christmas cookies!

today i spent the afternoon doing one of my most favorite holiday activities... baking cookies!

mom started mandy and i baking at a very young age, and for that reason it's always been very near and dear to my heart.  there are special cookies that i made every year growing up with my mom and sister, but i just can't seem to make those by myself!  it just wouldn't be the same without all three of us.  but that doesn't stop me from trying new cookie recipes every year and baking up a holiday storm!

today i made four different kinds of cookies.  three of them were new recipes, but one is tried and true.  here is the rundown of the recipes, including professional cookie taster billy murphy's tasting notes.

cookie numero uno- thumbrint cookies!

ever since billy and i have been together i have made thumbprint cookies for christmas.  they are his favorite, and his dad likes them so much that he's been known to hide them so well from everyone else that he actually forgets where he's put them himself! 

i have used a number of different recipes over the past few years for thumbrint cookies- there are a million different varieties and ways to make them.  for instance, you can use almond extract instead of vanilla extract, or drizzle them with icing instead of sifting powdered sugar over top of them... make peanut butter cookies instead of plain, seriously a million different ways.  all varieties are good!  but i think the most crucial element is using the right jam for the middle.  and bonne maman raspberry preserves is the best!

that's my advice anyhow!
here's the recipe that i used this year.  it's my favorite way to make them (traditional).  billy says he likes them better with the almond extract instead of vanilla.  shut up billy.

this brings me to cookie numero dos- polvorones, or ground walnut cookies.

these are traditional mexican wedding cookies, but we americans know them better as snowball cookies!  you can make them with pecans or walnuts.  i'm sure there are a lot of different variations of this cookie as well.

this was my first year making them, and i was frankly a little concerned halfway in.  the dough is really stiff and crumbly and i was worried they were going to fall all apart, but nope! they held up great.  this is the recipe i used for them this year, and i would definitely make them again!  they are tasty.  billy says they are "right on point".

now for cookie numero tres- chocolate gooey butter cookies!

yes, it's true.  i found a paula deen cookie recipe with the words "gooey" and "butter" in the title.  umm... OF COURSE i made them! 

so neither billy nor i are big on chocolate cookies (ick), but i had to give this a shot.  they were super easy, and they turned out really really good.  they stay chewy and gooey.  billy said it was like taking a bite of chocolate cake!  and even though he doesn't normally like chocolate cookies, he said he could totally do one of these for dessert with a glass of milk.  i highly recommend.

and lastly, cookie numero quatro, which isn't actually a cookie at all, it's- peppermint bark!

seriously, i almost didn't make this because the recipe looked too easy and the simplicity made me nervous.  i didn't think there was any way they would turn out right with so little effort.  they did.  they're pretty, and they're unfathomably easy. 

i will say, that instead of using candy canes for this recipe, i used these old fashioned peppermint sticks from cracker barrel.  don't do that.  these peppermint sticks are delicious, kind of like those after dinner mints that disintegrate in your mouth when you bite them.  but i wouldn't use them again for the peppermint bark.  they are not as crunchy and minty as you want for the bark.  even though i added the optional peppermint extract, the bark still ended up a little more sweet than minty.  they are still delicious, don't get me wrong, but billy and i have both concluded that in the future plain old candy canes are the way to go for these.

so this concludes my little christmas cookie blog.

next year hopefully i will have a waistline again and i'll be able to wear my little june cleaver aprons while baking.  this year i just wore a sweatshirt that ended up covered in dough. hot.

merry christmas ya'll! :)

the sky is falling... a series.

when we woke up this morning, the ceiling in the great room looked like this:

peely. leaky. drippy.

we knew the ceiling was bad in the great room when we moved in. 
it's been slowly getting worse.
like a ticking time bomb of melting plaster. 
over the past eight months whenever we got a really bad rain storm or lots of rain over a period of days, we'd hear the occasional "splat", find a chunk of ceiling on the ground, stare at it mournfully, and continue about our day.  because money to replace the ceiling did not, however, happen to be falling as well.

this morning it was exceptionally drippy, because it was exceptionally rainy.  but not too many splats.  although it was looking a little more questionable than usual. 
we put down a bucket and went about our day. 
at six we left for childbirth classes in bryn mawr. 
we left tucker gated in the kitchen.
when we came back, the ceiling looked like this:

i should have taken a real picture, but you'll notice my hatted little head in the bottom left corner of the frame... i was already cleaning up (i don't even think i had put my purse down) and billy just snapped a shot real quick with his iphone.  it wasn't pretty.
tucker (who must have thought the end of the world was happening) had jumped the gate in the kitchen, peed all over the ceiling mess, and was found buried under pillows in our bed (that he's not allowed in).  i think he was pretty traumatized.

luckily, wonder husband and i cleaned everything up in no time. and let me tell you, old wet plaster ceiling is heavy.  and messy.   but we worked together and 20 minutes later it was looking like this:

 

the crappy iphone shot doesn't do the shiny mopped floors justice.

i'm actually super glad that the ceiling all came down in one big chunk, and not like a serious of jagged pieces that i would have to be cleaning up for days.  we knew it was going to happen eventually, and it was nice that it was all over and done with in one shot.

 

and we are calling the huge wood beamed owwee spot on the ceiling "character" until it can afford to be otherwise. 

the christmas mantle.

one of the most exciting things to me about christmas this year is our plethora of (albeit deemed unsafe) fireplaces, and the mantles that adorn them.  finally i can hang my stockings by the chimney with care!

but they have to be the perfect stockings. and after weeks of searching and successfully pissing off an etsy seller whose stockings we didn't end up choosing, we settled on these beauties from pottery barn:

gasp! they're perfect.

they only came in three styles, which is poopy, but i figured we've got the important people covered (billy, me, and the fetus... sorry tuck).  and i'm planning on stalking pottery barn's after christmas sales to maybe score duplicate styles on clearance to ensure any future bambinos (fine, and you too, tuck) have matching stockings as well.  yes i'm thinking that far ahead. yes matching is that important.  yay! christmas!

how cute are these?!

i found these chalkboard placemats in real simple's email on ways to "dress up" your table.  i don't know how dressed up this table looks, but umm...
chalkboard placemats=acceptable coloring pages for grown ups=i'm in! 
how much fun is that?  here's the link:

http://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/entertaining/decorations/alternative-ways-dress-table-10000001124613/page2.html

childbirth classes part one- can i change my mind?

last night was our first childbirth class. 
predictably, billy was hilarious. 
unpredictably, i was totally freaked out.

i feel like i've kind of had this laissez-faire approach to childbirth because of my little stint as a CNA in labor and delivery, and from being steph's labor coach.  i've seen the videos before, been to the classes before, taken the labor and delivery tests before, heck i've seen it up close and personal a hundred times (okay more like twenty).  i've seen it with drugs, i've seen it without drugs, and i'm fully aware of what goes on.

but last night i think it hit me for the first time that it's actually going to happen to ME. 
all i could think was "oh no! not my vagina!"

billy took the videos surprisingly better then expected. 
the first video was an upscale version of an 80's powerpoint presentation on the stages of labor.  billy's description after the fact went something like this "there were cartoons, and then people talking, and then there were cartoons, and then people talking and then WHAM! RIGHT IN YOUR FACE! I HAD NO TIME TO PREPARE! IT WAS JUST THERE!" he recovered pretty quickly after that.  i think i covered my face through some of it.
the second video was a video of an actual birth at the birth center, and our instructor (who was great) introduced it saying "this is a video of trish.  i feel like i should introduce her because the video basically just starts with her completely naked pushing out a baby."  she hits play.  trish is indeed completely naked pushing out a baby.  i hear billy whisper behind me "hi trish..."

then we practiced some relaxed breathing.  it was really comfy sitting with billy behind me and his hands on my belly.  he took the relaxed breathing really seriously. like so seriously i thought he was going to fall asleep and start drooling on me.  i was laughing so hard i could hardly breathe at all. 

i'm hoping that in our next three classes i'll be able to stop being mortified and really focus on learning the relaxation techniques.  luckily i have a lot of prenatal yoga moves under my belt to refer to.  my favorite part of the class was definitely how awesome billy was though... i know he's going to be the best labor coach ever.  he really stepped it up.  oh, and there was this quote on the chalkboard through the whole class that i thought was really empowering:

"we have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. it's that women are strong."

-laura stavoe harm

yes!

so the baby nursery is so not nursery like, and everyone always asks me what our "theme" is.

i don't know what the theme is, i mean there's a really cool vintage world map in there, and big bookshelves i scored off craigs list, and those awesome gustav klimt paintings i framed.  it looks really cool and old worldy. like a yummy vintage study. and that's what we were going for.  but i don't think yummy vintage study is widely accepted in the world of baby nursery themes.

we have plans to put heavy curtains in front of the bookcases and mom is going to make a matching crib bumper and skirt, but it's guaranteed to be a cool fabric i find at the outlet fabric store and not anything babyish.  and we're excited about that and we don't want babyish.  but i have run into a problem with one particular area.

crib mobiles.

i thought it would be cool to maybe make something, because the crib mobiles you see in the store are either super babyish (like  or part of a matchy matchy nursery set.  it's been hard to find anything that would work in our little guy's room.  and then i found this:

woodland creatures?! YES! YES!

the etsy artist custom makes them to order!  i think these little dudes would be perfect for our little dude.  and it's super gender neutral so we can use it over again for sure!

this is on baby's christmas list.  he told me.

bump watch

we had baby's 25ish week appointment today.
billy and i waited an hour in the lobby and i was getting all flustered thinking "this never happens!  my wonderful midwives who never make me wait!" and then i realized my appointment was actually for 2 o'clock and not one o'clock. wooahhh there baby brain. 

i've gained two pounds since last month (better than four!) for a total of 15 pounds so far.  eeef. but my midwives say i'm doing swimmingly, baby sounds great and he weighs about a pound and a half.  i'm measuring great, my blood pressure is good (although it's always super low... 80/50).  but i'm definitely starting to feel pregnant.  my back hurts a lot more and i'm tired when i'm on my feet all day.  it's hard to get comfortable at night, bla bla, all of that stuff i guess i should have expected.

here are a couple of pictures of the belly:

 it's getting bigger!
but i feel like the past month the rest of me hasn't gotten any bigger, so hopefully my butt will hold steady and the belly will be the only thing that keeps growing! :D  i know i feel really big for me, but i'm 25 1/2 weeks and my baby book says at 26 weeks weight gain is normally between 16 and 22 pounds.  so 15 pounds isn't too bad right?  and it made me feel good today when my midwife lifted up my shirt for baby's heartbeat and squealed "oooh look at that cute little belly!"  i wonder how long it will be cute.  i'm sure one day i'll lift up my shirt and it will be like "dear god look at that huge swollen belly!" haha.

this week the midwife also talked to us about choosing a pediatrician for baby.  i guess i have to do that soon.  does anyone have any tips on what questions to ask?  i'm thinking the least amount of shots and the best lollipops.  or maybe excellent sticker selection?  these were my most important pediatrician criteria when i was little.

my next appointment is in four weeks, when i have to have the glucose test to make sure my body is processing sugars okay.  i basically just have to drink a pint of orange juice and then they take my blood.  i also have to have a rhogam shot since i'm rh negative.  but, the most exciting part about my next appointment is that it's my last 4-weeks-out appointment.  after the next visit i have to go to the doctor every two weeks.  and then we all know what happens next!  the stork comes and delivers a perfect baby and leaves my body magically intact!  okay okay, i know i have some serious work to do to get the perfect baby here, but that's what our 4 weeks of childbirth classes are for!  and they start a week from tonight! 

road test: the swiffer duster.

mondays and tuesdays are my cleaning days.
yes i have two.
this house is very big.
it works out great because i can get the house cleaned when billy is at work, instead of like when i was in school and had to clean on the weekends.  this consisted of billy trying to help me, me re-doing everything he cleaned because "he didn't do it right" (yes i'm one of those), and then him looking at me like i was a crazy woman as i ran around for eight hours with a bottle of clorox clean up.  embarrassing. 
now i can fully give in to my neurotic cleaning tendencies without anyone watching me.
oh, except tuck.

my cleaning apparently exhausts him.

anywho, i love cleaning products and am always looking for a new and better product or a new and better way to clean.  so the other day when i noticed that *gasp* my new blinds had a healthy layer of dust on them, i thought i would try the new swiffer dusters.

i thought maybe they would make cleaning the blinds easier because of the nifty handle.  and because the ones i bought were pink for breast cancer.  oops.

i also have this image permanently engraved in my head of my mom washing our blinds in the bathtub.  like "oh you can't take a bath tonight i'm soaking the blinds".  there has to be a better way!

but unfortunately, the moral of the story was this:
cleaning your blinds sucks. 
it's a crappy annoying job, and the swiffer duster did not make it any more enjoyable.  it would have been just as easy to dust them with a rag and a little bit of pledge.  lesson learned.  i shudder at the idea of future me giving my blinds a bath.  i'm not above it, i'll admit.

but at least now you know about the swiffer duster! save your money and some landfill space.

this old house.

so, in case you were wondering, this is not what happens when you call a chimney sweep:

i'm just trying to save you from sharing the same disappointment i felt when a guy with a tongue ring and ill fitting jeans showed up instead of dick van dyke. 
devastation.

i thought i was being proactive by calling a chimney sweep to check our chimneys since 1) we had never used them before and 2) we had no idea what kind of shape they were in when we moved in.  but really 3) i was scared we were going to set on fire a family of birds or squirrels who had been living there undisturbed for how many years. 
well, let me tell you that i was not thrilled when after four hours and a $250 bill, the chimney sweep handed me a quote for over $10,000 to have the necessary repairs made to our three fireplaces.  when i asked him what the risks were if i didn't choose to have the repairs made, he told me chimney and house fire. 
oh, that's all?

needless to say i went through kind of a wide range of emotions today.  but i had to stop and remind myself to take a deep breath.

billy and i bought this house for less than we would have paid for a townhouse in our area.  and the reason we got it for that price is because it's 300 years old and had been completely neglected by the previous owners for the last FIFTY years.  you may not understand what i mean by completely neglected, but here's a little window into what that looks like : i had to scrape all of the sides of the doors in our house with a razorblade when we first moved in to peel off the fingerprints.  yes, the fingerprints.  because for fifty years, if you put your hand in the same spot to open the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, doors and you never ever clean them, the fingerprints built up into a thick layer of skin deposits.  gray and black skin deposits.  that don't come off with bleach, or sponges, or brillo pads, but have to be scraped off with razor blades.  that's how thick they were.  and that's just a little spotlight into the bazillions of gross things i could tell you about taking over a house that had been virtually forgotten.

this house has come a LONG way, with lots of help from friends and family, and lots of good old fashioned elbow grease.  but it is still easy to get discouraged when it comes to the problems that exist around here.  and we are always reminded of them whenever a contractor comes by.  because i don't think they understand that we got this house for a song, they walk in and all they see are dollar signs.  it's really easy to freak out when you get a crazy roof estimate for your leaky ceiling, or a septic estimate to replace the full cess pool (yes it's so old it's actually called a cess pool), or when the chimney sweep comes to do a jig on your roof but instead hands you a quote for $10,000.  but i have to remember that these guys have companies that are struggling too, they need the work, and it's their jobs to make us feel like we need the job done.

and really, we do need the job done.  our roof is leaky.  our chimneys are rickety.  our septic tank is called a cess pool.  but if this old house is still standing after so many years of owners doing nothing, i think it will keep standing for us.  we have so much love for this old house, and we don't care that it's not perfect.  and maybe one day down the line we'll actually be able to afford to have new windows and new septics and new roofs and new chimneys, but we don't need them all today.  today we are doing just fine, and i know that God is in control! 

so today, i am thankful for this old house.  lefty, the sad old man who lived here before us, liked to say that the house "has good bones".  and despite all of the layers of dust and filth and grime and even more seriously needed repairs, it does.  i'm so thankful that we found this house to love, to love eachother in, and to work on together as a family.  i'm thankful for the cobwebs that creep out no matter how often i clean them, i'm thankful for the drafty windows, i'm thankful for the creaky floors and the poorly patched roof.  because they're our creaky floors. and they're our drafty windows.  and hopefully if we keep on loving this house it'll love us right back.

(our first meal in the new house back in april... we had a picnic on the great room floor)

so much to be thankful for.

my sweet friend charity decided to post a facebook status every day in november about something she is thankful for.  what a great idea!  i don't know if i can commit to 30 thankful facebook statuses (stati? what's the plural form of status??) but i think i will try to bust out a few blog posts this month about things i'm thankful for.  let's shoot for oh, say five.

so for this very first blog of something i'm thankful for, what will i choose?  there are a whole host of wonderful things that i'm thankful for.  but today, i choose to be thankful for one very special thing.

cheese.

CHEEEEESEEEE!!!!!

cheese.

oh cheese, you and i have had such a roller coaster of a relationship.

i was lactose intolerant until i somehow outgrew it in college.  little known fact, because whether or not i could get my hands on my trusty lactaid ultra tablet (those things were actually delicious), i never passed up tasty cheese.  pizza, oh pizza, how i paid for you dearly.  if anyone else is familiar with the side effects of eating dairy whilst lactose intolerant, you will be grateful i am not going to take this any further...

but cheese, oh cheese, i miraculously grew out of my lactose intolerance and our love affair continued, but much deeper!  i remember the first time lindsay taylor and i had delicious boursin at circa and i think we may possibly have sang a song about it.  or maybe my heart just sings when i think of you, sweet boursin.  and so many more! 

then i betrayed you cheese, with my brief few months of veganism this year.  i felt terrible.  literally.  some people do so well on vegan diets, but not me.  i was a puffy and bloated uncomfortable vegan.  it was awful. it was cheese withdrawal.  and i will never give you up again cheese!  not for good anyway.

so cheese, i am thankful for you.  i am thankful for cows, and farmers, and bacteria, and all of the other things that go into making the delight that is cheese.  thanks for being in my fridge.  thanks for being in my life.  thanks for being you.

i leek you a lot.

some people don't know what leeks are. that's okay, i didn't either until a couple of years ago.
this is what a leek looks like:

it's like a big, tasty, delicious green onion.

a couple of years ago i found this recipe in my real simple magazine.  it's for fettucine with lima beans, peas, and leeks.  oh, and parm cheese.  i've made it a few times and it is delicious!  but i happen to love lima beans, and i know not everyone does. 

this week while i've been trying to keep up my on the cheap grocery shopping, i made bowtie pasta with roasted butternut squash and roasted leeks.  oh, and parm cheese :)  the point is, pasta+veggie+cheese+leek= dinner. delicious dinner.

and the best part is, a big ole bunch of organic leeks will set you back a whopping $3.  give them a shot, you'll leek them a lot.

switch it, change it, a-rearrange it!

what a clever cheerleading title! hehe.

i was looking for rugs online at ikea the other day and was inspired by some of their design pictures.  it made me realize that our couch doesn't have to be mounted against a wall.  you can switch things up to make it look more updated.  so that's what we did!

after a little room re-arrange we also decided to paint the doors in the great room.  not the whole door, but just parts of it so that the depth and details are more appreciated.

here is what our great room looked like "before":

 

and here's what it looks like "after":

and no, it wasn't nighttime in the "before" picture... look at the light outside the windows!  it was just THAT dark in there.  i think the white paint on the doors really brightened it up a bit.  what do you think?

dinner on the cheap- the final volume!

day five- friday

toddler food night?

hahaha okay, i admit it, i ran out of supplies and creativity tonight. 
if you look back at my original shopping list, you'll see i blew through everything except for... drum roll please.... that trusty can of tomato soup! 
so for tonight's dinner we had grilled cheese and tomato soup! 

and, get this, i found some frozen chicken nuggets in the freezer that i had bought for when my cousin was up visiting with her young kids, and they never ate them, so billy had chicken nuggets too!  oh my gosh i made dinner for kindergartners! hey, who cares, our bellies are full and i MADE it! five days of dinners for two on $25 bucks!  *curtsy* *curtsy*

so, this week was a great little challenge and i'm definitely going to try to stick to a budget for groceries and be creative with what i have instead of looking in the fridge, going "blah!" and ordering a pizza.  i realize that some weeks i'm going to need more groceries than others, like when i run out of my staples, but i honestly think i can do it for under $50 even on those weeks!

i'll keep from boring you with on the cheap blogs everyday about baked potatoes and grilled cheese sandwiches, but when i come up with something clever like chinese take out night i'll be sure and post it.

also, billy and i rearranged the great room tonight and it had a huge effect so i'm going to post a blog probably sunday night about it.  there MIGHT be a little painting happening in there sunday afternoon as well!  eeep!  just a little, but hey it's a step!  wait til you see!

dinner on the cheap- volume four

only one day left to go on my $25 food budget for the week! :)

thursday night- pasta night!

i think it's pretty widely known that spaghetti is one of the all time cheapest meals you can make.  it costs almost nothing!  i always have at least one box of pasta on hand and one jar of sauce, because it is the easiest and tastiest go-to dinner!

i'm no italian pasta pro, but there are a couple of tricks up my sleeve that i pull out for spaghetti night that i think sets it apart.  as soon as i drain the cooked pasta, i ALWAYS toss the noodles in olive oil and garlic powder.  it keeps the pasta from sticking and gives it extra flavor.  my second trick is to add a little spoonful of sugar to my jar of pasta sauce while it's heating on the stove.  i think it cuts the acidity a bit and balances the flavor.  :) now you know!

so tonight i used the rest of my bag of salad and the cucumber from my grocery trip, plus a spare tomato i found lurking in the fridge to make a delicious salad to pair with the pasta.  i also threw some regular old wheat bread in the broiler with butter, garlic, and italian seasoning to make delicious garlic toast points.  that plus my trusty pantry staples of pasta and sauce allowed for a great dinner!

(we ate in the family room tonight so we could watch charlie brown's the great pumpkin on tv! :))

tonight's dinner was super tasty, and i promise i DO have a plan for tomorrow night!  i knew it was possible!  stay tuned!

dinner on the cheap- volume three

wednesday- fall harvest night!

tonight i decided to take advantage of the flavors of fall! we have always tried to eat "in season" and it's especially easy to eat in season on the cheap! 

i started with a simple and delicious fall salad with the bag of lettuce i bought for the week (my favorite is butter crunch) and some red apple that we had in the fridge leftover from our trip to the orchard.  apples are great in salad this time of year! it adds an awesome sweet crunch!  i made a dressing with some balsamic vinegar and honey and tada!

a simple and beautiful fall salad! if you have already carved your pumpkins, this salad would be great with some roasted pumpkin seeds tossed in it! 

next i had billy chop our acorn squash in half, and he did such a great job that i let him prepare the whole thing!  he stuck a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of brown sugar in the "well" of the acorn squash and then sprinkled the rest with salt, pepper, and cinnamon. 

they roast in the oven for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. the butter and sugar melt into delicious nearly dessert-worthy yumminess!  but secretly, acorn squash is SO good for you!  (and if you want to be even healthier you can use smart balance instead of butter ;))

next i grabbed the remaining chicken breasts out of the fridge.  they had been marinating in italian dressing for the past couple days so were sure to be extra yummy.  to give them a special autumn twist i seared them in apple cider!  mmm!

this dinner has been my favorite dinner on the cheap meal this week so far! the flavors were really great together... the balsamic vinegar and honey in the salad mixed with the sweet earthiness of the squash mixed with the apple cider kick in the chicken breast all went really well together.

and if you look back to my grocery list from earlier this week, you'll see that this half of my chicken for the week was $3.25, the acorn squash was $1.50 and i used half of my bag of salad at $1.75... that's $3.25 a piece for our delicious and healthy meal tonight! woot woot!

this is fun!

dinner on the cheap- volume two

poor irishman night!

so last night billy had a work function and didn't get home until 9:15!  since he had appetizers at his work function and wouldn't be coming home super hungry, i thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make one of our favorite dinners... a loaded baked potato!

we take our potatoes pretty seriously around here.  a few years ago i did some internet research on how to make the best baked potato, and i've been doing it this way ever since.  i will share my tricks with you and maybe you will become just as passionate about the baked potato as i am!

doing a baked potato right requires very little, but most importantly it takes time. at least an hour for a smaller potato and up to an hour and a half for a larger one, at 400 degrees in the oven.  this is why i decided to make them last night when i had the extra time to cook them since billy was going to be late.

after scrubbing, the first step to a perfect baked potato is "forking" it.  stab the potato to death with a fork! all over!  this helps it cook evenly and throughout.

next, brush the potato with some olive oil.  once it's covered, sprinkle it on both sides with some garlic salt.  if you're not a "skin" eater, then you don't have to do this, but i guarantee if you try it you will become a skin eater, because it is DELISH!  the olive oil makes the skin crispy and crunchy and the garlic salt gives it a delicious kick.

that's it! then i pop them in the oven... last night's potatoes took 1 hour and 20 minutes.  we normally load them with whatever we have on hand... last night it was butter, sour cream, cheese, salt, pepper, and some mushrooms sauteed in butter and white wine.  normally i like to add some chopped green onions or chives, but we did without last night and it was just fine!

i know a potato doesn't sound like much for dinner, but it is really filling especially if you eat the skin!  you can also do the same thing with a sweet potato. 

dinner number two was a success!  what will i do tonight?

bump watch

bonk! 23 weeks.

 

he is now un-hideable.

and boy is he moving! although much to my mom's dismay this weekend, he would not move for her. he is a little shy.  right now he's only comfortable kicking for daddy.  but he moves so much for me that sometimes i feel like i have motion sickness. i'm kind of worried he's going to have seventeen knots in his umbilical cord the way he does backflips in there. but it's nice to know he's active and having a good time!  he still remains nameless, but we've got some ideas!

my next midwife appointment is on the tenth, and then billy and i start childbirth classes on nov. 17th. we're really looking forward to it (i think it's going to be hysterical). the class runs for four weeks but doesn't meet the week of thanksgiving, so we'll be learning all the way up until christmas time!  i'm pretty postive that billy is going to be horrified for most of the class, which will be highly entertaining for me. so excited! :)

dinner on the cheap- volume one

Monday- Chinese Food Night!

Tonight's dinner was a huge success.  I made fried rice as planned.  Here's what I used:
1 large carrot
1 small yellow onion
1 cup mushrooms
2 stalks celery
2 eggs
1 bag uncle ben's brown ready rice
(the last three things i already had at home)
i sauteed the veggies in some olive oil and white wine. here they are looking all yummy:

while they cooked i fried up two eggs with the rice. i had a bag of uncle ben's ready rice that i had gotten at target a few weeks ago on sale for $1. then i combined everything in the big pan and added some soy sauce and let it fry! mmm.

i also grilled up three of the thin breast tenderloins after marinating them in some salad dressing for the afternoon.  i like to marinate chicken in italian dressing because it's really versatile and gives it flavor without fencing you in.  here they are looking all delish:

billy really likes different sauces, and i, like most people, have a refrigerator door full of various condiments.  i used some soy sauce, garlic chili sauce (sriracha), and some sweet chili sauce (basically the same as that sweet orange sauce they give you packets of when you get take out chinese) that i had to make a sweet and sour sauce to compliment the chicken and rice.

the result was a really yummy, healthy, and filling dinner that tasted exactly like chinese take out! it was kind of uncanny actually. we were both pleasantly surprised!

billy is always a happy camper when i save money on food! :)

and the good news is, i have this leftover for lunch tomorrow:

score!

i even had two mini clementines in the fridge that we ate for dessert, just like the orange slices they give you when you go out for chinese! so sweet!

hmm what will i come up with for tomorrow night? :)

you are what you eat.

if the saying is true, billy and i are not much! 

the truth is, the two of us don't consume a whole lot of food... but that doesn't stop us from spending WAY too much money on it.  i've realized lately that most of our perishable grocery items end up in the compost pile or in tucker's bowl. 
 
we like to go out to eat every once in a while, and while i think we are very thrifty when it comes to eating out (we always share a meal or have an appetizer as our meal), we can still easily drop 40 or 50 bucks on a single dinner after tip.

another bad habit of ours is our love of cheese. and cheese is expensive.
last week billy and i wandered into the grocery store to pick up some hors d'oeurves to bring to his sister's house and it was like a spotlight shone upon the fancy cheese section, and we wandered around it like zombies for ten minutes.  after we got in the car i realized we spent $75 on a variety of cheesey deliciousness.  seriously.  it's easy to do when a little block of gouda or a container of marinated mozzarella is $15 a pop.

so, after paying the rest of this month's bills this morning, i decided to embark on a little experiment.  i went to the grocery store and spent $25 on food.  and my plan is to make it last for dinners the entire week! i'll blog about what a make and how we do.  i really think it's possible, and i think just by paying a little bit more attention i'll be able to make delicious dinners with my meagerly allotted food budget.

here's what i bought:
2 baking potatoes (1.25)
1 acorn squash (1.50)
1 cucumber (.88)
1 bag yellow onions (1.00)
1 lb bag of carrots (1.00)
1 bag mixed green salad (3.50)
1 lb mushrooms (3.00)
3 pears (2.00)
1 package chicken breast (6.50)
orange juice (3.00)
1 can organic tomato soup (1.00)

the orange juice and the pears were pure pregnancy cravings and have nothing to do with meal plans. but hey i'm allowed a treat or two!  i have a fair amount of regular pantry items at home that i'm going to use to help with the meal making, such as rice, pasta and bread.  i'm excited to post my dinners this week!  if all goes well, we have a $50 gift certificate to bonefish that billy's parents gave us as an anniversary present, so maybe we will go out to eat on saturday night to celebrate our thriftiness :)

tonight i plan to make fried rice with the pantry rice i have, some carrots, onions, mushrooms, and i think i may have an egg or two lurking in the fridge to throw in to the frying pan.  i plan to pair it with chicken breast (i got the thin sliced chicken breast tenderloins because we don't eat a whole lot of chicken and that way it can be split up easier throughout the week.)  i'm excited about the fried rice because a big batch of it will last me for some leftover lunches throughout the week! :)  wish me luck and stay tuned.

uterine update.

i had another appointment today at the bryn mawr birth center to check in on my pregnancy and baby boy murphy, or as we lovingly call him, The Fetus. (it sounds so badass! come on!)

there are somewhere around 7 or 8 midwives at the birth center, and you never know who's going to be on call when you go into labor.  you can make your appointments with whoever you like, but i've been trying to make each appointment with a new midwife so i get to meet everyone.  that way the fetus will have a better chance of being caught by a familiar face.  or familiar hands, i mean. face catching would be uncomfortable.  so far i've met four of the midwives and i like every one of them! :)

the birth center is very interactive and encourages its patients to be a member of their own team and help out with the appointments! that means every time i go into the office, i first get my own chart.  i love this, because i get to review all of my own test results and progress and see what notes the midwives have made about me and my pregnancy.  today i got to read the results the ultrasound tech sent.  looks like baby murphy was in the breech position at my ultrasound and is in the 50th percentile for size (hey, let's be honest, we know this kid's not gonna be a linebacker).  next, before every appointment i weigh myself, pee in a cup, and test my own urine with litmus paper.  i record the protein and glucose levels and my weight in my chart.  some people might be grossed out by this, but i love it! i love feeling like i have some level of control over my own health and feeling like i'm playing an active role.  and of course, this brings me to my next point...

umm, like i said, I GET TO WEIGH MYSELF! in a bathroom BY MYSELF!  so you know what that means! as soon as i shut that bathroom door i strip down to my skivvies!  without any sympathetic gazes from the nurse!  you're darn right i'm taking off my sweater before i get on that thing!  so, i started out at a whopping 95 pounds and am now, at 21 weeks, weighing in at 108.  13 pounds!  even though my midwife says this is exactly where i should be (a minimum of a ten pound weight gain is recommended by 20 weeks), i still don't like it!  i remember at my first appointment my midwife told me i should be gaining 45 to 50 pounds with my pregnancy because of how small i was.  she looked at me like i should be rejoicing, like she gave me a free pass to krispy kreme! but really i felt completely overwhelmed.  i've never been comfortable gaining weight and i've always been small.  the first two months were really hard for me.  i could tell i was gaining and it made me nervous and panicky.  thankfully now i feel a lot more relaxed.  even though gaining weight is psychologically hard for me, i know that i'm doing the right thing for my baby, and i know i'll be able to get back to my little self again after he arrives!

anyways, enough about me, baby looks and sounds great, and even kicked a little "hello" to my midwife (hey! it surprised us! her hands were cold!) his heart sounds great and he's growing right on track.

i also decided this week not to get a flu shot, even though it was recommended.  i've never had a flu shot, and i'm kind of superstitious about them.  i'd rather pass.  hopefully i'll have a healthy winter! :)  you know, sometimes you'd think these midwives would be more hippie-tastic and give you a pat on the back for saying no to immunizations, but really they're not.  they still preach the same statistics and risks that doctors do.  but i think that's because they have to, legally.  i bet they don't get flu shots either.

billy and i also have to sign up for a five week childbirth and breastfeeding class that will probably start the end of next month.  i'm not quite sure why billy has to come to the breastfeeding class, but i'm hoping it's because they're going to tell all the husbands that they're in charge of all diapers since their lovely wives' chesticles are in charge of all feeding.  i've got the incoming you've got the outgoing! right? no? here's hoping!
the class form also recommends wearing loose clothing and bringing a pillow.  does this mean billy has to wear loose clothing too?  does he have to get in that awkward straddle position on that big bouncy ball as well?  or are the comfy clothes and pillow recommended for him so he can take a nap while the childbirth educators make me walk over hot coals to build up my pain tolerance?  who knows!  but i'm getting a shot of billy on that birthing ball. you betta believe it!

the family seal

ever since we bought our house i have been dying to order a return address stamp!

i found a designer on etsy a while back that i loved, but i loved so many that i couldn't decide!
the etsy store is called note trunk.

well i found a stamp i sort of liked, finally, but still needed a little tweaking...

let's just say i'm not really a moose person.

so i emailed the lovely peeps at note trunk and they came up with a custom design just for our little family! and i love it!

the little birdies are much more "us" than the little mooses. meeses. moose. ehh whatever.

now it's time to start looking for christmas cards! or baby announcements! or anything i can put in the mail and stamp our family seal on! oh, but hey, does anyone out there know how i'm supposed to clean the stamp?

i promise i'll post a house post soon...

but in the meantime...

we told billy's parents they were going to have another grandson! that's number 11 for them!
we thought for sure they would be bummed because they wanted a girl.
we were wrong.

skippop is trying to make a "B" for boy with his fingers :)

they were super adorable and excited.  it was pretty precious.

we also went out to dinner tonight at our favorite funky little kitchen to celebrate our one year anniversary.  we took some pictures to show off our bellies before we left.

whose do you think is bigger?

it's a tie for now i think.  but i have a feeling i'm going to beat him :)

 

things i'm diggin' on for fall.

a little smorgasbord of all things that make this my favorite season:

things that sound good:

what do you get when you take george harrison's son (dhani), ben harper, and indy rocker joseph arthur?
yumminess. musical yumminess.

well, they call themselves fistful of mercy. which is exceedingly more appealing as a band name than musical yumminess, but still. their whole album will make you feel nice. real nice.










things that smell good:

what my hands smell like:

creamy pumpkin from bath and body works.
i keep the room spray in the bathrooms too.
"creamy" pumpkin sounds disgusting and like a weird type of soup, not soap, but i assure you, it smells like a mystical fall fairy came in to your bathroom and washed your hands with autumn and magic.












what my house smells like:




glade plug-ins limited edition "cashmere woods"
again, with the name thing, i'm not sure what cashmere is supposed to smell like in the woods. frankly cashmere just reminds me of the smell of moth balls, but this, on the contrary, smells very yummy. and it's not overpowering.  it smells like clean crisp fall.









what i smell like:

ok, you probably don't care about all of these smells. i'm very smell oriented! i can't help it.  classic burberry. it's a good fall/winter smell.  i actually think all burberry is.  spring and summer is a whole different story.

things that feel good (fall uniform):

these are mossimo supply co pants from target.

you can see more detail on them here. 

they are 20 bucks, and they are SO comfy.

and flattering.

and i can button a size one.  victory over the bump!

i have them in hunter green but i think i'm going back for the gray too.  they are so worth it.

madewell breton tee.  it's leftover from summer. but really, basically any madewell tee.  their v-necks too. think slouchy. 

 this is another target find. i would never button it up like that... this cheery model is doing it all wrong.  but i love to wear mine open with a scarf. 

thigh high socks. 

any thigh high socks.

these are from jcrew, but i got mine at urban.

i like to wear mine over my leggings and under my boots.  it makes it look like you tried a little harder.  i love it with a skirt too, but unfortunately skirts currently make me look like a bell. 

riding boots.

i scored this amazing pair of kenneth cole reaction (random) boots from my shop that have a great buckle on the sides, but i couldn't find them online.

i did find these, however, on piperlime.  they're by rocketdog, which means to all you savvy boot people that they're cheap.  only $70! love them.

things that taste good:

apple pie.

make your own.

it's easy, i swear. 

get yourself a copy of the bible (joy of cooking) and make your own crust, too.  you'll be proud of yourself.  it takes less time than going to the store, i promise.

chili tastes good.  real good. any chili. you can't mess that up.  you could even get lazy and go to the store and buy a can of amy's organic chili.  i can cook chili all day and it won't taste any better than hers. i think she puts magic in it.  

but you have GOT to make these to go with it:

these little beaut's are paula deen's vidalia onion cornbread muffins.  they are delish.  i make mine in a cast iron skillet instead of muffin tins, but to each his own. you could eat them forever. here's the recipe. you're welcome.

i will update this post soon with things to read.  i just finished the dragon tattoo trilogy, but i haven't picked up a new fall book yet.  so i'll keep you posted.  but until then, these are all the things that make fall feel fally to me :)  oh, and snuggling on the couch with my honey.  aww shucks.