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?
