While the weather is (was) nice, lets work on the crib!

In shopping for Baby Fish I was having a hard time finding the just right crib that was exactly what I want for the nursery.  The bedroom we are using is already painted dark chocolate brown.  So a dark wood crib is not really what we I want.

We were fortunate enough find a crib on a swap shop for a decent price, and it was the style we I wanted, a 2 in 1 crib.  So it will go from a crib to a toddler bed, and then we can put the full size bed we already have back in the room when she is old enough for a big bed!

Never too much turkey!

This time of year everyone overeats and gets waaayyy too much turkey.  I however LOVE turkey, but never think to make it any other time of the year.  And we usually end up at one or both of our parents houses so there aren't many leftovers to bring home.  So this year after my husband mentioned how much he LOVES dressing, and my chicken dressing casserole I decided to get a small turkey and make a meal for the two of us, so we get a lot of leftovers!!!  Well, a lot of turkey leftovers anyway!

Our menu is:
Turkey
Dressing
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Green Bean Casserole
Deviled Eggs
Pumpkin Pie (my MIL made pie for us)

Week 21!

As I posted last week measurements on the size of my little Guppy are unknown right now just because we didn't get her length during our appointment, nor can they tell me what that is when I called a few days later, and she was a bit ahead of the game weighing in at 11 oz two weeks ago.  We can assume that she weighs around 13 to 14 ounces, because babies gain around 3 ounces between weeks 20-21....and knowing she is longer than normal we can guess she could be around 9-10 inches long....It's a guessing game really at this point until I get back to the doctor in December and ask.  The main thing is that she is healthy.  And for that I am grateful!  If you could see my baby girl this week she would look something like this....

Photo from Pregnology.com

From this point on most of the changes will be weight gain, and growing in length!  We won't see her again until our 3D ultrasound in early January! By then she will be easier to see via ultrasound and we will have a small idea of what she may look like when she is born in April!

She is kicking/moving more regularly but Daddy still hasn't been able to feel her movements yet because the placenta is up front and it's like trying to feel bumps through a pillow!  I certainly can feel her a lot tho, and she has a lot of fun early in the morning, and at night when I'm laying down, or sitting up.  There is a chance this week he will not only be able to feel her movements finally, but also be able to see them.  Depends on where she kicks/elbows/head butts vs where the placenta is.

It's 'da bomb!

I have been wanting to do a bacon bomb for quite a while now.  Just never took the time to do one.  Until now!  This is a fairly simple process, and you can put whatever you want in one.  I have a pound of hamburger thawed, and about 2/3 of a pound of ground pork that is begging for something spectacular....So I decided to do a Smoky Applewood bomb with cheese!

We love sausage!

On Friday my husband got his first deer of the season.  Super exciting!  I did a post last year about dressing out our his deer.  This year we did it just the two of us, which was interesting because I'm 5 months pregnant, and his deer this year was a gut shot.  If you have ever dealt with a gut shot deer then you know how stinky it can be....and being pregnant with a super sniffer....I posted and laughed about it on Facebook.  Also new this year, instead of making burger out of the entire deer we I wanted some actual cuts, so I found a YouTube video on processing a deer which I am including because I really like the way this guy explains everything.

We kept the loin, tenderloins, ball roast and rump roast, the rest went into bags in a cooler to be put on ice till the next day.  It was almost 10pm when we finished with the carcass...fast forward to Saturday morning....after breakfast we cleared off the counters and got two stations set up for removing silver-skin and connective tissues.  My husband set his station up with a stool...I did tease him about making his pregnant wife stand, so he gave me the spot with the seat.  Such a sweetie.  It took us all day (it felt like all day) several hours to trim everything up, and about an hour more to grind it up.  Two pounds of ground went into a vac seal bag destined for chili, 2 lbs is in a bag in the fridge for the Bulk Venison Breakfast Sausage and 3 lbs is in another bag in the fridge for the Venison Summer Sausage

Because the summer sausage takes over 24 hours to make I am starting with that.  Well I was going to start with that!  Our deep freezer is nice and full of meat right now.  We went in with our neighbors and got 1/4 side of beef.  So I am using a pound of the hamburger for this recipe.  Course the packages we reiceved have two pounds per in the hamburger, so I will make something else with the extra pound, after it has thawed.  I got it out last night and left it in the fridge overnight, and it's still frozen solid....gonna leave it on the counter while I move on to the Breakfast Sausage....

My first step today was to put on my new apron...it's super cute, and lots of pockets!  Thank you Sharon over at MS Purses for whipping it up for me!  She makes purses mostly, but she is a very talented seamstress!!!!

Gotta protect that bump!

None of the components for the breakfast sausage are frozen so I can just dive right in!  I got the smallest package of pork that I could, but there was still more than I needed, I'm sure I will find something else to do with it....so gather your ingredients and lets get started!  I want to note that we opted to make a partial batch of the sausage until we know if we like it or not.  There is nothing worse than making something in bulk only to find out it's not that great!

Then measure out your ingredients....

And remove any jewelry then dig in with both hands, it's cold, but it's the best method.  I didn't get any pictures because my hands were covered in stuff....after you have it mixed you can use a scale or just eyeball it out into 1 lb packages.

 We didn't do a full recipe so we ended up with 2-2/3 lbs of breakfast sausage.  Two pounds got sealed up with my handy vacuum sealer!  I LOVE this thing!!!!!

The vacuum packages are headed to the freezer, and the leftover chunk is going to be made into biscuits and gravy soon!

The hamburger is FINALLY thawed out so I can now make the summer sausage.  We are doing a full recipe of this because it never lasts around our families.  So as always, gather everything you need.

Combine everything in a big bowl, I couldn't find my onion powder, so I used chopped onions and increased it to 2 teaspoons

dig in with your hands and get it all mixed up!

Once it is all combined you can start the sausage making process!

Divide it out, I chose to do 1 pound sausages

Form a log packing it as tightly as you can, then wrap with foil, shiny side in.  I like to give my ends a little twist to help pack the sausage even tighter,  don't twist too tight or you risk ripping the foil.  Then it goes in the fridge for 24 hours....

Once the 24 hours has passed you preheat the oven, and pierce the underside of the sausage and put them in a broiler rack, or in my case a large sheet pan with a wire rack on top, and they cook for an hour and a half...now is when I wish I could let y'all smell the wonderfulness!

We went to Cabela's today and saw the summer sausage casings, which is a bit too late for this batch, but maybe next time I can put it in a casing instead of foil.  Enjoy!

DIY heaven!

Pinterest is full of DIY clothes and other cute things for little girls.  So I decided to drag out my fabric stash and try one!  I will link to the sites where the tutorials or instructions are, so I'm just going to post the finished garment!  Let's have some fun!!

It's a cold day, great for soup!

I don't think the temperature here has gotten over 50 degrees today, and it's been cloudy all day.  The weather is supposed to really turn icky tomorrow.  My husband has been out hunting all day and he finally got one!!!  Don't worry, no pictures this year, although we will be processing it when he gets home.  I wanted something warm, but wasn't exactly sure what.  So I threw together a quick pot of Potato Soup!  Cheater style...chop up some bacon and brown it up

Then toss in about a half a bag of potatoes o'brian and let them brown up a bit and thaw

After it's browned up add about a tablespoon of chicken soup base.

The cube up about 8 oz of Velveeta, I just happened to have the queso blanco open so that is what I used.

And pour some milk on it and let the cheese melt, and the milk warm up, but don't let it scald!  Taste it and add some fresh cracked black pepper to taste!

Pair it with some bread and you have a meal!

Enjoy!!

Week 20!

Hey there Baby Fish!  This week she is between 6 - 9.8 inches long and weighs over 11 ounces!  I don't know exactly how much weight she will pack on in the coming weeks, but she is long and weighs more than the growth charts say!  From this point on babies will all develop at a different rate, but my little one will be growing about ten times the size she is now before April!  And starting next week the measurements will be from crown to toes instead of crown to rump...Baby Fish was measuring a bit "Big" for last week when we had our anatomy scan, at a whopping 11 oz, but they did not change our due date, she is still due in April!  And on a fun note, she is no longer a bobble head!  Her limbs have reached the correct proportions, and if you could see her now she is sprouting eyelashes and eyebrows.  Cute huh?  We have also reached a milestone, I'm officially at the halfway point!

Photo from Pregnology.com

While I have been out shopping for maternity stuff there was a discussion as to what month I am in, it is the second trimester, and according to What to Expect I am in the 5th month which goes from about week 18 to week 22.

5 month bump!

Now that we know that Baby Fish is a baby girl I have started "cracking out" on little girl stuff.  And being the crafty person I am have been searching Pinterest for DIY projects...here is one little outfit I have started!  With more to come (and a blog post I'm sure)!

Anatomy scan day!

It is the day we have all been waiting for so prepare yourself for a LOT of ultrasound pictures!!!!!  The scan took about an half hour, cause baby was cooperating! Baby Fish weighs around 11 ounces now!!!

We got to see  eyes...

Hands...

Feet...

Really long legs...

A cute little face...

And drum roll please.....

Week 19!

Our anatomy scan is just around the corner!  I will be posting pictures and the big announcement sometime on Monday AFTER we have called our families!

This week besides the exciting ultrasound, we are almost to the halfway point in the pregnancy!  And in other exciting developments Baby Fish's adult teeth start to form this week!  Not to mention Guppy has hit a growth spurt, and is anywhere from 6 -8 inches this week and weighs a whopping 7 to 8.8 ounces, depending on which source you look at!  If Guppy has hair at birth now is when that mop starts to grow.

I have been feeling the internal movement for weeks now, but recently I have felt some from the outside!  Hopefully Daddy can be able to feel tiny kicks this week so it is hands off the bump for everyone else until he does!  I just want to make sure he is the first to feel it, he has been hands on every day just waiting.  I'm sure y'all can understand!  I will let everyone know as soon as it's hands back on! :)

On a more personal note, and a TMI, I did the "squeeze" test a few days ago and I was excited to see a drop of colostrum!!!  It's the little things...although I won't do it anymore because I need to save that liquid gold for my little one!

Recipes are guidelines, right?

I've said it before.  I hardly ever follow a recipe exactly.  Even when baking I add more spices than required because I love flavors!  Tonight my pregnant self decided to try a new recipe I found on Pinterest.  The name of the blog that featured this yummy photo is Bacon, Butter, Cheese & Garlic.  The recipe?  Baked Italian Chicken And let me tell you, the picture is SUPER enticing! See?

baconbuttercheesegarlic.blogspot.com

You want to make it now too don't you?  And remember I'm pregnant, duh, so any blog that features some of my favorite ingredients must be a hit!  The only issue I had with this when I started gathering my ingredients was that I noticed that the recipe doesn't include bacon....an oversight I'm sure!  I also switched out minced garlic for the garlic powder.

The artichokes are being drained...hence the reason they are not pictured

So I decided to add bacon!  It is a common pairing with chicken (at least in my house), so why not?

While the bacon was starting to cook I got to chopping....onions and tomatoes

The onions go into the pan with the bacon and the mushrooms (I got the pre-sliced)

While those are cooking I put the chicken in a pan...

And melted the cream cheese and mixed in everything else, and ran out of room in my bowl to add the spinach, so I just covered the chicken with it...

Then topped it with the cheesy-bacony-yummy sauce!

And popped it in the oven at 350, for 30 minutes...I think it is going to take a lot longer than 30 minutes, I checked it halfway through and the chicken is still VERY raw looking.....we shall see...in the meantime I am having a VERY hard time not eating the other half of the Italian bread I purchased to go on the side....VERY hard....

Once I determined we would actually be able to eat this meal sometime tonight...I started the Linguine I am serving the chicken on. And put the garlic bread in the oven.   And sprinkled the shredded cheese all over the top of the dish!

Next time I am going to brown the chicken in whatever is leftover from the bacon onion and mushroom pan....give it a head-start to cooking!  But this time, I'm just going to chow down, because I'm hungry and this smells soooooo good!!!!

Enjoy!

Secrets revealed! Well "what I was cooking yesterday" secrets...

Our adventure started with a food mill (or food strainer)....

Can you guess what we put through that food mill???

Juicy and pulpy goodness...

So what are we making?  If you guessed Blackberries, and making jam....you are correct!  Of course we got all of the ingredients measured out, especially the sugar...cause that has to be dumped in all at once.

And then I got to stir...and stir...

Don't get the baby too close to the stove!

and stir some more

Then the process goes quickly once you add the sugar and bring to a hard rolling boil for 1 minute.  Mom and I have developed quite the smooth flowing teamwork that comes with multiple sessions of canning anything....

Filling, wiping, lids, transfer to the boiling water for canning and grabbing another jar and lids...we are like a well oiled machine

We made two whole batches of straight seedless blackberry jam....then were short about a cup for the last batch, so we thawed and threw in some whole raspberries....YUMMO!  So it's not seedless, but oh so good!

All in all we ended up with 32 jars of jam....

Blackberry on left, Blackberry-Raspberry on right