These two...

I had SUCH fun with them on our little weekend trip. They are just the silliest, funniest, sweetest, most beautiful and best things ever! They are so ridiculously cute together too and bring me such immense joy. I absolutely love spending time with them and couldn't ask for anything more. I am one blessed girl.

Six years ago...

We celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary this last weekend. Our little family started the day playing some tennis followed by swimming. What fun it was to think back to how we started our day six years ago - surrounded by our family and friends becoming husband and wife. It was such a beautiful serene morning on our favorite Texas beach!

Later in the day on our anniversary my Love and I went out on a little date. It had been almost a year since our last one! We snuck in a yummy veggie sushi dinner to see "Eclipse" and had so much fun! We hadn't been to the movie theater since right before Lovebug was born so it was pretty bizarre. We hurried home right after the movie though to see our little gal who we missed so much! :)

Throughout the day we'd say "six years ago right now..." and fill in with what we remembered. It's so neat to reminisce about that incredible morning/day of ours and I cannot wait to share more and more of it with Lovebug as she gets older. Anyway, I always say this but I cannot believe it's been six years...more than that though, we also just celebrated 10 years of being together which is even harder to believe. A whole decade together - WOW, what fun! And SO much more fun to come.

Happy anniversay my Love! You are my soulmate and the one I will aways love, forever and ever. For me, God made thee. Truly. Thank you so much for being you, the absolute best partner imaginable. You drive me wild in every way! I love you!

OH and of course, props to our amazing photographer, Michelle Young of Endearing Studios...she's amazing, just the nicest person, AND she's a new mommy! :) Thanks Michelle.

This weekend we're heading out on a little trip...have a great one!

It was a special day...

Today is my birthday. I love birthdays. Today is also the day of the year we turn on our A/C, which further makes my birthday special. It's been tough the last two weeks with our nest reaching 87 or 88 most days, but we persevered. So this morning after we continued to let the cool(er) morning air in, we closed up the windows and turned on the A/C to enjoy a lovely breakfast made by sweet Love. It felt so nice! It's amazing what difference 7 to 8 degrees makes! OH and my above breakfast was delicious...sprouted wheat waffles with banana, strawberries, coconut oil, a little bit of dark chocolate :), and some maple syrup. There was also tempeh and breakfast pototoes too! It was a very special treat from my typical raw breakfast.

Today, Lovebug and I worked in the garden a bunch, played in her dirt box, did laundry, dehydrated nuts, made juice, picked up, hung laundry on the drying racks, worked on reservations for an upcoming trip, played with/organized bottle caps, broke down boxes in our garage for recycling, colored, nursed ALOT, did yoga, made salad for lunch, read books, received a wonderful note from an old friend, played with cars, prepared many snacks, listened to alot of music, talked to or texted family members, finished a watermelon, went pretend "shopping" many times, laughed a TON, and had a grand ole' time together. I hurried off to soccer practice once my Love got home and after that we enjoyed the most wonderful dish of pasta for dinner. It was an avocado pesto on linguini...SOOOO yummy and just what I needed after all that sweating at practice. My Love also made these rosemary skewer things with zucchini and yellow squash from the garden ...oh my gosh, SO good! My Love is just the best!

The day ended with starting the finale of last season's Top Chef (we're still trying to catch up before the new season starts) and some leftover chocolate mint cake and mint ice cream - YUM!!

Hope you all had as special of a day as I did!

Chef or Cook

Which do you consider yourself? I know by definition a chef is someone that cooks professionally, but I think there are alot of people that create incredible dishes at home that qualify to be called "chefs", no? To me, a chef is someone that creates dishes and meals (versus just following a recipe) and someone that knows and understands how flavors and ingredients blend and compliment each other. I also think knife skills help to further the chef title as well for some reason. What else do you think makes an amateur chef?

Myself, I'm definitely a cook because I HAVE to follow a recipe and I have little to no knife skills. But my Love, he has definitely become a chef that can create something incredible completely on his own. Take for example the amazing bean dish shown below that he came up with that we've been enjoying this week for lunches. He's got some serious knife skills too and I love seeing him work and create in the kitchen! Are any of your men the "top chefs/cooks" of your home or just love to cook? It's super hot, isn't it? :)


The dish was even better with some cornbread I made using a recipe OF COURSE :). It's from Veganomicon but I tweaked it just a bit. Although I think I've had better, it's really good and even more delicious with some coconut oil drizzled on it!

Vegan Corn Bread

(2) Cups - Almond Milk
(2) tsp - Apple Cider Vinegar
(2) Cups - Cornmeal
(1) Cup - Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
(1/4) Cup - Sucanat or Raw Sugar
(2) tsp - Baking Powder
(1/2) tsp - Salt
(1/3) Cup - Coconut Oil

Preheat oven to 350 F. I used a 9 x 13 inch glass baking pan but you could also bake it in a cast iron skillet too. Lightly grease the bottom and sides of the pan.

Combine the almond milk and apple cider vinegar and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Create a well in the center and add the almond milk/vinegar mixture. Mix together until just combined (some lumps are ok). Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

OH and I really think there should be a "Top Chef Amateurs" added to the Bravo lineup...wouldn't that be cool? I'd sign my Love up in a hearbeat. Well, have a great weekend.

Flying by

Time has just been flying by lately and it's so hard to believe it's almost September, isn't it?! As of late, my typical blogging time (when Lovebug sleeps) has been dedicated to researching and finding products and companies for some upcoming remodeling projects we have planned. It takes a bit more time to do it "green" because you have to dig deeper. Although it IS getting easier to find truly eco and healthy products/companies, it's still not quite as easy as just trekking over to your local home improvement store unfortunately. It really is worth it to be uber careful about what you bring into your nest though! Anyway, it's a fun job but very detailed and time-consuming, as any remodeling project is of course.


So there has been all of THAT and Lovebug is just such an active little girl always keeping me super busy. She got out the above antique egg baskets and was just hanging out so I had to capture it :). She's so silly, smart, and incredibly sweet and we have alot of fun together! I'm SOOOOOO blessed to be her mommy. This full-time mommy job of mine takes alot of creativity, patience, and work, but I would never trade it for anything and just completely adore my little Lovebug! And don't even get me started on my sweet hard-working Love...oh my, that man is by far the most incredible thing I have ever laid my eyes on. He's got my heart for forever and ever. Yesterday was a particularly incredible day and I think we're expecting rain today so YEA, I know it's going to be another wonderful one. I hope yours is just as good!

The best pizza I've ever had!

I mentioned my Love recently made the "best pizza I've ever had"...well he was able to recreate it again on our anniversary! Oh my goodness, SO delicious! Have you ever made homemade pizza? We make it every Saturday night as a treat and it's always something we look forward to on the weekends! We call it our "farmer's market pizza" because we use whatever veggies the organic seller has that morning. Growing up, we made alot of homemade pizzas too, which was so much fun. My Mom would make little individual ones for each of us to then add whatever toppings we wanted. It was something she very often did for parties and sleepovers, which made it all the more special. I look forward to the day in the future when Lovebug can enjoy "Pizza Night" with us too and taste her daddy's delicious ones!

Anyway, I had some requests for more info on this incredible pizza and I was able to get some bits from my Love. He doesn't write his creations down, which makes it difficult. :) First off, he or I always make the homemade whole wheat crust using either whole wheat pastry, stoneground wheat, or a mixture of the two, in which we add some Italian seasoning. As far as the toppings, my Love has been roasting bell peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini in EVOO, salt, and some Italian seasoning. The sauce he has been making includes garlic, balsamic, and again, that Italian seasoning. He then layers the sauce and roasted veggies on the pizza and adds a ton of spinach and basil. We've also been adding some nutritional yeast on there too which we love. SO, there you go! That's the gist of most delicious pizza I've ever had! :)

SO, what do you put on your homemade pizzas? Alright, be back soon from the beach...

Five years ago...

I CANNOT believe it's been five years. It has flown by so quickly and has been more fun that I ever imagined (and mind you, I imagined it being pretty darn fun!)! So on this very special day, I wanted to share some wedding shots with you all like I did last year...


Right after the ceremony ended my Love and I went down near the water and had some precious time together, just the two of us, which you can see in these photos. I remember those incredible feelings - the immense excitement and overwhelming happiness. It was truly a very special short amount of time that I will never forget! I get goosebumps just thinking about it. But you know what? I still feel all of that 5 years later, and know that I will until the day I die. I love you my Love more than anything else and that love continues to grow stronger and greater every single day. Happy 5th anniversary!


Tonight after some packing is done, we're going to do our typical low-key anniversary dinner at home (with my Love's yummy pizza!) surrounded by mementos of the special day, followed by wedding album perusing and overall reminiscing. We also have little messages from our wedding guests to read, as we had them write wishes/thoughts for our 5th and 25th anniversaries in addition to wedding day ones. Can't wait!


OH and I must of course give credit to our incredible photographer, Michelle Young of Endearing Studios, for the beautiful work she did on our wedding day. Thank you so much Michelle! :) She travels around everywhere and does stunning work so please check her out!

4th...

Our 4th of July included watermelon, wiffle ball, peach cobbler, and fireworks, amonst other things....OH and some water play for Lovebug. The metal tub bought the day before at a local feed store was quite a good purchase and she had a blast playing and cooling off in the water.


It was a great day spent with family, although it did seem really long and we were all pretty tuckered out come late afternoon. Somehow we mustered up the energy to go watch our city's fireworks display, but Lovebug could have cared less. She was not impressed at all! So we quickly left, and without a mosquito bite thank goodness. When we came home, our neighbors did their annual little display in the street and she LOVED that. Maybe because it was so close and she could see and hear them so much better. I don't know, but she loved it and was upset when they were over!


I just feel so blessed today - to have my little family and have had such a great fun-filled holiday weekend! There were quite a few highlights but a couple stand out currently, with one of them being the pizza my Love made last night. It was hands down the best pizza I've ever had...seriously. I have begged him to please write down what he can remember of the ingredients before he forgets because it was SO incredible. I cannot wait until the leftovers tonight for dinner, followed by some leftover peach cobbler too! :) Another highlight was finding and then listening to a mixed cd :) my Love made for me about 9 years ago! We had such a good time listening to the songs he chose to put on there...such wonderful memories!


We actually got a little rain yesterday which cooled things off a bit and the morning air actually feels pretty darn nice. When we woke up it was only 82 in the house which isn't bad at all compared to what it has been lately. I know it's going to be a wonderful day! Well, I hope everyone had an incredible holiday and I wish you an even more incredible week!

Little Milestones

How was your weekend? Ours was lovely, productive, and had a few little milestones for us. The first one being the removal of two gates that were keeping Lovebug from the living room (it's sunken with concrete flooring). I HATED having them and really hated keeping her from a room in the house, but we had one incident when she first started walking that scared us pretty bad so they were necessary for awhile. But after 9 months of walking experience, she's got it down :) plus she does really well with steps so we thought she was ready...and so far, so good. She has recently become such a climber and was trying to climb the gates too, which further spurred on the gate removal. She was unbelievably happy when my Love took them down and I so wish I had a picture of her face :).

Afterwards, the house automatically felt bigger for whatever reason which I wasn't expecting. There was alot of rearranging and Lovebug-proofing that had to be done so that took awhile. But it was SO worth it! She loves going up and down the step and just LOVES being in there! There will probably at some point be a fall but we did put rugs down all along the step to hopefully help minimize any pain. Anyway, it's a wonderful little milestone...


Our other one of sorts was my Love and I celebrated 9 years of being together! 9 years ago this past weekend we went on our first date and we've been together ever since. :) We celebrated by going to a local Mexican restaurant which is what we did on our first date too. It was a simple but long dinner and we just chatted about our first date, the last 9 years, and all the MANY MANY ones ahead of us. It has been such a blast and only continues to gets more and more fun! I love you my Love.

Another milestone we tackled this last weekend was that we finally hung something up in the back of the house! We are still in the process of finishing the remodeling of the back, but it's mostly done (minus the bathrooms) and we just haven't hung anything, not wanting to put any nails in our white walls :). Well, for our upcoming 5th wedding anniversary we had this incredible artist paint a masterpiece for us. We just fell in love with her work and had our eye on one particular painting but it sold unfortunately, so instead she created a custom one just for us which worked out even better! Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE and ADORE Etsy?! I seriously do! Anyway, that's a peek of the painting up above...oh how I love it!

So it was indeed a good weekend. Here's to a wonderful rest of the (short) week!

Daddy's Day

Yesterday, our day for Daddy was very enjoyable! My Love went kayak fishing in the early morning while I got up and started the doughnut dough. I made the same recipe last year, but my yeast was dead so I ended up with cookies. But THIS year, the baked doughnuts turned out great and were super yummy. I got the recipe from 101 Cookbooks...she has some great ones, so look around. I health and vegan -ified it with whole wheat pastry flour, coconut oil in lieu of butter, and flax mixture instead of eggs. I loved them...well, AM loving them, as there are PLENTY leftover. They certainly are a VERY special treat though and are wonderful with coffee. Most importantly, my Love really enjoyed them! Over brunch, I shared a funny doughnut hole story that had us laughing all day, right babe? :)


When my Love got home mid-morning from fishing, Lovebug had this little tank on that I had embellished with the heart and "Daddy". He LOVED it and said that was probably his favorite little "gift" of the day. Using the stencil I created for his Valentine's shirt made the whole process much easier.


Lovebug and I also gifted Daddy with this awesome cookbook that he is extremely excited about, as it's full of vegan recipes from some of our favorite chefs. Some of the recipes look pretty difficult and time-intensive but I know our "top chef" is up for such challenges and I cannot wait to see (and eat of course) the results! The rest of the HOT day was spent seeing our grandpa and dads, which was alot of fun.


My gorgeous sweet Love, thank you so much for being the most amazing father possible to our Lovebug. We are truly blessed to have you as ours and we love you so much! Thank you for being such a committed, patient, fun, and loving father. You truly are the BEST. Happy Daddy's Day!

Our Heart Day

Hope your Valentine's was as perfect as ours! Wasn't it so much fun that it fell on a Saturday? It was a slow day at home with the three of us just hanging out and enjoying each other. We ate some delicious food (and desserts:), crafted a bit, and caught up on some of our favorite shows online. I thought I'd share some hearts and such from our weekend...


Yummy whole wheat chocolate chip pancakes made for me by my sweet Love...


Lovely patch I made from recycled shirts, then embroidered and sewed onto one of my Love's undershirts as his little gift from me. He loves it as he has always wanted a tattoo of my name, so this was something in that direction :)...


Delicious and simple homemade pizza made by my Love for dinner...


Adorable new leg warmers on Lovebug as her little gift...


Precious little conversation people customized for us by these Etsy gals that inspired my Valentine's look this year...


Fun little banners and mobiles I made from newspaper, acrylic paint, and cotton yarn...


Hope the rest of your week is full of yummy, lovely, delicious, adorable, precious, and fun things! OH and thank you so much for all of the sweet comments on Lovebug's party, especially to Joslyn for putting it on Kirtsy. I felt so honored and am super glad I finally posted it! :)

Lovely

Our weekend was truly lovely. We got to enjoy some time with my dear older brother and his sweet little girls. It was perfect outside so we went on a nice hike followed by a picnic next to the creek. Lovebug absolutely LOVED seeing her cousins and so enjoyed being outside most of the day. Where my brother lives, you cannot hear any cars or other city noises, so it was quite nice to get away from all of that and just "be" in God's creation. My mind cleared, my body relaxed, and my spirit was lifted! THEN we came home, got all cleaned up, and my Love and I went out for our now-monthly date. We enjoyed some absolutely delicious sushi (inspired by you Ruby Ellen!). Oh MY...such yummines! It was special time with my best friend, but as always, we were eager to come home to our sweet girl.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Monday and a really enjoyable week!

Our Holidays

Our holidays were so wonderful and I'm truly sad they are over. But we haven't taken down our decorations yet and I'm thinking about giving them another week up as well as dedicating a photo post solely to them! :) We'll see...



As far as all of our festivities...we hosted our annual Christmas Eve brunch with part of my family which was loads of fun. Lovebug LOVED getting to play with her cousins and youngest uncle (seen above). So sweet to watch! Afterwards, we finished putting together some gifts during the day and then had a nice quiet dinner. We got all cleaned up and into our special x-mas eve pajamas and actually got to sleep at a decent hour, which doesn't always happen. Christmas morning was really special with just the three of us at home. We had a yummy coffee cake breakfast and then our little present giving time was so enjoyable! Lovebug's two gifts were immediately a big hit...and she got some cloth books on Christmas Eve from us that she is really enjoying now as well.


Thank goodness for camera timers so we could record our fun morning with the three of us all in this shot. :) Good memories!


The rest of the day was spent with both of our families at two different locations and was great fun! We're so blessed to have such wonderful families. We missed everyone that wasn't there though, especially my two sisters! Lovebug did SO well and was such a joy all day despite all the driving. I know she will enjoy it all even more next year, which is really neat to think about. Look at her all tuckered out going from one party to the next...


Here she is sitting in her great-aunt's little wooden chair from Mexico, which she loved because it was the perfect size. One of the highlights of Lovebug's day though was getting her great-aunt's teddy bear that was hers when she was little! It's so cute and in such great shape even though it's definitely been loved...what a GREAT great-aunt!



Well, happy New Year's everyone! WOW - 2009! I'm really excited for all that awaits us this year! I just got done making a cashew nut "cheese" which we're going to enjoy with some crackers, fruit, nuts, and chocolate tonight along with some special sparkling beverages. Just a quiet evening bringing in the New Year with my two Loves. Maybe we can sneek in a DVD if Lovebug lets us :) - we'll see. Then tomorrow we'll have a long breakfast of special coffee cake (that I need to run and make) and coffee (of course:) discussing and talking about our plans and wishes for the new year! Welcome 2009!!! Hope everyone has a good one!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

My goodness, I cannot believe Christmas is here! We've been (are) busy finishing up things for all the festivities. The snowflake fairies visited our house last Friday night so now even though we won't have a white Christmas we can look outside and see "snow". So pretty. My Love and I had fun making them but they are very addicting! We also had so much fun on our first Lovebug-less date on Saturday night! YES, it was way past due, but was still very hard for me at first, but I finally was able to relax and we had SO much fun! We missed our lil' sweetie greatly though and were so excited to get back to her. Thank you again wonderful grandparents!

Yesterday I had a couple high-stress moments because our Christmas cards/Lovebug's "announcement" (yes, she just turned one:) arrived and they looked terrible so we scrambled around trying to fix them...let's see, then some other presents we ordered online arrived and they're wrong or won't work. SO I had to make myself some chamomile tea, turn on some holiday music, calm down, and just relax. I needed a good reminder about what this time of year is all about and what it means to me. It's so easy to get swept into the stress of the season, but I'm good now...and ever since I've been making an assortment of sweet and spicy organic nut mixes, coffee cake, and cookies to enjoy with our families! Still have presents we need to finish up today though too...but not stressing, just enjoying.

WELL, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!!! I hope you all have a wonderful time with your families and friends!

Birth & Babywearing

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend...ours was fun and productive! The weather here in Texas was enjoyably cold, which meant inside time organizing and drinking hot coffee and tea! There were a couple frustrations though that came to me via the great internet that I wanted to share, which involve two big passions of ours - natural birth and babywearing!

This NYT article ran last week on home births, and it's pretty positive overall I would say. What has been so disheartening though have been the response/comments to the article, or rather to home/natural birth, as seen at a couple different websites that Marvelous Kiddo linked to. I wish I hadn't read some of them honestly. They get me all worked up!

I feel so bad for many of the women that posted such vicious things regarding it. Most of the extremely negative ones are from women (or maybe girls I should say) who have never actually given birth. Some of the comments are so ridiculous they're hilarious (well, kind of, but also so very very sad). They cannot imagine that someone would want that "mess" in their home, they complain how annoyed they would be by a loud laboring neighbor, they say children would be traumatized by the moans (?), they say to "bring on the drugs", etc. etc. etc.

Like I said, pretty much every comment I read that was negative was by someone who has not given birth and was pretty much grossed out by the mere thought of doing so. These women (and some men) are so uninformed or misinformed and it saddens me greatly. I just wish people would truly educate themselves about their choices (and the consequences of them) before giving birth and making the decision where it's going to take place, which should be wherever the woman is MOST comfortable. For me, that would NEVER be in a hospital...too many unknown people, too many risks, too many germs, too many sounds, too many lights, way too many machines, drugs, and pressure, and not enough love, comfort, support, or intimacy.


Giving birth is a life-changing event and as such, really is something that deserves and requires a ton of research, thought, and prayer. If you have not already, I highly recommend renting or buying The Business of Being Born, Birth As We Know It, Birth Day, Birth into Being, Orgasmic Birth, and others at this website. Plus there are so many incredible books out there that need to be read while pregnant!!! Sadly, it seems most people get their misguided information and opinions on birth from movies and tv shows, which are all far far far from reality. Lovebug's birth was neither messy or loud by any means! It was peaceful, beautiful, and amazing...and I know many mamas whose experience was the same. The above dvd's all are reality - real-life mamas and real-life births, so check them out. Birth can be, as it was for me, incredibly empowering and that empowerment has extended to every other aspect of my life. I so wish and pray that every woman could experience that!

Anyway, it's been sad and disheartening reading the responses to the article, but I'm so glad the NYT decided to cover such a topic!

The other frustration was a Motrin ad campaign that was directed at babywearers...I'm sure most of you have heard about all of this by now, but you can read the ad copy here. It was just bad advertising and has made many of us babywearers (the target audience with the campaign) very mad. Following all of the blogosphere feedback, Motrin pulled the online ads, but unfortunately it's already in magazines. It makes babywearing sound like a new fad, something everyone is doing to stay "in fashion" or to be seen as an "official parent"...which isn't why anyone I know wears their baby and babywearing is certainly NOT anything new! :) It is also sexist as it's certainly NOT just mamas that wear their babies.


Further, babywearing is NOT supposed to be painful, but actually quite the opposite. It's supposed to offer a pain-free alternative to carrying or holding your baby all day. If you're experiencing pain, then you have the wrong carrier or are wearing it wrong. It also kind of questions whether or not babywearing actually promotes bonding, which it certainly does, as well as helps make breastfeeding easier and can soothe babies to sleep, amongst SO many other benefits! Anyway, what's most frustrating about it is that the ads put more misguided information out there for people to get a wrong idea of natural parenting methods.

BUT, here is something WONDERFUL...did you know that tomorrow is the last day of International Babywearing Week?? Well it is! So all you mamas and dadas, get out and proudly wear your babies! And HERE is a wonderful cause that the incredible local Peppermint Baby Boutique is helping with - it's called No Mother Left Behind which believes the MANY benefits of babywearing should be available to all mamas (and daddies) regardless of their financial situation. So send in any gently used baby carriers to either of them in honor of Babywearing Week or you can make a financial donation as well.

Let's all have a fabulous week!!!

OH and the pics are some babywearing favorites from the last year of my gorgeous Love wearing Lovebug, which he has been proudly doing since the day she was born.

Some Weekend Loves

Some things I am loving from this last weekend...

This creamy outfit her Daddy dressed Lovebug in yesterday! I'm adoring Baby Legs right now because they keep her legs warm without having to wear pants. Skirts and dresses are much preferable on Lovebug because pants are annoying (and bulky with CD's) and she doesn't love getting her dipes changed right now, so they make the whole process much quicker. They have some organic ones (their wool ones as modeled by Lovebug are so soft!) and they're cute!


My wonderful Gramma and family gathered to celebrate 80 years of her life!

The new album from Ray...this guy is good. No, he's great! He's one of my all-time favorites and this new album is beautiful. Same gorgeous music but some new sounds and instruments in there. I love me some banjo and steel guitar.

These pumpkin spice cookies from Rachel that I vegan-ed up along with a maple syrup icing inspired by Jessica. They don't look nearly as delicious as they are!


The cold front that came in last night. It felt absolutely beautiful out on my long evening run, and paired with Ray's new album playing in my ears, it was downright fun!

This cool website where those of us with no TV can watch the occasional show FREE as a special treat. Aren't Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin just genius together in this show? And gosh, why did Arrested Development ever get canceled? And aren't Holly and Michael perfect for each other?

These two. They are so sweet and funny together, and I love them more than anything.


Lentils, kale, and veggies together in a delicious winter soup my Love made.

The new deodorant, lotion, and soaps made yesterday. For the deodorant, I took the Angry Chicken's recipe and made it my own with lavender and peppermint EO's. The lotion is delicious which I posted about awhile back, but this time I added just peppermint EO and it smells divine - I could almost eat it!

Hope each of you have lots you are loving as well (please share!). Mondays are tough because I miss the weekend, but they're also a fresh start to another week which I also really enjoy. Lots to do - have a good one!

The Perfect Pair

Yes, me and my Love of course :)...but also mint and chocolate! It's one of my favorite flavor combinations and I don't know why in the WORLD we've never tried this before, but on Friday we decided to go a little crazy and add chopped up fresh organic mint to our vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe, as well as organic peppermint extract in lieu of the vanilla. WOW, so yummy and delicious! They are our favorite cookies ever now - for reals people! So if you like to pair mint and chocolate together, go get you some fresh mint and try it and let me know what you think.


Our weekend was a little "off" as Saturday morning I woke up feeling not myself - so tired and SOOOO sore - almost fluish but no tummy issues or fever. Pretty sure it was the beginning of mastitis, which I've had before in my early breastfeeding days but yeah, it's no fun. So I rested and slept as much as possible on Saturday to fight it off, and my Love and Lovebug were so wonderful! They made me a Vitamin C-full smoothie, brought me chamomile tea with echinacea and st. john's wort tinctures, and just took care of me. I barely saw them though :( except when Lovebug came in to nurse or my Love brought me things or checked up on me, but they had lots of special daddy/daughter time which is always a very good thing.

Yesterday I awoke feeling much better after all that rest, so I think I'm in the clear. Thank goodness, because full-blown mastitis is terrible. Really and seriously, although it was an "off" weekend and I didn't feel well at all, the mint chocolate chip cookies truly made it a bit better so I insist you try it for yourself. Mint has definitely now been added to our planting list for the spring almost solely to make these cookies :)! I hope none of you had "off" weekends and wish you a wonderful week.

OH and there was another part of the weekend that made it nearly all better, which I'll share with you next time. Until then friends! :)

If you're feeling "blah"

Last night my Love made a delicious kale and garlic whole wheat pasta dish with no recipe followed - he's amazing!...he's the "Top Chef" around this nest and I'm typically his "sous-chef" (but I bake - OH, I do bake!). Tonight I'm going to surprise him though because Lovebug and I are making him a special dinner - well, it's "special" because I'm making it (but there will certainly be a recipe followed :).


While we were doing dishes after din-din last night, my Love mentioned he had kind of felt physically "blah" all afternoon. Well I went straight to our pantry and gathered up some supplements and ingredients to make a little immune-boosting drink for him, and wanted to share it. I used oat milk, but the base could be whatever - orange juice, almond milk, or I suppose, even water, but to it I added some Berry Green which has probiotics in it and some powdered whole-food Vitamin C. Whole-food Vitamin C is MUCH better than synthetic Vitamin C (absorbic acid), which isn't the greatest because your body doesn't absorb much of it - you might have heard it called "expensive yellow pee". For our Vitamin C, we currently use this, but are about to switch to Alive! Vitamin C, which is from organic fruit. Lastly, I added a little agave nectar to sweeten it up. Then the supplements included a Calcium tab and a couple All-Flora probiotics to get some extra good bacteria in his body. We put the Berry Green and Vitamin C powder in our green fruit smoothies every morning but since he was feeling "blah" I wanted him to get more of all that goodness inside of him, because we can't have our Dada getting sick!

I've been doing alot of research into homeopathic and herbal remedies the last couple of months and am thoroughly enjoying it, but this was just some stuff to help boost his immune system. I would HIGHLY suggest getting your whole family to start taking some probiotics every day (especially kids)...Some other good things to add would be ground flaxseed or flax oil (add to smoothies, salad dressings, etc. and the flaxseed to baked goods, sandwiches, etc.) and a good whole-food vitamin C, as well as something like Juice Plus or Berry Green which will help to ensure you're getting as many fruits and veggies as possible because it's hard to get as many as your body needs - we're vegan and it's even hard for us!


All of these things, along with lots of pure water and good rest/sleep, and as much organic fruits/veggies and whole grains as possible will do alot for our immune systems in the upcoming fall/winter months. My goal is to constantly try to improve my family's health in some way so I'm forever seeking, learning, and evolving and LOVE it so! I'll try to share bits here and there with you all if that's cool.

So anyway, after the extra immune boost, it was off to bed for some good sleep so said the Doc! Well my Love went off early this morning for a good run so hopefully he's feeling GREAT and not "blah" today! Looking forward to cooking that "special" dinner for you tonight sweetheart - See you then my Love.

P.S. I KNOW these pics have nothing to do with this post but the lighting was so pretty the other day and I couldn't resist taking some shots of Lovebug playing with the toy chest's latch. She looks so serious in that first one...wonder what she's thinking? :)

It goes by so quickly...

Promise I'm not going to start reviewing a movie every Monday, but we watched another documentary this last weekend that I wanted to pass along - Wordplay. It's a pretty fascinating look into the competitive world of crossword puzzles and all the incredible devotees to the NYT ultimate one. It kept us smiling and even laughing aloud at some parts - the real-life characters are almost straight out of an SNL skit. It was really inspiring to see how passionate they all are about the game. Anyway, if you want a light-hearted enjoyable movie, rent it and you'll for sure find yourself wanting to do a crossword puzzle afterwards:)! AND we enjoyed some yummy Coconut Bliss "ice cream" while watching it - it's a new find and is delicious! It's vegan, certified organic, made with healthy coconut milk and sweetened with agave nectar - YEA, finally a vegan "ice cream" that's not soy! It really is delicious - we found it at our local C-M. It says they ship overnight to your door though - just saying, it's THAT good!


Some big news on the Lovebug front - she's walking! WELL, she's taking steps. She took 4 on Friday and it's been many here and there all weekend - the most has been 5 consecutive, but it's just crazy because I swear that girl was just inside of me! She's growing up so fast. She ALSO started to talk alot more this last weekend...lots of gibberish and LOTS of "mama" as always, but we've got lots of "dada" and "baba" and "gaga" now as well which is so exciting. Such a sweet little voice too! Aaah, love it. We got some good silly pics of our Lovebug this last weekend that I adore, so I thought I'd share some!


Some errands were ran on Saturday, one of which was to Barnes and Noble - has anyone seen the new Boho magazine? Their first issue is out and I love it - it definitely is focused on fashion and beauty, but all green-minded. It's printed on 100% post-consumer paper and processed chlorine-free, which is so wonderful, and the whole design/look of it is beautiful. I found the articles to be well-written and overall very enjoyable, and it was nice flipping through a magazine without all the ridiculous amounts of wasteful advertising. I'm very interested to see their subsequent issues!


Afterwards, we headed to our fave Mexican spot for a little lunch. We even ate OUTSIDE because it felt so lovely while Lovebug amazingly slept - and Mommy/Daddy got to have some alone talk time :). It was nice. OH and we had our first video conference call with my dear sister in South Korea - it was wonderful (but crazy) seeing her beautiful face and hearing all about their new life there! The weekend was amazing, but went by way too quickly as always and now it's Monday...but I woke up early and got a good workout in, so I'm ready to face the week with all of its challenges and items on Lovebug and I's "To-Do-List"...and I know the weekend with my Love/Dada will be here before we know it.

Happy Monday all!