Back in the day I loved a site called Ziplist for all my recipe collecting needs… alas like most things on the internet it eventually got axed (RIP Google Reader) but now I see that as a good thing. The CopyMeThat team really stepped up there game and improved their tool to be way better than Ziplist ever was.

How it works:

Add a browser button similar to pinterest to your browser and click it on the recipe page.

CopyMeThat adds it to your ‘queue’ to confirm.

Next time you log in you get to confirm it, my favorite thing to do at this point is give it a ‘tag’ for the type of recipe it is,and clean up any formatting before CopyMeThat saves it, the ‘magic sauce’ of CopyMeThat is that the entire recipe is saved in their app, if the blog goes private you still have your capture of the recipe.

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From the main screen you can see your recipes in a photo list and importantly you can check mark if you’ve made them or not, and what your rating is, sooo important!

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You can also cleanly print the recipe from CopyMeThat, but also access from the app where it’s in the same clean format that is easier than scrolling through a endless blog post (I’m looking at you Ree!) even better when you are looking at a recipe on the app your phone will not go to sleep mode!

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From the recipe page you can add the recipe to your grocery list and your meal plan calendar.

The grocery list feature is awesome on CopyMeThat, you can dynamically switch between sorting by “recipe” or “by category” YES it auto groups by aisle and it works even with stuff you add in.

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Meal Planning View if that’s your thing (No my meal plan isn’t that involved!)

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Overall CopyMeThat works really well for me, especially the tagging function since when planning our week I’m looking for 1 crockpot thing, 1 chicken thing, etc. the tags let me do that easily.

You can also share your recipes in CopyMeThat, check out mine here.

I know lots of people got Instapots for Christmas, here’s my “Pressure Cooker” tag.

In our last meeting my Mothers of Preschoolers Group (MOPS) talked about organization, it was great to hear what works well for other families, and definitely spurred that I should share what works well for Andrew and I.

For lists of all kinds Andrew and I utilize the To-Do List app Wunderlist . In fact I LOVED Wunderlist so much I got work hooked on it and they still use it for all their projects today.

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What’s Great About It:

  • Shared Lists, you can see who made what. can assign tasks
  • Phone app and web app – you can do the heavy set up on your computer one day but then only use your phone for the rest
  • Customizable reminders but only when you want them – you can  set specific reminder times for your due dates, but it doesn’t automatically turn those on!
  • Customizable recurring tasks – lots of options for repeating tasks to fit whatever the scenario

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  • Folders – Group lists like shopping lists for specific stores in one folder.

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How we use it:

I say to Andrew I’m headed to xyz store, he can add items to the list as I’m in the store and I can check them off.

Best of all this is everything you can do with the FREE version of Wunderlist, lots of these features only come with the paid version of other apps.

If I have promised to share a recipe with you in the past 6 months, here it finally is! Now that I’m home with Leagan cooking in the evenings has been nice ‘actually complete a task time’ and gives Daddy some Leagan time though he normally has the evening fussies! This desire to cook might have some strategic value…

See ALL of my recipes in my CopyMeThat profile, after Ziplist died I moved to CopyMeThat and really like it,my FAVORITE feature is that I can switch my grocery list between by recipe or item category!

Anywho, here are some good but easy things I’ve been feeding us lately.

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PF Chang’s Lettuce Wraps via Damn Delicious

These are spot on and easy! If you like them at PF Chang’s it’s worth buying all the special stuff to make these since you’ll definitely be making them again.

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Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup in a Pressure Cooker via Pressure Cooking Today

Gotta love the pressure cooker especially since they are so popular now and more recipes are popping up. This one’s rich flavor is awesome and the pressure makes the celery’s texture seem like a potato!

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Sausage Breakfast Casserole via Two Peas and their Pod (My photo =)

Breastfeeding makes me HANGRY especially in the morning, so one Saturday I made this monster casserole and it was so nice to have for the next few days.

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Slow Cooker Salsa Verde Honey Lime Chicken Tacos via Carlsbad Cravings

Remember that salsa jar crockpot chicken recipe that EVERYONE was making like 6 years ago? This is the grown up actually flavorful version of this, soo sooo good! I totally burned Andrew out on the salsa chicken but he really liked this! Go ahead and buy the smoked paprika it really adds a lot, McCormick now has one so it isn’t one of those $7 spices you’ll never use again.

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Cinnamon Roll French Toast via Tasty

So bad, so easy, half it for 2.  Good holiday breakfast treat!

 

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One Pot Red Beans and Rice via Iowa Girl Eats

This recipe is new to us and already getting worn out! I love that it’s easy and stuff we generally have, I keep a Andouille in stock so I can pull this out when I want to cook but not.

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Simple Baked Chicken Breasts via All Recipes

I STINK at pan cooking chicken so this has become my foolproof method of adding chicken to whatever else I’m making, so good so easy. I generally cut each breast in half to get more flavor and will sometimes broil for a few seconds to get a bit more color.  Great method and easy to handle on top of your other cooking.

Those are our latest favorites, you have any new favorites in your house to share?

I made these matching contoured suck pads (corner drool pads) for my Sewtoot Little Pick Me Up Carrier I sewed in December.LPMU Suck Pads (1)

I used the fabulous free pattern and tutorial from Katie’s KPs, the Tula version and they fit well!

I used the same chambray I used for the hood for these pads, some low loft poly batting, and white flannel as the lining, but they are also reversible. (I got super lucky at my FAVORITE crafty store SMART Supplies and found a ton of this chambray, it’s been so handy!)

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A few tips… don’t be lazy while cutting, the shapes are awkward to sew and it’ll be easier to match them if you took the time to cut them well.

Before placing your snaps definitely test on your carrier to see how much overlap you need.

They fit really nicely on my baby sized panel but I think they will work well on a standard as well.

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Here’s a starter tour of Leagan’s Winnie the Pooh nursery with pictures from his ‘one month’ mommy photoshoot.

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View from the door. Chandelier was originally in our dining room when we bought the house. The crib was mine when I was little, it’s an 80s Ikea crib and it’s a European size so it fits through the door and my Dad put casters on it! I ordered a custom crib mattress for it from Ababy.com.

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A wire closet system is behind the curtain wall, crafted with Ikea curtains and hardware.

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A peek behind the center curtain and the tons of clothes!

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For his mobile I picked up a coordinating one cheap at a consignment sale and replaced the animals with Pooh characters, a tutorial is to follow.

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I made the roman shade when this was my dressing room luckily, I made it in white and just added some appliques to dress it up. The chair is from my parent’s house. I upholstered the foot stool.

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The shadow boxes I made here, and have stolen them back from my parents. Leagan’s Great Aunt made this great mixed media canvas for him. The stained glass has been my Dad’s for ages and is now Leagan’s.

IMG_1651 We turned a unfinished birdhouse into "Owl's House" and made it a night light, a tutorial is to come.

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The 100 Aker Wood map decal is Roomates, I cut it to fit the bifold doors. I used the “hinge method” of vinyl application and it worked well. The base color is the same as the door so it looks painted!

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The Classic Pooh sign is from a store display, an old coworker gave it to me 7 years ago… I knew it’d be a nursery piece someday!

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The Ikea Malm dresser we had in another room. I found branch shelf brackets on clearance at West Elm. We used a stair tread as the shelf. Nana found the Hunny pot lamp and shade.

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The “Little Black Rain Cloud” mobile was a true labor of love but turned out amazing! I’ll share my tips in a future post!

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From below.

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Over the door we added a “Mr. Sanders” sign since “Pooh lived under the name of Sanders”

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Here’s Leagan at 1 month. I made several sheets with matching changing pad covers.

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1.Placemat

A cute wipe-able placemat on your changing table gives you a perfect place to set the dirty diaper, wipe, and blow-out disaster onesies. Protects your dresser from that soggy diaper you never put in the pail. If you have a theme you might be able to even find a coordinating one.

We have an Ikea dresser so the constant cleaning would definitely ruin the delicate surface. We cloth diaper part time and this is also great to have a surface to squirt water onto the wipe.

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2. Flashlight

We don’t exactly design our changing stations with the task lighting we need, so I keep a little flashlight in the drawer so I can check and see if that is the beginning of rash so I can tackle it early on! Good for middle of the night poopy changes too where you’re trying to keep it as dim as possible.5-surprising-changing-table-essentials (16)

3. Bum Brush, not really unexpected but awesome

So I laughed at this but it really is helpful and pays for itself in saved cream since you’re not coating your fingers just to wash it off. It EVEN saves you TIME because getting cream off takes forever. PLUS with your placemat it’ll suction great! (Note: I’ve seen this in several stores locally lately even my Kroger so look there too)5-surprising-changing-table-essentials (11)

4. Stain Treater

I don’t have a favorite for battling stains yet, but I do like having a treatment right at the changing table, I treat while I have two hands and then drop it off at the kitchen sink to deal with later. Currently I use Grandma’s at the changing table since it’s a nice small bottle and then use some dish soap in the sink.5-surprising-changing-table-essentials (14)

5. Paper Towels

If I know a diaper is gonna be a big mess I add a paper towel on top of my Munchkin changing pad liner, especially good in the early days of messy meconium. I don’t keep a whole roll in there but I always have a few sheets folded in the drawer ready to grab.

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What are your changing table essentials? Do you even use yours? Since his nursery is right off our kitchen we use it pretty much always.

6 weeks into this Mommy thing, I’ve learned a few things that will make my Mommy friends laugh… I thought I stayed pretty ‘grounded’ with my preggo ideas thanks to my awesome Mom-tribe but somethings you just discover…
1. My super cute West Elm had to have shelf brackets…yeah they are really just glorified soggy clothing items now…
Granted this has worked out well for rotating between two different cloth diaper covers… I can always find it!New mommy reality, west elm brackets = blowout drying rack
2. My nails haven’t been this short since I played piano in the seventh grade… first time you scratch your babe you’ll be nail clipping!shortest finger nails since 7th grade piano
3. Even if your rings managed to stay fitting throughout your pregnancy (mine did) you probably won’t wear them for a while because you’re mostly home, it’s easy to scratch him with it, and the prongs snag muslin blankets really easily!
4. If you want a photo in xyz outfit take it right away… some days your laundry pile might look like this…
One days outfits
5. Sometimes none of your ‘tricks’ work and it’s hard, but you’ll get through it!
6. You might actually dig the granny panties you bought for post-partum at home…
7. You have never felt love this deep in all your life!
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After a scheduled c-section (breech), a canceled c-section 15 minute before the start (no longer breech), lots of waiting, and then a scheduled induction we finally welcomed Leagan Jameson 10 days late on September 6, 2016 at 6:55 AM!First photo with Mommy!

Leagan’s first name is  Andrew’s Maternal Great Grandmother’s maiden name, and Andrew’s Grandfather’s middle name. We are so happy to have come up with something unique, meaningful, and pronounceable!

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Here’s his announcement I made, Winnie the Pooh themed! Lots of nursery posts coming soon!

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 We have a corner lot so our driveway isn't actually on 'our street'  so even after 62 years this is the first path to the front door from the mailbox!!



This is one of the projects we totally thought was going to happen in the first six months at the house... now 3 years later we're done with it!

We debated what we wanted to do, our dream was brick pravers but that was going to be cost prohibitive, so then we considered pea gravel but that's too messy for mowing, then one day at Lowes we spotted aggregate 2' x 2' pavers that match our driveway.

We used 12 bigger pavers and 3 smaller pavers to go across our little 'bridge'

Using stakes and rope we laid out the pavers in a straight line. Then we spaced the pavers to match our walking strides, this turned out to be the trickiest part. In the end we had about a 6" gap between the pavers which is a little to much for my stride but any less grass than that didn't look that great.  Before we recessed the pavers we left them on top of the grass for a while to test out the stride and to kill the grass to make digging a little easier.

To recess the pavers Andrew dug out a few i inches added, tamped it down, added some base and some sand. Since we knew they would continue to settle we left them a little above ground level perfect for easy mowing.


Budget wise we spent about $200 on pavers plus a few bags of base and sand! What a huge difference in our curb appeal, guess I need to finally plant some flowers in those pots!
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Summer 2014’s (yeah I’m a little behind…) big expensive project was redoing all the beds around the house. We purchased the home from an estate, and the father had been ill for quite sometime, so the yard had been minimally maintained for several years.
There was virtually no mulch left anywhere and the timbers were pretty rotted, other than the big bushes we could never manage to pull out we were starting from scratch.
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It took us a weekend to just pull out all of the junk we hadn’t yet, then we did the timbers, landscape fabric and rock the following 3 day weekend.
Instead of landscape timbers we chose 4x4 ground pressure treated wood, which we stained with some reddish Thompsons Water Seal we already had. The stain helped reduce the icky pressure treated greeness. We’re hoping that by going pressure treated these will last a long time.

We went with the lava rock, based on cost and weight. Moving “light lava rock” was hard work, I can’t imagine us moving one of the heavier rocks. It’s also helps that it’s one of the cheapest since the front of our house is 70 feet long, we needed 1.5 tons of rock! It also goes well with the color of our brick.
We also decided to go with rock because we have very deep eves, so all along the house we just have dry dusty dirt.

Two years later our rock and timbers still look great, the weed block is doing a a pretty good job too considering we had a ton of annoying invasive vines.