Menu Monday

Here is our menu for this week.

Monday night: Sausages with sautéed cabbage and apples. The sausages were given to us by family friends from south Georgia and the apples are from our camping trip in Blairsville last weekend. The side dish is a new recipe that I’ve never tried before. I found it in the October 2010 issue of Real Simple.
Tuesday night: Roasted tilapia, potatoes, and lemon. This is a recipe from the October 2010 issue of Real Simple. We’ll have it with sautéed green beans.

Wednesday night: Chicken lo mein. This is a really easy short-cut recipe I got off the Real Simple website. It uses ramen noodles and Tim really likes it. 

Thursday night: Chicken, spinach, and cannellini soup. This is a recipe from Paula Deen magazine. With the weather finally getting cooler, it’s the perfect time for soup!

Friday night: Pork chops, sweet potato fries, and homemade applesauce. The original recipe was from Cooking Light magazine.

Saturday night: Southwestern quiche. I’m going to try to replicate the quiche at The Big Easy in Watkinsville. We’ll see if I can pull it off…

Sunday night: Not sure what we’ll have this night. I may just scrounge around the kitchen to see what I can throw together. 

Our little blessing at 14 weeks

I'm posting this a day early because we're going out of town on a camping trip this weekend. And I already missed last week's update because we were out of town for my great-grandmother's funeral. 

How far along? 14 weeks

Baby’s size? The baby is the size of a lemon. The fetus is busy with thumb sucking, toe wiggling, and (not so cute but equally amazing) making urine and breathing amniotic fluid as the liver, kidneys and spleen continue to develop. Lanugo (thin, downy hair) is growing all over the body for warmth.

Maternity clothes? I’m occasionally wearing my maternity jeans. I have a few maternity shirts, but I won’t wear those until I get a bigger baby bump.

Sleep? Sleep is pretty great. I do wake up a few times in the night, but I fall asleep again pretty quickly.

Food cravings? Grape juice! I drank a whole bottle in two days. I also demolished a pineapple in about the same amount of time.

Food aversions? Nothing really.

Symptoms? Nothing really.

Best moment this week? According to the books, the baby should be able to hear by next week. Because Tim thinks our baby is an overachiever, he’s already started talking to my stomach. It’s really cute.

Movement? Nope.

Any ideas about the gender? Tim dreamed that it was a boy last weekend, but we still won’t know for sure for another month or so. According to one of the old wives tales I read online, if you dream that the baby is a boy, it’s really a girl and vice versa. Can’t wait to find out! Check out our guesses in the previous post and cast your vote in the poll on the side of the page!

What I miss about not being pregnant? Compared to the excitement of having a baby, I don’t miss anything.

What I’m looking forward to? Feeling the baby move around. And getting a more obvious baby bump.

No picture for now, but we'll try to take one this weekend while we're on our camping trip. 

Boy or Girl?

We have a little while still until we can find out the baby’s gender. So I thought it would be fun to see what the old wives’ tales have to say about predicting the baby’s gender.

Highs and Lows

This one you can do just by looking south: if you're carrying high, break out the pink. If your bump is low, you're carrying a boy. 

It’s too early to tell, but I wanted to put this up on the blog a little while before we were able to find out the baby’s gender, so we’ll see about this one later.

Be Still My Beating Heart

Next time your OB pulls out the Doppler to listen to baby's heartbeat, ask her to tell you what the heart rate is. According to legend, 140+ beats per minute indicates a girl, and below 140 a boy.

The last time I went to the doctor, the baby’s heartbeat was at 156 beats per minute. According to the old wives, that means a girl.

Sweet and Sour

Craving ice cream every single day? Some people believe this means it's a girl. If you have to have salty or sour stuff, then it's a boy.

I’ve mainly been craving fruit and sweet stuff, so that indicates a girl.

Chinese Birth Chart

This ancient method uses your age at conception and the month you did the deed to determine gender.

According to this, it should be a girl.

Potty Time

This one's a little out there. Pee in a cup (you've been doing it at all your prenatal appointments anyway, haven't you?), mix a tablespoon of Drano in, and watch to see if it changes color. Green = girl, and blue = boy.

We actually tried this one because we thought it was weird and funny. Unfortunately, we are cheap and use the off-brand of Drano, so my urine stayed a normal color. So no official results from this one.

Even and Odd

Legend has it that the Mayans determined a baby's sex by looking at the mother's age at conception and the year of conception. If both are even or odd, it's a girl. If one's even and one's odd, it's a boy.

I’m 25 and we conceived in 2010, so one is even and one is odd. That means it’s a boy.

Unlocking the Mystery

This is one for a friend to try. Place a key in front of your friend and ask her to pick it up. If she grabs it by the narrow part, she's in for sugar and spice and all that. If she picks it up by the round part, it's snips and snails.

Without knowing which one meant what, I picked up the fatter part of the key, which means a boy.

Spot On

If you're breaking out like crazy, blame it on your girl babe. The belief goes that girls steal their mother's beauty, hence, those annoying zits.

I haven’t had a complexion like this since high school. Chalk another one up to a girl.

Nice Ring to It

Pop off your wedding ring-if you still can!-and tie it to a string. Hang it over your belly. If it swings in a circle, a little guy's in your future. If it goes back and forth, you've got a girl.

The ring went back and forth, but it wasn’t swinging a whole lot. So another one for girl.

Queasy Does It

Sick as a dog during the first trimester-or still? Signs indicate you're having a girl. Little or no morning sickness points to a boy.

Absolutely no morning sickness at all, so signs point to a boy.

So according to this (at least the ones that work so far):

Boy: 3

Girl: 5

Not that the results have anything to do with it, but my gut feeling is that it's a girl.

I read that the mother is right about the gender 71 percent of the time. If it’s a boy though, we’ll both be really happy anyway. We really don’t have a preference either way. It’s fun to guess.

So, we'd love to know what you think our little blessing is.

We’ve added a poll on the sidebar so you can cast your vote!

Our little blessing at 12 weeks

I will try to do weekly updates on Saturdays because that is the start of a new week of pregnancy for us.  I found these prompt questions on another blogger’s pregnancy site. I may add or take away some in the future. I have been keeping these entries on my computer since I was six weeks pregnant, so I may post those as well, so you can see how I’ve progressed.

How far along? 12 weeks

Baby’s size? The baby is the size of a plum. As I move into the second trimester, baby shifts into the growth and maturation stage. After weeks in the critical development stage, almost all of baby's systems are fully formed. This week the baby's fingers will soon begin to open and close, toes will curl, eye muscles will clench, and the mouth will make sucking movements.

Maternity clothes? Still wearing my regular clothes, though I unbutton my jeans sometimes after I’ve eaten dinner when they feel a little snug.

Sleep? I was sleeping really deeply at night until the last few days. Now I wake up a ton more and have trouble falling back to sleep. I guess it can be attributed to my first trimester exhaustion waning.

Food cravings? Still juice. I go through about a bottle a week. And this week at the grocery store I really wanted some raspberries.

Food aversions? Nothing really. Still not a big fan of salads, but I eat them anyway.

Symptoms? Not much of anything especially since my first trimester exhaustion seems to be going away. I do have to use the bathroom pretty frequently, but that could also be because I’m trying to drink a ton of water after the doctor told me I was a little dehydrated on Wednesday.

Best moment this week? Going to the doctor and hearing the baby’s heartbeat. Irrationally, because I don’t have a lot of symptoms, it’s easy for me to worry whether the baby is okay or not, so it was nice to be able to hear that quick little thump-thump-thump to reassure me. The heartbeat was measured at 156 beats per minute.

Movement?  No movement, though most of my baby books say I may be able to feel something at about 16 weeks, which is only four weeks away. I can’t wait!

Any ideas about the gender? We have a feeling that it might be a girl. But we’d be happy with either a boy or a girl. A friend of mine said she dreamed it was a girl this week. Another dreamed it was twins. (Wrong!)

What I miss about not being pregnant? Nothing really since I don’t feel pregnant, though sometimes I miss coffee and other caffeinated beverages because I’m trying not to drink caffeine.

What I’m looking forward to? Feeling the baby move sometime in the next month or so! And learning whether it is a boy or a girl so I can start shopping!

And here is a belly picture. I look pretty much the same except for a little pooch under my belly button. We will try to take a belly picture each week to update you on my preggo belly progress.

April

I have never been a big fan of the month of April. April is just one of those months that managed to somehow sneak into the year. I mean, we have September and October when the leaves are turning and you get to drink apple cider and go to fall festivals. Not to mention college football. In November, December and January we get holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas and days off school and work. February has Valentine’s Day and March has typically brought us snow in Georgia in the past few years. May brings spring weather and the end of school. June, July, and August are full sunshine and summer vacations and in our family, lots of birthdays. But what about April? It's just stuck in between March and May.  Although it does have Easter as a holiday, (April Fool’s Day doesn’t count), mostly the month centers on taxes and rain.

A couple of months ago, though, April took on new life for us. April is about six months away and April will be the month in which our first child is born.

We’re both beyond excited. I’ve already bought at least six pregnancy books (one of which was for Tim from the viewpoint of the dad…and he’s actually reading it!). I'm pretending that my belly fat is already the baby showing. I take naps whenever I want and chalk it up to growing a person. I eat everything that the baby wants (which may sometimes just be what I want) and I thankfully have had no morning sickness. So far the lack of symptoms has made it difficult to really accept that I’m pregnant (is there really something in there?), but in the next few months as I start to show, I think it will become more real.

Anyway, needless to say, we now have a reason to look forward to April!

Menu Monday

Better late than never right?

Monday: We had a recipe that my mom makes called Ritz cracker chicken. Basically you crush up Ritz crackers and mix them with parmesan cheese and then dip the chicken breasts into melted butter, then the cracker mixture, and then bake. It is really yummy. We had rice and steamed broccoli with it.

Tuesday: Papa Johns pizza. Because I was craving it.

Wednesday: We ate out again because I got back from Athens late.

Thursday: Durkee chicken. This is a recipe that my mom makes that she got from her friend Jane, I think. It is made using Durkee mustard sauce and butter and chicken over yellow rice. It is soooo good. Tim will not eat it because he doesn’t like mustard, so he is going to be eating macaroni and cheese. Don’t feel bad for him though, because I’ve only made this one other time during our marriage and he was out of town on a camping trip. It’s one of my favorites though, and I’m long overdue for it. 

Friday: Spaghetti with meat sauce and steamed asparagus. I have actually never made spaghetti before (cue the gasps of shock). I have plenty of pasta meals that I do make, but plain ol’ spaghetti has never been one of them. Tim requested this meal made like his momma makes it.

Saturday: Harvest grain and nut pancakes. This is a knock-off recipe of the pancakes at IHOP from a book called “Top Secret Restaurant Recipes.” It is fabulously good and my husband makes them. He has dibs on all the pancake-making at our house because he has memories of his dad making pancakes for him and his siblings on Saturday mornings. I do not fight him on it. Also, because they have whole wheat flour, oats, and almonds in them, I pretend that eating pancakes is healthy.

Sunday: Grilled barbecue chicken, roasted new potatoes, and peas. Simple, easy, and Tim’s mom’s recipe for roasted potatoes is pretty delicious.  

Anyway, not a lot of new recipes this week. In fact, quite a few from our mothers. Can you tell we miss home a little bit?

Home...sort of

Here is a post by my husband Tim:

It's been awhile since our last post. Sorry for that, but we recently got the Internet connected at our new place and we are blogging ASAP!  Jessica and I have been wrapped up with trying to get everything unpacked, mirrors and photos hung, and continue our regular lives. Since the last blog, we have moved everything to our new address, I’ve started a new job, and we began looking for a church home.

The Move:

Moving required a lot of work, and a lot of help from our friends and families.  Jessica spent a couple of days during the week prior to the move packing up boxes for the guest bedroom and bathroom before we had Pizza Packing Wednesday. That Wednesday, we had several family members and friends come over to help us pack the kitchen and anything else we could find. With a lot of hard work over the next couple of hours, the kitchen was empty of most utensils. That Friday, I took off of work a little early and went to rent a U-Haul.  Several guy friends from church and ultimate frisbee came over and helped me load the truck. After about three hours of packing, the truck was ready to make its way to our new home. The next day we left and went to our new place where even more friends made quick work of unpacking the truck. Since then Jessica and I have been working on making the townhouse feel like home.

The Job:

On Monday, Sept. 13, I started my new position as a soil conservation technician with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).  The job has gone very well so far, and I absolutely love the office atmosphere.  The people I am working with are very relaxed, but know when they have to get work done. I'm excited about expanding my knowledge, and getting the chance to work on projects that I get to make decisions about.

Church Home:

Jessica and I have been to one church so far, and it was a good one.  Eagle’s Landing Baptist Church is located near McDonough, Ga., and is a vibrant and very alive congregation.  The senior pastor is Tim Dowdy, and he presented a great sermon on grace.  Jessica and I are going to attended an information class that Sunday night so that we could learn more about the church and what truths they set as the foundation of their beliefs. We will attend a Sunday School class for married couples this coming Sunday. 

Jessica and I are relieved to be finally settling into a new “home” though it doesn't quite have that feeling yet. We are happy to be where we believe God wants us to be and we are looking forward to what the future holds for us.