Hello and happy new year!
I’m coming to you from the frozen tundra that is DC this week – hello, snow!
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Brrrr! It has been quite the winter wonderland out there.
Riese was SO excited to play in the snow, make a snowman, and go sledding. She also loves eating snow – we always remind her to avoid any yellow snow! 😉
Less fun was that the snow was so heavy it actually broke about 4 large branches of our holly tree off in our backyard! Poor tree.
It also knocked out our internet for a full day, but thankfully our power stayed on.
I always love snow the day it snows and then I’m over it and want it to melt right away – anyone else?
The snow and ice have really lingered this week with the cold temps we’ve had, and then we got more last night! Riese’s school has been closed for the entire week, womp womp.
Anyway! Since I last checked in, Riese got a princess dress for Christmas and she has worn it nonstop ever since and there is now glitter all over every inch of our house…
Sidenote – file “buy princess dresses” under things Matt and I said we wouldn’t do as parents but now definitely do because it’s her most favorite thing ever.
(Nothing against super fun, sparkly dresses, it’s more that I’m not excited about perpetuating the whole “the thing that matters most about you is your looks/you have to look perfect to be good and accepted” type messaging that girls get a lot in our society.)
We spent Christmas morning here at our home just the 4 of us, and then late morning we drove over to my parent’s house to do the rest of Christmas with my parents and my brother, his wife, and their 1 year old.
We had a yummy Christmas lunch!
And relaxed the rest of the day! It was really nice and low key.
On the day after Christmas, I had a nice treat: a run date with my friend Sokphal!
She lives in Seattle now but was in town visiting family for the holidays and I was so glad to see her, and to run with a friend – it had been a really long time since I’d had a run date!
We had the most gorgeous weather for our run date – in the low 60’s and sunny – and we met at her old apartment by Iwo Jima in Rosslyn and ran into the city and back for old time’s sake.
We covered about 4 miles and I’d say we ran about half of it and walked the rest, which felt good to me as I’m still easing back into running again.
It was fun to be in the city again for the first time in awhile!
We had a couple more low key days at home and then on the 28th we drove up to Pittsburgh area to spend the rest of the week with Matt’s parents.
We had a really nice visit – we got to see some local friends, I made it out to a some yoga classes and a pilates reformer class, and we of course had a lot of good food, too.
New Years Eve started like this which was a treat – Wes was sooooo tired and I knew that letting him snooze on me so close to bedtime was probably a bad idea (because then he wasn’t tired enough for actual bedtime and fought it), but I did it anyway because I don’t usually get to hold him anymore when he sleeps and it’s so cozy.
We went over to a friend’s place for a bit after the kids went down but definitely didn’t make it until midnight. #old
On New Years day, my father in law made us a feast! Pork, potatoes, collard greens, sauerkraut, black eyed peas (for luck in the new year!), string beans, and cornbread.
It was all really good!
We capped off our visit to Matt’s parents with a special treat: Matt and I went out on a run date!
We hadn’t run together in a whole year, since last Christmas! It was fun to get back out there together. We did 2.5 miles of consistent running which is my longest non-stop postpartum run yet!
The distance was just right for both of us – Matt unfortunately has been dealing with some plantar fasciitis from playing soccer and it’s taking longer to heal than he’d hoped – any tips for him are welcomed!
One last thing of note before I sign off: Wes has officially started solids and my goodness he is LOVING food. This boy can eat – he’s taking down a lot more actual food than Riese was at this age which has been interesting!
We are doing a baby led weaning approach with him like we did with Riese.
So far his favorite food is plain full fat Greek yogurt or breastmilk mixed with nut butter (we’ve tried peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, and sunflower seed butter – knocking out all those allergens!).
We just load the food on his little silicone spoon, hand it to him, and he goes to town.
We’ve also given him some finger foods which he mostly ends up playing with/throwing on the floor rather than actually eating, but that’s good for exploration and fine motor skill development too!
We’ve tried scrambled eggs, little pieces of cooked salmon, peas that I smushed between my fingers before giving them to him, zucchini cooked super soft and in tiny pieces, pieces of toast (finger-sized so he can grab them and gnaw on them) smeared with a little hummus and hemp seeds, avocado, banana, etc.
I had forgotten just how messy it is when they first start eating – the dishes and clean up situation is intense – but it’s been really fun, too! He LOVES being at the table with us. <3
I hope you all stayed safe and healthy this holiday season!
And in case you missed it and are also craving plant-based meals after the holiday season, check out Tuesday’s blog post: 20 Meatless Meals Everyone Will Love.
For those of you who are parents, what’s something you said before you had kids you wouldn’t do but now most definitely do? 🙂
