Merry Christmas!

Salish Sea Beach

I totally wish I could take credit for this photo, but it's actually the first in a series of photos over on my husband's new blog - Salish Sea Beach. Check it out!

Living Plastic Free (Or as close to plastic free as possible!)

A woman by the name of Beth Terry has a great blog called Fake Plastic Fish. And she recently posted links to videos taken at the TedX conference that took place in LA recently. If you're interested in the impact plastic has on our environment, or how you can make a difference, check out this link!

Cravings

I haven't had many distinct pregnancy cravings yet, with the exception of salty foods. I think the salty foods were more because they helped with the nausea than because I actually wanted them. But when I was looking through my photos for my post about my adorable pets (posted yesterday - aren't they cute?!), I discovered that I take lots of pictures of yummy foods. And now I want all of the following:

Of course, I have zero of the necessary ingredients to make any of these. But it is a grocery shopping kinda day... hmmm... which one should I make?

Few Things Are Cuter

  
Than pets. Especially when their bellies are full and they've had their daily walk/exercise. So freakin' cute. I have a feeling I'll be one of those moms that knows she should sleep when the baby sleeps, but instead sits awake staring at the cuteness.

Second Trimester, I've Been Waiting For You!

I had to do a second blog post today to rave about how good I'm feeling! It's funny how pregnancy can make you go from nausea and exhaustion to just plain feeling good practically overnight. I'm not going to pretend some things aren't still an issue (back pain, the smell of gas or alcohol) but overall, I'm feeling major improvement!

I've been able to:

• clean the house with smelly cleaners that used to make me sick
• eat foods that I don't like the smell of, and some that I don't really even like the taste of
• drink a lot more water, which used to upset my stomach
• stop snacking on salty foods
• almost completely stop sucking on mints
• go all day today without any nausea medication!

If this is signs of days to come - hooray!! 

I Think We Live in a Bubble

When it's snowing everywhere else but here, I can't help but wonder if we live in some sort of environmental bubble. Especially now, with Christmas approaching, when all I want is to sit by the window with a cup of hot chocolate and watch big chunky snow flakes fall outside. Alas, I'll have to use my imagination... rain is kinda like snow... right?? right???

No-Sew Fleece Blanket

I came across this post ages ago and intended to make a blanket for a friend's baby. Well, many moons later and I finally got around to making it, except now it's for our baby!

Squares have been cut from the corners and the long flaps are folded back on top of the blanket. The strips are cut and the first one is tied!

Basically, you just take two pieces of coordinating fleece fabric, cut it into two squares of whatever size you want. Then cut out 6 inch squares from each corner. So you'll be left with a square of fabric with four long flaps. Put your two pieces of fabric together, wrong sides facing each other. Now, along the flaps, cut 6 inches in, creating strips of fabric about an inch and a half wide.Then tie them in a knot. Fleece doesn't fray, so then you're done - no sewing!

All done!

Confused yet? This link has much better instructions!

For My Non-Facebooking Friends

My nephew - solo breakdancing at his hip hop show! The dancers were given some freestyle time while they were waiting for the show to start and my 4 year old nephew got up on his own and rocked it!

Prepping for Baby

We are trying to do as much prep before the baby comes as possible. Luckily, our baby will have three sets of grandparents to help us out in the time right after the birth. However, should this baby decide to make an early appearance, we still want to be as prepared as possible (if it's even possible to be prepared for such an enormous change in lifestyle).

In an attempt to make plans now for prep we can do later (in April or early May), I am stock piling delicious recipes of dishes that can be made ahead and then frozen. A quick google search turned up plenty of recommendations from other parents of newborns - awesome! The recipe pictured above is from a web site called Parents Connect. It's actually part of an article of about a dozen yummy sounding recipes. But I'm not sure if I can wait 5 months to try this one out. Doesn't it look tasty? It's baked rigatoni with sausage and eggplant! Yum!

Baking Soda Shampoo

If you're interested in saving money or going chemical-free in the shower, check out this post over at the Green Baby Guide about using bakind soda as shampoo!

Finally!

I have literally been waiting almost a year to read this book. I've owned it for probably 4 months and I'm only now getting around to reading it. I'm excited! I'm most likely going to recommend you read it after I'm done with it, but I'll wait to gush about it/Greg Mortenson later!

Cloth Wipes

It occurred to me as I was starting to write this post that these really aren't just baby wipes. You could use the same process and materials for 'family cloth' aka your very own reuseable toilet paper! Somehow I doubt many of my friends are that committed to the environment... but if you are, I would love to hear about it!

So, here goes my make-shift tutorial for basic cloth wipes:

 Using a rotary cutter and a mat (or scissors and a ruler) cut fabric into 6 inch squares.

 I decided to use two different fabrics for double sided wipes. So, one side will be flannel and the other terry cloth (I reused an old bathrobe for the terry cloth!).

 Place the squares with right sides facing each other (the right side of the terry cloth is totally a matter of preference!).

 Sew a straight stitch around the edges, leaving a gap of a few inches.

Trim around the edges, close, but not so close that your stitching will come undone. Trim the corners on an angle.

 Turn the wipe inside out through the gap and push out the corners (I used chopsticks to push my corners out).

 

Folding in the part of the wipe where the gap is, do a straight stitch around the edge.

Now repeat a billion times and you've got a stash of reuseable cloth wipes!

Things To Be Grateful For

Today was our monthly check in with the doctor. As a result, I have two new things that I am so very, very grateful for!

1. Nausea medication that is less than a quarter the price of the one I was on before. (Hallelujah!)

2. Our baby's beautiful, magnificent, whooshing heartbeat! I know we had already seen the heartbeat on the ultrasound a month ago, but hearing it is such a cool reassuring feeling!

♥