The Nursery is Painted!

I finally feel like we are making some progress towards getting ready for our little girl’s arrival. A.R. has spent his week off painting our baby’s nursery with a little design he concocted and colors we picked from the Behr Ultra line at Home Depot. I think it came out good and I can’t wait to see the furniture set up in there someday soon.

It definitely is starting to feel more real that this little baby will be arriving soon. I think it’s only fitting that the nursery is the first room that we painted in our new home. I don’t like pink and we wanted to paint the nursery neutral as we plan on using the same room as a nursery for all of our future little ones (at least one, maybe two more…!).

The colors we chose are: Minted Lemon (sage), Jasper Cane (pale orangey/peach), Millstream (light blue), Calla (pale yellow), and Mystic Fairy (lavender)

Enjoy the pictures!

Mini Skillet Meatloaves

Last night I came home to A.R. cooking a recipe he found in my December 2009 Food Network Magazine. He actually found it when he took my magazine in to read for his daily visit to the throne. :) They were mini meatloaves and they came out absolutely delicious!

You can find the recipe HERE.

I didn’t get a picture of A.R.’s fine culinary skills, but we devoured them like candy. I even had the leftovers for lunch today! :) Since you cook them on the skillet they were quick to make, too. We served them with peas and mashed potatoes. Scrumptious!

Lily Loves Snow!

Last Wednesday we had the first good snow storm this season and Lily got her first glimpse of a true New England winter with snow on the ground. She absolutely loved it! I didn't get the best video of her exploring this new marvel we humans call snow (she was hopping like a bunny all around the yard before I brought out the camera), but I did catch some of her explorations.

Cookie Swap Season

It is that glorious time of year once again...the month of holiday cookie swaps! My good friend hosts one every year and it is always a huge success. This year was no exception. She had 13 cookie bakers this year, some great appetizers, and great company. I always feel more in the holiday spirit having a bin of holiday cookies on my counter to snack on. :)

This year, my cookie was the best I've made yet. I tried out a recipe from the Food Network magazine called Brown-Betty Buttons and they turned out amazing. A.R. says that out of all 13 cookies from the swap, the ones I made are his favorite. I'm not sure if he's just buttering me up due to the crazy pregnancy hormones or if the fact that he's eaten half the ones I made for our neighbors really proves that he's telling the truth. :)

Shrimp Scampi Twice Baked Potatoes

I've been trying to eat seafood at least once a week since I got pregnant as it is great for the development of the baby's brain development (rumor has it the Omega 3 fatty acids make little ones super smart) and other organs. I also want to learn how to cook seafood (mainly shrimp) myself, so I bought a frozen box of shrimp scampi from Sam's Club to start and decided to play with the recipes on the back of the box. Tonight I made the Shrimp Scampi Twice Baked Potatoes and they came out AWESOME! Even A.R, who isn't a huge fish eater, devoured a couple when he got home from school and said that he could eat shrimp like that every so often without a problem. I did find the finished potato a bit greasy, so next time I'll use less of the scampi sauce. The recipe was quick and easy to make, too.

Recipe:

1 box of shrimp scampi (I just used 1/3 of the box for the two of us)

2 large baking potatoes (I used 4 smaller ones)

1 cup cheddar cheese

1/4 sour cream (I ran out of sour cream, so I tried cream cheese instead and it worked well)

pepper to taste

~I also added some salt and butter to the potato mixture but it probably wasn't needed

1. Wash and poke potatoes a few times with a fork and microwave for 10 minutes until cooked thoroughly (I discovered our awesome microwave has a sensored baked potato one touch button, SWEET!).

2. While potatoes are cooking, cook shrimp 8 minutes in a skillet. Once cooked, separate the shrimp from the sauce and take off the tails.

3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

4. After the potatoes are done cooking, halve them and scoop out the potato insides into a small bowl. Combine the scampi sauce from the skillet with the potatos in the bowl and then add in cheese and sour cream. Add pepper to taste.

5. Add the shrimp to the potato mixture and mix thoroughly. Spoon the shrimp and potato mixture into the halves of the potatoes and then bake for 10 minutes until tops begin to golden.

Enjoy!

Feliz Navidad from mi familia

Here are some photos from our home photo shoot in our first attempt at doing photo Christmas cards for the holidays. The dogs' santa hats were a gift from my friend who took the photos and they look oh so cute, don't they?! I can't believe they both wore them without a fight and actually sat pretty still to take the pictures until they got bored. I think we make a cute little family right now and I can't wait for next year's photo when our little girl gets to join in the action outside my belly. :)

I think Tomas could compete with Gene Simmons for the longest tongue...

Aw, aren't we cute?!

Modeling for the camera is so tiring...

I think Lily is exasperated...with her paws up and tongue sticking out she's playing dead. :)

Can I just say how much I love my little Tomas?! Look at what a trooper he is...

Shopping Heaven

First, let me preface my next statement by saying the truth hurts and no, I'm NOT normal. I hate shopping. HATE it! I'm a female and I hate shopping. I always get buyers remorse and there is nothing worse than trying on a variety of clothes and not finding one thing that fits my body shape right. Plus, the accountant in me prefers to save my hard earned money (you wouldn't know this looking at my savings account right now, though!) rather than spending it on a bunch of knick knacks. That being said I actually got a little excited with my recent shopping spree thanks to a leftover Black Friday sale and my preferred shopping method (on-line!) Cyber Monday.

I've only ventured out to the stores for actual Black Friday shopping once and we didn't even head out until after lunch time, so I guess it doesn't count. I hate shopping in crowds and just don't really see the crack of dawn all too often for anything more than an early flight to a warm tropical place. This past Black Friday I browsed the sales circulars posted on-line and found that a deep freezer we've had our eye on was on sale at Sears. We decided to wait and see if it was still on sale on Cyber Monday and take our chances. Long story short, we ended up going shopping on Saturday so I could exchange some curtain rods and get more fabric for curtains from JoAnne's and we happened to stop in at Sears. The deep freezer was still on sale at the Black Friday price so we got it and it will be delivered to our home this Friday.

Our new Kenmore 14.8 cu ft freezer

I hope to put the sucker to work right away after our next trip to Sam's to stock up. We'll no longer be limited with the amount of frozen pizza (DiGiorno's, of course!) we can buy or the amount of chicken breasts, hamburger meat, ice cream, pork, and other assorted frozen goods we can buy because they don't all fit into our regular freezer. I hope to also "nest" in the form of once a month cooking just before the baby comes, so I can stock up our freezer with some delicious, quick, and easy-to-heat meals before our little lady is born.

On Cyber Monday I happened to peruse our baby registries to see if any of the big ticket items we picked out were on sale. I was really hoping to purchase at least one piece from our furniture set and I hit the jackpot...our crib (Da Vinci- Parker in honey) was 20% off with a $35 shipping credit (I paid only $7 to ship it!) and I even found an additional coupon on retailmenot.com for $10 off a $100 purchase. We made our first big baby purchase on Cyber Monday and I saved almost $100 off the regular price. CHA ching!

I have to admit I was pretty darned proud of myself and my shopping skills despite the fact I hate shopping. And I'm a little terrified that this purchase kind of made the whole baby thing, although planned and deeply wanted, feel really REAL. Our litte girl is on the way and there is no stopping that...yup, I'm destined for motherhood and where half of me can't wait to see her sweet face and have her look up at me for the first time (I dream of this moment at least once a week), the other is terrified of what kind of mom I will be and what the heck I do with her once the nurses and doctors release us into the big, scary world. Hopefully, we'll adjust to parenthood just fine and I'm glad to say that our princess now has a place to lay her head at night even if we still don't have a mattress and she probably won't touch it for a couple months!

Two new recipes a success!

Last Friday I had a dear friend over for dinner and used her as a guinea pig to try out two new recipes. One is from a blog I follow with hundreds of slow cooker recipes and the other is from the Food Network magazine. Both came out absolutely delicious!

The first recipe I tried was for a Coconut Beef Roast. The only things I changed was using pre-ground ginger instead of freshly grinding it and I used chili powder instead of chili paste. I don't like spicy and was concerned that using the paste would make it too spicy for me. I must say that I was a bit skeptical about coconut milk in a recipe for red meat, but as I mixed the spices with the meat, lime juice, and coconut milk it smelled amazing. I cooked the meat for 8 hours on low and it came out tender, juicy, and delicious. I served the Beef over whole grain rice with baby carrots.

I also tried out a recipe from the Food Network magazine for a knock-off of Red Lobster's famous cheddar biscuits (which, sadly, I have never had) called Almost-Famous Cheddar Biscuits. Mine sure didn't look like the photo, but they tasted great. I think mine were flatter because I used whole wheat flour instead of regular white flour and I may have processed the mix too much in my food processor. It was my first attempt at finally figuring out how to work my food processor and I think I got a little trigger happy with the pulsing. :)

Bon Appetite!

It's a girl!

A.R. and I are so happy (and a teeny bit terrified) to become parents of a precious baby girl. It took quite a while for the news to set in and for me (I have trust issues, ok?) to actually believe it. I perused hundreds of gender ultrasound scans online comparing ours to both boy and girl scans before I let it sink in for good. We actually found out that it's a girl a couple of weeks ago at our anatomy scan at 18w4d, but didn't tell our parents until a week and a half later. We were going to try and wait for Thanksgiving, but A.R. was just too excited (and so was I!) to keep it a secret for long. This little lady is the first granddaughter for both sets of our parents and the first girl in Alexi's immediate family for quite some time. His mom had 4 boys and so far she has 4 grandsons so it looks like, to her, the 5th time is the charm. :) I'm the first girl in my Dad's family in 60 years, so it seems fitting that I break the girl cycle for A.R.'s family, too.

I told my family over the phone since they are down in NC by asking my mom to knit a lavendar hat for our little lady's newborn photos. She squealed and my Dad cried :). A.R. told his family at one of our weekly Sunday gatherings. He found some pacifiers in pink and purple that say, "I Love Daddy" and "Daddy's Little Girl" and put them on the counter with some Rice Krispee treats I had made and the Puerto Rican bread we get every Sunday after church. At first nobody noticed them, one of his brothers just pushed them aside without a second glance to grab a Rice Krispee treat. Then, my sister-in-law picked them up and got this really funny look on her face. Our littlest nephew is just 8 weeks old and you could see her just thinking in her head wondering why our other sister-in-law would buy girl pacifiers for him. A minute later she caught my gaze and I smiled and you could just see it click and she screamed, "Oh my gosh, it's a GIRL?!" A.R.'s mom teared up and lots of hugs were exchanged all around. My father-in-law is the only one who thought it was a girl from day 1 and he was beaming. I think we have to watch out for him spoiling our little princess.

I'm now 21w2d along and past the halfway mark already. This pregnancy sure seems to be flying by. We've signed up for some birthing classes and breastfeeding classes in the new year through the hospital where I'll give birth and we've registered as well. Registering was quite eye opening and a bit of a reality check for both of us. There are so many choices and it gets hard to decipher what you really need from the new gadgets and gizmos they have out there for babies that probably won't even come out of the boxes. I turned to one of my sisters-in-law for some advice on the necessities and now the registering is complete. We picked out our nursery furniture and I've actually already ordered the parts to our bedding set and the last of the items arrived today. We have the bumper, quilt, sheet #1, dust ruffle, diaper stacker, and hamper. The mobile is the only thing I missed out on and it's now out of stock. :( The paint colors have been chosen and we finally decided on how we'll be painting the walls. That is A.R's project when he's on break from school next month! LOL We chose Behr Premium Plus ultra paints in Minted Lemon (sage), Jasper Cane (pale orange/peach), Millstream (light blue), Calla (pale yellow), and Mystic Fairy (lavendar).

I must say that choosing a name is a lot harder than I thought. We have a few favorite girl names, but nothing set in stone and I honestly don't think we'll decide for sure on names until we meet our little girl for the first time.

Our Home 1 Year Later

We've been in our home one whole year now! On November 5th, 2008 after waiting for over a year and a half for the right lot and our home to be built we closed on our new house. The wait was long and nerve wracking at times, but oh so worth it! We both love our house and enjoy turning into a home to raise our family.

One Year later- Nov. 2009

In just the first year of home ownership we've learned so much and did quite a bit to our house. Even with a brand new house the work is just beginning! Here's a recap of what our new house, yard, and the proud new home owners (us!) experienced in the past year:

Before: Oct. 2008 at our final walk-through

1. Our first big project was to help the drainage in the front yard. It was a treacherous winter with one of our gutters draining across the driveway leaving a constant sheet of ice right near our front walk-way. A.R. and his brothers dug trenches and ran PVC pipes from the three front gutters to drain into the wetlands in our side yard. The project was a huge success and worked beautifully with no more water draining across our driveway. In 2010, we hope to do the same thing with the back yard, but there is no rush there.


2. A.R. swapped out the EXTREMELY annoying "green" light switches our builder put in each of the bedrooms with new switches with dimmers. The "green" light switches had motion sensors that turned the lights on and a time that would turn them off within a certain amount of time if no movement was detected. It was convenient when you arrived home at night with your hands full and wanted to go into the bedroom in the dark, but what this also meant is that if you got up to pee in the middle of the night or if you rolled over in your sleep the lights would all come on! So, we may not have green light switches, but we did swap all the bulbs out to be energy efficient. :)


3. We put blinds up in the family room, garage windows, the future nursery, and our two guest rooms. Curtains are yet to come in most of these rooms! I have the urge to sew and no recent energy to follow through :). I will have the curtains in the nursery, guest room, and for our solarium done before this baby arrives, darn it!


4. We lost a pet (my beloved kitty, Sebastian) and we gained a pet this year (our little puppy, Lily). Sebastian broke in our carpets with his scratching and Lily finished the job with her house training. Go figure!


5. We created an office in our loft area on the 2nd floor including floating book shelves and recessed lighting with the power cords run behind the walls. I was so impressed with A.R.'s skills when he put the lights in. :)


6. My ancient Kirby went to vacuum heaven and we finally got a Dyson. Who doesn't love a purple vacuum cleaner?! It's my favorite color AND it does it's job well. We also bought our first steam carpet cleaner (thanks to you little Lily!) as well and love it. You don't really realize all the things you need to maintain your house until you have it (carpet cleaners, tools, tool bench for those tools, lawn mower, snow blower, etc.).


7. In October we had the rest of our yard mowed, the weeds killed, and our whole yard re-seeded. We have almost 3/4 of an acre and couldn't really visualize the size of our yard until it was mowed. Now that we know how much room we have we are debating on putting in an in-ground swimming pool one day that will connect to the patio with fire pit we have envisioned off of our walk-out basement. We also will be putting in a deck off the kitchen and solarium in the next couple of years. There is a chunk of our yard that is wetlands and we didn't mow this year. We can actually mow it once a year, but chose to let nature grow what it wants this year. I think we may put our vegetable garden on it next year if the town permits it.


8. In the spring we figured out how to use a rotatiller and planted our very first vegetable garden. Our harvest this year was actually better then expected even though our tomatoes died from the blight that was going around. We got a huge pumpkin, butternut squash, yellow squash, green beans, and a crap load of cucumber. Gardening is definitely a lot harder than I thought!

9. I rebedded the shrub beds that the builder put in and added a new flower bed around our mailbox base. I put down landscaping fabric to help cut back on the weeds and put new mulch down. It took a lot longer than I thought and I got a horrible sun burn out of it (don't forget your sunscreen when gardening!). I planted hostas a friend gave me under the fence in our front yard, Lilies by the mailbox and at each end of the fence, and assorted flowering shrubs along the house next to the garage and miraculously everything I planted grew and lived!

My new love...

Rasberry pancakes. I have had an infatuation with rasberries oh say for the last 3 or 4 years. Rasberry and dark chocolate are my favorite combination, but this weekend I found my new favorite breakfast food...rasberry pancakes with rasberry syrup. Yum-to the-E! I went to a Tastefully Simple party at my cousin-in-law's house a couple of weeks ago and saw these in the catalog and had to try them out.

I am now in rasberry heaven. They were delicious. The mix can also be made into waffles instead of pancakes. I only wish they had larger containers of the dry mix.

Kindergarten Graduate!

Mommy, WOW! I'm a big kid now. Our little girl (aka Lily "monster") graduated puppy kindergarten on Thursday, October 29th. She can now sit, stay, down, wait, come, leave-it, and heel like a pro. Okay, well maybe not a pro, but she is doing great and is well on her way to growing up to be a well-behaved (and rediculously adorable) doggy.

Lily on the day we 1st met her at 3 weeks old.

Lily is the dominant dog at home, but it's a different story when she's around strangers and other dogs. She gets really shy and actually will yelp like she's hurt when she first meets another dog. Needless to say the first day of kindergarten was pretty tough for her, but by the end of the class she had come out of her shell enough to make some doggy friends in her class. We'll have to keep working on her socializing going forward, but I was very surprised and impressed with the progress she made in her class learning manners and tricks despite being shy. Of course dried liver treats are a wonderful bribe, I mean training tool. :)

Our star pupil listening to her kindergarten teacher

Great job Lily monster I can't believe you're growing up so fast. (She turned 7 months old today!) You may be a little "monster" at times, but I love your beautiful brown eyes, your crooked tail wag wiggle, your super soft fur, and the fact you LOVE to cuddle and ride in the car. You'll always be my little snuggle bug.

Our little graduate

What A Sleepy Sunday...

Today has been a sleepy Sunday for me. My body definitely gets worn out more easily than it used to now that I'm 18 weeks pregnant. Last night we went to a Sweet 16 Masquerade ball which was fun, but it sure wiped me out today! I did have some of the best sleep ever last night, though, and it was good to discover that A.R. and I still have our moves on the dance floor. :) We did a little Merengue and Bachata and it felt great to be dancing together again. I sure hope our little one likes to dance!

Toasting the birthday girl with Sparkling Apple Cidar- YUMMY!

To go along with my sleepy Sunday here are our two peas in a pod snoozing in their two favorite spots. I have yet to catch a shot of them curled up together...it is absolutely adorable when they snuggle together in their beds at night.

Yes, that is our Lily monster ON TOP of the couch. She learned that from Sebastian (RIP kitty!)

17 Weeks & Counting

It's been awhile since I posted about our bun in the oven so here's a little update...

As of today I'm 17 weeks along and feeling great despite tiring easily. I just can't hang with the big dogs (ah-hem my husband) and stay up past 10pm anymore. I used to be a night owl so it's been an adjustment for me. This week our little one is the size of an onion and growing fast. I can't believe how fast the time is going by and that I'm 3 weeks away from the half way mark (20 weeks).

16 week belly shot

After driving A.R. crazy with my indecisiveness and perusing hundreds of neutral crib bedding sets online we finally purchased one today. It ended up being the first crib bedding set we both liked from JC Penny over a month ago :). We're going with a frog and duck theme in greens and yellows.

A.R. actually found a furniture set online (Da Vinci Parker collection) that we both fell in love with. It's a honey finish and we plan on getting the crib changing table and dresser. Also, I think we decided on how we want to paint the nursery, but won't finalize the colors until we receive the bedding set to match them.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Babies R Us to walk around and see what we could see. We wanted to see if the crib we liked was on the show room floor and if they had one of the bedding sets there in person that we were interested in. I think we both walked out of there a little overwhelmed. It is so surreal that in 4 short months we'll be parents responsible for a teeny tiny human being that will fit into all those teeny tiny clothes and the strollers and carseats and baby swings.

We like this paint job, but most likely the stripes will be green and yellow...

Day 9: St. Croix

Our last day on the cruise ship was once again cloudy :( as we docked in St. Croix. Despite the clouds we packed our beach bag and headed ashore to hit the beaches. It was so humid I was pretty uncomfortable, but we had pre-purchased transfers from the pier to our choice of beaches along the coast line of St. Croix.

Once on the beach we got hooked up with the BEST beach chairs ever. They had pillows, foot rests, and reclined but weren't low to the sand. To keep the passing rain showers off of us we also rented an umbrella. We went for a swim in the ocean which was quite rough and had a strong under tow due to Tropical Storm Erica which had passed over the island the day before. Despite the weather, the water was still warm and nice! After my swim I laid back in the beach chair to enjoy the crystal blue water and our last day in the Caribbean. Within seconds I was asleep and stayed knocked out for a good two hours! Ahhh, the joys of being pregnant in the first trimester. There is nothing better than a nap on the beach. :)

On the last night of the trip we snapped a shot of our assistan table waiter and head waitress who were fabulous. A.R. and I were both a little disappointed with the overall food offered in the main dining hall compared to the quality we've both experienced on past cruises with Royal Caribbean, but the staff was still wonderful.

Our asst. waiter, German (L) and head waitress, Oono (R)

Day 8: St. Maarten

After the thunderstorms on Thursday night we woke up to overcast skies on Friday in St. Maarten. We had cancelled our tour we previously booked as it wasn't safe for pregnant ladies and decided to just check out the island on our own and do some shopping. Once again we hit up the Windjammer Cafe for breakfast and then headed ashore.

By the time we ate and got outside it had started to rain again (the rain storms were the leftovers from Tropical Storm Erica) so we hailed a cab to the shopping district. St. Maarten looked very much like St. Lucia with the mountainous terrain and was quite beautiful even in the rain. We started to browse the shops downtown on the Dutch side of the island. Within seconds of starting to shop it started to down pour, so we slipped into a shop and I was met with knock off purse heaven. They had Prada, Coach, Gucci, etc. and of course I had to indulge. I got a cute new brown Coach purse.

Next, we started to browse some jewelry shops which was just about every other shop on an entire block, but the rain wouldn't let up and to go from shop to shop we kept getting soaked. Considering we already had colds and afternoon spa appointments coming up back on the ship we decided to call it a day and head back to the port. It's a shame the weather wasn't better as we would've seen more of the island and probably even gone to enjoy the beach.

After we got back on the ship we went to the spa for our massages. A.R. got a hot stone massage (totally jealous!) while I got a Swedish massage. They wouldn't let me have a stone massage as it could possibly over stimulate me and cause preterm labor. :( Either way my massage was wonderful!

Day 7: Unexpected Day at Sea

On Wednesday evening it was brought to our attention that our cruise ship would not be docking in Antigua on Thursday as planned as the island was being hit by Tropical Storm Erica. Instead, we had been rerouted and planned to stop in Dominica. Our tour scheduled for Antigua was automatically cancelled and we signed up for river tubing in Dominica. I've heard it is beautiful there, so we were excited for the change in itinerary even though I had really wanted to see Antigua. On Thursday we woke up to stormy weather and the view outside our balcony despite the weather was beautiful. That view would be all we saw of Dominica as we slowly cruised past the island. The seas were too choppy for us to dock and we could see the waves were so high they were crashing over the pier where we would've walked to the shore. The ship's captain made an announcement that we would have a day at sea and the whole navigation crew was keeping a close eye on Tropical Storm Erica, but she had slowed down overnight stalling over part of the Southern Caribbean.

The shore of Dominica with the waves crashing up into the road.

The mountains of Dominica covered in clouds

Since it was rainy outside we mainly watched movies, went ice skating, browsed and shopped on the Promenade deck, scheduled our spa appointments for the next day, played air hockey in the arcade, and enjoyed watching the storms and waves from our private balcony. I had caught A.R.'s cold so it was nice to just rest and relax all day. That night we went to the ice show (which was pretty good!) before getting ready for the second formal night. Our stateroom attendant surprised us with rose petals on our cabin bed that night with a card congratulating us on our first anniversary which was really sweet. After dinner the storms really picked up...there was so much lightening the sky was constantly lighting up and loud claps of thunder. We watched them from awhile on our balcony before going to bed. I even took a video where you can here the thunder and the wind whipping around. The next day we were hoping the storms from the outskirts of the hurricane would pass so we could dock in St. Maarten.

The cast of the ice show onboard the cruise ship.

A surprise from our Cabin Steward

Bright and early the next day the captain made an announcement that we had sailed through wind gusts of up to 80 knots the night before and that the closets we got to Tropical Storm Erica was around 75 miles. Most of you remember another tropical storm that visited us on our wedding day...Tropical Storm Hanna. She hit on the way to our reception and the storm raged outside while the party went on inside the reception hall. That night back at the hotel they had lost power and were on generator power, so we ate leftovers from the reception by just the bathroom light watching the storm outside. It was so very romantic!! How fitting we had a visit by another tropical storm on our first anniversary. :)

2nd Formal Night

Cool Towel Monkey rocking our shades.