Weekend Eats + food experiments

Happy Monday everyone!!! Who else feels like this entire year has flown by? Emma is 18 months today and my heart just can’t take it. I feel like she was just born, and now we are expecting her baby sister in just 4 short months! Life is moving quickly, and I can’t help but appreciate each moment more and more.

This past weekend was just…so nice. We spent the weekend together as a family and enjoyed every moment of it. For our family, our weekends are typically busier than the workweek, and I often times find myself looking forward to work to rest and relax a bit. Weird, huh? Well, this is the first weekend where we had zero plans expect for church and a few errands. It was so low-key and relaxing…what weekends were meant for!

I will say that the eats I’ll be sharing are different than what you’ve seen on this blog lately. I’m experimenting with my body, but most importantly my brain and mindset. More on this later as I’m still trying to figure things out, but I thought I’d share anyway and show how “healthy choices” are not always so black and white!

But let’s backtrack to Friday! I went to work and met with one of my dear friends for lunch! Our plan was Chipotle but they were out of rice (um, what?) so we went to Blaze Pizza instead. I LOVE their green stripe pizza, so I got that with a side salad. This meal was so so good!

Friday night was just a usual night of youth group. My husband and I are the youth leaders at our church and we so enjoy the time we spend with our church family! We got home pretty late Friday and crashed in bed.

Saturday morning, we enjoyed a family breakfast at home of waffles and eggs! I forgot to snap a good picture, but let’s just say waffles + peanut butter + syrup are the best combination! Then, we headed to a car dealership where we actually had a pretty frustrating experience. By 1pm, my husband and I were both starving and Emma was ready for her nap, so we had a quick lunch while Emma napped and vented to each other about how stressful car dealing is.

We each got the 2-item plates at Panda Express, and had enough leftovers for Emma once she woke up, as well as some left for dinner! These plates are so massive, so we both listened to our hunger, filled up on the broccoli and the veggies, and stopped when we were full. My husband LOVES Chinese food, so it was nice to enjoy this with him and sit outside in the fresh air.

After lunch, hubby took Emma home and I hit the grocery store. We were out of so many staples, so I stocked up big time. Our Trader Joe’s is remodeling, so while it was difficult to get around, I got the job done and am so excited for our new and improved store to open soon!

The rest of Saturday was pretty low key. I cleaned the floors at least 10 times as Emma has been throwing food all over the place. We put her down to bed early, watched the Lakers game, then I knocked out at 8:30pm. Oh how I love sleeping early even on the weekends!

Sunday morning consisted of my usual morning routine (quiet time, journaling, Bible study, and my workout!) We got ready for church and headed over for our English service and Sunday school class. I was SO hungry by 11:30 am that I was snapping at everyone (so sorry to my husband and mama!) so we had an early lunch at the local mall’s food court and walked around a bit! I had been craving a sandwich + salad combo, so I tried out Stone Oven for the first time, and was pleasantly surprised! I got the chicken pesto sandwich with with a side salad.

We walked around the mall a bit, fed Emma once she woke up (we gave her leftover kebab + rice from my husband’s meal) then headed home. We were both in awe at how early we were getting home on a Sunday! We are usually out all day on Sundays, so it was nice to come home and relax. I got a head start on laundry and meal prep, and we enjoyed Emma’s playfulness while we got things done around the house!

For meal prep, I made pasta in the instant pot and roasted vegetables. Meal prep is continuing today, but it felt good to get a few things done and enter the week with food ready to eat in the fridge, which we also enjoyed for dinner!

Emma went down early again, so we finished up the last 3 episodes of Man in the High Castle. This show is SO good, although I will say season 1 was my favorite. We just finished up season 3, and while it was intense, rarely is a show ever as good as its first season…ammiright?

And so far on this Monday, I have been running errands, cooking, finishing up laundry (will it ever end??) and enjoying a quiet day! Emma is at school for a few hours today, so this pregnant mama is getting all the rest she can!

I hope you all are having a relaxing and enjoyable week so far! Here’s to it being almost-November!

My Goals and Intentions for 2018

Happy New Year everyone!!!! I am so excited for this year and all the opportunities that are open to us. I hope you all set some goals or intentions for the year to go in the direction you want. Often times, we wonder why our lives feel like a mess, and while life IS messy, having some intentional goals set throughout the year can help us get from where we are to where we want to be. Which is why I set some goals that I would like to share with you all in the hopes of inspiring you to set your own!

If you saw my previous post, I am using Zig Ziglar's "Wheel of Life" method to set goals for different categories of my life. So, here we go!

1. Personal/social life: I started going to a new mommy group last year and have been on the sidelines for it. I get SO shy around new people and am a big introvert. But, I want to be more intentional and go to the monthly meetings with the hopes of making friends and being more open to what God brings to me! Also, another goal in this area of my life is monthly date nights with the hubby!! We are kicking off our first one tonight and I am so excited! :)

2. Blog: I want to be more consistent on this blog because I love to write. And guess what, you can help me with this! What would you like to see MORE of on my blog?? Daily eats? Workout motivation? Recipes? Mom life? Let me know! I also am working on a new site that I hope to launch later this month, so look out for that!

3. Family life: my husband and I want to do more things with our baby now that she is older and so much more interactive! We've discussed some family vacations we want to take, as well as just honoring our down time over the weekends and not stretching ourselves too thin with our obligations!

4. Spiritual life: I am determined to get back into my spiritual disciplines of quiet time, Bible reading, and prayer in the mornings! We also serve as the youth leaders at our church and my goal is to do more with the girls in our group now that Emma is older and I will (maybe) have more of my attention to give to the group on Friday nights. But as always, a baby is unpredictable, but I plan on doing my best!

5. Money: we want to SAVE more this year, and specifically save a certain amount every month to use on Christmas gifts next year. We love Christmas shopping but don't like our credit card statements the following month. We also want to be good stewards of the money and blessings that God has bestowed on us, so we are praying for constant wisdom on that as well!

6. Mindset/intellect: my goal is to read one personal development book and one fun book each month. I also want to read more REAL books vs. iBooks, because I love the smell of books and the feel of the pages between my fingers, and hate how glued I already am to my phone! I kicked off this goal with an amazon order of some books I've had on my wish list!

7. Health: my goal is to continue with my gluten free/paleo-ish lifestyle, do 80 day obsession starting January 15th, and keep up with my overall self care of working out and meal prepping and taking care of ME, so I can better care for my family. I've been feeling amazing and so energetic the past couple months, and I always want to feel this way. It's so true that good habits bring about more good habits, and once you start, you'll always want to feel great and treat your body with the respect it deserves!

Your turn! I would love to hear what some of your goals are for the coming year. Don't be afraid to set some big, scary ones too (I didn't share ALL of my goals with y'all, because boundaries!) but I hope you know that the bigger your goals, the more you'll grow and stretch. You were made for great things, my friends! Believe it and live it!

How to Set Goals for 2018

The new year is upon us, and in just two days we will enter the freshness and newness of 2018. I don't know about you, but I LOVE anything that has to do with a fresh start, and the fact that January 1st is on a Monday?? It's my OCD-type A personality-perfectionist DREAM COME TRUE!

I love setting goals and intentions at the beginning on each month, and naturally each year too. But this year, I'm doing things a little differently. I'm following Zig Ziglar's "Wheel of Life" method to set goals for different areas of my life. The idea here is that our life is like a wheel, and all sides of the wheel need to be balanced for our life to "roll" properly. Here are the different areas illustrated in the Wheel of Life, and these are the areas I'll be setting goals for in 2018!

Now, I've heard from a lot of my blog readers and social media followers that they have a hard time setting goals. They don't understand what to shoot for or how to organize their goals, so I think this wheel will do the trick for those who want help narrowing down certain areas of their lives and setting specific goals for health, finances, personal life, spiritual life, etc.

Are you a big goal setter or does it overwhelm you? I hope this tool helps and I'd love to hear what your goals are for these areas of your life! My husband and I are planning on sitting down and chatting about our goals for 2018 over the weekend, and I'll be sharing some of them with you on the blog next week! Feel free to share some of your goals in the comments below, or contact me above and we can set some together!

And as always if you need help with your health and wellness goals, I am one click away! My 2018 Your BEST Year nutrition package sales end TODAY. That's right, TODAY. If you want to make me your personal dietitian for 8 or 16 weeks, email daily, and get a meal plan and sessions with me to make sure you stay on track with your goals, these packages are perfect for you!! And as a heads up, I am planning on keeping these packages going year round, but the prices WILL go up after today, so if you want to snag them at their discounted rate, do so now and we can book your first session and get you on track to make 2018 your BEST year yet!