Week 15

Well this pregnancy is speeding right along. I am 15 weeks now, and definitely developing a baby bump, as you can see in the above picture. Now that I'm in my second trimester, I have finally gotten some of my energy back and am sleeping a little better at night. However, I have developed a very irritating cough and cold...which I was so graciously told by my doctor will possibly last 3 weeks. The one part of pregnancy that's always the most enjoyable and I have a nasty cold. Oh, well...at least I can eat. That is the most important thing, right? As I have stated before I am LOVING Chinese food. Other things I have been craving are lemonade, lemonade popsicles, coke (don't judge me), and since Friday night....fish tacos (we had dinner at a friend's house and she made fish tacos that were delish and I have been thinking about them ever since). Quite frankly though...I am thoroughly enjoying all kinds of food this pregnancy. We'll deal with the results of my decisions after I'm done nursing....(notice I am giving myself several extra months of eating what I want). :) One last thing...I will be having my next ultrasound on March 29th where we will be finding out....yep, you guessed it...THE GENDER!!! I am super excited about finding out whether God is blessing us with a baby girl or a baby boy. So stay tuned! Oh, and one more thing....speaking of genders...for all you pregnant mommys out there....my doctor told me another "old wives tale" of how to know what you're having. If you are feeling like you have to shave your legs less often than usual, you are having a girl. I thought it sounded pretty odd. But since I know so many ladies that are pregnant right now, I thought it'd be funny to share on here (in case any of you are reading). I'm sure it's just like every other theory, but still fun to test it. So like I said...if any of you are reading, let me know how it proves out...just for fun!

P.S. Bourbon Street Chicken was a hit. I also attempted Egg Rolls and Egg Drop Soup this week. Neither were great. The egg roll recipe I did get from Pinterest, but I wanted to make considerably fewer than the recipe called for, making it hard to half it that many times. Also...I didn't roll them tight enough. So I'm thinking with a little critiquing, I will have them down by the time I run out of the egg roll wrappers and the cabbage mix I have. The Egg Drop Soup...well it was a bust....edible, but not enjoyable. I am going to work on a whole new recipe for that. I got that recipe from foodnetwork.com and it was a general recipe...not done by one of their chefs. I am usually never disappointed by their recipes when it's from one of their good chefs (like Tyler Florence, Guy Fieri, Sunny Anderson, Ina Garten, The Neely's, ok, so I like a lot of them). This week, I'll be trying Mongolian Beef. I'll let you know how it goes.

Pinterest Cooking

Before I begin talking about the best recipes I've ever made, let me just share with you a new love of mine...
I have loved the natural peanut butter for awhile now, but notice this jar has 2 wonderful little words attached to the end..."with honey." I actually got this jar on accident the last time we needed peanut butter. One of the best things ever done by accident.....one of them. :) Anyway...so on with my post....

Pinterest has sort of become a new love in my life. It all started with mere pinning. And then I ventured into the world of trying the recipes. And OH. MY. GOODNESS. Almost everything I've tried has been delish. Here are two of my favorites (and the only 2 I could easily find a pic of)...
#1. Pineapple BBQ Chicken...

Basically all it is...a bottle of BBQ sauce, a can of pineapple, some frozen chicken breasts, and a crockpot for 8 hours. You serve it over rice and boom (and I added some stir-fried broccoli)....easiest meal I've ever made, and quite yummy too.
#2. My all time new favorite...Sweet and Sour Chicken and Fried Rice...

Oh my word. In case some of you haven't seen on Facebook, I am totally obsessed with Chinese food this pregnancy. AND, we don't have a good Chinese place any closer than 45 minutes from where we live. So, I needed to do something. And once again, I went to Pinterest and found this. It was oh, so yummy. There will be a LOT of this for the next 5 1/2 months. The egg roll was not homemade, however since then I have found an egg roll recipe and went out and purchased all the necessary ingredients. I'll let you know how it goes. I'll also be making egg drop soup soon too. Ok enough about Chinese...it's making me hungry.

Some other Pinterest meals I've made have been...

-Taco Cupcakes..(Very good the night of, but not so good left over)

-Mini Lasagnas...(Very good...haven't had the left overs yet, so not sure)

-Crock pot Chicken Fajitas...(Delicious...very messy...and very good left over)

-Chick-fil-A Chicken Nuggets...(Very good....not quite Chick-fil-A nuggets, but I think after making them a few times I could get it closer)
I have also tried a cookie, oreo, brownie bar..made by a friend off of Pinterest (those are delicious)....and will soon be making...

-Burbon Street Chicken (I'm very optimistic about this)

-Chicken Tortilla Soup (...This too)

-Oreo Poke Cake (Seriously can anything with oreos be bad)

Ok...so there you have it....MAKE PINTEREST MEALS! You won't regret it! :) Happy Leap Day!

Our Valentine's Day

Hello friends! It's been awhile again...but guess what? My house is CLEAN! That's right...this pregnant mommy is finally beginning to get some energy again! SO thankful for that! Well on this Wednesday morning I would like to share a little about our Valentine's Day. It was lots of fun. We didn't do a whole lot during the day because we wanted to wait for Daniel to get home from school. Daniel had a Valentine's party at school that day. Parents were invited to come, so of course I went. Silly me forgot to take more pictures, but I did get this one of the teacher reading the kids a Valentine's book.
When we got home, the kids got to open their little Valentine's from us.

They didn't get much...just some candy and a Valentine's cup. Then we decided to make some heart cupcakes and a heart cake. The kids helped make it all (not any pictures of that as you can imagine 3 kids with eggs, flour and a blender....I couldn't really spare time for the camera). But we did get a picture of the kids licking the bowl.

Little side note....I'm sure you've noticed Lily and Austin are in their pj's. Let me just say...these 2 wear their pj's A LOT. When we are at home...especially if we stay home most of the day...they don't want to wear anything else. It's really not a battle worth fighting for me. Ok, so on with the Valentine's Day fun. Here is the finished product.

Yes, I say finished, because I realized I didn't have enough powdered sugar and butter for icing, and quite frankly didn't feel like making it anyway. They were quite delicious without the icing anyway. So Valentine's Day...or Valentine's afternoon...was a lot of fun! And..yes, my kids ate lots of candy, licked the cake batter, and ate cupcakes. I'm quite surprised they actually ate dinner. But you know, it's Valentine's Day, so that's allowed.

And by the way...this is my little belly starting to form. I am 13 weeks and this is in the morning before I had eaten. After I eat these days, my little pregnant belly turns into a big ole' pregnant belly. I guess the food doesn't have as much room to spread out. I'm really not sure, it's just my theory and the way I make myself feel better for looking way more pregnant than I should. ;)

And...to round things out, I just thought I'd share a cute little video of the kids dancing. Since it was on Valentine's Day, I thought it'd be appropriate to share with this post. These kids know how to shake it. Enjoy!

My Valentine

Today I would like to also take a little time to tell you about my one and only Valentine..Jason Heath. I love him. He is a wonderful husband....
...and loving father. He not only loves our children, but takes time to play and spend time with them.

He even lets them paint his face for Halloween (artwork courtesy of Lily...it is a lady bug in case you have a little bit of a hard time distinguishing)....

He loves Jesus, loves people and he loves his job as a youth minister. He is there for the teenagers when they need him and he loves being the vessel God uses to teach them more about Christ and how to devote their whole lives to Him.

And one of my favorite things about his personality....he's always up for a laugh...

He NEVER ceases to make me laugh. I love this man. I am so proud of his godly character and the man God has shaped him into. And I am so thankful that God gave him to me for a husband and father to my children. I could not have hand-picked anyone better! Jason, I love you...you are perfect for me! Happy Valentine's Day.

Snow Fun

So as I said in my last post, Friday was a fun day. We haven't played in the snow in awhile...partially because this winter has been unseasonably warm for Garrett county and they haven't gotten much snow....so we decided to get out there for a little while Friday. When we first got out, Daniel discovered some sort of animal foot-prints...

I couldn't get a good pic of the actual track, but I'm guessing a rabbit maybe?

Anyway....one of the things we wanted to do was get the kids' power wheels out and let them ride them in the snow. Austin got his lawn mower right before we moved here so he had never ridden it before. (For those of you who don't know, Jason's parents have always made a little deal with the all the grandkids that when they potty train they will buy them a power wheel). So here is little Austin riding his lawn mower...

And Lily on her jeep...

And Daniel...and his cool new warm face mask...on his truck....

Fun fact: Power wheels don't work on snow. So before you spend a bunch of time putting one together, and lugging all 3 up your basement stairs so the kids can ride them...just know that. Honestly, I have no idea why we thought they would considering our mini-van had a hard time on the snow and ice before we got new tires....however the old tires were at least real and not plastic. Mini-brain freeze I guess. Anyway...lesson learned.

Jason decided to take a few piecesof wood out of our enormous stack to build a little fire for us to stand by and warm ourselves...I know...he's the best...

Not the prettiest of fires, but it was still snowing, and it served it's purpose. Lily enjoyed it...

Then the kids thought it would be really funny to throw snow balls at me...

But little Austin couldn't make it over to throw it at me without eating it first...

And then Lily caught on to that...

My kids LOVE to eat snow.

Finally we rounded out the afternoon with some good ole sled-riding. Daddy decided to make one trip down with all 3 kiddos...

We had a lot of fun out there. And the kids lasted longer than usual. We of course came in and drank lots of yummy hot chocolate. All in all, a really fun time! Well, on to the tasks of the day! Happy Valentine's Day!!

Party Party

Friday was a pretty fun day for us. We've accumulated about a foot of snow over the weekend and that all began falling on Friday (with a little left over from Wednesday). So we decided when Daniel got home from school to play in the snow for awhile....more on that in another post. Then we went to one of our youth's basketball games....getting us home around 9:30pm. Jason was one of the chaperones for our church's first Tween Scene Lock-In (3rd-6th graders), which took place Friday night as well. So he left us after the ball game to go to that. So.....we decided (even though it was already late for our 3 little munchkins)....to have a little party of our own. I made 3 bowls of M&M's and ice-cream (and of course a 4th bowl for me...minus the M&M's)...
And we pulled out the pull-out couch and ate our icecream and watched Curious George 2. AND...slept there all night!!

The kids probably fell asleep around 11ish....and mommy wasn't far behind. As much as I wanted to be squished on the couch with my 3 beautiful babies, I really need my rest these days, so I went on to my bed for the night. However the best "back-fire" was when Austin came to my bed around 3am saying "I'm wet..." I forgot to put a pull-up on our non-night-potty-trained 3-year-old. Awesome. So needless to say, I ran out to the pull-out to check out the scene. The spot wasn't very big thankfully, so I put a towel over the wet area and cleaned and changed Austin and he slept with me the rest of the night; and the other kids were able to stay dry. All in all....it turned out to be a fun night! And an even more fun morning when I heard the TV turn on at 7am. :) Hope all of you had a fun-filled weekend as well!!

Harlem All-Stars

Last Tuesday night we got to go see the Harlem All-Stars at one of the local high schools. A very sweet couple from church wasn't able to use the tickets they had bought for their family so they offered them to us. So of course, we went!

It was a fun little production. We were given six tickets so I let the kids pick a friend to come. They chose a little boy from church named Lane.

The kids had a lot of fun. However I do think had the kids been about 3 years older they would have enjoyed it a little more. But we still had a blast......and of course we ate popcorn and nachos. You can't go to a sporting event or really anything without getting popcorn, right? That's what I thought. At halftime we let the kids run around in the gym for awhile and then they were ready to leave. Like I said....they had fun, but in a few years, they'll be a little more patient to watch. Anyway...just thought I'd share a bit about our fun little evening! Happy Weekend (soon)!!!

P.S. The Harlem All-Stars are really, really tall.