When the power first went out, I went into Ninja Mom mode because both of the boys’ sound machines turned off (I clearly forgot to replace their batteries) and I was determined to slip into their rooms and snap some batteries into their machines without waking them up. This shockingly worked in Ryder’s room but Chase woke up crying saying, “MOM! My machine is off!” He’s very attached to his white noise machine and thankfully settled back down once I got it running again. Honestly, I totally understand Chase’s attachment to his white noise machine and something about having kids has made me dependent on one myself since I’m so used to hearing white noise in the background while I sleep. Ryan is the same way and we ended up buying ourselves the same white noise machine we used for the boys for our room after we transferred Ryder to his nursery when he was around 6 months old. (After discovering the Hatch Light several months ago, I’ve actually been using that sound machine in Ryder’s room but a friend is currently borrowing it to see if she wants to buy one for her son so I’m back to using his old sound machine at the moment.)
The main concern for me during our night without power was the increasing temperature in our house. It got really warm and stuffy upstairs and since our baby monitors weren’t working, I slept horribly because I was on high alert for kids crying but thankfully both boys did well despite my lack of a good night’s sleep.
Ryan lifted the garage door up and moved my car out of the garage before he left for work in the morning so we were thankfully able to get Chase to camp in the morning but not before we popped into the grocery store to pick up a couple of bags of ice in an attempt to salvage some of our freezer food.
Since there is a Starbucks located in the front of the grocery store closest to Chase’s summer camp, I treated myself to a whole milk cappuccino and a spinach feta wrap for breakfast as well. (The boys ate strawberries and sweet potato muffins at home.)
Once Chase was settled at camp, Ryder and I made our way to Burn Boot Camp! I missed my boot camp workouts a ton when I was in Florida and it felt good to be back! It was an upper body day at boot camp and we went through a superset workout that looked like this:
My arms were burning during that bad boy!
After my workout was done, I said goodbye to my friends, picked Ryder up from childcare and headed home to what I was sure would be a hot, humid, dark house. To my shock, our power was back ON. What!? It was a very, very pleasantly surprise and I ended up being able to salvage nearly all of our freezer food, though we had to toss some refrigerated goods.
Once I realized we were back in action, I quickly placed an Instacart order for food for our family and then put Ryder down for a morning nap. Leave it to me to talk about Ryder transitioning to one nap a day in my last blog post only for him to clearly need a morning nap in my next post. Oooph. I guess that’s life with kids, right!? We’re definitely still trying to figure out what nap schedule works best for him at the moment and I have a feeling working toward dropping one of his naps permanently will be an ongoing process.
As Ryder napped, I made myself a smoothie with frozen cauliflower, chocolate protein powder, cashew butter, oats, a handful of fresh spinach and a frozen banana and sipped on it as I worked on back-end blog stuff I neglected last week.
I worked up until Ryder began to stir and my Instacart deliveries arrived. (Side note: I LOVE the way my Instacart membership lets me order from multiple stores with no delivery fee as long as I hit a $35 minimum. This haul came from BJ’s and ALDI.) I set Ryder up in his high chair with his lunch while I put the groceries away and then we headed off to pick Chase up from camp.
Chase seemed to have a great day at camp and since it was overcast almost all day yesterday, we took advantage of the lack of a burning summer sun and played outside for a bit before afternoon naps for the boys.
I also tried my best to do a little recipe photography for an upcoming blog post before nap time and you can see how productive that was with two curious kiddos in the mix…
Eventually the boys went down after an afternoon snack and while they slept, I took a shower, made myself lunch and finished prepping the recipe I wanted to photograph which doubled as our family’s dinner for the night.
My lunch for the day took place in two parts. Part one: My favorite Daily Harvest cauliflower pesto harvest bowl (I added frozen edamame, chopped green beans and some brown rice to it for volume) + Part two: A teriyaki salmon burger
I had just enough time to eat and respond to a few emails before the boys were up and ready for action. I gave them snacks and then as they played downstairs, I took a quick bathroom break and emerged to find this scene:
Chase had himself and Ryder enclosed in a corner kitchen cabinet and called it their “fort.” He said he and Ryder needed “privacy” in their fort together. Okay, bud. Whatever you say! (I just love that kid’s imagination.)
Since the boys were clearly in a playful mood, I figured they’d have fun at My Gym’s open gym time yesterday evening, so we spent nearly an hour there as the boys burned off some energy.
We arrived home about five minutes after Ryan arrived home from work and I wasted no time assembling dinner from the crockpot recipe I prepped earlier in the day.
Once everyone was fed, Ryan and I did the whole nighttime routine with the boys before tucking them in and making our way back downstairs to watch an episode of Stranger Things together.
It’s been a LONG time since we’ve had a show to watch together and we were both psyched for the debut of the third season of Stranger Things last week. We’re four episodes in so far and I think this is the most suspenseful season yet. I’m loving it and Ryan and I agree that half the magic of the show is the fact that it takes place smack-dab in the middle of the ’80s.
We eventually made our way to bed and now I’m up and ready to do the whole midweek routine over again! Chase has camp and swim lessons today and I have my annual dermatologist appointment this morning to get my skin checked. Hopefully Ryder finds looking at mom’s moles entertaining… Ha!
I hope you all enjoy your Wednesday!
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I love Stranger Things! I am excited to watch this next season but also trying to save it for when my husband and I have nothing to watch. We always struggle to find a good show to watch together. We are currently watching Lucifer on Netflix and we are hooked!
Boo to power outages. Your dinner looks delicious, I can’t wait to see the recipe.
My husband and I plowed through the first three episodes of Stranger Things on July 4th and are dying to get back to it. My stepsons don’t really like it, I think because they don’t appreciate the 80’s like the grownups do.
Love to read updates about your sweet family! We had a lot of rain and thunder here, we live in Columbia, SC. Can you share where you find your salmon? I’m having a hard time finding something non farm-raised!
PS) My husband had a conference at the Charlotte Convention Center and I tagged along with our boys (4yo and 19mo). I had so much fun taking them to Discovery Place Nature and Science, the ImaginOn Library twice and a bunch of fun parks/splash pads. What a beautiful city. 🙂
Aw! You visited some of our favorite spots! Glad you had so much fun!
I try a lot of your workout posts and love them! I’m curious if you’ve ever tried hot yoga? Exercise has always been a top priority of mine and trying hot yoga 3 months ago has been a game changer for me. Amazing in so many ways!
I have! I do love it but the studios close to me in our area don’t have childcare so it’s not something I regularly do since a gym with childcare is crucial for me at this phase in life!
If you’re ever without access to your sound machines, I highly recommend the SleepFan app. I use it every night and love that it goes wherever I go! It’s free too.
We are loving the new season of Stranger Things, too! They really nailed all the ’80s vibes.
Likely a silly question – do you need to have a BJ’s membership to use them via instacart? We have it locally and I haven’t seen a spot that seems to ask for it, but I haven’t gotten as far as to finalizing an order from there yet. We previously had a membership, but currently don’t, and since I am not doing the shopping – I wasn’t sure it mattered?? I have used it a ton for Aldi though – so awesome!
I have the same question!
Hi Jen! Just replied to Morgan’s question above and didn’t want you to miss it 🙂 Nope, you don’t need a membership!
Awesome news! Thanks so much!
No you don’t need a membership! I have one but when I shop through Instacart it never asks me my membership number and you can just use Instacart to shop there without a membership!
I absolutely love that picture of Ryder pointing! And I also loved that picture of Chase at the beach! Your boys are soo cute! I always think it’s so neat to see how similar/different siblings look. My brothers and I look nothing alike at all! With my own boys, people either say that they look totally alike or totally different! Ha! It’s so neat how everyone has such a different perspective! 🙂
I always love hearing what people think about who they look like & whether or not they look like each other as well. We’re surprised by how blonde Ryder is becoming after being born with such dark hair!
Ha! The same thing happened to my husband and I! We have to sleep with a white noise machine now so we also went out to purchase one for our room
I always forget how much runs on electricity until our power goes out, ha ha! We’ve never tried a white noise machine, but I will admit to turning on the dryer/dishwasher/bathroom fan in the hopes that naptime might be extended for 20 more minutes 🙂 Maybe I should just check out the sound machine after all!
Also, I feel like the only one in the world who hasn’t watched Stranger Things. It looks too freaky for me! (I’m such a wimp.) I have been liking Tidying Up with Marie Kondo though, lol! That’s more my speed 🙂
Can I ask where you got your two kitchen canisters from?!
They were wedding gifts from Williams-Sonoma!
Was your salmon burger from Aldi? I see them there and was just wondering if they are good? Also, where do you get your photo backdrops from? I’m trying to take better food photos and can’t seem to find good backgrounds. Thank you!
I cannot sleep without earplugs… i spend so much time away from home it’s easier to use them…i pack half the apt. so earplugs are easiesr to lug. The one time i forgot them my hubby had to find a drugstore as i could not sleep. Guess you can tell that my listening for a baby days are far gone.
nstantCart costs a fortune here … and only comes from one store in the entire city if a halfmillion people. Wush we gad a Trader Joes and an Aldi even if they didnt deliver.
Hugs to Sadie…haven’t seen her in a bit.
I cannot sleep without earplugs… i spend so much time away from home it’s easier to use them…i pack half the apt. so earplugs are easiesr to lug. The one time i forgot them my hubby had to find a drugstore as i could not sleep. Guess you can tell that my listening for a baby days are far gone.
nstantCart costs a fortune here … and only comes from one store in the entire city if a halfmillion people. Wish we gad a Trader Joes and an Aldi even if they didnt deliver.
Hugs to Sadie…haven’t seen her in a bit.
you get that lime, ryder! that’s your lime!