11 December 2011

16 weeks

The baby bump has arrived! 

This weekend I asked Dan to take some "bump" pictures. When I wear looser clothing you can't really tell that I've got a little one growing, but when I wear tighter tops (or this dress!) it's a bit more apparent. Hopefully it'll start looking more like I have an actual baby bump and less like I ate a really big lunch. :)



08 December 2011

Missing

I miss this.

My garden looks like death. 

This week we struggled to reach 35 degrees. 
When I go to work, it's dark, foggy and icy.
When I come home from work, it's dark, foggy and icy.
I miss going out to the garden in the sunny, warm afternoons, just to stare at my vegetables growing. 
I must have SAD (Season Affective Disorder).

Morning (aka ALL FREAKING DAY) sickness totally shot down any hope of fall harvests or prepping my raised beds for the winter months. Oh well. Now, Dan can do all the hard prep work for me this early spring, since I'll be way preggo. :)

Here's to crossed fingers that my onions and garlic are still growing (or quietly hibernating through the winter months, until the sun starts shining again!) :)



06 December 2011

Baby quilt

I've wanted to learn how to make a quilt for quite awhile now. I like the look of modern quilts, with clean lines or stripes and color blocking. Traditional quilting with the intricate shapes and patterns doesn't appeal to me as much. So having a baby is the perfect time to learn how to quilt and practice my skillzzz.

I decided to make this quilt and somehow found myself waiting in line at Joann's for over 2.5hrs on Black Friday. I can't believe I did that. I did not at all anticipate Joann's being so crowded, but once I saw the good deals and picked out my fabric, I just couldn't leave. I ended up getting enough fabric to make quite a few smaller blankets, as well.



Pinned Image


So here's to hours of quilting! Actually, I've already started it and am quite surprised by how quickly the main patterned section is going. I think I choose a super easy pattern to start with, so I'm excited about that.

04 December 2011

It's about time...

We'll it's about time we shared our exciting news with the blogging world. Most of our blog readers (which, there aren't a lot of you...) know the news anyways! :)


It's also about time Dan and I enter the world of parenting...as we've been married for nearly 5.5 years and together for almost 8 years (time flies!). We are blessed to have made it this far together and even more blessed to have our little one on the way. Although waiting 5 years, (nearly 6 by the time the babe is born!), has seemed like an eternity, I am confident that this is exactly the right time to finally begin our family. We've had a significant amount of time to enjoy being together, getting to know each other and ourselves, traveling, starting our careers and preparing for how we'd like to raise our children.

Despite knowing that this is exactly the right time for us to start a family, it's still incredibly scary and surreal most days. But that's okay. :)

The day we found out. Of course, no baby bump yet! :)
The most surreal moment was actually finding out we were pregnant. I took a test on a Sunday night and the line was so incredibly faint that I didn't really believe it. So I quickly and quietly went to bed, so I wouldn't prematurely blab it to Dan and decided to test again in the morning. Again, there was a line, but it was completely faint. Still not believing that this was actually happening, I stopped at the store on my way home to get a digital test. Words are easier to read than faint, nondescript lines, right? The words PREGNANT popped up so quickly, I couldn't believe it. I ran downstairs to tell Dan. I always thought I would want to have some creative way of telling him, but in the moment I was too amazed to think of anything clever. When I told him he said, "Well, that's what we were hoping would happen....right?" Wow. Nothing surprises him. Of course, Dan being the logical one, also immediately wanted to talk finances and "our plan" etc. 

I thought by now that I would have lots of pictures of my baby bump, etc and would want to tell the whole world. I've actually been a whole lot more private about my pregnancy than I thought. For some reason I assumed that I would be the type of post weekly updates on my pregnancy and put up lots of belly shots, etc., but I've just been too exhausted to even attempt it. Also, up until lately I've really been nervous about something going wrong. But I've been blessed so far, so I've got to stop worrying about things.

Anyways, I do want to document life's happenings and how incredibly excited Dan and I are to bring a little one into our family. So I am going to try and be a more diligent blogger, plus, I've got plans for quilts, baby blankets, crocheted hats, the nursery, etc that I need to share! :) 

So ya'll....expect to see thousands of pictures of our beautiful little child this summer, instead of vegetables! YAHOO!!!!! I knew you'd be excited... :)

11 November 2011

Dear blog...

Dear blog,
   Yes, I've been ignoring you. Some what purposely. One day, I'll get my stuff together and start again. Because I only have 1,000 photos of garden veggies that I know the whole world is dying to see.

Also, I have big news to share with you. Not sure if I'm ready to share it with the big blog-o-world, yet though.

So until then...
 
Carlie

02 October 2011

27 September 2011

26 September 2011

Plans


Even though summers are kind of crazy in terms of menu planning, I've actually been really pleased with how well preparing a menu has turned out for us! This month we've actually stayed on budget for groceries! This is the pattern that works for us: 1 big shopping trip early in the month, a trip to costco, and a small grocery trip for fresh items. If we can stick to that, we do well budget wise. 

Three weeks into school and I am amazing myself with how early I am coming home. I went home "early" 3:30-4pm every day last week except Friday (stayed until 5pm). I'm not taking any work home and I've been finding time to run with the XC team. I even made dinner most evenings last week! This is pure craziness, compared to where I was last year and especially Year 1. I love it.

So we have to hold out until the end of the week to make our budget, but here is what's on the menu for the next 1-2 weeks. We don't cook a big meal every night because sometimes we are too tired or we eat leftovers. So these 9 menus will get us far...
  1. Puff pastry pizza (new!) + green salad
  2. Basil Spahetti w/ Cheesy tomatoes + Biscuits
  3. Lemon Shrimp Salad w/couscous 
  4. Lund-Harris Chicken Tacos 
  5.  Red Curry Mahi Mahi (new!) + rice + marinated zucchini & onions 
  6.  Lemon-herb Fully loaded Potatoes (slow cooker) 
  7.  Grilled Terriyaki Chicken(new!) + spicy sauteed green beans 
  8.  Pork Chops(new!) + Roasted beets, carrots & organges 
  9.  Slow cooker chili