My Productive Weekend

It has been one eventful and productive weekend! We started things off early with Tyler's womenless beauty pageant on Thursday night which benefited the Joy to Life Foundation here in Alabama. I beg you to check out this video, its pretty entertaining!

Saturday morning I joined my Hello Gorgeous Teammates and ran the 2012 Walk of Life followed by a trip to the downtown curb market to pick up some local veggies for the week. After a brief resting period I managed to get my sew on and pump out a cute pair a pants for my nephew, Hutton. Not perfect, but they were my first pair and I have a feeling that he won't notice considering he is only 9 weeks old. After my sewing extravaganza I headed back downtown to check out Tyler's photography booth at the first annual Montgomery Street Fair. He and his friend Hilary from Pint Bottle Photography had a great looking booth and got lots of foot traffic.

Come Sunday I was refreshed and ready for some more sewing. I made another cute pair of pants and managed to shave about an hour off of Saturday's time plus my second pair looked a good bit better than the first. Sorry Hutton but your Dad liked the fabric of the test run better so you will have to sacrifice quality!

Aren't they cute?! Hutton gets the pair on the right and my main man Boyd gets the pair on the left. They were sooooo easy to make once I made a few little tweaks. You can find the free pattern here.

After I finished sewing I was still feeling productive so I decided to make a loaf of whole wheat sourdough bread and a batch of mozzarella cheese which actually ending up with the consistency that I wanted (first time EVER)! More salt next time though; I'm learning!

So as you can tell, my energy level has been pretty high during my second trimester. I guess this means that I better take advantage of my mojo while I have it!

Baby bump pictures and nursery updates to come!

Week 20 and a Novice Easter Menu

There is no telling how much longer I can fit into that dress so expect a wardrobe change in the coming weeks!

In other news, I am hosting Easter this year. Have I ever hosted a family function much less a family holiday? Uh NO! This should be interesting..

Here is the menu:

Apps:
something delish from my sister in law Jessica's kitchen
homemade hummus from my Mom (at least I hope she agrees to that!)

Main Course:
Honey Baked Ham with rolls and cheese in case someone wants to make a sandwich
Asian Slaw made from my very own home grown cabbage
Deviled Eggs from my mom (should we rename them Resurrection Eggs since its Easter? The devil part throws me off!)
Broccoli Salad a la my mother-in-law
Another random side from my mom
Another random side from Jessica

Deserts:
A bunny cake (my mother-in-law is bringing it and rumor has it, its a family inside joke, either way I like cake!)
Fruit salad with honey/lime/mint dressing

Now keep in mind, this is only my "plan" so I'll let you know what actually happens after this weekend.

Happy Easter and remember the reason for the season!

Week 19

Technically, yesterday I was 20 weeks but we are a bit behind on our picture posting so here goes anyway!

For vanity's sake I had to change my angle so you can't get the full effect of week's bump growth but it sure makes me feel better. However, I can tell you that are things getting TIGHT, i.e. my pants!

A friend of mine from college and I are a week and a half apart and I liked this little survey she had on her blog so I decided to copy! Thanks Erin!

How Far Along: As of today, March  29, 20 weeks and 1 day
Size of baby: Think banana or carrot (and yes, I have been eating a lot of bananas and carrots in my smoothies lately!)
Maternity Clothes: Today is the first day that I have had to wear legit maternity pants. Ann Taylor, on sale, black carpri pants, sooo stinking comfy. I am also ordering a lot from Oldnavy.com and breaking out the Bella Band so I can still wear my old stuff.
Gender: Boy! Tyler is so pumped that he will only have to deal with my hormones for a while!
Movement: The Karate Kid lives in my uterus
Sleep: yes, please! Okay, I have had some allergy/cold issues lately so I love waking up every 2 hours because of severe dry mouth. Awesome. I guess God is preparing me for waking up every 2 hours will a screaming child with dry mouth!
What I miss: Real beer because non- alcoholic beer is just not the same
Cravings: nothing that I didn't already crave when I was without child.
Symptoms: growing waistline, clothes not fitting, annoying hormones (Does anyone else cry when they watch Once Upon a Time? If so, scratch that)
Best Moment this week: Seeing Tyler dressed up as a woman to take head shots and do an interview. Oh wait, that was not baby related.....more on that later ;)

Bump Update and BIG News!

We skipped week 17 because my photographer was in St. Louis for a Radiohead concert, i.e. his "farewell to freedom" party! Here is where we are so far...

As you can see, things are getting bigger, including my double chin but we will have to work on that one later!

Now for the big reveal........we went to the doctor last Friday and found out that we are having, drum roll please......

A BOY!!!

His name is Boyd Sutherland Caldwell and we are calling him Boyd. In case you care, Boyd is my maternal grandmother's maiden name and Sutherland is Tyler's maternal grandmother's maiden name. Good and snobby, huh?! 

Now I get to start stressing over nursery decor and things like that, oh joy, the obsessions begin!

Grow Alabama CSA

Warning: This post may sound preachy! My bad!

Tyler and I have recently picked up a new obsession. Our country's food system. After being brain washed by a few documentaries such as Food Mattes and Food Inc. Tyler and I have finally started to realized that a lot of what our food industry is pumping into our bodies is not real food and has no nutritious value. Now don't get too excited, we are not going hard core organic or anything like that, we do have a budget after all! But we are going to try to shell out the few extra cents to buy local/natural/organic when we can. Our first step has been joining the Grow Alabama CSA program. We purchased the Bronze box for $24.75 per week (it's cheaper if you commit to a whole year) which feeds 1-2 people and yesterday I was so excited to receive our first week's box!

I picked up our box after work at Peppertree Steak and Wine but there are about 4 or 5 other pickup locations around Montgomery plus numerous others around the entire state. Almost everything is grown in Alabama with exception of a few items that are grown in the southeast due to demand. Apparently every year they lower their dependence on non-Alabama growers so it should dwindle to zero soon.

The box changes every week and you can even customize it if you hate cucumbers, like myself. Since I plan on doing a lot of growing this summer I will just customize my box to exclude those offerings that I already have in my own garden.

In this week's box:

• 2 heads of broccoli
• 1 large grapefruit (Tyler doesn't eat grapefruit so I don't have to share!)
• a bunch of carrots (this was a pleasant surprise as it was not listed on the site)
• a bag of fingerling potatoes
• 2 zucchinis
• 2 green bell peppers
• a large bunch of red Russian kale ( which was delicious in my smoothie this morning)

Please consider joining Grow Alabama, they service the entire state and after adding up the cost of everything I recieved it was actually not that much more expensive than Publix plus it doesn't contain all the hormones and sprays that the grocery store stuff has. I'm not knocking Publix because it is definitely my grocery store of choice and I will continue to shop there but I will also try to do what I can to support our local hard working farmers!

Remember, you vote every time you go through the checkout line!

PS Grow Alabama is also on Facebook and FYI this does not mean that you will never see me eating crap food!

An Apology to a Carrot

For the record, I would like to apologize to my carrots. Remember last week when I said they sucked? Well they don't suck, I suck; they are baby carrots so they are supposed to look dinky before you pull them up! Mea culpa, carrots, mea culpa!

I was getting ready to plant my onions yesterday so I decided to pull up the carrots to make room and lo and behold, they were full grown! Fat and happy I tell you! The cute little pudges are about 3 to 4 inches long and almost an inch thick.  We ate some in a salad last night (yes, I did use my home grown salad greens!) and they were soo good. Home grown carrots are super easy to grow have have so much more flavor than store bought carrots so once fall hits, get out there and start planting!

Here is a pic of yesterday's harvest.

Early Spring Garden 2K12

Well I fell off the gardening wagon for a little while but thanks to the support of Public Television"s Create Channel I'm back on! On a random note, if you don't get the Create Channel you are missing out! Very dorky and inspiring!

So anyway, here is the current garden lineup:

1. cabbage
2. romaine lettuce
3. buttercrunch lettuce
4. carrots (still sucking!)
5. kale
6. spinach
7. broccoli (second planting)
8. arugula

If you live in Alabama I'm pretty sure you can still get away with transplanting some lettuces and greens right about now so jump on the band wagon if your interested. They will work well in pots too so you can easily go outside and cut some fresh leaves for a salad with minimal work involved.

This weekend I am hoping to plant some onion sets in one of the raised beds and start some zinnia seeds inside for transplanting once they are about 2 inches tall. Next weekend will be devoting to tomatoes and peppers while the next weekend will be for the squash, melons, and beans. FYI, I am buying plants for everything except the beans which I will start from seed in the garden. One day I'll try to start everything from seed but right now I'm too lazy.

Here is a blackberry pic of yesterday's harvest.

The cabbage is going to be used this weekend for my friend's version of Creamy Thai Sweet Potatoes and Lentils. Check out her recipe here.