Thanksgiving, Family, Black Friday, & Decorating

As previously mentioned, we went to the doctor on Wednesday and had an ultrasound. We found out that we are having another girl. The sonogram that shows that it is a girl was apparently taken from a weird angle. I seriously cannot tell that those little dots are not toes. So... hmmph.

That night my brother, Nick, came to stay with us. Claire really likes Nick. We had dinner while Peter worked late in preparation for the extended weekend. Peter came home and cleaned out and rearranged the garage some more so that we could fit a second car inside. We are currently borrowing his dad's car for commuting while he is in China. So we needed the drive way space seeing as no one is allowed to park on the streets from 12a-5am. Peter also installed the TV antenna in our attic. Hooray!

Thursday was fun and relaxed. We woke up and ate hot chocolate and toast for breakfast with strawberries and Cutie oranges. Then we watched the parade after Peter did a bit more tweaking with the antenna. I made sweet potato casserole--mandatory Thanksgiving side dish. And we headed to Aunt Jana's for Thanksgiving dinner with some of my extended family--and my brother.

Claire became obsessed with Grandma "teasing" her. She loved chasing.

Aunt Jana had gingerbread houses ready for us to decorate. Claire was only interested in the candy.

She loves playing with her uncles too.

That night Peter ventured out to Walmart at 6pm to try and buy some movies for cheap. He left without buying anything after realizing that I was right about the ridiculously long wait to check out.

Phillipa and Francesco arrived around 7:30p to have a movie night with us. They stayed over too so that they could get up with Claire the next morning if we were still out shopping.

Nick and I went to the Outlet Mall across the freeway at midnight because I mistakenly thought it opened then rather than 9pm when it actually opened. We got some sweet deals on outerwear!

Then at 4:20am Peter and I went to Home Depot to wait in line for the 5am opening. We fortunately got our Christmas tree that we were hoping for! It's a 7.5' Denison Fir with DUAL color/warm white LED lights that we bought for $70. The entire stock was gone within 10 minutes of opening the doors. Peter also bought a really versatile extension ladder for cheap. Home Depot was actually a great place to shop. It wasn't terribly over crowded and the workers were SO GREAT. All of the lanes were open in addition to people standing by with scanners to check you out wherever you happened to be standing. We stood in line outside--about 1/3 of the way back from the doors--and ate and drank the complimentary hot chocolate and donuts while we watched The Santa Clause 3 for 30 minutes in the cold. We were done and in the car again by 5:20am. Awesome and worthwhile trip for great savings!

We then headed next door to Walmart to see if there was anything left. We scored some great deals on various toys and games. By this time, the store was pretty much deserted. There were carts, in various locations, stuffed full of random items, and some of the shelves were in serious need of reorganizing. But we found some great stuff and were home just after 6am.

I made bacon and pancakes for breakfast and then everyone started leaving. Peter played with Claire
while I took a much needed 2 hour nap until 9:30 when Russell and Lis showed up after their adventures in Black Friday Shopping.

We went back out to fix a purchase and found a coupon on our car for Pizza Pie Cafe when we got back. So me, being pregnant, of course had to have pizza after such a suggestion! So we went to lunch.

And that was our Thanksgiving holiday week.

Experiments from Pinterest

I love Pinterest.

My favorite things to pin are home craft projects, kid craft projects, sewing projects, organizing ideas, general tips, and recipes.

I've already shared some of my recent successes (and a failure) HERE from Claire's birthday party. But last night my mom and I tried THIS easy cobbler recipe found on Pinterest. We used fresh peaches, yellow cake mix, a bit of oatmeal, and regular sprite. We should have added sugar to the peaches because they weren't quite ripe yet. It turned out deliciously perfect.

I added about a cup of oatmeal to the cake mix to make it more like a made-from-scratch cobbler.

Tips:

• Mush the mix in the bag to break up all the clumps. You'll get more dry spots in the topping if it's clumpy.
• Spread the mix evenly. This goes along with #1. Even though it's a "dump cake," you have to arrange things nicely in order to get good results.
• Pour the soda VERY SLOWLY and methodically. Don't just dump. You want to get all of the mix wet and in order to do this, you have to spread the drink around. Slow and even.

To make:

1. Blanch peaches to make peeling easy. Immerse peaches in boiling water for 1-3 minutes to loosen the skin from the meat. Immediately set peaches in cold water. Then peel and slice the peaches. (Alternatively you could use berries, cherries, apples, (fresh or frozen) or pie filling) You may want to sprinkle sugar over them or stir it in with the fruit.
2. Mix about 1 cup of oatmeal (quick or otherwise) with the cake mix. Make sure to get rid of as many clumps as possible.
3. Evenly sprinkle the mix over the fruit. Use all of the mix.
4. Pour one can of sprite (any variety) over the top of the mix. Pour slowly trying to get every bit of cake mix wet.
5. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes. You want the juices to be sticky and the crust to be browned.

Yeah, there were a few dry spots, but it tasted pretty much exactly like every other cobbler I've ever had. And it was super easy. No measuring or mixing. Yum. 

1st Birthday Party

On Saturday we had a combined birthday party with our friends, the Fischlis. Their daughter was born 1 hour after Claire. So we decided to celebrate together because we would have invited the same people to both parties anyway.

We went with a watermelon theme for the end of summer.

Pictures courtesy of our friend Amy who kindly agreed to be party photographer! (Thanks, again!)

Everything was pink, red, and green. And we used watermelon wherever we could. The cupcakes and Jello were actually strawberry though because watermelon Jello is apparently not to be found in San Jose. The decor was SO cute, but true to style, I completely underestimated the time and effort involved!

Everything turned out really well: the cupcakes (strawberry), the cake balls (strawberry), the melon ball salad, the pigs in a blanket, the caprese salad on a stick, and the watermelon raspberry lemonade inside of the watermelon rind. But not the adorable Jello wedges. We used Pinterest for a lot of the ideas, and in the case of the Jello, Pinterest failed miserably.

Because there was an entire party to plan, I made the jello "shots" the night before. Peter and I painstakingly pitted the limes. Getting the pulp out wasn't the hard part, but getting the skin out was really hard. I didn't think it'd be as attractive with the skin bits floating in the Jello, so I pulled it out. I filled each half with the Jello then put it in the fridge. The limes didn't sit very evenly, so the jello didn't set perfectly. No big deal though. After about an hour I tried one of the limes to make sure it turned out alright. At 10pm Friday night, they were fine. A little limey, but still strawberry jello tasting. By 11:30am the next day they were disgusting!!! Any strawberry flavor was gone. The jello was bitter and inedible. They looked awesome though. So if you choose to put jello inside of a citrus rind, pour the jello within 2 hours of serving. No longer!

The cake balls were perfect! Strawberry cake + frosting. Yum. Roll into balls with some mini chocolate chips. The mini chocolate chips were for seeds. Then we dipped them in white and green dipping chocolate. I had never used sticks before but will definitely be using them every time hereafter. They make dipping so much easier!

Christine made the banners with the girls's names on them. Super cute! She also carved out the watermelon for the drink (also a Pinterest find). The drink turned out REALLY good. Watermelon puree + raspberry lemonade concentrate.

Peter made the cupcake stand. I cut out cardboard circles (8, 10, and 12 inches), and Peter covered them with pink plastic table cloth. We used cans from the pantry covered in ribbon as the center stands.

So that's the party set-up.

Now on to the birthday girls.

I made Claire a tutu for her birthday outfit. It was super cute! I'm very proud of it.

Boys being boys. Very manly.

The girls were a little wary of the cupcakes at first, but it didn't take long for them to figure out that cupcakes are tasty treats!

We forgot to bring the tray portion of Claire's high chair, so I had to hold the cupcake. No real smashing action here.

Baby's First Thanksgiving!

That's so weird! There must be something wrong with Google Blogger because it's January and this post about Thanksgiving (November 24) is just being put up. Mysterious!

Just kidding! We're behind and just catching up :)

We originally planned to do a mini vacation for Thanksgiving, but Peter's job had him busy right up until the end. So we thought it would be more relaxing and enjoyable to just have a little Thanksgiving meal together at home alone.

It was very nice to be together for a whole day!  Claire and Peter watched the parade while Melanie cooked the most amazing Thanksgiving meal ever!

Really, we all helped make dinner sort of!)

Melanie made the turkey, pie, sweet potato and green bean casseroles, rolls, and potatoes and gravy.

 Peter let Claire help with the rolls!

 Peter helped glaze the ham.

 The spread!

All dished up :)

Claire was obviously excited to be watching us eat dinner! Haha!

Before eating dinner:

After eating dinner:

 What? You say they're the same?! Oh no, the casseroles and gravy moved. And Peter and Melanie are very full and happy! Hooray!

So we had a small family Thanksgiving together at home. It was lovely. Sometimes it's just great to spend more than one day together doing whatever it is that you feel like doing as a family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Birth-fath-versary Weekend!

I had the most AMAZING weekend EVER!

It was incredibly perfect!

Well, there were a few adjustments made to the original plan which may have upset me initially (I don't like it when plans change), but all turned out for the best and resulted in 

the most AMAZING weekend EVER!

The weekend started on Friday afternoon when Peter came home early to go with me to my OB appointment where we had a 2nd Ultra Sound scheduled from which we have a souvenir picture!

Awwww! That's our little girl! 

(We had the sonographer confirm the gender one more time, just to be sure!)

Can you see her little face? She's lying down sideways in the picture with the top of her head at the right (my physical left). And that's probably a hand under her chin. And her little cheeks are squished so cute! Haha!

And think of how much she's grown! At 19 weeks this same shot could get her entire little body in! The technician estimated that she now weighs 5 lbs 4 oz. And my doctor says we can expect the baby to be between 7 and 8 pounds at delivery. So 6 more weeks to gain 2 more pounds. 

If you're interested, the reason we needed a 2nd ultra sound was because during the first one my placenta was too low which would mean that I couldn't give birth vaginally. But this ultra sound shows that as my uterus grew, the placenta rose, and so everything is A O.K!

So here are a couple of my Dr. visit day photos. I look much more alert don't I? 

From the front you may not know that I'm pregnant, but I am from the side!

So that's Friday. Peter and I were able to go shopping together and just spend the afternoon and evening together. 

Lovely.

Saturday morning I woke up to breakfast in bed. Peter made pancakes and a plate of strawberries and mango in the shape of a smiley face. I loved it!

Then we got ready for the day and headed to a farmer's market.

We bought some nectarines, pluots, and zucchini!

Then we took almost a 2 hour drive to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, CA.

 

We got free Jelly Bellies, lots of samples--they even have weird ones--and 6 bags of 2lb Belly Flops. Before you judge me, let me explain. You can buy one 2lb bag of beans for $9. Or you can buy 3 and get 3 free (6 for $27). So we just got 6. Peter also tried a pencil shavings jelly belly. He said that the food scientist had obviously never actually tasted pencil shavings = )

When we got home Peter made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and once again we spent the evening together watching movies, talking, and playing games.

Sunday morning I used my early morning bathroom run to surprise Peter with cinnamon rolls!

I actually made 2 batches of the dough because I thought the first one was a flop after having no rising action for an HOUR! So these pics are actually from later with the 2nd batch, but it's the same really.

Yum!

Then we had Stake Conference, so church was shorter. And we took our extra cinnamon rolls (I know you may think, how do you have EXTRA cinnamon rolls, well, even if they are delicious, 2 people can only eat so many) to our friends. Then we played a game (I won!!!) and watched the 4th Star Trek movie. 

It was a beautifully relaxed weekend spent together.

Sigh... and tomorrow we'll probably have a nice dinner if I feel like it to celebrate our anniversary.

Pretty darn perfect in my opinion!