Life has been crazy. Christmas snuck up on us and then was gone even quicker. After Christmas I got super sick for over a week and being pregnant and sick is not fun. We didn’t do anything for NYE, I don’t think we even watched the ball drop. We are party animals can’t you tell. I haven’t blogged in a while so this is a hodge podge of photos.
Arie knows a change is coming
This is my new purse I got from Etsy. I love it, it is real leather and from Barcelona.
I made gluten free banana bread, I havne’t had it in years. It was delicious
My fall craft.
Looked great on the front porch.
our festive porch
Carl bought milk and said, you know your due date is close when it’s the date your milk expires.
I swapped the trees for christmas
Carl did the tree and I did the porch trees
Arie loved the fresh snow
Shoveling is a family activity
Carl took this picture of Arie! This is a great photo
I loved our tree this year and it had the perfect spot.
Arie stuck close to me in the last weeks of pregnancy.
Our gluten free cut out cookies
We had to have baby Jesus
Another sweet photo of Arie that Carl took.
The end of the year was good, minus being sick. The best was to come and sooner than we would have known. 🙂
My second baby shower was hosted by my best friend and we had it at my house. It was the beginning of November which in the Midwest, you will never know what weather you get. We lucked out, we had beautiful sunny, warm weather. We all sat outside on our deck, we needed sunglasses and probably sunscreen, I think a few people might have gotten sunburned. The weather was perfect with the theme of Tacos, Margaritas and Sangria. We did some prep ahead of time to make the day of easier. I was excited to have all of my favorites! My friend did an awesome job!
Here are a few photos of the day.
the delicious taco spread we had
the sangria and blue margaritas
Arie went to the groomer before the shower
It was a beautiful day
the baby shower favors
one of my aunts couldnt make it and she sent us a card. She hand makes her cards!
Here a few recipes that we have made in the last month or so.
This was chicken and lime soup. This was good, but to give more substance to the soup, I added rice. Carl did say, next time if I make it, I have to thicken the sauce a little more. It was fresh and light tasting.
This recipe is from Budget Bytes, I love her blog, I have cooked other recipes from there before.
Last week, I found this recipe on Pinterest. Carl really likes orange chicken, this was easy, made a lot and I made it gluten free. I liked that the sauce was only 3-ingredients. I did use the whole jar of orange marmalade, I didn’t want a strong BBQ sauce taste. This is from the Blog Crafty Morning, I haven’t cooked from there before.
I had to share these photos from August when my family got together at my parents house up north! So all my sisters are amazing cooks and I love when they share that with us. 🙂 She made us homemade individual pizzas.
All of the different ingredients
She used nan bread for the small ones
the big one was a gluten free crust
They were good, she used roasted tomatoes, sausage, fresh goat and mozzarella cheese, fig spread and arugula!
A few weekends ago, I asked Carl if he could help make my closet more useful. He took and idea and made it real! YAY!
The first photo is the after picture of the shelves, I forgot to take a before one. But on the side with the two shelves that have a lot of space between them, that wall only had one hanging rack. I love how everything fits better in the second photo, I went from two hanging racks to three! I love it.
The next two photos are of our new trash and recycling bin holder! I found a woman who makes all these awesome things out of pallets, she used to live near my parents. We don’t have a place to put the garbage and recycling, it just sat out. This is a perfect spot for the garbage and recycling and it adds a little more space for Arie’s treats and this outdoor stuff. She did a fantastic job!
Closet makeover
Love how all my stuff fits
New hand-made pallet trash can holder
Works perfect in that space
Hopefully, painting the master bedroom is the next task. I will have to let Carl know that he will be doing that! 😉
What a busy last month we had. We have seen family and friends a handful of times and that has been great. We have tried to make down time for ourselves, like puzzles! We have had awesome FISH FRYs (I wrote it in all-caps because it is that exciting for me because my fish are gluten free), went to the Lion King Musical and have been enjoying summer!
Here are a few photos!
Dog Life
I love this card! It’s actually a birthday card I gave a friend and it makes me smile. I bought it, cut the happy bday off and its hanging at work!
FISH FRY! I love my GF fish! This was Julys fish fry!
We had quite the spread!
We went to Duluth last month and I wanted a Duluth puzzle
We couldn’t find a piece and I was not going to bed until I found it. I did!
The puzzle was a fun one and kind of hard to put together.
I had to hurry up and put my puzzle together so I could start my book.
Carl, me and my 2 sisters went to the Lion King Musical! That was amazing!
A while back I made this chicken recipe, it was really easy and delicious with lots of flavor. I found it on Pinterest! That app that pretty awesome and all the stuff you can find on it is so mind blowing. I must say, I hate when I find a cute outfit and then there is no place to buy it! lol
Anyway, back to the food!
Carl really liked the lemon flavor that this had and the cream sauce with the chicken was good not to think. I did not modify the recipe, only used gluten free pasta and flour. I highly recommend this recipe!
About a month ago, the weekend before Carl’s birthday; we had our housewarming party with our friends and I used that party for a dual purpose as a surprise 30th birthday party for Carl. I invited family and they showed up and surprised Carl! We had so much fun, lots of food, friends and laughter. I cooked the main meat-pulled pork sandwiches and grateful enough that our close friends and family brought sides to pass, we had plenty of food! My brother made layered jello shots and he made a layered jello shot birthday cake for Carl. It was intense and delicious, I think there were about 80 jello shots, they were all gone by the end of the night and the cake. 🙂
I had 15 pounds of pulled pork from a local meat market
My little sister brought the big birthday balloon
I hung a birthday banner while I got Carl out of the house
Happy 30th Birthday Honey!!!
Thanks friends for coming and celebrating!
What a great day!
The jello shot birthday cake is almost gone!
Arie was pooped from all the fresh air, pool time and people.
Mother’s Day breakfast at the cafe! Delicious
We really want to extend our love and appreciation to all of our friends and family who came and gave us a great housewarming party and helped celebrated Carl’s birthday! Many of our peeps were close but a handful of them had to travel in a distance so we are so glad you could join us!
Here are a few recipes that I have made that were pretty good. Both recipe ideas came from Food Network shows. On Saturdays, I like watching Pioneer Woman and The Kitchen. On Netflix, Carl and I have been watching Worst Cooks in America.
This was a hearty meal and very easy to make. We had a good week of leftovers.
This recipe was delicious and had some kick. The idea for this recipe came from the Worst Cooks in America show. I started googling Paella and there are so many types that you can make. This one had shrimp and chicken. I had to buy $15 saffron threads for this recipes.
Who would have thought that curtains would be exciting. We searched forever for curtains, online, in store, under a rock and everywhere else! We finally found some we liked at a store called Tuesday Morning. I looked every where and for the design and style we wanted, I couldn’t find them for under $100. I found these at the store for about $30, what a steal! A friend is hemming them up a bit, because we bought the longer length. I will get them back tomorrow, I can’t wait!
Go Blondie! 