What I'm loving #1

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend.

I thought I would do a fun little post about things that I’m loving right now. I always like reading these from other bloggers and they can always lead you to new things. 

1. Luna Protein Cookie Dough Bar - I once read in a magazine that a good way to get over your chocolate craving is to have a healthier chocolate bar.  So I found these luna bars and they are so delicious. I’m not gonna lie they don’t taste exactly like cookie dough but they are dipped in chocolate and have chocolate chips in them and something that resembles caramel.  So they totally fill that chocolate craving. They also  are great to throw in the diaper bag and go.  

2. Sunflowers -  I usually grab a big bouquet at the farmers market and they brighten up my kitchen.  If I good about changing the water and cutting the stems I can almost get two weeks out of one set.  

3. Ibotta - Ibotta is an app that you can get rebates or cash back for things that you buy.  All it takes is a couple minutes after you go shopping and you can get back a crazy amount of money, even more if you buy a lot of name brand stuff.  The thing that I love about this app over the other grocery apps is that you can get rebates for just regular stuff. I always grab the milk, bread and eggs one that I can use for any brand that I buy. They always have a lot of different stores that you can get rebates from and some of them aren’t even grocery stores.  I know joann’s fabric and old navy are offering $5 rebates.  Once you get $20 you can turn it into a gift card do a lot of different places.

4. My Favorite Murder (Podcast) - If you were in one of my many writing classes during college you would already know this little fact about me but death interest me.  And I don’t mean in the way that I’m gonna kill someone but dying and different ways to die, I find fascinating.  So when I stubbed across the podcast, My Favorite Murder, I couldn’t get enough. If you aren’t in anyway interested in this topic, feel free to skip down to the next item, you are interested or might be on the fence, I will tell you a little about the podcast.  My Favorite Murder podcast is hosted by two friends, Georgia and Karen, and they sit in Georgia’s house and talk about murders that they find interesting. It is a comedy podcast (they don’t make fun of the people killed) and they will even say this themselves, don’t came to them for the facts.  But they are amazing story tellers and you will get lost in it.  And totally laugh out loud more than once.

5.  Running -  I have been dabbing my foot into running again and it just feels so good.  I think thats when you know you are onto something that you might stick with.  Almost all of last week James was sick, fever, running nose sick.  So I couldn’t take him out with me on a run.  I know I could have gone in the morning before he woke up but he was having some rough nights and I wasn’t gonna do that.  But everyday I thought about how great it would to get out there and run.  To feel my legs stretch, to listen to my favorite podcast, to be a runner.  We finally got out on Saturday and it wasn’t my best run but I had to remind myself overtime isn’t going to be magical, that some runs are gonna be harder and some runs are gonna feel like magic. 

6.  Shopkicks - This is another app that I have found recently and I don’t think I’m at the love stage because of the options lately but when I first found it, I was in love.  This app allows you to get kicks or points for just going to stores and scanning certain products. Then you can use those points to get gift cards. 

7.  James’ Laugh - Okay, to be honest this thing I’m always loving. Day in or day out I can’t get enough of his laugh.  What I find so fascinating about it is the things that he finds that are so hilarious.  On Sunday, it was the word ribbit, like the sound a frog makes.  Last week, it was me dancing and tickling him with a tape measurer.  And oh man, don’t think I danced and tickled for as long as I could just to hear that sweet little giggle just a little bit longer. 

So thats just a little rundown on these that I’m really loving right now.

-Megan

Do you find yourself looking for new things to try or do you just stick with the old stuff?

Do you have any weird interests or hobbies that you don’t share with everyone because they might think it’s a little too weird?

Day In The Life #2

Hi Everyone,

I hope you guys had a great weekend.  We surprising had a pretty busy weekend running errands around town and making a trip to Ikea (more on that in another post). I thought I would do a Day in the Life from Saturday but we will start with Friday night.

9:00 pm -  I forgot to grab some cash at the grocery store and I always like to have some on hand for the farmer's market.  So after James went to sleep and Wes and I did a little work outside, I hopped in the car and went to the ATM.  

I snapped this photo and it reminded me how much I miss my morning runs.  There was just something so relaxing and peaceful about running before, it seems, like the whole world is awake.  So when I got home I asked Wes, would he be okay with it if I went for a run in the morning as long as I was home in time to nurse James.  He feels very passionate about his morning feeding.  I went to bed a little later than I would have liked and set my alarm for 5:30.


5:30 - Alarm goes off and I hit the snooze button. Snoozes goes off, I turn the whole alarm off.

6:00 - My other Alarm, aka James, goes off and there is no hitting snooze on him.  I nurse him and we wonder out into the living room.  We hang out and watch a little TV.

6:45 - I started breakfast.  On the menu for this week is french toast so I had a little extra prep to get done and didn't want a whinny baby while I was trying to make breakfast. Wes wakes up and plays with James on the floor with one his toy rotation boxes. 

7:00 - We eat breakfast and just play around the house/ get ready until it was time to leave for the farmer's Market which opens at 8am. 

8:00 - We leave for the farmer's market.  I was planning on taking my bike and pulling James behind me but Wes decided to come and didn't feeling like biking so we all piled into the car.

8:30 - Arrived at the farmer's market and did a couple laps around seeing if there is anything that I just had to have.  

After grabbing a waffle, we settled down to watch a band play.  I think we all enjoy watching the band.  James isn't quite at the point of dancing to the music but it's nice to just sit down, enjoy a waffle and relax.  It's a great start to the morning. 

9:15 - James started to get a little fussy so we packed up, I grabbed some flowers and we headed home.

9:30 - Almost as soon as we got home James went down for a nap.  Taking the opportunity of James' napping and Wes being home (aka napping on the couch) I took off to the store to grab a couple of things that I forgot at the store yesterday.  After I got home and James was still asleep (Score!!) I started on a little meal prepping. 

I diced and sliced some strawberries, got the veggies all chopped for dinner and made some oatmeal bites (not impressed, throw them out this morning)  for James for the next morning.  

Does anyone else all seem to be losing one of their wool balls?  Mine always get trapped in the clothes. 

James ended up napping a crazy long time so I was able to get a few more things done around the house like pick up and do a little laundry all while listening to my new favorite podcast - My Favorite Murderer.  If you are in anyway interested in Murder/ true crime I would check out the podcast. It literally makes me laugh out loud while listening to it. 

12:30 - James wakes up and by this time I was so ready for lunch.  So I started making some BLTs and I couldn't possibly make them without my little helper.  

The climbing gene is strong with this one.

1:30 - After lunch is all cleaned up, Wes said that he need to run an errand.  We order windows for James' nursery but they came in the wrong size so we had to return them.  We pilled into Wes' newish truck, first family trip in it and headed over to Home Depot.  We returned the windows with an issue (so thankful) and did a little drill window shopping.  

After leaving Home Depot, we went to Cabelas to do a little more window shopping and to look at fishing poles.  Wes recently bought a new fishing kayak and is now on the mission to outfit it. 

James and I enjoyed looking at the fish tank/ pond that they have in the store.  

3:30 - We finally get home and I want, hopefully quickly, to show signs that he was tired and ready for a nap.  Sadly those didn't come and we only took one nap that day. So we just played in the living room waiting for dinnertime.  

5:30 - I turn on the over to preheat and finish up prepping dinner.  The oven beeps and I put the chicken and veggies into oven and put a pot of water on the stove for the corn that we got at the farmer's market. 

6:30 - It's dinner time and man it was delicious and so simple.  For the chicken and veggies all I did was place them in baking dish sprinkle it with a garlic herb seasoning and some olive oil and that was it.  For the corn on the cob, I just boiled it and then melted some butter in the microwave, add some cajun seasoning and brushed it on the corn. Delicious!!

7:00ish - It wasn't bath night and thinking it was going to be an early night, we changed James into his PJ's and got him almost ready for bed.  An early bedtime didn't happen, he seems to be filled with energy after dinner and didn't show any signs of slowing down. 

8:00 - James finally slowed down and I put him to bed. 

I didn't really document the rest of the time.  I think we watch an episode of 'In An Instant' and it was really sad.  A lady was driving on a highway and a semi-truck over took her and pushed her off the highway bridge and she and her two kids were stuck on the side of the bridge, barely hanging on.  Everyone was fine but whenever I see a story or read a story that has to do with a baby, I can't help but get teared up. 

11:00 - After the show ended, we went to bed.  

Day In The Life

I've always loved reading these types of post on other blogs so I thought I would do one of my own.  I will be honest, this isn't my first attempt at doing one - usually I would forget half way through the day and be like 'oh crap, I didn't take any pictures today' or it would turn out to be a bad day, James or me in a bad mood and the last thing I wanted to do was capture the day.  But Monday went pretty well and I remembered to take pictures, for the most part.  It wasn't the most interesting day but it was a normal day for us.

6 am - James wakes up.  I had planned to wake up early to work on a couple of things because James got up but as soon as my alarm went off, I heard him through the monitor.

6:45 -  Breakfast - I forgot to make muffins on Sunday so James had waffles and banana and I had eggs with an english muffin.  

The english muffin tasted funny, I didn't put any butter or jelly on it so I didn't eat much of it.  I finished my breakfast sharing a yogurt.  

7:30ish - We head out for a our morning walk.  I try to get in about 2 miles in the morning.  It's a good length for me to where I feel like I actually burned something and for Truman it's about the farthest he will work without complaining.  

8:15 - We get back from our walk and I start to do some chores around the house. I clean up after breakfast and wipe everything down. Due to the dark floors and Truman needs to continually  shred I have to sweep/vacuum the floors a lot. 

9:15 - James goes down for this nap.  Sometimes with his naps I don't get much done.  I get sucked into a TV show and before I know it, it's an hour or so later and there is a noise coming from the monitor.  But this nap was different and James slept for a long time so I got a lot done. 

 I was able to my 30 Day Shred workout, grab a shower,  make and bake banana bread and blueberry muffins and was able to clean up the kitchen after this too, Mom win! 

Catch up on some Hiker Stuff and finishing up sweeping and mopping.

12:00 - After a 3 hour nap, James wakes up and we are both ready for lunch.  James doesn't always take a long nap in the morning but he only took one on Sunday and he was pretty tired so for the morning nap I just let him sleep as long as he feels like he needs to.  

12:30 - For lunch, I prepare him some string cheese, crackers and strawberries.  He just started liking strawberries about 2 weeks ago and loves them.  He can eat about 5 strawberries in a sitting.   I had some left over steak from dinner the night before and knowing that Wes didn't work until Wednesday that I needed to do something with it or lose it but I wasn't exactly sure what to do.  I thought about putting it on a salad but the idea of steak with ranch dressing didn't sound too good but then I thought of taco bell and their steak quesadillas.  I had never had them before but , My Oh My, they turned out amazing.  I think quesadillas get a bad wrap sometimes but if you make them with the right ingredients they aren't too bad.  I used about a 8 inch wheat tortillas, 3 oz of steak, about 1/3 of cheese and 2 tablespoons of sour cream.  I think it comes in around 450 calories with is a low on a normal lunch scale.  You could always switch out sour cream with greek yogurt or salsa and save even more.  This meal was so amazing that I have had it twice this week and will have it for lunch today too.  

1 - Play time -  If we have any errands to run this is when we usually do them but we didn't so we just stayed at home and just played.  Which right now involves James getting into a bunch of things and me trying to keep the house from looking like a tornado went through.  We did share a piece of banana bread later in the afternoon.  

 And I did let James watch a little bit of Baby Einstein.  He really does love that show and gets so excited when it pops up on the TV screen.  He squeals a little bit and shakes his hands and feet.  

4ish - James started to get a little sleepy, I tried to keep him up since he already took such a long nap in the morning and wake up late but it didn't work.   He ended up falling asleep on me, which never happens anymore, and we took a little afternoon nap.  He normally doesn't get the best sleep this way so I knew it wouldn't affect his bedtime too much. 

5:30 - Wes gets homes and it's kind of early so I was surprised but is greeted happily by both boys. 

6:00 -  I start prepping for dinner.  Since it's Monday and thats sandwich day, we are having BLT.  It's a nice quick meal that doesn't cost too much or takes too long.  Since when did bacon get so expensive. 

6:30 - We sit down to eat dinner.  James had Vienna Sausages, Mac n Cheese, Apples and Peanut Butter Bread.  I'm trying to get him to eat more meat/ protein so we are trying out the sausages.  They aren't a hit but I still have hope because of the strawberries. 

7:00 - We are done with dinner and Wes helps me clean up and we watched  Wheel of Fortune for a little bit, James loves Uncle Pat.  It was bath night so we took a quick bath and got ready for bed.  

7:30 - Wes was on the phone and I had to bring in some of the toys from outside because it was supposed to rain so James played for a little bit.  Not long after I bought the pool in did I see that James had climbed in the pool for a little fun. 

7:45 - James is done with his pool party and we start on our bedtime routine and lights are out by 8. 

8:00 -  Mommy time -  After James goes to sleep, this is my free time.  Since it's Monday night, it's Bachelorette Time.  I  don't always follow the bachelor/bachelorette series but this time I am.  I grab myself some wine and a little ice cream sundae made with a fiber one brownie and a little bit of ice cream.  I also put away James' toys so the living room is picked up and worked on the blog a little bit. 

10:30ish - Off to bed we go.  I read a little bit then it's lights out. 

So what does your normal day look like?

Are you always on the go or do you like to stay at home more?

Have you ever tired a new thing for lunch and was blown away by it?

-Megan