Food Glorious Food

The beginning of my pregnancy my diet consisted mostly of these staples: Saltines, cereal, oranges.
I'm just now starting to get back into cooking and Mackenzie has decided she needs to be apart of the process every night. Keith was home early enough one night to document his girls making some stuffed french toast.

Cute apron courtesy of Grandma Joan.

Please ignore our hair, mine doesn't know what to do with the humidity and Kenzie's styles never last more than a few hours.

We learned this recipe at YW's and I love the simplicity of it:

Cut a loaf of french bread in half. Soften up some cream cheese and spread it on both sides of your bread. Dice up whatever fruit you love and press lightly into cream cheese on one side. Put your bread together and cut in slices. Whisk together some eggs, a little vanilla, a generous amount of cinnamon and a little milk. Heat a skillet to 330. Grease hot skillet with butter. Dip your slices into the egg mixture and cook on each side until golden brown. Serve with Buttermilk Syrup.

Some people like to blog about beauty/cleaning products they love. As my life kind of revolves around eating right now, I'm going to share some of my obsessions in that category.

First off, has anyone tried this yet? AMAZING. We bought 2 boxes to start and they were gone within a couple of days. All 3 of us are obsessed.
Peanut Butter+ Oatmeal+ Milk+ Brown Sugar+ Dash of Cinnamon+ Raspberries= Heaven

And for some reason, I have a hard time with chocolate when I'm pregnant which is about as weird as it gets because I'm normally a MAJOR chocoholic. So while M&M's still taste off and hurt my belly, these little guys are replacing them. Not a lot of chocolate but lots of creamy PB. Thank you Reese's!

Spring Break

The rest of Spring break turned out to be pretty relaxing.

We slept in and Keith enjoyed making up for lost time with Mackenzie

On Thursday, we went to Cincinnati. Keith was a good sport and took me to the Gap outlet first. This is the cheapest outlet because a lot of the merchandise has broken zippers or little defects that are usually really easy to fix. I only spent an hour and a half there and we came out with clothes for the three of us all for the price of a pair of jeans I took back to the Gap a month ago.

Driving into Cinci
At the outlet, we had the luck of running into a sweet woman in the ward who gave us her passes to the Newport Aquarium. We've heard a lot about this aquarium the past couple of years and were really excited to get a chance to go. It definitely lived up to the hype and was most enjoyable because we could go on a weekday when it wasn't busy.
I don't know what I would do if I encountered these guys in the ocean:
Their faces made me laugh in this photo:
The jellyfish were so beautiful! I don't have any good shots because the room was dark but there were several tanks of different kinds of jellyfish swimming to classical music.
The shark tunnel was the highlight. We spent a lot of time watching them swim and imagining we were underwater with them.

After the tunnel, we were able to pet some of the sharks. They weren't as smooth as I thought they would be.

Right outside the aquarium:

This isn't related to break but for documentation I thought I would include a belly shot. I have 3 total with Mackenzie and I hate that I didn't take more. My belly is completely different this time around. I'm 17 weeks now and I feel so good that if it weren't for my voracious appetite, afternoon fatigue, and little kicks, I would forget I'm pregnant. Hooray for actually enjoying my second trimester this time!

For comparison, here's my belly at 13 weeks with Mackenzie

Just Another Day In Paradise

I wanted to post a little bit of every day life because I definitely don't do it enough and I know these are the memories I'll cherish when our kids are older.

Monday marked the first day Spring Break for Keith. We decided a couple weeks ago to take a little road trip to St. Louis where Keith served his mission and the last minute decided against it because our car is having issues.

We started the day off lazily sleeping in then went to Costco. When we got home, we had to make room in our freezer for food and Keith found a can of Orange Juice so I thought Kenz could help me make some Orange Julius. I asked her not to touch the buttons but she's a defiant two year old and the second my back was turned and the lid was off the blender, she pushed a button and that frothy goodness went everywhere. The picture doesn't quite do it justice and I should have gotten Mackenzie in it because she had it all over her. I'll admit I had to stop my flaring temper so I could take a step back and laugh at the situation then document it.

Keith immediately threw her in the bath and he got a little too caught up playing angry birds and didn't really catch the cues she needed to go to the bathroom. Not once in her life had Mackenzie pooped in the tub before and I was just happy I didn't have to clean it out. (Pic taken a few weeks ago)

Did I mention she skipped her nap so she was a little on the cranky side the rest of the day? I took off before bedtime to watch the Bachelor with some friends and I couldn't help but think while I was away how crazy the day had been and yet, I was so grateful for it. Keith's first day of "break" might not have been much of one but we truly love this phase of our lives and our (mostly) sweet girl.

5, 10, 15 weeks

Ignore my gross mirror and lack of photographer, Keith is never home when I think to take a belly shot. I think I'm about the same size as I was with Kenz at this point, maybe a little smaller because I still feel like I'm so in-between looking fat and pregnant right now. I am carrying lower (boy maybe? or just lack of muscle tone) and I'm feeling better than I did the first time around. I wanted to thank everyone for their sweet comments on Facebook and the Blog. We feel so loved and supported. I'm incredibly grateful for this opportunity to be pregnant. These past couple weeks I've been feeling the baby move so much, it's such a reward for the sickness and puts my anxiety at ease.

January: Not much to say about this cold, long month. The new year started off good with a trip down to Georgetown on new years eve with our friends Brian and Amber. We stayed at Amber's parents house and ate too much food and played games. Her parents are really welcoming and made our stay so fun. The next day we watched football, slept in and just relaxed. That night, we met up with my old roommate Katie and her husband Tommy for bowling. It was a blast and we ended the night with dinner at The Parkette Drive In which was featured on Food Network's, Diner's, Drive-In's & Dives. I can always count on Katie to show me where to find good food. As for the rest of the month? Keith spent it either in class or studying (for real I loathe 2nd year of dental school), Kenzie has been building her vocab with phrases such as "Stop it Mom!!" and I spent it sick on the couch.
February has been so much kinder. The weather has been hitting the 60's and (knock on wo0d) we haven't seen snow yet. Blessed sunshine, I've never been more grateful for an early spring so I can let Kenzie out to run around. As you can see above, Kenzie got a new bed. She was SO excited when it came and plays in it all the time. I was really scared for the transition, but she hasn't missed her old crib for a minute. I don't miss it either, her room seems twice as big with it gone and I don't plan on putting it up again for another year. The second picture was just funny. Keith went to check on her a few nights back and that's how he found her. She loves to cram her bed with toys and dolls.

We have continued with our Friday night baby swap. We have 5 other couples in it so our turn doesn't seem to come around too often. Kenz is buds with one boy in particular named Parker. She asks for him almost daily and added his name into a little song we made up about her friends. Keith and I loved the face she's making in this picture.

The Best Christmas Gift

The best gift we received this Christmas was a positive pregnancy test. I woke up feeling like I had morning sickness. I couldn't open anything until I had something in my stomach and the thought of the chocolate I bought for our stockings made me sick. I went ahead and took a test knowing I probably wouldn't be able to get a positive result because it would be such an early result. I could see a glimmer of something on the stick but wrote it off as nothing. A couple hours later the feeling kept nagging me so I took another test and within five minutes I had a very faint positive line. I took it to Keith in a bit of disbelief but neither of us let ourselves get excited, I think we were both afraid something would go wrong. Well the nausea continued day after day and my blood work came back good every week. At about 8 weeks I went in for an ultrasound and everything was good, just measuring a little smaller baby and one very big uterus.

I went in for another ultrasound today and everything looked wonderful! They determined a due date of September 6th which puts me at 12 weeks tomorrow. This ultrasound was amazing to see such a tiny, perfect baby kicking around inside my belly. The heartbeat was nice and strong at 150 BPM. I've been feeling like it's a boy this past month but Kenzie keeps saying she wants a sister and because she's closer to Heaven then I am, she will probably be right.

This pregnancy has been really different from Mackenzie. The nausea started before 4 weeks and continued constantly throughout the day with peak times being about 3-4 hours in the afternoon and sometimes evening. I'm tired but not nearly so much as I was the first time and I've only put on 3 pounds. With Kenzie, I felt sick all day every day for most of the pregnancy with the worst of it being in the first 16 weeks. I'm already feeling much better, just getting headaches now and I'm still having a really hard time working out because it makes me so sick and tired. I feel like my belly's about the same as last time. Even though I haven't gained nearly so much, my stomach is obviously not as tight this time so my jeans have been uncomfortable since week 7. I'm so glad I invested in a belly band because it's really stretched my wardrobe. I am having a hard time with chocolate and sugar just like I did with Kenzie which is crazy for me because I'm normally a chocoholic. I've been craving PB&J's and fast food which I try not to give into often.

This isn't the best picture but I loved Kenzie in it so here was my belly at 10 1/2 weeks. I love winter for the layers, I think I wear sweatshirts at least 5 times a week.
Now that I finally got this post taken care of, I'll try to catch up on January and February.

Christmas Eve

We were able to go to the Olsen's house for Christmas Eve dinner and nativity. Their little boy Nathan was Joseph and Craig and Jaclyn's baby girl played the part of Jesus. Don't let the happy pre-party pic of Kenzie fool you. She was supposed to play the part of Mary but she was being just a little temperamental that night- sorry for the tantrums everyone. I believe Keith was a shepard/wise man. He really rocked that bathrobe. It was a great night!