One Month Later...

I didn't intend to be away a month when I announced we were moving, but between trying to get settled and attending my brother's wedding that both my husband and I stood up in, it's been a busy few weeks! I'm hoping to post again with some sort of regularity and hopefully include some regular weekly posts!

We've been busy the past few weeks...

Carter turned 9 months old!

One of the things we lost in the move was her 9 month iron on (I put it in a "safe" place!) so I had to get a little creative.


We had a girls day out with our best buds!

We went to a new mexican restaurant and Carter was very well behaved! Considering it was 3 adults and 2 kiddos we managed to actually enjoy most of our meal. Win!

We went to a local festival and Carter got to pet some animals (though she had more fun trying to climb the cages...)

Carter and Elliot (the cat) have become fast friends now that she is very mobile. He is so tolerant!

Wedding weekend! I have SO many photos, so I'll just share some of my favorites:

The day after the wedding the families got together for a little barbecue before we drove the 5 hours home. Carter made a new friend in Callie, my sister in laws dog!

Now that the weather is a bit nicer bedtime has been a bit flexible- this night she was CRAZY hyper so I let her stay up an extra 15 minutes to tire herself out.

There have also been plenty of walks and park playing!

And most recently, we celebrated Father's Day with our favorite guys!

My dad, the hubs and Carter, and my father in law. Carter really was happy to be with them, I promise!

And now onto our menu for the week! We've started planning out lunches AND dinners to try and avoid the 10pm scramble to find something for lunch..

Monday: Leftover sub for Zach, veggies and hard boiled egg for me, leftover crockpot BBQ chicken for dinner

Tuesday: Chicken salad wrap for lunches, YOYO for dinner (you're on your own)

Wednesday: leftover BBQ chicken for lunches, breakfast food for dinner

Thursday: Soup for Zach, TBD for me (my day off) and some sort of casserole for dinner

Friday: salads for lunches, fish and veggies for dinner

I'm hoping to do some baking too, but I have to finish off the cherry blueberry pie bars I made for Father's Day first ;)

Sun Shiny Weekend and a Menu

It was a beautiful weekend and we had a lot of time outside to enjoy it! Friday we took Carter to the park and met up with our friends Sara and Madison. Carter hadn't been to the park before, and we discovered she could care less about slides, but loved the swing!

Best buds!

Isn't that a great photo? My friend Sara took it and I just love it :)

Saturday we all enjoyed breakfast on the porch. 

We cleaned the house, ran a few errands, and worked outside while it was still light out.

We also went on a walk!

The sunglasses lasted all of 15 seconds, but they were cute :)

Here's our week's eats:

Monday: Hot dogs and salads

Tuesday: Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Pasta

Wednesday: Lefovers

Thursday: Asparagus Pesto Pasta

Friday: Leftovers/eat out

Saturday: Homemade pizza and tater tots

Baking: I'll definitely be baking apple pie bars for my (almost) sister-in-laws bridal shower this weekend. I'm not sure if I'll make anything else. Last week I made flourless peanut butter brownies and they were to die for!

This week I'm linking up with Motivation Monday and orgjunkie.com

Easter Weekend and Weekly Menu

I hope you all had a lovely Easter! Ours was really nice despite the snow (yes, snow!) that we had all weekend. I feel bad for everyone who was doing egg hunts!

I had Friday off, and spent the day running errands and snuggling the wee beast (Carter). We had dinner with my parents for Zach's birthday which consisted of pizza and wings and leftover desserts. It was nice not to have to cook!

Saturday we hung out around the house, did some chores, and rearranged our living room. We have a fairly large living room with three ways to enter/exit, so it can be kind of challenging to get all the furniture in there so that it's functional and looks ok. I'm not sure if we will keep it the way it is now or not- we need to bring the elliptical back up from the basement and go from there. We played a lot with Carter, who seemed to love having both of us home!

We also babysat for our friends Saturday night! Their daughter is a few months older than Carter, and they always have a good time playing. She has started cruising so she was tons of fun!

Normally we go to the Sunrise Easter service which is held outdoors, but due to the time (6:30am) and the weather (30 degrees) we decided that with Carter that wasn't the best option. We ended up going to our usual service and man, it was packed! They had to keep pulling out folding chairs to accommodate everyone, which I guess is a good problem to have.

Easter dinner was at my in-laws, and my parents were invited too so it was a one-stop day for us. Can I tell you how nice it is that my in-laws and parents are friends? My parents stayed later than we did! Dinner was yummy and everyone was happy to let Carter entertain them. My mom set up a mini photo shoot and Carter lasted about 2 minutes before she was over it ;) We did get a few cute photos though!

Our eats this week will look like this:

Monday: Leftover pizza and tater tots

Tuesday: Leftover Easter dinner

Wednesday: Salmon and broccoli

Thursday: the hubs requested deviled eggs and we will probably have something else too

Friday: Hot dogs and a side

Jury's still out on whether or not I will bake this week. We've had a lot of desserts in the house, and I think a few days without would be a good thing!

Linking up with orgjunkie.com today!

Birthday Weekend and This Week's Eats

Saturday was the hub's birthday, so this weekend was all about him! He didn't want to do anything fancy, so it ended up being a low key weekend. Saturday we hung out around the house and I mostly watched Carter so the hubs could get to some vinyl graphics jobs he had. I don't know if I have mentioned this, but he has been designing and making vinyl graphics for a few months now and I think he does a great job! We actually put some on his truck Saturday afternoon:

Nice, right?

I also baked the requested birthday dessert, which was a cheesecake. I haven't made a completely-from-scratch cheesecake in a long time, so I borrowed a spring-form pan and whipped that up. It turned out great! Here's the recipe I used.

My parents offered to watch Carter so we could have a little birthday time without her, so once they picked her up we ordered some Chinese (again, the hub's pick) and finally got around to watching the first few episodes of season 4 of Game of Thrones. I've had it home from the library for a week, but they're just a little longer than normal TV shows so it seems like we never have time for them.

Sunday we did our usual church and work routine, but Zach's afternoon was a little different. His birthday gift was a massage, so he enjoyed that while I was at work. My in-laws came over to watch Carter for us, and they joined us for dinner after we all got home. Spaghetti and meatballs was the requested meal for Sunday night, and we enjoyed that with more cheesecake.

My mother in law, the hubs, and Diesel the dog

We had a lot of good food this weekend, and that means leftovers! Here's our plan for this week:

Monday: leftovers
Tuesday: Greek Yogurt Waffles
Wednesday: Fish and veggies
Thursday: Eat out
Friday: Pizza and wings with my parents
Saturday: Cheesy Tex Mex Chicken

I'll also be doing some baking for Zach to take into work this week. More on that later!

Lastly, a Carter photo from this weekend. She has not been a happy camper lately- we are SO close to her first tooth (teeth?) breaking through, and she has been miserable off and on for the past 2-3 weeks. She skipped a nap entirely on Saturday, and I wore her in the Moby so I could get some things done and she could be calm. She loves that thing!

Linking up with Motivation Monday today!

What I'm Reading 2

It's been about a month since my last reading update, so I thought I would share some of the books I have finished lately! I thought instead of listing the books separately, I would group them by series since most of them are part of a series rather than stand alone books.

Hannah Swensen Mysteries: Peach Cobbler Murder, Cherry Cheesecake Murder, Key Lime Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke

This series is still fun, though I am growing a bit tired of the whole 2 man thing Hannah has going on. I think the proposals were a way to try and liven that up, but it just seemed forced and silly to me. I do like that they are broadening the plots to involve more characters, and those characters are better developed than others have been. I'll keep reading these for now!

Reagan Reilly: Burned by Carol Higgins Clark

Even though they can be a little predictable, I like this series. Enough of a mystery to keep me entertained, but not to serious and complex that it discourages me from picking it up for just a few minutes.

Game of Thrones: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

I'm totally invested in this series now! The hubs and I have also started watching the TV series, but we get it from the library so we are behind. I get so invested in certain characters, and my favorites sometimes change from book to book!

Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

So happy to have finally finished the series. I never read these as a kid, but started them a few years ago when I was still in college. For some reason I never read the last one, so I'm glad to have finally finished it. This last book wasn't my favorite, but was still a nice ending to a great series.

Stephanie Plum: Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich

Another good one for this series. This one sort of remind me of the Hannah Swensen series in which the leading lady has two guys (and it sort of bugs me that it has gone on this long) but these books are always hilarious, and I will keep reading them as long as Evanovich keeps writing them!

Mystery with Recipes: A Catered St. Patricks Day by Isis Crawford

I still really like this series, and I wish they would have been written in holiday order, because I like to read the book around the corresponding holiday. Sometimes that means waiting a few months until I get to read the next one! The characters are really well written and the story is always entertaining. The next one is a Christmas one, so I guess I have a while!

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer

Another series I finally finished! I read the majority of these last year (or the year before?) and started the last one right around the time I had Carter. Since then I've switched to doing most of my reading on my phone, so it took me a few months to just borrow the ebook from the library to finish it. This was a good series and a good ending, though it did seem a bit like there was too much going on.

Kinsey Millhone: N is for Noose by Sue Grafton

This wasn't a favorite of mine. I'm not sure what it is, but the last two books of this series have only been "meh" for me. Maybe I took too much time off between books? Either way I'm going to give the next one a go and see what happens.

Mary Russell: Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King

This was one of the only times I think I have read a book within a month of it being published! I have quite the extensive "to read" list on Goodreads, so often books get added to the end and I get to them months or years later. This one started out slow for me, but by the end I couldn't put it down. Waiting impatiently for the next one in the series!

Kane Chronicles: Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan

I love all of Rick Riordan's series, and this was no exception. It's not quite as good as the Percy Jackson series, but definitely worth a read. I think this is the last one in this particular series, which is a bummer, but I heard a rumor he has or will have a new series out?

Whew, that was a long post! What are you reading?




Linking up with Tidy Mom today!

What Else I'm Knitting

I'm still working away on the Vivid blanket I shared last week, but I haven't done too many more squares since then. I thought I would share what else I have on the needles even though neither project has seen much attention lately. Maybe sharing them today will remind me to give them some love this week?

These are the tube socks I am making for Carter. I'm not sure how long to make them, but I think I'm about done with this one. I grab these whenever I need something easy and small to work on, so they don't get much love.

This is the hat I started for Zach for his birthday, but decided early on that it was silly to give him a hat in March and figure I'll give it to him for Christmas.

This is Madelinetosh Pashmina Optic that he picked out last summer. 

And that's all I've got. I'm hoping once the blanket is done I can move onto other things, including some stuff for Carter :)

This is from our 7 month photo shoot :) She is growing up way too fast!

Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along

Sleepy Weekend and Weekly Menu

We're all a bit sleepy over here. Carter, who is an awesome sleeper, has started waking up in the middle of the night. I'm guessing it is due to teething, because nothing really seems to calm her down except cuddles and in a few rare instances, Tylenol. Hoping her first tooth (teeth) break through soon!

Other than a lack of sleep, we didn't do much this weekend. We visited with some family, I worked, and we got some things done around the house. Honestly, we were kinda tired to try to do anything too wild and crazy! But here's our plan for eats this week:

Sunday: Small group
Monday: La Vias pizzeria (assorted sub for me!)
Tuesday: Sausage and shrimp with rice
Wednesday: Left overs/fend for yourself!
Thursday: BBQ pulled chicken in the crock pot with veggies
Friday: Deviled eggs, steak, and asparagus
Saturday: Take out for the hubs birthday!

I will probably bake something for Saturday, but I'm not sure what yet. Part of me wants to surprise the hubs, but in all honesty I should probably just ask him what he wants :)

Lastly, Carter is 7 months today! Her first year is more than half over, and even though I can't believe how fast it's going, she's so much fun now that I don't wish for her to be little again :) Not much anyway!

Linking up with Motivation Monday

Menu and a (half) birthday!

This weekend was full of fun, even though winter seems like it will never end. Saturday the temps were above freezing (seriously, when did that become warm!?) so we packed up the baby and headed to buy a carseat. Carter still fits in her infant car seat, and probably will until she is about a year old, but Babies R Us was running a killer sale and we ended up saving over $100 on her convertible car seat. Score!

After our shopping trip we went to Wegmans for a late lunch. Carter was more interested in the paper...

Which she promptly tore 30 seconds after this photo. Sorry Wegmans! 

Sunday we did our usual church and work (for me) and then we had our small group over. We just started but I'm really enjoying getting together with this group!

Here are our eats for the week:

Sunday: Tacos with small group
Monday: taco leftovers
Tuesday: Fish, baked potatoes, and green beans
Wednesday: Cornbread chicken casserole (to use up the leftover cornbread!)
Thursday: Slow cooker broccoli cheese soup and cheesy italian quick bread
Friday: leftovers
Saturday: Shrimp quesadillas

As far as baking, I think I'll try these fudgy oatmeal chocolate chip cookie bars. They are calling to me! I might also make caramel apple pie bars as a pick me up for my dad who is having some minor surgery this week.

Lastly, photo overload! My baby girl is 6 months old today. I love this little ball of crazy so much, and everyday gets more fun! She sits on her own and eats everything we have put in front of her. No teeth and no crawling yet, but I don't think it will be long! Her favorite thing is the cat. Seriously! She loves him more than me or my husband. I'm pretty sure kitty will be her first word.

And a look at how she has changed!

Linking up with orgjunkie.com

What I'm Reading 1

This Friday I thought I would do an update on my reading goals. I think I'm doing pretty good on my goal of 48 books this year, with 9 read so far. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I know once I stop breastfeeding I will lose that and my pumping time, which will really put a dent in my reading time. I'm hoping to get the bulk of my 48 books done in the first half of the year to account for that :)

Here's what I read in January!

Fudge Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke

This series is fun, and I like the premise of a bakery as the backdrop for the plot. Its definitely a little cheesy at times, and the characters can get a bit stale, but for the most part its easy and enjoyable reading. I haven't tried any of the recipes that are included, but some of them look really good!

Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

Part of the same series as the book above, I remember wondering if I would get to this in time to read it around Christmas. This had a fairly predictable ending, but other than that I thought it was a nice addition to the series.

Mission to Murder by Lynn Cahoon

This series is just ok. I don't like it as much as the one mentioned above, even though the initial premise is similar. It seems like the fact that Jill (the main character) owns a coffee and book store is always dropped as soon as there are more interesting things happening. Since that's the part of the story I like its a bit disappointing. Still, its nice for a bit of easy mystery reading. I would recommend the Hannah Swensen series over this one, but if you are in the mood for "fluff" reading, give it a try.

The Chase by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

This series is fun because anything Evanovich writes is bound to be funny. I don't love the romance part of it, because that's just not my thing, but it's easy to get past it. I think my favorite character is Kate's Dad. He reminds me of my dad if he had pursued a career in special ops :) 

M is for Malice by Sue Grafton

I had put this series down for a long time, and just picked it back up again. I don't know if its because it has been so long since I have read these books, but this one seemed particularly moody. Not bad, and still had an engaging story and mystery, but Kinsey seemed particularly affected by the events that transpire. As far as mystery series go, I would say this one is less fluff reading that the others, but at times maybe a little harder to get through also. This could be because I found the mood a little depressing though. Either way, I will be moving on to the next book soon.

The New Mom's Guide to Living on Baby Time by Susan Besze Wallace

This book was loaned to me by a friend (along with a few others that seem to be part of a series but I haven;t read them yet) and I started reading it right before I had Carter, and then would pick it up whenever I thought of it. Honestly, I don't hate it, but I didn't love it either. There wasn't anything new or particularly helpful, and I can remember getting a little offended at some of the assumptions they were making. Mind you, I was reading this during the hormone craziness of just having given birth, but in general I'm pretty easy going and it takes a lot to offend me. I'm not sure if I will read the rest of the books, partly because I think they would have been helpful to read a few months ago.

Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich

I don't know how Evanovich keeps coming up with funny content 18 books later, but she does! I probably sound like a fangirl, but even though these are very light and "fluffy" reading, they are entertaining and laugh out loud funny. The only thing that I wish was different is that Stephanie is still in limbo with the two men in her life. Make a choice and move on girlfriend! Though I suppose that would alleviate some of the humor in the book. If you haven't read this series yet you should give it a try!

I realize looking at my collection here that it looks like I read nothing but light mystery and Janet Evanovich. Honestly, I don't have the brain capacity to read really deep books right now, and I do read other genres but these just happened to be the ones I got to last month. More variety coming next month, I promise!

Lastly, obligatory Carter photo:

Baby in browns!

What have you been reading lately?