Life Lately (in Instagram)

My apologies for my absence lately, but frankly I've just been too lazy lately to blog.  A horrible excuse, I know, but it's hard to motivate yourself to take pictures and whatnot when it's cold outside!  But now I'm back and I've got some photos to share later this week!  Before I get to that though I thought I'd play catch-up with some Instagram photos so I can share with you what I've been up to lately.

First off, I've done my fair share of baking lately...

The newest member of our department, Ashleigh's, birthday was at the beginning of February so I made her this ginger-lime cake with marshmallow frosting.  I also made some candied ginger for a garnish, since she loves ginger so much!

To celebrate my 29th birthday I made this amazingly delicious pretzel, salted caramel cheesecake.  I actually made it the weekend before my birthday while my parents were in town and my oh my it was good!

If you live in or around Cincinnati you'll already know about the string of delays and closures in the past month for the University of Cincinnati.  For me this meant that there were a couple mornings, here and there, where I got to sleep in late, drink my coffee in bed, cuddle with the cat and watch Star Trek all day while wearing my pjs; it was awesome!

Oh, as if I hadn't been ingesting enough calories one night I decided to whip up some hand pies.  I made two kinds, strawberry nutella ones (left) and pulled pork ones (right).  Both were quite tasty!

This guy.  Not only does he always steal my seat on the couch when I get up, but he steals my pillows and positions himself under my blanket!  Oh, Cheese.

While my seat was being stolen by said basset, I was making banana pecan pancakes and bacon for Antoine and I!

For giggles, Cheese posing with my empty coffee cup!

For my actual birthday Antoine took me to the Palm Court downtown for their Sunday brunch buffet.  I'd heard about it but never been.  My goodness, it was amazing!!  The bread pudding rocked my world!  And afterwards I was so comatose that A and I had to go back home and take a nap.

After our nap I just couldn't get out of my pjs, they were too comfortable, so we decided to take it easy and watch Saving Mr. Banks.  And I made Cheesy pose for this picture with me.

Melting icicles.

Round three of my birthday celebration included an amazing night out with my sister, Michelle, and our friend, Helene.  We went to Cooper Hawk and did a wine tasting, got pretty tipsy, and then enjoyed a wonderful dinner.  What a wonderful night!

We got another round of snow this Friday, which Cheese was pretty happy about!  He loves playing around in the snow, especially when it's not below zero!

Guillermo, my furry stalker on cold nights.  He's perpetually glued to my lap in the evenings.

This past Saturday Antoine and I went to Spring Grove Cemetery since neither of us had ever been in the winter before.  It was so beautiful, but more on that later!

On Sunday we wanted to take Cheese to the dog park but once we got there we found out it was closed.  But we still took Cheese for a walk and threw snowballs to him!  He loves catching snowballs, it's his favorite winter hobby!

That's been my life lately, it's been pretty great if you ask me!  Stay tuned later this week for some snowy Spring Grove photos.