Recap: My Birthday, Baby Countdown, & Snowfall

What a few weeks it has been. We have officially made it into baby month. We had record breaking snowfall for the South, and with school cancellations, we have been trying to stay entertained while everything is covered in snow outside.

I finally have a few minutes to finish writing before my son decides to wake up. He does have school today on a delay, so I will be able to finish regardless, but it is nice when I can wrap these up early in the morning.

This will be my last recap before baby boy arrives (unless this baby decides to go 42 weeks.) I am hoping I can keep up with recaps, but I am not sure what life is going to look like here soon.

I often wonder when I will hit publish for the last time. I thought it would be a few years ago when I was busy with my bakery business, but I felt the passion to come back. It also gives me a creative outlet that allows me to work while spending time with my son. Even though a lot of time goes into it, my pace of living feels much less stressful.

This past week, I turned 35. I used to think 35 was so old, the end game, retired life. And now I am here feeling young, with an entire life ahead of me. I never imagined I would start a blog at 19 and still be writing at 35. It is because so many of the readers here today have continued to come back and support me.

I am not sure when I will close this chapter, but thank you for so many wonderful years. I hope I can squeeze in a few more.

And with that, let’s get started with the weekly recap.

Usually we have a few warm days in January and February, but it has felt so cold these past few weeks. We have relied a lot on getting together with friends to let the toddlers run around and doing as many indoor activities as we can.

We do try to bundle up and go outside, but the frigid temperatures and wind are not ideal for us weak Southerners.

One of my really good friends and I share a passion for cooking and food. It is always fun going over to each other’s houses for dinner nights and trying new recipes. She gave me a recipe card that a neighbor had passed on to her for a Sherry Chicken casserole. I had never even heard of it (apparently it is popular), but when she started listing the ingredients, I was all in.

I picked up all the ingredients one night for dinner, and it literally took about five minutes to assemble, 45 minutes to bake, and holy moly, it was delicious.

I keep making sure we have sourdough stocked in the refrigerator just in case I go into labor. We go through it quickly in this house, and this time I made a plain loaf since my son loves it with cinnamon and honey. I also made a white cheddar loaf.

I let them cool, slice them thin, and store them in freezer bags. When we are ready to eat, I just take the slices out and toast them. So, so, so good.

We are on week three of swim lessons, and he got a little surprise when his best friend joined his class. I love how much he’s enjoying it, and really trying hard!

After swim, we headed over to Poppyseed Kitchen for breakfast. I love their fruit and yogurt parfaits, and I also ordered a side of eggs. My son was begging for a cinnamon roll (his latest obsession), so we made sure to grab one for him to enjoy with his breakfast.

When we got home, my son and I got to work making homemade cinnamon sugar and cherry almond pop tarts. We had plans to head to church to help assemble hundreds of Valentine’s Day cards for local nursing homes, and we wanted to bring a sweet treat to share.

We spent a few hours putting together the Valentine’s Day cards, and my son was so content playing with his Legos on the floor and snacking on bags of Goldfish.

For dinner, we treated ourselves to our favorite, Ilios. I tried their new seasonal fig and goat cheese salad, and it was amazing.

We spent the rest of the night putting together a new Lego set and watching a playoff game.

After church on Sunday, I was in full clean, declutter, and pack the hospital bag mode. I always get the urge to do everything on the weekends when my husband is home since it is nearly impossible to tackle projects like this during the week when it is just me and my son. Plus, I cannot let him see what I am donating or he will go into hoarder mode with his stuffed animals. The trick is to use black garbage bags so your kids can’t see what you’re putting into them. And never ask them if you can get rid of something, just do it.

Honestly, we have accumulated far too many over the past few years, so we donated the ones with no sentimental value and kept the ones he truly loves.

I also tackled a bunch of cabinets filled with bowls, pans, utensils, and things I never use. Every Sunday, we make a trip to Goodwill, and the weight it lifts off me after driving away makes me so happy. It inspires me to stop buying unnecessary things and keep donating what we do not need.

And after the donations are dropped off, it is pure cleaning mode. I know I am in my full nesting phase because I am doing loads of laundry with only three items in them, mopping the floors every day, stripping the bed sheets, and vacuuming daily.

I kind of hope this is not just a nesting phase and that I stay this motivated about cleaning after the baby arrives. I have always loved a clean house, but I know I am at an crazy level right now.

What is funny is that my son loves it too. He follows me around with his cleaning supplies to help. If I clean the playroom, he will walk in and say, “Wow Mom, this looks great!” I am crossing my fingers that I am raising a son who enjoys a clean space and not one filled with food wrappers, laundry, and soda cans everywhere. His dad is also very into making sure everything is spotless, so hopefully he gets that from him.

We had a day off together for MLK Day, and once again, it was a frosty one.

The morning started with sourdough French toast, my favorite way to hide eggs from him, covered in maple syrup and cinnamon.

That afternoon, we headed to Costco for our weekly haul, then drove over to Ballantyne Bowl for lunch at Flower Child. My son picked out a granola parfait for his lunch from Copain Bakery.

The rest of the afternoon, I relaxed while typing up my “packing a hospital bag” blog post for the second time and staying warm under my heated blanket.

After school on Thursday, my mom and I picked up my son and took him to his very first bowling alley. His best friend was having her party at the play place there, so we decided to take him a few hours early so we could grab lunch, go bowling, and play arcade games.

We had been putting off bowling because we were not sure how he would like it or if he would be able to participate, but it was a hit and we cannot wait to go back.

We also ordered a plate of cheesy chili loaded nachos, and to my surprise, my picky eater loved them.

He had the best time. We definitely spent too much money on arcade games, but watching him in his element made it completely worth it. He also had a great time at the birthday party with his friends.

After spending three hours at the bowling alley, we headed back home. We made a quick stop at CAVA for salads since our town finally got one. It was really good, a bit salty, but still delicious. One thing I love at CAVA is mixing their lemon juice and sugar free plain soda together. I do a big fizzy blend, and it makes this pregnant lady very happy. Sweet and bubbly.

And of course my child was not going to eat anything at CAVA because he is super picky, so I grabbed a few ingredients to make him a “blue planet smoothie.”

I used the Blue Spirulina Tropical Blend, Orgain protein powder, organic milk, a frozen banana, and a little extra blue spirulina powder. After blending it all together, I mixed in a small spoonful of Truwhip whipped cream.

He loved it!

After school the next day, we had a park date planned for the kids, but it started to rain. Instead, we met up to run errands at Target, and honestly, it worked just as well for getting their energy out.

It was right before the big ice storm was expected to hit Charlotte, and I used that trip to make sure we had groceries for the week just in case.

We enjoyed healthy bowls for dinner for a few days. They had ground beef, cottage cheese, steamed sweet potatoes, arugula, avocado, tomatoes, and olive oil tossed with a good seasoning packet.

Now that my appointments are weekly, it feels like everything is moving faster, but at the same time, each day feels like a year in this pregnancy with how uncomfortable and sore I am.

I do not help myself by never resting and constantly cleaning, cooking, or playing. That is what happens when you are pregnant with a toddler. You do not exactly have the luxury of lying in bed all day, even though my mom and husband do give me time to rest. I just never take it. I am a constant machine of “get this done.”

I really need to learn how to just be. So while I complain about how much pain I am in, I am technically doing this to myself.

It was rainy during my appointment on Friday morning, but we still treated ourselves to a new smoothie spot a friend recommended at Ballantyne Bowl called South Block. We ordered the Strawberry Cloud and the Chocolate Mint, and they were both amazing.

When we got home, we got to work on some Valentine’s Day cards.

On Saturday, before the storm was expected to start, we headed to a friend’s birthday party at an indoor playhouse. I am so happy places like this exist for winter birthdays around here. We had a blast.

When we woke up on Sunday, there was snow and ice all over the ground. Luckily, it was not as devastating as they predicted, but the temperatures were still frigid with lots of ice and even more expected overnight. The entire neighborhood was outside sledding down the icy roads, and it was so fun to watch.

It may look silly to people in states that get a lot of snow (I get it, I am from Iowa), but when it snows once a year, maybe, you take full advantage of it. Plus, we had no idea what was still to come the following weekend.

It was funny seeing all the ice on the road but not on the grass. We barely got any snow, just a big blanket of ice, which actually made for some great rides down the hill. My only goal was not to fall.

Everyone prepared to lose power since that was what they were predicting, and thank goodness we did not. We were able to enjoy the winter weather from inside our warm home.

After a day of sledding and enjoying the winter chaos, I made steak pasta. I roasted some vegetables we had in the fridge, including onions, peppers, and zucchini, and mixed them with pasta, Parmesan, olive oil, spinach, garlic, black pepper, and Dutch oven seared steak. This meal lasted us a few days in the fridge, and it was so good.

My iron has been pretty low during this pregnancy, so I have been trying to add more red meat to my diet.

Rightfully so, school was canceled on Monday.

We decided to put together the class Valentine’s Day cards and also make some granola for his teachers. We made granola for their Christmas gifts, and she mentioned how much she loved it and wanted the recipe. Since we had all the ingredients and extra time with the school cancellations, we made a big batch.

I made one chocolate chip version and one cranberry version. We also made little hand colored labels to put on top and wrote out the recipe to include with them.

When we finished up, we dug out the giant airplane Lego set he got for Christmas. I secretly love putting Lego sets together.

Oh, and we used up the old bananas and made our favorite banana bread recipe!

Another few days of cancellations.

We did lots of crafts, grocery runs, Costco trips, bread baking, and dancing around the living room to Danny Go. This pregnant mom was tired.

I have been eating all the dates, drinking all the tea, eating spicy food, pineapple, walking, bouncing on the ball, and just waiting for this boy to make his appearance.

For some reason, my son wanted to try Five Guys while we were out, and I thought, you know what, why not. This kid is picky, so if he wants to try something, I usually say yes. He took one bite of a fry and said “ew,” took one look at the burger, and said no.

The good thing is I can still get him to eat fruit, crackers, peanut butter, protein pancakes, cheese, Just Bare chicken, rice from Ilios Crafted Greek, smoothies, yogurt, and applesauce, so we are not at a total loss. But there are definitely a lot of recipes I need to make with hidden vegetables in them. He won’t eat normal things like pasta, meat, vegetables, mac and cheese, eggs, tacos, burgers, pizza…(which he used to!) And it’s not one of those things where I can make him sit there and eat it. He actually will gag. The one thing we’ve learned is to offer him healthy safe foods, never pressure him to eat something that grosses him out, and try not to make eating such a big deal. We have let him pick out things at the grocery store to get him excited which has helped as well.

And sometimes in the mornings or afternoons, when I have completely extended myself and cannot do any more Lego play or coloring, we cuddle up under the heated blanket and watch one of our favorite shows.

He is currently loving Handyman Hal, Trash Truck, Cat in the Hat, Little Bear, The Magic School Bus, and Franklin.

One thing I have loved doing is making a big dinner that Kyle and I can live off for a few days. He used to be very anti spaghetti squash, but now I have him hooked.

This one is so simple. Roasted spaghetti squash topped with the Tomato Basil marinara from Trader Joe’s, ground turkey and beef mixed in, and of course, lots of Parmesan cheese.

The salad on the side has lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, cottage cheese, good seasoning, and olive oil.

Last Friday, I had another prenatal appointment. We had to cancel my birthday dinner that night because I had not been feeling great for a few days with pregnancy stomach pains and very little appetite. I lived on water, toast, and oatmeal for a bit.

After my appointment, we decided to swing by Flower Child together for a quick dinner before heading home. My appetite was finally starting to come back, and I was excited to try their chicken yakisoba noodle bowl. It was amazing. The only downside was that mushrooms were not listed on the menu, and finding them throughout the dish really threw me off. I just have a strong mushroom aversion, and whenever I unexpectedly bite into one, it completely ruins the meal for me. I did my best to pick around them. I know next time to just ask!

I decided to do a cervical check that day, and unlike my first pregnancy, I was already 3 centimeters dilated and 75 percent effaced. When my water broke last time, I was at zero and zero. I know these measurements can change overnight, or not change at all, but it’s nice to see that my body is actually putting in the work this time!

We woke up to a winter wonderland. This was the best birthday weekend surprise for a January loving winter baby like me. My mom stayed with us over the weekend just in case I went into labor and she could not make it to the house.

This may not look like much to some people, but we have not seen this much snow in over 20 years in Charlotte. It felt really special for us.

Before more snow rolled in, we headed out for a birthday breakfast at Poppyseed Kitchen. We have a car that handles snowy roads well, and my husband, being from New Jersey, is very experienced with winter driving. A lot of people here in the South are not used to navigating snow, which can make it a little dangerous. Luckily, there were only a few inches on the ground when we headed out.

We ordered the fruit and yogurt plate, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, and bacon.

As the day went on, the snow got much deeper. Our dogs were in heaven. We had such a hard time getting Tux to come back inside. He was sprinting, zooming, and rolling all over the yard, loving the cold snow.

We grabbed coffee at Dunkin’. I still do not like their coffee, but I was along for the ride.

Since we knew we would be snowed in for the day, we decided to make a birthday cake. This boy absolutely loves any chance to bake.

I made my favorite almond cake recipe but toned down the almond flavor and leaned more into vanilla. I will share the recipe soon. It is one I used to make every week for the farmers markets.

He loved playing with his Tonka trucks out in the snow!

We headed a mile up the road to grab dinner at Dilworth Bar & Grill. I had their grilled chicken tacos.

After bath time, we sang happy birthday and enjoyed the delicious almond vanilla sprinkle cake we baked together. The snowy scenery honestly makes me want to move somewhere that gets winter weather like this every year.

During the summer heat, and while being so sick with HG, the heat really got to me and something in me shifted. The colder it is outside, the happier I feel. Perhaps the Aquarius in me.

And to make it even better, I washed down my slice of cake with my favorite beverage, the Shirley Temple Poppi.

We got even more snow overnight. By morning, we had reached 10 1/2 inches, which is so much for our area. Tux sprinted out the door first thing to roll around in it.

I made sure to fill all the bird feeders and scatter plenty of seed for the birds, especially my cardinals. I have a pair that love our backyard, and seeing them every day makes me so happy. I will literally sit by the window and watch them like I am 90 years old.

Putting seed out for the birds helps them stay warm and energized during the cold temperatures.

Speaking of birds and watching them, Kyle gave me the best birthday present ever! I was so excited when I opened it. He got me a Bird Buddy, and I cannot wait to get it set up.

A perfect winter wonderland!

I packed up a bunch of cake to drop off for some of my neighbors since we had so much leftover. I did, however, have another slice with my mom the next day to enjoy with our afternoon coffee.

Best friends!

We kept things a little chaotic around the house on Sunday and let Kyle handle all the outdoor adventures with my son because I was not about to go back out into that cold again.

I’m more of the charcuterie plates by the fireplace mom these days!

That night, I had another cup of raspberry tea, took an Epsom salt bath, ate all the dates, and thought maybe this could be it with the full moon. I have been having small, steady contractions for a week now, but nothing has happened yet.

No school again on Monday.

I had my tea, we watched the full moon, watched an entire movie, and then finally decided to get up and start the day. We headed to Hobby Lobby to pick up some crafts and games to keep ourselves busy, and of course I had to grab a few cute new outfits for the boys.

We also stopped at the grocery store to grab ingredients for dinner.

The grocery store was nearly empty, with hardly any produce or meat. I grabbed what I could, but they were not getting a delivery truck in until the next day.

We still managed to make some delicious fajitas with steak, peppers, and onions tossed in fajita seasoning. We wrapped everything in low carb tortillas with homemade guacamole, salsa, cheese, sour cream, and lettuce. They were so good, especially as leftovers the next day.

Another snow day on Tuesday.

I know in other states they would laugh and send kids to school, but we simply do not have the resources or equipment to salt and clear the roads. When the snow melts and temperatures drop overnight, the ice sticks around. It really is safer for kids to wait it out. Thankfully, older kids have e learning options these days, though that does not apply to preschool.

I took advantage of my mom being over that morning and afternoon and cleaned up all the snowy tracks through the house. I powered through laundry, sweeping, mopping, and organizing. I just love when the house feels fresh and shining.

I bought a huge pack of Bona mop pads on Amazon. I swap them out after each use and toss them into an antibacterial rinse cycle in the washing machine.

After a trip to the library, my son had a little friend come over for a few hours for a playdate. It is so nice that he is at an age where he can play with a friend and not need my constant attention. They had the best time with playdough, board games, Legos, and puzzles.

Dinner was leftover fajitas, and we had chocolate dates for dessert. Tonight, I’m making some Greek chicken sweet potato bowls.

We have a two hour delay this morning, so I am cuddled up in bed with my early riser watching Cat and Mouse. Later this afternoon, we are going to make some cookies and dinner together.

Questions for you!

1. Did you get snow this weekend?
2. Are you doing anything fun for Superbowl?
3. What is the last thing you cooked or baked?