Monday Musings

We are back from our little family getaway to the mountains. That time off was good for the soul. I didn't bring my work phone and I just allowed myself to truly disconnect. When Camille is in daycare during the weekdays, I miss her so much! This time was seriously precious and Ian and I loved spending all day just loving on her and laughing with her. Also reconnecting with each other ... so important. 

I have lots of photos to share from our trip and will do so this week. A few random notes this Monday...

+ I'm sucked in to the trainwreck that is The Bachelor. And I can't wait for tonight's episode. On Andi's season, I thought Chris was a sweetheart. But (sorry for letting my prude colors show here), he kisses too many girls WAY too early on. And for that, I now think he's a little gross. Major turnoff.

+ The aqua cardigan/wrap I'm wearing above is a new purchase from Nordstrom thanks to a rave review from two people ... Katie from Miss Dixie and also my mom! Mom bought a heathered green one a few months back and has just loved it. They have so many beautiful colors available and I ordered two -- water gently blue and the purple vine burnout one (which is less than $20). I love these wraps and they look great buttoned or open. The aqua one I have is thicker and more of a fleecier-feel on the inside which is really comfortable. Looks great paired with black, too. Love shopping at Nordstrom because they have free shipping (and free returns, too). I've got my eye on that plaid one next.

  

+ The Superbowl is coming and all I can think about is FOOD and COMMERCIALS. Really just the food. I've got a few fun appetizers planned and I will be sharing some of these quick + easy recipes on our local news here in Charlotte this Saturday morning.

+ A few girlfriends and I have started breaking up our workday by planning a recurring lunch date every few weeks. Our next one is tomorrow and I just can't wait. I always leave these lunches feeling happy and revived, ready to tackle the second half of the workday. To me, nothing beats some good girlfriend time. And tomorrow we'll be at one of my favorite restaurants!

Happy Monday, party people. 

Five On Friday

Hello from the mountains! I am enjoying some great family time so I won't be writing a post today ... but I will be reading your posts all snuggled up in my yoga pants by the fire ;) Thanks for linking up with us and I'll be back with my five next week. Muah!

Mongolian Beef + Other Copycat Recipes

Yesterday I mentioned the PF Chang's Mongolian Beef copycat recipe that I made for us Saturday night. This dish was seriously yummy. You can view the recipe HERE. I got the idea from Natasha, who posted about it for Five on Friday! One note if you are a frugal grocery shopper like me: the two pounds of flank steak that I purchased for the recipe cost right around $25. Not the cheapest. So the next time I make this will be when I spot that flank steak on sale. :)

Pretty, right? And it was so tasty. 

We ate it with a sauteed red pepper and some easy roasted peanut noodles that were great. Gourmet? No. But stupid-simple and, therefore, perfect for a Saturday night? YES! 

I remember the first time I ever found a "copycat" recipe ... it was for a Starbucks Frappucino. I felt like I was harboring some sort of trade secret, like someone had done all of this work to develop a total replica of the utterly amazing Starbie's Frap. I don't even like frappucinos, mind you. But I thought it was the coolest thing, owning that recipe. Now, thanks largely in part to Pinterest, finding copycat versions of your favorite restaurant meals is easier than ever. 

Here are some other copycat recipes that I'd like to try soon.

Ruth's Chris Chopped Salad with Lemon Basil Dressing

Bonefish Grill Bang Bang Shrimp

Cheesecake Factory Luau Salad (love this salad!)

Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits

Do you cook any copycat recipes? I'd love to hear if you've found any winners. 

(PS: make that beef recipe!)

Le Weekend.

I figured it's been a while since I shared a weekend recap, and those are some of my favorite posts to read on other blogs!

First of all, please tell me -- am I the only one who falls asleep on the couch at an embarrassingly early time Friday nights? I was dozing off at 8:30. Ian was like -- April, really?! But after a long week, and an awesome dinner that I didn't have to cook (Ian grilled wings for us), and laying back on the couch with the fireplace on and a cozy blanket ... I didn't stand a chance to make it any later than I did.

Saturday, I went to a baby shower at Napa on Providence.

The baby shower menu was so delicious that I was stacking food on top of food.

We can't wait until this little miss makes her appearance and Camille can have a new playmate!

Later that afternoon my little teddy bear and I went to the grocery store to get ingredients for a yummy meal.

I took Natasha's suggestion and made the copycat Mongolian Beef from PF Chang's for dinner ... holy deliciousness. More to come on this later!

Sunday consisted of making a baby bikini top out of Mama's eye mask ...

... and was later followed by a family walk around the neighborhood, a visit with our friends/neighbors, a little football watching for Ian, some mimosas, and a playdate at our house with Camille's daycare "boyfriend." It is a hoot watching those two together ... they are ten days apart in age and have so much fun hanging out with each other and getting into mischief. 

This will be a short work week for us ... we have a little family getaway planned later this week!

Five On Friday

It's time for another edition of Five on Friday and I do hope you'll join me, Darci, Christina, and Natasha!

Remember, all you have to do is post about five things on your mind, add our logo (found at the bottom of this post), and join the party using the linky tools below. Easy, and a great way to find new blogs and be found. :)

O N E
Last night Ian and I were able to enjoy a great date nite while my mom was in town. We had an early dinner at Wolfgang Puck Pizza in Phillips Place where we shared an awesome fennel sausage pizza and some mussels. I also tried a really good NZ sauvignon blanc called Momo. Afterwards we saw American Sniper ... I've never been the biggest Bradley Cooper fan until last night. He was GREAT in it and I felt like they did a perfect job with casting. My only nit-picky critique is ... use some real babies in the movie, okay? The scenes with newborns were done using very obvious fake babies. Weird.

T W O
I've mentioned Fickle Resale on the blog before (here) -- it has been going great in Charlotte and growing steadily! If you're in Charlotte and you haven't joined yet but would like a free trial, let me know. Yesterday I picked up this lightly used pair of Freshly Picked mocs for the baby and they are so adorable on her.

T H R E E
I'm going to a baby shower this weekend and one of the gifts I got for the mommy-to-be is the Mustela Physiobebe no-rinse cleansing fluid. I've blogged about this before, it is the BEST. I keep it right near the changing table and love having it on hand to keep the baby fresh and smelling amazing. I'm giving it to her with some other goodies and with the cotton pads I like to use the Physiobebe with.

F O U R
I recently downloaded the brain-exercise app Elevate and have really enjoyed playing the three games nightly on my iPad before going to sleep. I am tapping into skills that I frankly have not had to use since college (or high school!). I would highly recommend downloading this free app.

F I V E
I enjoyed all of your tips and feedback on my homemade baby food post (here). I should have mentioned that my love of our Baby Brezza is a true, non-sponsored blog post love! I just can't brag on it enough. I have also enjoyed this article as a helpful reminder of when to introduce certain baby foods (and of course deferring to the pediatrician).

TGIF y'all, and hope you will join in on Five on Friday this week! Cheers to the weekend!

Recent Makeup + Skincare Purchases: A Review

I love beauty products just as much as any other girl ... okay, that's a fib.

I think I love beauty products more than a normal person should. And I also love hearing "real people" reviews of products before I spend my hard-earned cash on makeup and skincare products! So here are some recent purchases and my honest opinions on each.

BB/CC Cream
I had so many recommendations for great BB and CC creams (CC = Color Correcting). After doing a little research, I purchased It Cosmetics CC Cream in color Light. What do I love the most about it? SPF 50! Now, this bad boy is $38 so I did have a little bit of sticker shock (being that my other tubes of BB cream have been in the $8-12 range). But with that said, it has already become a fast favorite. The coverage is really good and it creates a smooth, even facial tone. Paraben free. And the major sun protection will make my dermatologist oh-so-proud. I give this an A+++.

Available online at Amazon, Ulta, and Beauty.com. Free shipping at Amazon and beauty.com, and free shipping at Ulta.com if your order is $50 (love the free samples they include in packages).

Facial Cleanser
Santa brought me the Clarisonic Mia 2 and I'm loving it! Now, this brush is $149 so I'm expecting big things ... I was jazzed to see that one of my favorite YouTube beauty vloggers had such a sparkling review of it (here).

Available online at Amazon and Nordstrom with free shipping at each!

Mascara
I posted last week about my favorite mascara find ... the Younique Moodstruck 3D Fiber Lashes Mascara! There are three days left for sales here -- you can buy through the 18th with my local rep Courtney through my little online party. Courtney stands behind this product and will make sure you are 100% happy with your purchase! I am a full convert and just love that the fibers are made from tea leaves. I wear contacts so I'm careful about what may get in my eyes.

Available in my online party thru this Saturday.

Lip Gloss / Stain
I've actually owned this for a while thanks to a recommendation from Tess ... but just haven't blogged about it yet. I want to shout from the rooftops that I am in loooove with the Victoria's Secret Pout Lip Stain. The best colors, and they stay on forever without being goopy or sticky. I own three different colors (and am wearing Endless Pink in the photos above). They are $10 (or 2/$15 or 4/$20). The other two hues I have are Eternal Flame and Forever Yours. All three are favorites.

Available online at Victoria's Secret

I want to hear about some of your recent makeup and skincare favorites ... what are you loving?

Feeding The Baby: Our Favorites

When Camille turned six months old, we introduced solid foods. She's eight months today (!) and is chowing down like it's her job. Green beans, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, bananas, peaches, apples, and more ... she hasn't yet met a food she didn't like. Well, at least after trying it a few times.

I had to giggle recently when a daycare mama friend saw my little plastic jars of food and said "Oh my gosh, are you seriously making your own baby food?!" But here's the thing, guys. It's easier for me than buying pre-made. It truly is. Cheaper, too. I don't trust myself to be johnny-on-the-spot with always having a pantry stocked full of baby food jars, but I do know that I can easily make big batches of food, freezing the purees into 1-oz. cubes for ease. So I assured her that I wasn't trying to be Martha -- I was just taking the simple and frugal route. 

Let's talk this through. I promise it's easy.

Exhibit A: 

Sweet potato.

Exhibit B:
Peeler and knife.

Exhibit C:
Peeled sweet potato.

Exhibit D:
Cubed sweet potato gets ready to go into the Baby Brezza.

Okay, let me stop right here and wax poetic on the Baby Brezza. 

When I was pregnant, I trolled Pinterest for all sorts of pregnancy-related articles, especially related to baby gear -- what was necessary, what was a waste of space. Baby food makers often fall in the latter category; people say you don't need them if you have a standard blender or food processor already.

Well, I beg to differ.

We have a small house, so we have to be really careful with how much "stuff" we own. The reason why I love this so much is because it's small, it's easy, and it's way efficient. It goes beyond the traditional blender or food processor in the fact that you have a Steam + Blend feature which allows you to set the timer, walk away, and come back to perfectly pureed baby food. It steams the fruit/veggie/meat and then goes directly into a blend mode without you having to press any additional buttons.

Above you can see the Steam + Blend timer set for 30 minutes, and below? Voila ... baby food!

All I do is dispense it out into little containers and it's ready for Camille.

Same thing goes for apples -- just steam some organic apple chunks up and blend, and you have applesauce that is literally good enough that I served it in bowls to Ian and myself one night as a side to our dinner. I did mix in a little cinnamon and sugar for us, but the baby just gets plain apples. 

So, the best thing about making this food for Camille is that I can make large batches and then freeze in 1oz. portions. She's currently eating 4oz. at a time, so I can just toss in 4 apple cubes or mix and match -- for example, last night's dinner was 3 zucchini cubes and 1 carrot cube thawed and then mixed together.

I love the freezing trays that I have by Mumi & Bubi. Two come in a pack. They are BPA free and the shape of the wells (like a crescent moon) make getting the cubes out so easy ... you just push on one end and the frozen cube slips right out. 

Here are the apples and sweet potatoes, completely frozen in the tray. 

I just pop them out, slip them in a freezer bag, and toss it in the freezer.

When ready to serve the baby, I just let them thaw on their own or use the microwave in 15-30 second intervals. 

So there you have it ... see what I mean? Not tough or elaborate at all!

As Camille gets older, we can experiment with more foods, which will be a lot of fun. We do want to keep her on organic produce and organic meats for the time being.

And with that said, I'm definitely a fan of the occasional jar or pouch of pre-made food. They come in really fun flavors (things that would be harder for me to make or find organic at the store), and I like having the 4oz glass jars that I can reuse for homemade baby food. We have used Earth's Best and Gerber Organics baby food so far. Love them!

If you have any recipes to share, questions, or experiences of your own with making baby food, I'd love to hear from you!

Our favorites: