It’s picture day at Lucy’s school today and I didn’t even know!  Good thing she always looks cute!  She did have quite the carrot, kale, apple, and lemon juice mustache.  I had wiped her face but not to picture taking quality.  No worries, I cleaned her up before the pictures.

Speaking of juice:

Both times I had juice last week it made me nauseous.  Not this week.  This was delish!  Lu LOVED it too.  I never thought a 17 month old would like kale juice but I was wrong.

I stopped at Jamba and got a cranberry cherry pecan oatmeal for $1.09 (with my giftcard!).  Next week is the LAST week of $1 oatmeal on Wednesdays 🙁

(um, my camera is a little too good…look at all those wrinkles on my hand!  ACK!)

When I got to work I was a foaming machine.  I made my best foam yet and had too much foam for my cup.  I saved it though and have been adding it in as I drink my tea latte.  Even though I drink decaf, I SWEAR this wakes me up.

You can see the little whole in the foam where I added some of the extra.

Extra foam.

I heard back from the GI doctor and my blood test for Celiac Disease came back negative.  That’s good news!  I have an appointment with the Naturopath tomorrow where we’ll go over my blood tests and formulate a plan to hopefully get me feeling better.  I’m very excited!

I had a hard time returning from vacation today.  It felt like I had been gone from work for much longer than just 2 days.  I guess that’s good and bad-it means I had a good vacation but it also means that today was kind of difficult.

I forgot to photograph much of my food today too-opps!

The first thing I forgot was some yogurt with my Mom’s granola for my morning snack.  It basically looked just like this:

For lunch I had some lentil soup (from Trader Joes) with garlic naan also from TJs.

For my afternoon snack I had half a pear and 2 Ryvita crackers.  You didn’t miss much by me not photographing those 😉

I went to Whole Foods on my way home to do the shopping for this week.  I got out there for $88.21!!!  I usually spend $100 or more on groceries so this was huge.  In fact everything I bought (veggies, fruits, meats, canned goods, etc) was local except my bananas and my Larabars.  I even got local avocados!!!

When I got home I made veggies with pancetta over pasta.  I also got some beautiful salmon on sale that I broiled.

My favorite ingredient as of late?

Organic frozen veggies.  I use these all the time to boost veggies in Lucy’s meals and I’ve started to use them in our meals.  It make dinner faster and they are delicious!

Look at my beautius salmon!

I just covered it in lemon juice and salt and pepper and then baked in the oven for 10 minutes at 400*.  It was cooked perfectly.  Mr. Picky even said so 😉

The final product?

It was seriously delicious.  I added some sunflower seeds.  I thought they were pine nuts and when I put them on top, they turned out to be sunflower seeds.  It still tasted good :)  The pancetta (not surprisingly) was the star.  Shaun and I both gave it a 3. 

All I really did was cut up 2 pieces of pancetta and throw it in a pan with 3 cloves of garlic chopped.  Once the pancetta was browned I threw in some sliced mushrooms and some chicken broth and covered it for 3 minutes.  Then I added the frozen veggies and steamed them until just done.  I put it on top of pasta with some shredded asiago and nuts (pine nuts would be really good).  Dinner in about 15 minutes!

I walked into my office today to this:

My Mom got me that orchid in November for my birthday and it bloomed again!  I’ve never had an orchid re-bloom for me.  They always die-so this is exciting!

My table at home also has these:

My sweet husband bought them for me.

Tulips, Orchids, and Peonies are my absolute favorite flowers.

Today’s eats thus far?

I’m so predictable 😉

In case you missed it, check out the adorable pictures from my weekend.

…tomorrow.  I am beat.  It’s hard traveling by yourself with a 16 (almost 17!) month old.  It was a blast though.  I have hundreds of pictures!  In the meantime, here’s some of my favorites!

Tonight we celebrated Chinese New Year at Oriental Express.  The food was so very good.  It’s $25 per person and they bring out 10 courses of yummy food.  Unfortunately there isn’t a menu online, nor was there one at our table so I have to guess at what I ate!

First we started with shark fin soup-which sounded really scary but was actually quite good.

Next, they brought out a “cold platter” that had 4 different offerings.  A seafood fruit salad, a pate, candied walnuts, and tongue spiced with Chinese five spice.  It was all delicious.

Next up was onion cake. I’m used to onion cake being hot, this was cold but still good.  I do prefer it hot.

The fourth course was Peking Duck which they prepared tableside.

I’m not a huge fan of duck, but this was truly yummy.

Fifth was a Portobello mushroom with crab and bok choy.

Sixth was spicy shrimp.  These were a little too fishy for me (shrimp usually is) but they were good.

The seventh course was the star.  It’s not much to look at but it was absolutely amazing.  Longevity Noodles.  I could have eaten the ENTIRE plate.

Up eighth was the prettiest dish of the night-Chicken with vegetables in a noodle basket.

The ninth course was sweet and sour fish-this was surprisingly yummy.

And last, but not least, chocolate cake and ice cream.  I didn’t get a very good picture because Lu attacked this.

Speaking of Lu.  She LOVED it.

There was a violinist who came around and the girls loved the music. 

I dressed Lu in her skinny jeans tonight (!) and they just didn’t look right with her tennis shoes.  Mimi insisted that we stop at the Boise Co-op to pick her up some shoes.  They were having a big sale on See Kai Run shoes.  She got the Samanthas.

Look at these pants!

It’s only 8 o’clock California time (9 Boise time) and I am BEAT.  Goodnight all!

We got into Boise at 11:45 and came straight to my sister’s house to lunch!  The two cousins had spaghetti.  So far, I’ve only gotten pictures of them eating, but that’s because they ate lunch and then Lu went down for a nap.  Once she gets up, the cuteness will abound.

In the meantime, here’s some lunch pictures.

Tessa says, “What Aunt Bug?”

Isn’t the birthday girl ADORABLE?

Lu got a big girl fork, she felt VERY special. (Look at her poor tired eyes)

Tessa decided to share with Cousin Lucy.

That’s all I’ve got so far.  Tonight we’re going out for Chinese New Year so that should be TONS of fun.  I can’t wait!

What do you think of the new design?  If the blog doesn’t look different to you, hit F5.  Now, what do you think?  My extremely talented friend Ann redesigned the blog for me.  Ann used to be the graphic designer for Shaun’s company but left to get her Masters at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.  When Shaun saw the redesign he said, “She’s @!#$-ing talented eh?”  I’d say so!  Thank you SO MUCH Ann!  Pssst…she’s available if you want help!

Now to the eats, right?

Lunch was a Chinese Chicken Salad from Grab ‘N Go at work.  I brought leftover shrimp and grits but I was craving a salad, so a salad it was!

At 3, I had a team meeting with Veuve Clicquot and port!  Plus there was an assortment of snacks and goodies.  I had some crackers with baba ganoush and a homemade persimmon cookie (dairy free) or two.  That’s my kind of meeting!  We were actually discussing stuff so I didn’t take any pictures.

Once home I had to pack.  Shaun has made me promise that I’ll never try to cook the day before leaving on a trip-because I get too stressed out.  I had planned to have leftovers but Shaun wanted to take his ladies out for an early Valentines Day dinner.  We went to a local Italian restaurant Pomaroma.  I ordered roasted chicken but they didn’t have it.  The only other thing on the menu (besides a salad) that didn’t have dairy was a burger.  A burger with pancetta and roasted peppers it was!

I took off the lettuce and onion.  I really don’t like lettuce on sandwiches or burgers-isn’t that strange?

Lu had sketti and meatballs:

And bread:

And Daddy got the stank face again today:

Lucy also brought us home a Valentine!

I love it.  Like alot.

Alrighty, it’s off to watch some Survivor (YAY!).  I won’t be on until late tomorrow since I’m traveling.  See you all tomorrow.

My child has perfected her Stank Face. 

Exhibit A-directed at Mommy:

Elaina assures me that this is patented Chelsea and that she looks just like pissed off me in this picture.

Exhibit B-directed at Daddy:

If you’re thinking, “Wow, it looks like Lucy has a carrot, beet, apple, pepper, lemon juice mustache,” you’d be right.

Mommy made some juice:

And Lu Bug loved it and didn’t want it to end.  Unfortunately, I did not love it.  It made me nauseous again :(  I learned though!  I did not continue to drink the juice, I dumped it and got a bagel instead.

A Noah’s pumpernickel with hummus.  Next time, I’ll skip the hummus.

When I got to work I had a (SUPRISE!) soy tea latte.  My bubble were a little big today.

And now it’s off to work for the weekend!

I forgot to take a picture of lunch-oops.  I had some leftover spaghetti with some brussels sprouts from last night.

At 4, I had some coconut milk yogurt with my Mom’s granola.

The Pina Colada flavor was just okay.  My favorite is still Vanilla.

Tonight for dinner I made some Shepherd’s Pie.

It was a hit.  Shaun loved it, Lu loved it, and I loved it.  Now there are leftovers for Shaun for when I’m away.

Speaking of being away-I need to pack!!!  I’m going to Boise for my niece’s 1st birthday.  We’re having a tea party :)  It should be a lot of fun.  I love getting the 2 cousins together.  The two of them in tea dresses is going to be too much to handle.  My Mom bought Lu’s dress and I haven’t seen it yet.  Lu isn’t much of a dress girl but now that she’s walking, maybe that will change 🙂 Don’t you worry, there will be MANY pictures!

I had to go in for another blood test today.  Hopefully I’m done for awhile after this one.  Today’s was to see if I have Celiac Disease-which I highly doubt but it’s always good to be sure :)  The test takes 7 days so I won’t know until late next week at the earliest. 

The blood test meant no exercise for me and no breakfast until 9.  When I did get breakfast, I hightailed over to Jamba for $1 Oatmeal Wednesdays.  They were hopping!  They made about 10 bowls of oatmeal while I was there. 

I took mine out to my parked car and listened to the radio while I ate.

The bananas were super green and you could tell.  But overall, it was delish.

When I got into work I had a soy tea latte.  Decaf English Breakfast this time.

My foam abilities are getting MUCH better!

Alrighty, time to go earn my paycheck.