I wanted to pop in this morning to take you through a run-down of a random Wednesday around here. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
Breakfast
My morning began around 5 a.m. when I awoke to Ryan’s alarm. I typically get up when Ryan does and work while he works out so I can get a jumpstart on the day before Chase is up and ready to party. I ate a whole wheat pumpkin muffin at my computer and about an hour and a half later, I began to hear noises coming from Chase’s bedroom.
When I walked into Chase’s nursery, I was greeted by a little monkey in Christmas jammies with some serious bedhead. Whenever we put Chase to bed with wet hair after an evening bath, he always wakes up with the craziest hair and it cracks me up. Our little fluff ball!
Once Chase’s diaper was changed and he was dressed for the day, we headed downstairs for muffins, milk (for Chase) and coffee with collagen and whole milk (for me).
(That haaair! I promise I fixed it before we left the house. I think Chase was also skeptical of my real camera as opposed to my iPhone which I use to take 99 percent of his pictures. He was not havin’ it.)
I also ate two pieces of a cold frittata straight out of the Tupperware container to avoid any extra dishes. (Real life, my friends.)
After breakfast, we spent the next 30 minutes or so reading books and playing indoor fetch with Sadie until it was time for me to change and brush my teeth before boot camp. Chase loves watching me brush my teeth and trying to brush his own and I’m hoping his affinity for oral hygiene lasts forever.
Workout
We headed off to the gym at 8:15 a.m. and while Chase had fun with his Burn Boot Camp childcare buddies, I worked up a sweat with my friend Carrie during a chest and back strength workout.
It felt good to move my body and I left the gym feeling 10,000 times more energetic than I felt when I arrived. One of the many benefits of exercise, my friends!
After my workout, Chase and I split a Larabar and ran a couple of errands. I needed to pick up food, drinks and random supplies for a white elephant gift exchange I hosted for a handful of my girlfriends last night. (Side note: Why is it impossible to find solid white paper cups!? Every cup I found that wasn’t styrofoam had some horrible design on it. This is why I typically use Amazon Prime for ALL the things. They never let me down. Julie + Amazon = Forever.)
We were out for a little more than an hour and that was enough to exhaust my little shopping buddy because he fell asleep in the car on the way home. Nooooo! Chase used to transfer to his crib so well when he’d fall asleep in the car but now car naps basically function as “power naps” and give him a surge of energy.
Once we made it home, Crazy Chase came out to play. After I did my best to feed him a quick lunch, Chase ran all over the house trying to rope Sadie into playing with him which kind of worked when she realized he had peanut butter on his fingers leftover from his lunch. (Every member of the Fagan family is a serious peanut butter lover.)
Lunch
While my two babies (one furry, one not) entertained each other, I quickly reheated Monday night’s dinner leftovers for lunch at 10:45 a.m. No shame in my early lunch-eating game. I added shredded chicken thighs to my Blue Apron sweet potato curry and it was delicious and filling!
After lunch, I chopped an onion and let Chase transfer it into the large sauté pan I was going to use to cook the onion and brown ground beef for chili for dinner. (He’s all about transferring things from one place to the next right now and loved this little activity.)
Eventually it was time for Chase’s nap, so immediately after I placed him in his crib, I high-tailed it into our bathroom for a much-needed shower. I had just enough time to shower and throw on some clothes before Chase started crying a “Mama, I need you” cry, not a fake “I’m gonna whimper because I don’t want to nap even though I know I need to” cry. I went in to see what was up and found Chase standing up with no pants on, a poopy diaper and all of his Wubbanubs out of his crib. He was clearly up to a lot in the 10 minutes he was alone!
I changed him and we read a book together before I gave naptime another shot. The second time was a charm! He went down easily and I finished prepping the chili I started with Chase and transferred the ground beef to the crockpot before reheating my morning cup of coffee (story of my life) and parking myself in front of the computer for the next two hours.
I followed up on some time-sensitive emails regarding partnerships for 2017 and started typing up this post. Before I knew it, Chase was up and ready for playtime again!
When I heard him start to stir, I ate a banana and quickly made an egg white oatmeal protein pancake to inhale before he was officially up.
(Sorry for the third ugly food pic in this post. I’m on a roll today!)
Once Chase was up, we stayed close to home since I had some stuff I wanted to do around the house before my white elephant party. Chase definitely does better when we leave home after his nap so I did my best to keep him entertained with random mundane things I hoped would interest him and thankfully I found a winner!
Among the Christmas lights, I found a remote control that lets you turn your Christmas lights on and off from inside and it turned out to be toddler gold.
Even Sadie wanted in on the action!
Thankfully the remote kept Chase entertained while I looped some garland around outside to give our house a little festive holiday flare!
Once we came back inside, I flip-flopped between party prep (aka cleaning) and entertaining Chase until Ryan arrived home from work and I was able to fix my hair and put on something more presentable than a sweatshirt covered in peanut butter fingerprints.
The three of use ate chili for dinner before it was time for Chase to go to bed around 7 p.m. I had just enough time to say goodnight to my little man before my girlfriends began to arrive for our white elephant gift exchange!
White Elephant Gift Exchange
We had a $10-$15 limit for our gift exchange and it was a blast!
Everyone brought a gift and we had the best time unwrapping presents, stealing gifts, eating, drinking and laughing a ton! (In case you don’t know how a white elephant gift exchange works, everyone brings a gift and numbers are drawn to determine the gift selection order. When it’s your turn, you can either “steal” one of the previously opened gifts or open a new gift.)
I walked away with a cute Christmas mug and peppermint sticks and was quite the happy camper!
It was such a fun and festive night and the perfect way to end a random Wednesday in December.
Thanks for coming along for the ride!
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Mitch has a fascination with me brushing my teeth as well. He has a small toothbrush and likes to copy me, even giving a little spit at the end. Haha! Sounds like you had an eventful Wednesday!
I feel ya on the early lunch game, I’m always counting down until it’s about 11am for lunch 🙂 Looks like a busy and fun day. Love the idea of a white elephant gift exchange!
That hair, so cute! Love how you balance blogging, work, being a mom, working out, and spending time with friends. You should do a gift guide for white elephant gifts, I never know what to get for them!
Your hair looks so nice, I love the color! Chase’s bedhead is too cute 🙂
Maybe it’s a regional thing, but in CA White Elephant gifts are tacky joke gifts. Is it different there?
The way we’ve always done it is that the gifts are pretty much a gamble… You can do something nice like a candle or something ridiculous like a tacky Christmas pot holder! You never know what you are going to get!
My family does a white elephant exchange at Thanksgiving, but we all throw in ridiculous and silly gifts. This year, I decided to throw in a ‘signed autograph’ and picture of my husband and I at our wedding. My uncle was lucky enough to win that. Ha!
Car naps are always happening around here and I used to hate them because they delay the real nap but lately
I’ve been driving around for a few minutes extra and enjoying my coffee, the radio and exploring new neighborhoods. Your gift exchange looks so fun!
I think it’s a regional thing from Massachusetts to we would call that a Yankee swap. A white elephant gift is when you look around your house and find something useless, can’t even be used, that you no longer want. Usually they are joke gifts
Love the White Elephant Wednesday idea. Love that sweater top too!
I love the idea of doing a friends white elephant gift exchange! Maybe I’ll have to throw something together this year?
Hahaha, I’m totally with you on meals out of Tupperware with little ones around. I used to love unloading the dishwasher and now it’s a game to see how quickly I can do it before my toddler comes running over to “help”!
Wanted to ask- what setting do you use on your lens camera indoors? I’m curious, as mine photos never turn out very well when I use my lens camera inside!
Chase looks like a seriously cheerful guy in the mornings.
The white elephant gift exchanges are always fun. There’s always one or two gifts that end up being stolen multiple times.
Whats your schedule these days with taking sadie for runs/walks? curious how exercising a dog works with having a baby! i’m not there yet (just got married) but some day in a few years i hope to be!
Ryan will often take her out for a walk/run before work as part of his workout (usually around 2 miles) and we’ll typically walk her together with Chase when Ryan gets home from work! We just didn’t do the evening walk yesterday because of my white elephant party but she was able to run around outside with us during the afternoon when I was hanging Christmas lights!
Oh man, I have a white elephant next week and I have no idea what to buy! It’s kind of a serious one and no spending limit, so I don’t want to be the one bringing a cheap candle and going home with a $50 gift…I totally stink at picking out presents in general though.
We had our work white elephant today! I got a pretty nifty wine rack that someone wrapped up from their house. I also made your chocolate pretzel bites with crushed peppermint in place of the m&ms and everyone loved them!
So fun and festive! I love your white elephant top! Where from? 🙂
Hahaha, I don’t think I have finished a cup of coffee before about 1pm since my daughter was born almost 2 years ago. Such a classic mom move. Also, I had NO IDEA that car naps were basically the bane of every mom’s existence until I actually had a kid. One of those things you never hear about before kids but find out very quickly once you have them!
I am SO jealous of your Boot Camp! Where I live there are NO specialized fitness studios that provide childcare 🙁 I just don’t understand it! Seems like it would be a great investment for the bootcamps/crossfit studios/Orangetheory/etc. to provide childcare since there are SO many SAHMs in my area. Maybe one day they will start to figure it out!
two breakfasts + early lunch is my jam too.
That’s such a cute idea for a party with your girlfriends! I’m impressed at how much you can do in 1 day, all with a toddler, a successful business, and a dog! lol
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Would you mind sharing where your cow neck sweater is from?
Free People 🙂
Love this post, and Chase’s bed head! lol So cute. Also I love white elephant gift parties, so much fun! I’ll be going to one in January (I know I know, a Christmas party in January? Yes! Everyone’s so busy in December, and we feel like it’s a way to extend Christmas a little longer!)
Fun post as always, and thanks for reminding me of the egg white oatmeal protein pancakes! I haven’t made one in awhile! BAM! I’m on it!
Love the bedhead on Chase! We use to have white elephant gift exchanges every Christmas Eve and they were nice gifts for $10 dollars. We had to stop it cuz some of the relatives were p.o. with the gift they were left with! Lol.
I miss these type of day recap posts. My son (at 5) is still entertained by silly little things like a light remote.
I’m always amazed with how much you can get done in a day! You go, Mama!
Super mom!
Love this post! Thanks for sharing your day. It sounded like a very productive and fun day! Hope you have a great rest of your Christmas!
My goodness woman! That was a very interesting account of the day-in-the-life of a mom. It stressed me out just reading it 😛 Kudos to you for making it work 🙂
I looked at your protein pancake recipe and it says to use 1 cup of egg whites! That seems like A LOT of eggs… how many eggs do you use? What do you do with the yolks? It seems like an awful lot of eggs to eat at one time. Just curious!
This is so sweet! Chase has grown up to look so adorable and so healthy! <3
This has been one of my favorite posts to read in a while – I really enjoyed it. You’ve always been such a relatable blogger (have ALWAYS appreciated how you seem to balance fitness with love of ice cream – reinforces that I’m not crazy, and balance is important!), but getting the “sneak peek” into your crazy days took things to a new level.
I hope you’ll do more posts like these in the future! 🙂
Where is your top from, I LOVE it!
The post feels so relatable, love to see how you organized your day around tasks and fun!
Also, getting up early to give your day a morning boost is a great idea to make the day productive.