Motherhood

Let me be completely honest here. Being pregnant and the mother of a toddler is hard. I've been lucky enough so far to have a relatively easy pregnancy so far. Yes, I had morning sickness for the first half, but I rarely actually threw up. Once I hit the 18-20 week mark I've felt pretty good. The most negative aspect of pregnancy until recently had been that I failed my one hour glucose test two weeks ago. (I did manage to pass my 3 hour test, but man was I crabby to have to take that!)
Now that I've hit the third trimester the real fun has begun. (If you don't to hear me whine, feel free to skip to the next paragraph.) Since I've finally started to put on the baby weight, I've started to have back pain. It has become increasingly worse this week since I've been sitting in the most uncomfortable folder chairs ever in training all day, everyday this week. Tomorrow is the last day of training, so I'm hoping the lack of extreme sitting will help my poor body. To make life even more fun, I've also been waking up with leg cramps. Two nights ago, it was so bad that they woke me up at 4am. I've increased the amount of calcium and potassium, so hopefully these should lessen. I get heartburn from everything (or even nothing). And since I'm sleeping less, I have very little patience for naughty toddler behavior.
But, after one of the moms in our preschool class lost her baby at around 34weeks, I try to remind myself whenever I get crabby about being pregnant about how lucky I truly am to be pregnant. In less than 12 weeks, I'll (hopefully) have a beautiful baby boy to snuggle.

Craftiness

One of my goals for the next 12 weeks before baby boy arrives is to start and/or finish 50 projects that I've either been meaning to try or just need to do a little bit more to complete. Here are the first three completions.

1 and 2. Pillowcase dresses. The Pink is for my niece/goddaughter Lauren. Since she's is the only little girl in the family, she gets to be the lucky one to receive all my girlie craft projects. The shamrock one is for my friend's dog. Moo is a very stylish pup.

Project #3 is a burp rag embellished with some fabric. I love having these on hand for baby gifts because they are so cute and useful.

I'm hoping to have a productive nap time so I can complete some more projects today. :)

Another Recipe/ Honey Lime Chicken

I really liked this one, but Tim wasn't a fan. I think it could be improved with green peppers.

Honey Lime Chicken

2 lbs chicken tenders
1/2 Tbl garlic salt
1 Tbl oil
1 20 oz can pineapple rings (I used chunks since that was what we had)
1/4 cup honey
3 Tbl lime juice
2 Tbl soy sauce
1 Tbl cornstarch
Sprinkle chicken with garlic salt. Brown in oil. Drain pineapple. Add one fourth of the pineapple juice to skillet. Cover and simmer 6 to 8 minutes until chicken is golden. Remove chicken. Add honey, lime juice, soy sauce, cornstarch and remainder of pineapple juice. Bring to boil. Cook and stir until thick and clear, about 1 minute. Remove from heat. Allow to cool. Place chicken, pineapple rings and sauce in freezer bag. Label and freeze.
To serve: Thaw. Heat until sauce is hot and bubbly and chicken is heated through.

Easy Hummus

This is a combonation of a couple recipes I looked at

Ingredients
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed
1 clove garlic (I like to use two)
1⁄4 cup olive oil, plus more for serving
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (I didn't really measure, just used half a lemon)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¾ teaspoon kosher salt

Directions
In a food processor (or good blender), puree the chickpeas and garlic with the olive oil, lemon uice, cumin, and ¾ teaspoon salt until smooth and creamy. You may need to add a couple tablespoons water to achieve the desired consistency.

So simple, cheap, and delicious!

I love garage sale season!

I hit the motherload of rummage sales this morning at Falcon Height Elementary School today. The only thing I specifically have been looking for is 2T size clothing for Carter for fall and possibly some toy tools for Carter.

I ended up finding a Kolcraft Contours stroller for $60 that look almost like new. While it wasn't exactly what I was looking for in a double stroller, I couldn't beat the price and I love the fact that both seats can be forward or backward facing and it works with my infant seat. :)

We also ended up an Evenflo exersaucer for $10. We never ended up getting one for Carter, but I have a feeling that I will need to be putting this little guy down much more than I did with Carter. For that price, I figured I could garage sale it if I didn't use it and I would for sure break even on it. Our other big purchase was a work bench for Carter. He was very excited about it!

I ended up finding some cute sleeping gowns and sleepers for the babe that looked brand new. So excited about all my deals!

Adult pillowcase top

After a failed search all over the web for directions on how to make an adult sized pillowcase top, I took the advice of a fellow crafty nestie decided to somewhat wing it.

Basically I used my bust measurement and added 3 inches for the width. I used 26 inches for the length. Please excuse the horrible pictures. I really need to have DH help me take better ones. The pictures do not do it justice. For a non-maternity shirt I would probably experiment with making the back slightly smaller than the front.

Margarita Chicken

This recipe really couldn't get any easier.

Marinate chicken breasts in 2 cups of margarita mix for a minimum of 4-6 hours (I would probably do longer). (I also added some pepper, garlic, and dried onions to the fix to give it a little more flavor.)

Grill.

We chopped it up and used it in tacos. It would also be good served with some Spanish rice.

Pillowcase Dress

Probably a good thing I'm having a little boy because making pillow case dresses is so addicting. I would never be able to stop making little dresses like this.

There are tons of tutorials out there, but I found this one the easiest to use. http://freshlypicked.blogspot.com/2008/03/pillow-case-dress-tutorial.html