February Photo a Day: Favorite Picture of Me

By moxiemanda on February 21, 2012

Today’s challenge was to pick a favorite photo of yourself.

This was kind of difficult for me. I don’t know that I have a favorite photo of myself. I do like the one I ended up choosing, though.

february photo a day favorite picture of self

I took this picture a couple years ago, in the bathroom at our old apartment. I tweaked it a little bit with picnik or something – don’t remember what I used now as it’s been so long. I like this picture because I had been playing around with makeup and I’m actually wearing bright red lipstick. I never wear bright red anything, let alone bright red lipstick. It actually looks a lot better on me in its toned down version in this pic.

I also like this photo because it has my natural hair color in it, which is strawberry blonde. Slowly but surely I’m making my way back there.

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Moleskine notebook turned planner

By moxiemanda on February 21, 2012

Several weeks ago, a post title in my Google Reader feed caught my eye: Moleskine Notebook Transformation – A No Binding Required Weekly Planner Tutorial, by Kyla Roma.

This caught my eye for a couple reasons:

  • I had been searching for the perfect planner for approximately 1 month and I was tired of spending money on planners and finding out they just didn’t work for me.
  • I didn’t feel like binding my own planner, like I did last year.
  • It sounded super easy and fun
  • I love Kyla Roma and anything she does

I used Kyla’s tutorial as a guide in the transformation of my own Moleskine, but I personalized it to my tastes. This project cost me $19.00 – the price of the notebook plus tax. It was a little time intensive (probably about 9 hours total) but that’s still less time than what it takes me to handbind a notebook.

I used a Moleskine Classic Large Squared notebook (hardback), in black. I wish other colors would have been available but I have plans on embellishing the cover so it’s no big deal.

I wanted the twelve months in addition to weekly pages. I also wanted blog planning pages, and plenty of space for lists, brainstorming, journaling and whatever else I may feel like scribbling.

For the monthly pages, I began three rows down from the top for the horizontal lines, and three rows up from the bottom to create a box. Each day of the month is a 7×7 square (7 cubes across, 7 cubes down). This will total to 5 weeks and plenty of space for long months (there are a few long months this year!).

moleskine notebook planner monthly page

After completing a monthly page, I then began the weekly pages for that particular month. Again, I started three rows down from the top of the page for one long line across. Each day of the week is a column – 9 cubes across x 26 cubes down. The weekend is in column at the end, slightly smaller at 7 cubes across and 26 cubes down, but cut in half at the 13th cube.

moleskin notebook planner weekly page

I used a small ruler and a black ballpoint pen to draw all the lines.

I purposefully left large gaps in the weekly pages at the start or end of each month, depending on what day of the week it ended or began on, so I would have space to write out important dates, monthly goals or anything else. I like to use this space as a bill tracker right now so I have the entire list of the month’s bills in one spot.

The bottom of the weekly pages is open for whatever notes I may need to make – weekly goals, contact information, blog stats, etc… What I record there changes week to week, depending on what’s going on that week!

moleskine notebook weekly pages

After I had completed pages for the entire year, I had quite a bit left of the notebook so I could easily make blog planning pages. I used the same template I had created for my handbound planner because that worked for me last year. One page is devoted to planning out the month; it has 6 blocks total – 1 block for each week, plus an extra block for stats or whatever else. I began three rows down again, and each block is 12 cubes across by 12 cubes down. The facing page is open for notes, brainstorming, etc…

moleskine notebook planner blog planner

I still have a pretty large section of the notebook open which I’ll use for journaling, creating lists, making notes and so on. The notebook has a little pocket at the very back which is super nice, too! It’s perfect for business cards or stashing treasures.

I tabbed out the months using Martha Stewart’s new Avery NoteTabs, which are available at Staples. I really love these tabs because the paper is thick and durable and  you can easily remove them, too.

So, that’s my planner for this year! It’s working wonderfully so far. I actually kind of hate Moleskine notebooks so I was surprised that I am liking this one so well, but I think it helps that I’ve customized it because that makes it fun to use.

Have you found your perfect planner for 2012 or are you still searching?

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February Photo a Day – Handwriting

By moxiemanda on February 20, 2012

I have realized I’m not the best at taking photos every day. And that’s okay. I still like these monthly challenges, though. Fat Mum Slim setup one for February (her January one was great!) and I’ve known about it all month but am only just now getting around to take a photo. Of my handwriting.

february photo a day handwriting

This is a page from my planner, from two weeks ago. I have a post in the works about this particular planner but until then, you can enjoy my lovely handwriting :)

By the way, PAD stands for Photo a Day… so… yeah.

 

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Bump Progress – 31 Weeks

By moxiemanda on February 18, 2012

baby bump 31 weeks

February 12th-February 18th

How big is baby? He is the size of a pineapple – approximately 15.2 to 16.7 inches long and about 2.5 to 3.8 pounds. I’m carrying what looks like a basketball under my shirts so I believe he is getting that long. I’m 99% sure he is head down (the tech at our 3D/4D ultrasound said he was) and he definitely uses his length to his advantage by poking my ribs with his tiny toes.

How I’m feeling? Really great! I don’t have any significant surge in energy – no nesting instinct, yet – but I am actually feeling really great. Sleeping is still difficult. Actually, it’s not the sleeping that’s hard, it’s the trying to fall asleep that’s hard. I usually wake up every 2-3 hours to go to the bathroom or re-adjust myself. I’ve found myself laying on my back a couple times when I wake up, so I’m glad I wake up every so often so I can be sure I’m staying off my back.

Any cravings, weird dreams or other symptoms? I had been having hip pain but that has stopped for now. Our childbirth class instructor said to sit cross-legged 25-30 minutes per day to relieve the hip pain and I’ve been doing that and I think it really has helped.

I’ve also started to feel what is termed “lightning crotch” (#8 on this list)… and that is not fun. But it doesn’t last very long and comes sporadically.

Braxton-Hicks contractions have been coming and going as well – usually when I’m asleep or trying to fall asleep. I just re-adjust myself and drink some water and they go away. They aren’t painful, just a little uncomfortable.

As for weird dreams… yes, they are back with a vengeance. One involved Ellen DeGeneres and a swimming pool in my living room. Yeah.

No cravings, though. Actually, I take that back. Yesterday, I had an insatiable craving for lemonade but when I went to buy some, I just didn’t want it anymore and it sounded disgusting.

My belly button is still out of control and sticking out everywhere. I hope everyone who comes into contact with me enjoys seeing it because I have no control over its wily ways.

Any other details? I am super pumped because my first shower is exactly one week from today! And my second shower is less than a month away! I really need to cut back on the registry stalking because I want to be surprised but I honestly can’t help myself. It’s just so fun to see what people pick out for the baby, and I can’t wait to fill his little room with his things. He is one lucky little guy and he isn’t even here yet.

We had our fourth childbirth class this past week – only one more left! – and it was all about breastfeeding. It was really informative, but I wish the instructors would have spent more time walking us through the various positions for holding your baby while he is feeding. Each couple only practiced one position – we did the football hold which is probably the easiest one ever (I say that now, sans baby). I think the most interesting thing we learned was how a baby actually breastfeeds – like the mechanics of the action. It was fascinating. Babies are pretty smart.

This weekend I’m really hoping to purchase the paint for the nursery. On Wednesday, my mom and I bought the fabric I’ll need to re-cover the cushion on the rocking/bouncing chair. We will need a couple pillows for it so it can be a comfortable breastfeeding chair, too.

This upcoming week I’m hoping we can make a trip to IKEA for an under-the-bed storage box. The one I want is, of course $80. Oh well. That’s a little more than I wanted to spend but at least it will corral clutter and keep the room from feeling overwhelmed with stuff. According to my spreadsheet *nerd snort*, we have already spent several hundred dollars on Baby already… what’s another $80???? ;)

I’m starting my 32nd week tomorrow. I know I’ve been saying this with each update lately, but I can’t believe I’ve made it this far. There will be 56 days left before my due date. That’s it. He is going to be here before we know it! I go through the emotional rollercoaster almost every day about this – between feeling really excited (“I can’t wait to hold him!!!!!”), to really upset (“why did we get pregnant???!!!), to reassuring myself (“You have 2 college degrees, you can handle a baby!”) and back to being excited. Pregnancy hormones are a trip.

Last note – I hope you have noticed my awesome t-shirt I’m wearing. It’s a shirt my husband had when he was a child and it’s probably my favorite t-shirt ever. It has these superheroes on it that are Health Heroes. Awesome, right? I’m so glad it still fits!

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Project: Food Budget – Week 6

By moxiemanda on February 16, 2012

project food budget

Budget: $70.00
Actual: $3.56 (meat market) and $61.50 (Kroger) – totaling $65.06

I’m pretty proud of our spending this week! I bought 2 pounds of chicken last Wednesday or Thursday at a local meat market and that was a savings of $6.82 over what we would have spent on 2 pounds of chicken from Kroger (chicken breasts were $5.19/lb at Kroger, versus $1.99/lb at the meat market). And our spending at Kroger this week was pretty great considering I bought a ton of random things we don’t normally buy – a lot of snack food, mostly. It was time to stock up on the snacks.

My total savings was $18.20 – best yet! I used a lot more coupons this week, too. At Kroger we saved $11.38 from coupons and the Kroger plus card (mostly it was coupons).

Here are our meals this week:

Wednesday (02/15) – Leftover Spinach & Lasagna Rolls
Thursday (02/16) – New England Pot Roast (FINALLY! This has been on the menu for weeks!)
Friday (02/17) – Lentil & Cauliflower Stew, from the Gorgeously Green Diet (didn’t get to it last week)
Saturday (02/18) – Date night! We will probably hit up one of our favorite restaurants, Guru India
Sunday (02/19) – Creamy Carrot & Turnip Stew, from the Gorgeously Green Diet
Monday (02/20) –  Random chicken creation with a veggie concoction
Tuesday (02/21) – Breakfast for dinner – Protein Pancakes, turkey bacon and hashbrowns

My coffeehouse spending totaled out to $13.28, so not as great as last week but I’m at least under budget by $1.72!

This past week, I ended up making a recipe I hadn’t gotten to in January for our Sunday dinner (I’d planned for leftovers that day but felt like cooking when it was dinnertime) – Loaded Quinoa Veggie Burgers. They were super delicious and way filling. The recipe said it made four, but it actually made 7 burgers for us so maybe I made them smaller than what they were supposed to be. But that’s okay, because we had leftovers which meant Alex has other options for lunch (and so do I!).

For Valentine’s Day, I wasn’t sure what we would eat and, as it turned out, we ended up having dinner with my parents at a local bistro, Trio. Arguably, Trio is now one of my favorite restaurants in this area. I had the meatloaf, and it was outstanding. Alex had a pizza and he said it was delicious (I tried a bite, and it was!). We shared the banana cream pie for dessert – omg it was to die for. Needless to say, our dinner at Trio definitely kicked the butt of the lentil and cauliflower stew I had originally thought I would make, haha!

Next week will be my last week for tracking grocery spending in February. In March, I plan on doubling a lot of recipes (or just making them as is if they already serve a large amount of people) in preparation for stocking my freezer for when the baby arrives. I don’t want our budget to go down the drain because we don’t feel like cooking and, above all, I really, really, really don’t want to give in to the fast food temptation.

Several weeks ago, I found this awesome freezer meal post by a mom who made these meals around 37 weeks. I will use some of these, but I also figure if I can save a couple portions from each meal we eat from the beginning of March forward I will have TONS of dinner options.

I don’t know what impact this will have on our budget, but for now I’m sticking with the $70 a week and if I have to adjust, then I have to adjust, knowing at least that when the baby is here our spending will probably drastically decrease.

So that’s that! Check out how the other blogs participating in Project: Food Budget did:

*If you want to see my other Project: Food Budget posts, click here! Or to find out where Project: Food Budget came from, click here!*

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Our Love Story

By moxiemanda on February 14, 2012

Alex and I normally don’t make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day, but maybe it’s the hormones or the fact that it’s our last ‘alone’ Valentine’s Day, I actually have a sappy little gift for him. And I also wanted to do this love story questionnaire I found on Mrs to Mama. Here’s our love story:

1. How long have you and your significant other been together? We have been together since March 25, 2006 so we are coming up on five years.
2. How did you meet? We met in college. We had classes together – we were both English majors – but it was at a meeting for Sigma Tau Delta (an English honors society with the unfortunate initials of STD) that we officially started hanging out and talking. I was president of the society and Alex was a member. The group was planning our annual trip to the STD conference (now you see what I mean by unfortunate initials). I will never forget that meeting … not because anything amazing happened… but just because it was what sparked us to talk more.
alex and i
Us in Portland – we look like children

The whole group had a lot of fun on that trip, and Alex and I connected more. When we got back, I guess you could say we officially started dating. And slightly less than a year later, we were engaged!

3. If married, how long have you been married? We celebrated our four year anniversary on December 1st!
4. If you are married, where did you get married at? Big or small wedding? We got married at a local church. It was a pretty good size wedding – there were about 250 people in attendance. It was a great day, where we were surrounded by family and friends. I would share a wedding picture but, honestly, I don’t like any of them. So… it isn’t worth the bad mood it puts me in to look for a good one to share.
5. Do you have any nick-names that you call one another? Do share! He calls me baby and I call him diddy. I don’t know where diddy came from and it has nothing to do with p. diddy haha. Don’t judge!
6. Name 3 things you love most about your honey. I love that he is steady and dependable. He is a hard worker and I know he will always take care of me and our family. And I love that he wanted to start a family with me…because I am crazy. And he knows that, and he loves me anyway.
7. Tell us how he proposed? Alex proposed on St. Patrick’s Day in 2007 at an overlook in a local park. The park looks out on the Cincinnati skyline – it’s a beautiful view. It was one of our favorite places to go hang out at and just look at the city. The day he proposed, we had eaten with my family and a few friends at a BBQ place that’s actually closed now (booooo). I knew he was going to propose, but I didn’t know when. He said he had something to do when we were done eating so I just went home with my parent’s. He came later to pick me up and told me to put something over my face so I wouldn’t see where we were driving…and this made me laugh uncontrollably because I imagined what we must look like driving around – he didn’t have tinted windows so people would have seen this guy driving a car with his passenger sitting motionless with a coat on her head. When we got to the overlook, he told me to still keep my eyes covered and that he would be right back. He put a CD in and left the car. The CD was a recording of him playing guitar, then his voice came on and said something about me waiting for him and that I should uncover my eyes and get out of the car when the music was done playing.
When the CD finished, I got out and realized we were at the overlook. It was sunset at this point and we were the only people up there. There were rose petals all along the sidewalk that leads to the overlook and, at the end, Alex was waiting for me. He got down on one knee and gave me the most beautiful ring I had ever seen in my life. The whole thing was perfect :)
engagement ring
When I got home that night, my sister and I immediately went to Kroger and bought some ice cream and wedding magazines. It was a fun night :)
8. Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals? He is a little bit of both, but usually he is a write a song or a poem kind of guy.
9. Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch? I’m definitely a movie and the couch kind of girl. I hate the beach so that wouldn’t appeal to me anyway. I do like a nice dinner out, though!
10. Tell us one thing you’d like to do with your significant one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere? Go to Europe. Alex has been multiple times and I haven’t been at all. We had a savings account setup that we were depositing money into for a trip to Paris as our last hurrah before starting a family. But, when we realistically looked at how long it would take to save and the timeline for getting pregnant, we decided to forego the trip and try for a baby. Turns out we probably could have still gone to Paris and stuck with our family timeline since we got pregnant right away but, oh well! Paris will always be there and Alex will take me there someday.
11. Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine’s Day. We went on a date this past Friday night – dinner at home and a movie out! We saw Chronicle which some may think doesn’t make for a romantic date movie, but we really like movies likes that. It was a good flick. Today, we will be having dinner with my family like we do every year on actual Valentine’s Day. My mom likes to celebrate V-Day with family.
12. Are you asking for anything this Valentine’s day? No. I got a beautiful Tiffany necklace for Christmas and I’m happy with that. We actually don’t exchange presents on Valentine’s day, but this year I did make Alex something that I’ll be sharing later this week.
13. Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and full of love. I don’t know what we would do if we couldn’t laugh at ourselves. And I also don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have each other to balance out our idiosyncrasies.
14.  Show us a picture of what love means to you.
honeymoon in disney
Us on our Honeymoon in Disney.

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Bump Progress – Week 30

By moxiemanda on February 11, 2012

30 weeks pregnancy bump

February 5th-February 11th

How big is baby? This week, baby is the size of an English Cucumber which, apparently, is longer than the American version. I actually hate cucumbers, and I hate pickles, too. But, that is neither here nor there in this case! Baby is 15.2- to 16.7-inches and 2.5- to 3.8-pounds. Grow, baby, grow!

How I’m feeling? Large. And in charge. Actually, I am not in charge at all… this little guy in my belly is. This week I got hit with several pregnancy symptoms I thought I was going to escape (I seriously need to stop smugly smiling whenever I read about these symptoms and I don’t have them myself!!!) – swelling in my feet, unable to bend at the waist (squats it is!), shortness of breath at doing even the simplest of tasks (ever worn yourself out putting socks on? I have. Ever been unable to remove your own pants and have to ask someone for help? That’s another positive for me), rib pain from tiny pokes and difficulty sleeping. I can deal with everything else but the sleeping is particularly annoying. My thighs ache like I have the flu when I lay on either side for more than an hour which is just cruel considering I can’t lay on my back!! Bright side? Only 9 more weeks left of this. Oh but wait… then the baby will be here which means more non-sleeping time. Oh well. Who needs sleep anyway?

Any cravings, weird dreams or other symptoms? Apart from the ones I mentioned above, I’m also still experiencing heart burn. And I’ve seen the return of a sensitive stomach which is no fun. I thought I’d said goodbye to throwing up when I hit the 14 week mark.

I have had two really weird dreams this last week. The first was about an acquaintance of mine stealing my baby and dressing him up in a striped bodysuit. That may not sound weird, but it seriously disturbed me. In the other dream, Alex and I and some of our family were on an African safari (why I went on this while pregnant I’ll never know) and, of course, I gave birth. And, of course, a zebra decided he had to have my baby so he took it away. Of course.

No weird food cravings, though. Except chocolate. But that isn’t weird. That’s completely normal.

Any other details? My belly button continues to shape shift and now vaguely resembles an awning. Except when I’m seated, at which point it completely pops out. This is the first time in my life I’ve seen the bottom of my belly button and it is not nearly as thrilling as I thought it would be.

We had our third childbirth class this past Thursday and it was a real eye opener. We toured the wing of the hospital where labor/delivery occurs and got to see an actual LDPR room. Seeing the bed really got to me. The whole room was very serene and calming… but it doesn’t stay that way and I still don’t quite have the words to describe how it made me feel. I think it was a combination of an ‘Oh Shit!!’ moment and a ‘What have I gotten myself into??’ moment, mixed with a ‘Thank God my body has instincts and will know what to do’ moment. I’m just focusing on the latter moment to keep myself sane.

Yesterday, I got some fabric for curtains but, when I brought it home, I was disappointed to learn two things: I didn’t buy enough and it looks terrible with the rug in the room. So back to the drawing board on that. In my anal retentive way, I have made an Excel spreadsheet of our current spending on this child plus what we still need to buy (estimating the cost of those items, of course) and the money spent on that fabric is a bust. I might turn it into a pillow for the rocker, though. If it’s a pillow, it may not clash as much with the rug.

The only other really super thrilling news (as if you could take anymore???) is our first shower is coming up in a couple weeks, and the invites for the second shower went out this week! I have been stalking the registry like crazy and do a happy dance every time I see something was purchased. It’s all so very exciting!

I honestly can’t believe I’m 31 weeks tomorrow. I remember back in August thinking it would take forever to get this far. It’s flown by. Only nine weeks remaining. Where did the time go?

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Project: Food Budget – Week 5

By moxiemanda on February 9, 2012

project food budget

Budget: $70.00
Actual: $67.68

Our dinners this week:

Wednesday (02/08) – Had dinner at Applebees with my family
Thursday (02/09) – Pan Roasted Chicken with Lemon-Garlic Green Beans (it’s baking right now and smells great!)
Friday (02/10) – New England Pot Roast
Saturday (02/11) – Spinach Lasagna Rolls (this time I’m making it with lasagna instead of large shells)
Sunday (02/12) – Leftovers
Monday (02/13) – Turkey Chili – from The Gorgeously Green Diet, page 315 (I’ll post the recipe in my Feb wrap-up)
Tuesday (02/14) – ?? I have Lentil & Cauliflower Stew – Gorgeously Green Diet, page 299 – planned but we may go out. Who knows!

We did really great this week! I feel like this is a more accurate reflection than last week since the meals look like they normally would (just one or two nights of no cooking). We saved $13.43 with coupons and the Kroger plus card. We splurged on a few personal care items – face wash, deodorant and vitamins. We also splurged on chuck roast for the pot roast recipe – it was $7 something – but we did have a coupon for $1.50 off a purchase in the meat department so that was pretty cool.

The chicken we’re having tonight I ended up not purchasing at Kroger – I wanted to try out this local meat market since they were touting $1.99/lb for chicken breasts. That total will be tacked on to the grocery totals for next week since I bought it today!

Lunch and breakfast is the same as it’s been for the last several weeks for both of us. I am trying to transition to green smoothies for breakfast, though, since I’m in the third trimester now and I really want to pack in a lot more nutrients and spinach is a great, easy way to do that.

As a side note, I highly, highly recommend checking out The Gorgeously Green Diet book. It isn’t actually a diet book, per se. It talks a lot about eating “green” and ways you can better green your eating habits/kitchen. There are three different tracks you can choose – light, medium, dark green – depending on how green you want to go, and there are associated meal plans with each. The meal plans, I think, are for a month so you could keep going after that and just rotate things differently. There is also a huge section of recipes which, in my opinion, makes the book worth it. I don’t really use the meal plans – I did before I was pregnant off and on and they do help you drop a few pounds, actually – but I love looking through them for ideas when I’m stumped for breakfast, lunch or snacks.

My coffeehouse spending was shockingly low this past week. I only spent $7.41 which put me $7.59 under budget. It was a pretty busy week so there just wasn’t time to hit up my favorite places. This week I’ve done really badly… I’ve already spent $8.57… so we’ll see how that turns out.

Participating Blogs in Project: Food Budget - 

*If you want to see my other Project: Food Budget posts, click here! Or to find out where Project: Food Budget came from, click here!*

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Bump Progress – Week 29

By moxiemanda on February 5, 2012

29 week pregnancy bump

January 29th-February 4th

How big is baby? Baby is now the size of an acorn squash, which is yet another vegetable I haven’t tried. I’m not as well versed in vegetables as I thought I was. According to The Bump, the baby is measuring about 15.2 to 16.7 inches long and weighs about 2.5 to 3.8 pounds. Slowly but surely, he’ll start putting on more weight in these coming weeks, which means my belly is just going to keep getting bigger and bigger!

How I’m feeling? Really, really emotional. My energy is still up and going strong, but man am I emotional! This week has been full of random crying jags and a lot of overly emotional reactions to situations I normally would be pretty level-headed about. I’m not a big fan of this. It kind of makes me feel like a crazy person.

Any cravings, weird dreams or other symptoms? I don’t have crazy cravings, but I do want to eat pretzels dipped in peanut butter and jelly all the time. I’ve had it as a snack the last several nights. So good!

My belly button is almost completely an outie. I was really hoping it would stay an innie, but no such luck. It sticks out all the time. I think eventually it’s going to pop out then flatten altogether.

The itchiness that I had mentioned a couple weeks ago is now completely gone, so that’s great. I think it was an overload of too many different products so I stopped using everything and changed to St. Ives Naturally Soothing Oatmeal and Shea Butter body lotion. I also now use Gold Bond Ultimate Deep Moisture Healing Body Wash instead of the L’Occitane washes I’d been using. Apparently my skin became a lot more sensitive with pregnancy so it’s better for me to simplify things.

I wasn’t doing these weekly updates back in my first trimester, but throughout my first trimester I experienced terrible breakouts all over my face. In my second trimester, that stopped but my face got very, very dry. Now that I’m into my third trimester, the breakouts seem like they’re starting to return, but only on one side of my face. This actually leads me to believe it’s because I have to sleep on my side all the time now and I used to be a back sleeper. Anyway, since the breakouts began I began using Aveeno Active Naturals Smart Essentials Pore Purifying Facial Wash, as well as the day and night cream of the same brand. These have really helped with the dryness and evening out my skin tone.

Any other details? We had our 3D/4D ultrasound yesterday!! It was incredible and a beautiful experience! My in-laws and my family plus one of my really good friends were able to experience it with us. We got some great images of his face and even his little feet. We saw him yawn and sucking his thumb. Mostly he was pretty sleepy, though, despite the huge green smoothie I drank beforehand. I should have had a coke or something.

3D ultrasound

I feel the baby move all the time and I absolutely love it. My favorite is when he is either pressing his butt or his head out and there is a very hard spot where its at.

I haven’t mentioned how my weight gain has been progressing. In my first trimester, I gained three pounds. I was very sick throughout the majority of those weeks so I’m thankful to have gained anything at all. In my second trimester, I gained about ten additional pounds. Since beginning my third trimester, I’ve gained about 1.5 pounds. My total weight gain, then, is 14-15 pounds. I’m pretty happy with that and hope to continue a slow gain until the pregnancy is completed.

I also completely forgot to mention that last week I had my Glucose screening and I passed it! I also had a blood test to for bile acid levels in my liver because of the itching – when I mentioned it to my doctor he thought I might have cholestasis of pregnancy and just wanted to rule it out. Thankfully, I do not have that and it was just either a reaction (as I mentioned above) to too many products, or the crazy changes in weather making my skin more dry than usual. Who knows? I’m just glad it was regular, old itchy skin, though.

As I’m writing this update a day late, I’m actually on day 1 of week 30. I can’t wait to see what this week has in store… just 10 more weeks then baby will be here!

 

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January Recipe Reviews

By moxiemanda on February 4, 2012

In January, Alex and I ate at home more days in a month probably than we ever have in the four years we’ve been married. That’s kind of sad, but it’s also a huge feat for us – we love eating out! – and I’m really proud of how well we did.

We learned a couple things in the process, too:

  • Budgeting is not that hard
  • Eating at home is actually pretty fun
  • Leftovers aren’t that bad – especially if you made them yourself and you know what’s in them

Since we tried so many recipes I wanted to review as many as I could and let you know how I tweaked them and what we thought of them. Let’s get to it!

Week of January 8th

Skillet Rosemary Chicken – We both really enjoyed this recipe. I didn’t change anything about it. It was really flavorful and super quick and easy. We will definitely have this again.

White Bean Turkey Chili – I reduced this recipe by half but didn’t mess with the ingredients at all. Honestly, this did not turn out very well and I was a little disappointed. It tasted fine, but it wasn’t as hearty as I thought it would be. We will probably not make this again.

Chickpea Hummus Burgers – A major favorite around here! The only thing I changed about this recipe is I do not add the pepitas. Instead, I do 1/8 cup of oats. I have nothing against pumpkin seeds, but I couldn’t find them at Kroger. I’ll keep looking, though. Also, I was originally going to skip the tahini because it was $7.99. Do not skip the tahini. I splurged on it and I’m so glad. You only use 1 tablespoon every four burgers so this tahini is going to last a super long time and has probably paid for itself 10 times already. Another note about this recipe – we freeze these burgers for Alex’s lunch and they don’t re-heat that great. They tend to crumble apart. I fixed the problem by adding a slice of cheese to the top, though, and the cheese seals it all together. Problem solved!

Autumn Penne Pasta with Sauteed Brussel Sprouts – This recipe was delicious! I chose it because I had a fond memory of once having brussel sprouts and they tasted super delicious. They were actually my least favorite part of this recipe. They have kind of a strange flavor…not bad, just different. Brussel sprout strangeness aside, we will definitely be making this recipe again. One note – I did not include the sausage in this recipe. Not a big fan of sausage.

Baked Parmesan Garlic Chicken – This was a delicious and simple recipe. I changed nothing in the recipe and made it as specified. I love recipes with just a few ingredients that don’t take much time or maintenance and this one will definitely be repeated.

BLT Lettuce Wraps - I made this for lunch for myself once and, while it was delicious, it wasn’t filling enough for lunch. It would make a great appetizer or snack at a party.

Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken – This was an easy and tasty recipe. It did not, however, come out looking like the picture. It was somewhat soupy. But it tasted good. We probably won’t make it again, though, because this month I’ve made something that kicks its butt and is in the same kind of tex mex family. I’ll talk about that in my February review!

Breakfast Pocket Dough – This was a major fail. The dough was entirely too sticky and I had to throw it away. I did not make the filling that belongs in the dough because I was planning on using a different recipe for filling. Regardless, I think the problem with this recipe is the proportion of wet ingredients to dry is off balance. It calls for warm evaporated milk as well as water and I think that just made it too sticky. In retrospect, I should have added more flour but I didn’t touch the dough until it was time to start rolling it out so by then it was a little too late. Oh well.

Cuban Picadillo - This was the recipe I was adapting to use as filling for the breakfast pockets. Since the dough was a fail, we ended up eating this filling for dinner along with some hashbrowns. It was definitely delicious. I actually added 3 eggs to it and omitted the tomato, tomato sauce and green olives since I was putting it in a breakfast pocket. That is now the basis for the breakfast burritos as I make them now.

grocery aisle(Source)

Week of January 15th 

Chinese Pork & Vegetable Hot Pot – This was a tasty recipe but I didn’t follow it quite to the letter. I omitted the sherry, star anise pod, cinnamon (on accident… I meant to include that) and the cornstarch (also an accident). Since I didn’t add the cornstarch in, this was pretty watery/soupy. It was still really good, though. It was a little bit of a pricier recipe because we had to buy rice vinegar and chili garlic sauce – which we actually ended up not getting and instead used Thai sweet chili sauce (because it was cheaper). I served this over rice and had the leftovers later for lunch sans rice. It was good, and we may or may not have it again.

Crock Pot Minestrone – I made this twice in January because it’s that good. I did not reduce the recipe size at all because I wanted leftovers for lunch. The first time I made it, I used penne which I don’t recommend (it was just what I had on hand) – it got too soft and fell apart. The second time I used medium shells and it worked much better. Both times, I did not puree the beans and just added them whole. Pureed beans kind of made me feel sick and I have no idea why. I also did not add the parmesan rind because I didn’t want to buy one. I would like to try making it with the parm rind though. Anyway, this will remain on permanent rotation until we get sick of it because it’s so easy and so delicious.

Shepard’s Pie Lightened Up - This is another huge favorite! I used turkey instead of ground beef (I made it this past Thursday with lean ground beef and the flavor wasn’t that different and it was just as filling) and left out the celery and mushrooms because I hate both of those. This recipe is so quick and easy and the leftovers taste great.

Spinach Lasagna Rolls – I can’t wait to make this again! I need to schedule it in ASAP because we absolutely loved it. I made two changes: I didn’t use lasagna because I had large shells I needed to use so I just stuffed them with the mixture. I also did not use ricotta cheese as it completely grosses me out and, instead, subbed in reduced fat cottage cheese (an old trick I learned from my mom!). I will definitely stick with these substitutions. I really enjoyed having the shells – shells are usually cheaper than lasagna anyway, plus you end up with more shells than what you would have gotten from the lasagna, which means leftovers! I froze the leftovers and Alex ended up eating them the following week and he said they were even better.

Week of January 22nd (until the end of the month)

Pasta Corn Casbah – This was so easy and really delicious. We really loved it. I also loved that I had leftovers for lunch as it is not very heavy so it made the perfect lunch option. I didn’t change anything, but I did add a can of black beans as well as a few generous sprinkles of cumin and seasoned salt.

Pasta with Peanut Sauce - We loved this recipe! But I actually completely changed it. I had a bottle of peanut sauce in my pantry that I really wanted to use so I googled peanut sauce recipes and came up with this. I used this as a base. The changes I made were: thin spaghetti instead of angel hair, peanut sauce instead of the peanut butter and no bean sprouts (they make me think of worms), tamari instead of soy sauce and I added broccoli and carrots. I still used the tamari, ginger and broth to make the ‘sauce’ – I just added the peanut sauce to that. I used probably 1/2-3/4 cup of the peanut sauce and about 2 T of tamari (it was all I had left) and maybe 1 T of ginger. I just kept adding things together until it tasted the way I wanted it. Then I felt adventurous and added some Thai sweet chili sauce which gave it some kick. I’ll definitely be making this again!

So there you have it! There were a few recipes I did not get to for whatever reason. I ended up using the ingredients in just made up recipes off the top of my head, or by repeating a recipe we had already made. We also had a lot of leftovers so that freed me up for the nights I felt like giving in and going out. It was really nice to just pick something from the freezer. Overall, we ate at home 24 of the 31 days in January. I still can’t believe we accomplished that.

The recipes I did not get to for January were:

Slow Cooker New England Pot Roast
Loaded Quinoa Burgers (I could not find quinoa at our Kroger!!) with homemade tater tots
Maple Pecan Granola
Baked Zucchini Sticks
Blueberry Pie Baked Oatmeal

 Not too bad! Those recipes will hopefully be making appearances soon in the upcoming weeks. Also, I’ll probably have to venture to another store to find the quinoa since my Kroger is not hip to that, apparently.

Did you try any of the recipes I linked to? What did you think?

 

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