This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

I’m so thankful for one week of school down and many more to go. We celebrated their first day with a family dinner at John’s Incredible Pizza. It’s been a tradition of ours to go for the past couple years.

This encouragement about living an “unrushed life” really spoke wonders to my heart.

Our front porch has been so messy all summer long, and I finally got to cleaning it up. I was totally inspired by this pin.

I love peanut butter and pretzels mixed together, so this look especially delicious.

Love this pretty vintage coach bag from Ms. Tips.

I want to make cute duct tape pencil holders.

Crystal Lewis did this post on “Learning to Let Go” as she prepares to move her daughter to another state. It makes my heart ache imagining the day we will have to do this for one of  our daughters. I love how Crystal calls her daughter-in-law, her “daughter-in-love,” I think it helps bring a special sweetness to the in-law relationship.

Saturday is here and that means that the girls are working on Saturday morning chores and Ben is out in the garden. Ben’s been sick all week, so while we had plans to go fruit picking this weekend, I think we will mostly be home relaxing and doing house things. I really want to make that pretzel peanut butter thing too. Happy weekend friends!!!

The photos are just simple moments during the week. I’ve been working on being more intentional on shutting out excess noise in my life, and while doing so, I’ve noticed that I can no longer just enjoy a dull moment. If I have a free second at home, at a red light (totally guilty!), standing in line, or sitting as a passenger, I will automatically grab my phone to check it (email and instagram). It’s this mindless habit that I have become accustomed to and it’s absolutely horrible. This bad habit has contributed to some of the noise in my life and I have really been working on getting rid of it.

Ben and I were sitting outside one evening and he went inside to grab something. I saw the iPad right there on the table, it was either just sit there and do nothing, or grab the iPad. I wanted to grab it so badly, probably to check Pinterest or something, but I had to resist. There was nothing I had to look at, nothing urgent at all, but I’ve trained myself to fill my dull moments with an electronic device.

Therefore, this week I’ve tried to enjoy the dull moments more. Once the girls go to bed, I usually get on the computer to blog, email, or just waste more time (hello Pinterest and online window shopping!), but this week I’ve planned my evenings to stay away from the computer. I even enjoyed a glass or two of wine while reading a book or watching something relaxing on Netflix. The girls are usually getting ready for bed by 7pm, so if I have to do something online, I’ll try do it between 7-8pm, and then after that, step away and enjoy the evening with Ben. It’s been so refreshing. I feel like we’re both always working on our home, but we never get to enjoy our home. Does that make sense?! It’s like everyday is go, go, go, and we never actually sit there and enjoy it. Anyone else feel that way?

I’m going to keep on trying to enjoy these dull moments as they come. Sure, sometimes I may still check something on my phone, but I don’t want that to be my go-to all the time. It’s lame for my kids to see and I’m probably missing out on a lot of great things by looking down, even if it’s just for a couple minutes.

Brave’s birthday was robot themed, so I made her this special “A Robot in a Pocket Dress.” Her original request was a Transformer party before that changed to a robot one, so since she loved Optimus Prime so much, we put a little one in her pocket. She loves that little guy. Since I’m always running out of time, I went for the simplest style for her dress. I used a lightweight denim (same as my dress here) and I think I cranked this out in 45 minutes (or maybe less).

She had a full birthday weekend, but we made sure to stop by the San Diego Zoo Safari Park before going home. Our passes are set to expire soon, so we’re trying to go as much as we can before the end of September. We got our passes for Glow’s birthday last year and we will probably go again for her birthday this year.

One great thing about all of them being close in age is that I don’t feel like I have to constantly entertain or play with them, especially when the baby is napping, because they all do a really good job of playing together (usually). A couple days ago, once the baby went to nap, I set off to organize and clean the homeschool area. I was so engrossed in my task that I had no clue what the girls were doing downstairs (parenting at its finest, right?!). It was pretty quiet and their was no fighting, so I took that as a good sign. Of course, the girls had no problems entertaining themselves. I went downstairs to find everything is disarray (I was totally controlling my urge to clean up), but their mess was really cute because they turned the whole first floor into an arcade central, more specifically it became Chuck. E. Cheese. I chuckled as I walked room by room reading the challenges and the “tocens.” Once I entered the guest room/play room, I had to smile big because of the prize area… there was all their junk, um, I mean toys, displayed for all to see.

And you know the best way to make clean your white walls?! Use a filter when sharing a picture of it on instagram… instantly wonderfully white! To be honest, all my white walls are pretty dingy due to little hands, toys, and crayons, and they all look like the second picture above.

Even though their home arcade messes looked pretty fun, they did have to clean it later in the day.

Stuffed Garlic & Herb Meatballs
approximately 8 servings

Ingredients:
1 lb. lean ground turkey
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1 garlic head, finely chopped
1 cup fresh herbs, chopped (I used sage and chives from our garden)
1 – 8 oz. package of panko breadcrumbs
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
2 tsp salt
1 egg

Directions:
Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a pan with foil and spray with cooking spray. Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and combine together well (I find it is best to combine it with my hands). Using a tablespoonful, form into balls about 1″ – 1 1/2″ in diameter and arranged onto prepared pan. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until browned.

We serve ours with whole wheat spaghetti and my favorite marinara sauce from Trader Joe’s. I also love mixing some sage with mixed garlic and butter to make my garlic bread spread. That sage is so fragrant and really tastes delicious, and I think it’s that giant bundle of herbs that I chop up and throw in that really makes it absolutely delectable. I’m not typically a meatball fan, but I do love these ones filled with lots of herbs and garlic (oh how I love garlic!). True, on the other hand, does not like my meatballs, she likes meatballs plain with no onions and herbs.

I don’t make marinara sauce from scratch because I really love the ones from TJ’s, but does anyone have a simple and delicious recipe to share? Maybe I can try it from scratch next time.

We ate so much in Singapore! There are hawker centers all over the city, which are outdoor food courts of sorts, and they are filled with a wide array of food. Singapore’s cuisine is very diverse, a good mirror of the people and culture in Singapore. There’s a lot of Malay, Chinese, Indian influences (and plenty more cultural influences) in the cuisine and out of all the food we tried, there was just one dish we couldn’t go past one bite.

Each day in Singapore was basically a food tour of the various hawker centers. For one of our lunches there, we even hit up two different hawker centers! Of course, we did other tourist things (see here and here), but the highlight of it all was the food (and the people we became friends with). We went to hawker center after hawker center, and even within one hawker center, we would try a few dishes from one aisle, then move over and try more from the next aisle. I’m thankful that the ladies at Bloesem gave us good tips, and my friend Abby took us to all the best places to experience all the delicious dishes Singapore has to offer.

We learned about “chopping” that would happen at the food centers. “Chopping” is when people would leave a tissue (or a pack of tissue), and I’ve even seen someone leave their work badge, on the table to signify that the seat was taken, and people would respect that. It looked like this… you would enter the food center, find an open table or spot, place your tissue, then walk away to go order your food, and once you have your food, you come back to your tissue and sit down. Everyone knew that seat was spoken for and it was respected. By day 2 of our time at the food centers, we were participating in the seat “chopping” too.

Another thing we learned are meals are more of a community thing among friends. We’re used to each ordering our own dish, and eating our own dish, and maybe sharing a bite or two with each other if we ask. In Singapore, if you’re there with a group of friends, it’s more common to put the food in the middle and just share everything, no asking necessary. It’s not a “this is mine that is yours” kind of deal, but we all share the dishes together. Again, by day 2, we were totally participating in community meals with our friend Abby.

I have so much more to share about the food there, so there will be an entire post (and it will be really long!) dedicated to all the foods we ate there. Seriously, ever since Singapore, I’ve had a deeper appreciation and love for Asian food.