some bits and pieces from last week

         

ah, can’t believe it’s tuesday again/already! even though my full time job is staying home with the kids, i still need to ease myself into this working mode by the end of a weekend. i’ve noticed that i am almost always on time to storytime or whatever morning events during the week, with both kids and myself properly dressed and snacks neatly packed. but once i have gary around to help out on weekends, i don’t work as efficiently and all of a sudden i can’t get dressed or tie up my hair with dee whining and holding onto my pant leg. funny how my mentality influences my capability like that.

last week was quite an eventful week. dee had fever on and off throughout the week due to teething (a never-ending road), zoey got sick and had a fever for two days, and gary came down with a tonsil infection almost right after her. luckily i feel totally fine, and zoey is pretty much back to her normal self now with a bit of a runny nose. gary isn’t really getting better and has started to experience some side effects from the meds. we are trying to look on the positive side, though (that it’s making him eat less! hehe ;)

despite feeling under the weather, we still squeezed in some playdate fun with mama’s friends last week (and because we weren’t supposed to hang out with our little friends.) we took auntie jessie to our favorite places at university village one day and met up over coffee with auntie janine and uncle henry from chicago.

zoey’s been really into photography lately. she took that self-portrait on the bottom left and also the one of me holding coffee. she so gladly takes pictures of me which makes me feel like i’m the most special person in the world ;-) oh and we got a new dresser for our living room!! woohoo. i told gary i wanted something that has drawers so we can hide all the toys and random things we have. it makes it easier for zoey to clean up too. i don’t know why we waited so long to get one? it was like a dream come true. oh, and one thing that i’ve started doing somewhat regularly lately is to make or bake a batch of something for breakfast for the upcoming week. last sunday night i modified a pancake/waffle recipe and made it gluten-free. it turned out delicious and i didn’t miss whole wheat flour at all. not too sweet, and i’m glad the cornmeal didn’t take over the overall texture. here is the recipe for those who might be interested:

[wet ingredient]
1 tablespoon extra light olive oil
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon of agave nectar (or honey)
1 cup of water (or any type of milk)
3 egg whites

[dry ingredient]
1.5 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
3/4 cup brown rice flour

in a bowl, mix all the wet ingredients except for the egg whites. in another bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. mix the wet and the dry, be careful not to overmix. beat the egg whites until it’s stiff and fold it into the batter. i made pancakes out of this but i’m sure you can easily use this for waffles too :)

the past 2 weeks

       

Okay, so if there is something that I don’t ever think I’d do in my life, and if you know me well enough you can’t be surprised, is giving up all wheat products. Because this girl right here loves her bread. I am always the one picking up leftover pizza crust from Gary and asking for refill for our bread basket when we eat out. Gary and I are pretty conscious of healthy eating (thanks to the kids). we don’t really eat any simple carbs and we try to keep our consumption of dairy and meat as low as possible. But something still didn’t feel right for my body, and for a long time I didn’t know what it was (or maybe I was in denial all along.) But kinda like sleep training your baby, you don’t really have the courage or urgency to commit to it until you get really frustrated of being tired all the time. So two weeks ago I made a decision to go gluten free, with kind of an unusual determination that surprised myself. I was so sick of feeling sluggish and heavy and bloated all the time, not to mention the chronic battle with poor digestion (with pretty much everything I eat). so I started with what I knew about eliminating gluten, which wasn’t very much, and just took it from there. I was planning on trying this out for a week. But now I don’t think if I’d ever go back because going gluten-free has done some amazing unexpected wonders to my body – all the symptoms I was experiencing before are miraculously all gone! I don’t feel depressed as much anymore, and overall, I feel clean. I am not really sure how to put this in words, but I am truly thankful.

::a side note: we’ve been eating lots of homemade popcorn lately. They come in a little bag from Trader Joe’s (organic!) and we like to pop them in a little grape seed oil on the stovetop, then season it lightly with sea salt and pepper. It’s, um, delicious! I don’t know what I was doing all these years missing out on this deliciousness :o)

::another side note: finally caught zoey’s story time on tape. there are actually 4 parts of the whole storytime but this one is my favorite. (after she finished the story, she stood up and said to me and dee “Good job today” and proceeded to “dancing time”)

::yet another side note: this is totally unrelated to the post, but Zoey randomly drew a family portrait on her easel this evening. Black is me, green is Gary (daddy needs to have a big head), blue is Dee Dee, and yellow is herself. And when she was finished, Gary asked her to draw a banana next to all four of us (?! aaaand don’t ask me why). I don’t know how 3 year olds are supposed to draw but I am in LOVE with this. I took too many pictures of it already and just had to blog it, too :)
our babygirl looking so grown up::