Bumpdate: Week 20

Trying to explain that there's a baby in mama's tummy but not in Lydia's :). 

This past month of pregnancy has flown by! Which is such a blessing. I don't think I said those words once with Lydia. Plus it's getting into holiday season aka the most wonderful time of the year aka so many fun things to look forward to! I always need parties/events/activities to look forward to - that's what makes life fun. I am 100% loving the timing of this pregnancy so far. Alrighty - 20 week bump date comin atcha!

How far along: 20 weeks

Fruit size:  Banana

Weight gain: 11 pounds! This has been a "big" month for me ;). Yippeee...

Maternity clothes: Def. All my jeans and leggings are now maternity (I'm on the lookout for navy maternity tights actually - any recommendations? I've found lots of black but no navy.) Luckily tops don't have to be maternity to work. And actually most maternity shirts with the ruching on the sides are still too big for this bump (shocking I know), so I've been sticking to my longer sweaters/cardigans and lots of leggings-are-pants-right?-and-sorry-if-it-doesn't-quite-cover-my-bum-ness. 

Sleep: Great! Not exhausted all the time like before, and Michael is amazed that when my head hits the pillow I fall asleep in like 8 seconds. It's kind of wonderful. I do have fantastically bizarre dreams though, so that's entertaining!

Symptoms: Honestly a lot of the bad ones are gone!! Not nearly as nauseous (I haven't thrown up for over a week!), just sometimes at nights or if I haven't eaten in a couple hours. I've been taking magnesium daily and I haven't had a single leg cramp for weeks! No more headaches either and lately the heartburn hasn't been as consistent. So basically things are going so much better! I don't get any of those glamorous glowy symptoms - my hair doesn't grow and my skin isn't flawless - but hey, I will take not sick any day! 

Food cravings: Not especially! I've been making a lot of whole wheat muffins lately, but that's more out of wanting easy breakfasts than anything. We've been going through those "healthy" popcorns (SmartPop, Boom Chicka, etc) by the bagful since they're just bland and basic and salty and all three of us are obsessed. But again, can't really blame that on the baby ;). (But hoping I can blame the two bags of candy pumpkins I've already eaten on the baby??)

Food aversions: Not more than usual. Wow this is turning into such a boring post! Haha. Seriously I'm at such a good point! I mean I'll have waves here and there where I'm like, "ohmygosh I can't handle the smell of those eggs," or the other day Michael brought home Carls Jr. chicken sandwiches and I couldn't watch him eat it. But in general I've been a lot less queasy about food. 

Gender: BOY!!!!!!!! I am officially so so so excited and happy. I've been googling/pinning baby boy stuff 24/7 since finding out and cannot wait. (Like literally, I already want him here. Michael thinks I'm the most impatient person on earth ;) .) See our gender reveal post here and my gender neutral nursery ideas here. 

Bump: Huge of course! But it's funny because it totally depends how I dress. I've been sticking to a lot of flowier things that do a pretty good job of hiding it, but the second I wear a tight shirt in public people come up and touch my belly and ask when I'm due - ha. I've just come to accept that this boy is healthy and on the big side (he was measuring big at the appointment) and Lydia was tiiiiiny (6 pounds 1 ounce!) so I can't really compare my bumps. 

Belly button in or out: This is a dumb question for me. I don't know why I picked it. Always in! Another question I almost added: Wedding ring on or off - on! And loose because it's getting cold. I smashed my finger in a door a few years ago, which totally broke my ring, and when they fixed it they stretched it out a bit. So now every winter it's super loose. Which isn't great but I'd rather have that then cutting off my circulation in the summer haha.

Thoughts: I can't believe I'm saying this, but things are not that bad right now!! I still am not one of those crazy pregnancy advocates ("I love being pregnant!" - NO WAY), and to be honest I've been getting really down about how big I'm getting. And not just my belly - my cheeks, my thighs, my arms - it's all growing! But Michael has been super sweet and when I complain he says, "babe, that's exactly what's supposed to happen! You are growing a human and you look gorgeous!" Awwwww. Nice guy. And of course I am 100% grateful to be pregnancy since I know it's a struggle for so many women, so then I feel stupid for complaining. So all in all things are going great! Half way! And hopefully this second half is just as fast as the first.

Typical tantrum.

Dress: Anthropologie last year (and last seen in this post!)

Boots: Sam Edelman here

Lydia's Dress: Gap on sale last year, similar here

Lydia's sweater: Zara last year, similar here and here

Lydia's shoes: Old Navy here

Lydia's bow: my favorite boutique in Sugarhouse called Jolley's!

Pickin Pumpkins

This Monday ROCKED!

Every two weeks Michael has a test at 8am, which means he's out by 10am and then we have the whole day with him! This may not sound like a big deal, but ask any medical school wife and they'll tell you that an entire free day is incredibly awesome and rare. 

And to make this free day even better we hit up lots of favorite places: In n Out for lunch, family Target run to grab our Halloween costumes (we are going really low key this year, kind of like last year - whoops), and a trip to the most adorable pumpkin patch at Kuwahana Farm!

Lydia kept attempting to carry these huge and heavy pumpkins! So finally we found her a pile of smaller funky squash things to hold, ha.

Also I am so in love with my new Fawn Design diaper bag! And I need to brag for a second about their shipping - I ordered it on a Friday morning and received it Saturday at 11am! What?! Talk about fast. I love my Marc Jacobs diaper bag and have used it every single day for over a year, but it isn't a backpack and with soon to be two kids I think I will really like having shoulder straps. My mom got this for me last week as a baby gift :). Thanks mama.

My whole heart right there ^^^.

Thanks nice stranger who took our picture! We never manage to all get in the photo at once :). Speaking of which, we need to take some legit holiday family photos this year! Any recommendations fellow Utah people?? 

Jacket: J.Crew here

Denim vest: Old Navy last year, similar and on sale here

Shirt: Really ancient, similar here 

Boots: Sorel, sold here or on sale here

Lydia's dress: Old Navy last year

Lydia's Hat: Gap last year

My Favorite Weeknight Meal

Once upon a time there was a girl who had serious ADD when it came to cooking. She did not make the same thing twice practically her entire marriage. And when she really liked a meal she usually forgot how to make it anyways so she couldn't repeat it ;).

Guess who we're talking about here? 

I blame it all on my mom. She is the exact same way. I literally can count on one hand the meals we had more than once. I tell you all this to stress the awesomeness of this meal - I make it at least twice a month!! Whenever I see that salmon is on sale I get giddy because I freakin love this dinner. And it takes all of 20 minutes. BOOM.

Lemony salmon with a kale and wild rice salad. The bomb.

You can always throw in another carb for good measure, though there's already the wild rice in the salad. Tonight we really went for it with chipotle twice baked potatoes. 

This is seriously the easiest meal on the planet and so so tasty!

My mom's uber classy best friend talked to the head chef at some fancy Parisian restaurant (did you follow all that?) who apparently served an incredible salmon. The key? Just a little butter and lemon pepper, then let the salmon do the talking. (Obvs really high quality wild salmon = better taste.) So ever since then we've just been baking our salmon with simple butter and lemon and it always comes out amazing! Also this salad is basically what my sister in San Francisco lives off of. You can make it Sunday night and then eat it all week for lunches, since kale just gets better the longer it soaks in the dressing. Try this and serve it with a nice loaf of bread and a diet coke! I bet you'll like it as much as we do. 

*Disclaimer - we actually tried grilling our salmon for the first time in these pics. It turned out really yummy! Though we slightly over cooked it by about 2 minutes.

Simple Baked Salmon

- Preheat oven to 415*

- Place salmon, skin side down, on a baking sheet and slip mat

- Spread a very thin layer of butter (or olive oil) over the entire surface of the fish

- Generously sprinkle lemon pepper over all of it 

- You can also drizzle a little lemon juice if desired 

- Bake at 415* for approximately 12 minutes (rule of thumb is 12ish minutes per inch thick? so check how thick your fish is at its biggest point)

- Check frequently - fish should flake with a fork but still be super tender and slightly on the rare side! We always leave ours a little rare in the thickest part. Over-done salmon is just sad and dry. Perfect salmon is delish and moist. 

- Enjoy!

Best Kale Salad

- Optional: Cook a cup of wild rice, let cool

- Wash and dry kale and remove stems, tearing into bite sized pieces 

- Add to a bowl

- In a mason jar combine equal parts lemon juice and olive oil (I actually go a little heavier on the lemon juice than oil)

- Add a pinch of minced garlic and a sprinkle of pepper 

- Add white sugar to taste (a lot - you are eating kale here ;) )

- Shake well and pour over your bowl of kale - mix mix mix! 

- Add craisins, slivered almonds (I always use the honey roasted Trader Joe's kind!), grated parmesan cheese and sliced red onions 

- If using wild rice, add in

- Mix mix mix and enjoy!

Gardner Village

On Friday we drove 10 minutes south to Gardner Village! Have you been? It's the most adorable mini outdoor town with tons of shops and candy stores and activities. They do a really good job of decorating for each of the holidays, and Halloween is no exception! Everything and everyone is decked out in pumpkins/witches/spiderwebs, you name it. There's face painting and caramel apples and lots of music and things for the kids to see! Such a cute concept. 

Owen, Lyla and Lydia. They're already legit BFFs and Owen and Lyla are definitely getting married. Those two are next door neighbors and ask to play with each other every day! 

I feel like this accurately depicts them. Lyla clapping and smiling, Lydia just watching everything and Owen running off ;).

So I already feel like October is rushing by! One second Michael started school again and the next we are getting prepped for trick or treating!! SLOW DOWN. I'm slightly stressing because I feel like there are so many fun fall things to do here and I still have about eight pumpkin patches I want to visit but time is racing. Holidays do that to you. I was talking to a pregnant friend about how awesome it is to be due in March since time will fly! The holidays zip by, which is like a whole trimester of pregnancy, and then when we would normally get back from break in January and be all depressed about the freezing cold and lack of Christmas music, we get to prep for babies! So I'm pretty pumped about the timing of all of this. I don't think I could ever handle having a baby in October/November in Utah. It's so dark outside and getting cold and I feel like it would be depressing staying inside all day! Obviously people do this all the time and have great happy lives, but for someone as dependent on sunshine as I am I think it'd be a bit of a struggle.

Don't I have the cutest friends? I am so lucky.

Jacket: J.Crew last year, similar here

Beanie that's flying off: Forever21 here

Dress: Thrifted

Cardigan: Madewell here

Boots: Sam Edelman here

And for those who have asked, my stroller is the Uppababy Vista here and I cannot recommend it enough!! I LOVE everything about it. Especially the huge storage space.

Gender Neutral Nursery Inspo

If you've ever asked yourself, "I wonder what Annika does when she puts Lydia to sleep and cleans the house and does the dishes and takes off her makeup and Michael is busy studying?" then today is your lucky day! ;) Oh you've never ask yourself that? Hmm... well I'll tell you anyways because that's the kind of oversharing friend I am! 

I pin. 

Yep! I've been mind-planning for months how I'm going to potentially make Lydia's nursery gender neutral, but now that Baby 2 is officially I boy I can start the real planning! First step, pinterest. Lydia's room is lots of blush and hints of mint and grey. We've always said that if we have a boy we'll just swap out the pinks for navy, but as I was playing that through in my head it was looking semi tacky and matchy-matchy for some reason. Plus I am really drawn to black and white lately, which then threw a whole new color scheme into the mix. And on top of that we don't just have endless funds to go redecorating everything. So I felt a little stuck. But low and behold, pinterest came to the rescue! It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize I didn't need to keep holding on to this navy idea, and instead could swap black for navy, and suddenly everything became a whole lot more modern and fun! The walls in Lydia's room are already grey, so I think throwing in more mint and hints of blacks will be enough to make it gender neutral. Though I'm really tempted to repaint two of her walls. We bought the house with this bird wallpaper on two of her walls and we've just kept them, but I don't love it. So we will see how ambitious we feel in the next few months!

Presenting... my current inspo! 

Fun right?? I'm totally loving this color palette. Funny story, Michael actually reminded me that this is exactly what we did for our wedding colors - HA! We originally wanted mint and navy and gold, but it was getting too hard to try and match all the right shades of navy so we just opted for black in the end. Apparently my tastes haven't changed very much in almost four years!

Ha! So there's that. Mint forever and always amen.

Life With a Toddler - 14 Months

All of a sudden everything is 100x more fun. I LOVE this phase. Instead of caring for a baby 24/7, I now have this independent, communicative buddy! Lydia understands things. I'll say, "Lydia, are you hungry?" And she'll either shake her head or walk over to her high chair and start pulling it to the kitchen. I'll tell her to get her shoes because we're going bye-bye and she'll run into her room and grab her white converse and meet me at the back door. It seriously blows my mind how seemingly overnight the level of comprehension skyrockets! Which makes everything a blast. 

Those grocery store trips that were pretty dreadful a month ago (see here) now are fun adventures, where she picks things off the shelves "for me" and carries around a jar of peanut butter the entire time :). She loves pointing out the characters on cereal boxes and yogurt containers and she looooves getting stickers at the end (even if she mainly just licks them?). 

The other day I was finally getting around to planting tulip bulbs that have sat in a box for way longer than I'd like to admit. I put Lydia down for a nap and thought I'd have at least an hour to myself to bust it out. But... she had a different plan. I could hear her screaming in her crib all the way from outside! So finally after like 20 minutes I brought her outside with me and she was in heaven. Without really much instruction she just started bringing me bulbs, one by one, as I planted them into the ground. So grown up! I had a huge grin on my face and was so proud of my little helper. Then to top it all off, at the very end when all the bulbs were planted, Lydia walked up to me with her arms stretched out and got about an inch from my nose. Then she leaned in with her mouth open for a kiss!!!! My heart just about exploded. That tiny little newborn has grown into a beautiful, curious, happy girl. 

There are still the occasional meltdowns, there's a new found rebellion (i.e. looking right at me and throwing food on the ground), and her napping is gradually fading out (yiiiiikes! any tips on getting toddlers to nap longer??), but I'll gladly take these hard moments for for all the hilarious and adorable new milestones that come with them. 

Fave Five

Baby no show socks here

I had serious doubts about the functionality of these when the salesperson was trying to convince me. Baby no shows? Will they really stay up? And then the poor baby can't even say anything when the sock is down at their heel and it's uncomfortable! Ha. But I got them anyway, and I am SO GLAD I did! They totally work! And they make all her shoes look a ton better. Lydia's current favorite shoes are her white converse (she brings them to me every morning), and now with these no shows there isn't a huge bulky sock sticking out the top! They look cute under all of her tennies and we even just put them on her around the house when it's cold. Good invention!

Trish McEvoy perfume here

I used the same Flower Bomb perfume for years, but then everyone started finding out about it and we collectively all smelled like an overpowering heard of roses. I switched a few months ago to this Trish McEvoy blackberry and vanilla musk perfume, and I really like it! It's not nearly as strong as Flower Bomb, aka strangers won't stop and ask you what you're wearing like they did before, but it's super unique and it makes me happy every time I spray it and that's all that matters right?

Hair extensions here

K so I know hair extensions get mixed reviews. Plenty of girls wear them and love them (and they are generally the ones who we always think of as having amazing hair!), whereas a lot of other people (my husband included) say, "Why would you put on fake hair every morning? Your hair looks great just as it is!" Thanks babe :). But I've tried and tried to grow my hair out for years, and it seriously just doesn't get passed a certain stopping point. I've taken prenatals for years in hopes of it helping, I've taken biotin, fish oil, etc. I've tried not putting lots of heat on it, I've tried trimming it more frequently, I've tried not trimming it for months and months. And none of it really makes a difference.  My hair just kind of stops right in the middle of my chest. Boo. So I'll never get those gorgeous full braids or those amazing mermaid waves. Enter... $9 hair extensions from amazon!! I freakin love amazon. I read like 50 reviews before choosing these extensions, and I'm so happy I did! It's all one piece, so you don't have to mess with clipping in 15 different sections (I did that a few years ago - pain). And the best news is that it looks pretty dang real! The color is spot on for me and I actually cut it so it's not SO ridiculously long. I'm so happy with how they look! And you can't beat that price tag for hair extensions.

Boogie Wipes here

Sick season is upon us - grrr! And Lydia has already gotten a cold twice. I've started her on a good probiotic that seems to be helping and this natural infant medicine, but a fantastic thing to always have in my car or diaper bag is these boogie wipes! They're gentler than always just rubbing a baby wipe on her face and you never know when your child will have massive disgusting boogers dripping down her face and you don't want to be caught empty-handed.

Spray paint, ha!

It is bizarre how happy spray paint makes me! I LOVE spray paint. I love taking something ho-hum around the house and turning into one of my favorite pieces! And by this point I've accumulated a nice little collection of colors (gold, mint, black, pink, etc) so basically at anytime I can just run out back and change something! Michael would probably tell you I'm a little too spray paint-happy ;). But I mean look! This lamp used to be all black and really boring and now it's adorable!

Basic taupe felt hat here



I'm throwing in a Fave Sixth today because I guess spray paint doesn't totally count as a product, more of an activity ha. I found the perfect (reasonably priced) hat for fall! Great neutral color, slightly smaller brim than most of the huge floppy hats I own, goes with everything, love. (Also love the grey color it comes in!)

There's a few of my favorite products this week! Anything you've been loving lately that I should know about??