Happy Monday!
Today has been a struggle, and it’s not even noon yet. I don’t know if it’s been the four days of rain or my pregnancy, but I’m just feeling all over the place with emotions. It’s like a mixture of being restless, tired, and anxious. I’m ready for the next 17-weeks to fly by and for the baby to get here! I think a lot of my emotions stem from this waiting game. It feels like that excitement you get as a kid a few days leading up to Christmas morning, but this lead-up lasts a whole lot longer!
This was one of the strangest holidays yet. It was the first time in my 30 years on this earth not to spend the holidays with my parents. They were both feeling a little sick on Christmas Eve, and with everyone catching covid, we didn’t want to risk it. Christmas felt so different this year, but we spent most of our vacation watching movies, going on walks, and having no responsibilities before that all changes soon! I still fit in some baking, dinner with friends, and garden planning for the summer (enough things to try to pull together a recap post!)
One of my good neighbors (and friend) headed to lunch at Napa on Christmas Eve. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and it was so lovely to catch up. The food was delicious! I had their filet with brussel sprouts and potatoes. We decided to celebrate Christmas the right way, so we ordered a cranberry creme Brulee cheesecake and a chocolate hazelnut cake.
The Christmas Eve sky was breathtaking. I sat on the porch watching the sun go down, and with it being 70-degrees, it did not feel like Christmas.
I spent the rest of the evening baking! I made my homemade granola for Christmas Day brunch, my gingerbread bars, and Kyle’s mom’s recipe for pizzelles. He always had them at Christmas growing up, so I decided to bring that tradition into our home. It’s like my mom’s peanut brittle! You can’t have Christmas without it. She sent me a pizzelle maker and her recipe last year for Christmas, and I was so excited to test it out this year.
We were up bright and early on Christmas morning. After getting the dogs walked and having a few sips of coffee, we opened a few presents from Kyles’s mom. She got us the cutest things for the baby, but one of the best gifts was this nativity scene. It was the same nativity scene from when Kyle was a little boy, and I feel so special that we get to put it up in our house every Christmas! It’s gorgeous.
Our good neighbors invited us over for Christmas morning brunch, so I made a banana bread recipe from the NYC cooking app and put together a fruit and yogurt parfait board.
The breakfast was so good! I was stuffed until that evening. I had about four servings of the sausage casserole 
Happy first Christmas Tux!
I had all the groceries to make Christmas lasagna, but we decided to plant ourselves on the couch and have our favorite frozen pizza while watching a movie! We are obsessed with the thin crust Freschetta! It’s so good. We had it at least three times over the holiday break. 
Last week, I spent so much time making notes, purchasing seeds, and mapping out my garden plans. I am so ready to get out in the garden this summer! I know people are messaging me about not doing things like that with a newborn, but I can’t entirely agree. Maybe I’m naive since I don’t have kids yet, but I’m looking forward to strapping them onto me while I water, deadhead, and plant. Now that Kyle works from home half the week, he’ll be able to take over a lot of the time, so I can have a moment to spend out in the garden. I hope my kids enjoy it as much as I do one day, and I know my mom always had me out with her helping. It’ll be fun to see how it all goes, and of course, I’ll blog about it.
And the garden projects have already begun inside! I purchased a raspberry shortcake bush online and planted it in this cute pot (which will eventually be home to my clementines.)
I’m still on my avocado toast kick and yogurt parfaits each morning. When I wake up around 6, I have a bowl of Siggis with honey, blueberries, raspberries, and KIND brand peanut butter granola. I’m going on three weeks straight now with this breakfast! Around 10 am, I’m hungry again, so I’ll make wholegrain bread with avocado and everything but the bagel seasoning. It’s so good, which is funny because the thought of these foods made me gag early on in my pregnancy. I remember when I could only tolerate a sausage McGriddle and hash browns.
Each afternoon, I made a cup of hot honey & lemon water. I’m obsessed with this drink and usually have it multiple times a day. It’s one cup of water, two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, and one teaspoon of honey. It warms me up and takes away my coffee cravings.
