Stella and I Are...

apparently Momma put her headwrap on the wrong way so she fixed it all by herself. 

making//rosemary dijon chicken with sweet potato mash, banana chocolate chip cookies, baked banana bread oatmeal, strawberry filled crepes for breakfast this morning. :)
drinking// bottled water :( miss our ice machine since our fridge took a shit...Stella and I used that thing way more than usual. Love me a tall glass of ice water; mostly ice. 
reading//need a good book. Lately I have found myself reading mostly recipes. Getting ready to fire up the grill on a more regular basis. Bring on the grilling recipes!
wanting//  my paper mache project to dry and harden!! (it's a secret at the moment....)
watching// nothing exciting at the moment....lots of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
listening// to the kids running and playing at the park yesterday. Stella just stood back and took it all in, and took an umpteenth amount of rides down the slide. 
eating// pretty limited with nuttin' but a mini fridge stocked with Horizon Organic Milk! haha! Atleast my reeses pb eggs don't need to be refrigerated. 
smelling// the vinegar from our Easter egg dying fun last night. Brings back so many childhood memories of when I dyed eggs. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with an assortment of mismatched mugs full of dye and sometimes having to guess what color dye was in the mug because the mug wasn't translucent. 
enjoying//the fun Easter stuff that we have been doing, and buying things for Stella's Easter basket. (more too come on her basket!) 
loving// the holiday fun these days because Stella's age is just perfect.
hoping// the Easter bunny leaves some fun goodies for us Sunday Morning ;)
needing//my freezer so Stella and I can indulge in our evening scoop of ice cream...going through with drawl over here. 
wearing//  Stella has been rocking her Easter attire lately- bunny jammies, 'have a hoppy day' tshirt and her HOP sweatshirt which I absolutely love. 
bookmarking// these homemade cereal bars because Stella loves loves loves Nutrigrain bars and I am sure these would be much healthier and these frozen yogurt pomegranate bites are a must try!

and looking forward to//  putting Stella in her Easter dress and stuffing my face with two Easter dinners!! 

Living out of a Mini Fridge..That's How we Roll

Well our fridge took a shit. Actually it melted! I can't say this is our first time loosing all our food since it has happened once before. At the moment we are living out of a mini fridge which is mostly filled with Stella's milk and no freezer. I don't mind ordering out once in a while, truth be told it helps me keep my sanity some days, but I begin to hit the panic button when Stella eats take out too much. I am not always a stickler and do enjoy some random nights off here and there from dinner duty but I care more about what Stella is eating for dinner. shit if it was just Rick and I, I would have all of our take out menu's lined up on the counter ready to pick one each night until our fridge came. Our new fridge is not be delivered until next Thursday! wtf!? Shit happens I guess...

In the pile of crap that I cleaned out from the fridge and freezer Stella stumbled across this ice pack and now walks around the house with a boo boo face on pretending she has a boo boo on her hand as she holds the ice pack on it. Pretty comical...

totally random but my little baker....

It is a breath of fresh air not having to stuff her in a warm winter coat and hat before heading out of the house. Rick and I took Stella for a new pair of sneakers over the weekend and she is in love with them. When we tried them on her in the store to see if they fit, she didn't want to take them off and ended up wearing them home :) When she has them on she points to them and says "shh" for shoes! don't mess with a girl's love for her shoes! 
On a spring note, I am sitting here typing this while waiting impatiently for her to wake up so we can go to the park! It is absolutely beautiful out and I can't wait to get back outside ;)

Bumpity Bumpity bump bump bump....

I find myself carrying this time very similar to Stella and Mabel's pregnancies, very low. At just about 22 weeks, Rick has already felt our little man's kicks. Such an incredible feeling. He is most active at night maybe because of my evening sweet tooth cravings but I often pull up my shirt and watch the little kicks from the outside of the belly. Pure heaven. I am beyond thankful for this healthy baby that is growing inside....

Some Easter Fun

Even though Stella has been battling a cold- which she is finally on the mend- we have still been enjoying some Easter fun; especially with our food :) We made some festive chocolate cupcakes with Minnie cupcake papers of course and had some bunny pancakes for breakfast. Clearly they were low effort bunny shapes. But we enjoyed them anyways.

I have said this over and over but I am so excited for Easter this year. The closer it gets, the more excited I am. I can't wait to dye eggs, leave the bunny a treat the night before, hide the eggs, watch her find the eggs Easter morning, to see her in her Easter dress, and of course make her basket and watch her rummage through it. I have no doubt she is going to love the tutu, Minnie shirt, chapsticks, headbands, and all the other goodness that the Easter bunny is going to leave her.





And last but not least, this little man is going to be enjoying his fair share of Easter candy for sure... bring on the reeses peanut butter eggs! ;)

18 Months aka 1 and a half?!

Stella babe, you are 1 and a half! How did this happen? You have transformed into this smart, funny, loving, beautiful, little girl. But, just so you know- no matter how old you really are you will always be my baby. I love you something fierce. You have shown me who I am meant to be, who I am today, a Momma, to you. You have taught me that this is what I am suppose to do in my life. Motherhood is by far the best thing in this entire world. You are my sunshine, and I am more than thankful for each day that we spend together. You are the sweetest and perfect thing. 

Daddy and I have already told you but we are not sure if you completely understand just yet. But you my little girl are going to have a little brother. You are going to teach him so many things and be the best big sister one could be to him. He is going to look up to you, he is going to admire you and he is going to love you. He already is the luckiest little man because he is going to have you to grow up with. I couldn't be more proud to have you by my side to help me take care of him when he arrives. I love you Stella. Happy 1 and half years old sweet girl. 

First Cold of 2015 and Our Weekend

This weekend was great, besides the fact that Stella was a little bit under the weather. She woke up on Friday with the beginnings of a cold, and the cold symptoms only seemed to progress through the weekend. Unfortunately for toddlers her age no cold meds do the trick; those nasty germs just have to run their course. So, the humidifier is running, warm baths are being taken, a pot of Momma's chicken soup was made, herbal tea with honey is brewing and a fro yo trip for some sherbert was in order! Even though she wasn't fully herself we still managed to get her out and get some fresh air this weekend.

As a Mom, when your baby is sick you feel so helpless... I just wanted to make her as comfy as possible...and take the germies away.

I love love love weekend breakfasts with both Rick and Stella. We kicked off our morning with these yummy homemade strawberry poptarts. They were way better than the store bought ones especially warm out of the oven and were so easy! totally cheated and used store bought pie crust though ;)

Later that day we took her out for some Clinton fresh air and some fro yo :) Even though it is officially Spring, it definitely does not feel like it! It was rather a quick trip as she wasn't herself. When we got back home Stella helped Rick feed the deer. She lives for things outdoors....maybe it feels like we have been in the house for ages.

I heart these two...

ahh...the Easter bunny. I thought for sure it was going to be a repeat meltdown from Santa. Boy, was I wrong. She couldn't get out of my arms fast enough to go up to him. She even sat on his lap and gave the photographer one of her cheesy grins! She was infatuated with the bunny, so much that she actually cried when we had to take her off of his lap. I was so proud of her. We then spent some of the day strolling around the mall with Nana, Pop, and your Uncles. i just wish you felt better sweet girl. 

and that was our weekend in a nutshell. i decided to leave out the rough nights we had getting Stella down for bed,i can't sleep either when I am stuffed up and coughing, all the boogies I got to suck, and we are still using the wood stove as the temps are cold as shit...but we are about to run out of wood...Spring where the hell art tho?...we ain't got no more wood!!

4 Dozen Cookies Later...

While Stella was napping yesterday, I whipped up a batch of cut out sugar cookie dough so it could chill in the fridge until after dinner. Of course I found a new cookie dough and icing recipe on pinterest to try. Not until I got to adding the dry ingredients- 51/2 cups of flour did I realize how many cookies this recipe made! 4 effing dozen cookies!!! What the hell are we going to do with almost 50 bunny and carrot shaped cookies? :) After dinner I cleared off the kitchen table and Rick, Stella and I rolled out some cookie dough and cut out bunnies and carrots- perfect Easter shapes :) I know we did this a few months ago for Christmas but Stella had blast this time. She was rolling out the dough, pushing down on the cookie cutters and handing the cut out cookies to Rick to put on the cookie sheet. Needless to say we had a pretty damn good assembly line going.

Kitchen messes are meant to be made.

The kitchen was covered in flour table to floor. And so was Stella :) These kinds of messes are the best. I was whooped after cleaning the kitchen last night, but totally worth the memories that we just created at that very table. But for our cookies....I am not going to say they are the prettiest, but they are damn good. In this house, it is not all about presentation but about how it tastes going down! get in my belly.  I am thinking we should wrap some up and deliver some to our neighbors. ;)

On another note my little baker is infamous lately for putting things in places where they don't belong! Let's see I caught her putting a bottle of Rick's cologne in the toilet, her small toy pieces in the central vac system in the house, and I can't forget about the dried clementine wedges that I found in my vase yesterday. I feel like I have a funny story for Rick each day about this little lady. i love it. i am so thankful and feel so blessed for all of these stories, memories, and experiences that i am living through. 

Okay and this video...I really have no words. She is just so silly at times :)

TGIF! can't forget to mention it's the first day of Spring and we are sitting inside waiting for the expected snow to fall...wtf?!

Lately and Some Food Fun

I'd like to think that we are over the cold hump and the days will be mild until it really warms up. And by mild, I mean feeling comfortable with a coat on outside. Today was mild. Stella is a happy camper even if it's just walking around outside, digging in the rocks and touching what snow/ice is left on the ground which isn't much-hallelujah! It's the getting her to come back inside that is the difficult part. The ground is still way too mushy both at the park and our backyard as well. Driveway and sidewalk play it is :)

Our weekend was good. Busy one day and the other was just the opposite. It was a nice balance. Saturday we visited with some friends. Stella is so great around other kids- to sit back and watch her just makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Not because she is my kid and all, but she is just a great sharer and is always willing to give her toys away. She will hand over every single toy in her backpack. I really hope that character trait is around to stay ;) She is growing up so fast, which makes me want to freeze time more and more. Sunday we spent running a few family errands, grabbed lunch and cooked a nice big ol' pot of split pea soup. Still loving Soup Sundays! Stella decided to not nap on Sunday. Surprisingly the evening went way better than I had imagined it going. The little babe was in bed by 7:30 snoozing and Rick and I sipped on some tea and watched a movie. Great end to a weekend. 

blurry as hell- but adorable

And lastly- for a little food fun lately....

initial pancakes

my jam lately..Stella's too..baby arugula, strawberries, feta, hard boiled eggs, walnuts in a dijon maple vinaigrette

mini rum cheesecakes with strawberries shooters

and because it is almost St. Patty's day..Lucky Charms marshmallow treats with extra marshmallow :) I have trouble letting them set before I get my hands on them and begin eating them...

Cheers! Wishing I had a green beer in hand ;)