Guilty Pleasures

Yes indeed we are all very late for last week's Haeley link up assignment!

I probably have more guilty pleasures than I will ever admit, but to save my self-esteem and anyone's time who is actually reading this, I will will limit myself to just three.

Numero uno: the darkest chocolate with the least grams of sugar our grocery store carries. Ok, I will admit that current medical research has actually proved dark chocolate to be a not-really-that-guilty pleasure. They do after all say it is good for you. Of course what they mean is that one square here and there is good for you, or at least wont harm you. And every time I buy it, I convince myself that it will last for weeks because I will only eat one square at a time here and there. But come on, we all know what really happens...and yes I also admit that occasionally a spoonful of peanut butter gets in the way of the chocolate as it makes its way to its untimely death.

 

 

Number two: this one is beyond guilty, its flat out embarrassing! Yes, I occasionally fill my mind with this rubbish when Ryan has night class or has to work or study on a weekend. Shhh don't tell him, he doesn't know!

 



Number three: this one is probably pretty universal, and is often not so much a guilty pleasure but a desperate need. But here and there I do lounge around in bed after Ryan has gotten up with Caleb even if I am not tired simply because I want to, and am avoiding 17 million bazillion more important things I have to do. And no I definitely do not look like this while I sleep!

 

I am pretty sure Ryan would say my guilty pleasures are crying about everything and cleaning the house too much, but we wont go there in this post.

 

Cant wait to see what everyone else's guilty pleasure are!

A Bit O' Brag and a Party

Ryan was officially hooded with a Master's in Business Administration last Friday. What does that mean? Basically he has a lot of useless knowledge about marketing and human behavior, and can put together huge power point presentations in inhumanly fast amounts of time. It also means he has a fancy schmancy degree to hang on the wall we have specially designated for such things (haha! I wonder where my degree is these days...).

No, but for realsies I am really proud of him. He graduated with honors as a member of Beta Gamma Sigma (some fancy special MBA club thingy), and then, much to his surprise, was presented with an award for achieving the highest academic honors in his class and for superior leadership and character. Meaning he beat out a bunch of single guys and gals who were full time MBA students, while he was going to law school part time, working part time, helping watch Caleb while I work almost full time, and watching insane amounts of Mad Men on Netflix. Pretty impressive, and yep that guy is mine.

But enough of that, though seeing as my blog is titled The Uxorialist, I do believe I get to do a little braggin about the man to whom I am wed. We had a little tiny party with Ryan's family afterwards at our house to celebrate. In an attempt to drive myself past the already-partly-insane-but-not-quite-yet precipice, I had to do a little more than throw some food out with paper plates and call it a day. No, I had to add several little Pinteresty touches that I am pretty sure my sweet husband thought were bat**** cray cray but helped with anyways. He responded swiftly to all my brisk orders and even managed to keep a straight face while I screamed "the ice cream is melting and I need you to help individually wrap these homemade ice cream sandwiches at midnight." Because yes, my life, self worth, and dignity were all resting on whether or not we served parchment wrapped, string tied, homemade ice cream sandwiches at a family party...seriously pregnancy hormones are the weirdest.

Without further ado here is a stellar picture of my homemade strawberry peach iced tea, homemade chocolate chip vanilla ice cream sandwiches and my cute little utensil bundles (after the party). The rest of the oh so regular food (burgers, grilled corn and cole slaw) were not worthy of picture taking.

Next up, "Momzilla plans a 1st birthday party." Haha! But seriously, I have so many cute ideas for Caleb's upcoming birthday.

Maternity Monday-DIY Maternity Shorts

And pants too! I tried on several pairs of maternity shorts recently knowing that hot humid New England summer is quickly approaching. I couldn't find a pair that looked good enough on me (think poofy diaper) to make me want to spend $35-$50. So I realized I needed to explore other options. A few months ago, inspired by this tutorial, I converted a pair of regular pink skinny jeans I got for a few bucks into maternity jeans. It worked great, but the way I did the belly band is a little bunchy and I figured I could make a few improvements to the concept. I personally like the full belly panel, as it is smoother and doesn't allow for flashes of pregnant belly. I decided to keep my eye out at the thrift store for some shorts and try my hand at it again, this time with my added improvements.

I found these shorts for $2.50 at Goodwill:

 

I bought a hideous pair of maternity cords for $5 (forgot to take before pictures) and cut the belly band off:

 

I then removed the waist band from the shorts:

 

working in quarter sections (making sure there was a little more of the material in the front than the back) I pinned and sewed the belly band to the shorts:

 

I used a zigzag stitch so that the thread would stretch with the fabric since I wasn't using elastic thread:

 

I left the zipper in and just sewed the top part shut. That way the shorts have a "real" shorts look.

 

Here is the finished product:

 

So there you have it, a pair of non-diaperesque maternity shorts for $7.50. Not bad!

 

*Using shorts or pants that have a little stretch to them works best, so that the shorts themselves also stretch a little with the belly band and create a smoother look.  

 

 

I also made a pair of white skinny jeans, from a pair of jeans I found in the juniors section at Marshall's for $15.

 

Before

 

After

 

Close up

 













My next project is to convert a pair of navy blue capris from Goodwill into shorts too.

I hope your week is swell!

Mother-Link Up

More from a "A Month in Pictures"

 

What being a mom to this little guy means:

 

It means I get to take this little guy out on long walks when he gets fussy

 

It means I get to look at this...

 



 

...and this while I am trying to work

 

It means I get to have my apples (and lots of other foods) taken out of my mouth, slobbered on and man handled by chubby hands

 

It most of all it means I get to love this face for the rest of my life!

 

Maternity Monday

I am actually posting on Monday this week! The shirt is slightly outrageous, but its so fun to wear.

This week is Ryan's last week of classes and finals, and I CANNOT wait for this weekend when it will all be over and we have a couple months to breathe!

Me:
Shirt-Thrift store (Wouldn't have had the guts to buy it if it weren't for my crazy sister Hannah)
Belt-Thrift store (Sorry you can's see it, its one of my favorite belts)
Skirt-Motherhood Maternity
Bracelet-Good Ole Target
Shoes-Can't remember for the life of me! I have had them for a couple years now.

Caleb:
Shirt-Hand me down
Pants-Old Navy
Shoes-Gap
Fat cheeks and wrist rolls-Mom's milk, avocados, sweet potatoes, and chicken.

Have a great week!

Colors Link Up-Coral

       My favorite color this spring is coral. Its so bright and cheerful and rich. I have been wearing light coral nail polish and a pair of coral earrings every chance I get for the past month. I especially love coral paired with navy or white.

But I will let the color speak for itself.

 

Linking up with Haeley for "A Month in Pictures"

Maternity Monday

     Yes I know it is not even close to being Monday. This week was crazy and each day just kept slipping by without me getting a chance to post. Ryan had law school finals last week and has MBA finals this coming week so we are just trying to get through as best we can.

     So it is wedding season!!! We have been invited to four weddings this spring and summer and went to the first one last Saturday here in New Hampshire. It was a beautiful day and I was excited to wear a sleeveless dress and open toed shoes.

     My bump doesn't show very well in these pictures, but I feel like it is huge already! As usual, trying to get a picture where both Caleb and I actually look normal was a little hard.

 

 

Me:

Dress-The Limited (Non-maternity! And the dress I wore to my Erasmus graduation. I was quite proud that I actually fit into it...barely)

Shoes-Macy's (Cant remember the brand. These were my wedding shoes and are so comfortable)
Earrings-Target
Bracelet-Banana Republic-Actually a necklace

Caleb:
Shirt-Gap
Tie-Target
Pants-Old Navy
Shoes-Gap

Cake for Company

       Baking is not really my thing, unless its Christmas and I am in full Martha mode whipping up extremely decadent truffles and such. Other than that I am a little too loosey goosey with my measuring and not very good at reading recipes, so most of what I bake turns out ok but never amazing.

      I volunteered this week to bring something to my monthly mom's discussion group (we are currently reading Mulieris Dignitatem by JPII which I highly recommend). I decided to explore the world of coffee cake and promptly googled "healthy coffee cake," I know I know that is an oxymoron. I did find one that sounded good and looked reasonable healthy, waited until the last minute to put it together, realized that I didn't have all the ingredients and had to make some adjustments. I think I baked it slightly too long as it was a little dry, it was quite sweet but very good.

Skinny Coffee Cake

Serves about 12.

 Prep time: >8 minutes

 Cook time: About 25 minutes

Ingredients:

For the cake:

 •1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce (I didn't have any so used oil)

 •2 tablespoons unsalted butter

 •2/3 cup brown sugar (I used coconut sugar which worked quite nicely)

 •2 large eggs, room temperature

 •2 cups all-purpose flour

 •1 teaspoon baking powder

 •1/4 teaspoon baking soda

 •1 teaspoon vanilla

 •Dash of salt

 •1 cup nonfat vanilla Chobani

Topping:

 •1/4 cup white sugar

 •1/4 cup brown sugar (used coconut sugar again)

 •1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (didn't have any, so I just mixed up a little of my own)

 •1/2 cup chopped almonds

Directions:

 1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 x 8 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt until mixed.

 2.In a large bowl, beat the butter, applesauce, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla until creamed. Mix the Chobani into the applesauce mixture until fully combined. Add the flour mixture and stir until fully combined. Pour 1/2 of the batter into the prepared baking dish.

 3.To make the topping, mix the sugars, pumpkin pie spice and almonds together. Sprinkle 1/2 of the topping over the batter. Cover with the rest of the batter and then sprinkle the remaining topping over the batter.

 4.Bake cake for about 35* minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

 

 

Linking up with Francesca and her delicious creation.

This Week in Caleb Land

A few photos of the little guy from this past week.

His latest accomplishment:

 Climbing onto the dishwasher the second you turn your back to get more dirty dishes.

Hangin with his pal Luisa:

They both wanted to use the walker. Unfortunately the rest of the pictures I took of them were terrible.

 



 

Breakfast this week:

Mangos! (And a few bananas.)

 

Mom's favorite:

Is there anything cuter than a baby in a onsie who also happens to have just woken up?

Selfie

Nothing quite like a selfie to make you look like a teenage girl! All for you Haeley!

Linkin up with Haeley

Easy Week Night Dinners

         With Ryan buried in law school and MBA classes, and me trying desperately to work at least 30 hours a week, we tend to keep our week night dinners simple. We are on a pretty steady rotation of salads, burritos, and chicken. Pretty boring, but we spice it up here and there when we have guests or on the weekends.

          One great easy dish I cook often is whole roasted chicken. Most of the time I just rub it with olive oil, salt, pepper, and Herbs de Provence and cook it in my dutch oven. Roasting a chicken in a dutch oven is almost fool proof in terms of cooking a moist chicken, and if you like some crispy skin you can take the lid off for the last bit. Sometimes we don't even eat it right away, and I just pick the meat off and put it in the fridge. We use it later in the week for salads and wraps or reheated with some roasted potatoes. Caleb loves it too, and will munch on little diced pieces of chicken while grunting and banging on his tray.

       
        If I am feeling ambitious, I chop up some vegetables and throw them in the bottom of the pan. If I am feeling extra ambitious I may even make a little gravy out of the juice in the bottom of the pan.

         Today was an extra ambitious day, so I added carrots, asparagus, and red potatoes and cooked up some gravy.

What are some easy week night dinners you make?