Sunday, August 30, 2009

know your limits

Yesterday was our big house cleaning and organizing day. The basement is a place that has caught a lot of our stuff from our parent's houses. It drives me crazy seeing it sit in piles. So I had a whole load of gumption and started sorting boxes moving things around, doing laundry and carrying appliances between levels. I reorganized the kitchen and made room in 2 pull-out shelves for the baby's bottles and other baby kitchen items. Oh, and picked-up around the entire house. It was an amazingly productive day!
I started to feel a bit of exhaustion come on, but didn't think much of it. I decided to sit and watch a movie with Katie at night and go to bed. Well, at my first pee break of the night I went to get up and I couldn't hold myself up. My legs were giving out and I literally couldn't walk due to exhaustion. It was pretty scary since I've never felt like this before. When Nuno came home that night I told him what happened and he had to help me to the bathroom during the rest of my nightly pee breaks.
Luckily, I woke up today and I feel like I'm back to normal. I hope my lack of being the typical relaxed, feet propped pregnant lady isn't affecting my son. I really haven't had to slow down, but I'm 30 weeks along now. That means 10 weeks and our baby will be with us and I'm thinking he may continue to take more out of me than I could have imagined. But I have it to give!

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

crafty pug onesie

Yesterday (Monday's) Martha Stewart episode is a craft how-to on making a dog appliqued baby onesie! The girl who is sharing the craft has a site and it was from there I saw this pug onesie. OK, I gotta learn to make this! I hope I can figure out how to zigzag stitch since I've never done it before on my sewing machine.

This would be an awesome craft for my baby shower! So many girls who are coming are the crafty type. It's probably a bit too much for everyone who comes to make one, but a cool idea nonetheless.
I'm super excited about the baby shower my mom and sister are throwing for me. It's bird & nest themed. Invites went out last week and they turned out amazing!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

help, I lost my palate!

Through my twenties I became really adventurous with food, trying anything and everything. I eliminated most packaged/processed foods and junk. I would eat bulgar wheat salads, enjoy expensive cheeses, switched to soy, snacked on flax and learned to cook so many interesting meals from scratch. I was really happy with my new approach to eating.

Well, in comes pregnancy and it's been a riot seeing all foods I found disgusting become my taste preference. Let's see - chocolate milk, kraft dinner, twizzlers, egg mcmuffin, spaghetti with tomato sauce, really, any sort of
mange-cake food out there. I mean, these are foods I wouldn't touch and hoped to never again in my life. And food that I once relished are of absolutely no interest to me anymore. I'm actually turning my nose up at Pad Thai wishing I could have a Pizza Pop instead. To add insult to injury, I'm not happy about the lack of nutrition some of these foods offer. What happened to my palate? I'm now a child with childish taste preferences!

I guess I'm taking this all in stride, I'm sure in 2 months things will be restored back to normal. If I'm taking anything out of this experience, I'm hoping that it's a lesson in tolerance. I had imagined my children to be avocado eating toddlers who take no interest in chocolate ice cream - but maybe that's just not realistic. Not to say I'm totally abandoning the health food thing, but I might have to take a bit of understanding when my son refuses to eat his pesto.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

rockabye baby

Earlier this week we purchased what some might feel is the most unimportant baby item. Baby's First Boombox!


Well, I feel music is really important in our lives, so why not have a nursery stereo? Nuno downloaded a whole bunch of these Rockabye Baby albums. For anyone who hasn't heard about them, they are lullaby renditions of rock music. There is a Rolling Stones one, Ramones, Pixies, Led Zeppelin... quite a few are available now. I sometimes sit at the computer and rest the speakers close to my belly to see how the baby reacts to music. The only thing I've noticed is he seems to really get crazy when listening to The Who. He's wild - like Keith Moon! Wait, that's not quite the projection I want of my son.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Adventureland

Other than the summer vacations we had lined up, I decided in the middle of winter that it was my summer goal to visit an All American Fair. The only one I could think of was the Erie County Fair in Hamburg, NY. I'm not sure if part of my interest in the experience stemmed from the movie Adventureland, but I was looking for something no fair in Canada can provide. But trying to convince people to come with me was pretty tough. I think it was my promise of hand dipped corn dogs that eventually persuaded Nuno around and my promise to Katie that it would be So Bad It's Good. I think until we entered the gates of the fair, Nuno and Katie were ready to blame a waste of one of the only decent Saturdays this summer on me.
Then we walked in and we were just like kids! The stands were retro and colourful.
The food selection was incredible and hilarious. Probably the most shocking/thrilling was to find deep fried Oreos, Twinkies, HoHo's, Mallow Cups... I'm sure if you brought in your own candy bar they'd deep fry it for you.

The rides are rusty, dated and probably so unsafe... Even for MJ!

Although it crossed my mind before going, I suspected that I wouldn't be able to ride many rides in pregnancy. BUT THE SWINGS! Yeah, I was a bit bummed about that.

Finally I found a ride that I could enjoy. The scary ferris wheel.

Being afraid of heights and riding this rusty ride almost did me in. I'm so petrified here.

Katie had no problem enjoying it.

And Nuno just knew a whole lot better than to get on.

At the midway you could win a Smurf in reverse or a Finding Nemo Care Bear. But the games proved to take a lot more skill than Katie or Nuno could muster to win. But Katie did manage to win at a dart game and took home a great framed Micheal Jackson memorial poster.

Well, the only thing disappointing about the fair was that we didn't hear Rock Me Amadeus. But it was totally worth every buck we spent there. Come to think about it, I probably won't need to return to the ECF for another 4 years. By that time our son will be the perfect age to get his first taste of an American Fair and all the sticky, sweaty, smelly, vomity, deep fried memories it provides.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Grand Bend weekend

This past weekend was our last in our string of summer getaways. The whole family met up at my sister-in-law's family's cottage in Grand Bend. We always look forward to this week because the area is so beautiful and we have so much fun together.
Here is my nephew building sand castles and making a pool for himself on the beach.

I always remember Lake Huron being very cold, but it was quite comfortable. It may look overcast from the shot of Nuno and I, but I actually had a bit of a spell on the beach where I overheated and needed to take a break from the sun!

Trader Joe's worship

The final little thing I wanted to touch on about our trip to Pittsburgh was Trader Joe's. On our vacations to American cities, we've always searched out the Trader Joe's for snacks while on vacation. This has really blossomed into a total spending spree since everything we've ever bought at this store has become our favourite snack items. The reason being that they have an organic, free trade, sugar free and totally friggin' yummy take on everyday food items. The only trouble is finding a way of taking it all home. We ended up paying an extra charge on one of our suitcases when returning on a plane home from San Francisco because of our TJ load-up. No worries this time though, driving means we could take home as many pantry items as we wanted. And we didn't hold back. I couldn't even fit half of what we bought into the photo below.

And to appease my odd pregnancy craving for macaroni and cheese, we picked up the TJ's
version. White Cheddar Shells and Cheese. It was totally delicious with a real cheddar flavour!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Wayne & Lili's wedding

OK, so the real reason we were in Pittsburgh this past weekend was for Wayne & Lili's wedding. Wayne is a friend of Nuno's from high school who left Canada for school at U. Mass. It was there where he met Lili. Since Lili is originally from Pittsburgh, the wedding was held in town at the Heinz Chapel.

Nuno was in the wedding party and he did an amazing job. The wedding was beautiful and very formal.

This is the reception site, The Pittsburgh Athletic Club. This building is very old, with loads of history and very well appointed.

During the reception Wayne sang his proposal song to Lili for us called, The Question. Super sweet.

Other than the thrill of the wedding, running into Zachary "Sylar/Spock" Quinto was a highlight. Too bad I went to bed early and didn't get a chance to meet him. But here's our friends posing with him.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Diner's, Drive-In's & Dives - The Dor-Stop

I mentioned in my last entry that we were in Pittsburgh over the weekend. While there, we had a complete day to ourselves to enjoy the city.

One plan we had was to visit the Dor-Stop. Nuno and I heard about this place on an episode of the Food Network show Diner's, Drive-In's and Dives. I get a kick out of this show because it relates to my sensibility of dropping yourself into a new city and finding hidden jems specific and special to the area you are visiting. We always said that if we had a chance to check out a place that looked decent from the show we should. Dor-Stop appeared on an episode called What's for Breakfast.

The Dor-Stop are known for their breakfasts, specifically Hot Cakes! They make so many flavour combinations that, after watching the episode, I immediately wanted the banana walnut hot cake. But then I was also tempted to try the pumpkin. Once there, I finally decided on the Banana Chocolate Chip!

What can I say, it was to-die-for! The tastiest pancakes I've ever had - hands down. Very rich and satisfying - it took me 2 breakfasts to eat all these.

Nuno doesn't eat sugar, but the episode also featured something called Jumbots. I always called this a breakfast scramble. It included eggs, ham, onions & peppers. He really liked it and unlike the pancakes, we could totally remake something like this at home.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Fisher-Price & Dwell Studio for Target Cradle Swing

I have a lot of really exciting things I want to blog about, but just don't have the time right now. We just got back from our trip to Pittsburgh and tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. I'm ashamed to say, I had to post about this baby swing before these two events. Maybe because it's quick to tell, or maybe because I'm so jazzed about it, I can't seem to recover. I guess this is what happens when you have a baby - you become just too excited about it.

In creating a registry for the baby, I've been a little disappointed with the selection of items. We're constantly buying things on Kijiji just because some of this stuff is just too expensive for us to put onto our registry having our friends and family buy brand new. I finally broke down and started a baby registry at Target. The prices and style on some of the items are so much better than what is available here. While browsing online I came across this swing. Check out this trifecta of amazing-ness - Fisher-Price & Dwell Studio for Target Cradle Swing!

There is even and ipod dock! I could just see this fitting in perfectly into our living room.

I immediately went to check the availability of this item, and, what do you know, it's limited! Only one location in WNY carried it. I called this Target location and they had one left. I'm thrilled - we're picking it up tomorrow!