Sous Chef No More

Throughout the past few years y'all seen lots, (and lots!), of pictures of food from our kitchen. What you probably don't know, is that my husband is a huge help to me while making dinner most nights. He doesn't make full meals by himself, but he's really good at helping me wash produce, dishes, chop onions, etc, so I can do the actual cooking. We always joke that he's my sous chef.

One night a few weeks ago I had planned to make pork chops for dinner, but when dinner time rolled around I was feeling absolutely horrible. The pork chops were in the fridge thawed and ready to go, and I know that usually Jonathan would have just grilled them, (he makes the BEST grilled pork chops), but it was 108 outside. Obviously grilling was not an option.

What I did not really expect was for him to whip out the iron skillet, (the only pan he likes to cook in, it's manly), and make some pan fried pork chops, cooked baby carrots, and steamed green beans.



I wasn't paying attention to him while he was cooking, so I was actually really shocked to see his plate when he sat down at the table to eat. His dinner looked so good!

Even Miss Kitty was impressed.



She eyeballed him the entire time he was eating, just waiting for him to drop some pork chop on the floor.



Handsome and a good cook, I sure did luck out. ;) I think his sous chef status should be upgraded. Maybe now we can take turns cooking. haha

Jennifer

P.S. By the time he sat down to eat this I was really wishing my stomach wasn't so upset. I sat with him eating that delicious looking dinner while I had cheerios. SO glad my morning sickness has gotten better in the past week, I was really starting to miss real food! ;)

Meatless Monday - My All-Time Favorite Sandwich

I went to college in a small Arkansas town. We're talking tiny. One of the only things to do on the weekends in small town Arkansas, is head to the big city. In our case usually the booming metropolises of Hot Springs or Little Rock. The majority of the time when visiting LR, on my list of must go places was Boulevard Bread Company in the Heights. I absolutely LOVE this place! It's a cute little shop with the most delicious bread and other goodies. Throughout the years I've had almost everything on their menu, but my all-time favorite sandwich is a baguette with pesto, fresh mozzarella, and tomato slices. YUM.

Ideally every time I was in the mood for one of these sandwiches, (which is all too often), I would head to Boulevard Bread Co. for the real thing. But, considering I now live 5 hours away, it kind of puts a damper on that. So I've had to make do and come up with my own variation, and this is it. :)

Best things about this recipe: 1. it's incredibly fast and easy. 2. the ingredients are pretty cheap. and 3. it's delicious!

Pesto Tomato Mozzarella Sandwich

Ingredients
1 french bread baguette
fresh pesto, (recipe below)
fresh mozzarella, sliced
1-2 ripe tomatoes, thickly sliced



Slice open the baguette, and toast it lightly under the broiler. Spread each side of the baguette liberally with the fresh pesto. Layer the sliced tomatoes and mozzarella on the baguette, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.



Close the baguette up and enjoy.



Told you it was easy. ;)


Now for the fresh pesto recipe. This will make way more than is required for just the sandwiches. I usually make it a day or two before I make the sandwiches and use the majority for pasta pesto and use the leftovers for sandwiches. It will keep in the fridge for a week or two, but just a warning the color of the pesto does get progressively darker as time goes on, (that's why jarred pesto doesn't have the vibrant green color of fresh).

Back in June I bought a big basil plant at the farmer's market for $8 and we've used it several times this summer. I'm extremely shocked that the thing is actually still alive considering my propensity for killing pants combined with our 50+ days of 100+ degree temperatures. I wish I could say the same was true for my tomato plant, then this would have been an super cheap dinner!


Fresh Pesto

2 1/2 cups fresh packed basil
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
4 cloves garlic
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil



Combine basil, parmesan cheese, garlic and pine nuts in a food processor. Drizzle in the EVOO while the food processor is running. Blend well - it doesn't take long.



That's it!

Enjoy! And if you're in Little Rock, definitely stop by Boulevard Bread Co. and get the real thing. Yum! :)

Jennifer

P.S. I don't know what the crap is up with photobucket lately. Every time I upload my pictures I change their size to make them fit on my blog, but lately it doesn't change the size until a day or two later meaning the pictures are gigantic when I first upload them. It's super annoying because I'm not patient enough to write posts a day or two before I want to post them, so that leaves the gigantic pictures. Boo!

Details, Details

First of all, thank you all so, so much for the lovely comments & emails following yesterday's post. Reading them makes me tear up every time! We just feel so blessed to have so many people excited for us, and of course, we're over the moon! If I haven't yet responded to your email, I'm working on it.

Now that we've broken the "big news," I feel like we need to back track a little, and in the process answer lots of your questions. ;)

The picture on yesterday's post was actually taken back in June--June 12th to be exact. I then had blood draws on June 15th and 17th at my Reproductive Endocrinologist's, (RE), office. The first blood draw was to confirm the positive home pregnancy tests, and the second to make sure my HCG levels were doubling-a sign of a healthy pregnancy.

Since everything looked good we were assigned a February 23, 2012 due date, which means I'm 11 weeks and 5 days pregnant as of today.

Following the good blood work, RE's office scheduled my first ultrasound for July 5th, when I was 6 weeks and 6 days pregnant, and where we got to see this:



One healthy little dot of a baby with a heart pulsing away at 122 bpm. :) With a normal ultrasound I officially "graduated" from the RE's office back to my regular OB/GYN.

We had the first appointment with the OB/GYN last Monday, when I was 10 weeks and 5 days, and were so excited to see the little dot had turned into this:



little alien baby, (I mean that in the sweetest possible way, we know it looks perfectly normal for this stage), just a kicking away and with a heartbeat of 162 bpm. All my blood work and tests looked normal, and we decided it was time to start telling people.


Ok, I think that covers all the stats, now moving on to questions...

We've gotten lots of questions about what our reactions were, and I think the most appropriate word is relieved. We've been through so much in the past few years, it was a huge relief to find out that something finally worked! Since then we've just been a tad antsy/nervous and praying lots and lots of prayers that everything would progress normally.

I think after the ultrasound last week we finally began to relax a little and really begin to enjoy everything and get super excited about it. Having our friends and family all be incredibly excited certainly helps with that!!

I think the next question most people have is how I've been feeling. Honestly, I feel like I've been exhausted all summer long, and for the past month especially, I've been pretty nauseous most days. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to call it "morning sickness," because it's such a misleading term-I feel worse in the afternoons than the morning! The intense heat in Texas seems to intensify everything, so I've spent most of my summer indoors, (which is probably the real reason for this post).

I say all the time though that this baby can do whatever it wants to me as long as it's growing and healthy, and I truly do mean that!

We will be finding out the baby's sex when that time comes, (it will probably be another month or so at least). I'm very excited to find out boy or girl, and as a control freak planner, there's no way that I could wait until February! We are not hoping for one sex over the other, we will really be happy with either one! Pretty much anytime I see something pink and pretty I think it would be fun to have a girl, and anytime I see cute boy stuff, I think it would be fun having a boy.

I do not have any belly photos because I haven't taken any yet. I've not gained any weight and really didn't feel like I looked any different at all until last week when I started looking a little more chubby than normal. It still doesn't resemble a "baby bump"- just like I ate too much Mexican food. ;) I'm thinking about starting to take weekly photos this week at week 12, but we'll see.

I think that just about brings y'all up to speed. :) If there are any other questions I'll try to answer them as well. Thank you again for all the sweet comments yesterday!

Jennifer

The Math of Infertility - Chapter 2

Since I feel like numbers making everything so much easier to understand, here's a break down of what our last few years have looked like...

38 months

+ 3 doctors

+ 24 ultrasounds

+ 1 saline ultrasound

- 30 pounds

+ 2 Hysterosalpinograms

+ 2 surgeries - 1 laparoscopy and 1 hysteroscopy

+ 1 PCT

+ 523 pil.ls (yes, I counted, and no this does not include prenatal vitamins. It's a cocktail of clomid, fema.ra, fertil-aid, pro.vera, estrogren, and birth control that I took for a month before surgery)

+ 9 injections - 3 Ovid.rel, (in February, March and May of this year), & 6 Folli.stim/Go.nal-F

+ 1 IUI

+ too many tears, prayers, blood draws, urinalysis tests, and prenatal vitamins to keep track of.



= totally worth it to (finally) see this:





"For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath granted me my petition which I asked of Him." - 1 Samuel 1:27


Jennifer

Lesser of Two Evils Poll

I know that everyone is sick of the heat and sick of hearing everyone complain about the heat, so I'll make this short and sweet, and really try my hardest not to mention the weather again for a long, long time.

Unless it drops 20 degrees and rain begins pouring from the sky, then I may have to post pictures of my rejoicing. ;)

Anyway... I was looking through the pictures on my phone last night and came across this one, which kind of made me laugh a little:

From February when DFW was in the throes of record breaking COLD temperatures.

And then there's this one:

From yesterday's record breaking HOT temperature, (I actually missed out on getting a screen shot from earlier in the week when it was 110 or above, but this will do).

So, I've got to know, which do you think is worse? The 11 degrees feels like -5 or the 108 feels like 110?



Which end of the 115 degree spectrum do you prefer? And, yes you have to pick one, we would naturally all prefer somewhere in between, I'm just curious. ;)



Jennifer


P.S. It might be interesting to re-do this poll in the winter and see if the results are the same.

My New Friend Kindle

As an avid book lover I was adamantly opposed to e-readers for a lo-ong time.

As evidenced by our living room, (and an overflow bookcase in the hall, and a foot and-a-half tall stack of books under my nightstand), I love books.

I love their covers, and their worn pages, and their smell, and just didn't feel like an e-reader could ever compete with any of that.

Turns out they won't if those are your only measuring sticks.

But, I realized within the past few months that there are a few more things that have to be considered when making a true pro-con list about e-readers. The main one being that my eyes just aren't as good as they used to be and they get strained when I read for too long. I'm not really a read a chapter of a book a day kind of gal, when I want to read a book I sit down and read it all.

Cover to cover.

Not really a good habit to have when your eyes are not so great.

So my wonderful husband got me a kindle for my birthday back in June.


We decided to go with the $114 version with only wi-fi because I couldn't really envision a time when I needed to download a book and didn't have access to wi-fi. I haven't regretted this decision yet. I also didn't see the point of getting one of the other fancier e-readers with color and internet access etc., because I have an iPhone that takes care of all that stuff and let's face it I never leave the house without my phone.

The great thing about the kindle, (and other e-readers I'm sure), is that I can change the font size if my eyes start to hurt, and it reduces the strain on my eyes. So now I can read for hours on end like I always have, and walk away without a headache.

Win.

When I first got it I read 5 books in 5 days, and it was glorious! I still maintain my love for "real" books, but for books I just want to read once and don't want to collect dust on my shelves, the kindle is working brilliantly.

Win, win.

I also discovered shortly after getting my kindle that you can get lots and lots of classic literature for free! The first day I had it I downloaded Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, and lots of my other books for free. I was pretty much in heaven.

Win, win, win.

Plus, it fits in my purse so nicely. :)

Jennifer



P.S. This wasn't meant to be an advertisement for the kindle or any other e-reader, I just wanted to share my opinion of it, because I've actually been very pleasantly surprised at how much I'm loving having an e-reader.

It's Too Hot to Blog

Ok, that kind of sounds like a cop-out and it pretty much is, but hear me out...

I don't like to blog unless I have lots, (and lots), of pretty pictures to share also. Since it's been over a hundred for 30+ days straight, and over 95 every single day since May, I haven't been taking as many pictures lately. Who wants their picture taken when it's 108 outside and you're all sweaty and gross looking?

Not me, thank-you -very-much.

And then, my old stand-by when I'm being boring and not taking pictures of fun things going on in my life is to blog about recipes we've been trying out and enjoy. But I've also found I don't have a ton of motivation to cook when it's 108 outside either. I'm pretty sure I get the same way every year, just wait for fall to kick in and I'll be back to my normal cooking and posting entirely too many pictures of food antics.

In the mean time, here's a few things we've been up to in the past month-and-a-half(!!!), since I last posted...

I finished my Christmas quilt top approximately 5 days after my last post, if you're friends with me on Facebook you've already seen this. And since June 28th when this picture was taken, I don't think I've made a stitch of progress on any of the three quilts I've got going. I don't think I can use the excuse that it's too hot to sew, so I'll just confess that it's probably laziness in it's purest form.





We had lots of family over for 4th of July. Actually it was for the 2nd of July, but whatever. We, (of course), had lots of yummy food. I've always wanted to make one of these American flag cakes with all the fruit, and so this year I did. :)



I used my Nana's sponge cake recipe and a cream cheese/whipped cream frosting recipe I found online, and it was mighty delicious if I do say so myself. It seemed to disappear all too quickly though...

I also attempted to make these cookies from the front cover of the July Martha Stewart Living.


They tasted good, but they didn't look so hot. I also had to enlist the help of my husband, my brother Jordan, and his wife Haley to even get them to come out like they did. We did have a few that turned out pretty well, (and didn't look like the icing was melting off the cookies), and I carefully put the prettiest cookies on the top of the platter. Which meant that they were the first cookies eaten and therefore were long gone by the time I actually took a picture of the not-so-successful cookies.



If I'm being honest, I think Martha kind of fudged the truth a little on her directions. I'm not sure how in the world she expects one person to do all the work involved in these cookies by themselves. In fact, I'm not entirely sure she actually made those cookies herself.

That's right, I said it.

We also had some of Kelly's cherry limeade punch.



This is my second or third time to make this punch and it always goes over really well. My family doesn't drink alcohol, so it's nice to have something fun to drink other than the tea and lemonade standbys.

Took a whole bunch of pictures of MK one night when I was bored. She's a good summer photo subject because she never looks all sweaty and puffy like I feel. No fair.



Went to east Texas for my cousin Matthew's 9th birthday party. Once again, no pictures of us grown-ups, but here are a couple of my adorable cousins...


The birthday boy in his gift from us.


Eli.


Eli again, isn't he too cute? There were lots of kiddos there, but Eli doesn't move as fast as the older kids, so I was actually able to get pictures of him. I have lots of blurry pictures of the rest of the kids. ;)

Jonathan's family was here for a week or so, and I took not. one. single. picture. Pathetic.

So, I think that pretty much sums up our July-it's hot and I've been lazy. ;)

I'm hoping I'll be much better at posting in August! Anyone else looking forward to fall already? I'm a summer baby and usually love the summer, but this one has just beat me up. I'm ready for some cooler weather, cute clothes that cover up a little more skin, and a big ole' pumpkin spice latte!!

Jennifer