A 2-fer-1

Tonight for Family Home Evening, we listened to General Conference and put together our much awaited crib that arrived a whole month early!  We looked a lot into cribs and think we are going to be very happy with this one.  So, in today's post you will not only be getting some fun pictures of things we have been doing in the baby's room as of this weekend, but there is also a picture of the belly (yes, I can safely say the bump has now graduated to belly status).

The dresser mom and dad gave to us a year ago, with new knobs I have been super excited about (thanks to anthropolgies hot sales)!

Baby changing table courtesy of Sara and Birch that we made match the dresser with more fun knobs.  

I LOVE THEM!

Our beautiful Parker 4-in-1 crib.  It looks darker in this picture than it really is.  That said, we do like it's richer finish called, coffee.  I was really impressed with this crib for it's baby/kid friendly design, materials, and finish as well as how sturdy and beautiful I think it is.

And yes, Jared snaggeda picture of our sweet little one who has been growing!  Speaking of which, it is late, past my bedtime, and I still need another before bed snack. Ah, pregnancy!

And might I just add one more BIG thank you to everyone who is helping our baby come into a wonderful home with all the trimmings!  Jared said on Saturday while putting in the knobs together, "You know how much love this baby is going to be born into?" We sure eagerly await her arrival and feel so so very grateful, especially as we recognize what special blessings so many  are sharing with us that many others didn't/don't have.

Delicious Waffles!

One of my favorite cooking/baking blogs out there is http://www.101cookbooks.com/ (which this photo is from).  She is a remarkable in the kitchen!  And from all her other entries seems like a remarkable woman all around, that I would love to spend some time with.  I am always drooling at her seasonal recipes, cookbook recomendations, and photography.  I want to go to San Fransisco and enjoy walking around all the streets and beaches, love up all the Farmer's Markets, and visit some of the restaurants.  Until then, I try out her recipes with, I'll admit, often a number of changes.  I don't always have the wide spectrum of vibrant spices or delcious greens or beans, but I do what I can. 
As a major waffle fan, I have been experimenting with recipes for a while.  This one she recently posted we tried this morning and I think is, hands down, my favorite one yet.  It has the whole grain goodness I love from one of my mother-in-law's recipes and the crunchy outer layer, soft inner layer lightness that I love from the whole wheat waffle recipe I grew up on.  It is definitely worth breaking out your wheat/grain grinders if you have one.  It doesn't take any extra time really! So here it is:  My substitutions/adjustments (which were minimal this time) in italics:

Multigrain Waffles

1 1/2 tablespoons poppy seeds
2 cups / 475 ml buttermilk (I cheaply made my own 'cause I didn't have any)
1 cup / 3.5 oz / 100g barley flour (ground in our Nutramil)
1/2 cup / 1.5 oz / 45 g oat flour (gound rolled oats in our blender)
1/2 cup / 2 oz / 55g rye flour (ground in our Nutramil - could subst. with whole wheat or millet flour if you don't have any rye for a good waffle and slightly different tast)
1 tablespoon natural cane sugar or brown sugar
1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder
scant 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
3 large eggs, whisked
1/3 cup / 3 oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled a bit  (I may or may not have used less :)

If you happen to remember, soak the poppy seeds in the buttermilk overnight, if not, it's no big deal. Just add them to the wet mix later on.
Preheat your waffle iron. I set mine to medium heat (3-4), but you'll have to play around a bit with the settings on your particular waffle iron to settle on the right temperature.
In a large bowl mix the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt together. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs into the buttermilk mixture, then whisk in the melted butter. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined.

I use about 1/2 cup / 120 ml of batter per waffle. Close the iron, and resist the urge to peek for a couple of minutes, the waffle needs time to set and develop a bit of a skin. After that you can check to see how your waffle is coming along. Cook until deeply golden. Serve with syrup, preserves, fresh fruit, yogurt, peanut or almond butter, etc. 
Made 8-ish round (6 3/4" diameter) waffles.

Photo Shoot

Last Thursday, we got treated to the best half hour photo shoot I have ever witnessed (no offense Leah, this isn't the same work you are a master at).  Yep, we took a break in between classes to head down and see our little baby, who is so much bigger now!  It wasn't until the last 5-10 minutes though we got to see if it was a boy or a girl.  Our radiologist was fantastic.  She took us through every little part; brain to toes, bones, organs, everything!  We loved it.  This is a mix of both 3-D and normal ultrasound pictures.  Here they are:

Her gorgeous profile.

Thumbs up Dudes! And what a cute little belly.

Already a thumb sucker.  And is that a hair line I see?  She might be coming out with a head of hair.

Waving.  

Notice the light/white colored bubbles in the lower left hand corner, that's her umbilical cord.

Side shot.  Can you tell what we are having?

Yep, it's a girl!

Perfect Bedding

I have been wanting to do this blog post for a while, because this project started back in October over General Conference weekend, picked back up over Christmas break until I got what I thought was a wicked case of the flu (good thing it was something totally better :) and was finished over conference weekend this April.  I know, I know, leave it to me to drag a 6 hour project out to 6 months.  Anyhow, I did finish it and am quite happy.
The duvet cover was a design I saw in Garnet Hill and just fell in love with.  I sent it to my mom, mentioning that I thougth we could make this, and if she ever saw any fabric like this in one of the two colors I liked to snag it please.  Well not more than a month later, maybe it was less, she acutally did find this fabric, brought it to Utah, and we worked on making the little pinched ball things together.  She really did the whole of it though.  On the other hand, I didn't know what backing to put on the cover, and spend the next 3 months looking, till Jared and I randomly decided to check at one more Khols while we were down in Farmington.  Again, by sheer luck he found a sheet set that was perfect for the backing about the same time I was ready to give up.    We got it for a MAJOR steel ($6) and I quickly went to work finishing the duvet cover.  Ta Da!

I really wanted a bedskirt though with shams to complete the finished look so I was stumped again at what to do.  I had two very different kinds of fabrics and colors that went well together but needed something to tie it all in.  At the brink of breaking down and purchasing a bedskirt and pillow shams from Anthropologie (on sale but still somewhat over what I wanted to sink into this project), I remembered that I had this awesome set of batiked fabric from Venezuela that had been left in the cabin for years, was getting eaten by moths, and what not, and rescued in 2008 as we were cleaning out the fabric.  It was just two gorgeous to get rid of.  So I designed my own pleated bed skirt ....

.... and pillow shams with Anita's help and her lending me her sewing machine once again.  I love them.  Eat your heart out Anthropologie!

This project was probably entirely to difficult for me, but somehow it got finished, and since I made some sizing mistakes I ended up having to put snaps on the back of the pillow shams to keep the pillow from bursting out of it's cover.  That was my project over this April Conference weekend. 
Either way, I am one happy camper to have it all done and am quite pleased with it all together.  It even goes with our grassy swamp green carpet!  Next project .... baby's room.

Spring Break

With a big thanks to mom and dad I can now post the pictures of our Spring Break together.  We had a most fantastic time, that felt oh so needed, but was definetly due to our parents making this a most wonderful time.  We spent much of out time at the beach with the most fabulous weather that is even to be enjoyed at the coast. We played lots of frisbee and corquet, ate fabulously,watched Big Business, and even visited Guthrie for some of the best music hidden in the woods of Oregon.  Here are some pics:

First, Sara came and we enjoyed a fabulous Sunday together at church, making flower headbands and chattting.

At the beach we took turns giving each other sky rides :)

Jared also found a ton of sea/beach shirmps or something like that.  He was catching them like crazy as the tide came in and out!

Yum!

And of course we got in some Frisbee on the beach.

We had so much fun enjoying the sunny little-to-know-wind weather.  No pictures are available but we did enjoy some dips in the ocean, Dad and Jared egging each other on at every beach we stopped at. 

And last we ended our trip at Guthrie.  I sure do I love that music!