We're Back!

It's been go go go since we touched down in tropical Ontario this past Friday! What's up with the green, sunny Christmas? Even though everyone always complains about snow, it was the most perfect Christmas weather we left behind in Calgary, and now it seems more like the beginnings of spring than a week before Christmas.

We've had a great time seeing and catching up with the first round of family and friends! Today was back to the city, which hasn't gone too well so far. Have I mentioned my dislike (putting it as politely as possible) for Toronto? I'm just not a city girl. This morning proved it. I thought maybe after being away, it would feel good to be back, and feel somewhat like "home". Wrong. I'm heading outside of the city as soon as I'm finished the lunch I'm currently eating at a cafe, and I can't wait to get out. Maybe once we're back in our condo and starting to transform our tiny second bedroom into baby's room, it'll feel a bit better.

Sigh.

Off for the rest of Christmas shopping....

Last weekend in the mountains

I figure before I launch into photos and stories from our sunny weekend in California, I should probably pay tribute to our last weekend in Banff, and Eric's one and only ski day in the mountains. I've never enjoyed skiing, but wish I did. Something about the speed and not feeling in control, plus being freezing cold and wet and paying big bucks to do so just doesn't appeal to me. I knew Eric was really excited about skiing in the mountains, so off we went to Banff one last time, spending Saturday on the ski hills. As much as well all complain about snow, seriously, the snow we've had out here is so pretty and I'll definitely miss the Christmas feeling of the fluffy snow since apparently Ontario weather is looking more like spring.

Plus one of us in front of our Christmasy mantle! I love our little tree :) 

Week 23

Three months goes by FAST. We're sitting in our very bare condo, surrounded by suitcases, wondering how it's possible that we fly back to Ontario TOMORROW. As much as I can't wait to see my family and friends, it's going to be sad leaving Calgary just because of the lifestyle we were able to have here. Less stress, less obligations, shorter work hours...I'll definitely miss certain things about Calgary life.

Being that we're heading home, house hopping between family and friends with Christmas in between, I probably won't be posting as much as I'd like in the next few weeks. But come January, I want to make it a priority to be posting much more often, which should (I'm hoping) be easier with all the baby prep we'll be doing! January's project: NURSERY!!!

Sometime over this past weekend (in California, which I need to post about...) this belly seemed to POP! The day of this photo, I had at least 5 comments from customers at work about the belly, which was a first! Definitely depends on what I'm wearing I guess, since the next day I had none.

Week 22

As soon as December 1st hit, life turned chaotic. That weekend, we drove to Banff for one last weekend in the mountains and one chance for Eric to go skiing. The weather delivered, being nice and snowy but not too horribly cold. Obviously I did not take part in the skiing, but spent my day on the slopes riding the insanely long gondola and testing out different cafes. On the way back, we stopped at the mall at my work for some empty boxes for packing and made a frantic run to the grocery store, rushing to drop everything off at home and dropping off the rental car on time.

We were both busy with work and writing Christmas cards in the evenings, but made a few minutes for Week 22 pics! Baby has been kicking like crazy, more frequent during the day and definitely stronger. I imagine I'll feel like I've been the subject of an inner drum circle or soccer match by Month 9... I've also been having a lot of Braxton Hicks, which I never expected this early. Usually at least a few times a day, all of a sudden I'll feel everything tighten and tense, and then relax. Weird. And sometimes nearly traumatic if I have to pee as that pressure = not a good situation.
Here we are at Week 22!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

There was no way, especially with all the snow outside, that I wasn't decorating our temporary Calgary home for Christmas. The fireplace and mantle were just begging to be decked out in festive trimmings, and how on earth could we listen to Christmas carols and write our Christmas cards without some sort of tree in our midst?

I knew we wouldn't be able to do much, with space restrictions and the little fact that we would have to take everything back home with us. I raided Dollarama, and during a weekend away, we found our little tree.

This is our mantle before, adorned with all our baby cards and our two little knit hats from Nana :)

Aaaannnddddd, AFTER! Christmas-ized!

Craving Caving

Yes, another one.

Why?

I have no idea.

One week it's salt, one week it's sweet. Maybe that means baby will have a diverse palate?

Normally, I would have no problem giving up a store-bought cookie. A homemade one or nice cafe cookie with fun ingredients? Sure. But cookies from the "bad" aisle in the grocery store in a box with the twist tie tabs to close it? No thanks.

Except for the Oreo. I mean, really. Who can say no to an Oreo dunked in a cold glass of milk?

This photo of course does not do it justice. I ate them anyway.

Food for the Belly: Dinner Fail

Well. I almost didn't post this, as it looks about as appetizing as it tasted, but hey, why not. I had been thinking about this recipe since I saw it on (where else?) Pinterest a while ago. Roasted red pepper and goat cheese pasta. Well, hello! Yes please! I actually went to quite a bit of trouble for this one, including extra treks to the grocery store for specialty ingredients such as fresh pasta, goat cheese, parmesan and cream. It wasn't that horrible, but considering the effort and special ingredients...just wasn't worth it.

I think part of the problem may have been that I had zero fresh herbs to add flavour (even though they weren't specifically called for in the recipe), and that the herb and garlic goat cheese I used didn't seem to have a ton of flavour either, so the tangy goat cheese taste I was expecting didn't come through. The roasted red peppers turned out well, though next time I would do 3 instead of just two. All in all, just good pasta covered in creamy, but flavourless sauce. Bleh.

Food for the Belly: Bistro Dinner

Instead of cookbooks, or website, or dare I say it, even Pinterest.... I think I'm going to start referencing restaurant menus for meal inspiration. You know how you can go to a restaurant and see about a billion things on the menu that you want? Yes, that's me. Which is why, if I EVER had a restaurant, it would consist of sampler platters galore, and a mix and match menu so you can try a little bit of everything. I know that sounds like tapas, or a buffet, but let's face it...tapas are usually expensive and buffets? Well, if anyone has found a gourmet buffet where they've raved about the food, you can let me know.

So, after our burger night at Black Betty's, I was thinking how amazing all the soups, salads and sandwiches sounded, and that we needed our own bistro night. So bistro night we did have! I made beef barley soup from this Pinterest recipe, which turned out a bit thick, but good, and chicken club sandwiches with pesto chicken, bacon, avocado, tomato and greens on focaccia.

Our soup and sammy bistro dinner! And a quick FYI on the fact that each nicely plated dinner goes to my man, hence the accompanying glass of wine. My plate sometimes looks like a disaster. I'm usually so starving by the time I've finished cooking that I shove Eric's plate at him to take a photo, slosh my food onto my plate in whatever way, shape or form is fastest, and get to the table so this baby and I can EAT!

Week 21

So, I'm sure some may be wondering why all of a sudden these posts are coming rapid fire on the same day, after not posting in almost a week.

Well...

I got a job.

What's that? A job? But aren't you leaving Calgary in like, two weeks?

Yes, that's correct.

After job searching throughout September and October, it has to be mid-November when something finally works out. I can admit that I maybe didn't hit the pavement as intensely as I should have earlier on, but let's be serious. November? Really??

Since I really couldn't turn down an offer, I started work last Thursday, and will be giving my notice at the end of this week. Quite the pickle, huh? On top of it all, I also had to go out and try to update my wardrobe to comply with the "formal black and white" dress code. Wonderful. Let's buy some fancy-pants clothes to last me 3 weeks. Oh, and make them maternity please!

Anyways, enough about that. I'm not going to complain about this less-than-ideal situation, as I'm glad to have found something even for a little while. It's just been a bit complicated, and I feel really bad knowing full well that I'm leaving soon. Also, I'm on my feet for some 8 hour days, and let me tell you, flats and pregnancy do not mix. I'm SO looking forward to yoga today to stretch my spine, which feels like it has been sawed in half.

Thus ends the story of why I've been neglecting this blog, and I just hope to make it through the next 2 weeks.

OK!

So 21 weeks! I had an appointment yesterday for a quick checkup and all is well. I was really interested to see if I had gained any weight since my last appointment there, and turns out, I'm right on track. I was up 5 lbs in 5 weeks, which is exactly what to hope for, as they say a pound a week is average and expected. My belly is also right on track, measuring 21 cm at 21 weeks, which is bang on where it's supposed to be. And little pea's heartbeat? Totally average as well. My, aren't we boring. I'll take boring any day if it means we're both healthy and everything is progressing as it should.

Here we are at 21 weeks! Eric's iPhone app says that this week, baby is the size of a spaghetti squash, which I think is way more accurate than a pomegranate. But pomegranate is more fun to document with chalk, so Pom it is!

Food for the Belly: Dinner

Pizza night! We make pizza quite often actually. At home, I'll buy the ball of whole wheat pizza dough from the deli, and attempt to stretch it out as thin as possible over our pizza stone. In Calgary, I haven't been able to find good looking dough at our grocery store, so I resorted to buying a pre-cooked pizza crust. Which I must say, tasted amazing. Ended up super thin and delicately crispy, and only takes 10 minutes in the oven!

Today's pizza incorporated our usual staple toppings: pesto, mushrooms, artichokes, sundried tomatos, roasted red pepper, prosciutto, and cheeeeese.

This time, we splurged on some arugula, tossed it with olive oil and lemon juice and garnished our pizza. Dip in Frank's hot sauce and you've got yourself a gooooood pizza!

Craving Cavings

So far, I haven't really experienced what I would call a true pregnancy "craving". Sure, there have been times when I've come across a mouth-watering restaurant menu or recipe on Pintrest and thought, "I want to have that NOW", or be itching for a bit of post-dinner chocolate, or just simply "feel like" something specific for dinner. But rarely have I caved to a big treat. This did happen once, which was not documented with a photo. And it was bad. Because it was chips and dip. Now, I'm a sweet tooth through and through. Chips, I can usually take it or leave it. Not a huge salt person, and as I try to be healthy as much as possible, we never have chips in the house, aside from the occasional bag of Tostitos for nachos. But I saw someone blog about chips and dip and I couldn't stop thinking about it for THREE DAYS. So, finally one day, after a particularly long day of running errands...I caved. And bought a personal sized bag of sour cream and onion chips, came home, dipped them in the tzatziki we had for Greek pitas, and polished them off. Was it worth it? Probably not. But dang did it taste GOOD.

Anyways, there's this burger place, Black Betty's. Which we pass almost every time we go downtown. And the menu looked AMAZING. And they have live jazz, cheap wine and $3 sliders on Wednesdays. I've been dying to get there on a Wednesday since September. So finally, we went! The slider deal was over, but we were looking for a real dinner anyway. I got their signature burger, and Eric got the lamb burger, which I must say, was better than mine. Herbed ricotta and cranberry mint yogurt? Please. I think we'll definitely be back to try one of their amazing sounding grilled cheeses. Mmmm.

Food for the Belly: Brunch

Yes, it happened. Brunch again! This past weekend was our last "free" weekend in Calgary, meaning sticking around the condo without any pressing plans. We ran errands and went to church but otherwise were able to relax a bit before the chaos of December hits.

So I made brunch! Sleeping in is awesome. BUT, being lazy, waking up late, then lounging around in bed reading is usually interrupted by stomach growling and desperation for food. And then you get so hungry you want to eat everything in sight. So, you make a feast!

I have to say, our condo here has been pretty awesome, but our kitchen pans SUCK. Talk about the most NOT non-stick pans in the world. So making pancakes gets interesting, especially in your starvation panic, where all you want to do is get the food cooked and on your plate. 4 small pancakes turned out great. Then there were the last two. Which totally ran together, were half-pan shaped, and I still had a tiny dribble of batter left. What to do?! MAKE A GIANT PAN SIZED PANCAKE, that's what you do. Hence, this glorious breakfast creation. I dumped the bacon right on the pancake for effect, but subsequently decided to be a bit more classy, and put the bacon on a separate plate with some scrambled eggs. But we doused that giant pancake in syrup and went to town. It was delish.

Food for the Belly: Dinner

In my opinion, there's nothing like a good lasagna. Lasagna is probably one of my favourite things to make. Even though it takes a while to put everything together, and I have yet to find non-boil noodles to skip that step, it's so nice to have everything in one pan, bubbling away for an hour before coming out golden brown and bubbling.

I also like the freedom of playing around with the recipe. I've probably never made the same lasagna twice. I usually keep the same basics, which for us is noodles, Classico tomato sauce (nothing but!), ground turkey, mushrooms, zucchini, and of course, mozzarella or Italian blend shredded cheese. This time, I had some fresh basil leaves, some spinach and a bit of  pesto that also went into the mix. Sometimes I'll throw in cottage cheese, and I bought ricotta to use once, but found it wasn't really worth it. Eric called this guy "one of your best"!

In terms of a "recipe", here's the basics. Boil noodles. Brown turkey. Slice mushrooms and zucchini (not too thin on the zuke or it will get mushy) and saute in olive oil or balsamic vinaigrette. Mix together turkey, veggies, sauce and a bit of cheese. Put a bit of sauce on the bottom of the pan, then layer 3 noodles, filling, 3 noodles, filling. I usually use 12 noodles, so it's a 4 layer lasagna. Cover with cheese, cover with foil and bake at 350 for 1 hour, uncovering it for the last 10 mins or so or turn the oven to broil to brown the cheese. Yum!

Week 20

Week 20...halfway there. Time has seemed to go fairly slowly so far, so it's hard to believe that we're at the halfway point! I have a feeling the second half will be even more fun, exciting and potentially uncomfortable than the first. Baby seemed to kick things into high gear as soon as we reached the 20 week mark on the weekend. All of a sudden, little pea is kicking up a storm in there! The best part was when finally, Eric was able to feel a bit of movement too, one particular late afternoon when it was definite kicks, not just random movement. Such a special moment, even though I know there will be way more kicking to come!

Also, I now look pregnant. Not that I didn't before, but sometimes in the morning or depending what I was wearing, it could be debatable, sort of that "too much at the buffet" look. Now with this little banana baby, there's definitely a bump there. And I love it!

To preface this, I HATE BANANAS. Always have, likely always will. I do, however, like banana bread/muffins, provided there are no huge naner chunks hiding in there. But otherwise, keep bananas far away from me. I can tell if banana is hiding in something too. Give me one whiff of those great fruit/veggie drinks or smoothies. If there's a hint of banana in there, I'LL KNOW. And I'll stay far away. I think Daddy will have to do the banana feeding with little pea. Unless they take after their mama and won't put up with that crap.

Week 18

Can I not even count?? With all the excitement of the 18 week ultrasound, I just realized I totally forgot to post my 18 week photo!!!

Apologies.

Food for the Belly: Dinner

I've been pretty bad lately at blog date accuracy. This would be dinners from last week...that I just remembered I had in Drafts and hadn't posted yet! I've got a few more months to get the hang of this because when baby is here, I'm sure it'll be even harder to keep up!

Dinners this week included a pretty awesome chicken, broccoli, quinoa, wild rice casserole, which I found a recipe for and subsequently dumped whatever I felt like into a pan. Actually, this one was relatively close to the recipe. I mixed quinoa and wild rice, which was great for texture, but took forever for the 50 minute wild rice to cook. Broccoli is broccoli, I meant to use up some mushrooms but completely forgot, tossed it all in some mushroom soup and milk, a bit of oregano, being one of the only spices we have on hand, topped with crushed crackers and of course, some cheesy goodness. Great for lunch leftovers too!

Adapted from this recipe, found on Pinterest

Another night we had Greek pitas. A newer invention, but so good! I use pork tenderloin and either bake it in the oven, or slice it into medallions and cook in a pan, which is much faster, with some Renee's Greek dressing. Let's just take a moment to acknowledge that although it's expensive, Renee's dressings are one of our splurges because they are so awesome. Favourites include Balsamic, Greek and Asian Sesame. The parmesan garlic makes for an incredible, lighter Caesar salad, but we don't treat ourselves to that too often. Anyways, to go with the pork, we had pitas (have also used leftover naan bread in the past - how multicultural of us!), chunks of cucumber, tomato and avocado, and of course, tzatziki and pasteurized goat's cheese feta! Hearing that you shouldn't have soft cheeses during pregnancy was actually a little devastating, but we don't usually have a lot of fine, fancy cheeses on hand at home, so it hasn't been too bad. Plus, the whole point is that soft cheeses are typically unpasteurized which could be the problem, so when I found pasteurized feta, Greek night was on! Leftovers make amazing Greek salads too :)

Can't go wrong with tzatziki and goat's feta cheese!

Something smells like burning...

Life lesson of the day: Do not lean your chalkboard against the fireplace...

Could've been way worse! Luckily I noticed something starting to smell a little "warm" and rescued it before my beloved chalkboard was ruined...or before the whole place burned down.

Week 19

The belly is still a rollercoaster, but technically getting bigger by the week! I know it can't be nesting yet, but the reason I look so grungy in this photo is due to the cleaning spree I went on just prior to photo shoot time. I hate dust bunnies.

This is me, TRYING to support Movember. I actually do support Movember. I just don't support the person I have to kiss growing a porcupine on his face. I'd rather donate for the shaving. Dec. 1 can't come soon enough!

Dear Baby

Dear Sweet Baby Pea,

We meet again! I can't believe how much you are growing in there, without us really knowing anything about it! I'm finally starting to feel your little movements, which isn't surprising considering how much bigger you are since the last time we saw you!

You seemed to be a bit sleepy at the beginning but as time went on, we saw you start moving around. Your little arms and legs are so much longer than last time! We saw lots of measurements of your head and heart. Your little heartbeat was as quick as always and we could see it flickering with each beat. It was amazing how much detail there was when we saw all 4 heart chambers!

We got a bit of a view of your little face, but as the tech said, and don't take offense, you still look a little alien-like! The photo we have of your eye is a little creepy! When Daddy saw the view of your mouth and nose, he thinks you will have his big nose! I'm not so sure, based on the cute little button nose we saw from your profile.

It's too hard to tell yet who you look like, so we'll have to wait until we meet you for real in April. And I can't wait to see those little toes in person!

We may have gotten our first glimpse into your personality...and you may turn out to be a stubborn little thing! After lots of measuring and pictures, you still did NOT want to open your little hands. Your hands were scrunched up into fists, up by your face. You finally opened up your left hand to show us all 5 fingers, but your right hand was a tight little fist the whole time. At one point, you clasped both hands together which was so cute :) The tech really needed that picture of your open right hand though, so she started shaking my belly to get you to open up! I'm not sure you liked all that shaking and being disturbed! After quite a while of shaking, the tech decided she finally got one that was good enough so we were able to leave you alone. Daddy was probably disappointed, since he said he could have sat there and watched you all day! I guess he'll have to settle for starting to read you stories and sing songs since you are starting to be able to hear us!

It was great to see you again little pea, but this ultrasound was certainly more uncomfortable than the last one! Maybe it was because things were a bit bigger, but after a while of being pressed and poked, my back was killing me! Haven't had any back pain before so that was unexpected. There's still that one particular spot that gets very tender sometimes, and from the way you are positioned in there, it's right by your little head! Your head is down very low with your little bum and feet up near my belly button. It's hard to believe how big you are getting in there little pea, but I hope you continue to grow healthy and strong and much bigger so you're ready to come out and meet us in April.

Sometimes I get a little sad or nervous or anxious about how much is going to change when you arrive. I know that we will love you to bits and be so happy to have you in our family, but there will certainly be a lot of change! Daddy and I are trying to spend lots of quality time together, especially now in Calgary, and hopefully still in the months to come before you join us. But most of that time still revolved around talking about you, little pea :)  We talk about what names we like for you and try to guess what traits you will get from us. I hope you have your Daddy's cute mouth and bright blue eyes. I hope you have Daddy's incredible brain and my superior sense of humour. I know you will be a crazy little one, full of life and giggles, and will always make us laugh. We are so in love with you already little pea, and pray for you every day. Give Daddy a kick for us soon, he's anxiously waiting to be able to feel your little movements like I do :)

Trek to the Ultrasound

Last Friday we had our 18 week ultrasound. I swear, the entire week crawled along so slowly since we were both anticipating our early Friday morning appointment. The weather was not exactly cooperative, with a huge snowstorm falling overnight and into that morning. We had planned to get up early enough to make it to the bus stop. Then we realized we didn't have any change for the bus. And there are no convenience stores around to get change. And looking at the clock, we would've had to have left about 10 minutes earlier to get change and make it to the bus. We plowed our way through the snowy sidewalks to the nearest Starbucks, which had a gigantic line. Right beside was a convenience store, which conveniently did not have ANY change. I beg your pardon? Don't even get me started on the fact that when we went to the bank later that day, we found out that the new thing is dispensing 50's only when it was impossible to find change for a 20....

Anyways.

We had an even harder time finding a cab in the crazy weather. No calls were going through to cab companies, and the rare cab we did see was occupied or sped right past us. Finally, since we were standing outside a hotel, we managed to get a cab and started the very messy drive up to the appointment.

I miss my car :(

Food For The Belly: Brunch!

Brunch may be one of my absolute favourite meals. If you feel like breakfast, have breakfast! Feeling like lunch? Have lunch! Mix them up, have something light or eat your face off, with homefries on the side.

So, I like brunch. Yet, brunch is fairly rare at home. That's a lot of ingredients, a lot of prep work and a lot of effort on a weekend when mornings are for sleeping in and relaxing. So brunches at home are few and far between. Unfortunately, this is not a story of a huge brunch feast. That would've been awesome. However, when I saw these cute little brunch treats on Pinterest (where else) I had to make them on the weekend!

The Pinterest version

 Mine actually turned out fairly well, except the whole "hashbrown basket" idea, and probably the fact that I barely followed the exact recipe. Well, that's not true, it was pretty close. I had a baked potato in the fridge which I grated and patted around the edges of each muffin hole and baked ahead of time. HOWEVER, I now think that any cooking spray is the most worthwhile investment of all time. Being in Calgary for a short time, we didn't want to buy too many kitchen extras like that, figuring something like PAM spray could easily be replaced with butter or olive oil. Well let me tell you, slathering the entire muffin hole in butter was pretty much a waste of time and butter since there was more hashbrown basket left in the tin than came out in the end! Disappointing.

I also didn't crack a whole egg into the hashbrown basket. I whisked up the eggs and mixed in my bacon bits, some cheese and a few more pieces of potato (the pieces that didn't grate so well). I filled the muffin cups to the brim so it also took a bit longer to bake, but came out perfectly done.

Here's mine! This one was Eric's, and as one who is just starting to be ok with eating eggs, he got his on top of a potato pancake, made with the rest of the grated baked potato.

We had some salsa and Frank's hot sauce with it and it was pretty tasty! As long as you have certain things done ahead of time (either have frozen hashbrowns or an already baked potato), it didn't really take that long to make, just a bit of time to bake (well, hello Dr. Seuss!). You can eat it with some cheese, you can eat it as you please! Have it for breakfast, lunch or dinner, or make it at brunch and you're the winner! Ok, I'm done with that now.

Anyways, one more thing.

Speaking of Pinterest projects gone right or wrong.....I found the most amazing blog ever.

PINSTROSITIES!!!!!

Maybe it was the fact that it was getting late last night and I was bored, but I laughed so hard going through this blog. All of your Pinterest projects GONE WRONG. I've had a few myself. One in particular I'll have to share sometime. But check it out: http://pinstrosity.blogspot.ca/ for a good laugh. And eat brunch. My tips for the day. You're welcome!

First Flutters?

Ever since I found out I was pregnant, one of the things I've been most excited about is starting to feel baby move. Especially after seeing little pea wiggling around at our 12 week ultrasound, I've been waiting to feel those little hands and feet. I've heard it feels like tiny flutters. I've heard it feels like a faint tickle from the inside. I've heard it feels like gas.

So, for the past week and a half or so, I've been wondering what's going on in there. At first, I think it was gas (TMI?). I think that was more growing pains and uterus stretching. But more recently, I've felt something different. Sort of feels like all of a sudden I'll feel things tighten and my belly feels really hard. After a few seconds, it goes away. Is pea rolling around in there? Sometimes I think I might feel a more distinct poke or push that could be a hand or foot, but it's hard to tell! Since I'm still not that big (and wasn't tiny to begin with), I'm not 100% convinced that these are real baby movements or just weird things going on with my insides shifting and making way for my growing utie. Baby is the size of a sweet potato as of today so everything best be making room for each other in there. Some days I feel like my belly is definitely bigger, some days I barely feel pregnant, just slightly more "round" than usual. Even through my weekly pictures, some look way bigger than others!

Anyways. I usually feel pea's "movement" more in the evening, or at least later in the day, so I'm wondering what we'll see at the ultrasound on Friday. Hopefully not too sleepy, we want to see a wave or two! But keep your legs closed pea, we want to be surprised! A girl from my yoga class said she wanted to find out at her 18 week ultrasound, but baby didn't cooperate position wise, so they weren't able to tell! I'm hoping we don't see anything we don't want to see or have any risk of finding out. And as such, I will keep on Pinning neutral nurseries and the cutest grey striped onesie that I want to be pea's first outfit :)

Organics from Baby Gap

See you soon little sweet potato!

One Knit Forward, Two Steps Back

It's not going very well.

Part of it is my extreme lack of patience and the fact that it baffles me to not be able to pick up a pair of knitting needles and BOOM, knit like a champion.

Which is why my "knitting" still looks like this. This is Step One: Casting On. I have attempted to knit a few stitches, and always end up taking them out because it looks like a disaster. That's not just the perfectionism talking, I mean it's a mess.

 

So, do I keep at it, or just take it home at Christmas and have someone who has a clue what they're doing help me? We'll see. Maybe I'll attempt some more youtube videos first.

In other news, my body is a disaster from the gym earlier this week. So sore! I was scared of yoga yesterday, but luckily the theme of the class was "Nurturing" so it was a very gentle class with lots of stretching. Normally, I'd feel a bit shortchanged, but it was much needed! I hope I can get in on another session before we leave. 

Oh, PS. Ask yourself if this isn't the saddest thing in the entire world. Last night was Halloween. Add one pregnant woman. And ask yourself if it isn't a tragedy that we had NOT ONE MORSEL OF CHOCOLATE IN THE HOUSE. Like not even one chocolate chip. No mini chocolate bars, NOTHING. When I realized this, it actually made me quite sad. Which is why my "getting out" for the day may include looking for half price Halloween candy... 

Week 17

Happy November! Note how I say NOVEMBER with an N. Which is what this month should be. Just a regular, clean-shaven, getting ready for Christmas month. Not dirty 'staches sprouting up everywhere. I've gotten away with no mo on Eric every other year, but I'm afraid this might be the year. I will not speak of it, therefore not draw attention to it and certainly not encourage it, and if it happens....well, he's a sound sleeper and I know where the razor is. The only way you can get away with Movember is if you sport a mo like this:

from bebo mia's Pinterest page - check it out!

Anyways, more importantly, Week 17 is here! Baby now has it's own fingerprints and is the size of an....ONION. Every single week I get so excited for my Sunday morning email, revealing what cute piece of produce baby resembles. This week was one of the first surprises, as we seem to always spoil it one way or another by looking ahead or reading it somewhere by accident. And the big surprise was an onion. Well, I tell you what, I'm losing faith in the produce system. Because that very day, we had a smallish size normal onion and 3 shallots (technically onions) on our counter. Let's hope for a nice fruit next week, ok baby?

 

Like my messy attempt at a Halloween board? :(