Oppressed Worker

From time to time Kristen tries to take credit for her sewing machine's hard work. I think this is patently unfair, so here is a video proving that it does all the work, while she takes all the credit:

That will eventually be a ladybug design, with the name Eve underneath it. It also has ladybug ribbon on it.

Also, here is a picture from our garden, that is our first squash flower. There are several other buds on all the plants. We actually saw them get larger during the day! It isn't just the squash either, our pea plants are almost 3 feet tall, and spreading out all over the place.

How's this for Random?

Last night I went to an improv comedy show at BYU with a friend and left poor Ty at home all alone. When I came home I noticed that his gun was out, so I asked him what had happened. He said that he was just sitting at the computer when he heard these people running around and screaming outside our house. So he grabbed his gun and ran outside without even putting his shoes on. It turns out that the people were chasing an escaped pig around our yard. I guess it was going to be slaughtered today and it didn't have a spider to save it. Random.

Naps

For the last few days I've been taking early morning naps. By that I mean that I wake up, eat breakfast, shower and then sleep for an hour or so. I don't really get it, but I seem to be the most tired right after I've had a full nights sleep. Babies do weird things to your body.

Leftovers

Speaking of yumminess, we had leftovers for lunch yesterday. Do you remember eating this as a kid?

Good ol' pigs in a blanket. We just happened to have biscuits and hot dogs hanging out in our fridge and I was feeling sentimental. I must admit I was a little scared that this might be one of those things that stops tasting good when you hit puberty. Don't worry though, it was delicious!

Cookbooks

For some unknown reason I have a huge aversion to looking in cookbooks when I need a specific recipe. I love having cookbooks, and I love looking through them to see what kinds of yumminess they contain, I just never think to turn to one when I don't know what to put in something that I want to eat. (Unless I already know that the recipe I'm looking for is there.) So the other day I decided I should make banana bread because our bananas were on their way out. Did I look in a cookbook? No sir, I did not. I sent an e-mail to my sister saying, "I need to make banana bread. Can you send me the recipe?" Then, about 5 minutes later, I realized that any one of my 26 or so cookbooks was likely to have the very recipe I was looking for. SO I e-mailed back a "never mind" and started looking. Sure enough, I found 7 recipes for banana bread and one recipe for banana oat pancakes. We decided to try out the pancakes and they were really, really yummy. So maybe now I'll start using my cookbooks more. (For things other than dessert!)

Weekend Fun

Well, we've been playing most of the weekend. Yesterday my sister Laura and her husband were up here on business. They had dinner with us (it was really yummy by the way) and then we drove up Provo Canyon and took a bunch of pictures. It was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Definitely what I needed.
Then this morning we went to the Memorial Day sales at the craft stores. Yeah, we spent $300 on fabric. I feel like I should be really nervous about this whole starting a business thing, but I'm really not. Maybe because we haven't actually tried to sell anything yet. Right now it's just a bunch of sewing and I can totally do that. And I even enjoy it. Hopefully it works out and we can actually make money from it. We're going to need that eventually.
Any how, this afternoon we had "barbecue" yumminess. I put that in quotation marks because we had hot dogs and we cooked them in the microwave. Not exactly my idea of what a barbecue should be, but what I really wanted was corn on the cob, watermelon, roasted potatoes and homemade ice cream. Since we had all of that it didn't really phase me that we were eating nuked wieners. It was yummy! (Even the hot dogs.)

Trial Run

Okay, here are my first attempts. The ones that only have ribbon are going to be embroidered as soon as I figure out what stabilizer to use. Let me know what you think.

Super Find

So we were randomly walking down the ice cream aisle at Walmart today and we saw carrot cake flavored ice cream with cream cheese swirls. "What's this?" we wondered. Then we thought, "Well if you like carrot cake, and I like carrot cake and we both like ice cream, how can we go wrong with this?" And let me tell you, it's delicious. Just one more thing to help me in my efforts to be less fat. :)

More Random Stuff

Remember on Monday when I wrote about how incredibly hot it was? Today it's 46 degrees. And I don't mean Celsius. It started raining yesterday and it just got colder and colder. We had to sleep under the blankets last night and that hasn't happened since we got back. It's been kind of nice. Probably because I know it will end soon.
We've been getting ready for Leo to come. I know we still have nearly 2 months left, but once Ty starts school next month there will be things I can't do. Like this:

That's right, we put the crib up yesterday. Partly because we were tired of the box taking up so much space and partly because we just wanted it to be up already.

Also, I've been playing around a lot with the new machine. A lot of stuff in our house is now covered with embroidery. Like our pillow cases. And I did some on Leo's clothes too. (Our poor little boy is going to be such a little nerd with all of his custom-embroidered clothes.) Fortunately we bought some burp cloths today so I can start putting stuff together for real.

Oh, and our peas are starting to get flowers on them. That means they're going to be ready to eat soon! I'm very excited.

Happenings

Just a quick update of what's been going on here the past few days.

• I went to the doctor on Wednesday. He says I'm too fat. (Shocking, I know.) We're now eating a low(er) carb/ high(er) protein diet. It's been a little difficult because I just don't know how to a make a meal that doesn't involve bread/tortillas/various carbohydrate-filled yumminess. At least I'm trying, right?
• Cold Stone now makes chocolate cake batter ice cream. (Don't you love that that came right after the little speech about our new diet?) It's basically the best thing they've ever done. Now I don't have to get chocolate sauce mixed in with my cake batter ice cream. I can just stick with the brownies and nuts/coconut. It makes me happy.
• It's hot here. Really hot. (Read that as 88 degrees plus humidity.) I know it could be worse than that and probably will be before Leo gets here, but I'm dying. I have to wear my hair up every day (which makes for a really attractive Kristen, let me tell you.) And yesterday at church I got so hot I had to leave early just so I didn't faint. I love being pregnant!
• There are millions of beetles in our garden. it's okay though because they eat each other and not our veggies. They do, however, like to sneak into our house and they are hard to get out. I mean, if they don't get a personal escort to the door/window they just come right back to whatever it was they were on when you flicked them away. It's a bit annoying, but at least they aren't spiders.
• Speaking of spiders . . . we gave our first family history lesson today. Part of our job as consultants is to go around to peoples' houses and motivate them to get started. We've taken months to finally get around to it, but now that we've done one it's much less intimidating so it should be easy to keep going. (The reason that has to do with spiders is that as we were leaving we saw a big, hairy, green-faced spider on the people's window. Then we saw a massive pile of ants. It was weird.)
• Last of all, I took a class on how to use my sewing machine today. Holy cow, it does everything! It even sews on buttons. And I learned a bunch of ways to make it look like I did fancy hand stitching on the edges of things when really I didn't. (Keep that in mind if I give you something that looks like it took hours to make!

Radishes

Does anyone have any good recipe ideas that involve radishes? We've run out already, (All we could come up with was soup and salad!) and we're finding that radishes are somewhat difficult to give away. Who knew?

Candy?

Tonight we had an enrichment activity and we made these:

They look like mushrooms, but they're really meringue. Tricky, huh? They're pretty good, but I actually like the stale ones better (they were brought as an example of what they're supposed to look like) because they're chewy. Any how, I just thought they were funny.

Happy Birthday to Me! (And probably Christmas)

I'd like to start by thanking all the little people who made this day possible. The Federal government for giving me back the taxes I paid to them this past year, the people who decided I should get an economic stimulus check, my mother for teaching me how to sew (And ditto to JoAnn P.), my sister Tami for suggesting that I start an embroidery business, and my husband Ty for giving up all the many things he could have gotten with the above mentioned money from the government.

You guessed it folks, I am now the proud owner of a Baby Lock Ellegante II. (That's an embroidery/sewing machine in case you didn't know.)

Isn't it beautiful? I am absolutely in love with this machine. I didn't even know they had things that were capable of what this one can do, and I certainly never thought I would own one. Happy surprises for me.
Oh, and it came with a flat screen TV. It's only 19 inches, but it's way better than what we had before. Plus, who doesn't get excited about a free TV?

Home At Last

Well, we finally came back to Utah. It actually snowed on us in Flagstaff! We were so unprepared for that. We stopped for gas and slipped through icy slush in our shorts and sandals. It was crazy. Once we got through there it was really nice though. Very sunny and around 55 degrees. Definitely a change from what we were seeing in AZ. It was nice.

We got home and found our garden looking amazing. (Don't be too impressed. It's mostly weeds!)

We did pull up all our radishes. Not bad for our first time growing them. And they're really yummy! Now all we have to do is get the rest of the stuff to grow.

Happy Mother's Day!

Have you ever come up with the perfect gift idea only to realize that the thing you thought would be super easy to find is in fact nearly non-existent? That happened to us this week. We decided to get Ty's mom a picture frame that said "grandma" on it since Leo will be her first grandchild. We couldn't find one anywhere! We found #1 Grandpa, #1 Coach, I love my grandkids . . . everything but what we were looking for. We even looked online. We were able to find one frame that worked, but they wanted to charge twice as much for the shipping as we were paying for the frame and it wasn't even going to get here in time. Finally, in a last-ditch final effort, we went to Mervyn's and found one. We even put a picture of my pregnant tummy in it since we don't have any of Leo yet. It turned out really cute and was definitely worth the effort in the end.

Any how, we had a pretty good day. We mostly just hung out with family, which I love. And we ate a lot of really good food, which I also love! We're heading back to Utah on Tuesday so this will probably be my last post from AZ, but things should definitely get more regular after that. 

Update

I've been seriously slacking on the blog here. I know. There are just way too many things going on here in the valley of the sun. Don't worry though. We're headed back up to Utah on Tuesday and I should be bored enough to update regularly. :) Be prepared to hear all about my garden. I'm super excited to see what it's been up to while we were away. My sister-in-law said that we have little radish heads poking through the soil. YAY!

Any how, back to business here. We've been keeping pretty busy these past few weeks. I'm not sure what with, but it really seems like we've been running from place to place. We have gotten to go swimming several times, which is always exciting. Especially when I keep hearing that Utah is still pretty darn cold. In all honesty, it hasn't been all that warm down here either. At least in the water. You have to be really brave and get in as fast as you can. Then once you get your breath back and swim around for five minutes or so it actually feels pretty nice. Of course, I tend to feel a little warmer than everyone else since I have my own personal heating unit installed in my tummy. No one else has complained though, so I guess it can't be too cold. 

We also had a baby shower for me and Leo. It was so much fun. One of those times when you're really, really sad that there's a kid squashing the life out of your stomach because you just can't fit in all the yummy things that you want to eat. (Don't worry. I just made an extra plate and ate it once everyone was gone.) We got a ton of really cute things and things we really needed, like a stroller and car seat. Now I just have to sit around and wait impatiently for Leo to come out so I can use them. Just two more months! (and a week. But we're rounding because it makes me feel better.) 

Speaking of feeling better, I'm not. I had no idea that feet and hands could get this swollen. It makes for an interesting experience. If I didn't have a pair of black sandals that doesn't really touch my feet I would probably have to go to church bare footed. (Not that I don't just take my shoes off as soon as I get there any way.) And I can't even use it as an excuse to buy new ones because I don't want to spend money on shoes that I'm only going to wear for a few months. Woe is me. :) 

Any how, this is getting kind of long. And we've really just been hanging out, eating lots of good things and watching movies. So, hopefully I'll come up with something exciting before we leave. If not, I'll see you on Wednesday!

More Yumminess

This one is actually really good and really easy, so it's making the blog too. I think they're called Buckeyes. 

1 cup creamy peanut butter 

1/2 cup butter

2 cups powdered sugar

2 cups chocolate chips

1. Mix butter, peanut butter and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until creamy.

2. Roll into 1 inch balls and freeze for 30 minutes or until firm.

3. Melt chocolate chips in a glass bowl in the microwave for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Insert a toothpick into each peanut butter ball and dip it 3/4 of the way into the chocolate. If the undipped balls become too soft, stick them back in the freezer for 10 minutes.

5. Once all the balls are dipped, refrigerate for 45 minutes or until they set up. 

Super Yummy Recipe

So, I'm not actually putting this on my blog because it's somehow special to me. I just ate it last night and really liked it. I figured this was the easiest way to get it back to Utah without misplacing it!

Quick Meat Sauce and Shells

1 pound lean ground beef

1 large sweet red pepper, cored seeded and diced

1 large green bell pepper, cored seeded and diced

1 medium onion peeled and chopped

2 cloves garlic peeled and chopped

2 cans (14 1/2 oz each) diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 pound large pasta shells

1 cup part-skim shredded mozzarella

1. Coat large nonstick skillet with cooking spray; heat over medium-high heat and add crumbled ground beef, onion and garlic. Cook for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Stir in tomatoes, sugar, salt and black pepper. Cover and simmer on medium-low for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. While sauce is simmering, cook pasta following package directions. Drain.

4. Spoon sauce over pasta. Top with shredded cheese and serve.

*Makes 6 servings. Each serving contains 486 calories, 9 grams fat (4 grams saturated fat), 33 grams protein, 68 grams carbohydrates, 5 grams fiber, 697 mg sodium, 57 mg cholesterol.