Introducing Grace Elizabeth

Our little Grace was born on April 7th at 3:00am. She's already one month old today! I'll share her birth story later this week. I can tell you that from start of contractions to her delivery was 3 hours 45 minutes - super fast! It was a whirlwind for sure! My last post was for my last day of work on April 5, and with her due date April 15, I thought for sure I'd have a few days to settle in...that of course did not happen :) I went into labor at 11:15pm on the 6th. 

We love her dearly and she has changed our lives for the better in only her one short month. We are so blessed to have her as our daughter. 

Sincerely,

Sara Cate

Mommy meeting daughter

Daddy's girl

Headed home!

Sleepy girl

First major outing. Lunch at AJ's and walking around the outdoor mall.

Yep, still a cutie!

Lucky in love.

A Surreal Day

Today is my last day in the office. I will not be returning to this job.

Whoa.

I have had a job since my 16th birthday, and this feeling of not having a paycheck job lined up is a bizarre feeling. It really hasn't sank in yet that my job for many years to come will be stay-at-home-mom. No rush hour traffic, no lunch with co-workers, no bi-weekly paycheck, no checking emails at odd hours of the night, no Friday night emails of "can this be done right now?", no water-jug chats. A part of me is so excited for the next chapter of our lives, and a part of me is hesitant for the unknown. But isn't everyone a little fearful of the unknown? I am ready to take this leap, though. I'm ready to welcome Grace to our family with all the changes, blessings, and challenges parenthood will bring.

You could say I'm ready to pop.....

almost 39 weeks

I have a feeling this weekend will feel like a typical working weekend, but come Monday, I'm wondering if I'll be visualizing my old morning routine of getting ready, driving through rush hour, parking in my garage, and clicking on the little blue light to flip on my computer monitor to start work for the day.

Overall though....How will I feel at 8am on Monday? I'm going to take a guess it's going to feel pretty good.

Sincerely,
Sara cate

Welcome, April!

The end of March brought a wonderful Easter with the family, and it was Grace's pseudo first Easter. She even got a few gifts from the bunny and her own egg!

The GREEN egg story is kind of funny. My father-in-law grabbed a plastic cup and filled it with black iced tea. He looked down and said, geez, this tea looks really green. He had grabbed one of the cups we were preparing for egg decorating. The green dye tablet was in the bottom. Oops!

 Then came April. Grace's due date month! April 1st was our 38 week mark,so Grace.....when will you be making your debut? We took walks this weekend, and we went to spicy Indian for dinner. Nothing yet!

Also on April 1st, did you see all of the online April Fools Day pranks? I thought this one was pretty funny....

April is going to be a month I will never forget.

This week is my last week in the office. As of Friday at 5pm, my job will be stay-at-home (future) mom. So, today my office hosted a going away salad bar pot-luck luncheon for me. It was so sweet, and there were so many delicious things to eat! Yup, that rhymed. I made red-velvet cheesecake cupcakes. YUM.

Want the recipe???? I combined two recipes from The Cupcake Cure and Real Simple magazine recipes, so here's it is....

12 cupcakes & 20 mini cupcakes (what I made) OR probably 20ish cupcakes

CAKE

1 box red velvet cake OR German chocolate with red food coloring

1 stick VERY softened butter (as in leave it on the counter for an hour or pop it in the micro for 10ish seconds)

1 egg

CHEESECAKE

2 bars (16 oz) regular cream cheese, softened 

(leave on counter to soften or pop in micro for a few seconds)

heaping 1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

CHEESECAKE FROSTING

1 bar (8 oz.) regular cream cheese, very softened

1/2 stick (4 T) butter, room temp soft

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 c. powered sugar (2 c. if you like sweeter frosting)

• 
  

Cupcake liners

Raspberries optional

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350

CAKE: With hand mixer, mix together cake ingredients until it is combined, crumbly, and wet.

Grab some gloves if you'd like, and scoop some cake into each cupcake liner.

Pat down the mixture so it is flat in the cup. It should take up a little less than half of the cup.

CHEESECAKE: With hand mixer, cream the softened cream cheese with the sugar, then add eggs and vanilla. It will be a little liquid-y. Spoon mixture into each cup on top of the cake. It should be enough to generously cover the cake portion. Do not fill the cups completely to the top. They will rise a bit!

Pop these into the middle oven rack! 25-30 minutes for regular sized cupcakes, 20 minutes for mini. When they're done, tops will have a little shine and will look firm. Don't let them get brown. 

While those are in the oven......

FROSTING: With hand mixer, beat softened cream cheese, soft butter, salt, and extract until creamy. Gently mix in powered sugar until combined.

Put frosting into piping bag. Store in fridge for the meantime.

Take out cupcakes from oven and tin. LET COOL COMPLETELY before adding frosting (frosting will melt on hot cakes).

Frost cupcakes and add raspberry or other garnish like chocolate curls or cake crumbs!

ENJOY!

I'm already loving welcoming the month of April. Hope April brings you lots of joy, too!

Sincerely,

Sara Cate

Easter is Coming

Today we patiently wait for Easter to come. I'm looking forward to spending this time with my family. I feel so blessed and filled with His love. This is reason we chose Grace as our daughter's name. What a blessing she is, and she'll be here so soon!

Source: prettypinktulips.com via Sara on Pinterest

Celebrate His rebirth.

Shhh. It's a secret.

Ok, so I heard the craziest thing this weekend. There is such a thing called a McGangbang.

Yup, McDonald's, like many other restaurants, has a "secret" menu, and this crazy has made the list. It's apparently....

"A super awesome burger for the person on a budget, a McGangBang is a McChicken Sandwich in the middle of a double cheesburger from McDonalds." - Urban Dictionary

A friend from Chicago was in town telling me about this sandwich. I laughed about this for a long time asking her questions about how you order such a thing without turning bright red, laughing uncontrollably, or peeing your pants (ok, maybe that's just a pregnancy thing).





So, I don't really hit up fast food places much at all....but, here some other restaurants' secret menu items of note.

1. Order a neopolitan shake from In-and-Out
2. Many places toast buns in butter, you can hold the butter!
3. Love the taste/idea of Serindipity's frozen hot chocolate? Get one at Dairy Queen.
4. You can get fresh cilantro on your meal at Chipotle.

Happy ordering!

Sincerely,
Sara Cate