Around the Table Vol. 4

Welcome to the latest series on the blog and the fourth edition of 2018! On?Around the Table, you?ll find products I?m loving lately, family updates and/or stories (aka adorable pictures of my kiddo), hospitality stories about the times we host guests in our home, what we?re eating lately, and more. I?d love to hear what YOU want to hear in this series, so please feel free to comment or reach out on?Instagram!

1. Pregnancy Update.?Baby boy #2 is due in?one week! I can’t even believe how fast this pregnancy went by. Thankfully I’ve felt great 99% of the time, the other 1% being normal tiredness from chasing around a toddler while pregnant. I re-read Greyson’s birth story the other day and I am so excited to see how this birth will be different. I’m planning to share an introductory post after he’s born as well as his birth story (which is mainly for me to document it for myself to look back on but I know a lot of people enjoy reading those, too!).

2. Nursery Update.?This past weekend we spent some time getting Greyson’s room ready to share with his little brother in a few months! Baby #2 will be with us for the first 4-6 months just like Greyson was but then the?plan is for the boys to share a room! Since we moved into our house last year, we haven’t done a whole lot with Greyson’s room. So it felt really good to get some things done in the room, including painting the huge blank wall behind the crib. Now I am just anxious to get the second crib and get the room totally set up!

3.?Maternity Leave.?Next week is the official start of my “maternity leave” from the blog and my web design business. It feels so weird to say that because the truth is as an entrepreneur, you’re not given a maternity leave, it’s not like I’m being paid to take off 12 weeks. The other part is that it’s been a?ton of work getting ahead on blog posts and planning ahead for this time off. Starting next Monday, I’ll be sharing a 6-8 week series on all things related to bringing food to others in need. This can be people who just had surgery, had a baby, had a death in the family, etc. I’m so excited for this series and hope it will be helpful. These are recipes that are also just tried and true favorites of ours that can be made for your own family anytime, too.

4.?Baby Shower.?Two weekends ago, my mom and one of my best friends here threw me an adorable shower! I was surprised by how much we needed to buy considering this is our second baby boy, but it turns out we lost a lot of newborn clothes somewhere along the way. Plus our needs are a lot different now than they were two years ago. I am still very minimalist when it comes to baby items, with a few splurges like this one.

5.?Recipe dreaming.?I didn’t realize that this is a pretty unused feature, but on Instagram you can save collections of photos you’ve saved from other accounts. I use it for saving recipes that I see when I’m scrolling through my feed that I want to remember to make. A few on my list are these Salted Caramel Brownies from Pinch of Yum, Lemon Curd from Baker by Nature, and Orange Raspberry Shortbread Cookies from The Speckled Palate. Okay, there may be a sweets trend going on here 😉

6. “Winter” in Arizona. We are coming up on my?favorite time of the year living in Arizona. While everywhere is getting their last little bits of snowfall and cold weather, we’re enjoying longer days, warmer temperatures and that itch to be outside every day is in full force. We are hoping to get our backyard landscaped in the next few months and I can’t?wait to have a perfect space to hang out outside with my two boys and enjoy our beautiful Arizona weather as we transition into spring and early summer.

Tell me what you?re loving and up to lately!?