Lunch and a Movie

First with some celebratory news, I got my hearing back yesterday. Well not completely, but it's MUCH better than it's been for the past week, which was almost non-existent. I can actually hear stuff without relying on closed captioning or shouts from Rick and Tyler. What a relief!

So before my ears had a chance to change their mind, Tyler and I quickly ran out for lunch and a movie. As you may or may not know, Mr. Popper's Penguins opened last weekend, but I was too sick to go....not to mention the fact that I couldn't hear, so of course we had to put it off. But now we were on our way.

For lunch we stopped to eat at Sonic. Normally we'd go for sandwiches at Subway, Quizno's or the Sub Shop (a local favorite), but with coupons for free food at Sonic, that's where we ended up. The food isn't so bad there, but eating in the car.... 

...not so glamorous! And the service is kind of terrible. All we ordered was a hamburger kid's meal with apple slices and a slushy drink for Tyler and a Sonic Burger for myself, but apparently that was too complicated. They tried charging me for the burger and a full sized drink, even though the burger was supposed to be free and the drink was supposed to be a child's size and included with the price of the kid's meal. And then they forgot to include the caramel sauce that comes with the apples. Not that we needed it or missed it at all, but it's supposed to come with the apples...just saying.

Then we were off to the movies.

Yeah, yeah, it was opening day for Cars 2, but I'm sick all the 3D movies....don't they make normal animated films anymore?

As for Mr. Popper's Penguins, Tyler and I both enjoyed it. It didn't really follow along with the book, but from the previews, that's what we'd expected anyway. The only similarity is that Mr. Popper has penguins that become increasingly hard to manage. The rest was a giant Hollywood re-write. Oh well, Tyler and I still had a great time.

Art in the Park: Super Hero Logos

Now that it's officially the first week of summer, The Allied Arts began their 6-week Art in the Park program. Tyler got out of school on the 10th, so he's been waiting anxiously for the summer events to get started. Last year he was in summer school and missed the art in the park, but this year he was ready to go.

The theme this year is 'I'm a Hero', so the first project was to create your own Super Hero Logo.

After some suggestions from the art teacher, Tyler had identified his super power and got right to work making his badge. He drew a picture of his logo, colored it, cut it out and then pasted it on to a piece of purple construction paper.

Can you tell what it is? It's Tyler setting the table. He thinks he's a hero when it comes to helping out in the kitchen....and I agree.

Once he completed his badge, he taped it to his shirt and wore it around for the rest of the morning.

Then he made a heart for me to wear so I wouldn't feel left out.

He's holding it there in his hand....it's kind of hard to see. Side note: Can someone please teach me how to sit up straight already! Is that Tyler and Slouchy Mcgee, or what!

I think I need to take a lesson from Mother Goose over there.....she's no slouch!

Calling All The Kings Horses

And all the Kings Men,

Too much more of this,

And I'll need someone to put me back together again.

Here I am in the midst of my 8th month and my hips are giving out on me and on top of that I'm sick, sick, SICK!

The baby loves hanging out on the right side of my belly, which looks kind of funny since I have an awkward bulge on that side, but even worse, the imbalance is wreaking havoc on my hips. Especially the right one. So while I wake up each morning in relatively good condition, by the end of the day I'm walking around like an 80 year old cripple. Not cute. So last week I went in for physical therapy, doing different exercises and stretches to relieve the pain. I can't really comment on its effectiveness though. I was only able to go the one time....I've been too sick to go again.

Sick with what you ask? Only the meanest cold I've ever had. Blech! Between the body aches, stuffy head, cough, and difficulty breathing....it's a real doozie. Oh yeah, and both of my eardrums ruptured the other night, leaving me with more #@*! pain and about 75-80% hearing loss. So Tyler's home on Summer break and not only am I too wiped out to do anything with him....I can't hear a hoot he says. Sounds funny, but it's not. For now the doctor has me on a round of antibiotics, so hopefully I start seeing some improvement soon.

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.