Monday In Meals

Hi guys! I must begin this post by thanking all of you so much for your kind words on yesterday’s blog post. I’m so glad you could see what a special woman my Auntie Gwenn was and my family and I truly appreciate your thoughtful comments. Thank you, thank you.

Yesterday was, for the most part, spent getting life back in order after my weekend travels. I crashed hard at 9 p.m. on Sunday night and woke up to my alarm to work at 5 a.m. I quickly downed a small bowl of Cheerios and set up camp at my computer to wrap up yesterday’s blog post.

I worked until 6 a.m. when Chase began to stir upstairs. I greeted my favorite little guy in his nursery, changed him and brought him down for breakfast while he said, “blease, blease” on repeat when I asked him if he wanted a muffin. Muffins, milk, a few pieces of banana and some of my waffles served as Chase’s breakfast while I dug into breakfast 2.0 which included scrambled eggs, waffles and avocado.

Once we were done eating, we spent the next hour or so reading books and playing with cars before waving goodbye to Ryan as he headed off to work.

After Ryan left, we headed back upstairs so I could change for the gym and Chase could practice brushing his teeth. Eventually it was time to leave and, after I filled my water bottle, we headed out!

Workout

Monday’s Burn Boot Camp workout was a bicep, triceps and shoulder workout that included as many rounds of 10 reps of the following exercises as possible in 25 minutes:

• Pull ups
• Equalizer triceps dips
• Tuck jumps
• Chest press
• Alternating bicep hammer curls
• Alternating overhead press

For the finisher, we worked down a ladder and completed 40, 30 and 20 reps of mountain climbers (with mini “breaks” of high knees in between each round) before working back up the ladder and completing 30 and 40 reps of mountain climbers to round out the workout.

After my workout, I headed into BBC childcare to pick up Chase and chat with some of my girlfriends before we said goodbye and immediately drove to the grocery store to pick up food for the week ahead. When I don’t take the time to shop and prep food on Sundays, I feel kind of behind going into the week but tried my best to get ahead of things before Chase’s nap! Chase had a BLAST “driving” the car cart around (I want to give the person who invented that grocery cart a million hugs) and we left with lots of good eats!

Once we were back at home, I set Chase up with a snack/early lunch in his high chair and began prepping sweet potatoes and veggies for the week ahead while he ate.

While the sweet potatoes roasted in the oven, we wrapped up snack time, played a million rounds of indoor fetch with Sadie and unloaded the dishwasher before it was time for Chase’s nap.

Work + Lunch

Chase went down right around 11 a.m. and I quickly hopped into the shower before heading downstairs to work, work, work. (Side note: I used to try to push Chase’s nap back to noon but once I stopped fighting it and let him sleep earlier, I noticed he seemed to sleep better and longer. Just sharing for any other mamas who might be struggling through nap transitions right now!)

First up on my agenda was photographing a tasty snack for some freelance work I’m doing for The Laughing Cow for their social media pages. One of the best parts of photographing food is eating it when I’m done!

I was still a little hungry after my light snack, so once I was done editing the photos I snapped, I assembled my lunch to enjoy by my computer as I continued working.

I topped some freshly roasted sweet potatoes with peppers, onions, two fried eggs, avocado, salt and pepper and ate my hodgepodge sweet potato bowl along with two Halo mandarins.

I spent the rest of Chase’s naptime working at the computer (submitting a contract, catching up on email and beginning this blog post) before my little playmate was up again and ready for action!

Play Date + Dinner

After the whole late lunch/snack thing (a shared peanut butter sandwich, yogurt for me and fruit for Chase), we headed off to a brand new local kids’ gym to meet up with a handful of my girlfriends and their little ones for an afternoon play date.

Chase had a great time exploring and playing and I loved taking him for a spin on the (assisted) indoor zip line. It was also wonderful to catch up with my friends for a a bit!

We left the gym in the early evening and headed home so I could quickly throw the chicken and veggies I prepped earlier in the day into the oven for dinner.

Ryan walked through the door with about 30 minutes to go until dinner and we took advantage of the cooking time to race cars with Chase and enjoy some play time as a family. Once the roasted chicken, onions, carrots and potatoes were ready, we ate together before it was time for Chase’s bath and bed time routine.

We kissed our little guy goodnight before heading back downstairs for a bit. I broke out my laptop so I could continue working on this blog post next to Ryan on the couch before we climbed into bed nice and early. We’re both super into our respective books right now and I absolutely adore getting into bed early, curling up under the covers and reading until my eyelids close. The best way to end the day!

I didn’t go to sleep quite as early as I thought I would because my book was so intense and I could not stop reading. (I started reading Pretty Girls on Sunday and am already nearly done because it’s such a page-turner. I’ve found myself cringing and biting my nails through this one. It can be a little too graphic for me at times but I somehow still cannot stop reading.) Eventually I drifted off to sleep and now today it’s time to begin the whole routine over again. Hope you guys have a great Tuesday!