Tag Archives: food

food, home, mommyhood, pregnancy, random thoughts, siblings

Currently 

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Happy Monday! I hope y’all had a wonderful weekend! I’m joining Becky at Choose Happy again this week for her currently link up. Lots of pictures in store for you today – I hope you enjoy it! Leave a comment or join the link up and let me know what’s going on with you!

Loving || Our finished shower! We chose a dark grout (it matches the wall color we chose almost perfectly!) to offset the white subway tile, and I really like the effect. We don’t have a door quite yet, because our old one is now too big, so we aren’t able to use it till we get one. Otherwise, I’m really happy with it! We need a little paint touching up in a few places, but it looks awesome.

Still undecided on the mirrors… there are two of those and they’ll be almost touching. What do you think?



Eating || at the Honey Pot! It’s a local restaurant here, and the chef is actually a friend of Hubby’s from high school. It is AMAZING. The food is fresh, mostly local, and really creative. Most of all, it’s plated beautifully and it’s outstandingly delicious! (If you’re local, check out their website here.) I wish I had taken a picture of every dish, but it was too good to not just eat it immediately. However, this dessert – a Georgia peach tart, with basil crema, accented with tiger lilies (who knew you could eat them?!) – was so beautiful I had to take a picture. And folks, it was as good as it looks. Really.

Growing || tomatoes and peppers! I mean, we are growing other stuff too, but those are our most fruitful plants at the moment. We’ve had one eggplant and some cucumbers and an ENORMOUS zucchini (I talked about that here) as well. Here are a few pictures I snapped last night as I was harvesting…



  


 

Planning || A baby shower! My sweet friend from college Melissa is expecting her first baby (a little girl!) in a couple of months, and my friend Lauren and I are throwing her a shower. We had a planning session this afternoon, and I can’t wait to post with a bunch of pictures after we shower her with love on Saturday!

Enjoying || this little series of photos. The first picture is the night before I had J… EK sprawled across my belly, the tiny little thing that she was, in her mismatched Christmas jammies. I’ve always loved that photo, and so now while I’m not so far away from having baby D, I thought it would be fun to try to recreate the moment with my two older sweeties sitting on top of their little brother!


 

Well, that’s about it in my world. Just waiting on baby D to get here! I have a post coming soon about how I packed my hospital bag – look for it this week!

What’s going on in your life currently?

 

 

food, home, mommyhood, random thoughts

Currently

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I’m a little late on my Currently this week, but here it is! I’m linking up as usual with Becky over at Choose Happy! Join us and let us know what you’re up to currently!

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Enjoying || a day at the lake! Hubby’s parents have a place on Lake Norman, which is about an hour from us. So last Thursday, we packed up and went down for the day to enjoy the sunshine! We are super excited to be going back this Thursday, also! 

          Writing || about pregnancy, delivery, and newborns. Some of these posts have already gone up (like this one on delivery), and some are coming soon! It’s been on my mind a lot, for obvious reasons, and writing about it for y’all helps me prepare myself, too! Since it’s my third time doing this, I’m not terrified or anything, but the more comfortable I am with the process of having, bringing home, and nurturing a newborn, the easier it will be in addition to keeping my older kiddos happy. It’s going to be a huge life shift (as it always is) to add another person to our family, so I’m preparing myself mentally and emotionally to make it happen!

Eating || the three meals from our free week of Blue Apron! My friend Lauren and her husband have been subscribing to the service for a few weeks, and had a free week to give away, so Hubby and I just finished our first round! For $59, you are sent every single thing you need to prepare three separate meals for two people each (or two meals for four people) and directions, etc to make it happen. They’re fairly quick (20-40 minutes prep and cooking time) and all three have been totally delicious! Our favorite thing about them was that we’d never have fixed those dishes or used some of those ingredients (I’m looking at you, ramps. What even are you, anyway?) except that they were given to us. We totally recommend it! 

    Thankful for || beautiful weather and kids who love to play outside! J runs toward the door every time it opens, hoping to catch a few minutes in the grass. When we pull in the driveway, he doesn’t want to go in the house… he just wants to stay outside! It’s great because they usually wear themselves out and nap really well – and who doesn’t love that?! 

      Well, that’s what we’re doing Currently in our family! What have you been up to?

food, holidays

St. Patrick’s Celebration!

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What a fun day we had at our St. Patrick’s Day event! Everyone put on their green best, shamrock necklaces and tutus (well, EK did) and ate delicious traditional Irish food (breakfast, lunch and dinner!), sang Irish tunes, drank some Guinness, and visited with old friends.

This is still at home, but it’s the only picture of her whole outfit!
They don’t make many adorable shirts for bigger boys. All that “first St. Patty’s Day” and “Kiss Me I’m Irish” stuff stops for boys around 18 month size. He’s clearly a little past that.
A little post-breakfast table selfie.
Boys being boys.
The Bedlam Boys is the name of the Irish band Hubby plays in, and they always kill it at the big party each year.
Tim Finnigan, waking from the dead! (The party is called “The Wake” and it’s based on the song “Finnigan’s Wake” – obviously what the pub is named after.)

Let me tell you a little background about this pub we love so dearly. It first opened in 2006, but I first went there in 2007 – my senior year of college. I knew it first as a bar, but it’s always been a restaurant, too. My first visit was with Hubby, who took me there for our first hangout. They’ve got a lovely back porch to spend time on, in addition to the pub inside. It’s always been a spot for dates ever since we’ve been together, whether the whole date is there, the beginning or the end. The summer we got married, we did this thing called the “90 Day Club”. At the time, the rules were just that you came to the pub, every day in a row for 90 days. It didn’t matter if or what you bought, it just matter that you walked in the door. We did it the two summers after that, also, becoming the only couple (or person) to do three separate 90-day runs. We’re kind of a big deal. Ha. We finished the last time a few weeks pregnant with EK, so she became known as the first 90 Day Baby, and her one-week birthday was celebrated having dinner at the pub.

Ever since spending 90 days in a row there, and getting to know the bartenders, wait staff, and owners, it’s felt like family when we’re there. Hubby’s band plays there a couple times a month, and it’s a favorite lunch spot or dinner place to go with our kids.

That being said, one of our favorite days of the year is the big St. Patrick’s party, so naturally, our kids will grow up having that as their big celebration every March.

food, health and fitness, mommyhood, pregnancy

Smoothie with a Punch

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I’ve been really enjoying smoothies during my pregnancy. My heartburn sometimes gets pretty bad, so cold things are my favorite to eat right now.

Today’s smoothie was an everything-I-had-in-the-freezer smoothie.

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I also sometimes put in peanut butter, but I only had Jif (with sugar in it) and no natural pb so I left it out. I don’t always have so many ingredients, but I just didn’t say no to anything.

I try to make most of the fruit be frozen. I just like the consistency better that way. Some of it is obviously store-bought, and some is fresh frozen. (If berries are on sale, or if my bananas get too ripe, I freeze them.)

I put the dry grains in first. Today it was oatmeal and flaxseed meal. That way they grind down finer and don’t clump as much as if you just dump them in with the wet stuff. Then I added some almond milk, then the fruit (all frozen except the blueberries) and the plain Greek yogurt. Then I keep adding almond milk till it was smooth and blending well. I never seem to add the right amount from the get go, and have to keep adding it in later.

What do you like in your smoothie? What’s a healthy thing you toss in so you get the benefit without the taste?

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faith, food, holidays, home, mommyhood

Happy Christmas Eve!

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Today is a happy day, full of family, music, Christmas pajamas, twinkling lights, yummy food, and gratitude. I’m thankful for so many things, on this day of wonder and joy, and I’ll list a few of them here:

A family that wanted to visit me for Christmas, and arrived safely
Cute kids in their pjs
A Hubby that provides and loves well
A roof over my head to shelter me from this rain
Lots of food to eat
A church family I’m excited to celebrate with tonight
Presents under the tree
A Savior who came for us all

Here’s a glimpse of the lazy morning, and I hope you’re doing the same thing!

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Christmas stockings my mom made for us! We’ve just picked out one for EK, and are looking for one for J!

 

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EK in her Christmas pj’s watching a Dr. Suess Christmas (from very close)
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J’s Christmas stripes and his current favorite toy.

 

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My lovely mom, the sausage balls master!

 

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She also makes delicious stove top coffee. I’m spoiled when she’s in town.

What are you plans for the day? Is it dreary and raining where you are?

 

random thoughts

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

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J’s fall outfit from Thanksgiving dinner with Hubby’s family last night. My baby blue eyes ❤

Today, I challenge you to love your family a little extra, hug your friends one more time than you normally would, savor the flavor of your favorite dish, and linger in a moment of celebration. Reach deep down and find things you’re grateful for… even if you don’t have much. Holidays can be tough. Families can be complicated. Budgets can be tight. Expectations and tensions can be high. Sometimes, holiday gatherings can bring out less than the best in us.

But find a few simple things to thank God for today. The laughter of a child. The smile of a grandparent. An encouraging word from a friend. The chance to sit down for a few minutes with a friend. Hey, you might even get a start on your Christmas decorating today! Take the extra sets of hands, and put them to work. If you are the extra set of hands, then do a little work for someone else. Soften your words as you speak them and show some love. Everyone’s Thanksgiving will be a little better. Good luck, safe travels, happy eating, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

 

food, home, mommyhood, random thoughts

Currently: The Thanksgiving Edition

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Today’s Currently isn’t a link up. But I just haven’t posted anything in what feels like AGES, so here I am, telling you what I’m Currently up to, in the style of the link up!!

Thinking about || Thanksgiving and all that that entails. For me, it has entailed rearranging my basement for guest space, two (so far) extremely expensive grocery store trips in preparation for cooking and baking, ordering a Honeybaked Ham (we could give or take a turkey, haha!) and making copious amounts of phone calls and emails planning, preparing, and getting excited. My parents, my brother and his girlfriend, my grandmother, my aunt, uncle and cousin are all coming up here from GA for the holiday. It may be a little hectic, but wonderful. And I haven’t even gotten to things I am thankful for!

Thankful for || family, friends, food to eat and a roof over my head. Here in North Carolina, we’ve had a couple of weeks of drastically changing weather, and I’m thankful for warm boots, rain boots, coats, scarves, and heat in my house. I’m also thankful that I have wonderful family and friends to spend my holiday with. It’s nice to not dread the family coming into town and the hours and days that we will spend together. I know many who are not this fortunate.

Cooking || some of my family’s favorite Thanksgiving staples to take them to Hubby’s family’s T-Giving meal. This will include my family’s dressing recipe and our well-loved cranberry salad. Today I also worked on one of my favorite holiday snacks to have around the house: ranch oyster crackers (basically a package of oyster crackers baked with olive oil, ranch mix, dill, lemon pepper, garlic powder and cayenne pepper) – yum! I’m also baking some cookies (the cherry shortbreads I talked about a few weeks ago and a gluten/dairy/sugar free sugar plum recipe that is SO GOOD. I’m basically excited about it.

Anticipating || some renovations around our home! Hubby and I have decided we’re staying put, and hiring a friend’s company to renovate the basement. The idea is that we will get two more bedrooms, a bathroom spruce up and a laundry room out of the project and we are PUMPED. Hubby and I also have a few projects on the main level that we’re going to be working on during the times that EK is at preschool and J is napping, such as repainting baseboards, touch up painting on walls, etc. I’m excited about this process, and loving my (already well-loved) home even more.

Hoping || I’ve been praying and hoping for more patience with EK. Confession: I don’t know how much better I’ve been getting. She’s amazing – communicating, behaving, potty training, being sweeter to her brother… but still there are attitude issues sometimes (I mean, she’s 2!) and some things she does (to her brother, mostly) that I feel like trigger me losing my cool. I’m working on it. Prayers for that, if you’re the praying type.

Loving || two new pairs of leggings and two new chunky, tunic-length sweaters, all from Crown & Ivy. They are comfy, the leggings are thick (think can’t see through them when you bend your knees, and no panty lines, because they aren’t painted on, either!) and therefore warm, and the sweaters are cozy. Basically, I’m living in them.

Alright. There’s my long-overdue update. What are you up to? What are your Thanksgiving plans and recipes?

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Crumbled biscuits and cornbread that I made this morning in preparation for the dressing I’ll put together tomorrow!

 

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Ranch Oyster Crackers, straight from the oven. The ones that I haven’t already eaten, at least.

 

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Cranberry Salad – a little complicated, but always a hit. My great-grandmother’s recipe (one of EK’s namesakes!)

 

food, health and fitness, home, mommyhood

We’re eating all the fruit.

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One of the changes we’ve made at our house to be a little more healthy is to have healthier snack options. Yes, I love Cheetos. However, I know that there are approximately 2,463,910 healthier snacks. We’ve been keeping Pretzel Crisps (we like the “Everything” flavor) and Nut Thins to eat with cheese, and tons of fruit as our preferred snacks. (Unless I’ve recently made those spiced pumpkin muffins from Against All Grain. Then all bets are off.)

My kids love the fruit. And I don’t mean a little bit. They are fruit nuts (see what I did there?) and so a trip to the grocery store is colorful and fresh and often. We buy berries of all kinds (twice as much if they’re on sale), grapes, bananas, apples, plums, and anything else the looks good or is cheap.

Today the grocery trip wore them out, so I had a double nap (WIN!) to do a little more to the fruit than usual. Often, I only have time to throw it in the fridge, and then I’m distracted doing something else. But since I had time today, I decided to take the fruit snacking thing to the next level.

I took the blueberries, strawberries and grapes we bought and gave them a vinegar rinse. I got this ideal from my mom… apparently a vinegar rinse kills bacteria that causes fruit to mold after a few days. Her “recipe” is 1/4 cup white vinegar for every gallon of water. My “recipe” is put the fruit in a bowl of water, dribble some white vinegar in there, and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Seems to work just as well.

The next thing I did was to semi-prepare the fruit so that when my kids want some, I can just toss it in a bowl for them and it’s ready. I cut the tops off all the strawberries, pulled the grapes off the stems, and even quartered a small bowl of them (J can’t eat them whole yet). Blueberries are, well, ready. Obviously.

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All of this took me about half an hour, but I was also doing some dishes and talking on the phone, so I didn’t feel like it was wasted. And now J is eating his bowl of quartered grapes and I’m blogging about it, instead of quartering them now!

What are some healthy snacks you like munching on? Do your kids love fruit as much as mine do?

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Just because I have to include a picture of my cute kiddo 🙂
food, health and fitness, home

Clean Eating – How I Do It

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The first time I tried clean eating, I wasn’t very creative. I also didn’t do much looking around for different options or substitutes. I just ate mostly salads, veggies, grilled chicken or steaks with no sauces, and snacked on fresh fruit and nuts. That’s fine for a while, but when you have a craving, or want something a little different, or with more depth of flavor (we are self-proclaimed foodies at our house) you need to dig a little deeper and be a little more creative to get the flavor you want without the processed ingredients.

Clean eating is, in a simple definition from Melissa (my Stroller Strength guru), a lifestyle where anything you put into your body either came from the earth, or had a mother. There are a few exceptions, and a few specific dos and don’ts, but for the most part, that’s the easy way to look at it. The biggest way (I think) that I ran into problems was with sugar (obviously) and grains… there are a lot of processed grains that you typically buy instead of buying them in their natural forms (brown rice vs processed white rice, for example, or white flour vs whole wheat flour). Therefore, pasta and bread are pretty much out, too, unless you make your own. One accidental perk of eating clean is that it can easily become gluten free, so if you’re on the gluten free diet, it’s helpful for that also.

Anyway, since I’ve cleaned up my eating in general, and done several week or two-week bouts of completely clean eating, I’ve become a little more creative and done a lot more looking for yummy recipes or snack ideas. This weekend, during my “nearly perfect day” I did some digging (read: Googling) to find a new recipe, and made a recent favorite, and now we have breakfast (or snacks? or both?) made for the week.

That’s the other key to clean eating; it takes a little more planning. I find myself needing to visit the grocery store a little more, but because I’m buying produce and meat instead of pre-made items, I don’t spend quite as much. EK loves helping bake or cook, so I get her in on the fun too, and she’s learning how to be healthy without me even forcing it on her!

I want to share a few websites that I have used for recipes or meal ideas. BUT also know that I love southern-style, more savory cooking too! For example, The Pioneer Woman is my absolute favorite website for recipes, but obviously those are for flavor and not health, necessarily!

The Gracious Pantry – All clean eating recipes, tricks and tips for keeping it up. Home of the No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies of my clean eating dreams.

Hungry Healthy Girl – Healthy recipes, lots of them clean! (This is where I got the Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins from, and both my kids LOVED them! FYI don’t try to eat them hot… the stuck and fell apart. Patience is everything!)

Mama Natural – Where I found the clean Pumpkin Spice Latte. This website is in general a little crunchier than I am, but I like it all the same!

Against All Grain – This is more Paleo (and gluten-free) but it’s still awesome!

Fat Girl Trapped in a Skinny Body – Home of the delicious Banana Bread that EK and Hubby love so dearly. Not all recipes are clean or even healthy, but there are some great dairy-free, vegan, and healthy recipes here.

Hope that these are good resources for you if you’re on a healthy journey! Do you have any websites that I should add to my list? Leave them in the comments!

faith, mommyhood, random thoughts

Currently.

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What my days look like. See "wishing".
What my days look like. See “wishing”.

Here is my second Currently. post to link up with A Mama Collective and When At Home! I love being able to connect with so many awesome writers and believers and thinkers and doers. Y’all are really, really wonderful.

I am currently:

thinking about my family. Not just Hubby and the kids, but also my parents, my grandparents (of which I have only one living, but three dearly loved and missed), my great grandparents (two of whom I knew well), my brother, my aunts and uncles and cousins… We have a circle of love and support, a tight bond that can only be forged by doing life together. Living so far away from them and missing things and coming home not as often as I thought I would has only made me think more about spending intentional time with them, wherever it is spent.

reading Dragonfly in Amber. It’s the second book in the Outlander series. My mom and one of my best friends (and 947204275 other women) read these when they came out, and I am just now reading them for the first time – partially because now that Starz is making a series about them, I want to SEE it, not just read it! So far, I’m a third of the way in, and it’s a little more slow-going than Outlander was, but I’m still in it to win it.

eating banana bread and macarons. I am in the middle of finding all the banana bread recipes I can, and make them healthier without losing their yum factor. Also, on the subject of macarons, my best friend Lauren is in a macaron-making swing, so naturally I’m on the helping and receiving side of that. Let me not complain!

loving this fall weather. NC hasn’t seen as much fall yet as some more northern states have I suppose, but it’s definitely cooling off a little, and I’m seeing a few yellow and orange leaves. Also, the temperature drop has really helped my running (read: I’m not as miserable doing it) because I tire less easily and I pick up the pace when I’m not sweating into my eyes and stopping to take a drink every 12 feet.

wishing my sweet daughter would extend her sweetness to her brother. Every time he gets near her, there’s a squeal almost at the pitch that only dogs can hear. And he adores her. I just want her to tolerate him a little, ya know?

watching all of those lovely shows I’ve been missing all summer. The shows Hubby and I are excited to start again include Modern Family, New Girl, Once Upon a Time, Parks and Recreation (SO SAD it’s on it’s last season!), Grimm, and 30 Rock.

listening to Citipointe Live. They’re an Australian Hillsong-like group that writes tons of worship music. A friend recommended them to me for possible new worship songs for church, and I was happy to listen to several great tunes to share with the worship team!

anticipating fall and winter and CHRISTMAS! I know, Halloween isn’t even here yet, but fall/winter weather and holidays are my favorite (yes, Hubby and I both have birthdays in there) and Advent through Christmas is by far my favorite few weeks of the year.

thankful for my incredible Hubby. When he found out that my grandmother had passed and I needed to get to GA, he cancelled his weekend, helped make a plan and pack, drove all the way here, and has done everything he can for the past few days to make my life a little less stressful. He is the biggest supporter and encourager I have, and I don’t know where I’d be without him. Love you, babe.

There ya have it – what’s happening with me Currently. in a nutshell. What are you doing currently?