Before I had the baby...

The month before I had Amélie (I found out how to put the accent on!) I was working on lots of projects because I knew it would be a while before I could do any of that again (and believe me, everything that I didn't finish beforehand is still sitting there waiting. and waiting.) I have lots more to show you all, but for today I am just going to give you a peak at a few random things I did that were inspired by pinterest!

I made 22 meals and froze them! I knew a few people would bring me meals, but I hated the thought of  grocery shopping and making dinners while trying to balance a newborn and a toddler. I've seen this a million times on pinterest but never got the guts to try it until now. I bought THIS book  which teaches you the secrets of freezer cooking and also has tons of recipes! I probably could have figured out most of it from researching more on the internet, but its nice to have all the info in one place. Here is what I made:
pizza dough/kits (with cheese and veggies already portioned out) 4 nights
tortilla soup (4 nights)
chicken/cream cheese/beef rolls (4 nights)
chicken enchiladas (3 nights)
pulled bbq chicken (3 nights)
Hawaiian chicken (3 nights)
pre-cooked and pulled chicken for a tortilla salad (1 night)
A lot of these meals are just needing rice, fresh veggies, or some tortilla chips which is no problem. And let me tell you these things have SAVED me! I think this is my new way of cooking. First of all, it takes me no time to have dinner ready and then I am only spending around $30/wk to get the rest of the essentials (milk, bread, fruit, veggies, and some fun stuff). I DO use coupons though, so that helps. My initial cost for the freezer meals was only $60. I didn't buy any fancy meat though, like I would've liked (fancy as in free-range).

Okay I could go on and on, but let's just say freezer cooking is the bomb!

I saw this several times on pinterest and though it might be overdone, I still kinda loved it. Its this picture frame, and I just cut a piece of board to fit the frame and painted it with chalkboard paint, and spray-painted the frame yellow (no priming). It had two holes so I used my trick to hang it:)

 Last, it was my husband's birthday (and then Olivia's)  so I wanted to put up some simple decorations for our family parties. I had seen these on pinterest as well, and let me tell you they take very little paper and time to make! so simple (and so much cuter in person)!  I didn't have time or energy to make anymore decorations though and since it was just my parents, brothers and sisters coming over I didn't feel any pressure to put on something over-the-top. I still haven't taken them down...