14 weeks

The crib arrived!! Right now it's just sitting in our living room but hopefully this weekend we will put it together. It's too bad my baby bubby just left town to go back to college, maybe I could have sweet-talked him into putting it together for me. He's so smart. Too late now though.

So, I'm 14 weeks along now. V Jr. is now the size of a lemon. No big changes. My jeans today wouldn't button. I have some handy cloth bands that look like the bottom of a tank top that I wear to hide when my pants won't button. Also, apparently they help when maternity pants are a little too big, the bands help hold them up. Fun times. Happily my giant pimple has gone away for the most part. I still think my face looks weird and I don't like my hair. But, the pimple is gone...

13 weeks

I've had a pretty easy pregnancy so far. Not really any nausea, I'm tired but not fatigued. I was pretty irritable but that seems to be going away. The biggest thing is, I've started getting pimples again!!! And not just normal ones like in high school that would go away in a day or two. These suckers are huge, bright red, and won't go away at all! I'm had one on my chin for the last 3 weeks.

Today we took 13 week pictures. V Jr. is the size of a peach. I don't think my tummy has gotten much bigger but a random lady who I see maybe twice a year looked at me through my winter coat and asked if I was pregnant. So, either she's really rude or I'm starting to get bigger. However, apparently my face has become super duper enormous!! I'm looking at these pictures and wondering 1) if my face can get bigger without it exploding, 2) if I weigh 500 pounds, and 3) if I should grow my hair out so I look less fat by drawing less attention to my fat face. V says this is my hormones speaking, but it's not... it's the fat talking.

So, here's V Jr. at 13 weeks. The first one is a close up because V had too much fun posing me and forgot the point of the pictures are the tummy. That's ok though, plenty more fruit to perfect the pictures.

My ode to Thomas Crown Affair

William Tell's son had nothing on me. This is one of the ones in which I look enormous. Just look at my neck rolls and circular face.

Knocked up

Since all three of my followers are family, you all know I'm preggers. Since I only see one of my followers on a daily basis, I decided I should try to be better about documenting my growing tummy. However, I didn't want to do the traditional, stand-to-the-side and hold down my shirt pics. Big sis sent me a cute website in which the lady took her baby bump pics with the fruit of the week. (for you followers other than v, basically every pregnancy email says this week your baby is the size of _______ and lists a fruit.) So, that's what we decided to do. Unfortunately, the blog K sent me is run by a professional photographer so obviously our pics aren't as good as hers. But, it's a fun thing to do together and hopefully it makes the rest of you feel more caught up... if you wanted to. If not, feel free to defriend me. But, since there are only three of you I'll know who you are.

So... here I am with Victor/Victoria Jr. at 9 weeks old

Happy Birthday to You

Tomorrow is V's birthday. But, since we both have to work tomorrow V decided he would like to celebrate it today. Basically it means he gets spoiled and I make him a cake. Some years I go all out and make a fancy cake. I never really make cakes since there are only two of us and a multi-level cake is just too much for us to eat. This year I'm pretty burnt out so I decided to go with a more simple chocolate cake. Luckily, simple doesn't mean boring.

I made Martha's Easy Chocolate Cake. It was definitely easy. It calls for an 8 inch pan, I only have a 9 inch one so I used that instead of buying a new one. It turned out fine, it's just not as thick this way. Which honestly isn't necessarily a bad thing because this is a super rich cake. I also doubled the chocolate glaze recipe to make sure there was plenty. I'm not sure the original amount would have been enough.

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch round cake pan; line bottom with parchment paper. Butter paper, dust with cocoa powder, tapping out excess; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, wisk together cocoa, flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture alternating with sour cream, starting and ending with the flour mixture.
3. Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Allow to cool before attempting to take out of the pan. I transferred it directly to the cake stand. Martha says to put it on a cookie sheet first.

Chocolate Glaze (this is the recipe, doubled)

8 ounces coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate ( ended up using a tiny bit more because I wanted it more like a ganache than a glaze)

1 cup heavy cream

In a small saucepan, bring cream to a boil. Pour over chocolate; whisk until smooth. Let cool until thick yet pourable, 2 to 3 minutes.

This cake was very rich and yummy. I added sprinkles to the top to make it festive. And I love sprinkles. We watched Tootsie while eating cake and now we are watching The Expendables. We have a very diverse television. Enjoy!

Halloween

Every year my office has a halloween party during office hours. It's a pretty nice way to spend a Friday afternoon. There's always a competition for creepiest appetizer and dessert. Last year I spent about 3 days making oreo truffles and dipping them in chocolate and decorating them so they looked like ghosts and witches hats. And I lost. Which is fine because they were more cute than creepy anyway.

But this year I decided I would only spend an hour working on the treats total. So, I saw these cute little guys online somewhere and thought they would be fun. So, make some brownies. While they are cooling take Milano cookies and dark icing with a very small icing tip. Write RIP on the cookies. Then bash some oreos so they are crumbly. I think they are pretty cute. The only problem is, the brownies mix I used (Ghirardelli) is tasty but pretty soft so they are having trouble staying together and holding up the cookies. I should have overcooked them a little I think. I mushed them all together and hopefully they make it to the party tomorrow!

Dinner dinner dinner time

This week I didn't do much cooking. I've started taking pilates classes twice a week which is a lot of fun. However, this weekend I'm going home so I won't be able to take my regular Saturday class so I doubled up during the week. Getting at home at 7 makes it a little hard to cook very much. On Monday V made yummy baked potatoes green beans... and steak for the meat eater of the family. Last night I had leftovers and tonight we had whatever we found in the fridge.

Luckily, the one time I did cook this week it was yummy! I found a blog about a year ago, budgetbytes, that has been kind of hit or miss. It's about budget recipes which is good since I've been trying to stick to a strict weekly grocery budget. I don't make a lot of recipes from the site but every now and then I'll find something yummy. I forgot to take pictures when I was cooking (I get hungry and forget) but I would definitely recommend this for an easy weeknight meal.

Spinach Artichoke Pasta

4 cloves garlic

olive oil

1/2 cup sour cream

4 oz cream cheese

1/4 cup white wine (I used more.. maybe like half a cup)

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup grated parmesan

14 oz canned artichokes

10 oz chopped frozen spinach (defrosted)

Red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper

1 lb farfaille pasta

Saute garlic in olive oil. Then add in wine and reduce (this is why I added extra, so it could reduce and be more flavorful). Add in sour cream and cream cheese until combined. Add milk and parmesan. Allow cheese to melt together. Then stir in spinach and chopped artichokes. Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste. Stir in cooked pasta. I also ended up adding starchy water to the sauce before I added the pasta to make it more sauce-like than dip-like. V and I both loved this one. Enjoy!

Bake sale

The place where I work is funded by the United Way. I think UW is a great organization and they help pay my mortgage but, somethings about them annoy me. One thing is, when a business receives funding from the UW, they are required to have an inner-office fund raiser. I'm not opposed to fund raisers and I like to make donations to organizations I believe in. However, it does bother me that I am repeatedly ask to essentially take a pay cut from the people giving me my pay. It just doesn't seem right. It's no surprise that people in public interest areas are poorly paid, so why add insult to injury.

But, I always feel guilty not doing anything. So, each year I make something for the fund raising bake sale. That way I feel like I'm doing some good, I get to bake, and I don't feel as bad about not donating money. This year I decided to make mini-pumpkin tarts. They were surprisingly easy. Basically, take puff pastry and cut it out in the shape of a pumpkin. Brush with butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Then spoon over any pumpkin pie filling you like and bake a 350 for 25-30 minutes. I don't really like any pumpkin pie except the one made by my brother but Victor said it's tasty. So I'll bring them in tomorrow and see how they sell.