Welcome to my kitchen

My oh my, how my kitchen has changed in the past few years!  When I started my previous food blog, Visit Ashley's Kitchen, my kitchen consisted of a sink, an oven, a refrigerator, and about 3 square feet of counter space in our tiny little apartment.  I still remember having to get out a card table to make enough space to roll out Christmas cookie dough.  But I was young, a newlywed, and in desperate need of a distraction from pharmacy school.

(our apartment kitchen, just after getting married)

Then we moved into our current home and immediately started working on making it our own, especially my kitchen.  At first it was small stuff, like painting walls, making cafe curtains and hanging a pot rack, but gradually we added new appliances, quartz countertops, a super deep sink, and a checkerboard floor (I've always wanted one).  As a graduation gift, my amazing parents bought me a Kitchenaid stand mixer - that wonderful, iconic appliance that I cannot fathom ever being without.  Except for my lack of pantry space, my kitchen was complete. 

(My kitchen, all renovated)

Fast forward a couple of years, and my kitchen still has beautiful countertops and cute toile cafe curtains.  My Kitchenaid mixer still sits on my island, ready to go at a moment's notice.  I still have no pantry space or a good place to put one.  But my kitchen is very different.  Now, it is consumed with baby bottles and drying racks, little plastic bowls and spoons, a high chair, a Brezza baby food maker and all the containers and ice cube trays for making/storing baby food, and even a baby bath tub on occasion (although we are slowly transitioning that to the real bath tub as Peanut gets bigger and splashes more).  We have fully embraced life with a 5 month old, and my kitchen has gone from being MY kitchen to the FAMILY'S kitchen. 

(bathing beauty on my kitchen counter)

Now comes the challenge of creating the comforting, everyday, yet somehow magical atmosphere surrounding "Mama's kitchen."  It's where I learned to cook and did my homework after school.  It's where I bathed my baby doll after Mom bathed her baby.  It's where I told my mom I was pregnant.  My mama's kitchen will always be the background for so many of my favorite family memories, and I want so badly to create that for my children.  Making Mama's Kitchen is about my journey into motherhood, told through the dishes and memories made in this mama's kitchen.

Mama's little helper