Paul and I spent most of July 4th inside — with the temperature near 100 degrees, staying cool was our first priority.

While Paul watched the Nationals game, he put my nephew Ryder’s wagon together. Ryder turns 1 year old tomorrow and we’re attending his birthday party on Saturday. My sister mentioned she’d like to have a wagon to pull Ryder around in outside, so I found one on Amazon that I liked and had it delivered to our apartment.

I had considered taking the box to the party and letting my brother-in-law put the wagon together, but Paul decided to do it himself. I dare say the gift will be even more well-received now (with a 1-year-old boy, another baby due in November, and full-time jobs, my sister and brother-in-law don’t have a lot of spare time on their hands).

While Paul was completing that task, I was in the kitchen doing lots of food prep.

I chopped up more cabbage…

…prepared Brussels sprouts…

…and cut sweet potatoes into wedges for baking.

(I purposefully prepared all the veggies I wanted to bake so I could do them all at once, rather than heating up the oven multiple times. It’s too hot outside to turn on the oven every day.)

I roasted the Brussels sprouts, along with some broccoli and cauliflower that was already cut up in the fridge, and baked the sweet potato fries. I also used the kale that I prepared earlier this week to make Lemon Kale Chips.

Here’s what I had to eat today:

Breakfast: Two eggs cooked in coconut oil, sausage, and sauerkraut

Lunch: Leftover CrockPot Pork Ragu with braised cabbage

Snack: Blueberries

Dinner: Selection of veggies from that afternoon’s efforts — kale chips, sweet potato fries, and a medley of Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower — plus I made a batch of Meatloaf Muffins. (I followed her recipe exactly, except I didn’t have a red bell pepper — only green). They were so good!

After dinner, Paul left to attend a party and I went downstairs to visit some friends who live in our building. Ten minutes before the fireworks started, I walked with my friend Shannon to a spot near the National Mall to see the show. That’s one advantage of living where we do in Washington, DC. No car or Metro commuting necessary for these events! The temperature was still in the mid-90s though, so that was a bummer.

Oh, and that wagon I mentioned earlier? It’s done. Thank you, Paul!

(Reminder: I’m following the Whole30 for the month of July. Here’s why.)