A party in a pan

Will had an early breakfast meeting this morning, so I was up a couple minutes earlier than usual, which made a huge difference in the relaxed-ness of our morning!  I had time to make oatmeal and eggs, take a shower (which I shared with both girls), get everybody dressed with hair done, get snacks packed, remember show and tell item (a whale bath toy this week) and walk out the door at just the right time.  I can't believe how much difference 5-10 minutes made.  Almost enough to convince me to get up earlier every day.

The oatmeal I made (with lots of stirring help from girls) was your basic berry oatmeal.

Look at me, getting all fancy and only putting part of the bowl in the picture!

Now you'll never know that the other side of the bowl was piled with chocolate covered raisins!  And you just thought I was being artsy.

I kid, I kid.

Charlotte and I spent our morning visiting Abigail and Carolyn.  They have a sweet little playground steps from their house, and we checked it out today.

Abigail, always on the move!

We practiced synchronized sliding

Charlotte had a dramatic dismount

Then it was time to fill shoes with mulch...

...and pretend to be snakes

I had our last colorful hard-boiled egg for a morning snack.

Ok, I promise to stop playing with Easter egg pictures now :-)

Once I collected Emily we went to Target and then Payless looking for flower girl shoes for Krista's wedding next week.  Target is usually my go-to store for cute kid shoes, but it has been fairly useless for my purposes so far this season.  I really didn't want to have to go to a second store with all of our tummies running on empty, but it didn't go as badly as I thought it would, and we walked out of the mall with shoes so at least that's off my checklist.

I made myself a big veggie salad for lunch in a very classy container.  I had no real theme today other than "use up the ricotta salata before any more orange mold grows on it".

Greens, red pepper, cucumbers, grated carrots, hummus blob, avocado, ricotta salata, balsamic vinegar

I had several worker guys come over today, one to pick up my mantle and take it to be made wider and one to look at our swamp of a backyard and see if we can figure out how to fix the drainage issues.  It broke up the afternoon and made it go by quickly, but not so quickly that I didn't get a chance to make a banana peanut flour smoothie!  Its boring whiteness belies the deliciousness contained therein.

1 banana, vanilla almond milk, nonfat plain greek yogurt, splash of vanilla extract, 1/4 cup peanut flour, 1/2 Tbsp peanut butter, ice, 2 drops stevia

I was going to sprinkle it with some fiber cereal but my urge to drink it right away won out and I enjoyed it unadorned.

Dinner was exciting and quick!  I already had some leftover rice laying around from yesterday and I had some pre-cooked sausages and a bag of mixed frozen seafood from TJ's so this "shortcut paella" came together in about 20 minutes flat.  I didn't have any saffron though, so I cheated with turmeric.  I heard on the radio the other day that turmeric can kill cancer cells though so at least I was still getting awesome health benefits, even if it didn't taste QUITE as good as it could've.  It sure looked pretty though.

Paella - a party in a pan

 After dinner the girls were practically bouncing off the walls, so we decided to go on a family walk to expend some energy.  Which, of course, had to be a family jog because that's what we have to do every time now apparently.

Today was an off day for me exercise-wise so I didn't mind jogging a bit.  It made me work up a hunger for my dessert mix though.

Yum.  

 Will is BACK at work now for awhile, so I plan to go upstairs and read some more of The Hunger Games before bed. It blows Will's mind that I am re-reading a book at all, let alone one that I first read less than 6 months ago, but since it hasn't been working out for me to go see the movie I am simply contenting myself with the next best thing!