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spiralizing!

spiralized zucchini

I love kitchen gadgets.  This is my first time writing about one of my acquired gadgets, but I am sure it won't be my last!

I got a spiralizer from Williams Sonoma just before Christmas.  I was super excited to use it but then of course we went out of town and I was trying to eat all of the perishable food in our fridge before we left and you need fresh veggies for spiralizing so I didn't get to do it last month.

Fast forward to January - hooray!  I got to spiralize.  It was actually fun to do and looks really cool!  It reminds me of my apple peeler, corer, slicer that I have but it comes with different plates that you can attach and make "noodles" of varying width/diameter.

spiralized yellow squash

To make these noodles I used the mid-sized plate and started with the zucchini.  Since the zucchini is generally more straight than the crooked neck yellow squash (hence the name), the zucchini was much easier to spiralize.  I had to hold the yellow squash more carefully and re-adjust it as it spiraled down.

Since I'm a huge food prep fan, I was actually spiralizing my veggies before I needed them during the week (I made it Monday night) on the weekend prior (spiralizing went down Sunday afternoon).  Of course they were placed into my awesome snapware Pyrex glass containers I got from Costco on sale (I don't get commission, but if I did, I would be raking it in!  I have recommended these containers to co-workers, friends and family and have 2 sets myself!  They are excellent and really keep the oxygen out which is what causes browning on lettuce and other food and causes it to go bad.)

I steamed my noodles the next night in pasta sauce with some meat + sausage (I always pre-cook my meats before mixing them into my dishes like chili or pasta/etc.) and threw a little mozzarella cheese on top when it was done.

Here's what we did:
1/2lb ground meat (we usually use venison but you can use any ground meat)
3 yellow squash
2 zucchini
1 12-16oz jar of pasta sauce
1/2 spicy sausage (optional)
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese

1) Spiralize the squash and zucchini and place into a pot on low to medium, pour sauce over the top
2) Cut up the sausage into bite size pieces.  Cook ground meat and sausage in a pan, breaking up the ground meat into smaller pieces.  If there is any grease, remove it and pour the meat into the pot with the squash and zucchini.
3) Stir as needed and place a lid over the top to make sure the squash & zucchini are cooked through.  They should be soft, but not squishy.
4) Remove from heat, sprinkle a little of the cheese on top, serve and enjoy!

cooked spiralized zucchini + yellow squash

Both my husband and I liked the vegetable "noodles."  They had a little bit of a crunch to them, but actually tasted like pasta which is pretty cool since they are non-starchy/lower carbohydrate vegetables vs. pasta which has 15 grams of carbohydrate for just 1/3 of a cup cooked.  I definitely would recommend spiralizing for anyone who is trying to get more vegetables in, working on reducing excess carbohydrate or just likes fun food gadgets and trying new things.  Spiralizing is no longer just for football quarter backs throwing the ball.  It's healthy, fun and delicious!  :)

It's not really a word, but they definitely should add it to the dictionary: spiralize on friends!

- run for life

yoga pants

I heard on the radio that sales in jeans were going down.  Of course they made it a cliff hanger and said, ‘after this song we will tell you what is replacing them.’  During the whole song I was wondering, what in the world could be replacing jeans sales?  They came back on and said athletic pants were increasing in sales over the years and decreasing jeans sales.  Of course!  Yoga pants!  They are AMAZING.

You can ask anyone that knows me, I love yoga pants.  Comfort > fashion.  When asked about limited budgets, I told my campers “why buy clothes when you could buy food?”  Even during pregnancy, I didn’t buy many maternity clothes (and boy, are those things expensive!).  I got mostly clothes for work like sweaters, work pants and some shirts.  Honestly, I probably didn’t need to buy even that much.  I ended up wearing yoga pants anytime I wasn’t at work or church.  And really, who doesn’t love yoga pants!?

I just started wearing my normal jeans again this last weekend, not because I couldn’t fit them, but because maternity jeans are so stretchy and comfy (closer in comfort to my beloved yoga pants).  All through pregnancy I could still pull my normal jeans on all the way, but couldn’t button them.  My belly was just too big to zip them up comfortably.  So, I turned to maternity jeans.  They are so comfy and if you remember that episode of Friends when Phoebe calls her maternity/Santa pants her Thanksgiving pants: that’s how I felt about maternity pants.  They were so stretchy and regardless of the bump, I could wear them comfortably.  Even if I did decide to eat a lot during a holiday… they would still fit and I wouldn’t need to loosen my belt or undo a button!

I attribute being able to wear them so long and very shortly after delivery to walking so much during pregnancy.  Exercise is so important!  Even with my feet swelling like crazy my legs were normal size.  Toward the last month of pregnancy I ended up wearing Nathan’s flip flops because my feet were so swollen.  How swollen were they?  Well, I went to the doctor wearing Nathan’s flip flops and mentioned my feet were swollen.  She looked down at my feet and she said, “they don’t look too bad in those shoes.”  I must have made a face because she paused and said, “wait, those are your shoes aren’t they?”  I turned my foot to the side and his feet are at least an inch or two bigger than mine so the back was much longer than my foot but they were so swollen they looked like they fit me from the front.  She laughed at me and said, “okay, you’re feet are really swollen.”  Being the nerd I am, I poked them and exclaimed, “it looks like at least 2+ pitting edema!” when the poke mark stayed indented for a while before filling back out.  I’ve heard of women saying their feet stayed bigger after pregnancy, but luckily for me, my feet returned to normal size so I didn’t have to buy new shoes.

Anyway, swelling feet don’t have much to do with my love of yoga pants other than the fact that yoga pants are awesome and comfy.  Depending on what kind of material and color, you can get away with wearing them with a nice shirt for dressier occasions!  For my yoga pants wearing friends, where do you wear your yoga pants?

For all of those moms-to-be or those who are thinking about getting pregnant, if you are worried about your pregnancy wardrobe or post-pregnancy wardrobe and have yoga pants – don’t.  Save some money and try wearing your athletic pants/yoga pants as long as you can instead of spending tons of money on maternity clothes.

For all of those who just want universal comfortable clothes - look into yoga pants!  You can go from grocery store to working out or running without changing.  Yes, it's true.  I'll say it again, I love yoga pants.

I leave you with this hilarious song: 

   

- - run for life

let it go!

super clean kitchen! (BK - before kid)

If you know me, you know I have a type A personality.  I like to get things done.  I’m pretty driven and focused.  I like to be organized and generally neat (my husband is says I’m not organized but that’s because he organizes differently than me).  I like having my house ready for company.  I like it when the dishes are put away and the floor is vacuumed with no dog hair and the laundry is all folded and neatly put away.

Everyone tells you your house will be messier when you have kids.  I’m here to tell you it’s true. 

These days there are often dishes in my beautiful deep kitchen sink we had redone when we moved into our house.  There is fur in the corner because I did not get to vacuum on an almost daily basis (seriously, if you knew Blitz you would understand!  It’s kind of ridiculous.  You can pet him and he will shed even in the winter.  We thought maybe it was just summer when it was hot.  No.  Year round shedding even when I “de-furminate” him a couple times a week.  I could really write an entire blog just about Blitz and his fur.)

As I wrote in my last post about laundry, I used to put it away right away and now I dump it on the bed and sometimes it lives there for a few days before I need something and dig through the pile and finish putting it away.

Sometimes I get annoyed with myself and think I’m getting lazy or I’m falling behind.  I beat myself up for not being organized.

Then I remember, in the end nobody cares!  No one who comes over cares that I have dishes in my sink.  My salvation does not depend on whether or not my laundry gets put away.  I can just shut the door on that room when I don’t want to see it myself.  What matters is that I spent time with my family and played with my daughter, went on a date with my husband.  It matters that I had those friends over and they enjoyed fellowship (and the homemade ice cream or homemade pizza or other homemade creation I made for dinner).  It matters that I got steps and made healthy choices and tried to be a good example to my family, friends and patients.

Norah helping with recycling

Regardless of whether you have kids or not, in the end, it really comes down to priorities.  There are 24 hours in a day for everyone.  Some people can get it all done from cleaning the entire house, sanitizing everything, cooking, exercising every day, volunteering at church, and hanging out with family.  Good for you!  (Maybe share your secret with me in the comments!)  But then there are newer moms like me that don’t have it all together.  I say “let it go!”  Like the Frozen song I often sing (and my daughter is only about 8 months old, I just like animated features myself ha!).  Obviously, I eventually have to get the dishes into the dishwasher and put the laundry away, but I don’t need to obsess over it or worry about it if my daughter needs something or I have people over.  Live in the moment… and remember it's okay to let it go sometimes!

- run for life

safety pins for pairing

Socks look kind of chaotic

One of my least favorite things to do is laundry.  Not because it’s hard, but it is pretty tedious for me.  BK (before kid) I always was on top of it and did our laundry and put it away right away!  Yay!  Now I often find myself dumping the laundry on our guest bed and sort them into piles for Nathan, Norah and myself and leave them there until I need something from one of the stacks…

That’s my confession of the day.  I definitely try to keep up with household chores and vacuuming since Blitz (our dog) sheds like a maniac.  I would prefer to hang out with my family instead of keeping the house super clean.  It’s generally clean since we have people over all the time.  If they stay downstairs they won’t see my giant pile of laundry sitting on the bed or know it’s there.

My laundry tips are pretty simple and perhaps I should not even be giving any tips since I obviously don’t always put it all away and “doing laundry” includes sorting it, throwing it into the machine as well as well as folding it and putting it away.  That second part is the part that is difficult for me.  L

So, here is my best advice for laundry:

Presort your colors vs. whites/towels (those hampers with separators are helpful for this!).

If you have a stain on something, put a clothespin on the item prior to putting it in the basket to help you remember to treat it when you are actually doing laundry (thanks to my co-worker for this tip).  Otherwise, treat it right away.  (Even though my husband tells me he got a spot on this or that shirt, the clothespin is way more helpful when you have a million things going on in your brain as we all do!)

Yay, Look at my cute matching socks!

Safety pins are glorious things.  I have never bought a safety pin, but if you run any sort of race that requires you to wear a bib they give you at least 4 safety pins!  I have hundreds and I use them all now to pin baby socks together.  That is probably the best tip I can give you.  I keep the socks pinned together when putting them into a drawer also.  For me, I find it helpful to be able to see how big and what color/design is on the socks when choosing socks for Norah to wear.  (I’m a dork and I like her to match!)  So the safety pins work well for that (keeping them in pairs & being able to see them) vs. rolling them into small balls.  I like to pin socks together when I throw them into the hamper or shortly after that to save time when actually doing the laundry.  You can use them for adult socks too if you'd like especially if you have a ton of socks and don't like spending time pairing them.

Safety pins to save the day!

I am not a fan of ironing so I like to layout shirts or hang up shirts and clothes that wrinkle easily so I don’t have to.  :)

Now that I have written this, I need to go put my laundry away!

-run for life

'baby booking'

Norah's baby book

Many people joke that they were the second child and their baby book was never finished.  I vowed not to do that with my kids!  Then I had my own kid… I failed to even get a baby book until a month or two after she was already born.  Wow, was I behind!  I thought all my pictures and my note on my iPhone would help me out when filling it out but there are things in it that I didn’t even think about! 

I picked out a baby book online because it was the only one with turtles and that was the theme I had chosen for Norah’s room.  It was super cute and I was excited when it came!  Then I opened it and started flipping through the pages… I am definitely not up to date with current affairs or headlines and that was an entire page of the book.  Ugh!  Boy, was I in trouble.  (I think I’ll have Nathan fill out that page for me.)

For those new parents or moms/dads-to-be here are some tips for baby booking:

1) If you can, buy your baby book before your baby is born.  It’s important to know what sections there are and what milestones they have to fill in.  You can make your own if you’d like.  I might do that if I have another child and keep track of it in a photo book or something.  (I made a “Welcome Norah!” book of Norah’s first month of life already and plan on making a 1 year book of Norah’s first year also.  They make great presents for grandparents and family!)

2) I heard the joke that once you have a baby your Facebook becomes “baby book.”  Well, there you go - use social media to your advantage!  If you are posting highlights and milestones on Facebook whether it’s public or “only me” under privacy (if I posted every picture I loved of my baby I would be posting every 5 minutes), you have the dates documented of when things happened!  This is also true if you use an iPhone or other phone that records dates and times of when photos were taken, however the nice thing about actually writing a post is that you have a caption to go with the photo (I didn't do this but I kind of wish I did so I'm passing the tip on to you!).  Hooray!  Now you just need to make time to fill out the book…

Perhaps you already had your baby and didn’t get a book yet or maybe you’re pregnant and don’t have one yet or aren’t going to get one until afterward.  Here are some of the things that they ask for in mine so that you can keep track on your phone or on a piece of paper as your baby grows:

3) Fill out as much as you can before they are born/before you get your book so you can just transfer it later when you get one/when you get time:

Current gas/grocery store item prices & current events/famous people: if I were to redo (or have a second child) I would fill out the current events and keep an eye out at grocery stores for prices while I was still pregnant because once your baby is born, it’s a whole new ball game!  For me, I didn’t get enough sleep and still don’t, much less have lots of extra time to put together Norah’s baby book.  (I’m surprised I am awake to write this blog!)  Fill them out before hand if you can to save yourself the trouble of trying to Google them or fill them in later (I definitely googled a few prices of 2014 vehicles since I had no clue and the book asked for it!).

Family: you can fill out your family tree as soon as you get the book since the only new addition should be the baby in the next few weeks!  If you don't know all of your grandparents' names, that's okay! I didn't either (all of my passed before I was born :( ).  I had to ask both my mom and mother-in-law.

Showers/gifts: my awesome friends and family made me lists of which guests brought what gifts so it would be easier for me to write thank you cards.  I wrote them all!  …now getting them to everyone is another topic but I digress.  That same list can be copied into your baby book for the showers and gifts that baby received.  :)

4) Keep notes for the rest of the sections  – About mom/dad: the book I got for Norah has sections to write about myself and my husband.  Mine is filled out but his is not.  Hopefully he will remember what he was thinking before she was born/when she was born! (You could fill out the about yourself stuff prior and then your thoughts about the baby coming but need to fill out what you thought after she/he was born later.)

Norah's 6 month wellness visit

Things to keep: hospital bracelet, copy of birth certificate, birth announcement, a grocery receipt and a copy of the paper with the birth announcements – we don’t get the paper so I had to go to the Knoxville News Sentinel building and get one.  Luckily they print birth announcements at the end of the month (usually Saturday or Sunday depending on your paper) and keep copies of them till the end of the month… and lucky for me since I went in   (I was able to do a search online to find out which dates her name was in the paper before I went.)

June they reprint the May birth announcements the first week of June so I got the June 2 paper with her birth announcement in it even though they had gotten rid of all of the May papers by then.

Milestones to be aware of/write down/post on social media: slept through the night, smiled, found my hands and feet, laughed out loud, clapped my hands, rolled over, sat up alone, crawled, ate solid food, stood by myself, took my first step, waved bye-bye, danced, and spoke my first word.

Other things to write down/keep mementos of: visitors - who visited baby in the hospital and the first few weeks at home.  For doctor’s well check-ups – write down both length, weight and percentiles for both.  If you forget you can always ask your provider to print a beautiful growth chart for you at a later date since we have EMR (electronic medical records) now.  When teeth broke through gums/showed up.  Favorite toys, best friends, colors, songs, stories, etc.  Each month ‘birthday’ write down a few memories of what happened over the last month, baby’s likes, dislikes, etc. Also some books include: first time traveling, holiday celebrations, first hair cut, etc.

Norah's first trip to the zoo! First exhibit: the Red Panda

I’ve talked to friends who wished they wrote more down or kept a journal when their baby was born.  If you would like to do that, great!  If not, you don’t have to.  I figure for me, it’s better to write down more notes than I think I might need because I can always delete it/recycle the paper but that whole “mommy brain” thing people talk about is totally real so you should try to make notes to help yourself remember all of these wonderful times!  I personally have not found time to journal but it sounds like a nifty idea if you can.

The most important thing to remember is that you’re there for your baby and doing your best.  Even if you don't have the most put-together baby book or don't even make one, it's nice to take a few pictures to see how much your baby has grown!

Baby book on friends!

-run for life

flying with your baby

Whether you live across the country from your family and are flying regularly or just going on a trip now and then I hope these tips help on your trip!  I grew up in the Bay Area but live in Knoxville, TN so Norah's first flight was at 3.5 months.  Since then we have gone home 2 more times and have quite a few more flights planned before she turns 2 and has to pay full price!

1) If you are breast feeding I recommend a scarf/wrap type nursing cover that basically encircles both of you. I can post pictures if you would like of the one I made. That way your back is covered and both sides regardless of where you're sitting on the plane.  I honestly still choose the window seat because I like being able to look out the window and have the wall next to me to block one side for the "just in case" wiggles as Norah gets older.

2) Leggings.  Hands down one of the greater travel inventions.  I am so glad my neighbor told me to try leggings when flying.  They keep Norah warm, make it much easier access to the onesie for a diaper change in confined spaces and are super cute!  They come in both boy and girl colors so even if you have a boy, I would recommend having at least one pair for traveling.  You can actually make them from knee length women's or men's socks following directions on some of the Pinterest sites.

3) Wear your baby if you can (I know some people have back problems or other reasons they cannot but I personally love wearing Norah.  Not only does it keep her happy and safe but I am hands free!  I wear her all the time even at home or going to grocery stores.)  I can carry things and do things like put my backpack on or go to the bathroom (yes, I go to the bathroom while wearing my baby.  You do what you gotta do friends & when you travel alone with your baby that's one of those things you gotta do!)  There are groups like Baby Wearing International that can help you learn to wrap or try different carriers you might like if you become a member (they have a lending library for members).  For us, we like the soft sided carrier with buckles to make it quick and easy to take her off and on.

4) Check or gate check your bag (if I don't get a free checked bag I usually gate check since most of the flights I'm on are full and they do it for free, otherwise I just carry).  It is SO much easier to make tight connections across the airport when you don't have to wait for your bag to be brought to you plane side.  This goes along with #3 when you take strollers into account.  Yes, I think it's great to be able to hang a ton of bags and other things on your stroller and I may change my mind when/if we have another kid and I can't wear two plus a backpack when I go home to visit my parents, but when you live at a small airport it is much easier not to wait for the stroller or gate checked bag to be brought up.  We would have missed our flight from Chicago to San Francisco last week if we had to wait!

5) Timing is really everything.  After 3 round trip multiple connection flights across the country (from 2-3  connections per trip) with Norah, I have 100% decided it is much easier to fly with her at night when she will be sleeping most of the way.  It is different for every baby so you may have to try different times to start but for her she sleeps fantastically in her pouch (Ergo Performance currently) and it makes my life so much easier on the plane.

6) My favorite traveling toys are ones with rings or the ability to attach them onto things (taggie toys with ribbons or other loops can totally be hooked onto things).  That way when I am carrying two bags, pulling a suitcase and wearing a baby I'm not dropping her toys (or if they fall they don't fall far!).  We gave out mini carabiners at our wedding and had a ton leftover (it was cheaper per piece to buy 250 instead of just 115 for the number of guests so it ended up being the same price for twice as many... So I have lots and I use them all the time!  The carabiner itself can be used as a simple travel baby toy too.)

And lastly, don't mind the other people around you.  I do my best to entertain her, keep her quiet and not bother other passengers but sometimes she cries. She's a baby!  Babies cry!  Some people may say mean things or judge you but in the end as long as you are doing your best to care for your child, it really doesn't matter what others think.

Fly on friends! 

- run for life