Where were you a year ago?

Me at dad's place, July 2011

Me in Penang, June 2010

 

I was going through pictures recently and came across some pictures that we took when my family came out to visit a year ago.  It is kind of crazy to think of how much has happened and changed in a year.  A year ago, Trip and I weren't ready to start having children yet.  A year ago, we were seriously thinking of extending our international experience for a couple of years.  Now, we feel like moving back to the States is the right thing for us, for now anyway :)  And we are definitely having children...ready or not!  Just funny to think of how much can happen in so little time.

Lemon Squares

Absolutely delicious!

I found this recipe on my friend, Dana's blog.  It looked so good, I just had to try it out and it did not disappoint!  These are a great little treat and they don't take very long or much effort to make either.  If you want the recipe follow this link here and you can get it straight from the source  :) 

Pregnancy Brain

Every now and then I am afflicted with something that I like to call "pregnancy brain".  This term is usually used when my mind goes blank or I forget something that I normally wouldn't.  Recently, Trip has also been exhibiting symptoms of pregnancy brain.  Between the two of us, we are starting to compile quite a list of funny moments.


Moment 1:  After one of our babymoons, I had gone to pick Jack up from the neighbors house.  When I got home, I put his food away, took care of his things and moved on to unpack our bags.  Later that day, I opened up the fridge to get started on dinner and saw this...

One of these things is not like the other...

Not sure how that got there because I don't remember putting it in the fridge at all!


Moment 2:  Trip made stir fry for dinner the other day.  Those who have eaten with us before know that we are huge fans of freezing rice for quick consumption later.  This time, we were low on frozen rice so we made a fresh batch.  It wasn't until a couple of hours later when I went to heat some food up in the microwave that I discovered the last of our frozen rice sitting there waiting to be warmed up.  I asked Trip if he had put rice in the microwave and he assured me that he hadn't...until he saw the rice sitting there.  That's when he realized that he too was experiencing pregnancy brain.


Moment 3:  It was my turn to teach the Young Women a few Sundays ago, and I had been reminded several days before. It wasn't until literally 1 hour before class that I remembered to look at the topic!  Needless to say, it was an interesting lesson and I had to confess to the girls that I have become rather forgetful.  Lucky for me, they are a forgiving group :)


Moment 4:  Trip was getting ready to take Jack out this morning as usual.  He put his collar on, put him in his crate, and took him out to the elevators, as usual.  When he came in to grab a key, he sat down at his computer and promptly forgot all about Jack for the next hour...it wasn't until we both heard Jack's collar jingle that he jumped up and said "oh crap, I forgot about Jack!"  Pregnancy brain struck again.


I know there are other classic moments, like when I forget what I am saying mid-sentence, but true to form, neither one of us can remember any at the moment!

Claimed!

For some unknown reason, Jack gets really excited whenever we pull out new towels.  We recently discovered that when I am sitting on a towel to do stretches, he will get in the way because he just has to sniff every inch of it.  He really doesn't appreciate the fact that I get in his way while sitting on the towel.

Trip put a towel down to do sit ups on the other day, and Jack immediately claimed it as his.  It was too funny not to share.  Jack must have learned that if you don't sit on it immediately, you may lose to someone else!  Looks like Trip lost this time :)

31 Weeks

I am currently at 32 weeks, but my pictures are from week 31.  We are now entering 8 months and things are looking good!  I got my RhoGAM shot yesterday, which basically prevents my RH negative blood from producing antibodies that will attack my baby's blood, if she is RH positive.  Good times :)  


The doctor says everything is looking good and when we did the ultrasound, she was still in a great birthing position...this girl is just ready and waiting!  They estimate that she weighs about 4 pounds now, so she still has some weight to gain, but she shouldn't be too big either (thank goodness!).  I am now going to be getting a checkup every 2 weeks or so, which is kind of crazy.  I can't believe we are almost at the end of this pregnancy journey!  I am nervous and excited all at the same time.

Strawberry Banana Cupcakes

I came across this recipe a long time ago and then forgot all about it.  Recently, I rediscovered it when I was looking for something new to bring to a party.  I thought they turned out pretty well and they aren't bad as cupcakes, but I think next time I will not frost them and just have them as breakfast muffins.  They stand alone really well, and were more dense like muffins than cupcakes anyway :)

Banana Strawberry Cupcakes

Makes 20 Cupcakes 

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup vanilla sugar (or substitute regular sugar, which I did)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• grated zest of one lemon
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 1 cup of chopped strawberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, stir the eggs and the oil. Add the bananas, strawberries and lemon zest.
4. Add to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Spoon into cupcake papers, about 3/4 full
5. Bake 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. 
6. Cool on a wire rack and frost.

Cream Cheese Frosting

(This is my standard recipe)

Ingredients

• 4oz Cream Cheese
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla
• 2 cups Powdered Sugar
• 1/2 stick butter

1. Mix together.  Can add more vanilla or sugar to taste.

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If you try these out, let me know what you think!

Lesson learned the hard way...

Yesterday I discovered that a project I had completed a couple of years ago did not get backed up like I thought it did.  This project was something that I spent tons of time on and it was meant to be a resource that I could turn to and reuse in the future.  The time to reuse it has come and now it seems that it is gone.  The really lame part is that Trip had tried telling me to put it into Google Docs, and even offered to show me how to do it, but I was too proud, and convinced that using a word document would be just as good.  That was before I realized how smart and awesome my husband is...


Now that the computer it was saved on has crashed and there is no backup I am wishing that my pride and poor judgement had listened to reason!

Presents

I am such a lucky pet mom.  I have a cat who insists sleeping on me no matter how hot or cold it may be because she loves me.  And I have a dog who loves me so much that he even thought to get me a present for my birthday and our "eternal" anniversary.


For my birthday, Jack got up on the bed to cuddle when Trip and I woke.  He fell asleep and, like a toddler, proceeded to wet the bed.  How did he know that all I wanted for my birthday was to wash the sheets?!  What a sweetheart.


For our sealing anniversary, Jack waited until the end of the day to surprise us with his present.  Trip went downstairs to meet a friend who was spending the night with us and I took the trash out.  We were absent for literally less than 2 minutes, but that's all he needed to prepare his surprise.  It took me a little while, but eventually I went into our room to grab my water bottle and noticed that it smelled funny.  I started checking the floor and didn't see anything, then turned and saw it...Jack had pooped and peed right in the middle of our bed!  I should mention that we had taken him out no more than 15 minutes before he left this little "present" and he, in his generous and loving nature, had decided to wait and surprise us instead.  It went all the way through to the mattress, and yes, it was 10pm and too late to wash everything and be able to sleep in our own bed that night.  I was so happy about this that I didn't even think to take a picture until too late.  Oh well, that's what memories are for.

Happy birthday mom!!

Happy Birthday to me!

It's been a few weeks since my birthday, but it's never too late to post about the celebration :)  Mom and Steve timed their departure so that they didn't leave until after my birthday, so we were able to celebrate together.  We didn't do anything big this year, just went out to dinner with the Clark's on Saturday and had a relaxing day playing games on Sunday.  It was nice to just spend time together.  This is my last birthday before I have a baby, so it was really nice to take advantage of sleeping in and being lazy :)

I know I am wearing the same thing in a lot of these posts, but the shower, towers and birthday dinner were all on the same day, so not much I can do about that.

Thanks to those who celebrated with me!

Independence Day

Celebrating the 4th of July is always fun, but when you are not living in America, it doesn't always happen (for obvious reasons).  That doesn't mean we don't remember it, it's just not easy to make a big deal about a holiday that the country you are residing in doesn't recognize.  Well, this year we ended up celebrating more than we thought we would and we had a great time thanks to Carl and Paula Curtis!  They hosted a dessert potluck on Monday and invited a bunch of us over.  That afternoon, Trip and I went over to help Scott Sanders make his famous Peanut Butter Chocolate cookies and I made Strawberry Banana cupcakes (recipe to follow soon).


At the Curtis' house, we read part of the Declaration of Independence and played a trivia game.  And, of course, we ate.  Here are a few pictures that I managed to take.

Group shot

I love the look on Trip's face here

As things were winding down...so a lot of the food is gone

It was nice to get together with friends and celebrate the freedoms that we were lucky enough to be raised with.

Petronas Towers

While mom and Steven were visiting, we decided to do the typical Kuala Lumpur tourist thing and visit the towers...you know, the ones that put Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the map :)  The visitor's center and tour itself weren't really that impressive, but the views from the towers were beautiful.  Here are a few of the pictures we took.

Trip and I on the sky bridge at the 43 floor

Trip on the 86 floor with one tower and KL Tower in the background

View from the 43 floor (similar to the one from our apartment, but much higher)

Same view but from the 86 floor.  Pretty amazing!

Malaysia Baby Shower

My dear friend Hilary (who is also pregnant and due just a few weeks before me) was kind enough to throw a shower for me a few weeks ago.  It was beautiful, simple, and so nice to spend some time visiting with friends that I haven't seen for awhile.  Here are some of the pictures that she managed to take while we were visiting and opening presents.

The food was so yummy and the decorations were so nice!

These cake pops are something that I really want to learn how to make

I really like this picture

This wasn't the whole group, but it's one of the few pictures with Hilary in it (one the end next to me)

Thank you, Hilary for a wonderful baby shower!

Das Chops

I really should be catching up on Mom and Steve's visit out here as well as what we have been up to lately, but Trip (amongst others) has been patiently waiting for me to post about his long anticipated chops.  So, here they are in all their glory :)

The before shot

The after shot

A good side shot

Steve showing off his pimpin' suit and Trip showing off his fluffier chops (and general Irish awesomeness)

Jack wanted to be a part of the picture and just came and sat there on his own

Got chops?