A Random Tuesday Day-In-The-Life + Our Garage Gym

Hello party people! How are ya? We’re halfway through the week and I hope you’re doing well! I am checking in this morning with a day-in-the-life style blog post so if random, lighthearted blog posts are your thing, I hope you’ll enjoy this little peek into our day yesterday!

Morning

My morning began with a small bowl of cereal followed by a garage workout.

The other day, I had a blog reader ask for a picture of our garage gym set up and I realized things look a bit different than they did the last time I shared one in 2018. (<– The boys look so young in that 2018 post… and Ryan’s hair looks SO long! Anyone remember when Ryan didn’t cut his hair during my entire pregnancy with Ryder? Memoriesss!) I made sure to snap an updated photo of our garage gym yesterday morning to share with you guys so you can see our current setup.

We have a two car garage and I park my car in the garage so we only have one car space to utilize for our gym. With rather limited space and some large equipment, there’s a lot of shuffling things around depending on the kind of workouts Ryan and I have planned for the day. Ryan is the mastermind behind our garage gym and set it all up (he’s been exclusively working out at home long before the pandemic) and acquired a handful of machines and equipment over the years. I think everything we own is second hand with the exception of Ryan’s rowing machine which is, hands down, his most used piece of exercise equipment. (In the above photo it’s currently stored upright.) These days I’m sticking mostly to dumbbells, resistance bands, the weight bench, the exercise ball and yoga mats for my prenatal workouts. We used to have a treadmill but when that bit the dust a while back we never replaced it. I miss it but as you can tell space is limited in our garage right now thanks to kid stuff that seems to overflow into the gym with increasing regularity. Our garage gym works well for us right now and I think Ryan and I would both agree that our favorite addition to the gym is the giant fan he bought a while back. It gets quiiite toasty out there and that fan is a miracle worker.

As for yesterday’s workout, I took myself through a short chest and back workout that looked a lot like the one I shared in this post. I eliminated the pushups and dumbbell pullovers so it was a bit shorter but it fit the bill for what I was feeling yesterday and it felt good to move my body before the boys were up for the day.

After my workout, I made myself a cup of decaf coffee with frothy coconut milk and collagen and assembled some mason jar chia seed pudding to eat an hour or so later once it was all set and ready.

Yesterday’s batch of chia seed pudding included cocoa powder, cacao nibs, oats and hemp seeds in addition to the usual suspects because I wanted something chocolaty with additional crunch + chewiness. I added fresh blueberries before digging in and it hit the spot!

Chase woke up as I was working and got himself dressed, checked on his ant farm and gave me about 30 more minutes of work time before Ryder was up for the day and I logged off the computer and morphed into mom mode. We kicked off the day with stories, playtime around the house and muffin-making (not-so-shockingly another batch of my healthy sweet potato muffins).

We actually had some “real” plans on the agenda for the day outside of our usual do-whatever-sounds-fun-outside plan and I loaded up the double stroller with towels, pre-packed lunches, lots of water and sunscreen and we made a 20-minute walk over to a neighbor’s house for some pool time in the late morning.

(Lunch boxes are our beloved Bentgo boxes. My mom got Ryder one for his birthday and we’ve had Chase’s since he was two years old. They are 100% leak proof and we LOVE them.) 

The boys were in heaven — give these two access to pool and their excitement is next-level — and Chase once again shocked me with his ever-expanding pool skills.

I still cannot believe that at the start of last summer he didn’t even want to go under water and this summer he’s swimming across the bottom of the pool, diving in head-first, doing flips under water and diving for pool toys in the deep end. Who is this kid!? Ryder absolutely loved tossing in rocket pool toys for the big kids to bring back to him! These days if you make a big deal about giving Ryder an “important job,” his day is made!

Afternoon

We left in the early afternoon and the boys dug into their lunches on the stroller ride back to our house. Once we made it home, I was a sweaty mess and after settling Ryder into his crib for a nap, I took a much-needed shower and joined Chase in the kitchen for some dinner prep.

That little contraption is the handheld veggie dicer my mother-in-law sent our way that the boys are obsessed with right now. You simply pull a handle a few times and it finely dices vegetables incredibly well. Just check out this assortment of zucchini, onion and garlic:

I love using it when I have a lot of veggies to chop but am feeling too lazy to whip out our giant food processor. It also makes amazing homemade salsa!

Chase and I ended up making our whole dinner meal, unstuffed cabbage rolls a la Eating Bird Food, and I ate a big bowl of it over leftover brown rice for lunch.

I’ve been doing this more and more lately — eating whatever meal I prep earlier in the day for dinner for lunch — because I know that by the time dinner rolls around, all I will likely want will be a bunch of fruit, cereal or ice cream. I’ve officially entered the end of pregnancy where my appetite wanes throughout the day and I do better with snacking and front-loading my veggies because vegetables and most savory proteins outside of dairy lose their luster by 3 p.m.

After dinner prep/my lunch, Chase and I did some watercolor painting followed by a few activities together from one of his preschool work books (definitely not an everyday occurrence around here but nice when it happens!) and then he “helped” me take some pictures for an upcoming Instagram collaboration and listened to a children’s podcast while I wrapped up some emails.

Evening

Once Ryder was up from his nap (almost three hours later!) and Ryan wrapped up his work day, the highlight of the evening occurred when we brought back the bounce house!

Though the boys loved it and used it daily for several months after they got it for Christmas, we put the bounce house away a few weeks ago because we had family visiting and the bounce house lives in the guest room where they all stay. Chase and Ryder were in heaven bouncing all over that thing again and worked up quite an appetite before dinner.

While the boys and Ryan ate a typical dinner, I made myself a fruit, yogurt, crushed nuts and granola bowl because that’s all that sounded appealing and rounded everything out with an ice cream sandwich. Hellooo 36 weeks pregnant.

Eventually we made our way upstairs for bath time and the whole bed time routine. Ryder has been putting us through the ringer at night for the past three or four nights and I think his too-late nap time might be to blame. He was crying on and off for nearly 90 minutes (with multiple visits from me and Ryan sprinkled in for soothing) and I found myself Googling “2-year-old sleep regression” which I didn’t even know was a thing but apparently it is!? Today I’m going to try bumping up Ryder’s nap time and I am crossing my fingers a longer stretch between nap and bed time will do the trick. I also randomly stumbled upon this old blog post about some of the toddler battles we went through with Chase around a similar age which made me think this may just be one of those fleeting phases we have to power through. Let’s just hope this one passes before baby arrives next month. Phew!

And now I’m off to get this Wednesday rockin’! I hope you all have a good day and, as always, thanks for making PBF a part of your week!