Tag Archives: cooking

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. 🙂

Food, Life, Parenting

Weekend Recap: Parental Ailments & Toddler Head Planks

09/21/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

You know how you can make awesome plans for the upcoming weekend only to have them fall out of place for one reason or another? That pretty much happened to us this past weekend.

Not like we had a full agenda lined up, we just planned on being in good health to tackle our backyard project and continue with my Squat Every Day routine. Well, an infected and inflamed eye for Going Mom and some sort of sharp pain (thinking rotator cuff tear) in my right shoulder kinda wiped the whole “in good health” part of our weekend out.

My poor wife has been battling her eye infection for several days and it has only gotten worse. I think, but we’re not entirely certain yet, that it’s on its way to getting better, but only time will tell. It’s driving her, and therefore me, crazy, and I wish I could do something to rid her eye of the crap.

For me, I’m sure my OCD habit to exercise with heavy weights almost daily helps my shoulder pain not one bit, but I keep going anyway. We had a lot of rain which made the ground nice and soft (very muddy), so I did what I could in the backyard by shoveling dirt and moving it out with a wheelbarrow. Yeah, all “smart” moves when you’re nursing an injured shoulder.

I’m hesitant to go to the doctor because, one, sometimes all symptoms disappear when I do, and two, making Avery go to the doc with me after her having to go not long ago would be traumatic for the poor girl. Again, time will tell, and then I’ll tell you here on the blog. I know you’re all concerned, right? 🙂

Speaking of, the one person not ailing this weekend was our growing girl, so that’s a plus!

With a painful eye, Kelley still took some excellent shots of Avery while cleaning all around the house. We aren’t idle people, so even when we’re sick/hurt, we still find stuff to do. The house is much cleaner as a result.

Avery “helped” Mommy clean and rearrange things all over the house this weekend and she hardly wanted anything to do with me. I’d ask her one question and she’d run away whining to Kelley. Meh, I know it’s just a phase. Besides, I was able to get a lot of cooking done for my two beautiful girls without having to worry about tripping over a quiet toddler in the kitchen. Cooking parents, you know what I’m talking about.

Butternut Squash and Kale Fritatta=Winning — Butternut Squash and Kale Fritatta = Winning

She has become great at working out with Mommy and Daddy, and the newest exercise seems to be the plank. Luckily, she’s not doing that in the kitchen, yet, but a more advanced version using her head and rocking chair.

I don’t know about you, but that would hurt my neck amongst other things and I’m proud of her feats. She knows she strong too. How strong you ask? Well…

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We never taught her to pump her fist like that, but it’s only right that she does it to show her strength. Right?

Not much outside playtime happened as a result of the rainy weather, and poor Avery didn’t exactly understand.

But getting to spend time with Mommy seemed to make her forget about outside. As is apparent….

Now we’re back to the beginning of another week, but Kelley will be taking off to stay home as I go to the National At-Home Dads Convention from Thursday to Sunday. I’m excited, a lot, but I know I’ll miss my two girls back home and will be eager to see them on Sunday.

I have a little food prep to do so my wife can enjoy my excellent cooking (yeah, I’m biased) while I’m away. I feel this week, short as it may be, will still drag on.

Do you still find things to do when you should really just be resting?

Do you like going to conventions? Any ones in particular if so?

Life, Parenting

1st Week of NFL Football and I Don’t Care

09/14/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

The 2015 NFL Football season has arrived! This means it’s time to gather round and sit in front of the TV to watch the big game….or a small one if you haven’t upgraded to an 80″ LED 2160p TV. 🙂

Going Mom and I enjoy watching a good game, but we don’t schedule our weekend (or a Thursday / Monday night) around it. For us, a new football season is exciting because of the changing weather and seasonal produce starting to sprout. We still care about football, but we don’t care about all of the excitement from the 1st week of the season. I was involved with sports betting a few years ago, and hated how much it ruled my life, so no more betting or fantasy leagues for me. Although, a lot has changed in the betting world since I dabbled in it. For example, now that sports betting tennessee websites are up and running, this would make it a lot easier for me!

Every year, as the football season approaches, you can feel the excitement all around with stores stocking their aisles with “the essentials”, new TV deals suddenly seem more abundant, and Fantasy Football drafts going on everywhere. And that’s completely cool, but over the years, I’ve found that I’ve lost interest in football hubbub.

Yep, years ago we used to chime in with the excitement, but with each passing season, my wife and I shared the dying of the football flame. Like I said, we enjoy watching football, but most certainly can not sit through an entire game, and will only watch if doesn’t get in the way of whatever else we’re doing.

Take, for example, this past weekend with the first week of the NFL season, we totally forgot because we were focused on cooking, exercise, landscaping projects, and enjoy the outdoors. When we weren’t pinned down by our crazy toddler that is.

Besides, we are more college football fans, and follow our Oklahoma Sooners more than any NFL team. We missed the game against Tennessee (see above reason), but got the highlights, and wow, sorry we didn’t see it! Go Sooners! Although, Avery’s reaction to Mommy’s OU jersey isn’t very promising that she’ll be a fan of our alma mater.

I grew up with a step-dad who sat around watching TV a lot which didn’t leave a good impression. Now, as a father myself, I don’t want Avery to see me staring at a TV when we could be playing together as a family or just sitting and reading to her.

We actually turned on part of a game this weekend and Avery fell silent and just stared at the TV. Our fun, rambunctious little girl turned into a zombie locked in on the bright screen with no awareness of what was going on around her. That was the end of TV for the weekend.

Again, we don’t hate football, and as I said already, enjoy watching a good game, but what I’m saying is that I don’t care that it’s the first week of the season. Probably won’t think much about the second week either. I’ll still root for the Cowboys (just checked and saw that was an awesome win against the Giants) since, by default, they’re our home team, and follow the Sooners a little more, but no matter the outcome, life will go on for us. I was involved with sports betting a few years ago, and hated how much it ruled my life, so more betting or fantasy leagues for me.

What did we do for the 1st week of the NFL season? Well, my wife planned out and started her next backyard landscaping project and I started a new strength routine along with cooking multiple meals including our local, pastured chicken from our CSA. I’m severely deficient with gardening and landscaping, so I helped in the form of manual labor. I see it as an extra workout, Kelley gets my help, it’s a win-win!

In sum, I feel it’s too easy to get wrapped up into the games as I have done in the past, and find it much more rewarding to keep away and be productive around the house. Then, once everything’s done, maybe we can sit down at night to catch the end of a good game.

Did you watch any football this weekend?

Excited about Monday Night Football tonight?

Do you like NFL or College better? Or, like me, don’t get too wrapped up in either?