Soundtrack to cook to: Sara Bareilles' Little Voice. It's been a while since I've listened to this album and was reminded once again of why I love her voice and her style so much. Soulful and spunky. :)
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| Doing a little catch up here...my birthday was October 11 and here's the beautiful flower arrangement that Joseph got me. There will be more birthday pics later, but I thought I'd start off with a pretty picture. |
I was perusing Pinterest and found an unbelievably easy recipe and just had to try it out. It almost seemed too good to be true, but I figured....why not? Below is a recipe for pineapple angel food cake:
Here's the live feed of Alexander enjoying his bean bag
chair in his "big boy" room.
Alexander singing "Bella Notte" from one of his favorite
Disney movies, Lady and the Tramp.
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| Ingredients: 1 box of white angel food cake and 1 can of crushed pineapple. That's it!! A perfect recipe for this pregnant mama to throw together. |
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| Mix the angel food cake dry ingreidnets and the crushed pineapple with its juice together in a bowl. |
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| The mixture bubbles up somewhat and turns very light and fluffy. Pour the mixture into a greased 9x13 pan and bake in 350 degree F oven for 30 minutes. |
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| Voila!! A beautiful pineapple angel food cake. It's light, fluffy, and with just the right amount of sweetness. My sister and I both agreed that it smelled like ambrosia and had lovely little bites of pineapple throughout. So easy and sooooo good! |
Now back to my birthday. Ever since I've gotten older, I've definitely toned down how I've celebrated my birthday to basically the very simple pleasures. Our day started out like normal where Joseph and I got up, got Alexander ready, and dropped him off at his school. After that, Joseph and I went to the gym. Then, I dropped Joseph off and got myself a manicure and a pedicure (a delightful little indulgence). Finally, we picked up Alexander, took a nap, got up, and then my sister came over to watch Alexander so that Joseph and I could go out to dinner. Ta-da! The birthday celebration of a 31 year-old pregnant mother who's been with the same man for 15 years. (That was another eye opener!! Joseph and I officially started dating on my 16th birthday!) Yowza we're old!
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| Mmmm!! Here's part of my birthday present from my parents! My family used to live in the suburbs of Chicago and during the December holiday season, we would always spend a weekend in downtown Chicago. We would go ice skating, have breakfast at the Walnut Room in Marshall Field's, walk around, and possibly see a play or musical. On our way home, we would always stop by Garrett's popcorn and get some delicious popcorn. My favorite was always the "Chicago Mix" which was caramel popcorn mixed with cheddar popcorn. It's funny, even at a young age, I really liked the savory and sweet combination. This was a nice little treat that everyone in this household gladly indulged. Thanks mom and dad!! |
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| My birthday cake that Joseph got from Whole Foods. It had this really yummy chocolate ganache on the top. Mmmmm! |
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| Instead of setting the house on fire with the 31 candles, I decided to place 3 candles together next to 1 on its own. With my lungs all cramped up inside me because of the baby, I'm definitely lacking in the lung capacity department. Ha! |
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| Alexander helping me to blow out the candles. |
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| We did it!! |
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| One of my last few dress shirts that fit me! Joseph and I went out to one of our favorite restaurants, Craigie On Main, and enjoyed an incredible tasting menu there. A lovely way to celebrate - an intimate meal with the hubby at a restaurant where I didn't have to worry if I had a snack trap or Triceratops in my purse. :) |
The next day was a little chilly, so we decided to turn on the heat - only to discover that our heater was not working! Sheesh! So, we scheduled an appointment for the heating and air conditioner service to come (we called on a Saturday morning and they couldn't come until Monday morning). Since they couldn't come, Joseph threw on some shoes and drove to the local grocery store and stocked up on wood for the fireplace. We were very much "Little House on the Prairie" in our household. I personally love to have a fire in the fireplace - I love the smell and the warmth that it creates in the house. Alexander was totally intrigued by the fire and loved watching us put more wood on the fire as the day progressed.
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| We taught Alexander how to warm his hands by the fire. Too cute, huh? |
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| Daddy and Alexander warming their hands. |
As a final transition to having a complete "big boy" room, we took the recliner out of Alexander's room and moved it into ours (because I'll need it for when I'm nursing William). Alexander absolutely loved the recliner, so I thought that we could get him a nice bean bag chair as a replacement.
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| Here's Alexander helping me to carry the bean bag chair from the first floor to his bedroom. |
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| He was VERY excited to take the bean bag chair to his room!! |
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| The little guy decided to start jumping up and down in the kitchen because he was so excited to put the chair in his room. |
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| Here's Alexander testing out his new bean bag chair. |
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| "BEAN BAG CHAIR!!!!" |
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| "Smiiilllle!" It's funny that he has to say the word "smile" when he's posing for a picture, but it sounds more like "Smiiii-oooooo!" :) |
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| Can you tell that he doesn't miss the recliner at all? |
Here's the live feed of Alexander enjoying his bean bag
chair in his "big boy" room.
Before William's grand arrival, there were a few things that I really wanted to do with our family of three. I'm very much a checklist type of person and going pumpkin picking was definitely on my "to do" list. I really wanted to go to Lookout Farms, but Joseph talked some sense into me and suggested that we find a place that's a little bit closer (just in case William decided to arrive while we were in the middle of a pumpkin patch in Natick). Thus, we ventured to Allandale Farm and picked out some pumpkins.
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| Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere! |
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| "Witto (little) pumpkins!!" |
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| "White pumpkins. Pumpkins is white, Mommy!" We let Alexander be in charge of picking out our pumpkins. |
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| "Diss one!" Alexander found our first one pumpkin on this stand. |
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| Here's Alexander showing Joseph the second pumpkin that he liked. Alexander was very particular about which pumpkin he chose. |
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| After picking pumpkins, Joseph had a great idea to take Alexander to see his first movie in a theater! We took Alex to see Finding Nemo in 3D and he absolutely LOVED it! He was completely mesmerized and sat completely still and quiet the entire time. This was very encouraging. We're definitely looking forward to taking Alexander out to more movies. Plus, Joseph and I hadn't seen a movie in the theaters in over a year, so this was a nice treat for us as well! |
As a non-sequitur, here are a few little videos of Alexander playing around. Enjoy!
Alexander singing "Bella Notte" from one of his favorite
Disney movies, Lady and the Tramp.
Our little man playing around.
I've been meaning to put together some crafts for Alexander to make at home in preparation for having something for him to do while I'm busy with William. We started on a fall craft where Alexander started decorating some placemats.
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| Alexander is starting to practice actually smiling for the camera. |
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| Woo hoo! Now that's a BIG smile! He was very excited to start painting on the placemat. |
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| He first started painting on some leaf cut outs. |
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| Little smile... |
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| bigger smile... |
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| BIGGEST smile! Heh heh, he's getting the hang of it. :) |
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| This was just the first step of the craft. We're going to do it in installments and add a little bit each day. It's tough to get him to sit down and focus on decorating all of them in one setting. He had a lot of fun! |
With fall in full bloom, I got inspired by another delicious looking Pinterest recipe for turkey and wild rice soup (one of my absolute favorites). Here's how it transpired:
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| I added the following ingredients: 2-3 cups of chopped broccoli 1 diced onion 3-4 stalks of celery, chopped 2 carrots, chopped Let them cook for about 8-10 minutes in extra virgin olive oil. |
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| Then, add 8 cups of chicken stock and 8 oz. uncooked wild rice to the pot. Season the soup with pepper and put the top on the pot over medium heat. Let it cook for about 40 minutes (the amount of time it takes to cook the rice). |
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| While the soup is cooking, it's time to prepare the creamy stock (almost like a bechamel). Mix together the following ingredients over medium-low heat: 3 tbsp butter 1/2 cup of flour (I used whole wheat) 2 cups of milk (the recipe calls for cream, but I try to lighten things up) Whisk these together until the mixture thickens. Once the rice is completely cooked in the soup, add the creamy mixture and the turkey to the soup. (I had a butcher shred up 1 lb of turkey meat.) *If you would like, you can also add 1 bag of frozen peas into the soup about 8 minutes before you serve the dish. I like to add as many vegetables as possible to my dishes. |
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| Here ya go! A wonderful bowl of creamy turkey and wild rice soup that is chocked full of delicious vegetables. It's a wonderful cold weather dish to cozy up to at the end of the day. It warms the soul. :) |
What dinner isn't complete without a little dessert? I was feeling quite energetic and ambitious and decided to whip up another Pinterest recipe for apple cider pumpkin butter muffins.
When my sister, Alexander, and I went to Lookout Farms, I couldn't resist and purchased a delectable jar of pumpkin butter (one of my absolute favorites). I love to dip pretzels into pumpkin butter (and NO, it's not because I'm pregnant, but because I looooove the salty sweet combination). However, there was still quite a bit left over, so I was excited to find a recipe that incorporated apple butter, which I then substituted pumpkin butter instead.
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In a large bowl, mix together the following dry ingredients:
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In another bowl, whisk together the following wet ingredients:
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| Then, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk them together. After that, pour the mixture into a greased muffin tin (I used my mini muffin tin). I had a little bit of batter leftover, so I greased up my muffie pan and had enough to make 2 muffies. Then, place the pans into a 400 degree F oven for 10-12 minutes. |
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| While the muffins are baking, mix together 1/4 cup of sugar with 1 tbsp of cinnamon. |
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| The muffins make the house smell absolutely amazing! Once the muffins are done baking, the recipe calls for you to let them cool and then spread them with a little bit of butter and then the cinnamon sugar mixture. However, I didn't think the butter step was necessary, so the moment I took the muffins out, I immediately sprinkled the tops with the cinnamon sugar and they turned out beautifully. |
One more thing to check off of the "to do" list was to carve pumpkins. I love to carve pumpkins and have been doing so ever since I can remember. As a child, I loved setting out the newspapers, carving into the pumpkins, and digging into them to get out all of the fun and gooey pulp and seeds. It's so much fun to share these traditions with Alexander and I cannot WAIT to get William involved with them as well! Plus, the extra fun part was being able to bake the pumpkin seeds and snack on them once the pumpkin carving festivities were over.
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| I had recently bought a Halloween Disney movie for Alexander called The Adventures of Mr. Toad and Ichabod Crane. I remembered watching it as a kid around Halloween time and absolutely loved the tales. Plus, a little fun fact was that Bing Crosby narrated and sang in the Ichabod Crane cartoon, so that was lovely to hear as well. Long story long, the movie came with a set of pumpkin carving stencils with Disney characters! Alexander loves Disney characters, so we let him pick out two of his favorite characters and I carved their faces into the pumpkins. |
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| Alexander and Daddy getting ready to carve the pumpkins. |
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| Our little guy is perfecting his on-camera smile. :) |
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| I suggested he take off his shirt so that he didn't get it too messy. Then, Daddy and Alexander dug into the pumpkins, scooped out the pulp and seeds and put them into a bowl. Alexander does not like to get his hands dirty, so we had to convince him that this was actually a fun activity. |
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| He started picking out one seed at a time. |
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| After a few minutes, he started to become a little more brave. |
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| He finally grabbed a big handful, but if you look at his face, he looks pretty disgusted by the texture. |
Daddy and Alexander carving the pumpkins
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| Voila! Alexander's two favorite Disney characters: Goofy and Donald Duck! |
After we were done carving pumpkins, we went to Brookline's Pumpkinfest (great segue, huh?) at a local school in Brookline where we ate great food, Alexander played games, and we got some delicious baked goods to take home. It was a lovely weekend filled with family fun!
Alexander playing ring toss...or rather placing the
rings on the pegs. Hooray!
Alexander playing bean bag toss
Alexander getting an air-brushed ghost tattoo
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| Whenever I take a nap in the afternoons, Oscar always takes a nap with me. He started at the bottom of the bed underneath the sheets and shimmied his way up to the top of the bed. He rest his head on Joseph's pillow while still remaining underneath the covers. Joseph and I like to refer to this as Oscar being "husband dog." We have a quirky family. |
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| Here I am, on October 26 (William's due date) at 40 weeks pregnant. I'm biiiiiiiiiiiiiig!! |
William's due date was October 26, and as you can see, that date has come and gone. After my 40 week check up, we found that my cervix was 50% effaced, but still tilted back (thus, I couldn't get a membrane sweep, unfortunately). Therefore, we scheduled the cervical ripening for Friday, November 2nd and the induction on Saturday, November 3rd. Hopefully William will decide to come out on his own so that I don't have to be induced. I know that childbirth itself is already painful, but from my previous experience, the induction was unbearable. We'll see. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me, ok? Until then, I'm still enjoying my naps, my one-on-one snuggle time with Alexander, and my quality time with Joseph and Oscar as well. Until next time...
Love and kisses,
Nikki
Thanks Kristen! You're a sweetheart and made this big ol' pregnant lady blush. I've been trying my best. :)
ReplyDeleteThe soup is crazy easy to make and you can even make it in a crock pot if you follow the recipe. Try it out! :)