Cleaning and More October 12, 2012

Well, today has been busy, to say the least! Since I helped coach the morning class at CrossFit today, Keenan and I had to get out of the house (yet, again) quite quickly. It has been go-go-go for us all week!  I am looking forward to having some days next week where we don’t have to go anywhere and we can stay home and do some fun Fall/Halloween crafts! This week has been too busy for my liking!

Aside from today being busy, I have to say it was very productive! After helping to coach the morning class, I did my workout (another benchmark WOD, “Isabel,” which is 30 snatches for time at 95 lb for women), ran a couple of errands, prepped dinner, made lunch for Keenan and I, met with a financial  adviser that my husband set up, and cleaned house. Even though it was hectic, it felt good to get everything done! Now, I can finally sit down and relax (well, sort of, since I’m writing this!). Since my husband has to be out of town for business this weekend, we are planning to open a bottle of wine and catch-up on a few TV shows that we missed this week!

Even though today’s workout was short and sweet, it was a challenging one (one of the reasons why I love CrossFit)! I can only snatch up to 85 lbs and since my shoulder was still bothering me, I used 75 lbs for the WOD and finished in 4 minutes and 38 seconds, not bad, but not great. We’ll see how I do when we do it again in 6 weeks!

More about our today: For breakfast, we enjoyed the pumpkin almond flour muffins that Keenan and I made yesterday (to add more protein to the muffins, I added a scoop and a half of whey protein powder this time) with some strawberries. Since we were so pressed for time, I took my latte to go, which was perfect for our chilly Fall morning (I’m loving this weather!).

A perfect quick and nutritious breakfast!

Once we got home, Keenan and I played a bit with his car that we picked up at the store when we were running errands. Since Keenan is into cars, we can’t go ANYWHERE with toy cars without him wanting to play with them all! Sure enough, as we are walking to the vitamin section, there was a BIG display of little toy cars! Immediately, Keenan wanted to play with them all. Since he did really well at the gym, waiting for me in the kids area all by himself (since no other kids were there this morning) and it was going to be hard to leave the store without getting a car, I caved and we bought a little yellow VW bus. He was so excited, though it was funny, he couldn’t decide between the green or the yellow one. He kept going back and forth and finally, as it was our turn in line to pay at the register, he chose the yellow one (though, he keeps talking about the green one!). I like to give him a couple of choices here and there, so he feels like he’s making decisions, but this was the first time where he was truly indecisive! It was interesting…

Since our financial adviser appointment was at 1:00 p.m. today, I made Keenan a quick lunch of our “usual breakfast” and I tried something new for myself. I was inspired by Brittany to make her Pumpkin Pie Greek Yogurt. I changed some things up a bit and added 1 Tbsp flaxseed, 1 Tbsp chia seeds, 1 Tbsp Xylitol and 1/2 cup of canned pumpkin. I mixed in a half of a banana (sliced) and 1/2 cup of Kashi Go Lean Cereal. It tasted like pumpkin pie; it was SOOOOO yummy! I’ll definitely be making this again!

Yummm…pumpkin pie yogurt!

Once Keenan was up from his nap, we both munched on some Kettle Corn (thanks to Giselle for sharing some with us) while I finished cleaning.

For dinner, I made something new and perfect for our Fall weather, a roasted butternut squash salad with walnuts and feta cheese. It was such a satisfying and tasty dish! Another meal we will be adding to our “regulars!”

A perfect one-pot meal for Fall!

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Walnuts and Feta Cheese (serves 2-3):

Adapted from Food.com

Ingredients:

– 1 butternut squash (cut into small cubes)

– 6-8 oz. of cooked chicken

– 1/4 cup roasted walnuts (chopped)

– 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

– 3 Tbsp olive oil

– 1/4 tsp salt

– 1 tsp pepper

– 1 tsp Italian seasoning

– 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

– 2-3 Tbsp of honey (depending on taste)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss cubed butternut squash with 2 Tbsp olive oil, salt and 1/2 tsp pepper and Italian seasoning and spread out onto a baking sheet.

2. Roast prepared butternut squash for 40-45 minutes until golden brown and tender. Once done, set aside to cool.

3. Meanwhile chop cooked chicken into small pieces (or cubes) and toss into a large bowl. Add walnuts.

4. Add butternut squash, cheese and the rest of the ingredients into bowl and toss until well mixed. Divide amongst 2 or 3 plates and drizzle with a little extra balsamic vinegar (if desired).

*Notes: For added flavor, add chopped fresh sage to butternut squash before roasting. I didn’t do this, but I think it would add more richness and be really good! Also, if you don’t want to use feta cheese, goat cheese would also work.

Well, it’s time to enjoy some wine and catch-up on some TV! Night!

Question: How do you pick your battles/handle them with your children? Keenan is a fairly well tempered child, but he does have his moments here and there. It depends on the situation, but I feel it is better to pick my battles than really fight for something that is not that important in the long run. Is it right? I don’t know…

Before I forget, the WINNER of the Drink Chia giveaway is: Molly Helfman! Congrats! Please email me at fitnwellmommy@yahoo.com with your mailing address, so the Drink Chia folks can send you your goodies!

You will always be in our hearts, Chris! August 29, 2012

Today is a special day: it is my oldest brother Chris’s birthday and the “estimated” due date of when Keenan was supposed to be born two years ago (he decided to arrive nine days early!). My brother would have been 40 years old today. We lost him fourteen years ago in a freak accident on my family’s farm. Even though he was 10 years older than me, he was a wonderful big brother, always looking out for me. When my other brother would pick on me when we were kids, Chris would always come to my rescue! In addition, he always looked out for me at school, making sure I was okay. He babysat me when I was little, drove me to school (even walking me to class) and picked me up. He was really the best brother a little girl could ever have! To keep his name and memory alive, we named Keenan’s middle name after him: Keenan Christopher. Keenan will always have a special guardian angel looking after him, his Uncle Chris. Happy Birthday, Chris! We love you and miss you!

After we had breakfast this morning (our “usual”), we went to swim class at the Y and then ran a couple of errands, including a trip to Marshalls. I am looking for a small basket for some of Keenan’s kitchen accessories ( “cook cook” stuff, as he calls it!) and a small water cup like mine below. Keenan loves to drink out of water my cup, especially in the morning, so I thought he would enjoy his own cup like mine. But, we didn’t have such luck, we didn’t find a basket or a cup. However, I did find some great deals on workout clothes! I love that you can find quality workout clothing for such a bargain!

While we were shopping, I put Keenan’s sunglasses next to him (in our shopping cart cover) and somehow he misplaced them. I must have been looking at some clothes while he dropped them somewhere. Needless to say, we looked all over the store, but couldn’t find his sunglasses. I was a little frustrated, so I said “Gosh,” and Keenan started saying, “Gosh Damn it” over and over (thanks to hearing it from my lovely husband when he was fixing something a while ago). I immediately told him we don’t say that word and redirected him, but once we got home, he said it again, thinking it was funny. I told him no, we don’t say that word again, but he said it once more. I put Keenan in a time out for a few minutes and he was quite upset. I felt bad (and still do) for punishing him, when I should have paid more attention to where he put the sunglasses, making sure he didn’t lose them. If we hadn’t lost the sunglasses, Keenan probably wouldn’t have said those words Ugh…I hate the Mommy guilt! Do you ever feel guilty, even though part of you feels you did the right thing when it comes to disciplining your children?

For lunch, we ate the rest of the turkey meatloaf. Keenan had meatloaf, roasted sweet potatoes and leftover yogurt that he didn’t finish from his breakfast this morning. I made a salad and added the meatloaf for protein; it hit the spot!

Enjoying his lunch!

My lunch!

Once Keenan wakes up we will be off to CrossFit for my favorite day: Gymnastics! I’m always curious about what the WODS will be on Wednesdays. For dinner tonight, we are having grilled country style pork ribs, leftover spaghetti squash tomato bake (from last night) and sauteed chard with an onion and sun dried tomatoes! I just finished prepping the chard and marinating the pork, to save time for tonight.

Letting the chard dry (after I washed it) before chopping it.

Before I forget, here is the recipe for my kettle corn that I made for Keenan’s party favors. I received a couple of inquiries for the recipe, and I completely forgot to post it yesterday.

Kettle Corn:

Ingredients:

– 1/2 cup large popcorn (Pop Secret Jumbo Size Popcorn) *You can use any kind/size of popcorn, I just like using the large kind.

– 1/4 cup oil

– 2 Tbsp sugar

– salt (to taste)

Directions:

1. Pour oil and sugar into a large pot and heat on the stove (medium to high heat).

2. Pour popcorn kernels into pot and place lid on top.

3. As soon as you hear the oil and sugar sizzling, and the first kernel to pot, start shaking pan.

4. Continue shaking the pan until the last kernel is popped (or popping to slows down).

5. Pour popcorn into a large bowl, sprinkle with salt and mix. Enjoy!

Keenan’s 2nd Birthday Party Recap August 28, 2012

Happy Monday! Was it me, or did the weekend go by way too fast? We had a great weekend: Celebrating Keenan’s birthday on Saturday with our family and friends, and on Sunday we had a reunion for our Bradley Method birth class. It was definitely a party weekend! Needless to say, we are all still recovering from the festivities (lack of sleep and too much good food!).

Keenan’s birthday party went very well. Keenan had a blast playing with all of his friends and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The party started at 3:30 p.m., and everyone pretty much left around 8:30 p.m. or so. Keenan had so much fun playing at his party, he immediately fell asleep as soon as I put him to bed around 9:00 p.m. He was exhausted, but just as I thought, he was up bright and early at 6:30 a.m. the next day, since he doesn’t sleep well at my parents’ house. I’m not sure why he doesn’t sleep well at my parents’ house…either there are too many different sounds or he is too excited to be there.  Since he was so exhausted, I put him to bed a little early last night, at 7:00 p.m., and he woke up at 8:00 a.m. this morning!

More on Keenan’s party: I made it pretty simple with red table cloths (going with the Elmo theme), flowers for centerpieces, a birthday banner (from his 1st birthday), Elmo balloons and Elmo plates and napkins. It was a perfect day, too, not too hot or too windy.

Once everyone arrived, we snacked on my husband’s infamous guacamole and chips (one of Keenan’s favorite foods) and swam. Keenan had fun swimming with his puddle jumper! After some swimming, the kids played with the water table, took rides in the wagon (courtesy of Nonna!) and played on the swing set. The kids were constantly busy playing, it was so fun to watch!

Before dinner, the kids swam a little more, making them all pretty hungry! For dinner, we had grilled chicken, Artichoke Torta, grilled peach spinach salad, fresh blueberries and strawberries, along with some freshly baked ciabatta. It was all very yummy! The kids dined at the little table, while the adults sat at the big table. The kids did a great job of cleaning their plates and once they were finished, they were off to play again!

A little while later, I brought out Keenan’s Elmo cake (Pig-out Carrot Cake), and we all sang Happy Birthday. It was funny, Keenan was afraid of his birthday candles and kept turning his head away (not wanting to look at them). Since he was a little unsure about blowing out his candles, his friends gladly helped him! Since we have talked about the danger of fire, I think Keenan was a little too scared. I hope we didn’t permanently scare him away from blowing out his birthday candles in the future! In addition to cake, my husband made peanut butter chocolate swirl ice cream, so all of the kids had ice cream cones in addition to the cake (LOTS of sugar). Keenan ate Elmo’s eye balls and his ice cream cone first, so he was too full to finish the rest of his piece of cake. Luckily, we have plenty leftover for him to have little pieces for some dessert this week!

As you can see, I decorated Keenan’s cake with m&ms (red and orange), chocolate chips for the mouth and peanut butter cups for the eyes. I definitely learned my lesson; I will not use m&ms again because they immediately started to bleed as soon as I placed them on the cake! Once I put the cake back into the fridge after I finished decorating it, the frosting and m&ms stopped melting, so it wasn’t too bad. But, I was still a little bummed that the cake didn’t turn out exactly as I had hoped. At least the cake tasted good! The cream cheese frosting was perfectly tart and sweet, while the cake was super moist! Below is the recipe:

Pig-Out Carrot Cake:

Ingredients:

– 4 eggs

– 2 cups sugar

– 3 cups flour

– 2 tsp cinnamon

– 1 tsp nutmeg

– 2 tsp baking soda

– 1 tsp salt

– 1 1/2 cup canola or grape seed oil

– 1 tsp vanilla

– 1 8 oz. can crushed pineapple (reserve 1/4 cup of juice for frosting)

– 3 cups grated carrots

1 cup raisins

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat eggs and set aside.

2. Mix sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

3. Make a well in the center of your dry ingredients and pour in oil, vanilla and beaten eggs. Mix.

4. Add crushed pineapple, carrots, raisins and walnuts.

5. Pour into greased 9X13 pan (or prepared cake pans) and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until knife inserted comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

Ingredients:

– 1 cube butter

– 1 8 oz. package cream cheese

– 2 cups sifted powdered sugar (add by taste, instead of all at once)

– 1/4 cup pineapple juice

Directions:

1. Beat  together until well mixed.

2. Spread frosting over cooled cake.

After cake and ice cream cones, the kids played a little more before everyone headed home. For party favors, I gave each family a small bag of kettle corn that I made. All, in all, Keenan’s party was a lot of fun! Everything went smoothly; my husband and I were still able to relax, enjoy everyone’s company, watch Keenan have fun, while getting all of the food ready. It was great day.

Since it was so late after everyone left the party, Keenan opened his birthday gifts on Sunday morning, after we got home from church. He definitely knew how to open his gifts! One exciting gift he got was from Nonna and Avo: a tricycle! The nice thing about this tricycle is it has a removable handle, so we can push him now (since he doesn’t know how to peddle) and once he learns to peddle, you can take it off.

Today, Keenan helped my husband put his new trike together and then we went for his first ride! He was SUPER excited to take it for a ride!

Once Keenan woke up (sleeping for 2 1/2 hours), we headed to CrossFit for a much needed workout, after eating lots of sugar and rich food this weekend. My body sure needed it, but it definitely was not my best WOD. The WOD was a 7 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible), doing power cleans (women weight: 115 lbs) and 12 over the box jumps. I started with the prescribed weight of 115 lbs, but once I was on my 4th rep, it took me 5 attempts to get another one, so I decided to go down in weight to 105 lbs (not something I’m happy about). Since I changed the weight, I lost a lot of time, thus I was only to complete 3 rounds and 5 reps. A weakness of mine is “early arm bend” which makes it hard to increase my strength, if I don’t have proper technique. The “early arm bend” is something I have been working on for months, so it is something I need to continue working on…bring on more medicine ball cleans!

For dinner tonight, we had my turkey meatloaf in the crock pot (Mexican style with: cumin, oregano and salsa), roasted sweet potatoes and a salad. I didn’t have enough oats, so I added some flax seed and bread crumbs, thinking it wouldn’t effect the consistency. As soon I scooped the meatloaf out of the crock pot, it fell a part, thus not holding up as it usually is. But, it still tasted good! Since we were so hungry, we inhaled our food before I could take a picture, sorry! What did you make for dinner tonight?

TGIF and Potty Training August 24, 2012

Enjoying his pancake with peanut butter and blueberry honey on top, along with some banana on the side (he didn’t want his sliced on top) this morning!

Happy Friday! I’m SO glad it’s Friday because it has been a long week. But, at the same time, I still have lots to do before I can embrace the weekend and relax. Tomorrow is Keenan’s birthday party, so we are heading to my parents after he wakes up from his nap this afternoon, to get things set-up and start prepping some of the food. Keenan’s birthday menu includes: guacamole, salsa and chips for appetizers, grilled chicken, Artichoke Torta, grilled peach salad, fruit and bread (fresh ciabatta from a local bakery). For dessert, we are having the “Pig-out Carrot Cake” and peanut butter ice cream (so the kids can have ice cream cones, Keenan’s favorite!) I’m also making Kettle Corn to put in small bags to give away as party favors, another one of Keenan’s favorite foods. Tomorrow should be fun! I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures and share the recipes soon!

Since we are leaving for my parent’s house this afternoon, we headed to CrossFit this morning. Since Keenan slept in until 8:00 this morning (whoohoo!!), we had a very quick breakfast of leftover peanut butter banana pancakes from last Saturday, toasted with some peanut butter, honey and banana slices on top (Keenan’s request from yesterday). You are probably wondering how we kept pancakes fresh from a week ago. When we make pancakes, we usually make a large batch, so we can freeze the rest and use for quick breakfasts. All you need to do is pop the frozen pancake in the toaster to defrost and toast. Toasted pancakes are the best!

Today’s workout was BRUTAL, to say the least! It was a partner WOD with a 30 minute time cap, completing 3 rounds for time of: 800 meter run, 45 squat cleans (women weight: 65 lbs) and 45 burpees. My partner was awesome! We both pushed each other to get the work done and it was great, because we were pretty much at the same level. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to complete the WOD within the time cap. We finished at 31 squat cleans of our third round. I pushed myself to run faster today (working on my weakness!) and boy did I feel it! I felt like I was going to puke in my last 400 meters. Anyhow, it was a good workout to end the week, especially with all of the yummy food we are going to be eating this weekend!

After CrossFit, we got some last minute groceries for tomorrow, headed home and had lunch. I made Keenan a chicken and cheese sandwich with torta, strawberries and a glass of milk. Since I didn’t have my “usual” breakfast this morning, I had it for lunch (Fage 0% Greek yogurt with flax seed, chia seeds, Kashi Go Lean Crunch Cereal and strawberries), along with a delicious iced coffee that my husband made! He tried something different: he made a coffee concentrate (that he chilled overnight) and added milk and Xyllitol (for sweetness) to it! It was like drinking coffee milk; it was SOOOOO good!

A quick picture of my favorite little guy and me after lunch (my post-workout sweaty self!).

Oh, about potty training: Keenan continued to go on the potty this morning and before his nap. We’ll see if this is the real thing and he is on the road to not wearing diapers in the near future. We have been working on “potty training” for a few months now, having him get used to the potty and the whole concept, but he hasn’t shown much interest. When we first brought the potty home, he was excited to sit on it and he actually went on the potty for a couple of weeks. After those first two weeks, he wasn’t interested anymore. I’ve heard and read that boys take longer to potty train than girls, but this sure seems to be a LONG process! I don’t want to force him; I want him to go on the potty when he is ready, but I feel we haven’t made much progress. I read about the method of staying home for 3-4 days, keeping your child naked (or at least without a diaper and pants) and having the potty near at all times. When your child starts to go, they will notice it and can sit on the potty. Sure, you will probably have lots of accidents the first day, but supposedly, each day gets better until they learn to recognize when they need to go to the bathroom. I’m tempted to try it, but I’m still a little hesitant. So far, I’ve made “going on the potty” a part of Keenan’s routine, sitting on it 2 hours after he wakes up in the morning, when we get home from being out and about, before nap time, after his nap and before his bath. But, I’m not sure our “routine” is enough for him to learn when he needs to go. For all of you moms out there who have done the whole potty training thing with your children, do you have any tips, suggestions, and/or advice? Any ideas are gladly welcomed!

Well, Keenan is waking-up, so it is time to pack the car and head out! Have a good weekend!