Weekend Wrap-Up

This weekend was amazing!

On Friday, my hubby treated me to my hair appointment for this month. I normally hate getting my hair done. In fact I always have. It stems from getting my hair pressed when I was little- but that's another post for another day. Sitting under a dryer for an hour + is not all that fun at 9 months pregnant. All of that however was overshadowed by my mani/pedi Saturday morning.

Yep! My wonderful hubby treated me to a mani/pedi too! I love being pampered. I was a little disappointed that I never made it to my pre-natal massage treatment at my favorite spa ever during this pregnancy (I had to cancel twice) but I hope to make up for that at some point maybe in December? Then after my mani/pedi my hubby dressed me (yea, he does that sometimes) and whisked me away to my BABY SHOWER!!!!!

Okay, here's a little secret. I knew that it was this weekend but it was still an amazing surprise for me. You see- my family likes to give surprise parties. I think we like for the guest of honor not too be too involved so we don't clue them in on any details... not a single one. I had to do a lot of bargaining to get my family to tell me the date. You see my college graduation party was a surprise, my bridal shower was a surprise, and in between those we gave my parent's a surprise 25th wedding anniversary party, my mom a surprise 50th birthday party, and my brother a semi-surprise graduation party... I was kind of out of surprises. So, our deal was I would know the date so I could get plenty of rest the night before, try to look the best I can, and basically enjoy myself.

However I had no idea what was in store for me. I had no idea that almost 100 of my friends and family would be there! I know this sounds silly but - who knew so many people cared! When I walked in the room and everyone yelled surprise! I was in shock. My guests had come from far and wide to celebrate the birth of our first child. Remember our friends we visited in Chicago?? Well she came out too! I had a few more guests who came from out of state and that mean a lot to me. I am truly overwhelmed (still) and feel blessed to have such amazing people supporting us in this journey. But more on this tomorrow.

Some of the baby's clothes... we're going to need a bigger closet!

The stack of diapers... so far

I didn't sleep much that night so I was up pretty early for church on Sunday. I'm not sure if that will happen again for a long time. Anyway, I'm glad I was there to hear the message. My pastor is on a much needed vacation this week so one of my fellow Elders gave the message entitled "Wait for God ... but pay attention". This message was something I needed to hear. She opened with a story (which you may have read via email forward) about a man who was waiting for God to send him blessings but he missed them (all 3) because he wasn't paying attention to his actual blessings being sent. I'm going to try to Google the story because it truly speaks volumes. The most resonating point was being thankful for all the blessing you have been given despite your current trials - for the unemployed who may not have a paycheck now, be thankful for the paychecks you received and the paychecks that may be waiting for you in the future. For the sick whose bodies are currently afflicted- be thankful for the days you had when you were well and able bodied. The list goes on. I don't really care right now to share some of what I believe to be my current trials but when I look back on my past trials and laugh at myself for thinking those were actual burdens to me (at the time) and seeing how far I've come, I'm looking forward to my future self and laughing now because I know I will be laughing then too.

And now Monday morning, we meet again.

Craving: Oatmeal Raisin cookies

I think the Dessert Diva is back. But I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. About a week or so ago, I had a craving for oatmeal cookies. I never did get any but I did get around to making some this past Thursday. I've always loved to bake and I believe I've only baked once or twice since I found out I was pregnant. It's been a combination of just not feeling like it and one of my incidents. I hope to get around to doing more baking especially as the weather gets cooler out and I am not baking myself along with my delectable treats.

My first bake- alone baking experience that I can remember was a box cake. I thought it cam out really well and my family ate it so it must have been worth something. That was sometime prior to August of 2005 because I remember cutting my grandma a slice to taste because she is a cake goddess. Since then I've taken an interest not only in baking but sort of cultivating that so I can enjoy dessert anytime I'd like. I think dessert is the finishing touch to everyday and couldn't imagine life without it!

So after I woke up from my afternoon nap I got out my cookbook and got to work. I used a recipe from The Joy of Cooking. I bought that for my hubby one day because he is the head chef in our house and requested it after tasting a few recipes that a friend of his made from there. I think I may have used it more than he has as a baking reference. Part of cultivating my talent is learning how to bake from scratch. Don't get me wrong, Sometimes you need a quick and easy bake job and I am not opposed to used boxed mixes for anything- but even then I always doctor up box cake mix recipes to make them more appealing.

So here's the recipe:

Preheat oven to 350^oF

Whisk together:

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon grated or ground nutmeg

Beat in a large bowl until well blended:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

¼ cup sugar

1 ½ cup packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 ½ teaspoons vanilla

Stir in the flour mixture. Stir in:

1 cup raisins, chopped

3 ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats

Shape the dough into generous 1 ½-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheets. Flatten the balls into ½-inch-thick rounds. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until the cookies are lightly browned all over, 12 to 14 minutes. Let stand briefly, then remove to a rack to cool.

Here were my slight variations. I didn't do many as this was first time making them so I had to see how they came out before I could know what to tweak- if anything needs tweaking at all.

- I used salted butter rather than unsalted. I think it may have cut some of the sweetness of so much sugar and definitely altered the nutrition content in some way.

- I over measured on the salt. I didn't realize I put in ¾ teaspoon instead of ½ teaspoon until after I dumped it in the bowl. So clearly these cookies will have way more salt than necessary but I don't think this affected the taste in a negative way- my official taste tester hubby said so. My mom always said to be careful when cooking (and this applies to baking as well) you can always add but you can't take away- so true!

- I held back on some of the raisins. The first batch I put on the cookie sheet didn't have raisins at all. I didn't add them until that batch was in the oven. First, I'm not a fan of raisins and second my craving was oatmeal cookies- I only considered raisins because a) it's the traditional cookie and b) it's my dad's second favorite cookie.

- I used old-fashioned oats rather than rolled oats. I'm not sure if there is a difference I don't think it altered the taste but it was my first try so who knows!

- I baked the cookies for only 10 minutes. I'm not a fan of hard cookies so they HAD to be soft so I reduced the cooking time.

I think they came out pretty well. Especially for my first attempt at cookies from scratch. We'll see how the masses likes them

37 Weeks!

I am now considered full term in my pregnancy!!!

According to The Bump.com: Today brings two beautiful words:full-term. Now, whenever baby's born, s/he's likely to thrive. Also thriving? Your nesting instincts, which is behind those sudden urges to bake, clean, or embroider a onsie. (feminists, take your issue up with nature, not with us.) Your full-term (yay!) baby is gaining about 1/2 ounce a day and getting his first sticky poop (called meconium) ready. He's also brushing up on skills for the outside world: blinking, sucking, inhaling, exhaling, and gripping (it's getting strong!).

According to Baby Center: Your baby is now considered "full term," even though your due date is three weeks away. If you go into labor now, his or her lungs will likely be mature enough to fully adjust to life outside the womb. (Some babies need a bit more time, though. So if you're planning to have a repeat c-section, for example, your practitioner will schedule it for no earlier than 39 weeks unless there's a medical reason to intervene earlier.) Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

Pregnancy: 37 weeks!

Gender: Team Green

Name: Still not interested in finalizing a name.

Weight Gain: I get another weigh in tomorrow. I'm thinking it's still going to a big weight gain. I feel very heavy 

Sleep: I'm back to getting numb whenever I stay in one position too long. And it take the force of God for me to shift my weight or change positions in the middle of the night... I'm big.

Feeling: Still sore, still tired. I'm dealing with it though. Sometimes it's manageable. My half day work days are really helpful because I go home and go to sleep.

Health: Good. Last week's appointment went pretty well. I'm not yet dilated so I felt a whole lot better knowing that baby wanted to be in the a little while longer.

Movement: Sometimes it looks like baby is busting outta there! My belly contorts in ways I'd never thing it could. I try to catch it on camera but everytime I push record baby stops.

Belly: I can't believe how big.

Next Appointment: Tomorrow! I'd never thought I'd be so excited to go to the doctor. I love checking on this little one.

A post for my parents

Actually this post is dedicated to all my real life family and friends. All of you guys come up to me and "comment" on my blog posts. While I appreciate all of your lovely comments, support, and stories of support- you can feel free to comment right on my post! I asked my parents why do they wait to see me to tell me these things- especially when they say, "Oh! I forgot to tell you that post you did about not being able to see your whoo haa was funny!"- they admitted they don't know how. So parents, cousins, friends, church fam... this is for you.

Blog header: This is also my blog address. I know some of you can't get to my blog without looking at email from me, lol! It's frommrstomom.blogspot.com.

Pages: These are pages of info that I randomly decided to share.

Post labels 2: These are the labels I've used to label my posts. I only have selected labels here so some random things like Y3W's aren't here. I don't like keeping all the labels here cause I think it make more blog clutter.

Blog Roll: These are blogs I follow. Well not all of them... Just my brother's and my friend's. Blogger templates do not allow you to edit the number of blogs shown at once- so I think. Either way I don't think my blog is popular enough to have a good blog roll anyway.

Archives: These are the post archives. So if you wanted to find the post I did on St. Patrick's Day You would click on March, then 15 weeks. As I post more posts and the blog gets older this lists gets longer and longer... years will eventually be added and so and and so forth.

Follow Me (1&2): When you "follow" someones blog it means you get 'notified' once that blog has a new post. You can follow using one of two options- you can follow by email or if you have a gmail account you can follow with Google Friend Connect (GFC). I've never followed someone by email so I have no idea if you get email notifications for new posts by if you follow using GFC new posts will show up in your google reader (provided you use your gmail account). Following blogs are important to the author to let them know they have interested readers plus the more followers you have you can qualify for different product reviews for companies... so FOLLOW ME! "Following" by typing the blog address in your browser counts towards your blogs stats (which is important as well) but authors like to see that they are getting popular.

My Signature: It's me! It's going to be at the bottom of every post that I post. I've been trying to get my hubby to guest post- but you see how that's going.

Comment: This keeps tracks of the comments people post on my blog. If it says zero- click it and leave a comment- I love feedback... good, bad, indifferent, agreements, disagreements, just a hello... whatever. If it already has a number (shout out to Ebs for being the most frequent commenter!) Then check out what others had to say, it may spark a discussion! Authors loves comments too... so LEAVE A COMMENT!

Post label: These are words that I tag my posts by. It makes for easy archiving and sort of categorize each post. For instance- If you like something you see in a this week's obsession post and you want to buy it for the baby you can search my blog for the words 'This week's obsession' and it will bring up all the posts with that label. I try to have as much consistency with labeling posts as possible.

Okay, so now that you've had your blog(ger) lesson- there will be a quiz at the end of the week.

Weekend Wrap Up

So, Friday was my last day half-day at work according to the summer schedule posted by my job- so I thought. I went to the doctor that afternoon because- I needed to know what was going on with my body and the baby. While everything checked out okay- she put me on a reduced work schedule for now. So now every day is a half day! This is really good because I feel like I'll be more focused to do more tasks both at home and at work.

Saturday was a day I had been waiting for and just last week I anxiously awaited Saturday even more! First we had a scheduled 3D/4D ultrasound. O boy! I could not contain my excitement from the day I made the appointment. I remember running around my friends house in Illinois (which I realized that I didn't go into great detail about) making sure everyone was going to be available to come- yep it was that type of party. We spent so much time bothering this little one we were able to see that baby has dimples! Although now I think we spent so much time trying to wake baby up- s/he will get us back when baby is outside the belly.

After which we had a few things to do including looking at a house that will be for sale soon. My husband's good friend knows the family that is selling it and they wanted us to get the first look to see if we would be interested before the 'general public'. I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures to show you all because a) they were in the process of setting it up for an estate sale they are having next week or so b) you really wouldn't have been able to get the gist of the home and c) I'm sure it would have looked really weird.

Then came the really fun stuff... dinner with the family! My dad's birthday celebration continued with a limo ride into 'The City'




My mom took this- not that it's bad mom it's just that the door is open :/


We ate a family favorite seafood restaurant and it was the.best.ever. I was still slacking on my picture taking duties and my mom basically took charge of the camera for the night (thank god- even though I tease her incessantly about it).

I love food *sigh*

Crab legs, lobster, shrimp, ribs, onion rings, rice... heavenly.

We stayed at my parents house until 2 am laughing, joking, eating, and just having fun. On Sunday, I stayed home. The weather was crappy, the baby was heavy, and I just couldn't get myself together. When i finally did come around I was able to get a little bit of housework done. Hubby continued to work on the baby's nursery in the process discover more problems :/

We are getting so close to baby's due date and I never thought I could be excited and nervous at the same time! I can't wait to see what next weekend brings :D