December 14, 2010

LONG OVERDUE!


I haven't blogged in SOOOO long due to a lot of reasons... first, going to my sister's baby showers took up a few weeks and then we found out we're pregnant! I didn't want to tell everyone until I was closer to my second trimester, so I didn't blog... babies were the only thing on my mind and so I decided to wait on blogging until I could tell everyone the news. SOOOO... want to know what the last few months have been like?
I thought I might be pregnant on my 25th birthday! I was so excited, so I called my mom and we talked about if I might actually be pregnant. I took a pregnancy test and it was REALLY faint, so I was a little worried that I might not be pregnant. Well, I went to my mom's house for the weekend (because Carl was going on a school trip for that weekend and would be out of town anyway) and I took 4 more tests (I know.... I know.... you would think ONE would be enough, but I wanted to make certain that I was before I went home to tell Carl). All the tests were positive!



I went home and told Carl by giving him a present filled with lots of stuff that said "I love daddy"
He was so excited and shocked! We had wanted to get pregnant for months and he was so shocked that we were actually going to have a baby! It was so great to tell him and he was so sweet about it.
After that, we scheduled me for doctors appts. I officially found out that yes, I am pregnant and we got scheduled for an ultrasound. Then, we went to my sister's house for Thanksgiving and got to tell that family about our pregnancy (everyone was so excited especially since my sister was 38 weeks pregnant and now there will be 2 cousins so close together). It was so fun to see my family! and if you want to see some pics, you can go to my sister's blog http://brianshelbieclement.blogspot.com/2010/12/thanksgiving.html and read all about it (she is better at blogging then I am... i tend to forget and get busy while she writes about things more often). We had so much fun visiting and when we got home, it was time for our ultrasound! Here is a pic that they gave us to take home:
I know it is hard to see, but our baby was only 8 weeks, so he/she was the size of a raspberry! That made it hard to get a really good picture but when you look at the pic in person, you can see the baby and the yolk sack. It was really fun to get to go and see and hear the baby's heart beat. It was nice to know that the baby is doing well and is actually there! (I know... it seems that I am still in a little shock since I have a hard time believing that a baby is actually inside me).
I totally FEEL pregnant though... the last few weeks have been full of being so tired and feeling nauseous all the time. It is like having the flu... you just feel weak, tired, and like you want to throw up ALL the time! Thankfully, I have not actually thrown up, just felt like it and the only way to feel better is to eat and eat and eat and eat! Here is an example of my "first lunch" i made the other day:
AND, I couldn't even finish it! I have to eat but only to where I am no longer hungry... if I am even a bit hungry or too full, i feel sick. It is so frustrating! BUT.... the good news is that I am 10 weeks pregnant now and only have a few more weeks of feeling this way!
I am so excited to be out of the first trimester and to feel more normal... don't get me wrong, I love the fact that we are going to have a baby and this is TOTALLY worth it! I can't wait to find out if we are going to have a girl or a boy (and yes, we decided that we should find out this time around).
My sister just had her baby yesterday and she is so cute!
Little Mya!!! I am an aunt and I can't wait to meet her!

October 26, 2010

Date night

After reading a really cool blog that Shelbie showed me, I decided to try date night. I wanted it to be fun and different and I wanted to make it special. How long has it been since you made a date special, since you thought about it all day and planned it in advance? How long since you did more than eat out or watch a movie? Well, for us it has been a LONG while. So, Monday night I asked Carl when he would be home the next day and would he like to have dinner with me (i kept the actual date a secret). I spent all day going to stores, making an invitation, fixing our printer since it was out of ink, setting up dinner, setting up the table and decorations, and getting the food ready.
I had such high plans. I thought I would make chinese food from scratch (because i make REALLY good fried rice). I looked up how Panda Express makes the noodles and went grocery shopping. I bought what I didn't have (which wasn't much but still took over an hour to buy it all) and came home...... only to realize that by the time I had finished decorating i had 60 minutes to make ALL of dinner, including the rice (which takes 90 min to cook and then I would have to let it cool and cook it again). I was freaking out. I just didn't have enough time!
I decided to just buy the rice and noodles from Panda Express and come home to make the rest. When I got home, I made a pre-packaged miso soup that I found at Walmart and started cooking the veggies. I made stir fried veggies and it was so good!
Carl got home right after the veggies were finished cooking. I plated the food and turned on our "Chinese" movie...... Kung Fu Panda. It was SO fun. Here are the pics from the date we had:



I found these at the dollar store and put them up, I thought they gave the room a more Chinese feel, if only they were red and gold like the rest of the decorations.... oh well, design on a budget. I also hung streamers around the room, but didn't take a pic... sorry :(

Here is the table and our movie playing in the background. I found this table cloth at walmart and it was the perfect color for our date... a bit red, a bit gold


A close up of the table and dinner... that is a little bottle of sparkling apple cider I got at the dollar store :), some wasabi for Carl (which is that green stuff on the white platter), and a little take out box with some fortune cookies inside. I also got the zen garden at the dollar store, the place mats, the plates, and some of the candles.

Carl enjoying dinner and acting like the praying mantis from the movie :)


Sitting down at the table.

All in all, we had a GREAT time! We ate good food, watched a good movie, laughed, and had a yummy apple crisp for dessert (and that WAS homemade :) ) We also decided to make date night a weekly thing. I think it will be nice to start dating each other again. It gets too easy to get into a routine and forget to make your spouse feel important. I haven't done that much planning and setting up for a date since we were in high school (i know... shame on me, but I bet it has been awhile for you too). I really enjoyed thinking about Carl and our date all day. It was a nice way to show Carl he is important enough for me to do something special for.

October 13, 2010

Mail


Yesterday, we received this in the mail! Carl's mom sent us a super nice Halloween basket.
It has so much cool stuff in it! There are plates and napkins, window clings, cookies cutters, Halloween sprinkles, a super cute halloween dress for Jez, and of course a little candy. THANKS MOM!!!!!



I figured since mom was so nice to send it to us, I would take pics and post them here. My doggie is so cute!!!!!! She just looks so sassy in her dress


Here is one where you can see what her dress looks like:)



She just loves it, and so do I!!!!

October 4, 2010

winning weekend

This last weekend my mom, Rodney, and Nate came to visit. They came to go to the balloon fiesta but we never actually made it there :) We mostly hung out and my family played wii golf. It was really fun to watch my mom and Rodney play golf on the wii. They are just so funny.... I think my mom now wants a wii for Christmas so they can play video games... mostly just the golf and bowling, i guess:).
We did go to Albuquerque on Saturday and while driving, my mom suggested we all go to the hard rock casino. I don't think any of us really cared either way, but my mom offered to give us all $50 to have fun with so we all went. Everyone split up, except Carl and I who went and played the quarter slots. It was so fun! The last time we did this was when I was 21 and Carl was only 20 so he didn't get to play.... this time was better because we got to sit by each other, talk and having a good time while we BOTH played.
Well, we went to a little room and played some more and ended up winning (I took pics with my phone but I guess I didn't click 'save' before I clicked off the camera so it wasn't on there).Carl won more than I did, but we both came out with more money then my mom gave us (and she didn't even want any of the money back, so we got to keep it all!!). It turns out that Carl, Nate, and I all won money and my mom and Rod just lost the $50 they played.... it is sad but true. I think that is just how it goes because the same thing that happened in Vegas for my 21st birthday, the kids won and my mom and Rod didn't. It was so fun and all-in-all a great way to spend an hour while we waited to eat dinner (and my mom and Rod were not upset, just glad that we all had fun and that we won some money).
It was a good weekend and I look forward to seeing them again for Jessica's baby shower in a few weeks :)

September 30, 2010

FOOD!!




I wanted to post a pic of a salad I made the other day that was delish! It had garden tomatoes and avacado with spinach and italian dressing.

I also wanted to show you what yummy thing I made today :)

Yesterday I had the thought of how good some chicken soup would be, if only it didn't have chicken in it. So today, I made some soup! Here is what I did:

  • Pour some veggie stock into a pot (yes this is really how I cook... I don't really measure things)
  • Cut up about 3 stocks of celery and 1/4 of an onion.
  • Cook the celery and onion in a skillet with about 1 Tbsp of butter and 1 Tbsp of minced garlic.
  • While the celery and onion are cooking, chop up some baby carrots (i did about 1/4 of a bag) and put the carrots in the pot with the veggie stock.
  • When the onions and celery are clear, put them in the pot with the carrots.
  • Add seasonings (i used parsley, chives, tyme, and oragano).
  • Add noodles and cook for about 20 min.

The soup was SO good! It is a lot like chicken soup without chicken LOL. I ate it all up with a bit of bread and thought it was very flavorful and was surprisingly filling. If you are in the mood for some super good soup that is really easy to make, I would suggest trying homemade veggie soup like mine :D

September 28, 2010

cinnamon rolls

Last week I made cinnamon rolls.... from scratch. It was so easy and yummy! I made them on Wednesday and they were all the way gone by Saturday. I think they were enjoyed... lol. Carl and I ate them for breakfast everyday until they were gone. They were so sweet, I didn't even put icing it. I added raisins and I think when I make them again, I will add nuts too. Here are some pics of how they turned out :)

September 19, 2010

Quesadillas!




On Friday, while Carl was at school, I looked up some recipes for some corn
we had leftover (we bought some on the cob corn and had about 6 left that we hadn't eaten yet). I was searching for something yummy and came across black bean & corn quesadillas. I thought.... "hmm.. those could be good." So when Carl got home, he grilled the corn and I homemade some tortillas from a mix that Uncle Pat bought us. We cut the corn off the cob and got out a can of black beans, grated some cheese, and made some YUMMY dinner! Here are the pics!




Sorry if the pics are a bit blurry... i took them with my phone :) I would recommend if you are hungry, to make these and eat with just a bit of salsa. YUM!!

Breakfast!!



Carl came home on Friday with these:

Some farm fresh eggs! There is a girl he goes to school with that has some chickens (don't worry, she doesn't have any roosters) and she was happy to part with these for us.


They are a bit weird colored, but today we made a veggie omelet with onions, orange bell peppers, tomato, fresh spinach, green chile, mushrooms, and a tiny bit of soy cheese. I took out my phone and caught some yummy pics of our great breakfast with farm eggs :)





You can see the tomato and green chile really well, but we added a bunch of veggies and only 3 eggs. It was so good!

Our nighttime visitor

Carl and I had a little visitor last night. We were laying in bed reading (well, I was reading and Carl was playing with his iPAD) when we heard a weird noise by our bed. I asked Carl to move the bag (I thought the noise was a plastic bag moving because we had the fan turned on). He got down to move the bag and....... there was no bag. He moved some stuff and he said, "MACEY, COME HERE!!! LOOK!!!!" Well, that usually means it is a spider or cockroach or something I really don't like, but here is what we found:





A FROG!!! We guessed it came in through the doggie door and found our room. It was so funny and he is so small! I was super glad that it was not a spider or something gross, but we both laughed and Carl put him outside by our garden.

September 17, 2010

Wow... Friday already

So today is Friday and Carl is completing his first week back at school. We have really gotten a good routine down. The alarm goes off at 6, he gets ready and I lay in bed trying to wake up, we both go out into the kitchen by 6:20 and I help him put together some breakfast and get out his lunch that we made the night before, and then Carl leaves around 6:40 to catch the train. Now after that, I usually go into our room and read the bible, come into the living room and work out, shower, get ready for the day and then clean, cook, laundry, watch hoarders (or some other show that is really just there for background noise) and before I know it Carl is already home again. It really is a nice way to spend the day.
I am getting used to being home again and am loving all the alone time :) That is something I didn't think I would ever say, let alone be ok with.... but I like my quiet mornings that are very laid back.
Our diet is going well.... hmm, maybe not our "diet" since we aren't trying to lose weight or anything, maybe I'll call it our change in eating habits. Well, whatever you would call it is going well. Lauren came and stayed one night with us and we grilled boca burgers, corn, and ate sweet potato fries. It was really good and Lauren liked it too. She said she couldn't really taste a difference :D I even got Madison to drink chocolate Silk (but maybe since it was so chocolaty she didn't care what kind of milk it was).
We are looking forward to having a bunch of family coming and visiting (and don't worry, we have a whole bucket of meat for all the rest of you to eat when you stay with us) and are excited for the next month, where every weekend has something fun going on.

September 13, 2010

HOARDING!!!!


Today, while Carl was at school, I did a bunch of stuff! I watched true blood, read the bible, worked out for an hour, did 4 loads of laundry, VACUUMED the couch (which had Jack and Jez hair ALL over it.... see picture on the side... I know it was really gross, but I promise it looks so much better now ), made dinner, and watched 3 episodes of Hoarders on our Netflix.

It is so crazy!!! These people are insane. The first episode has a lady who has 3 rotting pumpkins in her living room along with meat dripping out of her TWO freezers! I just can't imagine saving food that expired 3 YEARS AGO and her reason for saving it is, "it was frozen so it doesn't expire as quickly." YUCK!!!

Since I watched Hoarders, my couches look fantastic, my dishes are done, and all the laundry is folded and put away. When you are not feeling motivated to clean, just watch this show and it will make you glad for what you have and will REALLY make you want to clean up :)

September 12, 2010

One week down!

It has officially been a week since Carl and I have gone meatless. I made the best dinner tonight... I wish I had taken a picture of it. I cut up a zucchini from our garden and sautéed it with some garlic, added some chopped green chile, some tomato, and topped it with motzo cheese. We ate that with some really yummy 9 grain toast. I must say that I don't really miss eating meat. The only meat that I might really miss is stuff that doesn't really make you think of meat.
I mean, when I think of "meat" I think of a big red meaty steak or a really juicy BBQ rib, a roast, or grilled chicken breast. I think the meat I will miss the most are things like tuna (a tuna sandwich from subway), ham on thanksgiving, or bacon for breakfast. They are things that I had good feelings about when i ate them. We have decided to give up meat for so many different reasons (and if you really want to know and are brave enough to find out, you can click on this link and see 49 good reasons to be a vegetarian http://www.britishmeat.com/49.htm I especially identify with the ethical reasons) so I don't think I will be eating meat anytime soon, even the things I might miss at times.

On another note, Carl starts school tomorrow and I am not really excited. He is ready and I think a bit nervous but I am not ready. That means that I have to go back to work to save up some money and I no longer get my hubby as a day time companion. I have to be alone all day or work. YUCK! Lol.... I know it wont be too bad and honestly, I think we are both ready to get back into a real routine. We decided to make goals for our life before he went back to school, so today we wrote down what we would like to accomplish and I came up with these:

1.Exercise at least 3 days a week
2. Read the bible at least 5 days a week
3. Cook dinner at least 3 days a week
4. Save at least $500 a month (so we can afford to go to Mexico, visit our friend Karoline next year for her wedding, and save some money for having a baby)
5. Get pregnant and have a healthy pregnancy
- do this by being more healthy in general
- eating less sugar and more veggies
- and complete goal number one
6. Do at least one nice thing for Carl everyday
7. Drink at least 48 oz of water everyday (not koolaid or soda or juice)
8. Read for at least 30 min 5 or more days a week
9. Eat out twice a month or less
10. Visit some family at least every 6 months.

I think these are very nice goals to have and hopefully I will be able to do them and keep doing them! Carl made a goal list too (and he has a bunch more goals than I do!) so we decided to tape them up in our bathroom to help keep us motivated and maybe this will help motivate you :)

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."

Robert Collier

September 11, 2010

Yard Sale!

So today Carl and I had a yard sale. We decided to do this on Thursday so we went through all th boxes in the garage and I put together all the stuff I could live without and we tagged it all. We had a desk, 2 rugs, office supplies, a stuffed horse, some toys (from when I babysat), some books I didn't want, an old picture frame, 2 lamps, pillars from our wedding, tons of pillows from my classroom, a mini fridge from college that I used in my classroom, a microwave I used in my classroom, and just random stuff we had in our garage. We sold about half of it and made $150. We didn't put an add in the paper or anything, just woke up at 6, got dressed, put all the stuff in the driveway, and put out boxes. It was really easy and when we were done we just took the boxes down and drove all of our leftovers to the local donation place. We stayed outside from about 6:30-2:30 but I still feel like it was worth it. We got rid of a bunch of stuff., our garage is almost clean, AND we made some money.

Well, I thought I would also update our diet. We are doing well with not eating meat and two days ago Carl made this for breakfast:



Spinach eggs, avocado, and an orange.

Today we didn't eat particularly well, but it was hard to cook while watching garage salers. I did go out with some of our profits and buy lunch- a veggie green chile cheese sandwich for carl and a bean burrito for me :)

September 9, 2010

lunch


So you might be wondering.... what is it that you would eat that does not include meat? Well, here it is folks! Carl and I bought a rice cooker (and since we won't be eating meat, we figured it was a good investment). Here is our new rice cooker along with our lunch today. I made corn rice seasoned with a bunch of stuff including toasted sesame seeds and steamed carrots. YUM! We both REALLY enjoyed it, only next time I will add some kidney beans for added protein. (today we just had some baked beans on the side along with a handful of cashews).... and here are the pics!


This is my new rice cooker... you might be wondering, "what is that weird silver thing on top of the rice cooker?" well, read on!

YES, my rice cooker comes with a veggie steamer that goes on top and steams veggies while it makes rice!



Here is the finished product!

Carl and I just finished eating it and he said, "It was SO good!" I think that just about sums it up.... anyone hungry? I have leftovers!

cleaning


So Carl and I woke up and we cleaned out the fridge and freezer. We have been meaning to for awhile now, but finally we got around to doing it. We used some plastic containers that I had leftover from my classroom and organized our freezer. This is what we ended up with. You can see now that we are using ALL our freezer space and can now pull out the containers to see what we need. There is the pink dot bucket for fruit, blue for veggies, and the bottom left is meat for family (with our veggie-meat in front), the bottom middle is side items (like tatertots, potatoes, rice, ect) and the bottom right is where we put frozen leftovers. I think we did a good job and now we always know what is in our tiny freezer :)

September 7, 2010

start of a new diet :)

So... I guess now I am going to start blogging. I thought about doing this since now Carl and I are trying to be vegetarians I thought that blogging about our experiences would be fun.

We have officially not had meat for one day. It would be a few more but our neighbors had a BBQ that we scheduled awhile before we decided to do the meatless thing. So lots of people have asked why we are doing this. I guess it all started with an Oprah show (ok, don't laugh too hard, Oprah is a great show :D). She had a show all about being more aware of what you are eating and where your food comes from. Oprah had a bunch of guests on, including Alicia Silverstone. Well, she featured the new book Alicia had written, called "The Kind Diet" and she showed clips of a documentary showing the living conditions of the animals we eat. Lets just say my eyes were opened to a world I never knew even existed. I guess you could call me naive, but I preferred to call it blissfully unaware, until now. After seeing how horribly animals are treated, I started thinking more about what I would do about it and eventually broached the topic of not eating meat with Carl. We really don't eat too much meat now (although after really thinking about it, we would eat a bunch of meat when we'd eat out) so cutting out meat shouldn't be too bad.

well, it really isn't that bad. Yesterday we ate bocca burgers (a type of veggie burger) and although it didn't taste exactly like meat (neither did ground turkey) it was really good. Today we tried a yummy southwest corn soup and I must say I don't really miss meat :)

I think I'll try to blog every few days and try to keep up with our meatless eating :)