Jennifer's 365 Project

In the afternoon after Quinn's 2 1/2 hour long nap, we headed over to Heritage Park. They have a nice pond with ducks (and lots of duck poop), a path that loops around the pond and new playground equipment. Quinn especially liked the blue car there.
When we got home I made the next Blue Apron recipe for the week - Chicken and Buttermilk Biscuits. The biscuits didn't come out very pretty when I made them, but they were super tasty.

The recipe called for mayo and I absolutely refuse to eat mayo, so I substituted it with Greek yogurt which I suspect made the sandwich a little odd tasting. But not terrible. The collard greens and carrots slaw was tastier than I would have thought (I'm not a fan of vinegar or vinaigrette). Way too much vegetable for just me to eat, which Chris does not eat either of those. But tasty.

Quinn would not eat the vegetables either.

I liked the meatballs from last night more, but tonight's recipe was still pretty tasty. We even have leftovers. They sent chicken breasts and Chris and I usually eat chicken tenders, so we have a whole breast left over between the two of us.

Yesterday a shipment from Blue Apron came. I had a coupon for a free box so I used it about a week back. It's a service that basically puts together ingredients for meals and then ships you the food. Its probably perfect for couples who both work, enjoy some cooking, and have a fair amount of disposable income (subscriptions start at 60/week which is for 3 meals that feed 2 people).

So for dinner tonight after we got back from the zoo and running around, I started in on dinner.
The recipe I picked to cook first was Beef Albondigas. The first thing each recipe has you do is prepare everything at once. Chop all the vegetables, mix all the sauces, etc. Usually when I'm cooking I do it while I go and sometimes that leads to me burning something on the stove while I'm busy chopping up a veggie. Doing all the prep work ahead of time is a good habit I know I should get into.

Once of the nice things is that everything shipped is portioned to the meals for that week. So they sent a small amount of parsley, not a giant bunch of it that I wouldn't use all of. I really like that only because it's hard to get small enough amounts of some vegetables. Chris just doesn't like a lot of them but a whole bunch of spinach is too much for me to go through in a week.

Quinn was curious. Very, very curious. He's been helping me stir pancake batter and other things so he really wanted to help. But he's not quite old enough to chop things with knives.
Dinner came out much better than I thought. The recipe had a lot of onion in it and admittedly I picked a lot of it out once everything was mixed since I personally don't like onions. The meatballs has raisins in them and Chris ate them.

He even liked it.This is a victory (even if he didn't eat the squash).

I'm very impressed. This is not a recipe I thought I'd like to much and I did.

Some co-workers invited me out for lunch at a restaurant (Asian Place Restaurant) that serves pho. I've never had it before, so I thought I'd try it. It was tasty! I'm not big on soups and broths, but this was pretty cool. Everyone insisted I try the #7, which was with beef strips.

I tried to eat with chopsticks but switched to a fork pretty quickly. I'm just not that deft with them. I'll have to practice more before coming back to a soup.

Sometimes oatmeal is so tasty you can't help but drink it.

Also, Chris really likes the Prisma app, if you can't tell.

We've been leaving the door open to the lower level and Quinn has been going up and down the stairs with more and more confidence on his own. He's very good and climbing on his hands and knees but he's getting better at trying to step down like an adult does.

This is a new thing he loves to do - wear towels. Chris snapped this photo (and used the Prisma app he likes) while Quinn was wandering around after a bath.

The prisma app for Android is out so and it's an app Chris really likes so I downloaded it and played with it. Quinn was busy playing with some plastic boats my friend Lori gave us (she gave us a TON of clothing and toys again!). He really enjoyed them. They're like cars, but for water!

While we were at Target Quinn picked up this ball and carried it all over the store. He was even pretty good about me putting it back when we were getting ready to leave. Lately he's been having meltdowns when he can't have what he wants but today he fussed only a little.

With temperatures soaring into the mid-90's, we decided today was a good day to take Quinn to the beach. We took him to the beach at Millennium Park, which is just 10 minutes or so from our house.

When we arrived their the splash pad was under maintenance, but with the beach right there we let him play by the water.
He enjoyed me taking him out where it was deeper and dipping him into the water. As long as his face never got wet he was fine. I'm pretty fussy myself like that, so I understand how he feels.
He had so much fun that he didn't really want to stop to eat. He did, and was obviously hungry with how quickly he scarfed down his food, but there was no whining or fussing like usual when he's hungry.

I'm really looking forward to taking him back again.

Chris took the car and went grocery shopping this morning. He found this can of pasta with some DC superheroes on it.

I had a promo for a NatureBox (well, off of the first order for a subscription) so the snacks I ordered arrived today.

They're ok. Some are super tasty and others are kind of meh. Might be what I selected but I definitely don't think I'd spend $20/shipment for 5 bags of snacks. Things might be different if I was someone who snacked a lot.

Finally went in for a consultation to have my wisdom teeth removed. The whole time I was waiting to speak with the dentist I could hear someone in the next room moaning in pain. It was a surreal experience.