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This week was our 10 year anniversary! A great time to reflect on our wonderful blessings over the last decade. We took a trip to the Oakland zoo and grilled burgers for a low-key Labor Day and Ryan and I started a September Whole30 the day after. Below you can see what we have been eating this week!

❤️ 10 ❤️

We spent 2 nights in Napa before our real honeymoon, and I remember writing this on the bottle thinking how far away 10 years sounded.
We've lived a lot of life over those 10 years: disease, babies, books, loss, new jobs. But just like the wine, it keeps getting better with time.

Caution: long, sappy post:
It's been 10 years and some of you have been following me for almost 8, when I started my blog, so here's a little story of our relationship.

We didn't go to the same school, but we met in high school through mutual friends. It was right before my junior year and his senior year. I chased him for a year before he finally broke down and realized he loved me ?.

We did long distance during my senior year while he was at CU Boulder and I was in CA for high school, then I moved out and went to CSU in Ft Collins where my sister went to school for my freshman year. I grew up in Colorado Springs, so I had wanted to get back to CO since we moved to CA when I was a sophomore in high school. We both decided CO was too cold and too far from family though, so we transferred to schools down in Southern CA for my sophomore and his junior year.

We dated for five years (engaged for two of those years) before we got married. We thought that felt like forever to wait, but looking back at these photos we were still totally babies!

Ryan went to law school in SF right after we graduated college and I worked to put him through school. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 2 months after this beautiful day in the photos and our lives altered course tremendously. The suffering I endured was the catalyst for my blog. You can read that whole story on my blog and in my books!

2 years later we suffered an early pregnancy loss of twins. 3 years later in 2010 marked one of the best days of our life when our oldest Asher was born. 4 years after that in 2014 our daughter Aila was born and passed away. Our middle Easton was born in 2015 and Kezia in 2017 and that brings you to today!

We are definitely not the same people we were when we were 16, but you can either grow together or grown apart and I'm so thankful that we fought to grow up together, and that we both love the new person that the other has become.

We've done the better or worse, sickness and health thing, and I honestly can say that I wouldn't have been able to do it with anyone else by my side.

Labor Day is for grilling, and burgers are always our top choice because they're easy and economical.
The first one is the BLTA Burger from Celebrations, next is the Hawaiian burger from Meals Made Simple, and the last is the BBQ Bacon and Mushroom Burger from Against all Grain! Crack open your books and grill one of these for your late summer cook outs!

Ok for everyone who told me going from 1 to 2 is the hardest, and going from 2 to 3 is a breeze – you lied. ?
3 is a different game.
A game that's more complicated than chess, and where the rules suddenly change on you when you're out in public! We're totally outnumbered and it's no longer man on man, but we're getting the hang of it slowly but surely. This stroller sure helps to keep the two younger ones wrangled!
Kudos to you who have 3+ or those with multiples. Seriously.

??? Slight over reaction, but… bugs. ??? Keep scrolling below to see my live demo of pressure cooker applesauce!

If you're doing a  Whole30 and have a copy of Meals Made Simple, be sure to see the 8 weeks of modified meal plans here!

Maybe not the prettiest of dinners but it was easy and a great way to kick off our September Whole30. We started late because of our anniversary and Labor Day. This was grass-fed beef with tomato purée and the taco seasoning from my Meals Made Simple book, along with sautéed zucchini and broccoli with a little more of that seasoning, baked plantains, and lots of ? ?.

This salad was filled with our garden tomatoes, pumpkin seeds, avocado, cucumbers, carrots, and the ranch dressing recipe from Meals Made Simple or Celebrations. The mini frittatas are something I'm working on for my next book. They're filled with collard greens and sausage and can be frozen and reheated!

It was only night 2 and we were already ordering takeout ? I worked on my book all day and came home to 3 crazies so thanks DoorDash. For the most part Thai curries are typically safe, but sometimes they throw a little sugar in the sauce so just call your restaurant to make sure! This was a pumpkin red curry with chicken and I omitted the corn and added extra veggies.

This is my favorite emergency protein – organic Chicken Apple Sausages from Applegate. I served it with a side of Farmhouse Culture kraut, mustard, and my Whole30 compliant ketchup. This was a second-lunch/snack by the way. I never have time to eat enough for my first lunch and am always hungry by 3, especially with nursing!

Snacks aren't really encouraged on Whole30, but I can't do it without them while I'm breastfeeding. We nursing moms do get a little bit of a pass! My Whole30 snacks – Seaweed and Dried Mango (because I will admit my sugar cravings have been rough this time around!)

It finally feels like fall here today and is below ? degrees so I roasted all the yellow and orange veggies and made my plate look like autumn. ???
The salmon was drizzled with a little avocado oil and roasted on a sheet pan with acorn squash, apples, cabbage, and red onions tossed in ghee with sea salt and a little cinnamon. I blanched the sweet potatoes (plunged them into boiling water for about 1 minute, then drained them and ran them under cold water) first before roasting them so they'd get crispy quickly. They were tossed with ghee, salt and cinnamon as well. 425 degrees 25 min.

Praise hands for Whole Foods carrying paleo foods in their hot bar for the days when I don't have time to make myself something! A couple of these were recipes that Michelle Tam from Nom Nom Paleo shared with Northern CA Whole Foods! If their hot bar items do not specially state “paleo,” check them carefully for ingredients. They use a lot of canola oil and sugar in their recipes. I also find everything in their prepared section to be grossly under seasoned so I always have some sea salt handy!

….and more ranch dressing recipe from Meals Made Simple or Celebrations! I had leftover taco meat (also from Meals Made Simple), so I threw it in with some eggs that were scrambled in ghee and served it over lettuce then drizzled it with ranch, and served it with an avocado and some strawberries.

More snacks, and more ranch dressing from Meals Made Simple or Celebrations.If you cut up a bunch of carrots in the beginning of the week for school lunches or snacks, store them in a container with fresh water in the fridge to keep them crispy! 

I'll probably get slaughtered for this one, but I'm going to post it anyway because it's what I ate. I'm on deadline for my book and the best I could do for lunch Friday was a can of Safe Catch tuna, a dollop of mayo, and some sweet potato chips cooked in coconut oil. I had a ton of greens in the morning and at dinner so I wasn't concerned about that, but I know commercial made chips are a no. They're not a slippery slope in the least bit for me, but I was about to pass out from pumping and not eating, so mama needed carbs stat.

I am live on Facebook every Tuesday at 3:30pm and this week I made pressure cooker apple sauce! And found a worm in the middle of one of the apples that had laid a bunch of eggs. It was disgusting, but the applesauce was delicious.