Breakfast For Two

This morning I thought it'd be fun and might hurry Tyler out the door a little faster, if we went out to eat breakfast. We almost never go out for breakfast, especially on a school day, but when we do, we always end up at McDonald's. A: because it's practically next door to the school and B: I usually have coupons for free food.

My plan worked like a charm and we were out the door in a jiffy.

I had a coupon for a free fruit and maple oatmeal, so that's what Tyler had.....that and a juice box, of course. I sampled a bite or two and thought it tasted pretty good. It tasted less sweet than those instant packets, which are way too sweet for my taste. But sitting across from him, I noticed the nutrition facts and almost choked on the fact that the container of oatmeal has more sugar than a serving of orange crush! Yikes!

I went with a simple egg muffin sandwich and a coffee. Something about it though, didn't quite hit the spot. I think I was missing the taste of the whole wheat english muffins that we use at home. The whole grain muffin really makes for a much heartier and filling sandwich. Too bad healthier options like that aren't offered at fast food places.

Time Lapse: 1 week

Last week I was making Caprese Chicken for dinner, a dish that requires fresh basil. While at the store, I debated between getting the little clamshell case that has about 5 basil leaves inside, or one of those 'living basil' plants. The living plant cost twice as much as the smaller clamshell, but I figured that the live plant would last longer, therefore allowing me to get my money's worth.

So here's what the plant looked like last Wednesday.....and that's after I'd already pulled off the basil I needed for the chicken on Tuesday night. The plant itself comes with its roots immersed in some kind of floral foam, and according to the directions, you're just supposed to keep it moist. Sounded easy enough. I put the plant in a mug for stability and just barely put any water in the bottom.

Fast forward one week:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong. My poor plant is almost completely dead! Either I've been giving it too much or too little water, or the dang thing was never meant to live for more than a week. I'm not sure, but next time I think I'll just stick with the pre-cut basil in the clamshell case.

Peek-a-Boo

I see you!

It seems like it took forever, but I finally made it into the doctor's office this morning for my first prenatal exam. It was quick and to the point. They weighed me, gave me an ultrasound, and then sent me off for some blood work.

Up to this point, I've been fairly non-emotional about the whole thing, but apparently, nothing makes me cry quicker than seeing a live view of the tiny passenger in my belly. I cried, I couldn't help it. And when I wasn't crying, I was holding my breath. And when I remembered to breathe again, I laughed, making the picture on the screen fade out. You really can't take me anywhere....it's embarrassing. Luckily I'm not due back for another 4 weeks, so I have plenty of time to pull myself back together.

12 Weeks

The one thing I regret about my first pregnancy is that I had virtually no pictures taken of myself. I hated getting my picture taken, so I pretty much avoided it entirely. It wasn't until after Tyler was born and I started scrapbooking, that I realized the importance of it all.

So with this pregnancy, I'm determined to do a better job. Today is the last day of my first trimester....or so I think. I'm not sure if week 13 is considered first or second trimester, but I'm just going to round up and say I'm about 3 months along.

At this stage, there really isn't much to look at. I still look about the same as I did pre-pregnancy.

I've only put on 2 lbs so far, but I've already started growing out of some of my pants. We'll call those my skinny jeans....it somehow makes me feel better about the process.

From the side you might notice a small pooch in my lower stomach. But like I said, there isn't much to see. I'm fine with that. The longer I can go without a big obnoxious belly, the better.

I have my first appointment with the doctor scheduled for next week. I actually went in the other day, but due to a little snafu with the insurance company, I was turned away. Apparently, instead of upgrading our insurance plan, they canceled it completely. So now that we've straightened that out, hopefully I won't run into any more problems when I go back.

Three Day Weekend

I know it seems like my New Year's resolution must have been to give up blogging completely, but the truth is that I've just been so exhausted that everything has been falling behind. Hopefully it won't be too much longer before I'm feeling better and things start getting back to normal. In the meantime, here's a look at how we spent our weekend.

On Saturday we enjoyed a nice dose of rain.

Normally I'm not a fan, but I couldn't have been happier to see most of our snow melting and washing away. And with the temperatures hanging out in the 40's, I'm hoping that it'll stay away for a while.

For lunch Rick took us to this burger and teriyaki place that he claimed was really good. He ordered the teriyaki chicken and a philly steak sandwich for us to share.

I can't really comment on the rest of the food though, because I was too busy eating onion rings. It's terrible, I know, but it's the only thing I wanted.

Back at the house, Rick began waging his war against our local FOX network. In our market, Directv has dropped FOX from its lineup because, apparently, they're charging too much for the privilege of carrying their content. That means that Directv costumers in our area (like us) cannot watch FOX unless they are somehow able to tune in the off air signal. The problem with that is that our local FOX station  has a super low signal strength, which is practically impossible to pick up.

Enter the largest antenna known to mankind. Take that FOX! Now to mount the thing somewhere inconspicuous.....

On Sunday Tyler and I were up early making muffins for breakfast.

They're called Donut Muffins, but I think they tasted more like coffee cake.

Later in the afternoon, Tyler and I continued our game of Monopoly Revolution...we'd already been at it for two days.

And in the end I creamed that poor boy. Can you believe it? I never win Monopoly.

I spent the rest of Sunday blazing my way through The Kitchen House. It was so suspenseful that I could hardly put it down.

Today Rick had to go to work as usual, so Tyler and I were on our own in terms of entertainment. I thought we'd decided yesterday that we'd go to the movies and see Yogi Bear, but today Tyler had changed his mind and wanted to go bowling instead.

So that's where we went....rusty arms and all.

Ouch! And that's with bumpers! I think we'd better stick to bowling on the Wii....it's much easier.

More of the White Stuff

Just as the weatherman promised, it snowed Tuesday night. He said we'd get anywhere from 1 to 3 inches, which is kind of light, so I was expecting something more on the low end of the scale....like maybe 1 inch. But on Wednesday morning I woke to find that it had actually snowed 2.5 inches.

I know that's nothing compared to the kind of snow the East coast is seeing, so I shouldn't complain, but darn, I'm not the biggest fan of shoveling the driveway at 7:00 in the morning.

We were off to school as usual, and as always the case with fresh snow, we had to park at the bottom of the hill and hike our way up to the classrooms. It's not that big of a deal. In fact, by the afternoon, the snow had already melted off the roads and I was able to drive up the hill just fine.

This morning, though, was another story. All the water on the roads froze overnight to create the slickest mess you've ever seen. Most of the public schools went on a 2-hour delay, and some even closed for the day. Oh, but not Tyler's school. I'm pretty sure they never close. Lucky us. Thankfully we made it to school in one piece. Now we just have to wait for it to warm up a bit so the ice will melt. Who knew that ice would be a way bigger nightmare than snow.

The Upgrade that Downsized

One of the perks of Rick's job, besides free service, is the free upgrades to our DVR receivers. So this weekend we had a technician come out and replace two of our old receivers with the new fancy HD version.

It sounds like an easy switch, but it must have been rocket science because the guy was here for over 5 hours before he finally had them up and running properly. And now, much to Rick's delight, all the DVRs in the house can talk to each other, share recordings, and do all the neat stuff that our old ones could not.

But while Rick is pleased as punch, I'm just plain mad. I'm mad that in the transition, I lost all of my recordings. Well actually, the only ones that matter to me are the Cathe Friedrich workouts I had recorded off of FitTV and the episodes of GLEE that I watch while I run on the treadmill. Well those are all gone for now and replacing them is going to be harder than I thought.

This morning I discovered that FitTV has cleared out it's lineup, getting rid of all those pesky workout programs, and replaced them with reality programming. Now the network has a limited 3 hours of fitness programming, while the rest of the day is devoted to shows like Dr. G: Medical Examiner, Bringing Home Baby, I'm Pregnant and...., The Bronx, and Trauma - Life in the ER. Really!?! No more Cathe on FitTV? Seriously? Ugh!

So I continue to make my way through Cathe's monthly rotation, but wonder what I'm going to do now that I'm suddenly missing a good chunk of her videos. Thankfully I've amassed a decent collection of her DVDs over the last few years so I'll be able to make substitutions here and there, but if I want my old favorites back, it looks like I'll have to break down and buy them already.