Cruisin'

Lunchtime Yumminess

Lunch is my least favorite meal of the day. I rarely have supplies on hand to make a proper deli sandwich, so a lot of the time we end up eating PBJs or egg salad sandwiches, which are ok but not great, especially everyday. And, now that Laina has decided she doesn't like quesadillas, another easy staple is out.

Enter, smoothie! I have gotten on smoothie kicks before, but I am fully renewed and inspired by them again. While at my parents' house in CA, my mom made a delicious avocado (yes, avocado) smoothie that both I and Laina loved. This is a terrific way to get some Avocado action for Laina and smoothies are so versatile, you can literally mix it up however you want, adding all kinds of yummy, smoothielicious, goodness. I have been mixing one up for me and sharing it with Laina. She used to freak out when I turned on the blender, but now she is getting over that and asking for "some" as I'm blending!

I also started using this great protein powder that is actually very well-rounded on the nutrition scale. It has a nice balance of protein, carbs, and fats as well as fiber, vitamins and minerals. I am pretty impressed with it and just throw it in with some plain yogurt, milk, fruits and/or veggies and mix away! This actually might inspire me to pull out the ol' Champion juicer and juice up some carrots to throw in the mix, too. Yummm!!!

Avocado Smoothie:

1/2 ripe avocado
1/2 ripe banana
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 to 1 1/2 cups milk
about 1/2 cup crushed ice
1 Tbs ground flax seed
1 small squirt Agave nectar, to taste
your choice of protein powder as per directions

throw it all in the blender, mix well, pour into tall glass and enjoy! I just give Laina spoonfuls out of my cup as it's too thick for her to drink out of a straw. Of course you could water it down some and make it easier for little ones to drink themselves. I've also substituted mango for the banana and it's great, too.

tornado pic

My neighbor sent me this picture that our neighbor, Steve, took of the tornado on Sunday evening. What a great picture!!! Thank God that there were no reports of damage or injury. Turns out the tornado was only a "0" to "1" on the Fujita Scale (the tornado equivalent of the Richter Scale). The news said the winds were probably around 90 mph - I know I experienced winds at least that strong growing up in the Antelope Valley, CA (though not in tornado form, just in windy form).

Baby's First.... Tornado???

It was a pretty unsuccessful weekend as far as Laina activities... Yesterday morning I had the idea to take her to a balloon festival that was going on. We got there a little too late to see the balloons take off, and they must have disappeared over the hills, because when we got there there was ONE measley balloon... so we turned around and headed home.

When I got home, I decided I was going to take Laina on a bike ride in her new trailer, then discovered I had another flat tire on my mountain bike, so we had to scratch that... Then after her nap I was thinking I'd take her to the pool, but thunderstorms made that not an option.

Today, we took her to our church picnic at the Aurora Reservoir beach, which was fun, but we didn't go in the water (too busy eating delicious pulled pork and brisket at the picnic). It was gorgeous out, so an afternoon pool session sounded perfect. But, the afternoon thunder showed up again and turned it up a notch this time. While we were walking back dejected from the pool once again, we saw this funnel cloud forming!

It was actually pretty close to us, only about 2-3 miles south of our house at the new reservoir being built. No damage has been reported so far. When you're not in immediate danger, they're actually kind of cool to watch! I caught this video of the tornado touching down:

So no pool this weekend... we'll just enjoy some good times inside...

Catching up

Well I had meant to do this post as soon as I got back, but unpacking, getting back into the groove of things, and lots of sewing have kept me away from the computer. I am sewing like crazy this month to try and build up my inventory of items to take to the handmade craft fair in Littleton on October 4th (if you're in the Denver area, please come check it out - entry is free and I'll post more details as we get closer). I am making my usual baby/toddler leggings and cloth diapers, but also working on little dresses. They are a bit more time consuming and so far have only gotten one finished! I'd better get cracking!

Anyways, my trip to CA with Laina was great and even though it was a week long, it still felt too short! There is never enough time to see everyone as much as you'd like, and it's hard to travel with a baby. But we had a great time seeing family and friends, and even my brother was home from Japan. I didn't bring my camera so the pictures are going to have to come later when I get some from everyone else who did take pics.

I also got a few awesome surprises when I got home. First of all, the house was immaculate and I'm so impressed that Jay kept it so clean while I was away. Though I guess one person who is at work most of the day can't do too much damage anyways.

The other surprise was some awesome artwork that Jay actually made himself to adorn our huge living room wall! Also he painted a smaller piece to go in the main entryway. Plus, he painted a little bookshelf that I picked up for free to use at the craft fair.


And, besides all the cleaning and painting, Jay also built a workbench in the garage to further impress me and keep the garage so nicely organized after our project from a few weeks ago. (Side note, Laina just said "game cartridge" as clear as day as I sit here writing this post!)


I am thoroughly impressed and so thankful that I have such a wonderful husband!

Also, another side note, Laina is officially "cruising" on the furniture and I'm sure it won't be too long before she is off and walking all by herself!

All by my lonesome...

I dropped the two loves of my life off at the airport yesterday for a trip back to Cali... Unfortunately I get a limited amount of vacation days, so I had to sit this one out. Within an hour of landing, I got this cruel photo from Jenna... at In N Out with Laina (who doesn't appear to get what all the hype is about) while I was at work:


I made a list of all the stuff I planned to get done while I had no other responsibilities, but I haven't accomplished any of them yet (I forgot the olympics were going to be on!). Maybe this weekend.

I have, however, rediscovered my inner fish and gone to the Rec Center to swim laps two consecutive evenings in a row! Michael Phelps made it look so easy I had to give it a shot... let me tell you, 2000 yards and around an hour at a time is about it for me in my current sorry condition... I heard that he swims about 80,000 yards per week, 5 hours a day, so I've got about 76,000 yards and 33 hours to go by next Tuesday... Today was easier than yesterday, so hopefully tomorrow is even easier than today.

Incidentally, speaking of Phelps, I can't tell you how happy I was to hear about the whole 'goggles filling up with water' incident. I'm watching right now and it just happened again! I had a long bout with that my senior year of high school, and could never figure out why they were constantly filling up after I dove in. I even had a huge picture on the front page of the local sports section of me swimming butterfly - goggles half-full. Its good to know the greatest swimmer in history can have the same obnoxious problem...

Anyway, that, work, eating dinner, and watching some olympics is about all I have time for... so no massive projects are likely to get done before Monday night...

Since I miss my ladies, I figured I'd throw a little montage of Laina from this past weekend:

Looking wise beyond her months

Swingin' with her crab buddy

Discovering the joys of a slinky and a miniature radio flyer

Weekend fun

This post is not in chronological order, that's just too hard to do with the way Blogger uploads pics. Even though it happened later in the day, here are pics of our newly organized garage! It's been getting messier and messier as summer wears on, and finally we tackled the project. I wish we would have gotten before pics, but at least you can see the fruit of all our hard labors!




While I worked at the barn in the morning, Jay went garage sale-ing in our neighborhood as there was a community-wide garage sale event all weekend. Laina got fully hooked up! Here is some of the booty:

Shining up the trike above, and below Laina going for a ride (look, ma, eyes closed!)

I needed a turn on it, too! And check out the bike trailer we got for $15 (pic below, hanging on the wall)
Today the garage sale-ing continued as I looked for something to use in my shared booth at the handmade craft fair coming up in October in Littleton, CO. I totally scored and got a free small bookshelf that we can put on top of a table - it just needs painted. And also for $6 I got a bunch of modular wire that can be set up into shelves or whatever to put things inside of and also hang things off of. I think it will be perfect. Laina also got a few more toys and clothes as we shopped.