Hi! Many of you probably don’t know me, but I’m Jill Shell.

You might recognize me as the wife beside the Family Friendly Daddy Blogger, Nick Shell. He’s my husband and Jack’s our (almost 5 year old) son. We recently found out that we are expecting our second child in April 2016 and we couldn’t be more excited! With a new baby on the way, you can imagine how things could be transforming in our daily lives.

One day we got to talking about the many interesting things that happen during pregnancy and I mentioned to Nick that it would be fun to do guest blog appearances on his site to write about all the changes. It started out with me wanting to write about the funny things that happen during pregnancy, such as the for real increased appetite, incredible cravings that leave you lusting after food, the inevitable weight gain, and other nuances of the kind.

But as we spoke more about it, it sounds as if it may evolve into some posts about my interests and hobbies such as cooking vegan dishes (because you don’t know what you’re missing and it’s not that difficult to prepare), reviewing baby items (to get at the heart of what you really need and what truly works), thrifty saving trends (because who doesn’t like saving money), and my new venture in crafting (totally investing in a sewing machine with my Christmas money after we get through the holidays).

This has been an incredible space for Nick to share information with people and I’m happy to contribute to this virtual forum to continue our story; connecting with people as we grow from a family of three to four.

To give you an idea of what you may be in for, I’ll be doing my next blog post on a vegan/vegetarian recipe for chili. Fall is the perfect time to break out the crock pot to create a flavorful, low-key easy meal, and what better dish than chili?

Oh, and don’t worry, I don’t venture into complicated recipes with crazy ingredients that you can only get in Mumbai and will never use again, or that take three hours to prepare and five hours to complete.

After all, I am a full-time working mom and if I have to go through a lot of trouble to prepare a healthy meal for my family, I’d just as soon invest in the “Never Ending Pasta Pass” at Olive Garden, and let’s be honest, I ain’t got time for that and neither do you.