a gift from the stork

Hi friends! Happy Monday! I hope your week is off to a great start.

Guess what?! Baby August is here! 

The weather on Friday was cloudy and cool; I told my mom it was the perfect day to have a baby, not really thinking it would be “the day” that August was born. I was SO excited when I got the text with a picture of him while we were out rock climbing with friends. Kyle and Meg were only at the hospital for two hours before he arrived! I spent the rest of the afternoon with the hugest smile on my face, knowing that he was finally here and that everyone was safe. I couldn’t wait to meet him (!) but I had promised the girls that we’d go to a festival at Liv’s school before hightailing it to the hospital.

We played games, got their faces painted, and enjoyed the festival for a couple of hours,

and then the Pilot took them home for bed while I picked up sushi and coffee for Kyle and Meg, and headed to the hospital.

The.best.ever.

It was so nice to hang out with Kyle and Meg for a bit, hear about the amazing birth story (Meg is a champion) and snuggle with August. He looks JUST like EJ, and is the sweetest little guy. I love him so much already and can’t wait to spend more time with him. The girls are going to go crazy for him! I headed home just in time to watch a little Queer Eye – I’ve been savoring the last episode for a few weeks, only watching 5 minutes here and there – and crash out. 

Saturday morning, we were up bright and early, so we had breakfast together and headed to the dance studio. After dance, we got some more supplies for the backyard garden. The Pilot reseeded the grass while the girls and I planted flowers, along with a garden bed full of tomatoes, basil, cucumber, rosemary, carrots, zucchini, and mint. We’ll see what ends up surviving. 😉 I also took a 45-minute live DJ Peloton ride that was liiiiiiife. 

Saturday night, madre came over to hang out with the girls for a bit while the Pilot and I went out for a little date.

We ordered drinks and an enormous cheese board + the famous goat cheese tart (if you ever go to Commoner, you have to get this tart)

and made a run to Target. It’s the ultimate parent date when a Target stop is included. 😉 It was so nice to get Easter basket supplies before everything was totally picked over. After Target, we made a stop at Cashew Cow for vegan ice cream and dropped some off to Kyle and Meg before making it back home in time to put the nuggets to bed. 

Sunday morning, we slept in (YAS) and then went on a family walk in Sabino Canyon. It was absolutely perfect outside (in the 70s) and so many of the plants and cacti are blooming!

We spent about 40 minutes walking one of the shorter trails. The girls sprinted out and backs in between getting piggyback rides, and it felt so great to get some sunshine and fresh air.

After our nature outing, I took the crew to see The Missing Link while the Pilot got in some airline studying. I wish I could tell you it was a riveting, charming and enjoyable movie, but P fell asleep about 15 minutes into it, and it lost my attention around that point. I ended up reading a book on my phone the entire time. (No one was around us, so I turned the brightness way down and tucked my phone into my backpack to read.) It goes to show that Hugh Jackman can’t always save the day, but Liv loved it, so there ya go. 

The Pilot took the girls on the weekly grocery run while I typed up most of this blog post + a couple of upcoming WebMD blog posts, and then we made giant chopped salads for dinner along with Instant Pot sweet potatoes.

(I love how Caro is smiling in this picture! The salad had romaine, spinach, grilled chicken, cucumber, red bell peppers, blackberries, blueberries, dates, Primal Kitchen ranch and was mixed up in a huge mixing bowl.) 

This is one of my all-time favorite simple dinners, and the girls like picking their salad components. I took my salad with me to go since I was picking Nana up to be my date for the touring production of Fiddler On the Roof. Fiddler is one of those classic musicals that will always have a special place in my heart. I fell in love with musical theatre around when I saw the movie version for the first time, and it was one of the first shows we did in middle school. This production was especially wonderful and I love how the actor who played Tevye truly made the role his own. The dancing BLEW ME AWAY; it felt very traditional with little shoulder shakes and wrist movement, but had some modern elements in there, too. It was so, so good.  The voices, the acting, the set, the costumes… everything.

This morning, I’m grabbing coffee with a friend, getting in an upper body workout (from the Lean Machine fit guide) and starting to work on Summer Shape Up! If you have any requests for this Shape Up, please let me know in the comments. 🙂

xoxo

Gina

Need a workout? Try this outdoor HIIT workout!

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