40 weeks, 4 days

AhMahGah! I'm about to pull this baby out myself. My doctor said on Wednesday that I have no dilation and no fluid loss, so she didn't see a need to see me again until next week, when I'll be 41 weeks, 2 days. What?!?!?! Apparently it's really common for 1st pregnancies to be extra long.

All of this extra time has me nesting extra hard. I've been making freezer meals to have on hand.

I made pizza bagels, chicken and biscuit casserole, chicken and broccoli casserole, ham, apricot and goat cheese paninis, beef & bean burritos, swedish meatballs with mushrooms (for the crock pot) and stuffed french toast!

Here is my method for freezer pizza bagels. You'd think it would be very straight forward. It's not. There was a lot of trial and error involved in getting pizza bagels that don't come out of the oven mushy with sauce soaked into the bagel, or over bubbly with the sauce and cheese everywhere but the bagel! Follow all the steps, trust me!

Ingredients:
- 5 bagels from the bakery, unsliced
- 20 oz pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce or plain tomato sauce
- 1/2 bag of pepperonis, or about 3 oz, if getting it from a deli
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella

- take the bagels home and slice them yourself. Don't be tempted to buy presliced bagels, because they are too smooth and don't have the nooks and crannies to hold any sauce.
- lay the bagels on cookie sheets, cut sides up and freeze. If you put sauce on them right away, the sauce soaks into the bagel and makes it soggy when you bake them.
- place 4 paper towels on a microwave safe plate. Scatter pepperonis all over the paper towels, and microwave for about 30 seconds. When you pull the plate out, the paper towels will have turned orange from all the grease they soaked up. The pepperonis will feel dried out, but they will be OK
- make little stacks of pepperoni and cut them into tiny dices, about the size of a pea.
- place pepperonis into a bowl and stir in sauce.
- once bagels are frozen, pull them out of the freezer and top each one with a few tablespoons of pepperoni sauce mixture.
- top with shredded cheese. Press the cheese on top of them a little to get as much as possible to stick to the sauce
- place all of the bagels, still on cookie sheets, back in freezer and freeze until sauce and bagels are frozen together
- remove from freezer and wrap individually in Saran wrap. If some of the cheese falls off, carefully lay it on top of the bagel before wrapping. To prevent freezer burn even longer, store in a plastic freezer bag.

- to bake, preheat oven to 350. Unwrap however many bagels you want to cook and place on cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes, rotate baking sheet, and bake 10-14 more minutes.

32-39 weeks

OK, here we are after a 7 week hiatus. Blogging is like exercise. It's a habit, and once you miss a day...you're done. The track pad on my lap top is messed up and I didn't have a mouse that was compatible. One day without fixing it went by, then another day...I have an iPad, so I didn't feel disconnected.

And here we are. No apologies, but thanks to Danielle for reaching out. It was nice to know that I was missed. I've still been keeping up with everyone else, though, so I haven't missed anything. I also never missed a week of belly photos. We had to move most of them inside though because NYC weather is THE WORST! Something no one ever mentions about it is that it rains here about 3 times a week. I don't know why, but we were un-prepared for that when we moved here. I digress. Onto the good stuff.

32 weeks




33 weeks




34 weeks




35 weeks

check out this awesome hospital gown my mom made for me! Not only will I not have to wear a gown that someone died in yesterday, but I won't blend into the walls! FYI, I totally picked the fabric out myself. People made fun of it on facebook.

36 weeks




37 weeks




38 weeks




39 weeks




I can't believe it's only T-minus 3 days until our due date (Monday, March 4th). It feels like it's flown by in some ways, but when I think back to when I found out that I was pregnant, around the 4th of July, that feels like FOREVER ago! I mean, the next 4th of July isn't that far away!

She's starting to suck all the fat from everywhere else on my body. Ha! Including my face. Fine with me. I can't wait to get back to weight watchers, mostly because I miss everyone. I feel good about this pregnancy though. I feel tired, and the most mundane things wear me out (took an hour long nap after emptying the dishwasher yesterday. Seriously. I'd liken it to having Mononucleosis, if you've ever experienced that.) but otherwise, I'm still cheerful and not to the point where I scream, "get it out of me!!!" We had a doctor's appointment yesterday and the doctor doesn't think she'll come by Monday. She didn't check my dilation, and said that since I haven't lost my plug or had any contractions, she's pretty comfy in there. We'll see how I feel next week!

In my next post, I'm going to show off all of the beautiful homemade things people have made us. People have been so generous. I can't get over it.

Happy Friday to everyone!

12 Cookies of Christmas - "Perfect" Chocolate Chip Cookies

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies, my ass. I saw this recipe on plain chicken and was really excited to try it.



I was pumped when the instructions required browning the butter first. I love things made with browned butter. They add such a beautiful, roasted nutty flavor to baked goods.





And instead of regular, semi-sweet chocolate chips, I used Trader Joe's chopped up bits of peppermint bark. I applaud Trader Joe's for this product. Giving peppermint bark as a gift is getting old, people. If anyone gives us anymore this year, I'm going to chop it up myself and make cookies again with it, only using the recipe on the back of the Trader Joe's chips bag.



This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe. I should have stuck with it.





Then another interesting step. You cream the butter and eggs and sugar with intervals of rest. It made a custardy base.



These are the baking chips. They tasted good straight out of the bag.




And then you throw everything else together.



And bake them like normal cookies.



And they allegedly turn out perfect. They are not perfect. They are just kinda, "eh." They didn't taste very good after a few days, either. I think the browned butter custard process made them...over-processed.

Here is the recipe: Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

28 & 29 weeks!

28 weeks.



It's getting too cold to take pictures outside, and it's been raining the past 2 Sundays in a row. Boo.



29 weeks



Wow. It's really getting close. I have my gestational diabetes test tomorrow and I'll be sure to let you all know how that goes. I'm really not looking forward to it because everyone says that the glucose drink they make you chug is awful. I picked the bottle up at my last appointment, and I drink an hour before my appointment tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers really tightly that I don't find out that I have something as terrible as diabetes the week before Christmas. I'm looking forward to gorging on holiday food exactly 6 days from today. I also don't want a 12 pound baby. 9 is maybe the maximum I could deal with. No one else in my family (that I know of) had gestational diabetes, but my Mom has regular Type 2 diabetes. I'm not sure if that puts me at risk, but I'm happy knowing that only 4-7% of pregnancies develop diabetes, and it goes away immediately after the cord is cut. I have 3 pints of Graeter's in the freezer and I'm going to be really depressed if I have to wait until March 4th to eat it!

As far as Princess Flannery's growth is concerned, I feel her somersaulting A LOT these days. I barely got any sleep last night. I knew that was coming because I barely felt her move at all yesterday during the day, I don't think even once, and then the second I tried to fall asleep, she thought that was a really dumb idea. I was 15 minutes late to work because I just couldn't drag myself out this morning. Luckily, I have a very understanding boss :)

I haven't been craving much lately. The only thing I wrote down that I really wanted was a Mango Lassi from an Indian restaurant, but that's it.

Annual Christmas Tree decorating!

We have a tradition in our very small, but soon to be bigger family. Every year, we decorate our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving while watching the movie Elf on loop, and drinking egg nog. This year, there was no egg nog, but I'll just drink 2x as much next year!



This is the stupid tree holder that someone stupid person engineered. It is impossible to put together. It's the only frustrating part of the process.



All of the parts of the tree fit in a giant, rubbermaid bin. The individual bags indicate which level of the tree those branches go in. Go ahead and make an organizational joke. If I could Dewey Decimal them, I would.



Here it all goes in.



Every year, we swear that this is the last year for the fake tree. Every year, we put it away again and say that next year is going to be the last year.



I think it looks pretty real.



Then the lights go on.



Feelin' pretty proud. And we're not even done.





I bought this Santa in Oklahoma City in October at the craft fair. He was so amazingly racist, politically incorrect and offensive that I had to bring him home.



Someday, our tree will be complete with a real angel on top. For now, we have a little stuffed bear in an angel costume. When Ryan's parents were celebrating their first Christmas together, they put their tree up and realized that they did not have an angel. Ryan's dad, God rest his soul, drove to Walgreens to buy one. He came home with it, took it out of the box, and plugged her in. Yes, she had a jack that connected to the tree lights. I wish I'd been there to see the look on their faces. This angel has a set of humungous knockers THAT LIGHT UP. They have used her every year since anyway, I cannot wait to inherit her!

12 Cookies of Christmas - Egg Nog Thumbprints

I absolutely love egg nog. Who doesn't? Well, actually, I know a few people who don't. Since I can't imbibe in the nog in the tradition I'd like to this year, I've found a new way to enjoy it. This was a recipe that I completely made up on the fly.



I am not a huge fan of baking mixes. They usually taste chemically to me. My lovely sister-in-law, Cyndi, uses boxed cake mix and replaces the oil with butter, the water with milk and adds a carton of sour cream and her cake is awesome, but that usually as far as I go. At Trader Joe's however, they have some really awesome mixes. I recommend the truffle brownie mix and the vanilla cake mix. Also, the pumpkin pancake mix. I digress. I had never seen the sugar cookie mix, and I think it might just be out for Christmas, so I picked up 2 boxes.


I wanted to make thumbprint cookies, but I wanted to give them a better holiday flair, so I added a teaspoon of rum extract and a pinch of nutmeg.

The directions on the box tell you to chill the dough, then roll it out and cut it into shapes. I immediately used a cookie dough scoop to roll them into balls. Please ignore all of the stains on my pizza stone.

Immediatly after pulling out of the oven, smush a little well into the center of each cookie. This won't work after they've cooled down.
The sugar cookie mix from Trader Joe's came with frosting and colored sugars, but normally I would use a royal icing.

So here it is, Egg Nog Thumbprints! If you try them, let me know!
1 package of sugar cookie mix
1 t. rum extract
1/4 t. (or so) of nutmeg

- mix cookies according to directions and add extras.
- roll cookies into balls and place on parchment lined baking sheet.
- bake according to directions
- smush with a spoon to make a little well in the center. A table spoon works well for this.
- cool completely and fill wells with icing.

It's that time of year!

Of course it's all about the birth of Christ and spending time with family, but I'll be completely honest. I really love the Christmas booty at Trader Joe's.



I've dug into the Candy Cane Joe-Joe's (a classic) and the Peppermint Pretzel Slims (a new one) and I'll let you see the goodies I make with the Peppermint Baking Chips, Sugar Cookie Mix and the Minty Marshmallows!