February Visit

Last night Carl and I were bored and decided to play a game together. We played Mastermind... It was so fun! When it was my turn to hide the pattern and Carl's turn to figure it out, I laughed SO hard.... he would think out loud and some of the stuff he came up with was great. We had so much fun and played for about 2 hours!

Today, we had another CNM visit and just wanted to quickly write about how it went. I guess they installed a new way of booking patients, and they OVERBOOK one slot in the morning and afternoon. That means that when Carl and I got there, they were already really behind... so behind that we waited an hour to be seen. A WHOLE HOUR!!! We live in a tiny town and scheduled our appt for 10:30 on a Tuesday. I can't imagine how bad it is in the afternoon/early evening.

When we got back there, I was weighed and have lost another 2 lbs this month. That is a total of 6 lbs lost. When my midwife came in, she said that it hasn't been a big deal and as long as I am eating healthy and not starving, then it is all ok (then she made a little side note note that this weight loss actually results in me losing about 10 lbs and the baby stuff making up the difference).

We listened to the baby's heart and talked about going to Phoenix on Friday. The CNM suggested the regular: take breaks, move your feet, walk around, and don't be surprised if your feet swell.

I look forward to visiting family and meeting my niece... but am not really excited for swollen feet... well, I guess we'll see how it goes :)

Best snack EVER!!!

I was shopping yesterday and ran across these!

I tried to take a picture of the back, but it was blurry so I'm here to tell you that the only ingredient is fruit! THAT'S ALL!!! They are 100% fruit with no additives, including sugar (other than the apples which have cinnamon). There are 40 calories in the bag of apples, 45 in the strawberries and bananas, and 60 in the pineapples.

I bought these at Walmart for $.74. I just wish the bag was bigger! LOL I shared with Carl and we ate all 3 last night :)

Sooooo, if you see these at your local shopping center, pick them up and give them a try!

Dinner time

Tonights dinner. What to make???? I am hungry and ready to eat and a bit grumpy. I think I will eat some snap peas while I try to think of something easy to make. Considering the only thing I have eaten today is a pancake with blueberries, one mini cheesecake,and now some snap peas I decided that I could afford to make a less healthy meal. I was thinking about my taco sauce and thought about what it would be good on.

I came up with fried bean and cheese burritos. Like the kind you get at taco box or taco time. I thought it would be easy and taste super yummy with taco sauce, so I looked up a recipe and i found this:

http://www.westcoastcooking.com/content/view/123/34/

I read it through and decided that beans, cheese, tortillas, and green chile for Carl would be all we'd need (along with oil... we used the smart oil) and of course my taco sauce :) We heated up the oil (left over and reused from our tempera batch a week ago) and made 2 burritos in no time!

They were really good and tasted like the ones you buy at those taco places. I enjoyed my taco sauce, but found that RIGHT after I was finished eating I had MEGA heartburn AGAIN! I have now found the culprit for my heartburn last week..... taco sauce. :'( WHY???? I have been wanting this sauce for years and have never found it, until just last week at Smith's. I was so excited to eat it and now I realize I can't until I am no longer pregnant...... that leaves 21 more weeks of no taco sauce :'(

Here are some pics of us cooking

The ingredients for our burritos

Frying it up

Flip it over

Finished product

These were really tasty but I am now facing horrible heartburn again.... oh well, at least I now know what to stay away from.

mini cheesecake

I was checking my e-mail the other day when I came upon this recipe for easy mini cheesecakes. I really feel like when I see something that looks good or read about something I can't get it out of my mind.... I MUST try it (at least until I read about or see something else that looks good).

SOOOO.... we went to the store and I picked up the few items the recipe called for and decided to make it. These were so easy! Just mix, bake, and eat. They looked so good and Carl and I ended up eating a warm one last night and then a cold one today... YUM! Here are some pictures

Here is what they looked like after baking and the cherries we put on top.

And yes, I did eat one before taking this picture... I couldn't resist!

Here is the finished product with cherries... Yum, right?

This just shows how good they really are :)

I think next time (and Carl has already requested a next time since we only have 4 more left) I will try to use mini muffin tins. These were good and really easy, but I think it would be fun to have a bite sized cheese cake, instead of a muffin sized cheesecake.

Here is the recipe I used, give it a try and let me know what you think!!

Mini Cheesecakes

Ingredients

18 vanilla wafer cookies

2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened

¾ cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Lemon curd or fruit preserves for topping, optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Line muffin tins with decorative paper or foil baking cups. Place one vanilla wafer in the bottom of each cup.

3. In a medium mixing bowl or in the bowl of a standing mixer, add cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix on low speed for 1 minute, then increase the speed to high and continue mixing for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.

4. Spoon mixture into prepared muffin cups to ⅔ full.

5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and set. Remove from pans to cool, and refrigerate until serving. Top with lemon curd or preserves, if desired

Tips

· For a yummy variation, try substituting Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer Cookies for the Nilla Wafers, and top with raspberry preserves.

· The cheesecakes can be made ahead (without the toppings), wrapped tightly, and frozen for up to 3 months. Defrost them in the fridge the night before, and top them before serving.

Sushi

A few days ago I was looking at blogs and came across this post explaining how to make sushi. It looked SO good (and if you've ever been pregnant, you KNOW that when you see something that you like, you crave eating it until you finally do eat it.... or is that just me?) I looked at this picture for days and days and finally told Carl that we should try to make sushi here at home. It could be fun.... right?

So on Wednesday we went and bought a bunch of fresh food: asparagus, cucumber, avocado, bell pepper, zucchini, onion, and fresh just got to the store tuna. We also picked up some sushi rice, rice vinegar, seaweed, and a few other items.

I thought about my favorite sushi (the tempura asparagus roll) and decided that we should try to make tempura as an appetizer. WE WERE SET!

We had originally planned for this to be a sweet date on Thursday since Brock had said they would be here Friday.... but he changed his mind and came on Thursday so we changed our mind and decided it would be fun to try all together :)

Here are some pics of our endeavors:

This is the tempera we made... well, after we all ate most of it. It was SOOOOO good... but it took us awhile to get the hang of the batter thickness and the oil temperature

The start of a roll

Carl's roll after he cut it open

This is a better pic of Carl's tuna roll he made - tuna, avacado, red and yellow bell pepper

This was Brock's roll- tuna, tempera asparagus, avocado, and yellow bell pepper

These beauties were my roll!- Temper asparagus, carrot, avocado, cucumber (next time, I would use more rice)

Making sushi together :) We had a very full table with all of the fillings!

We had fun and making your own sushi is so easy AND you get to control what you put in it. It was a lot of fun and I would totally do it again. The only down side is since I'm pregnant, I have a major easy gag reflex. If I have too much in my mouth at one time, I gag.... this was a little problem since you have to eat sushi whole.... SOOOOOOO I think I will wait until I am not pregnant to eat sushi again.... It will be a bit more enjoyable then :)

So be brave and try to make sushi with some friends at your home... it is super fun and tasty (only recommend to those not currently pregnant).

ultrasound- girl or boy????

We had another ultrasound today and it was fun. There is a doctor here who donates her time to Carenet for free ultrasounds. Her name is Mia and she was really nice. We had done another one with her in early December and the baby had measured off about a week.... well, this time (just like the one in late December) the baby measured perfectly! I am 16 weeks and 4 days and that was the measurement she got.

If you have never seen an ultrasound, you are missing out. They are so cool! Not because of the gel they put on or the little wand they use, or even because of the super grainy picture of weird looking body parts BUT because you actually get to see God's work in action. He is the only one who knows what is going on inside all the time. I can say that everything feels ok, but to actually SEE what is going on is a totally different story.

Our baby is doing fantastic. He/she is just moving and shaking! About an hour before the ultrasound, I ate an orange for a snack and apparently the baby LOVED the extra sugar that provided. When the doctor kept the wand things still, you could see our baby just moving all over. It was like a little party inside... the doctor made the comment, "when you start to feel the baby move, I don't think you will ever stop.... He's just moving so much!" and no..... we are not sure if I am growing a little boy or girl.

The baby is not at all shy.... when we asked if she could see what we were having, our baby had his/her little legs wide open. She took a picture and said, "hmm... well it looks like a boy to me!" but she wanted another picture just to make sure, so she moved the wand around and our baby crossed his/her legs! LOL

After a few minutes of pushing around, the baby moved and she took another picture... well, in that one the baby looked like it could have been a girl! What a little stinker already :) When we were finished the doc said that her best guess is the baby's a boy... she gives it a 60% chance for a boy and 40% for a girl.

I guess we will have to wait for the super new high-tech ultrasound in February (and even then, we still might not know). God is holding the secret so far and that's ok with us. I guess we can live with a few more weeks of not knowing :)

A few belly pics

This is a picture of what I looked like the weekend after I found out I was pregnant. It is a picture of me at 1 month.

I took this one at 15 weeks.

Carl took this one yesterday after a shower at 16 weeks.

My belly is HUGE! I can't believe how it has just grown. It feels like I just woke up one day and all of a sudden had a BIG belly. The baby is about 5 inches from head to bum and my uterus is about to my belly button. It is like the baby just pushed everything up to make more room.

Yesterday I caught Carl talking on the phone to our neighbor telling him, "yeah... she's doing ok. Her belly is getting big. It seems to get bigger everyday."

To which our neighbor responded, "I don't think you are supposed to say that...ha ha."

Yeah. That comment doesn't exactly instill confidence in my body, but I know he meant it in the best way. He even made up for it by giving me a great back massage that night (while repeatedly telling me how great I look).

I haven't noticeably felt the baby move, but I really am not sure what I should be feeling. I DO however feel my uterus stretching and growing almost everyday. It is kind of like a light pinching on the sides, kind of like REALLY mild cramps (my nurse midwife said this was very normal). It is weird to feel the growing of the baby but not really feel the baby moving around. I wonder if this is just because of the position of the baby (maybe he/she really likes my back) or if I am feeling it and just don't realize. Oh well, I have read that it is normal to start feeling the baby between 16 and 20 weeks.

I will try to take more pictures, but no guarantees when they will be posted.