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