go in every month so he isn’t receiving as many vaccines at one time.

At 2 months he received the oral vaccine for Rotavirus, and a shot in the leg for DTaP. He didn’t like either and cried from the shot. I totally thought I’d cry, but I was surprisingly strong and didn’t. I ended up getting a DTaP booster for myself when we were there since here in Washington there’s been a huge outbreak in whooping cough (not something little Hunter wants to get).

I’ve heard that a fever is pretty common for babies after they get shots. Luckily he didn’t get one. The only side effect I noticed was that he became a little fussier eating for the next 2-3 days. After that he went back to normal.

He’s had a definite change in his schedule. I’m so happy with it, especially since I’m now only getting up once at night.

Here’s what it’s like, most days.

7-7:30am wake

7:30 – 8am eat + play

If I’m teaching that morning I’d normally leave during this time OR we leave the house to run errands/go for a run

8:30 -9am nap – always 45 minutes, almost on the dot – no longer, no less

9:15-9:45am his grumpy time

10:30-11am eat + play

11:30-12pm nap – this is his long nap – usually at least 3 hours long – I try to stay home during this time

3-3:30pm eat + play

Depending on the day, we may leave for the gym to workout or Jacob to workout + me teach. Hunter goes to child watch.

He’ll get another 30-60 minute nap in there, but is usually pretty happy. Not always though, sometimes he is grumpy.

6-6:30pm eat + play

Once he starts to get fussy, about an hour after eating, we swaddle him up and get him to fall asleep. He usually stays asleep until he gets hungry and wakes.

8:30-9:30pm eat + straight back to bed

1:30-3am eat + straight back to bed

7-7:30am wake and start again!

This schedule is actually a pretty change recent. Just this last week it changed to this and it seems to fit perfectly. Depending on the times I’m teaching I have to feed him a little early or later, but he seems to roll with the changes pretty well. I’m glad he can pretty easily go 4 hour stretches during the day between eating if I need him to.

Something fun – we put him in the jumper. A couple more inches and he’ll be able to bounce off the ground!

This time he just sucked on the fabric in the front.

So that’s what’s new with our little man Hunter. 3 months will be here in no time!

Heather