Daily Toddler Fare + WIAW

10/07/2015 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

Happy Hump Day, and therefore, another edition of What I Ate Wednesday! I’ve shared a day of what my toddler eats twice already (first time and second time), and now it’s time for round three.

Feeding Avery isn’t as easy as just a few weeks ago. Apparently, as the get older they get this growing sense of independence and being more self-aware which leads to toddler regression. Our patience levels are being tested on a daily basis, and from what I understand, it’s not going to get better any time soon. Yikes!

Guess now would be a good time to seriously look into meditation. I’ve been interested for a while, but haven’t made the commitment to fully immerse myself in the mindful practice. Any thoughts or advice?

Anyway, lets kick off another round of what my toddler eats in a day. Just as before, we don’t make a lot of substitutions for Avery, so what she eats, is essentially what we eat. Make sure to show some WIAW love and check out the host’s blog as well as everyone’s day of good eats.

Breakfast – Green smoothie leftover from the night before as a starter. Then she had a green banana with cinnamon and sprouted raw pumpkin seeds sprinkled on NuttZo.

Thought I’d give the seeds a shot since she tends to love anything with a crunch (she’ll gnaw on raw onion even!), and it was a huge success!

Snack – Coconut Carrot Zevia Vanilla Pudding that disappeared way too fast. No leftovers for daddy.

Lunch – Coconut curry quinoa and black beans with Wild Planet sardines on top. I’m still amazed that she’ll eat sardines, and even yell “Fishy!” when she sees them.

I didn’t take a picture, but she crunched on a few Go Raw Pizza Flax Snax Crackers after finishing her lunch. I may or may not of had ~~a few~~ the rest of the bag myself.

Since she had quite a bit for lunch, Avery wasn’t too hungry after her nap, so my wife and I spent the non-eating time in a more constructive manner. Selfies with our DSLR camera and a 50 mm lenses.

Obviously, not easy.

Dinner – Slow-cooker local chicken thighs with stewed veggies and a potato.

I crisped the chicken skin in the oven to use as a flavorful topping.

A little goes a long way and it was a hit with both of my lovely ladies!

Thus ends another day of eats in the Going household. I’d say with the non-stop energy Avery has, something in the food is helping…..a lot!

Have a great Wednesday and rest of the week!

Have you ever used chicken skin as a topping? It’s like bacon, but chicken…and skin. 🙂

Life, Parenting

Getting Dirty as a Family

10/06/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Going Mom loves taking on projects inside and out of our home. She usually takes them on by herself, but this weekend our family of three all joined in. There were several moving parts, but it all revolved around dirt, and lots of it!

Kelley is full of great ideas for our home, but, much to her dismay, I tend to stray in this area. If it was up to me, I’d seek the the help of professional lawn care services. Something like https://www.lawncare.net/service-areas/california/ around where we live would be first on my list!

I focus more on what to cook for our family and of course keeping active. Good thing a big requirement of her backyard project entailed moving dirt, which fit perfectly with being active and working together as a family. Win-Win!

I made sure to stay on track with my squat every day program, and then it was time to get dirty together. Actually, compared to my hardworking wife, I didn’t get as dirty. I did the grunt work of digging up our existing ~~dirt~~ ~~soil~~ crappy clay with rocks and carrying it out with a wheelbarrow to a dirt dump site nearby and then moving the 4 cubic yards of dirt you see in our driveway.

The first half felt like it took forever to even make a dent in the pile, but the second one went much faster. Kelley did the dirt-y work (I crack myself up) by getting into the dirt to spread it around in the 3 garden sections she made. Basically, my dirty level paled in comparison to hers. When she sets her mind on a project, she doesn’t mess around! (Seriously, I’m on fire!)

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Speaking of mess, our little toddler, who’s growing more defiant each day, “helped” by getting in the dirt with Mommy and falling several times. I mean feet flying in the air kind of falling; it was hilarious, but only because she didn’t get hurt. As long as she was outside (one of her favorite words right now), she was all smiles.

That’s a lie, of course there were a few meltdowns, but nothing that serious. Oh, and stopping everything to announce that a plane was overhead and waving.

That waving, it’s serious business.

All weekend long, Kelley was hard at work with one mission; finish the project! She wouldn’t let anything stand in the way either. Well, besides this tree….

….but only that was temporary. Although I claim to not care that much about landscaping, I’m impressed by and enjoy seeing what my wife created in our backyard. It was great working on the project together and I loved taking on the labor of moving out the old dirt and bringing in the new. But I can’t take all the credit, Avery did walk around making sure to stand right in the way as we moved around.

She was just making sure Mommy and Daddy weren’t slacking. Which, I didn’t take the best pictures here, but obviously the end result looks good to me.

Let me reiterate, all of the good looks come from Going Mom, I just took and dumped dirt as directed by the boss. Oh, and found humor lurking around the new trees…

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Kelley had planned to tackle this project several weeks ago, but things kept getting in the way. Spending time together with my girls as we worked on a project together made for a quality (albeit dirty) bonding experience, and left good vibes throughout our home. I even installed a new faucet Kelley happened to pick-up at the store while I was away at the At-Home Dads Convention.

“Accomplished” is the word of the weekend in our home, with an equal side of love and happiness.

Did you do anything fun this weekend?

Are you the project planner in your home, or tend to avoid them as I do?

#MySundayPhoto, Parenting, Silent Sunday

Waving to the Airplanes: #MySundayPhoto – 10.04.15

10/04/2015 R.C. Liley 10 Comments

We’re at the stage of toddlerdom (hey, it’s on Wiktionary!) where every new thing/word is repeated somewhere between 10 to 50 million times a day. One of those things is “plane” or “jet” every time she hears one flying overhead.

Oh, I should mention we live between two airports, one being the extremely busy DFW Airport. In other words, there’s a lot of planes that fly over us. We rarely noticed the flying vessels until now, since Avery calls out their presence upon each passing. We’re proud of our girl for everything she’s learning, obviously, but the repeated words can take a toll sometimes. First world problems, I know.

We encourage Avery with supportive words when she acknowledges a color, sound, object, etc, so now we have her waving to the planes as they fly by.

I’m not sure if she understands that she’s waving to people (like we told her), or just the actual jet and/or plane, but it’s cute nonetheless. Speaking of, we also try to explain the difference between jet and plane since she’s been using both words.

Essentially, all jets are planes, but not all planes are jets. The propeller driven planes and in a different category. All of this just goes over her head (ha ha, puntastic!), but I know she’ll eventually catch on.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Do you have a lot planes fly near your home?

Are there things you never or hardly noticed that your kid constantly discovers around your home now?