Let's Catch up!

We had a quiet Christmas just the three of us, grandma was sick. Here's a cute picture since I haven't update my blog since then. It felt like Andrew's first Christmas to us :)

Andrew is sitting for longer periods of time now, but he still doesn't catch himself when he falls. We are working on it. The helmet is off! He outgrew it. I don't really see a big difference, which is disappointing. He is just developing very slowly, so he didn't progress much.

We had a few months of bad spitting up and vomiting. His GI put him on Zantac for now and it has really helped. No more vomiting. He's having an upper gi done next week, so we can see if there is anything going on. We also went to a really nice ENT. I'm trying a nasal spray for the congestion he always has. He also has fluid in his ears, we might look into getting tubes.

His surgery for the pin removal from his hip is scheduled for March 9th. I'm nervous and anxious. I hope the recovery is easy and that he isn't in too much pain. I'm mostly afraid of the news they might give us on how his hips are doing. I'm praying for good news.

His first tooth finally broke through this week! At almost 15 months old. Also, thanks to GetPumped, I have enough breastmilk to give Andrew for a few weeks. He also eats a bit of oatmeal in the mornings with pureed fruits and veggies. I also started giving him PediaSmart. He is still not interested in real food.

Mike moved to a cool new office. They have a whole building to themselves. They also grill almost everyday for lunch, so lucky! The bad thing about the new office is having just one car. I drop him off in the morning if I need the car that day. He is also very much into video games lately...oh and politics :S

I finally have more mommy friends and regular playdates, which makes me very happy! I've been having a few Etsy sales lately. I want to introduce prints of my paintings soon. I've also been making flower felt hair clips, but haven't had time to add them to my shop. I recently cut my hair the shortest I've ever had it. I had to buy an iron, because I don't like the way my curls are behaving. 

I will try to update more often so my posts aren't super long. I also need to take more pictures with my "big" camera. Speaking of photos, there are A LOT of mommy photographers around. I would like to take photos of events or parties. I took some of our babywearing anniversary playdate and everyone loved them. Hopefully I'll have the chance to do it more often, maybe for a small fee? 

Maternity Photos

I know, I'm not pregnant anymore, but I still wanted to show off some of the photos done by Love Photography. I'm really happy how they came out. If you are in central Florida and looking for a photographer, I would highly recommend Lora, she is so sweet and easy to work with. What do you think?

One month to go!

I think we finally have all the essentials ready for the baby. We should get our last packages that we ordered online this next week. We did buy the Gulliver crib in white. They didn't have the dresser I wanted in stock, so we went with the Stuva storage system and kind of made up our own dresser.

We decided to use seventh generation disposable diapers for when the baby is a newborn, then we'll try out cloth diapers, we'll probably go with the Flip cloth diapers. We are not using a stroller for now, but we are going to use a baby carrier. For that, we decided on the Ergo Performance.

Today I did my first load of baby clothes laundry, it was exciting! haha I spent a lot of time in the nursery figuring out what to put in each drawer and folding tiny little clothes. I only have newborn to 3 months sizes in there for now, I figured I would keep the rest in a plastic container until he needs to use it.

This past Saturday, I got my maternity pictures taken by this lovely photographer Lora and her husband (Created by Love Photography). She was so nice and friendly. I'm pretty shy about these kind of things and I was nervous, but she made me feel comfortable and relaxed. I can't wait to see them!

I started having my doctor's appointments every week, which really sucks because they are "below the waist" exams every time! Ugh and grrrrrr! I'm finally starting to feel like a "real" pregnant lady, it's getting harder to pick things up, I feel huge and I feel pressure in weird places :S It's still nothing to really complain about though, let's see how I feel next week...

Kentucky

Mike's family reunion was this past weekend in Kentucky. It was nice meeting some of Mike's family (his dad's side) for the first time. It was also my first time in Kentucky. We mostly just hung out at our motel and ate together.

On Saturday, we went to the Natural Bridge Park. We hiked and I got to ride a sky lift for the first time!

On Sunday, we went to the Kentucky Horse Park. We didn't get to see everything because it was pretty hot and I was very tired by then.

But it was a good trip despite the hot weather. We went to the town Mike grew up in... that was cool to see. We also had a surprise baby shower thrown by Mike's step mom. She even got us chocolate cupcakes! Now I have my first sets of adorable baby clothes. This little one is finally starting to feel a bit more real :)

Coming this November...

Wordless Wednesday

♥ Happy Valentine's Day ♥

I hope everyone had a lovely day. After two days of being out and about, today we had a relaxing day watching movies, cooking chili and of course, baking something sweet. We made these easy individual fallen chocolate cakes, aka molten lava cakes. We had ours with a side of french vanilla ice cream. Here's the recipe that makes 4 individual cakes. Enjoy!

Ingredients

1/2 stick of butter
4 ounces bittersweet or semi sweet chocolate
2 eggs + 1 yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon flour + more for dusting
Confectioners sugar for sprinkling

Instructions:

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease and flour 4 ramekins. Melt the butter and chocolate in a heat proof medium bowl. Beat the eggs, yolk, vanilla, salt and sugar on high speed for 5 minutes.

- Scrape the egg mixture over the melted butter and chocolate. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture. Gently fold egg and flour into the chocolate until mixture is uniform in color.

- Pour batter into prepared ramekins. Bake for 11 minutes. Run a paring knife along the edges of the ramekins to loosen the cakes. Invert the ramekins onto serving plates and cool for 1 minute. Lift ramekin and sieve a light sprinkling of confectioners sugar. Serve immediately.

A new month...

Apple-Braised Pork Pot Roast

Among our many Christmas gifts these year was a subscription to Cuisine at Home. We rarely eat pork, but this recipe sounded just so good. Anyway, I made it and after 4 hours, it did turn out delicious. We're having leftovers for dinner tonight, yummy!

Butter Pecan Cookies

These are probably the easiest cookies I've ever made. Simple and delicious! Yesterday I was in the mood for something with pecans and our usual cookbooks didn't have anything fast and easy... yes, I needed some instant gratification.

I was in a weird mood, probably caused by the fact that I fell over the opened door of my dishwasher. I hurt my shin, it was swollen and it bled a little, yes I'm a big wimp and well, it scared me, it still hurts...

Anyway, back to my cookies! I went online searching for a recipe and found this great one, thanks Martha Stewart! Here's the recipe taken from her website:

Ingredients:

-3/4 cup pecans
-1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
-1/3 cup sugar, plus more for coating
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1/8 teaspoon salt
-1 cup all-purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a baking sheet, toast pecans until fragrant, about 6 minutes. Let cool completely; finely chop.

2. With an electric mixer, cream butter and 1/3 cup sugar until light, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla, salt, and flour, scraping down sides of bowl, just until dough comes together. Fold in pecans.

3. Separate dough into 12 pieces; squeeze dough to shape into balls. Roll in sugar. Place, 3 inches apart, on a baking sheet. Gently flatten with the bottom of a glass (reshape sides if necessary). Sprinkle with sugar.

4. Bake until golden brown, rotating sheet halfway through, about 15 minutes. Sprinkle with more sugar. Cool cookies on a wire rack

(Makes 12 according to her instructions, but you can just make the balls smaller and keep an eye on them so they don't burn)

I actually had to hide ours because Mike wouldn't stop eating them, and well, we are still following a low carb diet supposedly he he. Enjoy!

Bliss...

( I rolled the cookie dough log in chopped pecans before slicing. Someone wasn't lazy like me and wrote down the same recipe we used to make these yummies, click here to get it)

Coconut Macaroons

I know, not very Christmas-ee, but my mother in law likes coconut, so I made these for her as a gift. They are also super easy to make, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

- 1 (14 ounce) package flake Coconut
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 6 tablespoons flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 egg whites
- 1 teaspoon almond extract

(As you can see, it's pretty easy to half the recipe, which is what I did)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour baking sheets; set aside. Mix coconut, sugar, flour and salt in large bowl. Stir in egg whites and almond extract until well blended. Drop coconut mixture into 36 mounds, 2 inches apart, on prepared baking sheets, using about 1 tablespoonful of the coconut mixture for each mound. Bake 20 min. or until edges are golden brown. Immediately remove from baking sheets to wire racks. Cool completely.

You can also melt some semi- sweet baking chocolate and dip or drizzle the macaroons in once they have cooled.

Today has been a good day!

• I started my day off with an email from someone wanting a custom set of my hand painted Christmas ornaments. I can't wait to get started on them.

• I had a very silly portrait taken by famous rock star photographer Brook Pifer, at her studio earlier today. Even my friend Isabelle was there.

• On my way back home, I stopped at Whole Foods to get some grass fed beef and I noticed that my favorite cookie dough was buy one get one free, score!

• I came home to find an amazing Christmas present under my tree and also some more awesomeness in my bank account. We are truly loved around here. It's been a wonderful holiday season this year!

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

Mike and I made my birthday cupcakes yesterday. I wanted something lemony and pink. So we just added the juice and zest of one lemon to our regular yellow cupcake recipe. Then we iced them with a delicious (pink) butter cream frosting that just melts in your mouth... so good!

Fresas

My favorite snack lately: strawberries, almonds and cheese.

Star Trek and Cookies

Hello! Mike and I are going to go watch the Star Trek movie later tonight. How did a girl like me get into this Star Trek mess you may ask, well let me explain. I made Mike watch the whole series of Friends and Sex and the City with me and in exchange, I would watch Star Trek with him, well let me tell you, there are enough Star Trek episodes for the next 100 years! I must find another girly series for him to watch with me.

We made peanut butter cookies last night. Although I really wanted crunchy oatmeal cookies, like the ones from Panera Bread, but we made those instead. I'm attempting to make a coconut cream pie today for my mother in law, that's the dessert she requested for tomorrow. I can blame Mike if it doesn't come out well, I'm doing it how he told me to.

I finally started working on new paintings for Sugar Village, it's going to be 3 pieces with an A, B and C. I'll show you when I'm finished with them. I want to start making paintings for any age group, because right now, they appeal mostly to people with babies. But every time I try to, it transforms into something cute, I just can't help it. Maybe one day...

Happy

I am done with the census job for now. I turned in all my materials, badge and hand held computer this past Friday. I'm glad I didn't have to quit and that we were just done with our work. They said we would still be in the system, so if they need help with other things, they might call us back.

I made a few sales at my Etsy store this weekend. I have a weekend deal over at Paper Cakes Finds Blog. That really cheered me up since I've had very low sales lately. Now I feel motivated to keep creating new things. So this week, I'll start working on new designs.

I also noticed that I was on Etsy's front page today, which is a big deal for Etsy sellers! I knew because I had a bunch of new hearts. Thankfully, there's this Flickr page were users upload screenshots of the front page. So I was able to see where I was featured.

This week I'm reading a book called Birth Day by Mark Sloan. I've only read about a chapter so far, but it has very interesting facts about child birth, I think it'll be an informative read. That's all I have for you. Have a great week!

Etsy Favorites ♥

Today I want to share with you Kristy's photography. I think her photos are so sweet, romantic and dreamy. I would love to have a few of these in my bedroom. You can look at more of her photographs at her Flickr, enjoy!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade Kristybee.etsy.com

Hi

We decided to go out to dinner tonight to beat tomorrow's crowd. We might go see a movie and bake something cute and delicious tomorrow. In Mexico, Valentines Day is known as "Day of Love and Friendship", so even if you are single, I hope you still have a great day! Have a good weekend.

Today is...

I can't believe it's already been a year since I started this blog. A few highlights from this past year were graduating from UCF, opening Sugar Village and finally getting my drivers license. I also took a few trips. I went to Key West for spring break, Mexico for my cousins wedding, California for Thanksgiving and Miami for Art Basel. I feel like it was a great year! Thanks to everyone that made it happen, I feel truly grateful.