peanut butter banana smoothie

Two weeks ago I decided to go pretty-much-paleo again. That's what I called my sort of grain-free diet. Interestingly, to get back on the wagon I referenced my very own blog (linked above) and found it tremendously helpful. I was so proud of myself!

Two days after cutting out bread, cereal, bagels, bars, pasta, and anything else that has flour or grain (everything except oatmeal and corn chips) my feet deflated. No kidding. I've had some serious cankles this pregnancy and just like that, I had my normal feet back. A week later I ate a very worthwhile piece of chocolate cake that a friend brought over for Bible Study and just like that, my feet puffed up like balloons again.

Clearly I have some serious issues with flour or wheat or carbs of some sort...but let's stop talking about my feet, shall we?

As a result of me going grain-free, we have done away with cold cereal at our house altogether. Mostly because it's temptation island for me, and not good for anyone else either. We've moved on to smoothies, oatmeal, eggs, annika's granola and grain-free granola with yogurt. It's a bit more work and prep, but remember that thing about feet?!!

My new favorite smoothie (and the kids') is peanut butter banana. This will sincerely get me out of bed in the morning, I love it so much.

In the blender I throw (I measure nothing, so I'm going to guess here...)
1 1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. plain old home yogurt (most protein, lowest sugar I've been told)
2 T. natural peanut butter (just peanuts and salt listed in the ingredients)
a scoop of Whey vanilla protein powder. I've used Market Pantry. This is Walgreens. Both are great.
1-2 RIPE bananas. The more brown the better. Often I peel mine and freeze them in chunks.
5 ice cubes
a handful of spinach

Blend until smooth. The addition of the peanut butter in this one is crazy good. Sometimes I make it at night as my "icecream" or dessert... Enjoy!

breakfast buddies

When my brother's kids were here, Ivar kept bringing his cousin Claire's school picture over to our breakfast table so we could have breakfast with her. It was funny because then we'd go and actually see Claire in the flesh, but having this sweet picture at the table gave me an idea.

Last Thursday my nephew Jack drove with his parents to college. I was thinking a lot about them and him and decided we could have Jack's graduation announcement picture join us at the breakfast table. I talked to the kids about what a big deal this day was for Jack. And they were very concerned he might miss his mom and dad at nighttime. And wondered if he'd be home for his birthday. We talked about growing up and learning and becoming an oldult (their term) and then we said a prayer for Jack.

The next morning, Ivar brought Jack to the table again and we prayed for him again.

So now this is a thing. I have found school pictures of all of my nieces and nephews and plan on having one of their pictures join us each morning so we can pray for that cousin. I'm so excited about this plan and love how intentional and connected it makes me feel to all of them. Hopefully I'll be able to drop that cousin a line letting them know, or send them a picture of their picture at our table. But no matter what, that cousin will be well loved by their littlest cousins, prayed for and thought of.

fried eggplant

I gave my friend Annie and eggplant last night and decided I should post what we do with our eggplant so she knows what to do with hers. I also want to recognize that the last recipe I posted was fried green tomatoes. Which is basically the exact same everything as this "recipe." This may make it seem like we fry all of our vegetables! We don't, I promise. But I will say that my kids both ate two egg plant rounds for lunch yesterday and LOVED them, which felt like a win. Mostly this is just the only way I have found and loved to eat eggplant.

So here's the step by step:
1. Cut your eggplant into 1/2 inch rounds. Salt both sides to take as much moisture out as possible. Some let this sit for 30 minutes, but I'm hopeful lunch will be over in 30 minutes, so they only have as much "sweat time" as it takes me to set everything else up.

2. Take three wide and shallow bowls (the cereal bowls pictured above were annoying), fill them with the ingredients listed above. Add some shakes of any sort of seasoning salt to the flour and the bread crumbs.

3. Coat the bottom of your fry pan with oil, plus a little more.

4. Using a paper towel wipe down an eggplant round, taking out as much moisture as possible, and then using a fork coat the round on both sides in the 1) flour 2)egg and 3) panko.

5. The oil needs to be hot enough to sizzle the egg plant, but not burn it. I've noticed my oil starts to dance a bit...I've heard if the end of a wooden spoon sends out bubbles it's ready. Usually I just try putting a bit of a prepared egg plant in and can tell if it's going to fry or if the oil needs more time to heat up, or needs to cool down.

6. Repeat step 4 for all eggplant rounds and add to the skillet.

7. Check them and flip them when they look golden.

8. When they're done they'll be a bit softer, mostly the color will tell you when they're done. Place them on a plate with a paper towel to drain.

9. Top with fresh mozzarella and Marinara Sauce. Some eat it over spaghetti (I don't). And then eat your heart out. I love these so much!

a week-in-the-life revamp

I started documenting A Week in the Life for our family this weekend. Basically it means I am bringing the big camera with us everywhere we go. I'm trying to capture the actual life events in hopes to remember our normal every day.

Rory took this picture above and told me one way to capture our normal every day would be to get a shot of me coming out of every bathroom I frequent throughout the day. Because at 34 weeks, this is a very huge part of my normal every day. I heard the camera and saw him take this shot and laughed so hard.

I took pictures on Saturday and Sunday and I'm already needing to revamp my goals for this project because here's the thing. My baby is really, really low. And life is quite uncomfortable lately. And I've been put on sort of a modified bed rest, two hours up followed by one hour laying on my left hand side. The goal is to keep this baby growing inside of me as long as possible. The goal is to make it to 40 weeks.

I decided to do A Week in the Life before I started feeling all of these very-pregnant symptoms. I worked hard yesterday going to church and the fair (all for two hours at a time, rest time in between) and today I am totally wiped out. And I haven't taken a single picture, mostly because there isn't much to document from my bed. I've seen lots of awesome pictures throughout the day, but just don't have the additional energy to run ahead of the kids to get the shot or even get up from my chair to grab the camera.

So this might be more of a wordy week-in-the-life. I have spent a lot of my time listening to my kids' conversations, without them knowing. And that feels like it's own special treasure of memories to document. This week might be a bit more wordy than full of pictures, and a bit more sleepy than active. But that's okay. That's our actual, honest-to-goodness week-in-the-life here in the middle of August 2015.

celebrating marriage and daily life

I told her, "Now Elsie, mom and dad need 15 minutes to get ready, and I don't want you to get dirty." She told me, "Okay. I'll just go play with the kitties." Oh dear.

We got all gussied up for the night and drove to Art House North where we had a fancy dinner for Rory's folks, Marlene and Madison, to celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary. It was such a special night, and hopefully I'll have pictures to post of the whole night for another post. There was a photographer there and I'm so excited to see the shots she got.

Until then, I just read this post on Ann Voskamp's blog and thought it was so good. It's a guest author who wrote a post titled, "How quiet marriages may be the most exciting marriages of all." Please go read it. Especially after a night like last night that celebrated 50 years of two people who devoted themselves to each other. There is nothing more powerful and inspiring and beautiful to see. I left feeling encouraged and excited to keep pouring into my own marriage.

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In other news, I'm going to do A Week in the Life next week. Anyone want to join me?!! The whole purpose is to take seven normal days and to document the ordinary. To take pictures at the grocery store, to get pictures of your house not totally tidy, your kids in church nursery, or any of the other "normals" that don't ever really get documented. Most of the time we have our camera out to document special events, or events out of the ordinary. But the point of this week is to make sort of a time capsule of what life looked like in August 2015. For us it will document life with just two kids, just before the third joins the family. I have watched Ali Edwards do this on her blog for probably five years and have never joined in, but this year I realized how much I would love a slice in time like this even from before we had kids! So I'm jumping in with both feet. Expect lots of pictures next week.

(I ordered the scrapbook, but you truly wouldn't have to. In fact, I'm not sure it will totally work with my style, but I'm wanting to do something creative like traditional scrapbooking so I got it. Ali starts on Monday morning, but I think I may jump start this weekend. I'm feeling especially inspired.)

But now, before you forget, go and read that article on marriage. It was so good! Happy Weekend!