10 Things :: Link Up

I thought I would give this a go, mostly because I haven't posted since.. Monday (oopsie!) and lots has been going on this week that I can tell you about, mostly. I'll go in order from most exciting to probably least.

1 :: The Nursery Wall

I don't know when I got this idea (weeks ago) exactly. But I sketched it on the wall a couple of Sundays ago and this past week I got around to painting. It must've been Monday that I did the bottom half and I finished it up last night. Oh.. I didn't tell you what I'm doing (yes i did) but here are the deets which are vague so that I can surprise you all at the end with my masterpiece (bahaha). Basically, I found a wall stencil on pinterest that would go perfectly in the nursery. No i will not link to it and ruin the surprise. I decided that instead of spending $128 of money I do not have to spend on a wall stencil/decal.. I'm actually not sure which it is.. I would just do it myself with a pencil and then my own homemade stencils and of course, paint. Things are going swimmingly. The part that I finished was the tree and next up are the flowers, followed by some birds (maybe, undecided).

2 :: Nesting

So I guess I'm ready to admit that I have been nesting a little. Last week, we cleaned to our little hearts content (I still haven't posted that post.. I don't know if I will.. it just screams boring!) This week, I have been making favors for the baby shower my awesome mother is throwing me (and letting me be a part of in terms of planning and making things. I had to make things from pinterest, had to!) I will definitely show you what I did after the guests have their favors. I'm also going to be making 2 of the game prizes later today! Anyway.. back to the nesting. I baked cookies this week as well. Choc. Chip and Oatmeal Craisin. That was Wednesday night. Luckily, Alex has been making dinner lately so I don't even have to think about doing that. I just have a bunch of energy and I need to expend it. I also cannot get enough water sometimes.. soo thirsty!

3 :: Revenge

Since getting rid of DirecTV and switching to just streaming Netflix and Hulu. Our time in front of the boob tube has dramatically declined. I call this "Winning" .. and really with all the stuff I have to do, I don't have time for TV anyway! BUT.. a show called Revenge started up this year and I wanted to check it out but couldn't really fit it into my existing TV lineup (which no longer exists). But when we got Hulu, the whole season so far is on there, ready for us to watch. So we started it on Wednesday and then watched two episodes yesterday. We are hooked. I love gossip girl and everything but this is just more mature.. and twisty and unpredictable. Check it out if you haven't yet. This is an official recommendation. In Alex news, he now watches Sons of Anarchy while I go about my nesting activities. UGH i'm not going to call it nesting anymore, i'm not a bird!

4 :: Baby Shower

I probably know way more about my shower than the average guest of honor at her baby shower but I'm nosy and my mom is gracious. Regardless, I'm super pumped about it. We have already gotten a few gifts from family members who cannot attend and they've been so generous. We got the Sony Bloggie HD video camera which is so freaking awesome and a Temporal Artery Thermometer, which is basically the same that they use at doctor's offices instead of a rectal or ear thermometer. Both things are so needed and we're so thankful to have received them. I'm already preparing myself to be overwhelmed by the love we receive from the shower. Baby girl is super lucky to have friends and family like she does!

5 :: Christmas Wish List

I almost did a post on this the other day but did not have time to do it properly, so I will just tell you a little bit about my wish list and what's on it.
Hair Dryer- This is so needed. Plus I read through researching that I don't need to get a $300 one to make my hair look nice.
Cookie Sheets- I need to update mine and the ones I want are from Williams-Sonoma. Love that place.
Workout Clothes- I want some legit workout clothes. I have shorts and t-shirts but I want to get serious about it so that after this baby is born I can focus on getting my body back (in a normal amount of time) while looking super cute!
Robe- This is needed mostly for labor/delivery plus waddling around the house afterward while not wanting to actually get dressed. What could be better?
BellyBandit- Don't judge me but I'm going to be wearing this little sucker under everything I own, day and night for 6-8 weeks after baby girl is born. I will give a testimonial at the end of that time period on whether it worked or not.
Living Room Rug- We desperately need one of these. Recently we moved the coffee table back into the living room but we'll probably move it out again shortly. I want to put a rug between the couches that fits properly and is comfortable for a baby to crawl around on.
Rain Jacket- I don't have one currently, especially because my winter coat that's waterproof doesn't currently zipper because of my growing tummy. I don't want freezing rain hitting my scalp, ok?
Bracelet- It's just so cute! And i could probably make it.
As you might be able to tell, this is more of a NEED list than a wishlist. But I just don't spend as much time lately browsing the internet for things I cannot afford. I barely even look at normal people clothing (how sad!)

6 :: Maternity Pictures

I'm still working with these. I know I need to share some more, so here is one for your viewing pleasure. I will post more on here, I promise. I'll be honest too, I stole almost all of the poses that we did from pinterest. I won't apologize for free inspiration!

7 :: Tums


They're currently my BFF, need i say more??

8 :: Twitter

I'm trying to get more into twitter but I constantly forget about it. I'm also not the best at documenting daily life things with my iphone so I don't have too many pictures to include in my tweets. If you want to follow me, it's @miss_michelle6 .. I say a lot of random stuff. It is twitter though.. and the best tweets are random ones.

9 :: Farm Fresh Coop & Beef

We're currently doing the full share. It's a lot of food. I'm wondering if maybe for the next season we should do a half share and see how we do with that. Visits to the grocery store are less frequent but we really need to stock up on protein, which brings us to Beef. We are buying a quarter of a cow from Alex's old coworker and he's picking it up on Sunday. The last time we bought beef was probably 2 years ago or more and that came from the Steer that Alex's father had purchased and grazed for a year or so. Delish. This beef we're about to get should last us at least a year. It's soo nice never having to purchase beef at the grocery store. Plus it's local.

10 :: Job Stuff

I recently found out that when I take my short term disability that I won't get 100% of my pay, like I would've had I had my little girl in 2011. They're changing things for 2012 and I have no idea how much I will get. This is disappointing. I'm sure it's because the company is trying to save money and I guess technically they don't have to pay me at all but the thought that it was 100% and now it's going to be (probably) significantly less is just (again) disappointing. Not to mention, they go by what your doctor says in terms of how long you need. If the doc only says you need 6 weeks, they only pay for your short term disability for 6. I might beg my doctor to recommend 8 weeks at least. I'm also stressing a little bit about when I do come back to work and what my schedule will be like. I haven't talked about this at all on here but I want to see if I can do a temporary part time gig until I can get used to the fact that I have a baby. I am crossing my fingers that they will be flexible. From what I've seen/heard so far, they will try to be. But company's can change their mind in a jiffy and end up screwing even their loyalest employees over. I hope this isn't the case.

This is my first link up and honestly, it was fun but I'm totally lacking pictures and totally over-doing it with words. I'm such a rambler!

Hope everyone enjoys their weekend! I know I will because I'm leaving work at 2pm today, score!!

Linking up with E Tells Tales

7 weeks remain!

Welcome to week 33!

This week, I do have a pregnancy complaint. It's called 'throat burn' .. which is basically heartburn but in my throat area. It's awesome. That's sarcasm.

Anyway, I'm moving slowly today after this past weekend of busy-ness. Well, let's say the full week of busy-ness. (I have a post coming about the week of cleaning, so exciting! again, sarcasm!) I'm hoping to feel back to preggo-normal soon however i'm wondering if this is pressure that is here to stay? TMI i totally feel like i constantly have to pee, even though i know that i don't. She's still tapping away at my bladder, or punching.. really.

No doctor's appointment this week but I'm pretty sure she's still head down. She's supposed to be about 4 lbs now and over 17 inches long. She'll be putting on weight for the next 7 weeks at about a half pound or so a week. Grow baby grow!

Our friends Mike and Jen were nice enough to take some photos of us yesterday. Mike is pretty genius behind the lens and Jen is so so good at direction. Ugh! They turned out sooo great! Here's one for your current viewing pleasure. I will post more soon!

Farm Fresh Coop :: Veggie Update & Recipe

Just a couple of photos of some of the veggie packs we've been getting recently and a couple recipes for the produce we received. Enjoy!

Week 3 Produce!

Check out the ginormo carrot!

We made lettuce wraps!

Delicious pork, okay turnips and yucky mustard greens!

And here's a recipe from the previous week, sorry, no picture!

Squash & Sweet Potato Soup
Ingredients
1 butternut squash or acorn squash
1 large sweet potato (we used a super large one)
1 head garlic
3 or 4 shallots
3 tbsp butter or olive oil
3 cups chicken broth (this depends on the size of your squash and potato)
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp dried oregano
Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions
Turn on the oven to 375 degrees before you start prepping your veggies for roasting.

Cut your squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the strings and seeds. Cut your sweet potato in half or more depending on the size. Peel your shallots and add to your baking dish (we used our pampered chef large bar pan for this) and cut the top off of a head of garlic exposing all the cloves. Drizzle the cloves with olive oil, wrap it in a piece of aluminum foil and add it to your baking sheet/dish. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt on your squash and sweet potatoes and put it in the oven to roast for 20 minutes or until the squash and potato are cooked through.

Once cooked, remove from the oven. Get our your stock pot or in our case, our dutch oven and warm it up with the butter or olive oil. The original recipe I based this off of said to wait until your squash and potato cooled before scooping but I skipped that and just scooped them while they were hot. As I scooped I added them to the dutch oven that was set at about a 6 or 7 out of 9 (so medium high-ish). Once I had everything scooped, I threw the shallots into the pot and removed the roasted garlic cloves from the head (they should just squeeze right out) and threw them in too. I threw in the oregano and the bay leaves as well as some salt and pepper, then added the broth and let it simmer for about 15 minutes or so with the lid on.

When everything was cooked down enough to be blended, remove the bay leaves and transfer the soup in batches to the food processor for smoothing. You can also use a blender for this but our blender isn't the best. You can also use a stick blender for this but I feel like it takes longer even though the cleanup is much shorter.

Once the soup is all blended and smooth, add it back to the pot. Stir in the heavy cream until mixed thoroughly. Serve with chives or green onions as a garnish!

Adapted from: Full Fork Ahead

Baked Kale Chips
Ingredients
1 bunch of Kale
Olive Oil
Salt

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Rinse and then de-rib the kale and cut into chip sized pieces. Toss lightly with olive oil and arrange on a baking sheet (covered in parchment for less cleanup) and then sprinkle with salt.

Bake for 20 minutes.

You'll never look at Kale the same again!

Recipe Originator: Smitten Kitchen

Our weekend with Makayla

We were lucky enough to have my 6 year old niece Makayla join us for the better part of Saturday and Sunday. She is the cutest and the smartest 6 year old i've ever met. Here's what we did to entertain her while she was with us!

When my sister and mom brought her down, we all headed to Isaac's for some lunch and then to the mall for a little bit. Makayla and I sat on Santa's lap (because she wouldn't do it alone) and despite almost crushing his leg, he basically granted my christmas wish to have a baby girl. (Like it was a choice?) Since we weren't allowed to just take a cellphone picture from inside the santa area, Alex took one from afar.

After the mall, we headed home and got down to gingerbread village business. I bought the kit at the grocery store and it was 4 or 5 tiny gingerbread houses. I had to whip up some more icing (that we kind of didn't really use) and our houses weren't exactly the most attractive or.. well, stable. Makayla did a great job though and she barely got messy! Alex and I on the other hand were quite messy and I'm pretty sure there are still candy sprinkles on the floor.

When we completed our village, we sat down to a nice dinner of Velveeta shells and cheese and broccoli. We needed to hurry a little bit so we could make the movie we planned to see, which was The Muppets. Honestly, and I can say this because Makayla doesn't read my blog, the Muppets was cheesy. I know it's a family movie and stuff but cut down on the cheese and maybe I would've liked it more. It was fine though. I can't say I laughed at all but I know there were some people beside me cracking up, so something must've been funny. We were asked for popcorn quite a few times but reminded the little miss that if she got popcorn at the theater, she wouldn't get ice cream when we got home. She choose the ice cream, as any smart person would do.

At home afterward, we ate ice cream and played some Mario coin runner and then put Makayla to bed in the middle of our King Size (thank god we have a king size). Alex and I hung out a little bit before joining her. The good thing about Makayla is she's always been a really good sleeper. Even when she was younger, all you would have to say is "close your eyes, keep them closed and when you wake up it will be morning" and it worked. At least anytime I've put her to bed. She is a mover and a shaker though. I think I got hit in the face once.. Alex probably got hit a couple of times. She turned diagonal in the bed with her feet in my back. I specifically turned my back so she couldn't kick my stomach, lol. It was an interesting night to say the least!

So now I have a song from the Muppet movie in my head called "Am I a Man, or Am I a Muppet?" sheesh!

Anyway.. Makayla woke up Sunday morning at 7am! I gave her my iPad to keep her busy but this didn't last all that long before she was asking for pancakes, since she knew we planned to make them for breakfast. We tried and failed at making pancakes with cookie cutters, unfortunately. But the pancakes tasted good and I would totally make that an every Sunday deal if Alex would let me. After pancakes we did some coloring. We played more coin runner and I made our pizza dough for lunch later on. We decided to go to a nearby park to play for a little bit and when we got home, Makayla and I made our pizzas (ugh, i missed taking a picture of this!) and watched Alice in Wonderland. After the movie, I took her back up to home base and we ended up going to Hoss's for dinner with my mom and Julia. YUM!

I totally get (more than before) how 24/7 being a parent is. Granted, with your own kids you don't constantly have to entertain them, but adding in fun activities spices things up and keeps things interesting! We're really lucky that Makayla is so well behaved and mature for her age so she can keep up with us really easily and we can keep up with her. We had a great time, and hopefully when our baby girl is a little bit older, she can come visit us again!

A long holiday weekend =

a long recap blog post. so if you don't want to read alll about it.. just quit while you're ahead ;)

Wednesday, I got out of work at 3pm which is like heaven on a stick. I made a caramel apple cheeesecake pie from this recipe, which has been working out for me for about 3 years now give or take and my Auntie Christine loves it, am I right Aunt Chris? Anywho, Alex and I did our normal weeknight routine with the addition of hanging out with Nick, Laurel and Nate for a couple hours. Cue the debates about warfare.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, obviously! We headed up to my parents around 9am to spend some quality time before going over to Da's house. (Da is what we call my paternal grandmother). When we got there we got down to business of setting up the table by filling drinks etc. because we had to eat before the Packers game started. The food was delish per usual and after everyone was filled to the brim, we watched a little football. Well, okay, I watched a little and then retired to the kitchen to peruse the black friday newspaper inserts. I can't believe how cheap HDTVs are right now. Who's with me? It's crazy! If only I were in the market for a new TV! (i'm not, hello, baby on the way)

Anyway, at about 2pm we had to take off from Da's to head to our next destination, Lynn and Debbie Brubaker's in Kimberton (1.5 hours away from Camp Hill). We arrived in good time with time to socialize before the meal started. It was really nice to see everyone and catch up a little bit. I even got to show pictures of baby girl since we brought them along. We don't get to spend holidays with the extended Brubaker family very often so it was nice to see them. Plus, Lynn and Debbie do NOT disappoint when it comes to hosting and the food that they and everyone else contributed was delicious! That turkey was probably the moistest thing I have ever eaten (sorry Alex, you make a good turkey too). I wish I had more room in my belly for more food but I was stuffed! We spent the evening chatting and also playing Rumikub with Nate and Laura.. love that game!

Friday, Alex had to work so I got to sleep in! Thank goodness! Though that really only lasted until about 9am. When I eventually got out of bed, I decided to hit up Carter's outlet for the insane sale they were having of 50% off plus I had a 20% off coupon plus got another 10% off for getting there before noon! The outlets weren't as bad as I had anticipated. On my way there, I took a bit of a shortcut down Old Philly Pike and a cop ended up behind me in a 35 zone (annoying) .. then we're waiting at a red light and the person across the way breezes right through it. What did the cop do? Turn around and pull them over? Nope, he stayed behind me and basically ignored it! Cray-zay! I was a bit peeved but whatever. Back to Carter's. That place (as I've said before) is overwhelming. And I totally know I shouldn't be buying my baby clothing before even having a baby shower but I could NOT pass up that kind of sale. So I bought a couple of things for when she's older that she can wear. As well as some really cute summer outfits that were on clearance!

After Carter's, I headed to Neato Burrito to pick myself up something and then to Saigon to get Alex and Keith some lunch. We all had a nice time chatting about baby stuff and eating our yummy food. Neato Burrito is good but it is filling (cue Anchorman quote and the subsequent punting of poor Baxter). After lunch, I headed home just in time to see the surprise from Omer and Charmayne delivered by Charmayne, Nick and Laurel. They were starving so they didn't stay but the surprise awaited setup in the basement. I'm pumped about it, it's going to be so fun! So I put up some Christmas decor and then drew the tree on the nursery wall so it's ready for painting. It's looking really good and if all goes according to plan I will have saved a TON of money just painting it myself instead of buying the set of decals. (Enter shameless self promotion). Then it was time to head to Iron Hill to meet up with the Bru-clan since Alex and Omer usually do that on Friday's that he works anyway. We couldn't stay long however because we had to head up to my Grandparents house for the Christmas Tree decorating celebration which included a house filled with cousins running wild and aunts and uncles to catch up with. We had a good time and took lots of pictures. I had a really nice chat with my cousin Sarah who is due with her 3rd baby in May. She cloth diapers so I got all the dirty details (ha!) about what she uses and how she cleans them and all of that stuff. I've been meaning to ask her all about it so I'm glad I had that opportunity. I'll do another post on cloth diapers because I did take the time to make a spreadsheet (are you surprised?) and the savings are in-sane!

Saturday morning we had breakfast planned with Alex's parents (Omer and Charmayne) and Nick and Laurel. Alex made potatoes (yum) and a napa cabbage dish and I cut up apples and kind of unsuccessfully roasted grapefruit (it just tasted like regular grapefruit by the time we got there, bc it wasn't warm anymore). Anyway, they already had a whole spread waiting so we chowed down and it was yummy. I used to not enjoy breakfast so much but it's growing on me. After breakfast we engaged in a cut-throat game of Yatzhee which I stunk horribly at. The 2nd game we started I was doing killer but it ended up we had to leave before we could finish.

I plan to do a separate post of the activities we did while babysitting my 6 year old niece Makayla, so I'm going to insert here a few teasers: Santa. Gingerbread village. Movies.

Sunday I took Makayla back to my mom's house around 3pm. I stayed and chatted for a little while, just as Makayla expected I would. Then they said they were going to Hoss's so I joined them. I never EVER say no to Hoss's. Ever. Never ever ever. Anyway, to Hoss's we went and it was nice to just eat salad for dinner and not get overfilled for once that weekend. Then I made the trip back home and got to spend some relax time with Alex before drifting off into the best sleep I've had all weekend.

And we all lived happily ever after. The end.

Work in Progress

Just so no one is alarmed (like you'd actually be alarmed, ha!).. I am redesigning my blog layout. There's a lot to learn in this that I do NOT know currently. So i'll do my best to get it done quickly.

Just an FYI of sorts!

A Very Merry (Pinterest) Christmas :: Decor Edition

Check out this decor inspiration, courtesy of my Pinterest boards. :)

So glad I can finally share these since I pinned a bunch of them months ago!

Mantle Decor

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Marshmallow Wreath

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Snowflake 'Wreath'

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Festive Floating Candle

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Hanging Candy Canes

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Santa Key (for those without chimney's)

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Easy Glittery Candle

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Felt Circle Wreath

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Ruffled Tree Skirt

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