Welp, we made it, friends – it’s 2021! I hope you enjoyed the little look down 2020 memory lane via my most popular blog posts from 2020 blog post!
Even though closing the door on 2020 and starting 2021 changes absolutely nothing, it’s still kind of nice mentally to have that year behind us. And it’s also exciting to be in the year that we will complete our family. <3
We made it back to DC from PA (where we were for pretty much all of December with Matt’s fam) last week on Wednesday. It’s nice to be back – the snow was pretty but I was very ready to be able to go for walks without snow pants and in warmer temps. 😉
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Speaking of which – walking in the snow is such a workout! We did a little one mile loop around a frozen lake a couple times and I was so exhausted afterward!
Beautiful out there.
We had some yummy meals before leaving PA – one was a turkey bolognese spaghetti night with a side salad:
And another night Matt grilled us some salmon, sweet potatoes, and Matt’s dad made his delicious caesar salad. The homemade dressing is so good, I have to get his recipe!
Since getting home on Wednesday we’ve just been laying low. We have been doing a ton of stuff around the house, doing a billion loads of laundry, putting away Christmas decorations, I’ve been getting some work done, etc.
We also ordered Riese a big girl bed, which will come next week! We wanted to get her out of the crib sooner than later so it would feel less like a direct “the new baby is stealing my bed” type situation.
Next steps are to slowly start getting baby boy’s room together… right now it’s a guest room, so we need to sell the dresser and bed in there, move the crib over, and get him a little dresser and something to hold his books/toys. It’s a quite small room, like Riese’s, so we need to be smart about how we organize everything!
Anyway! Back to food. I got a rotisserie chicken for us when we got home and we had that for a bunch of meals with a brown rice/lentil mix (one of those 90 second microwave rice packages), string beans, guacamole, black beans, and hot sauce.
I ended up having the leftover rice and beans with a fried egg on top for breakfast the next day. When in doubt, throw an egg on top!
I’ve also been really into eggs in my oatmeal – that’s one of my favorite tricks for making high protein oatmeal. We had this a lot in PA because it’s easy to make a few servings worth on the stove. You can’t taste the eggs, they just make the oats creamy/pillowy!
My last breakfast of 2020 was avocado toast (<- lots of topping ideas in that post), though. I have this at least a couple times a week, usually as my “second breakfast” mid-morning. It’s just so yummy and easy!
As for New Year’s Eve, it was extremely low key – we stayed home and I had a super hard time deciding whether to wear leggings, sweatpants, or pajamas to NYE on our couch. 😉 Crazy to think just last NYE we were in Aspen!
I ended up deciding on sweatpants, in case you’re wondering, and it felt like the right call. In a turn of events that surprised neither of us, Matt made it to midnight and I went to bed at 9:30. Sorry I couldn’t hang, Matt!
For dinner on NYE, I was testing out a new recipe that I’ll be sharing on the blog on Wednesday – Instant Pot Vegetable Soup! It’s kind of like my Easy Minestrone Soup recipe, but minus the pasta and made in the IP of course. Stay tuned, it was yummy!
And in the meantime, if you got an Instant Pot (<- affiliate link to the one I have, 6 quart version) for Christmas or already have one and want recipe ideas right now, check out this post: Healthy Instant Pot Recipes.
We had the soup with a side of grilled cheese and it was yummy and easy. The leftovers have been good, too – we mixed them up and added some of the leftover rotisserie chicken (<- more ideas on what to do with leftover rotisserie chicken) plus some pasta to make it heartier.
It was rainy on January 1 so we hibernated and did housework all day and played with Riese – we got this hand me down “Gumball Grab” board game from a neighbor whose kids outgrew it and Riese is really liking it. It’s fun that she’s old enough to play games like this with us now!
She’s in hardcore “Three-nager” mode right now though, y’all, and it’s a LOT. Sooooo many tantrums (so intense they literally sound like exorcisms, not joking) and so much whining/sass.
I’m nervous about going back into the workweek situation with no childcare and no naps. I know we need to try to implement a quiet time routine in place of nap but we haven’t made it happen yet… need to steel ourselves first for the battle of wills because she does NOT want to stay in there by herself during the day.
Anyway, yesterday was lovely weather-wise so we got out for a little family walk outing in Old Town, Alexandria. The sunset was amazing, isn’t this gorgeous?
It was fun wandering around along the waterfront, too. It was 50 and partly sunny and so nice to get some fresh air!
Matt and I attempted to get in a run yesterday (with Riese in the jogging stroller) before our Old Town outing but it didn’t go super well – I was really hoping that I’d be able to keep running longer into this pregnancy than I did with Riese, since it’s winter vs. summer for my second trimester this time and the cold makes it way more manageable, but the second we started running it just didn’t feel good.
I kept getting what felt like a stitch in my belly and it just didn’t feel right, so I stopped. I was feeling pretty down and frustrated to be honest because mentally I could have really used some endorphins. I’m jealous of those who are able to run during their whole pregnancies but need to accept that at 20 weeks now running is just not what my body wants me to do.
Sidenote if you are running right now, though, I have an app rec: Just Draw It. It’s a really cool route planner/distance finder for runners, walkers, bikers, etc. and you literally draw on a map with your fingers to find the distance. It’s really cool and free, too. I like it better than Map My Run!
Anyway, at least there are a lot of other fitness options available to me right now, though, like walking, hiking, at-home yoga, strength training, modified boot camps, etc. And Matt and I actually just bit the bullet and after months of thinking about it we ended up getting on the wait list to do the 30 day free Peleton bike trial at home. I’m excited… it comes in mid-February. Wish it was sooner but it will be fun to try it out and see if it feels like a good fit for us, because we are going to need something to get us through this winter without in-person fitness classes an option and outdoor cardio options more hit or miss with winter weather!
And that’s all I have for you today, my friends! Lots of all over the place rambling to kick off the new year.
By the way, some of you on Instagram have been requesting more Intuitive Eating-related blog post content to counteract all the diet messaging now that it’s the new year, so I wanted to re-share a couple of my older posts that might be helpful/interesting as we continue into January!
