Hold on to your seats people…I’ve got a riveting weekend recap for you today. It involves a Home Depot purchase that goes down as the best $99 I’ve spent in a very long time. This is life in your 30s. 🙂
BUT FIRST!
A very happy birthday to my dad! I planned to share the recipe for the 14 layer chocolate cake in honor of his birthday but…that didn’t happen. I promise I’ll get to it soon!
In the meantime…here are some delicious recipes you can find on my blog that we can thank my dad for:
Sourdough Bread
Grilled Plantains
Homemade Plain Yogurt
Buttermilk Biscuits
The Best Granola (just made a batch this afternoon!)
Italian Chicken Casserole
So, let’s talk about the weekend.
Finn had a bit of a rough day on Friday when it came to naps but went down easily that night. We’ve been in such a good evening routine where we do dinner, bath, books, nursing, rocking and sleep. I look forward to it every day. Nothing better than having a hunk of sweet baby passed out on you.
Dinner was leftover baked chicken thighs, roasted cauliflower and roasted brussels sprouts with bacon.
How’s this for dessert? Sourdough with peanut butter and honey.
We had a fun Saturday morning. Finn had a playdate! I would say that this was his first playdate that actually felt like the babies interacted with each other. My friend’s little girl is just shy of a year and the freaking sweetest thing ever! We are so excited to get the babes together more often!
Finn’s dad picked him up for a visit and I ran some errands. The first stop was Home Depot where I bought a carpet cleaner. I went on Consumer Reports and researched my options and was excited to see that Hoover was super highly rated…and under $100!
The reason for the carpet cleaner is that ever since Finn started crawling, I have been so grossed out by my area rugs. They are only about a year old and I vacuum them almost every single day but with the dogs they just felt so dirty.
I’ll won’t show you the before and after or the color of the water that came up from the carpets during the cleaning but let’s just say that this was a GOOD buy. I feel like I already got my money’s worth out of it and now it lives in my closet to use over and over again.
The Hoover Powerdash Complete is awesome (here’s the Amazon link but it’s $10 cheaper at Home Depot). I had this thing put together and in use within two minutes of getting it out of the box. It’s also pretty small and compact. A great option for things like area rugs and small carpet areas but probably not ideal if you need to clean large areas.
I had to force myself to stop carpet cleaning at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday so that I could meet Dorie for dinner. I really wanted to stay home with my Hoover but Dorie convinced me that it was best for me to get out. Haha.
We had dinner at Bardo, which is a newer tapas spot in Charlotte’s Wilmore neighborhood. The food was very creative and delicious, and the atmosphere was great, but it was pricy! We shared about 6-7 different small plates between 4 of us. Our favorites were the ribeye, scallops and tempura mushroom.
I was home and eating carrot cake in my PJs by 10.
I had grand plans of going to yoga and getting out of the house on Sunday morning but then I just felt blah and stayed home. I cleaned my house really well and did a face mask. I love this one mixed with apple cider vinegar.
I picked up Finn around lunchtime and we had a great afternoon together that involved a long walk, playing and cooking. I made a pot of White Chicken Chili to have on hand for the week.
And that’s my super exciting weekend.
Any tips/hacks for floors/kids/dogs? My friend that we had the playdate with has this play mat and it seems easy to clean and maintain.
Do you like tapas or are you like “give me all the food?”
What did you do over the weekend?
Hi Jen, I just want to tell you I have LOVED reading all of your parenting and baby related posts. I am delivering my first in the next couple of weeks, and I am so sick of people saying things like “enjoy your sleep now” and “you won’t be leaving your house for a while”. It’s all so negative. I am so appreciative of you sharing the warmth and goodness of becoming a mother, even if you’re holding in the bad stuff, I like coming here for the refreshing tone. You are so wonderful and I can only hope to be as good of a mother as you are!
Hey Allison – congratulations on your pregnancy and I’m so excited for you to enter motherhood. I, too, was inundated with people pointing out all of the negative things about having a baby but my overwhelming takeaway is how much more amazing it is than I ever dreamed it could be. Yes, there are hard moments and days, but the joy and love of it far outweighs it.
Please keep me updated on how things go for you! Thank you for reading my blog and taking the time to comment and connect. xoxo
Hey Jen! I have a golden and two babies, and I can tell you that carpet cleaner is a great investment. My two babies (1&3) just had a stomach virus last week and all I can say is thank goodness for the carpet cleaner!!
OH NO! What a mess. Ahhhhh.
I was hoping you would update on how the carpet cleaner worked when I saw you post about it on Instagram. During my nesting phase at nine months pregnant I was determined to rent a carpet cleaner from th grocery store to do our carpets. It worked but so bulky and pricey. Does the Hoover have an attachment for cleaning upholstery? Thanks!
This one does not!
I went to Bardo the night before you and although they don’t have a big menu and were a bit pricey, I absolutely loved the atmosphere, feeling like I wasn’t in Charlotte, and the cocktails were very balanced. I also appreciate the friendly staff that could promptly answer all of our questions really thoroughly. Sometimes that is hard to find.
Yes to all of your commentary. The service was great and all of the staff could speak very knowledgeably about each dish. Also, the cocktails were ON POINT!
How cool! Your dad and I have the same birthday! 🙂
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 🙂 I hope you had the best day!
We love Bardo, it was one of our first dinners sans baby. Yay for play dates, it would be fun to get our babies together sometime!
Woohoo for date nights! So proud of you for making that happen. And yes, we need to make a play date happen too!
Hey Jen, I have been reading your blog for about 3 years and I really like it. You are a beautiful person. Your son is so cute and your girls are adorables. In this post i noticed Finn has the same eye color that my ten months old ! PS: I am french so sorry if what I write seems weird.
Laetitia – it is so lovely to connect with you! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment. Congratulations on your baby and yes! Finn’s eye color is really cool…blue with some brown and green…so kind of hazel-y! My brother had hazel eyes. <3
Our baby is almost 7 months old, and we totally rented a Rug Doctor from the hardware store because we were grossed out by our area rug! Also, I LOVE tapas, because even though I love to eat a lot of food, I love snacking. So tapas is basically like a meal made up of snacks, hehe.
Haha, I love your snack approach to tapas. Maybe it’s not my favorite because I’m more of a three square meals kind of girl and not big on snacks!?
I’ve purchased that face mask but have been nervous to try it out! When you wipe it off do you have to make sure it isn’t going down your sink drain? Do you use a paper towel to get the majority off? Any other tips? Thanks!!
Hey Jessica! I take it off in the shower! So I’ll put it on before I shower and then rinse it off in there. Works great!
Hi! where is your gold bar necklace from? i love it!