Snow Day, Birthday, Stay Warm Day

Got the beloved 6:00am phone call from work Thursday morning, "Code Red, don't come in." On top of that, it was Joe's Birthday! Double whammy! Rolled out of bed, swaddled ourselves in everything fleece and went down stairs to start the day off right, with pumpkin pancakes.

We spent the whole day relaxing, eating, eating, eating, eating, eating, watched a movie...while the outside world slowly covered itself in a thick blanket of snowy powder.

Made Joe a derrrrricious lamb dish for his birthday dinner, which we devoured too soon for a photo opp...but was able to catch a photo of the raspberry souffle we nommed for dessert.

All of this delight was unknowingly coming to an end....

Because we soon lost power after our day o' feastage. And didn't get it back until this morning.

'Tis what close to three feet of snow will do I suppose.

All is now well and we are eeever so grateful our power is back, got heat, and warm water to take showers.

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Cozy Paws

Woke up feeling a bit crafty. Found a couple patterns for baby shoes and gave 'em a whirl. They're so freaking small, so freaking cute.

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Living room/dining room before and after shots! We've still got some things here and there to finish up...sometime....

Next up, kitchen, bathroom and Lady's room pics!

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Feeeeeed Meeeeeee

And WHERE is this delectable, finger lickin', nom-nom, movie night popcorn slathered in homemade caramel and chocolate going?!

In.

Mah.

BELLY!

Just entered the 36 week mark. Only 4 more to go! Well, I mean, she can ring the doorbell anytime SHE wants I guess. We're anxiously waiting to meet her. : )

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We've been nice and busy lately. : ) The duplex is still coming together bit by bit along side our preparation for Little Lady's arrival. Got to take some pictures of a septet here at WP recording creations of Raymond Scott. A quickie sample of some of the ones I thought turned out well.

Enjoy!

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New Furniture

Had a bowl of cranberry walnut oatmeal for breakfast this morning while the temps outside skirted around the upper teens. The best part...I got to use my new and developing TV tray Joe got me!

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Sneaky Peaky

Soooooo, after working non-stop on the duplex for 7 weeks, we've taken the unpacking thing pretty slowly. I can't tell you how amazing it feels to just sit on the couch with Joe, eat a slow dinner, and watch TV. Seriously.

I did take some pics of the place, to hopefully quench your thirst for a pic update. : )

As soon as we get the plaid, blue, and pink bedsheet window treatments down, boxes completely empty, I'll take more pics.

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Alive

We made it! We finished all the necessities and moved in our new place just a few days ago. Boxes galore. As soon as we get the internets running, pictures are sure to post.

Happy New Year!

Only 2 more months until Little Lady arrives. : )

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Brother Kris with his little munchkin, before she found something worthy of plunging into...

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. :)


P.S. The kitchen is anxiously waiting for appliances, the bathroom flushes, washes, rinses anything, the floor awaits her final cleaning. We move into our new place this upcoming week!

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Quickie Pic Post

Just a few updated shots of the duplex. : ) The new radiators are sexy, the Viessmann boiler commands Trek worthy attention and the bathroom is enjoying Joe's amazing handywork and *ahem....my tiling job.

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Muffins and Mortar

Roughly 3 weeks left before we move into our duplex. Wowzas. Our nasty old 80 year old boiler is trying to figure out why it has to chill out in the back yard heap of trash while our BMW of a newbie boiler gets to crank out, on-demand, 96% efficient toasty water to our brand spankin' new radiators. The basement is now home to a Star Trek motherboard of a heating system. I'll post a pic soon.

The bathroom is playing hostess to it's new layout, tub and shower, tile and electrical; pretty much ready to drywall and paint. Yeehaw!

Joe framed out the new door frame and closet for our Little Lady's room and will do our bedroom next. After that, we're ready to put down some new flooring.

The muffin beauts pictured above are a weekly request from Joe. Pumpkin muffins with a walnut crumble topping. Although sometimes I'll rotate in a chocolate chip laden batch, so good. Here's the recipe....add 1 cup of chocolate chips into the batter if you'd like, or google any sort of crumble topping to sprinkle on top if you're more of a crumble person.

I'm getting off the couch to go grab a muffin...


Pumpkin Muffins

1 2/3 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 T. pumpkin pie spice**
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 c. canned pumpkin puree
1/2 c. butter, softened

Mix ingredients well. Pour into greased muffin tin (or use muffin liners). Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Don't over bake or they will be dry!

**No punkin pie spice?! Use the following combination: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon cloves. Mix together and you have the equivalent of 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (and it is much cheaper than buying it premade). So for this recipe, you would need to triple the above amounts to equal one tablespoon pumpkin pie spice.

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Weeeelcome To The Danger Zone

We've been at it! Or rather....Joe's really been at it. I can't believe how hard he's been working. He heads over to the duplex right after work at around 3:30-4:00 and cranks out a solid 6 to 7 hours of work each night. I've elected to be put on fire guard, burning nasty ceiling tiles, slats of wood from the plaster walls, and random pieces of cardboard. Powered with our homemade cinder block fire pit, I've been crankin' nightly flames Smokey the Bear would fear.

So far, we dug out the nasty dirt floor of a basement, laid down a couple tons of gravel, then poured another couple tons of concrete on top. Our friend Jeremy ended up being the bull float master and did an amazing job smoooothing out the cement. My friends, not an easy task.

The entire bathroom has been taken down to the studs, Joe replaced and rerouted all of the plumbing so we can make the most of the tiny bathroom....a ridiculous feat in tetris piping skills. Tub/shower should be going in today, along with a new subfloor. Yay!

A couple of buddies came over and helped Joe tear down a few walls in the living/dining/kitchen area. We exposed the ancient brick chimney and love it. Definitely a keeper.

Things are crankin'!

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Making Sure We Eat Our Spinach

We closed last Thursday! This is what we did the next day. : ) More...MUCH more to come....

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22 Weeks

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19 Weeks

Buddha belly has arrived in full force this week. Passers by are definitely beginning to give me the "is she expecting....or is she just kinda fat?" look. :) Coming up on our next ultrasound.... if Critter isn't shy or squatting on legs, we should be able to find out if we're harvesting a boy or a girl. Yay!

We got our duplex appraised and all systems are go. Probably closing in a week! Let the sledge hammering begin.

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Growing

It's looking like we'll be closing on our duplex within the next 3 weeks! Then it's going to be a crazy 5-6 weeks of replacing the heating, windows, kitchen, flooring, plumbing. Yeeyah! Seriously though, having the opportunity to make our cozy place exactly how we want it, is worth allllll the work.

Things on the baby front are amazing as can be. We had an appointment with our midwives this afternoon and got to hear the heartbeat again. Definitely can't button any of my pants anymore; a knock-off version of the BellaBand I got on Etsy is definitely paying off. I'm chowing protein laden mini meals throughout the day, drinking a tincture to help with my varicose veins, doing a little light cardio, and getting foot rubs from Joe. We're in the 17th week of things and I'm not quite "showing" much. My midwives attest this delay of protruding gut to my long-ish torso and...**ahem**..."nice abs".

I promise I'll post fat pictures as soon as this belly of mine starts inflating a little.

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Had an awesome Paula Dean worthy meatloaf dinner with all the fixin's the other night. Friends of ours invited us over and we couldn't say no to such a feast. Mashed taters were there too... mmmmm. We topped it off with homemade caramel apples lathered in chocolate chunks and peanuts.

A pregnant lady needs 85-95 grams of protein a day you say? Fear not, I love to eat.

I can't fasten the clasp on my deliciously fashionable Class B pants anymore. Or my jeans, or my dress pants, or my corduroys. I love sweatpants.

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