Another fun thing?  Using the chess/checker set to not play chess or checkers.

Remember that Two Peas and Their Pod blog dinner I had planned for this week?  We had it and it was delicious! I highly recommend both the avocado chickpea spread and the baked zucchini fries.  Served with watermelon, of course.  Leave the toothpicks out if you wish.

I tried a sock-bun yesterday.  I need to work on my technique, but I liked it.  Although I felt a little silly when I got to my haircut and had to roll a sock out of my hair as my stylist waited.

Is is just me, or are little kids in Bible era costumes all kinds of cute?  This guy had his first speaking roll yesterday “My arm, it’s better!” and made me melt.

These are all the foods that were made for me on Mother’s Day….

Breakfast Drinks

Green Jasmine Tea + Vegetable Juice*

*Technically I made the juice, but I made it the day before Mother’s Day.  It’s a beet/celery/carrot/ginger/lemon/kale combo.

Breakfast:

Fruit plate in bed.  Happy sigh.

Went to church and got a couple of good photos:

Brunch – Lunch:

After church we went to my favorite restaurant (Green).  Like how my little guy has a mouth full of food in that picture?

I had the Avocado Eggs Benedict and it was ah-maz-ing.  How can a dish with fresh bread, avocados, runny eggs and a chipotle hollandaise sauce not be??

It came with some too-sweet and overcooked steel cut oats (that my little guy ended up eating)

and all the mamas got a chocolate covered strawberry.  Which was shared three ways, as both kids think that whatever is mine is theirs.  Which is fine with me.  Except when it comes to my hidden dark chocolate stash…

I came home and read the paper with some hot tea.  And by read the paper I mean read the Food section, the Target Ad and the coupons.

Snack:

The kids and I shared some oranges.  We are all about communal eating.  :)

I went to an afternoon yoga class and when I got back, the husband and I split a coffee frappuccino (a sorta-splurge on the last day of frapaccino happy hour).

After some outside play, we headed to the ultra-fancy restaurant you may have heard of – Chipotle.  Okay, so it’s not fancy.  But it’s quick, has crave-able guacamole and chips and is quite vegetarian friendly.  It was a great weather night, so we ate outside.

Dinner:

Chipotle Vegetable Bowl – rice, black beans, cheese, pico, guacamole and lots of lettuce

The kids ate in between chasing a bug,

and wearing the food baskets on their head.  Which is one reason we don’t do fancy restaurants.  Being cheap is another.

I made them do one final photo and, no, I’m not quite sure why my boy is reaching into his shirt…

I’ve got a pretty fantastic family and am so thankful to be a mama to these munchkins.  I’m also mighty thankful for my wonderful mom – if I’m half the mom to my kids that she was to me, I’m doing good.

linking up with What I Ate Wednesday at Peas and Crayons.

Here’s what I’m planning on for the week:

Monday: Quinoa with roasted veggies (I’ve got carrots, zucchini, onions and squash to use up asap), black beans and avocado.

Tuesday: A Two Peas and Their Pod’s blog night: Zucchini Fries and Smashed Chickpea and Avocado Salad Sandwiches.

Wednesday: Noodles and Vegetables with Peanut Sauce

Thursday: Black Beans and Rice with cornbread

Friday: Vegetable Pot Pie

Anything exciting on your menu this week?  Anyone else getting a new fence today?  :)

It’s Frappuccino Happy Hour Week at Starbucks (through 5/13) and they are half off between 3-5.  Miraculously I’ve only had one (the promo started on 5/4), but I hope to have at least one more before Sunday.

My first almond butter + chocolate oatmeal in far too long.  I love starting my day with chocolate – it just sets the right tone for the day.  :)

Took advantage of the 3/$1 mango sale and bought a lot.  I made my first fruit leather in the dehydrator and foresee many more batches in my immediate future.

We’ve had roasted veggie tostados for dinner twice in the last ten days.  I’m thinking we’ll have them twice in the next ten days too.

The kids, one of their friends and I made cinnamon rolls from scratch for an after-school project this week.  I followed the Betty Crocker recipe and it was a fun little project.  Fun, if you don’t have to take deep breaths when three kids ‘kneading’ dough and flinging flour around your counter top almost makes your neat freak self want to shout.  I kept my cool and rewarded myself with a fresh from the oven cinnamon roll BEFORE dinner.  And maybe after too….

The little guy and I returned to the site of his head injury.  He was a little anxious, but bravely climbed the wall again.  You better believe I was one of those annoying hovering moms, following him around the whole playground.  I was not in the mood for another bloody end to a park day.

The girl had a fundraising fun-run yesterday at her school.  Watching the all of the kindergarteners and first graders ‘run’ was rather entertaining.

There goes my girl:

Random photo – guess which running kindergartener got a ‘how to draw dogs’ book from the library?

Guess how many times she has asked for a dog this week?

Six Degrees of Hippie Bull#&!# (from Stories and Sweet Potatoes)

Had me laughing out loud.  I do see me in her characterizations, but I never swaddled my newborns in cloth bags.  :)  Plus, any blog post that references Kevin Bacon in Tremors is a winner in my book.

Food Deserts and Obesity Role Challenged (NY Times)

I’ve been reading more lately about Food Deserts and found this article to be interesting, as well as the discussions in the comment section.  Obesity and poverty are very clearly related, but it’s such a complicated issue.

Mothering Reads:

How to Help A Friend Who Has a Child with Mental Illness (from It’s Almost Naptime)

Wonderfully written.  I have so much respect for those who mother special needs kids.

Pottery Barn Names – The New Trend? (from She Knows)

I thought I was picking non-trendy names (and I had my daughter’s name picked out since I was in my early 20s, way before I had ever looked at a Pottery Barn Kids catalog), but lo and behold, both my kid’s names are on the list.

Annoying Read:

A Working Mom Defends the ‘Lululemon Stay at Home Mother”  (Forbes)

Just Ugh.  What could have been a good discussion piece basically says ‘hey, working moms, don’t be jealous of the stay-home mom in yoga pants because she may have a jerk of a husband who expects her to be thin????”  What??

How about – hey, working moms, don’t judge the stay at home mom in yoga pants.  Hey, stay at home moms, don’t judge the working mom in her nice business clothes.  Most of us are trying to make the best choices for our family.

For me, it means I stay home for now.  Our life is significantly less stressful with only one corporate career to manage.  Two corporate careers with two kids nearly killed us.

I’m grateful to have the opportunity to stay home, realize that not everyone has that choice but also realize that many professional women are indeed choosing to work over staying home with their kids.  We are choosing to have me at home, which means we don’t have the nicest house on the block, we don’t take a lot of vacations and we stick to a budget to make one income work.

ps – I do wear yoga pants to school drop off sometime.

A friend of mine recently did a Day in the Life post and I thought it was a great way to capture a moment in time.  Life with kids or without changes by the month and I love the idea of documenting a normal day.

Here was my Monday.

Wake up to 4 year old running into our bedroom, snuggle/half sleep with him for a bit while the husband showers and gets ready. Get dressed into workout clothes.(no picture)

Wake up sleeping 6 year old around 6:45.  Help her get dressed and fix her hair.

Feed both kids cereal.

The husband was able to drop her off at school, so see them off to school and work.

(He drives the minivan so I can drive the new (used) car we got in December.  Reason he’s a keeper #1)

Come back inside with the boy and have a cup of tea while making my shopping list.

Head upstairs to get the boy’s clothes and think a room cleaning is in order.

When ‘cleaning’ means ‘puts toys in various bins/containers’ it comes together pretty quickly.

Come downstairs with his clothes and get him changed.  Start chopping vegetables for the next few days. Let the little hand in the corner grab a snack.

Make some juice for the morning and for the next day.

Try to get the boy to take a picture of me.  Didn’t work so well.

He can play Angry Birds with the best of them but apparently the camera function alludes him. I’m really not a ghost.

At about 9 am, we head to a very little farmer’s market that a church near us hosts.  Very little as in 3 vendors.  

Buy some eggs and produce.

Drop the food off at home and head to the gym.  First drop off the little guy in childcare.

Then head to my happy place.  Ommmmm.

Drop off my stuff in the locker room and take a shower.

Finally dressed for the day.  Didn’t bother straightening my hair, as the day was mighty humid.  Didn’t bother drying it either.

Grabbed a juice and cup of hot lemon water from the gym cafe.

Picked up the little guy from childcare.  As usual, he wasn’t ready to leave.  ”But mo-oooo-m, I’m not ready yet.”

Went to Costco.

Then the grocery store.

Came home with lots of food and a hungry boy (no samples at Costco unfortunately).

Got the boy some lunch – watermelon, cucumber, peanut butter pretzels and a still hot from the store tortilla.  Which became a horn.  Of course.  Notice the towel that I wrapped around his neck to try and contain the watermelon juice?  It didn’t work.

Unloaded 70lbs of food into the fridge and pantry.

Started some chickpeas in the crockpot.  (see the kombu?  don’t cook beans without it!!)

Looked over to see the little guy had made a ‘bull-dozer’ out of the cucumber and a straw.  Of course. Can you see the pink watermelon stains on his sleeve?  How exactly do you get watermelon juice on your inner bicep?  Good question.  He’s got skills.  He also got a new shirt shortly after I took this picture.

At about 2:15, I reheated 3 different leftovers into the most random lunch ever.  Noodles, rice, beans, roasted veggies – this lunch had it all.

Headed to pick up the girl and had some kombucha in the car.

Went straight to Urgent Care to have the staples removed from the little guy’s head after the previous week’s head injury incident.  The kids quickly got wrapped up into Shrek 2 that was playing in the lobby.

We got called back and it was a much more pleasant experience than the week before.

There were a few tears during the actual removal, but he did really good and was adorably brave.

All week long he talked about having a milkshake after he got his staples out.  We headed to his first choice restaurant, only to find they were closed on Monday.  His second choice was Old McDonalds (his words) and they graciously split the shake into two cups and put a whip cream AND a cherry in both cups.

I finished my kombucha and read part of the Sunday paper while the kids played in the indoor play area and exposed themselves to every germ in town.

We got home around 4:30 and I unloaded the girl’s backpack to see what 23 papers she brought home that day.  I had to smile at the Earth Day artwork amongst the 23 papers.  To quote Alannis, isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

Unloaded the dishwasher while supervising some homework.

The husband got home early (around 5) and was greeted by Darth Vader.

I chopped up some potatoes and onions and threw them in the oven to roast.

We went on a walk around the neighborhood.

We came home and had breakfast tacos for dinner.

I cleaned off the counter and put away the leftovers

while the husband swept.

(reason he’s a keeper #2)

The husband did bedtime prep and storytime with the kids (reason #3)

while I finished the chickpeas and made some protein bites.

I also spent some time doing dishes and had to take a picture, as I spend a good 30-40 minutes a day in this spot.

I got called up to lay down with my little girl as she falls asleep (I do it every night and will do it until she asks me to stop – at which point I’ll hold back the tears but say yes) and then sat down to check email/facebook/google reader on my phone for about 30 minutes.

The husband and I chatted for a bit and then I decided to call it a day.

And that was Monday, April 30, 2012.

I’m showing off with just how many different brown foods I can eat in one day. It wasn’t planned.

I started the day colorfully enough as I packed the kid’s lunches:

(Tuesday’s my little guy goes to preschool, so I do double lunch duty)(ps – duty is a hi-lar-ious word to the previously mentioned little guy)

The girl got: mangos+kiwi+ cucumber, carrots + celery + tomatoes, yogurt, granola + almonds (for the yogurt), cheese + tortilla

The boy got: cheese + tortilla, cucumbers + broccoli, mangos, pirate’s booty

I made some (green but looks brown) tea and drank it as I dropped off my little kindergartner.

I came home and had some green juice.

Juice: celery, carrots, ginger, lemon, apple, collard greens

 I’ve started making a double juice batch and saving half for the next day.  The juice may not be quite as healthy on day two, but my day off from cleaning the juicer is certainly good for my mental health.  I fill the bottle up to the very top to minimize air and hopefully minimize oxidation of the nutrients.  Really I just wanted to use the word ‘oxidation’ in a post.  It makes me feel smart.

I packed some brown snacks for the gym,

a loose version of double chocolate protein bites and water

made a very unattractive brown/green smoothie,

collard greens, carrot, blueberries, peaches, coconut milk, frozen banana and a half scoop of Vega Chocolate powder 

and took the boy to preschool.

My lunch kept the brown and green color theme.

Almond Roasted Cauliflower (from Let Them Eat Vegan) and Kale Salad topped with chickpeas and feta

As did my iced tea (brown! with a green straw!) on the way to pick up the kids from their schools.

I want to go back to preschool.  Why?  Because you get to do crafts like this:

tell me that doesn’t make you smile….  ’He’ is our new centerpiece.

I had some brown pecans.

I baked some brown Chia Banana Muffins (also from Let Them Eat Vegan).

For dinner the husband and I had Chickpea Burgers, Popcorn Fries (from Eat Drink and Be Vegan) and veggies.

The kids had Create Your Own Adventure Dinner plates with whatever produce I could quickly pull out of the fridge.

They don’t like the chickpea burgers, but will eat plain chickpeas happily.  But only if you refer to them as yum-yums.  And, no, I’m not sure how they got that name.  And, no, we don’t make a habit of giving things cute names – I’m a stickler for proper language and identification.  And, yes, I’m a buzz kill like that.  What do you expect from someone who likes to work the word ‘oxidation’ into a blog post??

For my after dinner, ‘the kids are asleep and the whole worldwide web is at my fingertips’ snack, I had some (brown) Licorice Mint Tea and some new-to-me Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Caramels.  They are dangerously good.

Oxidation, oxidation, oxidation.

that felt good….

I’ve mentioned how my mint and parsley are the only survivors from last year’s attempt at a square foot garden.  Hence the large number of recipes containing either parsley or mint showing up lately on this blog (although I haven’t combined them in a recipe yet – maybe a parsley-mint soup?  mmmmm).

I’m a big mojito fan.  I had my first mojito about 12 years ago (before they became mainstream happy hour drinks) when a Brazilian co-worker at my first internship made some for a dinner party.  I remember thinking ‘where has this been all my life and when can I get to Brazil so I can have more of these?’  I have yet to make it to Brazil, but thankfully mojitos are pretty common on drink menus these days.

look – I found a picture from that party – man, I looked younger 12 years ago.  funny how that works…I’m the only American in the picture, the dark haired couple are from Brazil and the cute gal next to me is French.  Aww, memories.

This smoothie combines mint and lime and sweetener, but leaves out the rum.  A little more kid friendly, if you will.  I save my alcoholic mojitos for happy hour with my girlfriends.  Anyone free tonight?  Suddenly I’m craving a girl’s night out….

Totally Legal to Serve Your Kids Creamy Mojito Smoothies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 medium ripe avocado
• 1 frozen banana
• 3 Tbsp lime juice (about 2 limes)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup unsweetened, plain So Delicious or Silk coconut milk (almond milk could work too)
• 2 Tbsp honey (if you use sweetened coconut milk, leave out the honey)
• 5-7 mint leaves or 1/4 tsp mint extract
• 1/2 cup ice cubes (optional)

Directions

Add all ingredients to blender and blend until smooth.  Taste and add more mint, sweetener or lime juice if needed.

We went to a rather innocent looking park this week and, as I was looking down at my book, I heard The Cry. The one that any mom knows – the one that means ‘I am honestly really hurt.’ I run over to see my little guy sitting at the base of a small (maybe 3 foot) climbing wall holding his head. I initially calmed down, as I didn’t see any broken bones or blood. I picked him up and put my hand on the back of his head to help him calm down. As I pulled away my hand I saw the blood. The blood covering my hand, blood coming from the back of his head. He saw my bloody hand and his cries became even more frantic and he started thrashing around, causing more blood to drip down the back of his head.

I had nothing with me except my phone, keys and book, so I took of his shirt to try to stop the blood. He was still frantic and didn’t want me touching his head. It was awful.

He finally calmed down a bit and we walked to the car, as I wanted to get him away from the playground. An angel mom came over with a clean dish towel she keeps in her car for emergencies (why, oh why hadn’t I thought of that?) and gave me some ice from her water cup. Another mom came over, announced she was a nurse and tried her best to check out his head. Unfortunately, upon hearing the word ‘nurse,’ my little guy immediately conjured up his doctor visit from 2 weeks ago where the nurse gave him 4 shots. Ugh.

He started screaming ‘no, not a nurse, don’t give me any shots.’ Despite her best efforts, he wouldn’t let her near his head. She recommended we get to urgent care, so off we went. I almost ran off the road trying to watch him in the backseat and check that he wasn’t falling asleep, fearing a concussion.

Urgent Care got us in quickly and I got to further raise both of our blood pressures as I restrained him with all my might (that kid is strong!) as the nurse cleaned the wound and then the doctor stapled the wound together. It was awful.

After getting to choose his bandage color (red – his favorite) and picking a toy from the treasure box, he was fine and even a bit proud of his ‘ouch.’ I was queasy from the whole experience.

He’s healed nicely and proudly shows anyone he can find his staples in his head, recounting the story and telling of all the ‘bwood.’

I put a clean towel and bottle of water in my trunk that night. While drinking a glass of wine.

Motherhood is never dull.

That night I happened to glance at the lid of the tea I was drinking at the park.  I almost spit up my wine while laughing:

True that.

I took pictures of my food on Tuesday and it turned out to be a more beverage heavy day than I planned.  I woke up feeling a little queasy and didn’t have much of an appetite for the whole day.  I regularly have bottomless pit hungry days, so I don’t worry too much when non-hungry days come along.Morning Tea:

grainy photo taken by my girl before we headed to kindergarten.

 Side note: I always put on a shirt or hoodie over my sleeping cami just in case we hit unexpected traffic and I have to walk her into school due to tardiness.  I’m pretty sure the one day I drive her in just my pjs will be the day I’ll have to make the mom walk of shame into the school, so I keep wearing presentable clothing to drop off.  Not attractive clothing, mind you, but presentable.

For breakfast I had some fresh juice and tackled Mt. Saint Laundry.

Juice: beets, celery, lemon, apple, carrots, kale

And, yes, that is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirt on top of the pile.  It’s my little guy’s very favorite pj shirt.  It makes me sing the ‘heroes in the half shell, turtle power’ refrain every time I see him in it.  Did anyone else see the original live-action TMNT movie in the theater like me?

By lunchtime I still wasn’t too hungry, so I made a smoothie.  I took a picture in front of the now empty laundry spot, just to prove that I did indeed conquer Mt. Saint Laundry for today.

Smoothie – Whole bunch of kale leaves (I save the stalks for juicing), 1 tsp maca powder, 1 scoop of Vega Vanilla Chai powder, 1 frozen banana and half an apple.

After picking up the munchkins from their respective schools, I came home and had a glass of ginger kombucha (home brew).

If you let your daughter play with your phone, you just might find a picture of yourself drinking your kombucha:

Early in the evening the kids and I went to the gym.  They like to go to the Kids in the Kitchen activity on Tuesday early evening, so I put on my gym gear even though I wasn’t feeling it.  I ended up having a pretty good workout and am really glad I went.

1 packet Crystal Light Pure Lemonade – I pour half into my water bottle.  I ended up drinking two water bottles worth of water (hello sweat) so I used the whole thing.

By dinner time I was feeling a bit more normal and thought I should have some actual food that requires chewing.

We had sauteed veggies (onion, garlic, squash, zucchini and carrots) + black beans + avocado over brown rice.  I added a dash of salsa.

It was really good.  I’m thoroughly enjoying cooking veggies in the big cast iron skillet I got for Christmas; it gives the vegetables a nice char and smoky, caramelized flavor.  The kids ate rice and beans and some raw veggies on the side.

I went outside to water the plants after dinner and enjoyed a nice glass of red wine.

A fitting final beverage of the day.

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