Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama as a way to share imperfections and short comings in a fun and transparent way. Hop on over to www.mycharmingkids.net to find out what other people have not been doing this week!

This morning I did not clean the house for the first time in two and a half months. I am a germaphobe, and I'd never be able to stand putting off the cleaning for that long. I don't use my pregnancy as an excuse to get out of housework, and I have kept up with it each week instead of napping every afternoon. I also did not peter out on my cleaning frenzy after cleaning the downstairs and decide the upstairs can wait because "people coming over for small group this week probably won't be going upstairs, right?" Not me!

As I was mopping the kitchen this morning, I did not turn the corner to find Opie had made a most disgusting attempt to protest the presence of the Swiffer Wet Jet that had invaded his territory. Because I clean so frequently, he is totally desensitized to the mop and vacuum and we did not have a repeat of this (only worse. Mmmhmm- you guessed it!) today. Ugg!

I did not beg the hubby to order this coat rack after unearthing all of our winter coats and piling them up in the hallway. I also have not spent the last three days dreaming of where I will put this glorious coat rack from IKEA when it comes in the mail. That would have been dorky. I never do dorky.



Speaking of dorky...I have not decided that we must be having a little girl simply because I found this adorable crib bedding online last week. And I certainly have not planned out each and every wall space in the nursery and pre-registered for this bedding at potterybarnkids.com simply because I just have to be able to decorate a nursery with this stuff. Not me! (I also did not just spend two minutes dreamily staring at the bedding again while finding this picture online to post on my blog...)



And finally, I am not locking myself away in the den this afternoon to avoid facing the kitchen where I plan to make my first attempt at my mom's Texas Chilli tonight, simply because the thought of trying to reproduce that delectable dinner makes me nervous. I'll let you know how it goes...

Fantastic Friday Night

Tonight we toured the Art Prize with friends of ours, JLH&J. We had a blast and saw a lot of interesting art displays. Among the most unique may have been the weirdo woodland man on stilts or the fire eater who we never actually saw eat fire, accompanied by an assistant who was not afraid to snap a mouse trap on his tongue. Fantastic Friday night entertainment, folks. The popcorn helped. After visiting the concession stand, Hubby came up with one bag and a box. I managed to polish off the entire box of popcorn before I even realized what hit me. I chose to play the "pregnant card" and forget about the massive amount of greasy butter and salt I must have consumed in a 30 minute time period.

My favorite part of the evening was playing with this adorable little man whom L and I are not-so-secretly pre-arranging a marriage or best friend relationship to my baby. Because that would be a dream come true, and who doesn't love dreams come true?! Please ignore the ridiculous sock exposure here, as the hubby, unlike a photo-conscious girlfriend, is not always interested in the finer details like how much your socks are showing when taking pictures in the park. Isn't he adorable?!?







Ok, I know that's a lot of the same picture and a whole lot of sock exposure, but can you ever have enough pictures of an adorable baby? No, you cannot, my friends. Moving on to the rest of the evening with more art and less socks...

Below you will find the woodland man on stilts. I had a moment of nostalgia looking up at him, as one of my childhood favorites was stomping around on the awesome stilts I asked my Grandad to make for me when Santa forgot to get me the moon shoes I saw in the Toys R Us catalog several Christmases in a row. Never got the moon shoes.





I loved the movie Waterhorse. The hubby and I saw it on our Honeymoon along with Alvin and the Chipmunks, (our choices were limited), and I truly walked away thinking "what a great movie!" After recommending it to friends and family, I was firmly assured that it was the worst, and longest, movie ever made. I was happy to see that though it failed in the family box office, the Waterhorse made it to the Art Prize!



Last, but not least, the lovely family we spent the evening with- getting their grove on.



And for your viewing pleasure, my very own husband partaking in some hard core parkour, inspired by last week's episode of The Office...

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Now it's off to the couch for a chick flick and (more?!?) popcorn with my parkour master. =)

Wordless Wednesday

Crock Pot Season

I decided to get brave this afternoon. When I opened the freezer after going grocery shopping last night to stash a bunch of zero-cooking-required-ready-in-2-minutes-forget-about-any-healthy-nourishment frozen dinners on the shelf, this is what I found (ignore the inevitable presence of ice cream).



That's right. A freezer full of frozen dead animals that did not resemble cow, chicken, or shrimp, and was therefore scratched off my list of potential dinner items. Hubby saw the mass of meat he so proudly killed off last hunting season and was set and determined to make a venison roast for dinner tonight. He pulled out a cookbook and bookmarked a recipe he intended to whip together before he left for work today.



I woke up this morning and realized the book was still sitting there and that there was a thawed piece of purplish meat still sitting in the fridge. The hubby had left without whipping together a deer feast. I was pleased. No deer for dinner. Maybe chicken pot pie or spaghetti instead. Yummm...

I went about my business for the rest of the morning until I began to be haunted by the origin of that darn cookbook. As I walked through the kitchen on my way from doing laundry to my awaiting spot on the couch, I spotted the book again and remembered that my mom had given that to me last Christmas with a jar of venison rub saying I needed to learn how to cook the bacon my hubby brought home. Oh, Mom. Couldn't you have just given me a new sweater or a pair of boots or something?!? I was then plagued by the brutal reality that all of that meat in the freezer had been sitting there for a year since I hadn't put any effort into learning how to cook my hubby's kill. Ugg. So much for watching the end of the Today show. I pulled out the crock pot ('tis the season, after all), opened the book and decided to be brave and take a whack at it. It was the least I could do after all the laundry and grocery shopping the hubby has so selflessly done for me since I haven't seemed to be capable of missing my daily afternoon preggo nap.

So here's documentation of the attempt:

Turns out we were missing all but one of the ingredients called for in the recipe so I pulled together my own (risky, but necessary, given the fact that I had already unwrapped the roast before I realized we had only ONE ingredient)...

1 thawed venison roast
1/2 bag of baby carrots
4(ish) small russet potatoes
1/2 onion
2 c water
1/2 c Worshershire (how on earth do you spell that?!?) sauce
lots of venison rub
a little dash of cumin
1 bay leaf

I threw in the roast, water, sauce, herbs, and rub. Then I chopped up the onion and the carrots and threw them in too. I cut the potatoes into squares and tossed them on top. Put the lid on, set the crock pot to low, and let 'er rip. I'm pretty Laissez-faire when it comes to crock pot cooking, so I'm just going to let it cook all day, maybe crank it up to high in a couple hours and then stir the potatoes into the rest of the roast right before serving.







We'll see how it goes. I'm making some corn bread muffins to soften the blow if the roast isn't good, and I'm also baking a gingerbread cake in the event the entire dinner is a complete failure. I have no intention of even sampling the feast, so I'll let hubby sign in later with an update and overall evaluation of my attempt to be a successfully domesticated hunter's wife. It's chicken pot pie for me tonight!

Loving Lately

Just a few things I have been loving lately this September...

Yankee Candle's Autumn Wreath...mmm



Bath and Body Works Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin handsoap- I am almost out and need to go grab a few more. This stuff smells sooo good!



Slatkin and Co. The Perfect Autumn Pumpkin room spray. My entire house smells like a pumpkin patch. Yum.



Fun fall photos I found hidden in files from years and years ago...I may or may not be getting the itch to catch up on some seriously over due scrapbooking.



Jessica and Angie's new Bloom Book Club- they're leading a study on Crazy Love, the book I've been trying to read all summer!



The Holiday, because who doesn't love a good Christmas movie in the middle of September?!?



And last, but certainly not least...the one thing I have been loving the most lately is this guy:



My hubby has absolutely blown me away with how giving and patient he has been lately! He has taken such wonderful care of me! Everything from getting out of bed to make a pb&j at midnight to going grocery shopping so I wouldn't have to spend an hour in a store full of food (ick!) to doing laundry while I take 2 hour long naps upstairs...he has been a life saver, and I am so thankful to have such a wonderful man! Thank you, Honey!!!

What have you been loving lately?

Baby to Bee

I am giddy with excitement this afternoon! We just came home from our first appointment and ultra sound! I walked into the office with a billion questions since I'm a first timer- things like, "How do you feel about the fact that I ate three pieces of pizza last night?" and "Should I be doing laundry?" and "Is it better to eat green apples or red apples?" The list continued with an entire assortment of pressing questions regarding whether or not it was healthy for our baby to be watching massive amounts of day time television since I can't seem to keep my eyes open for more than 30 consecutive minutes. I walked out of the office elated and overwhelmed at how blessed the hubby and I are to have a healthy, happy, and very active little baby! And of course, I was relieved to hear it is entirely ok to indulge in daytime television and the occasional three to seven slices of pizza when the mood strikes. =)

All crazy-pregnancy-cravings jokes aside, we am so grateful the Lord blessed us with such great news at our first appointment. We were praising Him on our way to the office and praising Him on our way out. We had no idea we would get to see our baby today and completely freaked out when we saw our little gummy bear up on the screen. Baby was moving around like CrAzY and we could see that precious little heart beat! Our doctor was surprised to see so much movement at only 9 weeks, and we were thrilled to see our baby wriggling all over the place!

I am so excited to have pictures of our little "baby to bee" to post all over our house and blog and facebook. =) We couldn't be more excited and are SO looking forward to April 17, 2010!!!

Here are a few pics for the fam and friends...

Good to the last drop.

Hope you like the fall decor...I adore autumn, and seriously dreamt of coming home and decking out the house (and blog, of course!) in harvest decorations while I was basking the Caribbean sun last week. Sick, I know. But it happened. The anticipation can be entirely attributed to pumpkin donuts with cream cheese icing. As soon as the harvest decos come out, the pumpkin donuts emerge as well. And I just couldn't resist getting a move on things so I can stuff my face full of pumpkin donuts. Mmm...

While I am so excited that another season is upon us, summer was good to the last drop, and we certainly sent it out with a bang!



Beautiful CocoBeach



Captain Gala Dinner...please note the "SeaBands" I sported those trendy things almost the entire trip



Labadee, Haiti with our huge ship in the background



Leaving Labadee and heading for Jamaica



Hubby checking out the beach in Cozumel

The Caribbean was just beautiful. I have let you down with only a few pictures. But there are simply hundreds of pictures to sift through and hundreds of things to get done around this house. Bags and bags of trinkets from the trip and too many loads of laundry to count. So I'll leave you with one last pic and bid farewell until I make a dent in this mess of a house!