Hey friends! I hope you’ve had great weeks.
My birthday was on Tuesday, and I enjoyed two meals out (with baby in tow, thankfully the weather cooperated for outdoor dining) – what a treat!
I’ll share some more pictures from the celebrations next week (also, stay tuned the week after for a recap from our family vacation to Lake Anna last week), but for now I wanted to share some Friday favorites/things I’m loving lately.
Please feel free to play along in the comments – what are you into lately? I’d love to hear!
Please note there are affiliate links in this post.
Things I’m Loving Lately
1) Baby + mommy fitness classes.
So fun to get in workouts with my little guy in tow!
It’s always a little hit or miss in terms of how he’ll do, but the classes are outside, so that helps keep him entertained, and if he’s fussy or needs to nurse during class I’m in good company because everyone else has their babies too. 🙂
2) End of summer produce!
Tomatoes, corn, peaches, watermelon – you name it, we are eating it!
We had some AMAZING end of summer cantaloupe at the lake last week that Matt’s parents brought from their farmer’s market. Matt’s dad put all our fruit into a festive watermelon bowl for dinner one night – cute, right?
As he says: “You eat first with your eyes!” All about presentation.
Wes has been pretty into the farmers’ market scene lately (and so is Riese, although she misses the samples they used to have in pre-covid times).
Check out my Recipes Using Summer Produce post if you want some ideas to use up that late summer fruit and veg, by the way!
3) Blue Apron! (sponsored)
Speaking of summer produce – we’ve had some really good Blue Aprons over the past few months!
Our weekly Blue Apron deliveries definitely helped to make the transition to a family of 4 a lot easier… I always love knowing that 3 of our meals every week are already planned and grocery shopped for us.
We enjoyed that Blue Apron had a lot of grilling-specific meals on the menu this summer because as you know we love grilling… anytime I saw a grilling option I pretty much always selected it!
Once thing that’s really nice about Blue Apron is you can change your delivery address and serving size if you’ll be out of town/serving more than your usual number of people certain weeks. When we spent 2 weeks in Pittsburgh in August with my in-laws, I had our Blue Aprons sent there and changed from 2 to 4 person servings for just those weeks.
It was super nice to have the Blue Apron boxes so it was less meal planning for all of us to do while together, and my in-laws love Blue Apron too (they actually signed up for it after eating it with us last summer and really enjoying it)!
Our favorites from that week were Oregano Chicken & Olive Pan Sauce with Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Onion & Spinach:
And Garlic Shrimp & Pesto Barley with Corn and Tomatoes. This one in particular was so fresh and summery!
Both of those meals were actually part of Blue Apron’s September partnership with former White House Chef Sam Kass, who is a public health and nutrition advocate! Right up my alley. (We got to enjoy them in August as a press preview.)
If you haven’t tried Blue Apron yet and want to give it a shot, I’d highly recommend it! Click here to use my affiliate link to sign up and receive up to $110 off across your first 4 boxes!
4) Reading!
I have the Kindle Oasis and I like that it has adjustable warm light – this was key for me because I read in bed a lot and didn’t want bright blue light messing with my sleep signals! I also love that I can read in bed in the dark while Wes is in there asleep.
Here are a few good books I’ve read over the past few months that I’d recommend:
- The Silent Patient (great thriller with a twisty ending)
- Sisters First by the Bush Twins (this was sweet and interesting!)
- People We Meet on Vacation (cute + light rom com)
- Nowhere Girl (fascinating memoir from a woman who grew up in a nomad/fugitive family)
What have you read lately? Any recs for me?
5) White wine vinegar.
This is random, but my father-in-law got me really into salad dressing made with white wine vinegar instead of balsamic! It’s a little smoother tasting and so delicious.
I’ve been making my Lemon Balsamic Dressing and using white wine vinegar instead of balsamic. Try it! It’s extra good on my fave lunch: grain salad bowls.
6) Old Navy tank tops.
I basically only wear athleisure these days, and I found a racerback workout tank top from Old Navy that’s so perfect that I basically wear it every single day.
I bought it in 7 colors (white, gray, black, purple, light blue, orange, yellow). 😉
It’s just a really nice, flattering and loose fit but not TOO flowy you know? You can’t really see it well in the pic below but you get the idea! I have a major racerback tan line from it since I never wear anything else…
And speaking of racerback things I like, this super soft racerback nursing bra is my absolute favorite – I had a couple of them for Riese, too, and they were so great I bought a few more this time around and pretty much wear them exclusively.
I like that they are super comfy and soft and unlike some of the other nursing bras I’ve tried, they aren’t massive and look cute under a shirt (aka you can’t see them peeking out). Some of the ones I’ve tried previously are so enormous in terms of really thick straps etc. that any shirt you wear shows half the bra under it.
Anyway, these are great for yoga and walking and non-impact workouts but I wouldn’t wear them for anything like running, just FYI.
I’m also really loving the Ergo embrace carrier pictured above – it’s a structured carrier so it has good support for your back, but it’s softer/cozier than the others I’ve tried and I LOVE that the buckles are at your side vs. up in the middle of your back because that makes it super easy to put on by yourself, which is key!
7) Siblings <3
I’ll end this post with a sweet note – it has been such a joy to see Riese and Wes together!
Wes absolutely adores Riese and lights up and smiles every time he sees her, it’s so cute.
And while we’ve had to remind Riese a lot to be gentle and not too over enthusiastic with Wes, she’s mostly been super cute with him. She loves playing peekaboo with him, giving him toys to grab, etc.
It will be fun as he gets older to see them really get to play together!
Have a nice weekend and I’ll see you back here on Tuesday!
