James's 2nd Birthday

The real title of this post should be PROCRASTINATION. I've put off blogging about our trip to Utah and James birthday for over two weeks. There's good and bad to having a fantastic camera (blame my fantastic husband!), the bad being THOUSANDS of pictures to sort through. A third of them aren't very good, a third of them are great, and the last third are too cute to delete, even though they are partially blurry or pretty much duplicates of the "great" ones. I try to only pick the best of the best for my blog because blogger is SO SLOW at uploading pictures. I started going through the pictures and found myself becoming more and more discouraged. Halfway through (with 40+ pictures tagged to upload) I gave up. Facebook is so much faster at downloading multiple photos, so you'll have to go HERE if you haven't already seen how our time in Utah went. Here's a quick overview of our visit:
Played with Gramma & Grampa's goaties (2 mama and 5 baby Nigerian Dwarf goats)

Visited the Bountiful Temple

Celebrated James turning two

Hiked up Centerville Canyon

It was lots of fun to go, and so nice to have 4 extra people to entertain and love on the kids. They LOVED spending time with Gramma, Grampa, Aunt Lynsey, Uncle Matt, Nana, and Papa!

6/18 Menu Plan

Since Mike is actually going to be home this week (as opposed to Denver, or Houston, or Ohio, or wherever it is that he goes to avoid me and the kids provide for our family) I better make a menu. He is still going strong with Paleo, so I really have to plan ahead. The things I can cook without thinking all have pasta in them. Cooking meat feels like a foreign language to me. And since he's off work Friday and Saturday, I have chosen lunches, too. He will cook them if I'm having a bad nausea day, so I've got that going for me. Really it's putting together the menu that's hard; the prep and cooking isn't nearly as difficult. And now that I've whined and made you all not like me, here's what I'm planning for the week:

Mon: Bulgogi
Tues: Polynesian Chicken Salad
Wed: Salmon with Tomato Salsa
Thurs: Caveman Pie
Fri (lunch): Curried Tuna Salad (I know, it's a recipe for chicken salad, I'm swapping for tuna)
Fri (dinner): Indian Meatballs
Sat (lunch): Mediterranean Marinated Steak
Sat (dinner): Tilapia with Mustard Chive Sauce
Sun (lunch): Creamy Chicken Tomato Soup
*usually Sunday evening is "Leftover night", so whatever is left in the fridge is fair game
Mon: Cilantro Lime Chicken

Birthday/Baby-moon, B&B's, and Fine Cuisine

For Mike's 30th birthday I surprised him with a second honeymoon. Our "real" honeymoon was one night at a B&B just north of Salt Lake because we were married on a Saturday and had to be back to work and school the next Monday, which always felt like a cop-out when I'd hear stories of friends going away for a week to some tropical beach. I was so happy that he was able to take the time off from work for us to spend 3 days just being together.

We started out our child-free time by eating at Fuji Sushi in Centerville. Mike got their Diet Noruko (totally paleo!) and I had them custom make me a roll that I could have - smoked salmon, mango, and cream cheese rolled in nori and shredded coconut. Mmm - I've never been a salmon fan (or a sushi fan) but I dream about this roll.

Diet Noruko - tuna, salmon, crab, fish egg, avocado, wrapped in cucumber

We call this the Snow Mountain :)

 We stayed at the Inn on the Hill for two nights. It was fantastic! We stayed in the Saltair room the first night and the Snow Canyon room the second. Both rooms were fantastic, but the view from the first room was impressive. It was on the second floor and jutted out so you could see all the way down State Street.

Breakfast was superb (we had a delicious Asparagus, Bacon, and Cherry Tomato Strata that I want to recreate) and I would recommend the Inn to anyone. Dinner that first night was at The Roof (we'd both heard lots about it but had never been there) and it lived up to our expectation. We both left the restaurant totally stuffed, so much so that the next day we were barely hungry enough to eat out! But we soldiered on and went to lunch the next day at P.F. Chang's - where we really weren't impressed with the food or the service, so I didn't bother to take any pictures of the food. But here are before and after shots of us:

Ready for a nap

We wandered down to the Gateway theater to watch Hunger Games (we were two of maybe ten people in the whole theater and got prime seating!) which made me want to read the books all over again. For dinner we hit up Macaroni Grill because I was craving some pasta. Funny thing, though, once we got there, we didn't order any pasta. We were still so satiated from the dinner at The Roof the night before that we ended up ordering drinks (Mike's virgito and a ginger-lemonade spritzer thing for me) and a few appetizers (baked prosciutto and mozzarella, bruschetta) and a caprese salad (SO GOOD!!!).

And so ended our birthday/babymoon/2nd honeymoon. It was such a fantastic weekend, and so relaxing. I really enjoyed being able to reconnect and just be with Mike. I'm so happy I married him!

James Favorite Beverage

This post again showcases why I'm a great mom. James's favorite dipping sauce used to be ketchup. Everything was dipped into it. Is there a kid out there that doesn't go through this phase? Then Lily introduced him to HER favorite dipping sauce, ranch dressing. He has loved it more than I ever imagined possible. After lunch a few weeks ago I caught him looking like this:

No, that's not a milk mustache, he actually DRANK the ranch dressing out of the cup I had poured it into. I am the epitome of nutritious living, eh?

Poop and Why I'm a Good Mom

Yes, really, poop. If you don't want to read about my daughter's bowel, skip this post.

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with poop.

A little background: Lily has a hard time pooping. Always has. When she started potty-training a year or so ago, she refused to poop in the potty, then started refusing to poop at all. So we resorted to bribing rewarding her for "listening to her body" and allowing herself to poop, whether it was in the diaper or the toilet. It took a year of daily laxatives to get her to FINALLY poop on the potty. It's been a few months, but we will still give her a treat if she asks for one after pooping.

Tonight Mike brought home donuts from work. Halfway through eating her donut, Lily got up to go poop. When she came back she asked for a treat. I told her that the donut was a treat. She disagreed, seeing how she was eating it before poop ever entered the picture. So I told her she could have a treat after she finished the donut - I, of course, assuming she would be full of donut and not have room for a treat. With one swift motion, she unhinged her jaw and shoved the donut down her throat: "Treat, please". Guess she earned those four pretzel M&M's.