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!