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.

23 weeks

1) I am 23 weeks pregnant today. In the last few days I finally felt like I look less big all over, and it's getting to be mostly belly now. I feel good, other than some trouble sleeping at night and having sore feet by the end of the day. My legs and feet definitely swell a little during the day, and I didn't notice it until I realized how much skinnier they look in the morning than at night. The little guy has very distinguishable sleep/awake times now. Sometimes Celia asks me if he's awake or asleep. She has started to like putting her hand on my belly, and she puts her ear to my belly and says she can hear her brother talking :). When we read stories at night she likes to rest her head on my belly and tells us she's lying on her baby brother.

2) We made a little progress with picking a color for the little guy's room. I think it will be a muted greenish blue color. I started realizing this week that in addition to improvements to the house, we have to get moving on baby related things. I only have a month left of vacation and then we'll be busy and have other last minute things to do once school starts.

3) Speaking of babies, our neighbors just had a baby boy so we went over and brought them dinner and some muffins yesterday. The best gifts we got when we had Celia were food. It's a relief not to have to think about cooking when you have a newborn. Our neighbors bought their house just a year ago. Its layout is a mirror image of ours and they were built at the same time, so it's interesting to compare notes on our houses. The previous owners of our houses had boys the same age, just like we will. The boys became friends and have stayed close all their lives, into adulthood. We're hoping that our kids can be friends too, especially where we'll have boys just a few months apart.

4) Who else is watching The Bachelorette? Is it not the most ridiculous train wreck of a series? At the same time, so hilarious and entertaining. Even Chris has gotten sucked in because we end up just laughing at how ridiculous it is and critiquing the men.

5) Last but certainly not least- we did potty train Celia over the weekend! We used a one-day method and it worked great. We spent the whole day on Saturday focused on potty training, made a really big deal about what a big girl she is and how she gets to wear underwear now, and made a real celebration out of it. On Sunday we were comfortable enough that we could play all over the house and in the yard without worrying about accidents, and I even took her to the grocery store and she used the bathroom there. She wore underwear the whole day on both Saturday and Sunday- no pull-ups. Poop is another story and she also doesn't yet consistently tell us ahead of time when she has to pee, so we still have work to do. But I'd say the majority of the hard work is done! We have music class this morning so I have to decide if I'm brave enough to keep her in underwear or if I'll wimp out a little and put her in a pull-up just to be safe...

Headed to the bathroom all by herself, in those big girl underpants.