Pinterest Success: Panda Expres Chow Mein Copycat

Daylight Savings is not nice.  I'm definitely on my second cup of coffee...

Today's Pinterest Success is on the fence because it was tasty, but it definitely didn't taste anything like Panda Express's Chow Mein.  That's probably a good thing considering PE's Chow Mein is way more fattier than the copycat.

Here's the pin:

The website is entitled "Damn Delicious" :)

Here are my photos, sorry I didn't take a lot-I was just trying to make dinner as fast as I could because  we were huuuungry.

Prep table

Chow Mein noodles

Onions and celery

Final product

Here is how I would tweak this recipe:

1. I would have added tofu or chicken...but my tofu was way expired and I had no time to defrost chicken tenders.
2. The recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of freshly grated ginger, but we're not into that ginger taste (it almost overwhelmed the dish).  I definitely will go less next time.
3. Added a dash more soy sauce (calls for 1/4 cup).
4. I didn't have the yaki soba noodles it asked for, but my noodles I bought specifically said chow mein and they were tasty.

Leif's FIRST Disneyland Trip!

YAY!

We bit the bullet and decided to take Leif on his FIRST Disneyland trip!  The main reason we went was because hubs' best friend from Seattle came down with his girlfriend and kid just for Disney.  We tossed the idea around all week long, and we were really hesitant because it was supposed to rain all day Sunday.  Saturday rolled around and started off like any other weekend (and was super sunny even though the forecast said rain!).  I made breakfast, then took Leif to Gymboree since we weren't sure what we were going to do Sunday.  Then I contacted our dog sitter to see if they could watch Miles Saturday night through Monday, and then we finally came to the conclusion that we should drive down to Anaheim Saturday night, stay the night and go to Disneyland on Sunday.  :) :) :)

What's funny about all of this was I was 90% sure we weren't going to go-I didn't want to take Leif to Disneyland for the first time in the rain and being so young he's not going to remember it.  But we knew the crowds weren't going to be crazy, and I think that's what pushed us to go.  Oh, and after talking to a few parents at Gymboree who took their babies/toddlers to Disneyland-they had nothing but positive reviews.  That helped!

And guess what...Leif was a champ!  He had a couple fussy moments where he wanted to be carried, or he was hungry, but that was it.  No crying in fear of the rides we went on, no serious meltdowns.  What a wonderful little boy!

Here are the photos we snapped-we only used phones since hubs didn't want to break out his camera in the rain:

Saturday, February 28

We arrived around 6pm to our hotel we booked through hotwire.com...this hotel was seriously only a 10 minute walk away from Disneyland!  It wasn't the cleanest/nicest hotel, but we got a great deal.  

Leif absolutely LOVED the hotel room more than anything else on the trip...he had a fun time playing with the alarm clock-that's pretty much where he spent most of his time!

We decided to walk over to Downtown Disney for dinner and then to meet up with friends.  We settled on Taqueria at Tortilla Jo's-a quick build your own Mexican joint.  No reservations required.  It was packed, but we managed to get a table after waiting a couple minutes. Leif loved his quesadilla and grapes...and grape lid...

We found our friends and had a quick drink with them.  Leif colored for a little bit!

It started raining on our walk back to the hotel, so we stopped in a convenient store and bought ponchos and an umbrella for the day ahead.  Good choice instead of spending lots of $$$ in Disneyland!

Sunday, March 1

While I got ready, hubs watched Leif.  Behind him is his makeshift bed for the night!

Almost ready to go!

We made it!  After a silly morning of crazy shenanigans at our hotel breakfast (it was packed with strange people), driving around to find the Disney parking lot only to look at our hotel pass and realize we could have left the car there (thus driving back and walking), we made it.  And we had bought our ANNUAL passes the night before so didn't have to wait in line for that!  (Thank you hubs-apparently it was my very early birthday gift).

Leif's first ride at Disneyland-the carousel in Fantasy Land!  

We came back around and snapped photos of us in front of the castle...

Leif with the Cheshire Cat

I believe this was us waiting in line for Pirates of the Caribbean?  I can't remember, but Leif was getting antsy.  He really wanted to touch everything!

Quick shot of us while the sun popped out...

Nap time!  First one of the day, and one more towards the end of the trip.

We ventured over to California Adventure midday

Standing in line for a ride in A Bug's Land

Family photo!

This ride was really fun!

Absolutely love this little face

First character photo with Flick!  No cries from Leif, but no big smiles either.  Not too shabby!

Car's Land!

Leif not amused

The soldiers from Toy Story putting on a show

Another Carousel ride, Little Mermaid style!

Happy little Leif!

In case anyone is wondering, here are the Pros & Cons of taking a toddler to Disneyland:

PROS
-He's not walking all the way yet, so it wasn't hard to carry him/push him in the stroller
-We could take it easy and didn't have to stand in super long lines of the popular, older kid rides
-Loved watching his face light up and seeing how curious he was about everything
-Went on rides I've never been on before
-He's still free admission!

CONS
-Can't ride everything (not that terrible)
-Have to hit the baby center a few times to change/feed
-He can get a little antsy, and holding him can get tiring/hard
-Strollers are a little bit of a hassle even though it carried the diaper bag (hubs almost forgot it a couple times!)

I was a little envious of all the moms with the front-forward baby carriers (I had our ergo carrier on half the time), but since Leif is so close to walking without assistance/falling, I feel like I'd be wasting money if I purchased one now.  I feel like the next time we go, he'll be able to walk on his own!  All in all, I had such a wonderful time.  I guess it's the big kid in me, but I can't get enough of Disneyland.  :)  I'm so happy we have passes-this means everyone who comes to visit we can take them to Disneyland now!  Well, with the exception of the 50 blackout dates, but that's not terrible at all!  Hooray Disney!

Oh, and yes, my hair is still honey-colored with a tinge of green in the bangs.  My hairstylist Friday night said one more week of intense washing and then we'll be able to color it...so cross your fingers this Friday it will change!

What's up Tuesday

It's already Tuesday?!  Slow down time!

Our great friend Josh came to visit this weekend!  We went for a nice hike on Friday while hubs had to work, and then the weekend consisted of a trip to the LA Zoo, playing lots of board games, hanging out at home and gymboree.  :)

 Saturday, February 21

Leif was fighting nap time, so after I tried rocking him, he climbed down and started pulling all of his books off the shelf...

He really enjoyed his batman book!

Finally I was able to rock him to sleep, but when I put him down he woke up.  Then I rocked him again in his large blanket, and the end result was a Leif burrito.

After he woke up, we headed out for lunch with Josh and Adam across from the zoo at the Gene Autry Museum, then spent the rest of the afternoon at the zoo!

I decided to carry him in the hiking backpack which turned out really well-Leif was able to see everything and he really had a good time (and I got a great workout in!).  We got a membership so we can come back anytime!

Later that evening while I watched Leif, the boys played their games.  Leif really wanted to play with his daddy so it was super cute watching Leif roll dice and take interest in what they were doing.

 Sunday, February 22

Josh really wanted to go to this Magic tournament downtown, so they woke up early and left.  I got to play with Leif and Miles all morning-it was overcast, so we took a walk after breakfast and then I broke out these sticky mustaches, and, well...

He didn't like the feeling of the mustaches, but I tried snapping a photo before he tore it off.  He's not as bad as he looks, trust me!

It's so cute to see Leif climb on and off the couch now, and he sat there watching I think Mickey Mouse for a little bit.  I was able to snap a photo before he wiggled off again.

He didn't go down for a nap until 11:45am, which was approximately 15 minutes before we had to leave for Gymboree, so he had a really short nap and then played hard at Gymboree-thus a very fussy, tired baby the rest of the afternoon.  The boys ended up playing more board games and then we played a couple when Leif went to sleep.  All in all, not a bad weekend!

By the way, I snapped a photo of my hair on Thursday and sent it to my stylist, who then said we should wait another week or two before we try coloring my hair (it still had a tint of green).  Today my hair has a very weak tinge of green in the bangs, but everywhere else it's blonde/honey colored!  I have an appointment on Friday so she can check it.  Honestly, I kind of like my honey colored hair-it's not that bad!  But I'll show you what happens on Friday.  :)

Pinterest Failure: Thai Chicken Salad with Peanut Dressing

Holy smokes, an actual failure!

I wanted to try out a healthy, simple recipe that I pinned not too long ago, and it was this:

It came from Nature Box, a business that sends healthy snacks

I didn't get a chance to take step by step photos, but know it was super easy and took me around 10-15 minutes to put together.

So here is the salad with shredded carrot, shredded cabbage (pre-packaged from Trader Joe's-very convenient), green onions, cooked chicken from Trader Joe's, chopped nuts and cilantro.  The dressing on the left is just peanut butter, soy sauce, rice vinegar, lime juice and sugar

I stored them in the fridge until hubs got home from school, and before I served I added a chopped avocado

Salad all mixed up

Looks pretty good, right? ... 

The first few bites were okay, but then the more I ate the more I didn't like it.  I could tell hubs didn't like it either.  I got about half way through it and announced that I was not a fan, and so did he.  The salad components itself were great, but it was the dressing that was off.  I thought it was too peanut buttery, and hubs thought it needed something else too.  So success on the salad ingredients, failure on the dressing.

Fun Weekend

I can't believe it's already Thursday and I'm just posting about the weekend.  Shows what a 3-day weekend does to my schedule!

Real quick, update on the sleep situation-I've been doing the cry-it-out method for the initial bedtime, and that has worked out extremely well...but he still comes to bed with us in the middle of the night.  He's stopped kicking as much which is nice, but we are seriously considering getting a king size bed. I've tried asking my mama group on Facebook about this, but no one could help as most who co-slept did it until the toddlers went happily into their big beds, or the others still co-slept and were in similar situations.  We are not alone!

Here's my recap:

Friday, February 13
So I was supposed to change my hair color after work, but when I went in my stylist was honest and said I need to wait another week to try and wash out the blue/green or else she'd have to go in and re-bleach my hair, causing more damage.  Sigh.  I'm glad she was honest, but sad that there was no magic hair solution to get rid of the green/blue (don't get me wrong, I LOVED the color, but it's time to move on).  She still tried washing most of it out and gave me a cut, but man, the green does not want to come out!

I picked up Leif and he tried on his new sunglasses Nana gave him when we got home:

Model in the making...?

Saturday, February 14
We had planned on taking Leif to daycare that afternoon so that we could have adult time, but we decided since we wake up so early to drive down to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach since we have a membership (thanks Missy!)

While daddy got ready, we wanted to take a selfie.  See how my hair is still green???

Haha...so Karen and I were talking about how Leif still loves to feed at night and he loves his bottles, so maybe he'll take to a pacifier now.  He did great with this one for a while but then spit it out.  Kind of a throwback to the 80s.  :)

Picking up a little otter for Leif (ahem, me) before going through the aquarium.

Since we didn't get to venture outside on our last trip, we started there.  Lookout Leif, shark!

With sunglasses, that's better.

Everyone thought he was the cutest and envied his car.  I don't know why more parents don't get these cars, Leif loves his!

Besides the otters, the jellyfish is my other favorite exhibit

This was the otter tank, but they were all sleeping.  Leif loved this tank too just because he could touch the glass and see the fish up close.

 We left for lunch around noon to Famous Dave's where it was hard to manage a little squirmy toddler while waiting for our table.  But it worked out and lunch was yummy!  We got home around 2:30pm, hung out for a while then dropped Leif off around 4pm.  We didn't know what to do, so we ended up doing some shopping and then stopped by my favorite sushi place near work to see if we could get a table (I called and the front desk was unhelpful as she said they weren't taking reservations-so I wasn't sure if they didn't take reservations in general or if they were booked!)...and hooray-they were able to seat us in 20 minutes.  We didn't care if we had a table or the bar where they made the sushi, and we ended up at the bar which was way cooler anyway since we placed our order with them and they gave it right to us!  AND we saved money since we didn't really have a server-score!

I didn't take any photos unfortunately, but here is one from yelp:

We had similar rolls.  Our eyes were larger than our stomachs of course and we ordered way too much.  It was so yummy! I love Sumo Sushi!

We picked up Leif and when we got there he was screaming and in tears.  Poor guy had another baby to compete with for Miss Karen and she couldn't rock them at the same time.  His schedule was all off too and he was in full-blown meltdown mode.  Poor guy.

Sunday, February 15

Good morning!  More pacifier fun.  He spit it out in two minutes.

Took a morning walk to get Miles' energy out.  It was a nice day!

Gymboree!  Again, think he'd make a cute toddler model?  If he just sat still a little more.  We're lucky he stood still enough for this photo!

We were all a little grumpy afterwards due to lack of food, so we headed over to Subway for lunch.  We got Leif a kid's sandwich with a few fixings, but all he ate was the apple slices and some bread.  Oh, and drank half the juice which this was his first juice box, and probably last for a while-this small juice box had 19 grams of sugar!  That's like a candy bar!  

We headed over to Costco afterwards so that I could get new glasses, but my insurance is all wonky and I can't get glasses until June which is silly.  It's a long explanation, but I'm not very happy with my vision insurance.  We spent the rest of the day relaxing at home.

Monday, February 16

Hubs and I both had the day off, so we dropped Leif off at daycare and headed over to Thousand Oaks since he had to go to the library for school and I wanted to practice my saxophone.  Productive morning!  We ended up going home to finish one of our board games we set up back on Friday, then went to our favorite Indian restaurant for lunch:

Mmm, samosa.

 We didn't know what else to do that day, so we had an unsuccessful shopping excursion (we went to a Target in Moorpark and didn't have much in our basket when we noticed the huge lines, so we just put our basket down and walked out).  Then we drove by the apartment that we almost took before we found our house and were SO happy we found the house.  We would have been so unhappy there-cramped and surrounded by dumb people again.

After we picked Leif up we hung out at home.

Daddy was eating frozen cherries and Leif kept trying to get one, so we gave him a couple bits and he loved them.  So we put a few in one of his mesh holders.  He's so like his daddy.

Tuesday, February 17

Happy birthday husband!  I can't believe he's 33, which means I'll be 33.  One of my high school friends who's a year younger than me has two kids-5 and 7; and she's hoping to have a third now.  Anyway, she was talking on Facebook with a friend how trying to have a kid now (at 31) could be harder and I chuckled.  Leif was the easiest surprise baby ever.

Okay, back to photos.

He was being such a goofball-he would squish his face against this clear cover then laugh hard, and kept doing it.

Sorry it's blurry, but look at this!  He's such a happy guy.

Wednesday, February 18

I put a block on his toe, and he kept trying to do it too.  He's learning so fast.  

Leif had a rough day yesterday at daycare and it carried through at home.  He was having so many fits!  So off to bed early he went and it was amazing...I fed him, then he looked up at me, calm, and I whisked him to his crib where he lay down immediately and put himself to sleep without a fuss.  Now I just wish he would be able to sleep throughout the night that easily...

And here we are Thursday.  I've been trying to get in shape since I'll be a bridesmaid again in September, and also be in the public eye for the New Music concert next month...but of course Valentine's Day didn't help as I stuffed my face with cupcakes, chocolate and what not.  I have been hitting the gym at least twice a week which I'm starting to notice in my legs.  I did interval training on my run yesterday which was fun.  But I definitely need to eat a little better!  Oh yeah, and I have a 10K in May.  Haha.

Alright, if I have time later I'll be posting about an actual Pinterest FAIL from last night.  Hope everyone has a great Thursday!