Happy Friday all! I am so excited to be guest posting for Samantha today.

I have a crazy good recipe for you this morning, a blackberry breakfast cake. I have never cooked with a cast iron skillet before but have always wanted to. I was at Fred Meyer last week and passing the clearance section, this gorgeous purple mini cast iron skillet caught my eye. At 90% off, yes 90%, I could not pass it up! And it was purple, so obviously it was meant for me. I couldn’t wait to come up with a fun recipe to make.

My father-in-law brought us blackberries so was excited to use them for this recipe. It is perfect for a Saturday morning and so easy!

You could use any fresh berry in place of blackberries and it would still taste great!

This recipe makes 2 6″ skillet cakes

Of course, top it with whipped cream!

What you’ll need

1 cup flour

1 Tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 cup half and half

1/2 cup blackberries

2 tsp. butter

What you’ll do

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. While oven is preheating, place skillets in oven.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together.

Stir in egg and half and half.

Remove skillets from oven and melt 1 tsp. butter in each skillet.

Divide batter into 2 skillets.

Top with blackberries and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Enjoy!! And have a great weekend

Camryn & I went on a little date down to see some of our favorite graffiti artists recent work at the Hope Outdoor Gallery. My brother-in-law is a super talented artist and he introduced me to Erika, or @400MLBakery You may remember her from this post. She’s one of the sweetest, and most genuine people, and Camryn & I love her witty, fun art. She definitely helps keep Austin cool, and her art draws in locals and tourists for awesome photo-ops…us included.

If you live in Austin, go check out the Hope Wall, also known as Castle Hill. If you don’t live in ATX, I hope you at least enjoyed looking at pics of my sweet girl, and you can sneak more pics of Erika’s art on her instagram!

XO – Samantha

It seems I got lost for a week…or more realistically, buried in a pile of junk that needed to be cleared from my home. I’ve finally found my way out, sold a whopping $280 worth in my garage sale (not worth all that effort!!), and donated so much to Goodwill that I’m officially keeping their store running.

Seriously though, my mom & I killed it over the last 10 days. I never in a million years thought we’d finish all the projects on my to-do list, but the lady that birthed me is an animal. She doesn’t ever stop moving. She never takes breaks. She makes me look like a 90 year old. She helped paint 2 full bedrooms…in 2 days…she’s the bomb!!

After painting the baby’s nursery a less yellow/beige, I had the crazy idea to add a herringbone wall. Sometimes I wonder if I’m trying to kill myself with DIY projects.

I’ve started taping off the wall, and at some point this week I’m going to hold my breath, hope I’m not making a huge mistake, and paint the wall a minty color. Wish me luck!!

Other than housework, I’ve managed to fit in a mani/pedi with Mom and Camryn…

Ballet, and many, many coffee dates…

Looked at this cute face and wondered how I’ll ever manage to love another one as much as her…

Chopped 4+ inches off my hair!!! Still can’t believe I actually did it, but it feels so nice to have a little less to deal with.

And I also tortured myself with maternity shopping because I just couldn’t keep squeezing into my old pants anymore. This is the obligatory “Does my butt look big in these jeans” text that I sent my husband, who so kindly replied with “Buy those!!!” That man always knows the right thing to say. 17 weeks (18 tomorrow) and feeling twice as big as I did at this time during my first pregnancy. Nausea slowed down for about a week, but has been popping back up the last 3 days. All I can say is, this kid better be really cute!!

XO – Samantha

Is it really Monday already? That was the quickest weekend in a long time. I managed to fit in a garage sale, a pool date, dinner at a fun new restaurant, a few cheeseburgers (this baby loves cheeseburgers lately!!), and even an afternoon relaxing with the hubs and Camryn and watching the USA game.

Mom and I tackled my garage last Thursday and then uncluttered my guest closets and the baby’s future nursery. How I had managed to store so much stuff in my home that I didn’t need and didn’t use was truly amazing. I filled my garage back up and was able to sell quite a bit at the garage sale. Since I still have about half a garage full of chairs, a crib, area rugs, etc. I’ll be hosting yet another garage sale this coming Saturday. P.S…garage sales aren’t my jam. :-/ They require far more work and effort than you ever imagine, and the reward always feels so small. Oh, and those people that haggle over something that’s $1 blow my mind!! It’s a DOLLAR people…if you came out shopping with less than a dollar in your pocket then you need to go home!!

Later that night we went up north to try a restaurant that my husband and I had seen on Food Network the night before. (click the link to watch clips of the show we saw, and be prepared to drool)

The black pepper and gruyere cheese popovers were 100% of the reason I went. I couldn’t stop thinking about them after watching the show, and let me tell you, they were delicious! So insanely good that I took an order of 2 home with me to eat for breakfast Sunday morning. If you live in the Austin area, go eat at F&D, you won’t be disappointed. Oh, did I mention they have a thing called “Dollar Oyster Tuesdays”? Say whaaaattt?!!

Sunday was spent relaxing, eating cheeseburgers from P. Terry’s (this post should have been titled: What I ate all weekend!) and watching soccer. Camryn was mimicking Taylor the entire USA game, and was yelling “c’mon!” at the t.v. for 2 hours straight. While I lounged, I also did some online baby shopping, and I can’t wait to share a few new bits and pieces that I found for my tiniest lady. My husband is convinced that shopping for clothes 5 months before she arrives is ludacris…I’m convinced his job in life is to make me miserable. I mean, this pregnancy hasn’t been a cakewalk. The least I deserve is a little fun preparing for baby’s arrival, am I right? Men. I swear.

Here’s a sneaky peek at some adorable stuff I also found for Camryn:

Mara Hoffman for tiny ladies…I die.

Mom and I are spending the day painting the remainder of Camryn’s room, and hopefully starting on the baby’s room. I’m using my favorite, Benjamin Moore’s Swiss Coffee. I’ll snap some progress pics for y’all, and try to give you a before peek at the nursery before I start decorating it.

Pretty much sums up my Monday sentiment. Doesn’t mean I won’t shave my head and beat people with an umbrella…

I’m linking up with Biana today, so come say hi!

XO – Samantha

Hello friends!!

My husband was out of town for most of the week, and we were weaning Camryn from her pacifier, so I’m sorry I missed you all for a few days. I can never get on here and say “sorry, husbands out of town and everything’s going to sh*t”, but anytime you’re missing me here, you can come find me on Instagram. A picture is worth a thousand words right?

Today I’m linking up with my sweet friend Biana from BLovedBoston, and sharing some of my weekend fun.

I hope you all had a great weekend! Be sure to click on the link-up button above to check out what some of my favorite bloggers got up to this weekend as well.

Welcome back to the real world friends. How amazing were the last 3 days? Don’t you think we’d live in a happier world if every weekend was 3 days long? My weekend was the uber uneventful kind, where you do absolutely nothing but lounge around the house and do chores…and by “do chores”, I mean be preggo and relax while watching my husband be super-mom for the weekend. He’s seriously the greatest.

While relaxing, I was wearing my favorite new jammies, and yes, they are noteworthy. These Target pajamas are the most comfortable thing I’ve ever worn. I talked myself out of going places this weekend just so I didn’t have to change out of these. I’ll be adding every other color of these to my collection ASAP, especially for only $14.99. It doesn’t hurt that my husband says they make my butt look nice.

I finally got brave and took away my daughters pacifier. EEK! We’ve been building up to this moment for months, and the timing just never felt right, but I finally bit the bullet and the “paci fairy” came to take them away to the new babies at the hospitals who need them more than Camryn does. In a nutshell, it’s been hell. She cried for hours. Our neighbors probably think I’m an abusive parent after hearing her wailing. She kept saying “I don’t want to be a big lady! I want to stay a baby!”, and “The paci fairy is mean. I can’t like her!”. Yes folks, “I CAN’T like her”…not I don’t, but I CANT. She’s not dramatic at all. Bedtime has become a hot mess, and I told my husband we need to rub the pacifiers in raw chicken, and then throw them away wrapped in dirty diapers so that there’s no turning back in a moment of desperation.

We had a freak thunderstorm yesterday, so naturally my husband cooked up My Simple Kitchen’s crockpot chili recipe and we hibernated and watched World War Z and How to Train Your Dragon. Seriously y’all, such good movies! I swear I didn’t breathe the entire time we watched WWZ, it’s so intense, and HTTYD is Camryn’s jam. The sequel comes out in June and she is stoked to go see it (my husband and I are admittedly as excited.)

Nothing too exciting over here. I hope you all had great, relaxing weekends as well!

XO – Samantha

I know I’ve been pretty MIA the last week, but many of you know that I was in Boston last week and had the most fun mini-vacation. My husband travels to the Boston area frequently on business, and Camryn and I decided to tag along this trip (for the first time) since the weather was nice. We’re not big on cold, wet, or frozen, and that’s what Boston typically is, so we were so excited to finally be able to join him and check out the city. My friend Biana, from BLovedBoston, had told me prior to visiting that the hotel we were staying at was nice, and she was absolutely right. We stayed on the north side of town, at the Fairmont Battery Wharf hotel, and it was gorgeous. I would highly recommend it.

While we were there we visited Harvard, MIT, and drove around the city on Mothers Day exploring. Camryn and I spent a day seeing the aquarium, eating and shopping at Quincy Market, and seeing Madagascar in 3D at the IMAX theater. It was warm, and sunny, and absolutely gorgeous weather for all but one day. Our last day in town got down to the 50′s, but it was nice to hibernate in the hotel and spend a day relaxing with my girl.

This weekend we spent some time on South Congress, and we may or may not have picked up two…yes TWO…of the Intelligender tests. We have zero patience. Both said “boy”, so we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see if they’re right or wrong. Either way, it was a fun way to waste $80. I’m entering my 12th week today, and feeling worse than ever. I was sick every hour yesterday, and couldn’t keep down hardly anything. I’m really hoping this morning sickness goes away soon, otherwise I’m going to have to ask my doc for something to help ease my stomach. On the bright side, baby is healthy and we’ve started hearing the heartbeat on our at-home fetal doppler. My overwhelming exhaustion is fading away also. WooHoo! I can almost keep up with my toddler again. Ha!

Have any of you taken the Intelligender tests? Were your results accurate?

Hope you all had a great weekend!

XO – Samantha