Last week catch up

Kissesssss!

I hesitate to jinx myself with this claim, but I *think* it may finally be Spring?!?!?  We keep having moments of nice weather followed by insane downpours.  It’s unprecedented!  I grew up in the East Bay so I am familiar with these climates, and this year has broken the mold, and then once more over.  I need the rain and cold to stop already.  Anyway, I may be finally getting my wish.  At long last, the forecast shows only suns and no clouds for the week ahead.  Phew!

Bring on the park time!

I made extra bacon wrapped dates for the sole purpose of hoarding them for my kale salad lunches.

I promised my mom the Easter Bunny I would share this bar with Kyle (and I even waited until he was back from his business trips to open it!), but then I made him cookies instead so he said I could have it.  I promise.  It was very rich and paired PERRRRFECTLY with candied ginger.

So I may have spoiled my kids when I bought this orange juicer the other day.

I wanted one all last year and then the season ended and I forgot about it, but here we are again in the middle of my parents’ citrus tree explosion and I find myself cursing the lemon/lime juicer every time I try to make it work for an orange.  Then one day at Target I actually remembered that I wanted one and so I just bit the bullet and bought it for myself (for the record it’s very unlike me to do this – I would usually wait for a birthday and then ask Kyle to get it for me).  I was feeling equal parts proud and guilty for for treating myself to something so non-essential, but I’ve already used it 4 times in the first week since we’ve had it!  Namely, squeezing fresh juice for the kids to have in the morning with breakfast.

Yeah.  And now they are requesting it every morning. Eye roll.  It’s my own doing, I realize, but sheesh!!  I wish they had a clue as to how lucky they are.

I made us banana bread too.

I know I’m complaining, but it’s mostly in jest.  I’m actually pretty thrilled that they like such healthy food – it could be way worse!  And I like being in the kitchen, so it’s kinda a win win. 🙂

Breakfast: waffles

Lunch: kale salad

Dinner: gobble meal kit (sirloin steak with bearnaise sauce, roasted potatoes, and pan fried snap peas.

We had a tee ball game that kept us out late, so we ate dinner after we usually do.

Luckily I had planned out to have the gobble meal that night so even though the meat was made right before we got home, it was still very quick to prep.

Both kids LOVED the meat, and since I ordered 4 servings sizes, we had leftovers, too.  Yay!  The potatoes all got polished off no problem, because they were amazing.  But I only made 3 of the 4 cuts of meat, so I still have one filet left, as well as a whole meal’s worth of bearnaise (because I didn’t do dairy for the kids’ plates).  I’ve been testing my gut lately with dairy and it’s kinda hit and miss all over the place so I have no idea what’s going on.  I was thinking of doing a reset with my gut along the lines of the SIBO protocol, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.  I had told myself a while ago that I would wait until I was done nursing V before doing any antibiotics, but now here I am, months after weaning, and I still haven’t made any moves.  Still trying to decide if it’s worth it. Some days my gut is fine, so long as I generally stick to a low fodmap approach, and other days it’s a total mess.  And admittedly, I’m not watching my diet as well as I used to, so that may be the root of the issue, but I don’t know…it’s very tempting to see if an herbal antimicrobial may do the trick too.

Anyway, the bearnaise sauce was deeeelish and was pretty worth the minor symptoms that accompanied it.

Looks pretty gourmet huh!?

Ugh.  This kid and his sleep issues.  We are IN IT with him right now.  I can’t even talk more about it because it’s just too much.  Maybe if and when we come out the other side!?!!?  GAHHHH.

I think I skipped dinner this night! Baby steps!  But I am pretty sure I had dessert every night the rest of the week.

Waffles again (made a batch of three days’ worth) for brekkie.  And kale salad again for lunch.  I finished off the mac nuts (SHOOOOOOT I JUST GOT BACK FROM COSTCO AND FORGOT TO GET MORE) which were salty as all ^&%$ because it was the bottom of the barrel where all the best stuff lies.

We went to farmer’s market for dinner and I got the poke bowl from Zumapoke.  They have a brick and mortar downtown but their presence at market is new, and I was a fan. I got the sampler, which included the ahi poke, the spicy ahi poke, and the octopus poke.  The octopus was my fave!  I can’t recall if I’ve ever had octopus (probably on a dare from my dad of something!?) but I liked it.  There was a lot of rice, so – get this! – I shared it with the kids.  BOTH kids.  As in, my son with deadly food allergies, ate some food from a street vendor!!  To be fair, I checked that there was no dairy or peanuts in any of their menu items when I was ordering it, but still!!  He is doing SO WELL in oit it’s blowing my mind.  He now consumes 10 ml of whole milk twice a day.  Who would have ever thought…!!!

The kids ate a real dinner too, which I made and packed for them, between dancing to the music.

And after we got home and put them to bed we got our chocolate on, per usual.

I shredded zucchini and added it to their pancake batter and they liked it so much!  They didn’t even ask for butter on them!

I made the batter the same as I typically do otherwise with mashed bananas to sweeten it and eggs, oil, almond milk, whole wheat flour, salt and baking soda.

I had zucchini bread, which I had pulled from the freezer the night before.  It was the second loaf that I made the previous week that I forgot to add sweetener to.  So I added NuNaturals’ chocolate stevia syrup.  Yup.  I did that.  For breakfast.

Kale and avo and miso dressing.  I added an entire avo since I was out of nuts. Gotta get the fats in.

I had a bunch of these sweet plantain chips from TJs on the side.  I got them as a treat to bring to Fremont for oit snacking, but P didn’t really like them, so I claimed them as my own.  They are sweeter than the other TJs plantain chips, but not as salty and addictive.  I still managed to eat half the bag, but that’s better than the whole bag.  I got a delivery while they slept too. Have you guys ever heard of HYLETE?

They make sports/performance apparel and it fits AMAZING!  I’m obsessed.  I got cropped pants because it’s starting to be too warm for my thick pants, but not hot enough for shorts.  They have bras and shirts too.

I got this shirt for free (!!), which I rocked while squeezing in a morning weight session before Friday OIT.   #HYLETEnation

Kyle had to be in Davis on Friday for work, so I went to my parents’ house with the kids per usual but he stayed home.  My mom made us a feast!  My sister came over too, and we all ate salmon, roasted potatoes, and veggies together.

The next morning she watched V while my big boy and I went to his appointment.

Here’s the end of my workout…crunching until I couldn’t do another.  The invex II bottoms have a thick waste band, but they don’t cut into your stomach at all.  It’s not high rise either (which most of my GapFit apparel is).  It’s truly a perfect fit and doesn’t have me pulling it up all workout long (which I find myself doing with my cheaper C9 gear).  I have my eye on the nimbus caprite next…

Off to Fremont!

This kid is such a trooper.  He definitely complains about the driving on the way home, but that’s the best you could hope for after tolerating 5 hours of people poking and prodding you over and over again…feeding you things you have been told to avoid your whole life…

We have been filling our time with the same old same old – books on cd (discman compliments of my hoarder parents keeping things from my youth), tracing and writing practice, crafts, plus one new and special little something.

This is from the Easter Bunny and it immediately went into the Fremont activity bag.

I really try to pack one EXTRA exciting thing – either a treat food I know he loves or a new book or activity – just so he has something super special that makes him forget about the task at hand.  I spend most of the time reading to him, playing with him, or feeding him, but I do get to dork around on my phone too in between psycho analyzing his health. Way more than I would at home, at least.  I do try to stay really present with him though, as tempting as it is to deep dive on the internet, because (a) it’s really our only time alone and (b) I have to keep a really close eye on him watching for early symptoms.

The time really flies by though.  And before I know it, he’s had his last dose, and we are waiting to get the all clear to hit the road.

To Whole Foods!  For our special lunch dates, followed by shopping trips with my list of items I can only get at my beloved grocer.  This time it was soy yogurt, salami, and daiya cheddar blocks. Can you believe I can’t find bulk tubs of non-dairy yogurt in Davis??  Moreover, all the salami (Columbus is local so that’s what every store carries) has nonfat dry milk powder in it.  Not applegate though!  That’s his favorite, so this time I bought it for him to enjoy right then and there.

Which he did, with a tortilla sun butter and jelly that I brought for him too.

I pack soooo many snacks for him to eat at the clinic because you really have to pad your stomach for the allergens.  It’s always a super snacky morning for him that I like he doesn’t get a proper meal until dinner that night.  At least the salami was some major protein and fat.  After apple sauce, bananas, cereal, etc. he needed something real.

I got a very random meal!  Not the slaw part – that’s 100% my scene and I’m pretty sure I got it last week too.  The deviled eggs though. They were delicious!  And if you asked me the last time I had a deviled egg I may say 4th grade.

We made it back to Davis in decent time.  P slept half the way, but still whined about the trip being too long for the remaining hour (I don’t blame him, we hit some traffic and it wasn’t fun).  V also cried on and off (mostly on) for much of the drive home.  So that was fun.  Not.

But Kyle got off work early and I had already made potato salad and so he grilled us hot dogs while we all played in the yard together.

Strawberries taking off.

More applegate love.

I roasted green beans too.

This potato salad was LEGIT.  Probably because I made it Thursday before we left town so it had a whole 24 hours post marriage to get all flavor things going on.

Poor dude had a ROUGH night.

After his dose he started feeling bad fairly immediately.  He got congested and complained of a stomach ache and had one single wheal appear on his arm.  I gave him an antihistamine, an inhaler, and a topical steroid and then stayed with him while he got better.  It took a bit for him to calm down but finally he was relaxed and then eventually asymptomatic.  Unfortunately he never got fully to sleep and woke up a bit later and continued his anti-sleeping-four-year-old-regression-that-makes-his-parents-lose-their-minds for the rest of the night…until 5 am, when he finally went to bed in his bed. W. T. F. Makes you lose your mind.

Chocolate helps.

***EDITED TO ADD*** You guys!  The awesome people at HYLETE want to hook you up!  They are offering you 40% off on your first purchase using the discount code HM4065.  Do it!!  Their apparel fits like a dream!