All posts by R.C. Liley

I'm an ex-mutual fund accountant who left the cubicle world to be a stay-at-home dad to my beautiful little girl, Avery, who entered our life on 11/15/13 and handsome little boy, Wes, who joined our family on 11/19/17. Also happily married to my wife, Kelley, as of 8/17/07. Sorry ladies... :) Fitness and nutrition is of the utmost importance in our family and we strive to reflect this in our daily life. I always prepare our meals at home and only go out if it's a special occasion, and even then I tend to not get much. Food should be fun and a joy to eat, not something quickly consumed from a fast food chain or scarf down before the next meeting. I have come from strictly logging high miles to train for the next marathon to keeping exercise varied and focusing more on strength. I still enjoy going for a run when I can, but nothing crazy, and I prefer hill sprints while pushing my daughter, Avery in the stroller. She loves it and I get a great workout! I want to show the world how to appreciate their body and feed it real, wholesome food while moving more throughout the day. In doing so, everyone would be healthier, happier, and we'd all live in a better place as a result. I blog mainly about my life as a stay-at-home dad and frequently include reviews, participate in campaigns, and share my thoughts on fitness and nutrition. If you ever have any questions or thoughts to share, please reach out as I'm always open to listening or helping others however possible. That is, when I have free time since Avery is and my wife are the number one priorities!

I Survived the 1st Year As a Stay-At-Home Dad!

More importantly, we/us/our family has survived a year having me as a stay-at-home dad. Nerves were high for all of us a year ago as my wife was returning to work from her maternity leave, and I was leaving work to stay home with our daughter, Avery.

It was obvious how unsure I was looking back at my first post from my first day at home. The world revolved around nap time and I heavily depended on Kelley’s breast milk soaked shirt laying in Avery’s crib to provide comfort and help with keeping her asleep.

babies, nap time, sleeping, parenting

Poor wife, I wouldn’t dare let her have that thing back for quite a while! On the second day, my confidence-o-meter was still in the negatives, as well as many subsequent days after.

If you checked out the links I provided from my first and second days as an at-home dad, you might notice a common theme that’s present with most parents, especially new ones; a difference in parenting styles. Yep, it’s a big one, and doesn’t matter if one is staying home or both are working, parents tend to disagree on one thing or another a miliion, and that’s just how it is.

Kelley and I still have our own ways of dealing with Avery and we’ll sometimes argue over how the other is handling a situation. Damn wife, she’s usually right (at least I admit it…..eventually), but sometimes I get the 1-up. Not often, but sure does feel good when I do! Parents, don’t you agree?

Fighting Arguments Quarrels Misunderstandings aside, Kelley and I make a great team and have learned a lot along the way. Is anyone ever done learning when so much is changing every day? In parenting and relationships, I vote NO! But that’s part of the fun, right? 🙂

In my year as a stay-at-home dad, I’ve made many mistakes and figure I’ll make many more. But from the ones I have made, I have learned and grew stronger as a result. For instance, babywearing, something we fully support and love in our home, took me a bit before realizing I was doing it wrong at first. I was wearing Avery all over with legs dangling and front facing.

Too cool for school...or anything.
Too cool for school…or anything.

As I shared on my post about Why I Wear My Baby, there are many studies showing the problems with a baby’s development when worn like this, especially the dangling legs!

And there are plenty more (I’m picturing my wife nodding her head as she reads this) mistakes that I’ll share in a separate post soon. Hopefully other parents, whether at-home or at-work, will learn from my mistakes and avoid making them their selves.

Today I want to call attention to making it an entire year with our arrangement and to express my deep, deep appreciation to my lovely wife, Kelley, for working so hard for our family. Some times are extremely hard with work, keeping up with breastfeeding, and dealing with an unruly husband (me!) and she is great at keeping everything together.

Kelley, I can’t thank you enough, and just want to say I love our life together and having such a crazy, yet sweet, daughter to raise with you.

Are you currently or can you remember being a parent to a baby/toddler?

What are some ways that you and your significant other pushed through the tunnel of stressful times to emerge from the other end, happy and sane? Okay, maybe a little crazy. 😉

Does Your Toddler Have a Super Bowl Pose?

They may not have a clue about football, but toddlers can still rock an awesome cheering pose for the Super Bowl. My wife and I have captured several action shots of Avery practicing her pose during the Big Game.

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Some are blurry, but we wouldn’t dare delete them because….cute, duh. Don’t tell me you’re not like that with you kid or kids….c’mon, you can’t fool a fellow parent. Okay, you can, but not when it comes to saving more pictures than you will ever need. Imagine if they were the old-school Polaroids. Yikes!

Since we have quite the collection, I’m asking you to help us decide what Avery’s best pose is so she is prepared to cheer for…..don’t get mad, Seahawks fans, the Patriots! We’re Cowboy’s fans first, but for this game, we’re rooting for the Pats.

Please help Going Mom and me out and tell us one or two of your favorite Super Bowl poses. We will then commence with blowing up the winning picture of her pose and train Avery to duplicate that exact stance with each scoring drive by the Patriots. Maybe we won’t go that far, but makes for a good visual, huh?

Whatever Avery chooses to do, I expect to see plenty of Patriot touchdowns to make the Seahawks wilt (Get it? Birds….wilting? No? Damn.)! Hopefully, just like the Super Bowl ticket prices, the balls stay inflated. Sorry, had to. 🙂

And now for the poses…

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These 10 are the best we have so far, and I’ll be damned if it’s not hard to pick just one. I mean, look at the happiness, not to mention skill in some, of these poses!

Oh, and I would ask for help choosing a good pose for when the Seahawks make a touchdown or do anything good, but we already have that one figured out….

Avery Flipping Off Camera

Yeah, seems appropriate, right? Hope you’re having a great weekend, and remember, try to stay somewhat healthy during the game and, well, always! Try dipping some baby carrots and apple slices in NuttZo, or eat right from the spoon. And if you must have something with bacon since that’s the trend lately, NuttZo + Bacon makes a delicious treat!

This is part of the Brilliant Blog Posts Link up, check out other #brilliantblogposts by clicking the badge below.

Brilliant blog posts on HonestMum.com

Who are you cheering for tomorrow?

Are they the regular team you usually cheer for, or just your favorite between the two?

Do you even care about the Super Bowl?

Sugar Free Green Coconut Carrot Bread Recipe

The other day I posted a picture of my Sugar Free Green Coconut Carrot Bread on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and promised a recipe was coming soon.

Since I like to deliver on my promises, I’m sharing it with you today. Consider yourself lucky, or maybe it should be forewarned…..hmmmm. Here’s the thing…..

I do about 90% of my cooking via the microwave. My main cooking method is steaming, mostly veggies, and microwave steaming is quick, efficient, and retains the most nutrients compared to roasting, sauteing, boiling, etc. I still cook with these other methods, just not often.

Now, many people avoid microwaves at all costs for fear that they’ll turn radioactive or some other harm will be done. This was a concern for me at one time, so I looked into it and was convinced it was a safe, if not safer cooking method. Think about the carcinogens resulting from grilling, roasting, or toasting, that’s not safe either.

Anyway, I wrote a post on my old healthy food blog, Just Add Cayenne, titled Is Microwave Cooking Safe that you can check out for my reasoning if you’d like. But that’s my preferred method, and that’s how I make most of my breads.

I’ll let you in on my little microwave bread cooking tool that I absolutely love; it’s a microwave omelet cooker! Yep, it’s the Nordic Ware Microwave Omelet Pan and you can get it off of Amazon for less than $7. The link is my affiliate link and I’d be ever so happy if you went through it to make your purchase. Check out my other favorites on the Amazon sidebar to the right.

I’ll save my microwave cooking details for a later post, but for now, how about that bread recipe? I adapted it to be cooked in the oven, so you’ll have to wait for my microwave version. It’s a lot faster, using less ingredients, and still delicious and healthy!

healthy, bread, cooking, recipe

Sugar-Free Green Coconut Carrot Bread Sweetened with PyureSweet Stevia

Get These Ingredients….

  • 1 egg + 4 egg whites
  • 1 cup steamed carrots
  • 1/2 cup steamed spinach, only drain a little of the excess water and leave the rest*
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1 ½ cups oat flour; could probably use whole wheat, spelt, kamut, or high quality protein powder too
  • 1/2 cup coconut flour
  • 1/4 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut; I used the kind from Let’s Do Organic
  • 1/2 cup PyureSweet Stevia; if using pure or liquid stevia extract, use the equivalent of 1 cup of sugar which can be between 1 to 2 tsp depending on brand.
  • 1 Tbs Cinnamon; you can use less, but I’m obsessed
  • 1 ½ tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • Pinch of sea salt

Now Do This….

  1. Add wet (first 4) ingredients to the bowl of a food processor and puree until mostly smooth.
  2. Whisk all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. 
  3. Add your puree to the dry ingredients and mix with a large spoon or spatula making sure everything is incorporated.
  4. Pour into a loaf pan and bake 50 – 60 minutes in a preheated oven at 350 degrees. 
  5. The bread is ready when a fork or knife comes out clean when inserted in the center.  Cover the top with foil for the last 20 minutes to avoid burning.

*The water from the spinach helps retain volume and moisture since baking with stevia requires less bulk than if using sugar, honey, maple syrup, etc.

Give this to your kids and call it “Green Monster Bread” or something fun like that and feel good knowing they’re getting healthy food for their constantly growing body. Avery knows what’s up….

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And of course, this bread’s deliciousness is only compounded when you put a think layer of NuttZo on top. Remember, save yourself 15% on the best organic nut & seed butter in existence and used code liley15 when purchasing from their product page. It’s good for you, good for me, and everyone loves it! Winning all around! If only I can get Avery to give me back the jar…

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What are your thoughts on microwave cooking?

Have you made bread in the microwave before?

Since we never go out to eat and I take on cooking mostly all meals in our house, it’s a must and I swear by the microwave. Never mind that odd glowing I get around 3am……