Week 21 Update

Week 21 means we're starting month 6 of this pregnancy. Which means I have one month left of the second trimester! Crazy!

The bump. Also see: my attempt to push the mess from the weekend to the other side of our bed so it wouldn't show up in the picture. Fail. 

The garden. The backyard tomatoes are refusing to ripen. Brian's right, the front yard has much more sun. Now we know. 

Eggplants are slowing moving along. 

And the current heatwave is doing good things for our peppers. Sadly, once these two are done, there will be no more. It was way too cool for peppers and tomatoes this summer.

Baby Caleb!

On Tuesday, Baby C was officially deemed to be Baby Caleb. Our son will be here this winter. In celebration, we bought this at Target:

Woohoo for our boy! Brian's over the moon.*

I have to say, finding out that Caleb is completely perfect: all major organs in place and working, heartbeat on track, the right size for 20 weeks along, was the absolute best part. Our ultrasound tech was very sweet, telling us up front that she would be spending a lot of time measuring the brain and the heart and that was totally normal. That the doctor would come in after she was done and that was totally normal. That sometimes she gets quiet so she can focus and that was totally normal. However, she couldn't answer questions like "Is he ok? Is that heartbeat normal?" We'd have to wait for the doctor to answer those questions. So most of our time with her had baited breath on my end, which I really exhaled when the doctor came in to say that our boy looks great. 

We still like calling him "Baby C." It's such a cute nickname, but it's nice to call him by his full name too.

*Don't get me wrong, I'm excited too, but Brian is just beyond thrilled about the idea of having a son.

Only 20 more weeks or so! And the registry updates start....now!

Week 20 update

It's officially week 20! I am halfway through this pregnancy. It seems completely crazy that we're halfway through. I have a feeling this was the "good" half. Nagging back pain has started at night, thanks to the now necessary side-sleeping. Brian was a complete dear at some point in the middle of the night, rubbing my back- probably to help me get back to sleep so that he could get some sleep! 

Other than that we had a wonderful weekend with my family- my little sister was in town from LA so we made the most of the weekend with a concert, trip to the Zoo and dinner out to belatedly celebrate my Dad's birthday. 

Concert in Cedarburg. Low-rent version of Ravinia, totally perfect.

Sunday Breakfast: Peach & Sour Cream Pancakes

In an effort to cook through the Smitten Kitchen cookbook (every.single.recipe is a winner, I promise you) I made the Peach & Sour Cream pancakes on Sunday morning. They were perfect- light but filling, full of flavor and I managed not burn the peaches. Deb Perelman, the author, took a long time to write this cookbook and I trust her instructions implicitly. She mentions in the recipe notes that you can switch out some of the AP Flour for Whole Wheat, which I did. It went a long way in filling us up for a morning at church. 

The bump that's keeping me up...

The garden at 20 weeks.

The globe eggplants are starting to come in.

Baking Tuesday: Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

Last night I raced home from work and got right making my cookie dough- it needed a two hour chill before baking! I've had trouble with the scones and graham nuts so far from this book, but the cookie recipes? The cookie recipes are divine. The whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies a few weeks ago turned out so beautifully that I'm motivated to follow Boyce's instructions to a T. This means when she says "put the eggs and sugar in the mixer and mix on high for three minutes" I set a timer. Otherwise I wouldn't mix the eggs and sugar for that long, but I think it gave a lot of structure to this cookie dough. And I love that she makes big cookies- like the size of my hand cookies.

The Chocolate Chocolate Cookies live up to their name- they have an entire pound of bittersweet chocolate in them. They're from the Spelt chapter in Good to the Grain. I went to Whole Foods yesterday (armed with an anniversary gift card from Brian!!) for spelt flour and chocolate. Thankfully they've got spelt flour in the bulk section which saved me from buying a five pound bag. Frankly, I have no idea what the spelt flour changes in these cookies- I'd have to try them with whole-wheat or AP Flour to see.

You roll the dough in cocao nibs, so I'd be tempted to call this a triple chocolate cookie. They add a fantastic crunch.

Following instructions, letting the cookies cool on the parchment. Can I buy stock in parchment paper? I should.

Pregnant lady "snack." 

Week 19 + extra Baking

Anniversary Dinner at Pastiche.

Totally, completely, totally pregnant. That sweater is cute for pregnancy, but you can tell it's not meant to cover a bump.

The garden! I made good on my threat and pulled the unproductive squash. Now the eggplant have room to breath.

Good thing, too!

These are still going.

See those tiny nubs on the stalk? Those will become the Brussels Sprouts.

This is what happens when you want brownies so bad, you don't even bother to correctly fold the parchment in the pan. You just scrape the batter in and wait anxiously for brownies. They were truly, truly fantastic. I highly recommend the recipe linked above. I added a cup of walnuts because brownies without walnuts are sad.

Gardening update

Brian and I took a tour around our garden last night before he went out for Kopp's custard. (The second time this week. I love being pregnant!) I had already noticed an issue with one of the tomato plants out front and then saw an issue with the squash in the back. So while he was out to Kopp's, I did some investigative googling. A gardener/blogger turned me onto a Minnesota Ag Extension website, helpfully titled "What's wrong with my plant?" You pick your plant, then scroll down a list of diseases with pictures and pick it! It's like WebMD for your garden. That's the good news.

The bad news? The squash have powdered mildew and the bush tomato out front has verticillium wilt.

I'm going to pull the squash since they aren't producing anyway. Part of the issue with powdery mildew is crowded plants, which makes sense because everything is too crowded in the back planter.

Yucky mildew that I don't want spreading to my Brussels Sprouts!

I'm going to trim the diseased part of the tomato and fertilize this weekend. There's not much I can do, but it doesn't seem to have spread to the juliets and sunsugars, which is great. It spreads in the soil, but some tomatoes are resistant. VW is a cool-weather issue so I'm not surprised seeing it now. I'm grateful it's not late-blight.

The fruit of the tomato is still fine. I'll give it until it completely dies.

In the back I'm going to pull the two squash plants and the bell peppers. That should help free up some room. Then I'll work some of my compost and fertilizer into the soil and give everything a few weeks before starting some kale for the fall. I especially don't want the mildew spreading to everything else, so it's got to go!

Baking Tuesday, all the scones

Last week's: Graham Nuts, from Good to the Grain

There aren't more photos because they didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. The "cracker" was too thick and therefore I over baked it. When I put it in the food processor to process into smaller pieces it became graham dust. My sainted husband ate it anyway and declared it really good and just like Grape Nuts. I'll try it again, especially because I have a ton of Graham flour. 

Dough.

Scones.

I had an unexpected windfall of raspberries last Tuesday, so I also made the Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. Very good, but slightly doughy inside and did not keep well beyond a day. I'm guessing user error. 

Baking Tuesday treat last night. Sparkling apple cider in a champagne glass.

This week's recipe, from Good to the Grain.

The set-up. See the huge bag of graham flour?

It creates one more thing to clean, but I love sifting the dry mix. It makes such a difference.

Wrapped up in the fridge. If Baking Tuesday consists of scones, I'd rather bake them fresh on Wednesday morning.

Early Wednesday morning hot scones!

You can see the bits of darker color in the scones above. That's the blue cheese, which was a very pungent Buttermilk Blue from the Roth Kase dairy here in Wisconsin. Which, now that I'm researching it, is made with raw milk...whoops! I'm hoping the fact that I put it in a baked good negates that? The scone itself is very sweet from the graham flour and honey. The dry mix only has two tablespoons of white sugar but I'm not sure it even needs that. The sweet mixes with the very savory tastes of the blue cheese and onion jam for a delicious scone almost too strong for breakfast!

Week 18 Update And a Trip to the County Fair

This past Saturday Brian, my parents and I headed to the Ozaukee County Fair for our fill of fried food and animals. Mom and I managed to avoid the fried food, opting for baked potatoes and fresh ice cream. Then it was off to see the sweet farm animals!

Sleeping Ducks

 This chicken was only $10, but Brian wouldn't let me bring it home.

There was a bunny to pet.

Snuggled up pigs

700 pound pigs!

Scared baby cow

Brian and I bought this book for our future kid. We want them to love farms as much as we do.

The John Deere station had tons of clothes, toys and books. If only we knew what we were having, we'd have totally gotten into the onesies. They were adorable.

18 weeks. Definite bump. Also, those pants don't really fit anymore.

18 weeks on the garden. 

The squash plants you see overrunning everything are winter squash- butternut and acorn. So far, no signs of female flowers. Considering how long it would take for fruit to set and grow, especially with the cool weather we're having, I'm tempted to pull them this week and find a fall crop of veggies to put in. Definitely kale, maybe something else as well. The same with my bell peppers. They're just flowering this week and we're supposed to get down into the 50's at night for a week or so. Way too cold for peppers. So the bell peppers and squash plants are not long for this world. I know I said that last week, but this week, I mean it!