Coffee Date + 35 Weeks Pregnant Update

Hi friends! Happy Friday. I realized that I haven’t done a personal update on the blog since my birthday back in July. Lots has happened in the past three months so I figured I’d do an update!

If we were sitting down in Starbucks today for coffee (half caff caramel macchiato for me), here’s what I’d update you on about happenings in my life!

Baby Shower

A couple of weekends ago, my sister Leslie and my Mom threw me a baby shower! It was at my sister’s apartment and they did a great job decorating the place with tons of blush pink flowers and greenery (the theme of my nursery!).

We had a delicious spread of chicken salad croissants, potato leek soup, pasta salad, fruit salad and a delicious cranberry pomegranate punch my Aunt brought. A great mix of family and friends came! My sister in law flew in from California and one of my best friends was in town from Austin so I got to see many of my favorite people!

My mom baked a delicious lemon bundt cake with lemon drizzle icing completely from scratch, and my Dad baked these adorable madeleines. You can see where I get my love of cooking from. :)

We were so appreciative of all the gifts we received– from tons of cute outfits, a boppy nursing pillow, a tummy time play gym, blankets, a co-sleeper/bassinet, bottles, rock n’ play, bath tub, etc. We got almost everything on our registry with just a few extra items to buy on our own.

35 Weeks Pregnant

And just like that, we’ve almost hit month 9 of pregnancy! It’s strange because while the overall pregnancy has gone by relatively fast (the weeks speed by), the days seem to go by at turtle speed. It’s hard to believe I still have 5-6 weeks left until we meet baby and that feels like SO LONG.

I had been feeling great up until week 25, and then I started having symptoms of Symphysis Pubic Dysfunction. This is when your body makes too much of the hormone relaxin and your bones begin to separate earlier than needed, causing a lot of pressure and strain on the pelvic/pubic bones and hips. It’s been pretty debilitating. I can’t go on walks or do yoga, let alone be on my feet for more than 20 minutes at a time. Basically, it feels like I’ve been kicked daily in the crotch by a horse with no recovery time in between. Honestly it’s been very difficult for me, as I work from home and I’m unable to get out and go for walks or do any activity, so it’s isolating. I’m doing my best and trying to remember it’ll all be worth it in the end but sometimes it’s difficult!

We’ve got everything set up in our tiny apartment. Since we’re building a house (more on that soon!), we are going to be in our apartment for about a month after the baby is born. So, no nursery. I’ve got her co-sleeper/bassinet set up next to our bed in the bedroom, her rocker in the living room along with her swing, and all of her diaper changing essentials in our guest bathroom. She has one drawer in my dresser for her clothes. Things are sort of all over the place.

I spent some time washing all of her clothes (with Dreft! Ah the newborn smell…) and folding them. I can’t believe how tiny the little socks and clothes are. We do have a name picked out, but we aren’t sharing it publicly until she’s born. We’ve told our family and some close friends but for everyone else it’s staying a secret!

We have our 36 week ultrasound next week to determine size and position of baby– at our 28 week 3D ultrasound, she was head down. So fingers crossed that she has not flipped to a breach position!

Building a House

My husband and I joke that we don’t know what we’re more excited for — the baby or the new house. Hehe. Of course the baby, right? ;) We’ve lived in various apartments for over 8 years and we’re SO READY to not live in a tiny space any longer. Currently we’re in Fort Worth, about an hour away from most of our friends and family and it’s such a pain driving back and forth. We’re building a house in Wylie, which is a suburb 30 minutes north east of downtown Dallas. We will be less than 5 minutes away from Lake Lavon, which means lots of hiking, kayaking and jet ski renting in our future!

We are slated to close on December 21st — a very Merry Christmas to us! We are contemplating moving before or after the holiday but not sure. Part of us wants to be in our house SO bad that we’re willing to move the day before Christmas Eve so we can just be there, but part of us knows we’ll have a newborn and that it might be a little crazy and we may have to wait until after Christmas.

The last time we visited, we had a roof, our siding, and the insulation. They’re supposed to be putting in the drywall this week and bricking fairly soon. I’ve got a video tour of the progress on my Instagram stories highlights if you are interested in taking a peek! We are just so excited to have more SPACE. Our apartment is just under 1100 square feet and our house will be three times as big, with 3400 square feet (4 bedrooms, 3.5 bath, office, game room and media room).

Link’s 4th Birthday

Last month, our favorite little furry guy turned 4 years old! I can’t remember what life was like before him. He is my best friend and I can’t imagine life without him. In my July life update post I told you all about the medical issues he’s been going through lately. We’ve switched him to a kidney and liver friendly food and he’s doing better. His main issue was vomiting about once a week, and now we’re down to maybe 1-2 times a month. Still not great, but better than before. The carpet in our apartment really looks like it’s been through the ringer. But, overall he seems better. He loves his new food and gobbles it up– he actually gained 2 pounds since switching him and now he feels super heavy when we pick him up!

Every year on his birthday I bake him a pumpkin cupcake, but this year I was too tired so I just went to Three Dogs Bakery here in Fort Worth and bought him a pre-make cupcake with blueberry frosting. I don’t think he could tell the difference.

Dallas Arboretum Classes

You may or may not know that I’ve been teaching cooking classes with my friend Dixya at the Dallas Arboretum! We’ve taught four this year and have really enjoyed them. The DA has a really great venue called A Tasteful Place, which is a large building with windows that overlook the gardens and downtown Dallas. There’s a test kitchen and lots of tables for guests to cook on.

We usually have 4-6 stations with 4 people at each station, and we cook 4-5 recipes in the two hours we have. So far we’ve done a Spring Greens theme, Mediterranean, Picnic theme and an Asian cooking theme! I really enjoy teaching cooking classes — I love walking around and helping guests through the recipes and giving out tips and tricks. It’s extremely fulfilling.

There’s a lot of prep work that goes into each class. Beforehand, we plan and test each recipe and adapt it to our stations cooking style (each station usually makes half a recipe). We make a giant shopping and packing list and arrive a couple hours early to set everything up. Here’s a picture of our prep work– each recipe’s ingredients gets pre-measured out ahead of time.

We’ve gotten really great feedback so far from our classes. Our most popular class was our Asian-style cooking class, where we made spring rolls, dumplings and fried rice. We had 24 people (sold out!) and everyone had a blast!