Amish bread - I'm a baking failure

So, I love to cook. Did you all know that? I really enjoy it. I like making something and my husbnad/family/friends say 'wow this is really good!'. I feel like I've accomplished something. I've learned to add certain stuff to recipe's, and tweek them to fit my families needs. Well, cooking, and baking are two TOTALLY different things...

Bobby's friend gave me a starter bag for Amish Friendship Bread. I've attempted this before, and ruined it before it even came time to BAKE the bread. Yea, I ruined it while it was in the plastic bag 'fermenting' still. Go me. So THIS time, I was determined to stay on top of it. Day 10 was yesterday, and I was so excited! So I get home, do a couple of things, and then get to my bread. I add everything in, seperate the other starter bags etc... my arm is killing me from stirring (because you don't use a beater for this, it's not the amish way I guess... I think next time I might just say screw it and use it. I don't want to subject my arm to that kind of torture again). Well I get to adding cinnamon. The directions say 1tsp. I have a severe case of pregnancy brain, and it's only so severe, because I can barely function on a daily basis without screwing up before I ever even got pregnant. I have the 2 tablespoon spoon in my hand. I get it full of cinnamon, pour it in, and just stare at it.

I poured 2 TABLESPOONS of cinnamon into a batter that only asked for 1 TEASPOON! WTF is wrong with my brain??? How did I actually do that??

I bake the bread anyway. Because at this point, I've invested way too much of my time to quit now. Who knows, maybe I've just invented the best cinnamon bread ever, right?

Wrong.

Not only was it not good, but I failed to put the little bread pans, inside a bigger pan to catch any 'overflow', thus, creating a huge bread gook MESS in my beautiful stove, that NOW I'm going to have to get my big pregnant butt bended over to clean for God only knows how long to get it all out. Oh sure, my oven has a self cleaning feature, but I don't know how to use it, and I'm not sure if I trust it. I mean, how does an appliance clean itself???

I should have taken a picture of my lovely disaster, but by that time, I just was ready for bed.

I'll try again in 10 days, and let you all know how wonderfully that turned out.

P.S. I started my Easter blog yesterday, but it's not done, so it's sitting in my drafts. I know I know, I'm a blogging failure. Get over it. lol

Easter - SO LATE!

Easter this year was full of fun. I was in over my head, but of course, I always think I'm superwoman and can do everything. We took Ryan to Town Square the day prior to go meet the Easter Bunny and do an egg hunt. Well, turns out 1,500 other parents had that in mind for their chidlren too. Needless to say, we skipped the egg hunt (ok ok, so we missed registration, but I wasn't about to sit in line for 2 hours for him to run on some grass and grab a coupel of eggs) and just went straight to meet Mr. Bunny. Well, he wasn't any kind of Easter Bunny I'd want to bring my small children around, I'm glad Ryan stayed a few feet away, I was afraid he was going to bite him with his rabies infested teeth. (I kid I kid, but seriously, whoever designed that costume should be fired). Here's a picture.

We did a little shopping around Town Square, met up with Jen Jen and baby Karli! Oh and the rest of the 'martin' crew. hehe. Got Ryan some cool new sunglasses, because well... Emmett ATE his cars ones, and his spongebob ones are missing... hmm...

Oh ANDDD they had Cookie Monster. Cookie Monster rocked!

Saturday night we colored eggs. Lisa, Greg, and Wuhwuh came to help out.

Easter morning Grandma came over to hang out with Ryan and help him hunt easter eggs. To say he was excited would be an understatement. He marvled at the fact that the easter bunny had hidden eggs just for him to find! His face was priceless. I got some video, I hope it works to post it on here. It's great stuff.

We went to Easter service at church, and it was an amazing service! Pastor Vance is so tallented with how he explains things and gives background on words in the bible and what they meant back then and how people referred to things. It was such an uplifting service. Sure, Easter is fun with the candy and egg hunts, but it amazes me that there are still SO many people out there who don't know WHY we celebrate this holiday in the first place! Jesus Christ died for YOUR sins and he was resurrected from the grave to bring us BACK to God the Father for a loving relationship with him. His sacrifice alone was the ONLY thing that was enough for us to be forgiven of our transgressions. It's such a POWERFUL thing! I don't think people realize that this reason and this reason alone is the ONLY reason we are able to be forgiven of our transgressions, of our sinful lives, of our selfish and greedy behavior. It was wonderful that Bobby's mom ended up coming with us.

After church we went home and prepared to cook! Ok ok, I prepared to cook, Bobby helped me clean around the house (All the toys and candy from earlier that morning) which was a HUGE help. My husband is so wonderful, he knows when I'm stressed, he knows how to calm me down by just doing something simple that will help me out. We had both of our families there and MAN did we have a lot of food! I made a ham, cheesy potatoes (which big props go out to Lisa for sharing that recipe with me long ago, everyone raved about how awesome they were), steamed asparagus, corn, noodle salad, and rolls. Erika and Ben brought over Fruit Pizza!! so good! I made deviled eggs as one of the appetizers, and used me cool new tool to make a fun design, I hope I took a picture

dinner was great, but before we had even eaten I was exhausted. My ankles were swollen and I had just too high of expectations of myself at being 30 weeks pregnant. My mom and Bobby's mom, Carol helped me SO much in the kitchen. I wouldn't have had dinner ready for hours had it not been for them helping. I'm so incredibly greatful for these two wonderful women in my life. I have two great moms, I've been so blessed!

I know this post is long over due, I'm sorry! I'm going to try to catch up on my blogging more on Sunday's I've decided... I just need to start dinner really early and sit down and get this done! :-) I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Randomness of a Wednesday morning

1. Mood: I feel like I'm in la-la-land today. I've gotten close to nothing acomplished, nor do I intend to get anything acomplished in the immediate future. Today, was a definite call-in-sick-when-your-really-not-sick day. le sigh...

2. Your favorite bag and why you love it? It's completely impractical for every day use, but I love my Burburry pink bag. I rarely use it (I'm scared of it ruining, and as I said, it's a $400 bag that fits my phone, lip gloss, a debit card, and a small camera). But, it is my favorite.

3. Popcorn-flavored jelly beans — yay or nay? Nay for sure.

4. Your five-minute makeup routine? Dust some loose powder on, neutral eye shadow, pink flushed look to my cheeks and mascara in the car while driving to my destination. I'm done.

5. Todays Eyes/lips/cheeks: Eyes: Elf shadow. I have a 15 color pallate that I absolutely am in love with. Lips, just chapstick and a clear gloss. Cheeks: Elf, again. I really like Elf makeup. It's not expensive and it's really great pigments in it!

6. When did you realize you were officially a grownup? Literally yesterday. No, I'm not kidding. We are doing some paperwork for the house, and they ran my credit. My credit is marvelous, and it was at that moment I smiled to myself and thought 'wow, I'm really an adult now, I have great credit!!'.

7. Were you stoked or annoyed to get your first bra? Embarassed. I was in the 4th grade when my mom got me a trainer bra. By the 6th grade I was almost a D cup. I've been blessed with great boobs, but at that young all the girls were jealous bitches, and made me feel bad for having boobs, when really they just wished they weren't flat chested.

8. Your sweetest pet? I have 2 amazing dogs. I can't pick. They are both loving, caring, sweet.. I could go on. Bella is just a loving dog, she just wants you to scoop her up and pay attention to her. Emmett is very protective of our family, especially Ryan. He follows that little boy everywhere, sleeps with him, cries and cries when he leaves. He is a very loving dog.

9. Outfit: Right now? A lovely black pregnancy shirt and black and white checkered capri's. Black heals. Yes, 8 months pregnant and I'm still sporting heals. I'm superwoman, what can I say?

10. Weekend goals: Lay out at the pool (weather permitting), force husband to do some leveling in the back yard so we can lay some grass down (hehe), visit my mommy, and of course like every weekend clean.

copy and post to your blog with your own answers!

Random picture of the day:

wana talk about me!

Ok, so this post is soley about ME today! I know, my family you are all thinking 'um... I want to hear about Ryan's Easter, not you' I KNOW! I will totally blog about Easter tonight. I don't have access to my pictures at the moment. And we all know a Christina story is not complete without pictures. ;-)

Well, I guess this post is about me & it involves baby. So, essentially I am sharing with SOMEONE right?

I entered my third trimester almost a month ago now. Let me just say man-oh-man I miss second trimester! The third is really begining to kick my butt. I'm bigger (duh...), I'm becoming more and more uncomfortable, I'm starting to feel hungry all day again, my energy has plumeted, and bending over is proving to be quite difficult b/c I have a big ball in the way. There is good news though!! I'm almost done!! I have about 60 days left. 2 months! Can you believe it? I am in disbelief right now. It kind of hit me today because I'm starting to have to delegate what my duties are at work and figure out who is going to do what while I'm on maternity leave. Wow, what a feeling to not have to go to work every day (although, I'm sure being a mommy to a new born is going to be more than a 40hr a week job!).

I am begining to think of all the things I'm spoiled with in having Ryan and how easy it is (ok ok, maybe EASY isn't the word, but just to get my point accross...). I can tell Ryan to let the dogs out and he does it. I can count on Ryan to grab his shoes and a jacket. He helps me clean, he likes to spray the furniture polish and wipe stuff down, he's quite fond of spraying windex on the mirrors for me, we are a cleaning team! haha! He cleans his own room, he knows that that's his responsibility. He is able to feed himself and get himself dressed. He goes potty on his own, he puts his own plate away after dinner and sets the table before dinner. He really does SO many things on his own! Which, is wonderful but I mean, now we're going to have this little baby around that won't be able to do ANYTHING without assistance! I thought Ryan kept me running... man, am I in for a rude awakening or what? At least I have comfort in that I have Bobby and Ryan both to help and support, and for that I am truly blessed. I know we will be fine, there's just so many things in my life that are going to be so different once she is here! I'm anxious and scared, but so excited for the challenge. I feel like Bobby is so much more prepared, he knows what to expect, what's going to be normal, what to actually be worried about. I don't want to be the crazy parent that brings their baby to the Dr. with every sneeze, so hopefully Bobby will keep me in check. ha!

Ryan seems to be getting excited for his sister. At lest, I think he is. He told me last week 'Hunnie, Lilly is getting bigger!' hahaha! Yes, yes she is. He talks about her quite frequently, which is surprising to me. He talks about her jumping on the trampoline with him when she comes and see's toys on the TV all the time and asks us if we can go buy it for her, it's quite sweet. I wonder what he thinks in his head? I know he has been around Cole, he's his grandpa's sister's baby (got that?), Ryan's grandma watches him sometimes and Ryan knows that he's a baby, and I think he's connected that Lilly will be a baby like Cole for a while... I wish I knew what went on in that imaginitive brain of his! I'm really excited to see him interact with his sister. I just want them to be best friends. I want Ryan to know how much she's going to look up to him as her big brother. I wonder what they are going to be like when they are older?? Time will tell I suppose.

Ok done with my ramblings. Just some thoughts that entered my head... Hope everyone's Easter was as wonderful as ours was :-)

Orange Belt

Yes, tis true, Ryan received his orange belt! This was a few weeks ago (yes I KNOW I'm bad at this blogging thing, I get to it EVENTUALLY! lol). We are all so proud of him! He was looking all around the room the whole time, and occasionally, giving Miss Hutchings (his instructor for the msot part) a couple of glances here and there. (teehee!). But he did it! He got his orange belt! Next is yellow. I can't wait to see how great he turns out to be. Definitely has soome good genes running through him for the martial arts abilities!

Kids say the darndest things...

We had homemade lasagana last night (Yea, I made some awesme lasagana I'm quite proud of myself! Ask the hubs, he liked it better than stauffers, and trust me when I say, he doesn't like anyone's lasagana better than Stauffers!! haha). Everyone is served but Bobby and I are in the kitchen getting drinks and gathering up the garlic bread. I look over, and Ryan takes a bite of food. I (jokingly) say to him "Ryan!! Did you just take a bite? Did we say prayer yet?? We have to thank Jesus for our food before we eat." He gets the 'OOps!' look on his face, and then serenity comes over him and he calmly says to us 'It's okay, Jesus said I can take one bite!'. To that, Bobby and I ended up in hysterics. It was the most hilarious answer he could have given. Man kids think of the wittiest things to say sometimes huh?? After that, we got right to prayer, it was clear Ryan was hungry!

Random pictures of the day. I'd post one of my belly button, because my sister discovered I have a mole inside of it (which, I have to admit, I never knew before either, b/c I've never seen the inside of my belly button until the past couple of weeks, it's gettting close to popping out!), but I'm going to refrain... maybe another post. lol

Our guardian, taking a snooze while we were upstairs trying to get Lilly to kick

Auntie Nikki, Ryan, and Emmett playing in the trampoline. Unfortunately, I can't play until Lilly comes... I guess it's a hazard for prego ladies to jump on trampolines. Boo!