Father's Day

Tyler was so excited about Father's Day that he couldn't even wait for Rick to get out of bed before accosting him with gifts.

I could understand his excitement because this year we decided to make a super special handmade gift. I've been lucky the past two years and have received handmade gifts from Tyler for Mother's Day, so I thought we should try and do the same for Rick.

So earlier this week we went over to Hands On Art to pick out a piece of pottery to paint. Tyler chose this little airplane, picked out all the colors, painted it to perfection and then left it behind for it's turn in the kiln.

We went back and picked it up on Saturday after it had been glazed and fired. I think it came out nice. And on the underside on the wings it says, Happy Father's Day 2011. So that's what was inside the gift bag. That and a Dove dark chocolate and almond candy bar.

For dinner it was a repeat of last year. Grilled pepper steak packets.

Inside the foil packets was a yummy mixture of sliced sirloin steak, rice, teriyaki sauce, sliced bell pepper, onion, and broccoli. Mmmmm. And for dessert we had ice cream cones with the pint of Baseball Nut we brought home from Baskin Robbins.

Happy Father's Day 2011

Confession Time

My due date is August 6th, which is exactly two months away. Now you'd think that 9 months would be plenty of time to prepare for a baby, but guess what.....we're not ready.

In fact, this is what the baby's room looks like.

A pile of boxes and stuff.

Our biggest problem is that we don't have any furniture for the room. Not yet, at least. We found that it's way easier to buy children's furniture than baby furniture, so that's what we're doing. Instead of buying a new baby set, we just going to reuse Tyler's bed, which we can convert back to a crib, and his dressers that go with the set. We've already ordered new furniture for him, but it was a 'special order', so it's going to take awhile before it comes in. So until then, the baby's room will continue to look as it does now.

Besides the lack of furniture, we've almost taken care of everything else. I think.

We have a bathtub and toys.

Bedding for the crib.

And hidden in some of the other boxes we have a swing, and a bouncer seat. We also have a playpen and car seat on the way. We even have a small collection of clothes hanging in the closet.

So while we wait for the new furniture to come in, this is what we'll use for a bed.

It's a cute little bassinet that Rick snagged for a great deal off Craigslist. That put my mind at ease a little bit. Now hopefully the furniture will come in sooner than expected and everything will start falling into place.

Recipe Review: Baking Edition

It's been awhile since I've posted any of the new recipes I've tried, so instead of going backwards too much, I'll just mention a few of the more recent sweet/baked items. Those are always my favorite anyway.

Starting things off in the breakfast department, I finally got around to trying a pancake recipe that I've had bookmarked for quite some time.

These are Honey Wheat Pancakes and what I love about them is the simplicity. They're basically a jazzed up version of a basic bisquick pancake, with whole wheat flour, wheat germ, and banana added into the mix to bump up the nutritional value. And of course, instead of syrup, I ate mine topped with peanut butter and fig jam. I would completely make these more often if I didn't hate standing over the stove flipping pancakes. Who has time for that? That's what waffles are for. Soooo much faster.

Speaking of which, I also tried a recipe for Gluten-Free Coconut Waffles.

These were good I guess for what they were, but I much prefer a regular waffle. These were just too soft and really didn't taste much like coconut. Actually nothing I make with coconut flour ever ends up tasting like coconut, so I shouldn't have been surprised. But on the plus side, I can always appreciate a waffle that has a high protein and fiber count.....even if they are kind of ugly to look at.

Just yesterday I made a small batch of Tuscan Lemon Muffins.

The recipe for these came out of a recent issue of Cooking Light, and I probably would have skipped over them if it wasn't for the leftover ricotta cheese I had sitting in the fridge. Certainly not an ingredient I'd ever think to put in muffins, but they came out super moist so that was nice. And they even had a decent lemon flavor coming through, although nothing is ever quite lemony enough for me. My main complaint though, is that they came out pale. They look fine in the picture, but trust me, they're whiter than that in person.

Moving on to dessert, I made a batch of White Chocolate and Peach Oatmeal Cookies, a recipe from The Food Network magazine.

These were so good! I ended up using dried apricots because I couldn't find peaches anywhere, but they still tasted fantastic. Probably the best cookie I've made in a long time. I loved the chewy texture and the sweet bits of fruit running through the cookie. Way better than chocolate chip if you ask me, but don't tell Rick I said that.

From one of my Cooking Light annuals, I tried Kentucky Chocolate Nut Tartlets.

The filling was the best part of this dessert, but there just wasn't enough of it. There was too much crust in comparison. Maybe that means I need to break down already and make a full sized pecan pie. Cooking Light has several highly rated recipes, so maybe I should try one of those. I'm sure it'd hit the spot a little better.

Finally I made some of Mario Lopez's brownies after watching him on The Rachael Ray Show.

He makes them healthier by replacing some of the butter with applesauce and and some of the sugar with agave nectar. In the end I thought they tasted delicious, but I'd never call them a brownie. Not even a cake-like brownie. They completely had the texture of chocolate cake. But I don't care what you call them. We topped ours with whip cream and berries and ate them right up.

Allergies

I had to take Tyler to the doctor yesterday, which is really unusual. He's always been a healthy child and I've never had to take him in for anything other than a routine yearly exam.

However, he's been struggling with a cough that just won't go away. I thought it was just the last lingering symptom of a cold he had last month, but after so many weeks had passed, I started to think something else was going on. So after his visit with the doctor, it was determined that he's suffering from allergies. Allergies....I never would have guessed that! He doesn't show any of the typical symptoms like sneezing and watery eyes. Apparently the glands in his nose are super swollen, which is turn is causing the irritation in the back of his throat and thus, the endless coughing. So for now the doctor put him on an OTC allergy medicine to relieve the swelling in his nose.

Poor kid!

And as for the culprit, it's most likely seasonal allergens. We do live in the land of apple orchards, which I assume must be blooming away like everything else around here. There's nothing much we can do about that, so hopefully his medicine starts kicking in soon.

Memorial Day Weekend

On Saturday we headed downtown for the annual Memorial Day Parade. It's not as grand as some of the other parades that happen throughout the year, but it gave us an excuse to get out of the house.

Afterwards we crossed the street and went to Essencia bakery to have lunch and stock up on goodies for later. We had a turkey bacon sandwich on ciabatta bread that was outstanding and I also got a beehive and some biscotti to go. Yum!

On Sunday we basically stayed home and did nothing but boring housework.

I stayed inside doing laundry while the boys worked to clear out the garden boxes.

Tyler did a great job pulling out the 'crab grass', as he kept calling it.

Then on Monday we went to the hardware store to pick up the fertilizer and vegetables for the garden.  We got two tomato plants, some bell peppers, strawberries, and yellow zucchini.

By evening we had all the plants transferred to the garden and also planted several rows of peas and green beans.

For dinner Rick grilled up a few giant steaks from Costco. I was in charge of all the sides...baked beans, pasta salad, corn, watermelon, and chips with guacamole.

Delicious!

The Sad State

Here's how my garden is looking this year.

 Not so great.

I got out there probably a month ago and weeded all three of the garden beds, but a lot of the weeds are starting to grow back now. I just don't have the energy or the mobility to keep things moving. Usually Rick tills the dirt up for me, but this year he's been too busy. Spending 60 hours a week away from home doesn't leave much time to get things done around the yard.

Maybe this year we'll cut back and only do one garden box. I'd still like to have some tomatoes and peas if nothing else.

And Tyler's greenhouse plants have started to sprout, so we'll need a place to transplant those.

The box on the left is tomatoes and the one on the right is sweet orange bell peppers. I think they might have gotten wind of how our outdoor garden boxes are in a shambles because so far they've been the slowest growing sprouts ever.

Move Over Soft Serve

When I was pregnant with Tyler, there was really only one craving that I had and it was for soft serve ice cream or frozen yogurt. I couldn't get enough of the stuff! Looking back....it's funny. I lived in Los Angeles and had access to all those fancy trendy yogurt shops, but never went to any of them. I hated driving around and the only ice cream place near our house was Baskin Robbins. So I had plenty of that along with some McDonald's cones and frosty dairy desserts from Wendy's. 

With this pregnancy things have been different. In the first trimester I craved all sorts of junk food. Things like Easy Mac, Cup O Noodles, Onion Rings, and greasy potato chips. It's strange because those are things I would never normally buy, let alone eat.....except for onion rings on occasion. But thankfully that phase has passed and now my eyes (and stomach) are once again set on one true love.

Nuts and/or nut butters.

I had been eating almond butter before my pregnancy for the health benefits and a boost of protein with my snacks, but didn't really touch the peanut butter. That was more for Tyler and Rick. But now I've actually been preferring the peanut butter. I spread it on pancakes, waffles, apples....heck, I eat it straight out of the jar! And it's especially good with fig jam, but it has to be fig jam. Nothing else will do.

When I'm not eating peanut butter straight from the jar, I'm eating regular peanuts.

The cocktail kind. Not dry roasted or honey roasted or any of that other garbage. The cocktail ones are more oily and I like them that way. The only thing that makes them even tastier is a raisin with every bite.

And when I'm not eating that, I'm eating some of these.

I've gone to raiding my baking stash and have been munching on walnuts and pecans. Pistachios and cashews are in the mix too.

Normally I'd be a little concerned with the sheer number of calories and fat I've been ingesting on a daily basis. I mean, I've been eating nuts or peanut butter with every single meal or snack (except for dinner) every single day. I'm not kidding. But they're good fats....right? And the strangest part of all is that I haven't gained a single pound in 6 weeks. I still, nearing the end of my 7th month, have only gained a total of 15 pounds, which now puts me below my target weight gain zone. I'll have to ask the doctor about that tomorrow when I go in for my check up. But at this point, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if I ended up giving birth to a peanut butter smoothie, because you know, I've been drinking a lot of coconut milk right along with all those nuts.