We had a very Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful Christmas!!

Ours started out waking up, making some banana bread batter and sticking it in the oven, and then opening our stockings and a few presents.

Bo got me some great gifts! Some slippers, a blanket with my name stitched on it, some craft supplies, jewlery, candy, and maternity pants and a shirt -- which I love! I also got a food dehydrator from Bo's parents which I'm REALLY excited about!

Bo got some nice things too! I got him a harmonica and an orange peeler, along with a few goofy stocking stuffers and some candy. One of Bo's favorite gifts was a pair of Crocs his parents got him.

After we opened up our presents and ate breakfast we went to Oroville to have Christmas with my parents. It was so much fun and the food was of course fantastic! One of my favorite parts of the day though was when I was able to surprise Bo with an extra gift I had waiting for him at my parents!

It's a keyboard!! Now he can write me love songs. :)

It was again, a wonderful Christmas!!

Oh Christmas Tree...

I am finally getting around to posting pictures of our Christmas Tree! Our Christmas Tree adventure started with driving up Hwy 32 and taking a dirt road to the middle of nowhere to a spot where my friend Jenni suggested we get our Christmas Tree -- her family always gets their tree up there and we did it for the first time last year and had a lot of fun, so we decided to repeat the tradition this year.

As you can see, there are trees EVERYWHERE... however my wonderful husband could not agree on the perfect tree. My parents even came with us and they found their tree and my sister's tree within 5 minutes of getting there. We were taking so long to find our tree, that they actually left before us to go home!

Here's Bo searching for the perfect tree.

Found it! Bo cutting down the tree - I love him so much for doing it - I didn't even have to lift a finger.

Here she is in all her glory -- minus a star for the top which I still haven't found.

Here's our attempted Christmas picture for the year that ended up not turning out...
If Bo and I were both in the picture, then the dogs would just look at us and not at the camera. Next year we'll have to hire a professional. :)

Merry Christmas!!

Baby Boy Crafts

So, I'm not going to lie... I've been a little jealous of all my pregnant friends who are due about the same time I am and the fact that they are ALL having girls -- That's not to say I'm not completely thrilled with having a boy, I've just always had this fear that I'll only have boys and never have a daughter -- which again, I want to make clear does not mean that I will love my son(s) any less. Bo of course loves the idea that all our friends are having girls so that our son will be a ladies man. Haha, hide your daughters! :)

Anyways, last night Bo and I wanted to take our Christmas picture for this year infront of our fireplace with all of our dogs (it ended up not turning out because the dogs didn't get the concept of looking at the camera, but we are going to try again today) and for our little Autumn I tied a cute little bow and secured it to her collar. This got me wanting to make more cute little bows (not for the dog, just for fun) and I showed them to Bo and said I can't wait to have a little girl to make hair bows for. But I need to get over that because I am having a boy! So I wanted to think of some baby boy crafts I could do. I don't have too many options for boys. I can't knit them cute beanies with big flowers on them (although I could knit boy beanies), I can't make hair bows, I can't make little baby accessories, I can't use glitter...

But I did think of making onesies! These are the two that I've done so far and Bo thinks that I should make one with dog paw prints all over it so it looks like the dogs have been stepping on the baby since that seems to be everyone's worry -- I don't know, I guess they think I am going to leave my baby on the floor and let the dogs have at him.

So the whole point of this post is to ask anyone if they have any baby boy craft ideas that I could steal. Or any other ideas for onesies that would match my family. I have 5 blank ones left.

30 weeks!!

Yesterday I reached my 30 week mark in my pregnancy! I can't believe how fast it's already gone and I know these last 10 weeks (hopefully less!) will go by really, really fast!! I had a baby appointment Monday and things seem to be going well. Brodie has a great heartbeat of 150 and my blood pressure and iron levels are good. We did find out from the glucose test that I'm hypoglycemic though, which is the opposite of having diabetes. It just means that I need to eat high protein snacks and meals every 3 hours and I have to stay away from binging on sugars -- darn! :)

Nursery...

So I know in my very first blog entry I was planning on doing a barnyard theme for the nursery... well that theme has changed several times through-out my pregnancy and now I finally settled on what I want to do!!

It's going to be a dog theme -- which is of course perfect for our family if you know us well. None of our babies are ever going to be afraid of dogs.

So this is what I've been working on today and it has been really fun and I LOVE it!

I got the idea from Pottery Barn for Kids, but they wanted $20 per dog mobile and that was supposedly on sale - crazy! So I made my own out of white poster board and paint. I like mine better too because I was able to design the dogs after our own -- a German Wirehaired Pointer (left), a Long Haired Dachshund (middle), and a Jagd Terrier (right).

We also have a guest bed in the nursery, so after Christmas I think I am going to go ahead and buy the sheets and quilt that match the dog mobiles I made and then all I need are matching curtains and a few cute touches here and there and wa-la! The room is ready for baby! I do wish we could paint the walls a different color, but since we are renting still I guess that will have to wait. I still love it though!

Here is Pottery Barn's picture:

For all you Eggnog Lovers out There....

Eggnog Pie!

Have you ever heard of it?? I hadn't.

I was looking for a unique pie recipe to take to the Scott Thanksgiving Dinner because 60-70 people show up and everyone brings pies and I didn't want to bring a pie that would already be there. I had heard of a pumpkin eggnog pie, so I went to look that up and instead found just an eggnog pie! I tried it out and it is REALLY good (very rich) so I thought that I would share the recipe:

INGREDIENTS:
1 (4.6 ounce) package non-instant vanilla pudding mix
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups eggnog
1/2 teaspoon rum extract
2 cups heavy cream
1 (9 inch) pie shell, baked (I used a pre-made nilla waffer crust)
1 pinch ground nutmeg

DIRECTIONS:
In a medium saucepan, combine pudding mix, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and egg nog; mix well. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thick. Remove from heat, and stir in rum. Transfer mixture to a large bowl, cover, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

In a medium bowl, whip the cream to soft peaks. Remove the cold pudding from the refrigerator, and beat until smooth; fold in whipped cream. Spoon into baked pie shell. Sprinkle additional nutmeg over the top for garnish. Refrigerate 4 hours, or until set.

Easy and Delicious!!