First things first:

THIS BABY. She is the best. And once we finally gave her a bath, she also assumed the fluffy hair of a baby bunny so just when I think she couldn’t get any better, she does! But good or not, this newborn stage still does not at all come naturally or easy to me, hence the lack of more substantial blog posts lately.

Now then- some random things worth noting.

A friend brought this baked ziti to Bible study recently* and I cannot emphasize enough how mind-blowingly good it was. Baked ziti takes me back to middle school days spent at the mall and leisurely lunches at Sbarro, and it is one of my favs, but this one elevates it to sinfully good. Do not flinch at that 1.5 lbs of mozzarella- just do it. (*By that I mean “three months ago” but I made a mental note to share it and am just now doing so.)

And on another cheesy pasta front, I made this last month (as I am nottttttt cooking again any time in the foreseeable future and living that people-bringing-covered-dishes life) for a fast summer lunch and it was everything I want in an easy pasta dish. I even cheated and didn’t string the sugar snap peas and it was totally fine.

Ok, fine- one more recent pasta win. Meatballs in the oven are my new favorite easy hack. I used lots more spinach than called for and it was a huge hit.

This will not be my finest swimsuit summer, but if I was looking to add one – I love this one.

I’ve been on an intense sort-and-purge mission to make up for the fact that we didn’t move pre-baby and are thus trying to carve out more space in our apartment. Because if you build enough shelves and toss enough things, it’s basically another bedroom right? (Wrong.) But I still loved this article about the anorexic homes the society and social media especially are pushing on us.

I wrote about our TV time extremism recently and many people happily informed me that I would cave on this as life gets harder. Maybe that’s true. But I hope to always be intentional about boundaries, and this article had some great information and realistic pointers.

I have always loved Beth Moore, and I really, Really, REALLY loved her bold words recently. The Church needs more such women.

But on a somber note, this article was a chilling and informative reminder of what parents can do to inadvertently make their children easy targets for terrible people. It made me sick reading it, and also made me aware of the things we do without even thinking about it that could open our children to abuse.

And to close, Henry, who has taken to requesting to have his photo taken and then posing like this far longer than necessary. He’s posing with the Blue Track, a game changer for small space play. 

Happy weekend! Happy Monday! It’s Tuesday and I’m finally getting to posting this- carry on.