February Little Things

Catching up on all the little things in February! Pic above.. we had a TON of apples for some reason, so Maddie and Daddy decided to make an apple pie from scratch! It was delish! 

Maddie Jane in her disaster of a playroom.. she told me, "Quiet, I'm working like Daddy." 

At the beginning of the month we celebrated cousin Luke's first birthday! It is sooo nice having our cousins live on our street. Watching these kiddos grow up together and form little relationships is just the sweetest. 

Maddie Jane took her first ever trip to the library in February! She was PUMPED to get a library card to put in her purse. 

And she was quiet for about 15% of the time we were there.... ugh. But we have gone back several times since and we are working on it :) 

We had some gloriously warm, sunny days in February (and have since had 40 days and nights of cold rain).. so glad Molly and I took some time to soak it up! Love being able to take my laptop outside and work on nice days!

Maddie Jane was beside herself when Anna Kat asked her to be her flower girl!! We can't wait for June!! 

Lexie gave me tickets to Iliza Shlesinger for my birthday - the date was moved, so we spent the weekend in Atlanta to see the show!! (Thank you Lex!) It was hilarious.. I don't think I've ever laughed for two hours straight like that.. 

While we were in Atlanta, we were able to fit in a lunch with some of our college friends! Kate was so sweet to let MJ fix her hair :)

And it was conveniently Matt's birthday, so we celebrated :) 

AND I always struggle letting someone new do my hair.. so while we were in Atlanta, I made an appointment with my girl to get a fresh color. LOVE it.

Back home.. and back to cooking! 

Gigi sent an EPIC Valentine's Day package. I mean ... look at that face! 

And the hair and bag had to go with us to our dentist appointment the next day.. Girl ROCKED her second dentist appointment. She giggled the entire time and had no cavities! Woo! 

I was getting some work done in my office and my two shadows insisted on joining.. 

Another Valentine's package from Gramps and K! 

I think these are my favorite flowers I've ever received from AJ.. loved this little Valentines surprise :)

I went to Maddie Jane's school for her Valentine's party. So fortunate to work part time now and get to do these fun things with her.

And I threw together a very subtle Valentine's dinner for the fam, ha! But seriously, I had almost all of this stuff leftover from birthday parties or showers. Maddie Jane AND AJ both were blown away by this. Makes my day seeing their faces light up.

And Honey sent a package of Valentine's window clings.. so we kept the subtle decorations going! 

We loooove our lazy Wednesday and Friday mornings together :) 

We had a babysitter for a belted Valentine's date. 

On President's day I took Maddie Jane to an indoor water park in Charlotte. She was beside herself with excitement! 

Girlfriend kept getting water in her mouth because she couldn't stop smiling so much!! We had the best time, it wasn't crowded, it was very clean, and everyone slept really well that night :) 

Jasmine is her favorite Disney character this month. She talks about her nonstop! 

We went back to the library for a toddler story time.. She is also insisting on braids almost daily. Her hair is super fine, but I am making progress! 

And our poor pup had to have a little surgery. She went under anesthesia for a teeth cleaning.. While they were in there, they discovered a tumor and a couple teeth that needed removing. THANK GOODNESS the tumor came back as benign and our old girl is as good as new! 

Mom took Maddie Jane for the weekend and we had a verryyy relaxing parents' only weekend. I asked AJ what he wanted to do and he said eat out every meal, ha! It's just so different being in a restaurant without a toddler.. So date night number 1 for sushi! 

Then I found this place for brunch on Yelp. We were the only ones in there and I have NO idea why. Seriously top 3 brunches of my LIFE. 

I dragged him to HomeGoods then we went to the movies. We saw Green Book and it was really good! (Not Oscar worthy.. I don't think it should have won. But good nonetheless..) And I may have dozed off a couple times.. oops! Totally not the movie's fault.. just pregnant lady problems.

Brunch was so good... we went back the next day! This crab cake eggs Benedict with fried green tomatoes... HOLY YUM.

After breakfast and a nap, we drove to Columbia to meet mom and get Maddie Jane. Gigi and CC looked exhausted! But they had the best weekend. and we were so happy to have our girl back! Since we had to drive through the city to get back home.. we decided to go to the water park again. A lot more crowded on a weekend, but still SO much fun! Our little fish would swim all day, every day if we let her. 

And that's February! Feels good to get these sweet, everyday memories documented. And three blog posts in three days! Thanks for following along :) 

Read More

Restoring Grace

Share Tweet Pin It +1

0 Comments

Maddie Jane's Room

Maddie Jane's room was the easiest in the house thank goodness! Her room came with the wainscoting, paint and chandelier. I just snagged these blackout curtains on sale at Pottery Barn, got a new comforter from Target and re-used the pillows from her nursery. 

She had a twin bed in our old house and I moved that to the playroom and re-purposed our old guest room bed/tables/lamps for her room. She actually does much better in this queen bed than a twin. She tosses and turns so much, she was constantly falling out, even with the railings. She is doing GREAT in this big girl bed, and we have the Amazon camera to check on her during the night. 

Essentials to get Maddie Jane to sleep and stay in her room: noise maker cranked up, octopus nightlight, and a child lock on her door. Yes, we lock her in her room. And she stays in there from 8pm to 7am and we all get glorious, glorious sleep. 

Her rooms has several weird angles and is on the smaller side, so we decided to forgo a dresser and utilize all this awesome closet space. (And it curbs the temptation for middle-of-the-night outfit changes that MJ loooooves to do, ha!) We are using these cheap drawers and cubes for now.. maybe one day we will do a dresser, but this has been great for us at this stage in life.

The only work I did on her room was updating the bathroom. I removed the large glued on mirror and ugly stock lighting from the 90s. Re-purposed a mirror from the powder bathroom downstairs and gave it a coat of white paint. Added fun knobs to the drawers and cabinets. AND tackled my first ever wallpaper project. It wasn't easy AT ALL.. and it's far from perfect.. but I'm happy with how it turned out! 

(I don't have a pic of the before, but here is the nursery bathroom that is pretty much the same.) 

With all the angles, I just did 2.5 of the walls. I'm happy with it! I think doing the other wall would have felt a little claustrophobic.. 

Woo! Another room on the blog! Maybe I'll show my office next :) 

Read More

Restoring Grace

Share Tweet Pin It +1

0 Comments

What We're Eating..

Hey, hey! I love looking back at these posts when we get in dinner ruts, so here is a little of what we are eating lately.. I have been on the struggle bus with meal planning and just food in general. Most of our meals have been every man for himself with my complete detest of meat. But with my newfound energy in the second trimester, I was determined to get back to meal planning! Last Saturday I got out my pen and paper and made a plan! 

This was a new one - a twist on chicken parmesan. Texas toast, shredded chicken mixed with pizza sauce, and topped with parmesan cheese and paired with a side salad. I cooked 5 breasts, got out our portion for dinner ,and AJ had stuff for his lunch pitas all week! (I ended up just eating the bread and salad bc #meat, but AJ LOVED this!) Def will be swapping out different seasoning/toppings for this quick/easy dinner.

On Sunday night we had planned to eat with the Meisers. Unfortunately they got sick, so we headed into the city for a family date night at CowFish. We ate there in Atlanta alllll the time, and I am so happy to have one in Charlotte too! LOVE this combo of sushi, cheeseburgers, french fries and edemame. All my favorite worlds combined!

Monday night we had sweet potato gnocchi with brown butter and sage and fried zucchini. Our sweet potato gnocchi was from Trader Joes - it was good, but I've had better... And the zucchini!! This picture is a complete injustice to how amazing it was.. I slice them pretty slim, toss with olive oil and parmesan cheese and toss it in the air fryer for 10 mins. Prob why I have such an awful pic.. we were devouring these bad boys the second they came out. 

On Tuesday night we had AJ's work team over for a potluck. Each month they switch up whose house it is hosted at - we were excited to have our turn! Maddie Jane made it through about an hour of the party, then it was time for bath and bed. And since it was Mardi Gras, I was determined to have a King Cake. Of course every store in Charlotte was out of them, so I made my own.. and baby Jesus may have been substituted for Peppa Pig, but it was good nonetheless!! With this big undertaking, I kept my other contribution super simple with pigs in a blanket. 

Wednesday night we had Trader Joe's chili lime chicken burgers. (We eat them with no bun or toppings - they are THAT good!) And I paired them with a summer pasta salad. You can find the recipe HERE - it is incredibly good.. and even better the next day! 

On Thursday I had planned to have Trader Joe's orange chicken (see a TJs theme here? ha). but we still had so much food in our fridge from the week, that we did a clean out instead. Fun tip - I always save the frozen/pantry meals for the end of the week. That way if something comes up or you just need to clean out, that meal can easily be saved for later and nothing goes bad. 

As far as breakfast and lunch goes around here - I go in phases. The past couple weeks I have had greek yogurt with chopped fruit and granola. I CRAVE it and sometimes even eat it for dinner too! (previous weeks it has been breakfast burritos or hot ham and cheese..) AJ grabs a power bar at work for breakfast. I have done well with packing his lunches - lots of raw veggies, shredded chicken, hummus and a pita is what's usually on the menu for him. I can stomach tuna salad, fruit, carrots and ranch.. it's a toss up for me.. But nevertheless we are doing great at not eating out, ha! 

I have two more days of posts already scheduled! So come back tomorrow and the next day :) 

Read More

Restoring Grace

Share Tweet Pin It +1

0 Comments