Goodbye First Trimester!

Here's to being 1/3 of the way through my pregnancy!  If it was my last one, I would be rejoicing because the morning sickness would be leaving, but since I haven't been sick this pregnancy, I'm just happy to be a little bit further along.  Here's to easy pregnancies!  I finally had Bill take a picture of me this morning after I came home from running. And then I cropped my head out of it because it was rather scary.  Ha ha! 

 And for comparison's sake.  Apparently my head was scary last time too :) :

I'd say I'm bigger, but maybe not as much as I thought.  I'm still running and doing workout videos, so we'll see how it all goes down in the end.

Switching Rooms

We've had so much fun having Bill's dad living with us for the last four or five months.  Unfortunately for us they closed on their new house last Friday so he moved up north and we don't get to have him around every night.  As a result though, we were able to switch around Spencer's bedroom and our office so that we could put two beds in his bedroom.  The office was the bigger room before, so now we've switched.  A couple months back we reorganized the living room too and as a part of this we moved the bookshelves out of there and into our office so that room looked a little less cluttered.  I like how it all turned out.  Here's the results.

The Office 

The Front Room

Spencer's Side of the room 

Spencer's other side of the room :) Soon to be the new baby's

Spencer's Toddler Bed

I guess we could have gone straight to a twin-sized bed, but I have to say, this toddler bed I made is absolutely adorable.  And it fits in the bedroom we have with the crib, so that's another plus.

Needing Spencer's crib in about six months for the new baby was a great excuse to get out my tools and build something again.  The finish turned out pretty nice.  It's always my least favorite part of building because I've had several pieces turn out not so great at that step.  I'll figure it out sometime.  This one was mostly a winner.  If you get close, you can see some of the mistakes, but who looks for those? :)  And you know what the best part of this bed is?  It cost me about $60 to build.  That's after a $10 mistake of cutting a bunch of boards too short.  I love being able to build things I could never afford to buy.

Beds, Playing Outside, and our own little Quasimoto

I've slowly been building Spencer a toddler bed that he can start using sometime between now and when the next baby is born.  Mostly it's spent the last month sitting outside built but needing a final sanding, staining, and to be assembled.  Bill's mom was in town this weekend, so I got it sanded and we decided to put it together and see how Spencer likes it while everyone was there.  It's not stained yet, but otherwise it's done.

We put it together in the living room and dragged Spencer's crib mattress out to put in it.  The second it was in, Spencer came running over and jumped on it and then started rolling around playing all over it. He loves it!  It was so cute to watch.  He's certainly not ready to sleep in it, as he won't actually lay on it for more than about half a second at a time, but he sure loves playing on it. The plan is to switch our office and his bedroom and then set both it and the crib up in the new room, which is much bigger than his current one.

Spencer loves, loves, loves being outside.  He'll just sit at the window or the door and stare outside.  The other day I took him outside to wander around.  This is what he did the whole time.

 Played with his truck.

 Walked all over our back and front yard.

And pushed this little scooter around that is our downstairs neighbor's toy.  He even got on it once, but promptly fell off and decided that wasn't the best idea.

So last thing.  Yesterday morning Spencer woke up with his eye almost swollen shut.  We had no idea what caused it, since it wasn't like that when he went to bed.  It got better throughout the day but when he woke up this morning it was all swollen again.  Today though, we figured out what caused it.  Spencer woke up this morning but then quieted down for a few minutes before we went in and got him.  When Bill opened the door, he was leaned against the corner of his crib, totally asleep, pressed against his eye.  Crazy kid!  Here's how it looks.

Flopping

Bill's siblings used to wake each other up by running in and jumping on top of each other.  That might be the worst way I can imagine to wake up, but really funny if you're the one doing the flopping, as they called it. Spencer has decided he also likes to flop people.  He started running up and falling on us a few weeks ago and I finally got a video of sorts.  He's not flopping anyone, but he's also started swan diving on the bed whenever we put him up there.  So funny.  When he flops us he does the same thing, just on us. :)  It's so funny.  This kid has such a great sense of humor.  I love it!

Growing, growing, growing

I'm hitting that phase in my pregnancy where I'm thicker around the middle, but not enough so anyone would dare ask if I was pregnant.  My clothes are starting to fit a little weird and mostly I think I just look like I'm getting a little tubby.  This is all fine and dandy except I don't hit 12 weeks until Tuesday.  People, I am going to be huge!  I was barely even showing at all last time at this point.  Remember this shot?  I think that's a few days before I delivered.  

I look at that picture and I can't even believe that's possible.  Can I really get that big?  Sure can!  At least I shrunk back to normal size afterwards.  That's every girl's fear and I'm glad it was unfounded for me, with plenty of help from exercise and eating well of course.  But I'm pretty sure that besides the fact that I can already tell I'm carrying this one high while I carried Spencer super low, that I will hit this phase long before I am ready to deliver.  Ah well.  I feel good and I'm almost done with my first trimester, so I'm not really complaining, just marveling.  My only real wish is that this time around my face maintains some semblance of being an adult rather than reverting to pimply teenagehood.  Here's hoping!

Homemade Bagels

Have you ever made homemade bagels?  If you haven't, you really should.  They are so ridiculously easy and they turn out so amazing.  My mom makes them all the time and has them for breakfast nearly every day, and she shared her recipe with me a long time ago.  I don't make them very often, though I don't know why, since they are easy and don't take that much time to make, but I don't.  However, this morning I was seriously craving some bagels, so I made some!  I had blueberries in my fridge and craisins, so I made half blueberry and half filled with craisins.  I would have used wheat flour but I didn't feel like getting my wheat mill out, so these are delightful white flour bagels.  That's totally a treat, right? :)  I thought I'd share the recipe so all of you can enjoy some yourselves.


Bagels
1 1/2 c warm water
2 1/4 tsp yeast
3 tbsp sugar or honey
1/2 tbsp salt
4 1/2 c flour

Pour warm water into a mixing bowl and sprinkle yeast on top.  Add sugar and stir. Let sit and foam for a few minutes to check your yeast.  Add salt.  Slowly flour and knead to make a soft dough.  Knead for 10 minutes by hand or use a Kitchen Aid, etc. Dough should be fairly stiff. Cover and let rise in warm place for 15 minutes.

Punch down dough, working out air bubbles, and pinch off about a dozen balls.  Let them rest a couple minutes, then work a hole in the center with both thumbs.  Let rise 20 minutes.  While dough is rising, fill a large pan with water and 3 tbsp sugar and heat to boiling. Drop 4-5 bagels into the boiling water. Boil 1 minute, flip over, then boil for another minute.

Remove from water and cool for a couple minutes on greased cookie sheets.  Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Variations:

Cinnamon raisin: decrease salt to 1 tsp and increase sugar to 6 tbsp. Add cinnamon ( a couple of tsp or to taste) Knead in raisins after dough is desired consistency.
Whole Wheat: Just substitute half the flour for wheat flour. Add wheat flour first and let it sponge or foam before adding the other flour.
Other options: Blueberry, poppyseed, herb-garlic, cranberry, oat bran, cheese & onion.  For ones with berries, just need them in after you've gotten the dough all ready.


And wha la!  You have amazing homemade bagels.   Mine are currently in the oven and I can't wait to bite into one!  Oh and small warning.  They get bigger when you boil them, and get even bigger when you put them in the oven, which I forgot about, so you will end up with some pretty huge bagels if you don't start them sort of small.  See my picture?  Good times!

And for all you Spencer admirers out there, here's what he was doing while I was cooking. 

Wistful Thoughts

Have you ever wanted to be done with a stage in your life?  Who am I kidding?  Of course you have.  I'm to that point with where I'm at.  I try so very hard to be content with what I'm doing and how things are going and find the good in everything.  There really is a lot of that.  I love my friends, my calling, my 1-year old, where we live, having my FIL living with us, being pregnant with another little one, etc, etc.

Yet still, I really think I'd be okay with a change.  Like Bill being done with school and getting a job.  I'd love to have my kids be a little older so we could introduce them to all those fun outdoorsy things that Bill and I love so much and don't do at all at the moment.  Heck, I'd just take Bill having a little more time in his life so that he could actually finish his work and have free time.  I pine for the day he comes home before 6:30PM and doesn't have any homework to do on the weekends.  Then I don't think I would care whether our kids were really little.  We'd both be able to put our minds to planning how to do fun things with them despite their age. Oh, and what would it be like to not at least partially live off of student loans?  That will be a blissful day when it arrives.  Making money again?  What is that like? I'm so used to this school thing, but I could really get unused to it.  What if going on a campout didn't immediately bring to mind how much gas will cost or whatever random food we choose to buy.  What a novel thought.

You know what else I could really enjoy?  A dishwasher.  Even a bad one.  I'll rinse the dishes.  Just give me somewhere to put them to finish them off.  That might be the one downside to our house.  Speaking of houses, I really want to buy one.  You know, someday.  I just wish someday were getting closer, like we were actually saving for a down payment or something great like that.  Remember that whole living on student loans part I mentioned? Yeah, no down payment right now.

So I really do have a lot of amazing blessings in my life.  I could name so many things that are fantastic and another time I will.  But right now, I could do with a change.  Too much to ask?  Maybe.  All those changes will come soon enough.  Today I'm just not feeling so patient about waiting for them.

Crafting

I have New Beginnings on Sunday.  As the giveaway we are giving the girls a "Standards of Personal Worthiness Survival Kit."  I got the idea on a website somewhere.  I can't remember where.  I was putting it together this week and wanted to make a little bag to put them in.  Pinterest saved the day and I made the cutest little bags.  See? :)  I'm feeling pretty proud of how they turned out.  They weren't that bad to make, especially since I was making 15 of them.  Good times. 

First Haircut

Spencer got his first haircut today!  Funny thing about it?  He hardly even noticed we were doing anything except when we did his neckline, then he kept cringing.  It was funny.  Since he's a blondie, it's kind of hard to see the difference, but here's before and after:

Oh geez, this kid is cute.  Yay for finally growing some hair!

Belated Birthday Pics

Spencer loved his birthday cupcake.  It took him a bit to get started, but then he was all over it.  We didn't really get a very good picture of how covered he was, but he ate every little bit of it he could. 

 Spence got a bunch of books for his birthday plus a dragon my sister made.  That's right, she made it!  So talented.  Spencer loves it, as you can see. :)