Trunk or treating

I’d never heard of “trunk or treating” until P was a nine months old and I had recently joined MOPs and they held a party with this theme.  Now I’m doing it with V!

Bring it Monday!  Bring. It.

I felt pumped after my sweat sesh and that’s because I did a new workout.  I am a little embarrassed to admit this…buttttt…I did a new T25 this morning.  Yes, I’ve had the T25 DVDs for just over a year now and there are still a few workouts I haven’t mustered up the courage to attempt.  But Kyle did this one the day before and I was immediately jealous and had workout fomo.  It’s a thing, I promise.  The one I did was beta cycle dynamic core, which is basically the abs version of the alpha cycle.  For the T25 rookies, “beta” is harder than “alpha”.  I really like the abs one from the alpha round, and this was like that one but with a bit more cardio first, so you get your heart rate up first and then your core muscles get taken out.  Awesome. I’m newly inspired to re-commit myself to T25.

Moving on.  Waffles.

And almond butter.

So about this trunk or treating thing.  It’s a canned food drive too, but the kids don’t care about that part obviously.  Instead, they go from car (trunk) to car (trunk) and get treats while parading with their costumes.  The trunks are decorated too, in case I forgot to mention that part.

Oh and all of a sudden it turned into Fall!?  It was 60 degrees and I wasn’t dressed for it, but aside from that small detail, I was very excited that the weather has caught on that it’s late October.

This was the best trunk of all, obviously.

She was super excited about those blueberry muffins (and since she has no allergies I let her go for it!).  Perks to having a child who can eat anything – home made Halloween treats are a ok!

V just got her first chapstick (of her own – she uses mine all the time).  She asked for it a while ago and I told her she could get some when she went a week without accidents.  And then she and I both forgot about it.  But a certain four year old with selectively remarkable memory reminded us the other day and so I had to make good on that. She applied it approximately 200 times that day – not even exaggerating.  Not gonna lie, I’m pretty excited to be on the other side of THAT milestone.  I just gifted all our leftover diapers and pull ups to friends. Hallelujah emoji to the max.

When your kids eat muffins and cookies for snack all morning long, this is what lunch looks like.  It’s actually not that out of the ordinary…

I don’t want to alarm you, butttttt…I finished off the chips.  Natch.

They’re like croutons for a salad but better.

And also, I wanted more calories but didn’t feel like protein at the moment.  Well, that’s not totally true, I didn’t feel like salmon or HB eggs, which were the two options on hand.  Also, I had a ton of nuts with breakfast, so I was trying to give them a pause.

I really thought he was going to doze off, but he was just super relaxed listening to a new music cd.  I have no idea where we got it, but it’s African (folk?) music with stories narrated by Nelson Mandela mixed in throughout.  Who knows.  He likes it.

I have had a food scale for years (got it on our wedding registry) and have used it once, maybe twice before. Replaced the battery before cooking dinner and measured out 1/2 an ounce of dried mushrooms for pot roast.

I am SO proud of that home-made stock/bone broth right there.

Set the IP to 75 and went on with my biz…

Want a really easy craft idea?

Get toothpicks, apples, and raisins.  [I was going to use marshmallows, but they’d already had enough treats for the day.  You could use marshmallows in addition to raisins, though.]

Slice the apples into flat disks.  Give them a bunch of toothpicks and tell them to build whatever they want.

I gave P a nudge in the beginning and helped V a little throughout, but for the most part this occupied them for a while.  They made a few different structures and told me stories about them.  And then I let them eat it all.

Anyway.  I think they liked this well enough to do it more frequently and it made snack time simple too.

Before we left the house I opened the pressure cooker to throw in some veggies (potatoes and carrots).  All they needed was 10 minutes so I didn’t cook them with the meat, obvs.  When I came home it was ready to go.

 

This was another nom nom paleo instant pot recipe, which you can find online here.

It’s the instant pot version of the OG recipe in her first book, for Yankee Pot Roast.

I used a tiny bit more meat than called for but the same amount of cooking time since I was going to add another 10 minutes of time with the potatoes and carrots.  Which I served it with instead of the cauli mash that she suggests.

This was a hit with the entire family, naturally, and I have enough for two servings of leftovers.  I gave Kyle one serving but since he’s going out of town for the rest of the week, it looks like I will get the other portion!  😉

I wasn’t going to have dessert but then I wanted some.  So I caved.  It’s like Halloween week makes it impossible for me to resist sweets.  Because I know I’m going to eat a ton tomorrow night.