The Everyday Stuff

It hasn't always been the easiest, but after 30 weeks, I'm stilling going strong with my Project Life. For the time being, I've completely abandoned regular scrapbooking. I just don't have the time or the will to keep up with the process. I have, on the other hand, somehow managed to keep up with Project Life. Maybe because it was a gift and I want to make sure I see it through to the end.

I'm slowly but surely filling up the pages of the album and at the end of the year, I know I'll be so happy that I stuck with it.

I know my blog posts have been few and far between for the last few months, but I just wanted to share some of the pictures that you've been missing. They're the everyday sort of thing, which I probably wouldn't have blogged about anyway, but that did make it into the album. So here goes....

This is what I see practically every time I get in the car, but this particular photo was taken one day when I was picking Tyler up from school.

This is an example of the sort of work Tyler brings home from school. Labeling the anatomies of different animals is something he does to satisfy the Science portion of his weekly contract.

I hate to admit it, but the boys (well mostly Rick at Tyler's coaxing) have been playing an obscene amount of Mario on the Wii. This screen shot is of world 2, but Rick has long since beat the game and is now racking up some serious hours on Mario Kart.

I know what you're thinking, but please don't call the nutritional police. I'm pregnant and I'm allowed to have stuff like this secretly when nobody is looking.

With temperatures in the mid 40's, you'd think we'd be running down the streets in our bathing suits, but hey, at least we're getting back outside.

News Flash: Tyler loves Mousetrap......maybe even more than Monopoly, if that's possible.

I made some S'mores Brownies last month and they were pretty good. I failed slightly on the crust part, but that was due to a butter shortage. Or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Last month when Subway was having that promotion on $5 footlongs, Tyler and I went and got the flatbread bacon and egg sandwich. You know what....it tastes better than the egg mcmuffin at McDonald's.

Carmelita knows this isn't allowed (you know sitting on kitchen counters), but she couldn't help herself with all those wild birds outside at the feeders.

Tyler has been really into melty beads lately and I've been in charge of ironing all of his creations.

The new bank near our house finally opened. How glad are we that we don't have to drive all the way across town just to make a simple deposit?

I've still been working out 5 days a week. The pace and intensity is not quite what it was before, but I'm doing the best I can.

Red Velvet Cheesecake cups. Good, but not as much cheesecake flavor as I was hoping for.

Bored yet? Okay I'll give it a rest.

Pancake Day

As with previous years, we decided to take advantage of IHOP's National Pancake Day and go in for our free short stack of pancakes. Last year we ended up having the pancakes for dinner since Tyler was in school during the day and this year we did the same thing.

We got to the restaurant right around 6:00 and it was perfect because there was almost no wait. They seated us quickly and the food was served pretty fast as well.

Yum! I could eat pancakes every day. The only thing that could make me happier is a little bit of coconut syrup.....maybe I should have smuggled some in from home.

Recipe Review

Here's a look at some of the new recipes we tried last week.

From a recent issue of Cooking Light, I made Cheesy Meatloaf Minis.

As with every meatloaf I've tried from Cooking Light, this one was a hit. The recipe calls for white cheddar, which is perfect, because I had some Beecher's cheese from that I needed to use up. It was delicious. I even tried to stay true to the suggested side dish and served salad instead of mashed potatoes.

Also from Cooking Light, I made a Bacon Pierogi Bake.

Pierogis are relatively new to us and previously I'd only prepared them with a meat sauce, so this was a nice change in my opinion. The pierogis are baked in a simple cream cheese sauce and then topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, and tomato. Yum!

Later in the week we had a breakfast for dinner night and I made a BLT Frittata.

This is a Rachael Ray recipe, so as usual, I had to cut the quantity in half in order for it to be a practical size for our family. I used frozen spinach instead of arugula and fresh tomatoes instead of canned, but otherwise followed the recipe. I thought it tasted great and was much easier than making a quiche.

To go along with the frittata, I also made half a batch of blueberry muffins. The recipe is from America's Test Kitchen, and let me tell you what, they know what they're doing! These were absolutely the best blueberry muffins I've ever made. I'm sure I'll be making them again in the summer when blueberries aren't so expensive and hard to come by.

Blueberry Breakfast

While I was at the library last week, I picked up a new children's cookbook for Tyler. It's a breakfast cookbook that's from a series called Kids Dish. Each book in the series focuses on a different theme and they have super cute illustrations, so I was excited to give this one a try.

This morning Tyler decided to make the Blueberry Breakfast Pancake. It's baked in the oven in a pie dish or cake pan as a single unit, which sounded a whole lot easier than standing at the stove flipping a bunch of individual pancakes. I was in.

Except that the recipe called for every last one of my precious blueberries. Ahhh, what am I going to put in my cereal tomorrow?

The batter was easy to whip up in the blender and pour over the blueberry lined cake pan. The hardest part was waiting the 30 minutes while the pancake baked in the oven.

When it came out, I'm not going to lie, it looked kind of freaky. But after a few minutes it deflated and began to look somewhat normal. After prying it out of the pan, we sliced it into wedges and served it with maple syrup and sausage. As for the taste.....meh. It just wasn't what I was expecting. The texture was dense and kind of eggy....like a custard or maybe a bread pudding. Certainly not the 'light and fluffy' I prefer when it comes to pancakes.

16 weeks

If anyone's keeping track, I'm about 16-1/2 weeks along in this pregnancy. That means I've got another week and a half before I'm done with this month and on to month 5. I'm still wearing regular clothes, but at this point, I only have 3 pairs of jeans that I can button anymore.

From the front it just looks like my pants are a little tight or maybe my shirt is kind of small, but I don't think it would be obvious to a stranger that I'm pregnant.

From the side I can tell that my stomach has grown noticeably in the past month, but still not much of a bump. In terms of weight, I've gained 6 lbs so far, which according to what I've read, is right on target. I gained 3 lbs in the first trimester and 1 additional pound per week, thus far.

At any rate, I figured it was time to pull out the old maternity clothes I've been storing in the closet.

I saved practically everything I had from my previous pregnancy, but now that I look at it, there's one problem.....it's all for the wrong season! All of the smaller clothes are short sleeved shirts and capris and the bigger clothes that I bought towards the end of the pregnancy are mostly pants and long sleeved shirts....exactly the opposite of what I'm going to need this time around.

 Looks like I need to hit the stores....and fast! *Sigh* The only thing worse than shopping for maternity clothes, is shopping for pants in general or bathing suits. Nightmare.

Love Day Goods

Here's a look at how our Valentine's Day went down.

Tyler brought home a heap of cards and candy from his classroom exchange, plus one of his own robots. (What part of: we only made enough valentine's for the other kids, not including you, so make sure not to give yourself one okay, did he not understand) With only one other student making handmade cards, I think our robots stood out as something special. Yay! I hope we can think of something just as fun next year.

Rick got me some roses...or should I say he sent me some roses. Yeah, they came via UPS....in a box. That's when I became an instant florist and had to figure out how to prepare and arrange the blasted things. I didn't do so bad. What do you think?

Tyler gave me a card. Over the weekend he had gone to Lowe's with Rick to make a music box, but they had run out of kits by the time the boys made it over there. So then it was on to plan B. They went to Joann's and did a make-and-take valentine. I think it came out great!

But wait, you haven't seen the inside yet.

As a gift from Rick, I got a box of cookies. But not just any cookies....these are my favorite shortbread cookies from Hawaii. Mmmm mmm mmm!

For dinner I made Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad. On Sunday I made the more traditional Valentine's meal of steak and potatoes. I grilled up some New York strip steaks and served them up with mashed red potatoes. I thought it was a nice fancy sort of meal, but it gave Rick a wicked case of heartburn, so I guess it's a good thing I didn't make it on Valentine's Day after all.

Weekend Bakers

Over the weekend, the boys took over the kitchen for a fun Valentine's Day themed baking project. They had the idea of making and decorating cupcakes, so they went out and bought some strawberry cake mix, sparkly decorating gel, and some bright pink food dye.

Of course a standard box of cake mix makes about 24 cupcakes, but since I only have one 12-cup muffin tin, they had to improvise a little bit.  After browsing through my cake pan drawer, they decided to make a single layer heart shaped cake and 12 cupcakes.

After the cakes were out of the oven and cooled, it was time to decorate. They went with a homemade frosting recipe, but poor Rick didn't know to add the milk gradually, so they ended up with more of a soupy glaze than a spreadable frosting.

I don't know....maybe the boys are on to something. It took way less time to pour the frosting over the cakes, then to spread it on with a knife. Only it was a lot more messy!

And there you have it, the finished cake.

And cupcakes too.