Hi friends!  It’s been a crazy week over here. I feel like I keep taking one step forwards and two steps back if you know what I mean.  The kids have been fighting off something all week, leaving them with low-grade fevers and general crankiness.  Oh, and KJ got a double ear infection which was not on my radar, considering he isn’t prone to them.  Getting him to take the antibiotics was vain of my existence, and still is for another 8 days.  So many of you shared helpful ideas on Instagram, and I’m grateful for that!  The thing that worked for us was mixing the liquid with Gatorade powder.  He isn’t thrilled but takes it after some whining and bribery with chocolate chips.  

Today, I’ll be wrapping up the college classes I teach and trying to play catch up with everything else.  I’ve been working on an oat flour pie crust recipe for like two weeks that I need to photograph!  Other than that, just trying to keep my pregnancy anxiety from taking over my entire life (did I book trips that are almost a year out? Yes, yes, I did. Planning is soothing for me, haha). We have our anatomy scan next week, and I can feel the anxiety building as we get closer.  (Even though everything ended up being fine, we had a not-so-great experience with KJ’s anatomy scan that now leaves me anxious AF about these things.  Also, it’s the anatomy scan. Most of my friends said they had mild to severe anxiety approaching it, making me feel not so alone.)  I can’t wait to finish it and celebrate being halfway there to meeting our little girl! 

So, this weekend is likely playing catch-up mixed in with doing Christmas things!  It’s been a rough week around here, so fingers crossed, KK kicks his fever today!  What fun things are you guys doing this weekend? 

WTE? Meal Plan

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Friday Favorites

Lots of food wins to share this week. Preggo has been all about the carbs!

Great Harvest Bakery – Whole Wheat Pancakes

I usually make pancakes for the boys out of a banana, an egg, and 1/2 cup of rolled oats.  But, I picked this mix-up at our local Great Harvest Bakery because I was so impressed with the ingredient list.  It’s so hard to find whole-grain pancake mix!  The boys loved it, which is why I don’t have a pic of the actual pancakes. They scarfed them down! 

Great Harvest Bakery – Potato Soup Mix

I also picked up this Anderson House Potato soup mix from GHB to try!  

You needed to add broth, a cubed potato, bacon, heavy cream, and toppings on your own in addition to the mix.  See below to see how I served ours.  (I substituted half and half for heavy cream.)

Honestly, I LOVED this shortcut meal, and so did everyone else.  I’m definitely going to grab another soup mix next time I’m at GHB to try. 

I know these terribly lit, real-life photos aren’t as appetizing as the typical recipes I post on the blog, but I promise you they were delicious or I wouldn’t share!  

Looks like you can get their soup mixes on Amazon too!  I think I paid $ 7.99 for mine at GHB, so they are currently a little more than that on Amazon, but it’s definitely worth it. 

Homemade Nachos

I had a craving for nachos and went way overboard, making a whole double-layer pan full.  After Mr. Hungry and I barely put a dent in it, I was determined not to waste it!  The real win here was using the reheat mode on the air fryer to bring these back to life for the next couple of days.  (As for the recipe, it was a random one I found online, and although good, it wasn’t worth making them again at home type of good.  Just okay.) 

Yuphas Thai Food

Sadly, our favorite Thai place, Thalicious, closed permanently.  So so so sad. 

Thai food is definitely something I find myself really craving more often than not in all my pregnancies. This one is apparently no exception, so we had to find a new place!  Yuphas Thai Cuisine had phenomenal reviews on Doordash and yelp, so we gave it a try.  It was really, really good, but definitely on the pricey side per entree, but, so good.  

Fitness

So pregnancy fitness looks like 3 workouts a week as the goal, which I hit most of the time.  I’m not currently doing any cardio at all other than walks with the kids and dogs, which are definitely not heart-pumping.  Pre getting pregnant, I was dealing with some plantar fascitis issues, so I hadn’t been maintaining a solid cardio level.  Once it finally felt better, jumping into running or even walking workouts didn’t feel like something my body wanted to do.  

I saw my chiropractor last week, which was good for a tune-up, and mentioned I wasn’t doing much cardio and feeling a little guilty about it.  He seemed to think that it wasn’t the worst thing to let go of all the things in health and fitness to let go, at least temporarily.  It’s gonna be a long road rebuilding after, I’m sure, but for now, what I’m doing feels good, so I’m sticking with it!  I’m 99% of the time doing Expecting and Empowered (@expectingandempowered) workouts (the app use the code Hungryhobby10 for a discount), repeating at least one of the 5-minute circuits to ensure I keep my strength up!

Friday Flashbacks

Flourless Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Baked Eggnog Donuts with Eggnog Glaze