Avocado Egg Salad

I don't know why, but i was in the mood for some egg salad yesterday. I've never been an egg salad fan, I'm more into chicken salad. I'm also not a mayo fan, and usually make my chicken salad with hummus.

ALSO, I think I've boiled eggs only a handful of times because I don't really ever "crave" hard boiled eggs. Just not my thing, ya know?! Well yesterday was a different story. So here is the recipe for what I had for lunch.

Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich

Ingredients

1 1/2 avocados

4 hard boiled eggs

salt

garlic powder

Directions

1. Chop up your hard boiled eggs on plate. 

2. Cut up & smash avocado in bowl. 

3. Put eggs in with avocado, sprinkle on some salt & garlic powder and mix. DONE

I loaded the avocado egg salad on top of 2 pieces of whole wheat toast, spread on some honey mustard, and topped with spinach. Talk about a protein packed sammy! YUM

Close up!

 

Father's Day 2012

Father's Day weekend has past but i couldn't NOT (double negative?) post about it! Check out these awesome cards I made for Angelo & my dad. I found this idea at BITS OF EVERYTHING. My dad is a HUGE chocolate/candy fan so I knew he'd love it. Angelo isn't much of a candy man and his candy most likely won't even get eaten but I still had to make it. ;) They both loved them!

It was a wonderful, relaxing Sunday and we had a cookout at my parent's house. My mom/dad smoked some ribs and grilled some veggies, I made broccoli salad, corn casserole, and homemade mac-n-cheese (per Angelo's request), and my sister-in-law made brownies (for Angelo) & carrot cake (for my dad). Everything was absolutely delish, but sadly I did not get any pics of the food spread! :(

Sophia represented daddy with her "I love daddy" shirt 

Hope everyone has just an amazing Father's Day weekend!

Love, 

Alex

Teeth & Graduating

Today is one of those days where I just wanna sit on the couch and catch up on my DVR and browse the interwebs! Last night's 4 mile run was a doosey & my body is feeling a little achy, so I'm taking a rest day today on the exercise routine. It might just be the heat but I'm going to listen to my body. I think it's telling me to give it a rest and drink up lots of water today. 


I've cut down on blog writing since Angelo & I have started our own company. The work load has been increasing steadily and I'm in charge of the website & all accounting/money stuff, so it's been a lot of trips to the bank & car auction. We really aren't home all that much and if we are I'm cleaning, cooking, or playing with Sophia. 
I have to give Angelo TONS of credit here because he really is a genius when it comes to all things car parts. Another reason I just lub him so much! ;)  


On Tuesday Sophia turned 10 months old! 

AH! Time to REALLY start planning her birthday party instead of pinning pictures on Pinterest and daydreaming. I can't believe it's less than 2 months away! That really messes with my emotions!! 
And if that isn't enough, yesterday Sophia graduated Level 2 at Gymboree. She was obviously super excited and I FINALLY got a picture of her two teeth!

It's become obvious that she has outgrown level 2 and basically runs crawls circles around everyone. 

Look at her go!

Love, 

Alex

Kid's Nutrition

Two of my boy cousins, aged 11 & 16, have been staying with my parents this past week, and I've been helping entertain them as much as I can. They live about 2 hours away and have been on summer break for a couple of weeks. My Aunt & Uncle asked my mom if they could come spend a week here since their summer camp doesn't start until the end of June. 

It's been fun just talking to them and observing how they act & what they eat and it reminds me of my middle school and early high school years. The girlfriend talks and what's "cool". 

My younger cousin has the worst view of food in the world, but I'm pretty sure there's tons of 11 year olds out there just like him, so I shouldn't be so surprised. His main source of "fuel" has been macaroni & cheese and candy and he won't even try anything he isn't familiar with. Sweet potato fries, turkey burgers, quinoa, etc., it's all "ew" to him. I'll be eating something like a handful of almonds and say "Hey Jake, you want a few almonds?" just to see his facial expression. The older one is a little bit more adventurous and will almost try anything. 

My parents and I are kinda "whole foodies' so obviously didn't have much junk food in the house. My cousins were like "what the heck do we eat?!" So my mom & I took them to the grocery store and they filled the cart with Oreos, Doritos, Kraft mac&cheese, and pop-tarts. I think the healthiest thing in the cart was a bag of pistachios (which doesn't even have a dent in it 4 days later). 

It really makes me wonder and think about the value the education of nutrition and what our kids are being taught, if anything! I know I can't rely on society to teach my children good nutrition, with all the McDonalds commercials on tv & radio. I really hope I am instilling a good, healthy, "real,whole foods are best" image in Sophia or any of our other future kid's minds. Right now Sophia is a wonderful eater and eats a  lot of green beans, quinoa, carrots, sweet potatoes, and fruits. Her favorite food I think is avocado. She must take after me and my love for the cado! :)

I know later on she will obviously like some junk food & I'm not going to totally ban it but I want her to look at that stuff as a "treat" and not something you would eat everyday. 

I wish I had taken a picture of the shopping cart that day because I know if I had a picture of one from when I was in middle school, it probably looked pretty similar. Sad, but true. I hate posts without pictures so I leave you with this one.

Source

Love, 

Alex

Things I'm lovin'

Kombucha - I usually roll with the Grape, but I picked up a few Passionberry to try out. I've been enjoying them all week.

Avocados - can't get enough! Every burger we grilled this past weekend had some avocado on it with a side of chips & homemade guacamole. I top off many of my sandwiches & salads with avocado, but also enjoy it solo. Sophia is also a fan ;)


Peanut Butter & Banana sandwiches & smoothies

Snuggle Time

This new-to-me Jalapeno Greek Yogurt Dip I found at Costco

The many different gardens growing at my parent's house. They are currently growing sweet potatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, & red peppers.

Random sleepy times for Sophia - this was her after eating dinner on Monday night. 

MDW 2012

Its already the weekend and I'm still getting over the lovely 3-day weekend we just had! This week has flew by!
For Memorial Day weekend we really wanted to go out of town for a short vacay but we had offered our services to help a friend move on Saturday. I don't know exactly how much I helped having Sophia with me but I did help organize and unpack kitchen stuff and I also put their bed frame together (Handy Alex, I am) while Sophia crawled around scooping the new apartment out.

The rest of the weekend looked a lot like this:

Fun in the sun

and feasts! 

Turkey burgers, baked beans, macaroni salad, coleslaw, and corn-on-the-cob! YUM

I should have taken a picture of a beer & pina colada because we also had a few of those over the long weekend. 

Sunday we were half way to St.Pete Beach when it started pouring rain. Our friends were in front of us in their Jeep (with the top down) and so we quickly made a Uturn and headed back to Tampa. We ended up at our friend's new apartment pool (the one we helped move into the day before), then headed to a place Crabby Bill's on the water for dinner & pina coladas, then to another friend's house to end the day playing in their pool! Lots of pool playin' going on.

Monday we had planned to make another attempt at the beach but the morning was pretty gloomy, so we stayed home and grilled some burgers on the grill, then went to Menchie's for a fro-yo date to top off the weekend. 

Love, 

Alex

Drink your Aloe

Hey! Just sitting here enjoying some Aloe. I love the little bits of aloe in this drink. I purchased a couple of these at the Italian market on Sunday. It's actually really good & a little sweet, sweetened with real sugar.

Last night for girl's night we met at the mall food court so everyone could choose what they wanted. I got Chicken Kitchen which is kind of like Chipolte in the sense that they serve bowls with rice, beans, grilled chicken, and whatever you want on it. There was only 3 of us and turned out to be a short girl's night. On my way home my sweet tooth kicked me in the face (I crave sweets when I'm feeling under the weather) so I texted Angelo to have a cup of ice cream ready for me. He did...he's a keeper ;) 

This morning was a plate of fruit (mango, strawberry, kiwi) with the last of yet another box of Steel Cut Oats and my reg latte. 

I started to clean out Sophia's closet after breakfast when Sophia was taking her morning stroll through the childproofed house. I filled an entire storage container with clothes that don't fit her anymore and started filling another :( I hung up a lot of 12months clothes that have been sitting in bags at the bottom of her closet. 

Right now Sophia is napping and when she wakes up we will go on a run then the grocery store to pick up some ingredients to make a homemade marinara sauce for the new-to-me pasta we bought from the Italian market. Angelo bought a container of "REAL" Parmesan cheese and keeps reminding me that he needs pasta to go with it. 

Hope you all have a great Tuesday!

Love, 

Alex

What happened to the ABC's?!

O is for Onsie
When Sophia was born & super tiny she wore a lot of onsies because they were super easy. Newborns go through so many diapers and spitup a lot, so onsies are a MUST. We would go through 3-4 outfit changes a day at the very beginning. Now, Sophia only really wear onsies to sleep because all the other outfits just look too cute!