food on the brain and potty progress

Yesterday Celia stayed in one pair of underwear all day! It's time to give her a little more freedom and see if she can go to the bathroom when she needs to without us reminding her all the time. Also, I had been worried about whether she'd be able to poop in the potty because she went in her underwear on Saturday night. But, yesterday with a little coaxing (and a bit of bribery) she did it! It's funny what ends up being exciting to you when you have kids. You would have thought we'd won the lottery, the way I reacted. This morning Celia went to daycare for a few hours and didn't want to put her shorts on because she wanted to show Debi and Dan her underwear :). Before she left she said "Mommy, I will keep my underpants dry all morning." And she did! She is also beginning to tell us when she has to go, rather than us having to take her to the bathroom on a schedule.

Just hanging out, wearing underpants with Maisy.

I've been trying to get back on track with vegan eating lately. Unfortunately that requires a little planning and more cooking and I haven't had the energy to put into it, but I seem to have gotten my motivation back. Yesterday I made rolls and modified a noodle soup recipe to make a vegan chickpea noodle soup for dinner. It needs some tweaking, but the recipe will be a keeper for the winter. The soup and rolls made the house smell so good, and they were perfect because it was a rainy day.

Speaking of meal planning, I really need to get organized and on track in the next month. I'll be going back to work, and by the end of November we'll have a newborn. I have to get myself on an easy schedule that I can just follow without worrying about planning anything. 

I've attempted various means of organizing recipes in the past, but none of them ended up being what I really wanted. What I really need is my own cookbook, with the best recipes from all the sources I use- websites, cookbooks, tear-outs from magazines- all in one place. So, that's one of my projects for the rest of the summer. I'll copy or print all the recipes I like to have handy and put them all in one binder. In the front of that binder, I'll put weekly menu guides with lists of dinners to make meal planning easier. I used to love going through recipes every week or two and planning out meals, because I love to cook. However, I can't handle all that work nowadays and will have even less time with another baby. Time to make a dinner schedule and stick to it (I tend to get bored). Having a somewhat regular dinner rotation should also reduce our grocery bill a little.

As I was going through recipes and starting to plan out my binder (which basically means collecting every single recipe from girl crush Angela's blog), I came across this one today: Peanut Butter Banana Bomb Muffins. I was already planning to do something with the two overripe bananas sitting on the counter, so I had to try this recipe during nap time. I modified it a bit based on ingredients I did and didn't have, but mostly stuck to it. These are amazing.

They're like a dessert. I think Celia will like them for snacks, which is great because they're also really healthy and don't have a lot of fat or sugar.

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written a post about food. Fun stuff! Sometimes I kind of wish I could become a food blogger. Anyway, time to go get my big girl up from her nap.