What do you love best about the salad you see here?  For most people, I’m sure the answer would be the bacon.  While I do like the bacon (definite progress from a few years ago), I am all about the hard boiled eggs.  I love them.  (Don’t even get me started on deviled eggs.  They are my kryptonite.  Gah!)  But aside from my love of eggs, I love this salad overall.  The components just work so very well together.  The eggs provide a bit of creaminess, the bacon gives bacony goodness, obviously.  With the crunchy spinach leaves, earthy mushrooms and slight bite of the red onion, the combination is stellar.  This would make a really nice starter to a meal or does well on its own as a light-ish meal.

1. To start out the month of March, I finished up my last week of carrying the call pager of residency.  Handing it off for the last time was amazing.
2. At work last month, I had the opportunity to culture my own cells and then visualize and karyotype my own chromosomes.  It was so cool!
3. I got a flat tire on my car one evening that could only be fixed at the dealership while they ordered the new tire.  The very next morning while driving Ben’s car – no joke – another flat.  That’s two in 24 hours, in two vehicles.  Grrrr.  (For the record, both were nails/hunks of metal, so not due to my driving skills.  Ha!)  I’m so thankful my dad insisted I learn how to change a flat.  And also grateful to the seven(!) people who offered to help me fix it.
4. Boo for snow but yay for a sweet little snow angel!
5. We have a memory jar to record fun moments from 2013.  I had to jot down this one from Andrew: “When I’m big, I’m going to be a scientist-garbage man-police man.”  He then gave a detailed description of how he would change in and out of those various uniforms.
6. Knitting got real when I worked on the sleeves of my sweater.  Five needles at a time!  Actually not as hard as it looks, but I was freaked out at first.
7. We love IU basketball wins, but they are so much sweeter when witnessed with my brother Steve.  I love seeing his reaction when they win!
8. Sometimes they play well together.  Sometimes.
9. Caroline’s room got a makeover from nursery to big girl room.  Andrew was pretty excited to watch Dad paint.
10. We spent a fun weekend afternoon at the Children’s Museum.  The kids’ love so many of the exhibits but for me, the hall of mirrors never gets old :)
11. The best boy I could ever ask for, so the shirt seemed fitting.
12. My sweet girl is starting to show interest in baking.  Right now her main job is measuring cup drummer.
13. Andrew picked out a honey bear at our butcher shop, and then out of the blue spent the whole week asking for a biscuit with strawberries and honey.  The following weekend, I made it a reality.  He was beyond thrilled.
14. Caroline had her first haircut!  And by the way, tolerated it 1000% better than her brother did his first time.
15. Sweet snuggly girl.
16. I finished my sweater!  I still can’t believe that I completed a sweater that looks like something I would actually want to buy.  And it’s super comfy.
17. We had our living room repainted and the carpet replaced, which meant a temporary move of all furniture into our front room.  The kids were in heaven with this fort/jungle gym set up.
18. Snuggling with my girl on her last night of being a one year old.  I cannot believe how time has flown.
19. Caroline absolutely loves her big girl bed, and I love seeing my sleepy girl in the early morning time.
20. Ben’s mom brought Caroline this beautiful bouquet from her garden at her birthday party.  So sweet, and we are so ready for spring flowers!

When I planned the menu for Caroline’s birthday party, these bars were something of an afterthought.  They helped round out the dessert portion of the menu, adding another berry treat for our little berry fiend.  I suspected they would be good but oh.my.gosh, people, these were definitely the highlight of the spread.  The buttery, crumbly crust with a hint of lemon and the amazing blackberry filling are an irresistible combination.  These bake up very thick, so you can cut them on the small side.  The recipe doubles easily in a 9 x 13-inch pan to feed a larger crowd.  This recipe will undoubtedly become a total staple for bringing to spring and summer parties, potlucks, and more.  I’m looking forward to trying it with other fruits as well.

Somehow it seems time has gone and played its tricks again, and our precious baby girl is no longer a baby at all.  Suddenly, she’s a big girl.  A big two year old(!) with a very big personality.  It took some time for me to settle on a fitting theme for her party, but eventually I tried to just think about what she likes best.  Of course as a two year old, she doesn’t have a great many favorite things yet but undoubtedly one of her absolute favorite things to do is to read.  Mostly to have us read to her, but sometimes to sit with books we have read so many times she knows them by heart, and then she “reads” them to herself.  She has a hilarious habit of backing up to any grown up’s lap with book in hand whether you’re ready or not.  But depending on your posture, it’s not always a lap she lands on.  We’ve both had our heads sat on on multiple occasions while lying on the playroom floor followed by, “I read book!”  So, I went with the idea of story time plus her favorite color purple, and came up with this simple celebration for our sweet girl.  (By the way, the photo above is completely unstaged – she just really likes berries.)

The invitations (by TomKat Studio) were precious, and I popped them into envelopes that I lined with old book pages to introduce the book theme.  The envelopes are from Paper Source (color is beet.)

Story time is a pretty subtle theme to work with, and I didn’t want to waste time or money collecting certain books or fancy vintage editions to decorate.  I did my best to make do with things we already had on hand.  We used this bookshelf that is normally in a different room to display photos of Caroline throughout the past year as well as some of her favorite books (the Baby Lit series I’ve mentioned before.)  I reused the picture frames from her party last year and just painted over the yellow ones with purple to coordinate.  Easy peasy.

I used pages from old, fallen apart books to make a few small paper flowers to decorate the birthday banner and I thought they were a cute touch.

A lot of beautiful spring flowers just happen to be purple, so that worked well bring the color scheme through the various details.  Irises were my mom’s favorite flower so they have a special meaning in our family, and it was nice to have some displayed on the main table.  She also really loved hyacinths so this arrangement just made me feel happy.

I have to give a special shout out to Molly of The TomKat Studio for the amazing party printables.  I always love their work and how the printables help pull a party together, but I especially loved this set.  The party circles and favor tags with the script background actually include some quotes from our favorite books.  Definitely love love loved that detail!

The party was in the middle of the afternoon so not during prime meal time and as a result, I kept the menu on the small side.  It was as follows:

Cucumber Bites
Deviled Eggs
Spring Veggie Goat Cheese Dip
Fruit Tartlets
Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies
Blackberry Pie Bars
Lemon Cupcakes with Whipped Vanilla Frosting

The tartlets are actually just a mini version of this fresh fruit tart.  I made a 1.5 batch of dough to yield about 20 tartlet shells.  I used a cookie cutter (about 3½-inch diameter) to cut out rounds of tart dough, pressed them into my nonstick cupcake pan, lined them with foil and filled with baking beads/dried beans, and baked at 375˚ F until golden and set.  I made a single batch of pastry cream and topped with fresh fruit.

I never pass up an opportunity to make the ever popular soft frosted sugar cookies, but this time I frosted them with a vaguely floral design.  I used the same frosting recipe but simply made it slightly stiffer (i.e. used less liquid) than the original version, and then piped it onto the cookies with a large closed star tip starting from the center and swirling outward.

We made a little collection of some of our family’s favorite storybooks for other kids to look at if they wanted.  The crate was actually just the box left over from one of the birthday gifts I had given Caroline a few days before the party.  And of course, I couldn’t resist cookie favors.  I made my favorite macaron recipe and filled them with dark chocolate ganache.

The weather on the day of the party was absolutely gorgeous, so we spent the majority of the day outside playing.  But eventually, we came inside to settle down and have story time before cupcakes.  We have quite a few educators in our families, so I tapped them as a resource for reading duties.  First my brother Steve, a fourth grade teacher, read one of our childhood favorites, Miss Nelson is Missing.  Man, I love that book.

Then Ben, a first grade teacher, followed it up with one of his childhood favorites (and what has become one of our absolute favorite stories for the kids at bedtime), Professor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-a-Zoo.

Happy birthday, sweet Caroline!  We couldn’t have dreamed up a more wonderful girl if we tried.

Here’s a peek at what I’ve been loving in March/early April!
Just a few quick brushes with warmer weather have made me ever so anxious for spring and summer wardrobe updates.  This J.Crew maxi dress was love at first sight/instant purchase for me.  Last summer I bought one maxi dress from Target and I wore it all the time, so I know this will be a staple piece for me very soon.  I bought the navy but am contemplating the red as well.

Not exactly a grown up fashion find, but I have to say that as a parent, the only thing cuter than little kid clothes is little kid PJs.  Hugging my babies in their PJs all snuggly and sleepy are some of my favorite moments of the day.  So, I always get excited about cute little pajamas and when I saw these twin packs of short johns from Mini Boden, they were bound to end up in Caroline’s closet.  Thankfully I had a coupon and found another coupon code online, so I got a good deal, but they are just too cute to pass up.  I bought both the set pictured above as well as the cupcake set, naturally.  They are even more precious in person.

My life isn’t exactly fancy enough to require a clutch purse, well… ever, but a girl can dream right?  Actually rather than dreaming, I prefer to buy as gifts for friends.  I have loved the Etsy shop eclu for several years and have bought a few of these gorgeous items for friends.  Most recently I bought a pink/coral clutch as a birthday gift and it was so lovely and perfect for spring.

Thanks to all of you awesome readers who responded to my last Things I’m Loving post to recommend fast-drying top coats.  I don’t spend enough time researching products to even know such a thing existed but wow – they are fantastic.  I tried a few of the different brands recommended but after all my experiments I have to agree with the majority.  Seche Vite is incredible!  It’s definitely the fastest drying and the longest lasting of everything I tried.  I am sold on this and wish I had known about it oh, 15 years ago.  Please, if there is some other fabulous find you have that I need to know about, send it my way!

Okay, so I’m not much of a perfume person in general and I don’t experiment with different scents much.  I’ve been wearing the same type of body splash for probably a decade and I’m content with it.  But, when Courtney came to visit recently, she used this black currant vanilla lotion and I loved the smell of it.  I’m not typically drawn to the Bath & Body Works scents for daily wear but I do love love love their aromatherapy line.  The next time I was at Bath & Body Works I made sure to stock up and now I have it at home and at work.  I wish they had an actual body splash or perfume of this scent because it would no doubt become my every day fragrance.  Even just wearing the lotion, I have had so many people ask me what the scent is and where I got it, so I know I’m not the only one who agrees this stuff is awesome.

I’ve been on an organization bender since the beginning of this year.  I think the post-holiday putting away of decorations and reorganizing to fit in new toys, etc. always gives me the nesting urge.  I’ve been making big and small improvements in lots of areas of our home but one I am most excited about is using a pant hanger as a ribbon organizer.  I picked up two of these from Target on a recent trip and having wrapped gifts twice in the past week I can attest that this thing has been fab to have.  Just do it.  (I can’t link to the ones I bought from their website and I definitely did not buy a $19 hanger like the one I see online.  I’m pretty sure it was the Threshold brand and was around $8.)

Indy peeps, I am absolutely addicted to Taste Café in Broad Ripple.  A couple of months ago I worked near there for a four week stint and I was constantly finding reasons to go for lunch.  Whenever someone wants to grab lunch now, this is my suggestion.  I just love the huge variety on their menu with so many more options than the typical lunch fare.  I try something new almost every time I go and have never been disappointed but I have to say the roasted salmon sandwich is my current favorite.

I wish I had a fabulous book recommendation for you but unfortunately the book I just finished was only so-so.  But, I have as usual been listening to episode after episode of This American Life.  I have heard numerous episodes recently that have blown my mind, made me cry, made me laugh…I just can’t get enough of it.  There are a couple I have found especially captivating lately.  The one pictured above, Parent Trap, caught me off guard and had tears streaming down my face at the conclusion of each of the two acts.  The first act hit close to home because, similar to the family in the story, my mom left me little letters and notes for me to receive after she had passed away.  Though mine were always positive and never left anything but a feeling of love for me, this story went straight to my core and I could so understand the emotional roller coaster of the main character here.  And the second act…to be honest, it sounded 100% cuckoo to me when it first started and I nearly turned it off, but by the end the story of Lucy the chimp really struck me.

And, the episode The Right to Remain Silent was gripping and jaw-dropping and I just could.not.stop listening.  Amazing stories here.

If you’ve followed for a while, you may have heard me mention my awesome friend and art director for the site, Ryan, from time to time.  What you may not know is that Ryan and his wife Andrea have two of the cutest little girls ever.  Here, his daughter August is blunt the way only a kid can be and tells it like it is: “Worry about yourself.”