Confessions of a Pinterest Foodie (4)

It's been a while since I did a foodie post of favorite pinterest recipes. I think partly because we found some awesome new recipes and weren't trying as many new ones as we had been. Plus pregnancy food aversions and tiredness kept me out of the kitchen a little more than usual.

Nonetheless here is a quick roundup of some favorites we've made over the past few months.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake is one of those things I made on a whim. I thought to myself I want to make a coffee cake tomorrow morning and then I searched for recipes that looked good, didn't take too much time and included strawberries (since I had some in the fridge already). I made because a friend was coming over for breakfast/coffee and we enjoyed it over some good talks. My family enjoyed as well. Super yummy and looks pretty!

Strawberry Mango Salsa. I made this fruit salsa to go on top of some mahi mahi we made on the grill. It was pretty light and summery and the flavors were great! My husband took some the next day with cinnamon pita chips and he loved it. 

Three Vegetable Lasagna. Sometimes you just want something vegetarian and this lasagna was it. I loved the mushroom, spinach, broccoli combo. Definitely one to add if you're looking for new meatless meals.

Chili Mac. We added some Velvetta block cheese and made this into chili cheese mac. I would definately make this again and our 4 year old loved it, probably because she loves Chef Boyardee so much.

Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Scones. These are skinny scones! With only 5 Weight Watcher points and 199 calories per scone you can have these and not feel too guilty. Made these twice and friends loved them.  

Broiled Tilapia Parmesan. This is probably the easiest and yummiest fish dish I've made. The first time I made this the sauce was too runny, so the second time we added more cheese and a little less butter mayonnaise and it was perfect!

Cheesy Vegetable Chowder. It's getting a little too warm for these cold weather chowders but this one has to be my favorite so far. Loaded with lots of vegetables it tastes like it could be at Panera Bread. My favorite part is that it has carrots since I'm not a fan of carrots I like mine more "hidden" so I can't taste them as much.

Pregnancy Favorites (at 20 weeks)

I love being pregnant!

It's hard to believe I'm already 21 weeks (over half way there!) Last week I spent some time thinking of my favorite pregnancy related things that I could share. Here are some of my top favorite maternity favorites.

1. Old Navy Boot Cut Yoga Pants. Yes I actually got these to do yoga in and I actually bought a prenatal yoga video. Sadly the DVD is still in it's plastic wrapper. I never had the energy or motivation to pull out the yoga mat, move our coffee table and try out the prenatal yoga dvd. But! These pants are super comfy and I've worn them many days, both to the gym for some light exercise and also around the house or out and about doing errands. The full band holds them up great and they are the most comfortable pregnancy pants I own.

2. Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy was a book someone gave me during my first pregnancy. It's a pretty funny pregnancy read so I'm reading it again this time around.

3. Boppy Total Body Pregnancy Pillow. This is a life saver for me. I even took it when we went on our Spring Break road trip. I'm usually a stomach sleeper so I have a hard time getting comfortable once the belly starts expanding and I can't sleep on my stomach anymore. I just tuck this baby under my bump and drift off. I've also snuggled the top (meant for your head) up to my belly and wrapped the other side between my legs and created a little nest. Only drawback, these do take up a lot of room in the bed.

4. Avocados. I'm pretty sure I was craving them at one point. Along with spinach. That was the 2 weeks all I wanted to eat was the green goddess grilled cheese sandwich. Avocados are amazing and delicious!

5. Curel Pregnancy Lotion. I use this stuff every night, or at least every time I get out of the shower. I used this my first pregnancy too and no stretch marks. I'm hoping it works as well this time!

6. CamelBak Water Bottle. The best way to stay hydrated. Fill this thing up and you're good on water for a while. I drink the most when I'm in the car or on the computer. I try to always carry this with me throughout the day.

7. Red Hots cinnamon candy. Sweet and spicy! Good for when I wanted to dry heave or just whenever the sweet tooth struck.

8. Nameberry. My favorite baby naming website this go round. My favorite part is the currently popular names for that day. You'll find some rare gems on there too. The forums are a fun place to pick up some old classic forgotten names or trendier hipster names. There are so many names to choose from. I've spent hours on here scrolling through names.

Another favorite pregnancy item that I didn't include in my roundup is the Bella Band maternity band. I like the lace ones. Perfect for pants that are getting snug, just unbutton them and layer the Bella Band on there to stretch out your wardrobe. Sometimes, I even wear them with my regular maternity pants to help hold them in place.

Busy Book {DIY}

Check out my other fun DIY activities and crafts for kids!

For our 9 hour flight from Germany to Florida, I created a "busy book" for Ariana. I had this idea in my head of activities I knew she would like so I decided to put it together the last few days I was in Germany. It was so simple. I got a 3 ring binder, some folder dividers, and some plastic sheet protectors. I printed off a bunch of fun pages I found online and made some of my own. For the coloring pages I put them in the folder dividers so she could pull them out and color them and for some of the other pages like matching etc I put them in the sheet protectors so she could draw on the plastic with dry erase markers and reuse some of the pages.

Here is a peek into her "busy book".

 Ariana loves color by number so I googled that and printed off about 10 pages of color by numbers. I also printed worksheets with shapes.

 She loves to color animals and I found these great pages with pictures and words. We also made the fun number book where they circle all the number 1's on one page, 2's on another page, etc

 Things that are opposite and things that go together pages were a big hit. The ABC maze took some concentration.

 I created our own uppercase and lowercase letter matching pages and she loved the thinking pages like "which way is the animal facing" and such.

Hidden pictures are usually a favorite with her so I got some from Highlights website. Also added in more counting pages.

These pages are just some of what are in her "busy book", there are over 60+ pages of fun activities. If you want to make your own "busy book" for your little one, I've linked some of the best websites I found when making our book.

Websites I printed from:

tlsbooks

kidslearningstation

animaljr

allkidsnetwork

highlightsteachers

Check out these other creative kid crafts on my sister site!

It kept her entertained for a few hours of our flight although some of it took assistance from me to read the directions. Perfect for kids who need stimulation and something to think about. This could also be used if you homeschool as worksheets or just if you have little ones who need some fun activities to do inside on a rainy day etc.