Barley, Peach, and Goat Cheese Salad

This recipe is adapted from one I found in Clean Eating magazine. It makes a great snack/small meal and the flavor can be adjusted to your own tastes.

Barley, Peach, and Goat Cheese Salad

3/4 Cup uncooked barley
2 medium peaches, chopped
1/2 Cup goat cheese crumbles
1/3 Cup chopped walnuts
Juice of half a lemon
2 Tbsp olive oil
Dash salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1Tbsp honey

1. Cook barley according to package directions. Allow to cool or rinse with cold water.
2. Wisk lemon juice, oil, salt, honey, and ginger together.
3. Combine barley, peaches, and walnuts in bowl. Pour in lemon juice mixture and toss to combine. Stir in goat cheese. Enjoy!

House Update

The kids and I took a ride out to the new house yesterday to check out the progress. With the subfloor installed and floor plan marked out, you can really get a feel for what the finished product will be like. Olivia enjoyed crawling around in her future room and Andrew got to run around in the basement. I was able to start picturing all of the ideas I've pinned on Pinterest. Each step closer makes me more anxious to see the next and more excited to move in when it's ready!

Walking!

Olivia took her first steps last night and we captured her new moves on camera this morning. She's growing up too fast!

Dinosaur Cake

This past Saturday, we celebrated Kim and Ryan's impending bundle of baby boy joy with a shower at Lisa and Al's new home. The party was a lot of fun and Kim and Ryan received a lot of great baby stuff! One of my contributions to the party was the cake. The shower had a dino theme, so I decided on a T-Rex cake. I found some pictures online that I used as my guide. I'm really happy with how the cake turned out, but would have been more detailed had I been able to work on it while the kids were awake (1am was late enough Friday night). I don't think I would have done a very good job with Olivia climbing up my legs! This was the first time I made the cake and buttercream frosting from scratch, and I have to say that both were very good. I'll definitely use those recipes again. Andrew really liked the cake and keeps saying he wants dinosaur cake for his birthday so I may get a second shot at it soon!

Olivia's 9 Month Birthday

Olivia turned 9 months old yesterday! It really is unbelievable how fast the time has gone. Over the past month, Olivia's personality has developed a lot more to reveal a girl that likes to giggle and smile, an explorer, a bit of a dare-devil, and clear expressions of likes/dislikes. She loves standing and walking with our help and will protest loudly when you try to sit her down or stand her next to furniture before she's done walking. She is very interested in other babies and children to the point where she screeches and grabs at them and gives big open mouth slobber kisses. Feeding time has evolved as Olivia wants to feed herself and will sometimes refuse to be spoon fed. It's great that she will feed herself, but there are only so many finger foods one can eat with only 2 partial teeth! We celebrated as we do every month, with a photoshoot!

Chocolate Shakeology No Bake Brownies

If you drink Shakeology, you've probably seen the recipe for No Bake Shakeology Cookies. They're really tasty, but I was wanting something a little different so I created these:

They have the texture of a fudgy, chewy brownie. When divided into 4 generous servings, each brownie is about 200 calories.

Chocolate Shakeology No Bake Brownies
1/3 Cup Oats
1/3 Cup Cashews (or other nuts)
1 Scoop Chocolate Shakeology
2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder (unsweetened)
2-3 Tbsp Honey
2 Tbsp Natural Peanut Butter




1. Place oats and cashews in food processor and process into a fine texture.
2. Add Shakeology and cocoa powder and pulse to combine.
3. Add honey and peanut butter and run until combined. Mixture will be crumbly, but moist. Add more honey if needed to get mixture to stick together.
4. Pour mixture into a small container and press into a brownie. Put in refrigerator to set. Cut and enjoy!

Learn more about Shakeology here.

Adults and wine

Andrew on adults and wine:

"You're not an adult. I'm an adult. I can drink wine. Daddy's an adult. He can drink wine. You can't drink wine."