It's raining apples!

Apples, apples, apples

SIL and I decided to go pick apples with our families and then make applesauce and some apple pies.

On a gorgeous Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, we decided to head to the apple farm and started filling bags up with apples.  Once we’d done 4 bags, we decided that that just wasn’t enough apples.  So we got another 2 bags and filled them up.  Then we went to get our apples weighed since that’s how they charge you and we had…81 lbs of apples!

Hmmmm, we bought a lot!

Yes, the sinks are full and 3 cookies trays are piled full too.

What do you think?  That is 81 lbs of apples washed and ready to be peeled and sliced.  Good thing I own a food processor for the slicing part but we still had to peel the things.

Well 6 hours later, we decided that next year we’d get a food mill or something so we didn’t have to peel millions and millions of apples!  I thought my hands were going to fall off!

We made the first batch of applesauce.  Then I decided to use my immersion blender to chop up the apples.  It worked great except that the sauce wasn’t so much a sauce anymore but a thick liquid.  So next we decided to cook the apples for 30 minutes like the internet said and mash them with a potato masher.  That was hard work!  We ended up with a lot of apple chunks that were not quite mashed away, but the consistency of the applesauce was much, much better.  We combined both batches so that the first batch was more edible.  The last batch we made we cooked for about 45 minutes and stirred it about every 10 minutes and it mashed into perfect applesauce.  SUCCESS!!! 

Imagine it's not sideways since it's Friday and all my brain cells are dead so I can't figure out how to flip it right side up.

Here is all our applesauce.  It’s quite dark because of the cinnamon we used in it and we decided to use brown sugar instead of white since I don’t cook much with white sugar.  Pretty, eh? (Yes, I say “Eh?”…French Canadian here)

Yummy canned applesauce!

We got to working on making the pies.  I mixed the dough and made balls and my SIL was rolling out the dough and putting it on the pie tins.  Of course, I only decided to taste the dough on my 3 batch and found out that it was WAY too salty so I had to cut the salt in half for the rest of the recipes.  Hopefully they’ll still taste good since we were using a new dough recipe and a new apple pie recipe (the internet is a great place). 

We managed to get all 8 pies done fairly quickly, but by this time SIL and I were sick of seeing apples!

Forgot to take a picture of the pies and crisps before we wrapped them up. 
I'll take one when we cook them up!

So we threw the rest of the apples into a bowl and I made some apple crisps from a super easy recipe my mother had given me.

We still had some apples left, but we decided that we would feed them to the nephews and Dre because we couldn’t bear looking at another apple.

Sideways photo alert...
We filled an entire lawn bag with apple peels & cores!

Dre was great and peeled and cut apples all day long with us.  He did the dishes several times so the giant tower of dishes didn’t crash down unto our pies and so we had clean dishes to use.  Good thing he helped or SIL and I would probably still be peeling apples!

I think by next year we'll be ready to do this again:-)

Also...

I forgot to mention that I changed the look of the blog!  I got bored of looking at all that blue and decided to go for something else that was a little more fall/holiday inspired. 

Also, I fixed the comments!  Yeah!  I can now comment on my blog and other people's blogs once again! 

Week 20...the halfway point!

Week 20…halfway there!  I can’t believe that I’m already half done my pregnancy.  The time went by so slowly for a while and then just zoomed by for the last few weeks!

All last week I had this wonderful cold that Dre gifted to me.    I was sooooo miserable!  I guess I never realized how much stuff I take to make me feel better when I’m sick.  I don’t subscribe to the suffering for the sake of suffering crowd (Dre belongs to that crowd)…if decongestants are going to let me breathe then I’m going to buy them by the boatload!  Yoga was definitely an experience with all the congestion.  I didn’t have too much of the fun stuff making my nose run or anything, but I think there’s something in the air at yoga class because as soon as I started my nose started running like it would never stop.  Downward dog when you’re congested is not really recommended…it makes your head feel like it’s going to explode.

My mom stopped by last week too.  Since I had the plague, I decided to rest instead of going to shop for more work maternity pants.  I showed her the dresser and crib that Dre and I have decided to get.  Of course, since the crib is almost black and the dresser is white I got so many aggravating comments about non-matching furniture and about why I couldn’t buy a crib from Baby R Us.  Apparently going with black and white furniture is just horrible to the older generation.  So annoying!  Then she felt the need to tell me that both my nieces’ nursery furniture cost way more than what I don’t want to spend on a Baby R Us crib ($600).  Hello!  I know there are really expensive cribs out there, but I can’t see the point of spending a fortune on something that the baby will sleep in for a max of 2 years before it goes to younger sibling.  In total, the crib will be used for 4-5 yrs at the most and I’m not putting too much money into it.  

I also happened to mention that Dre and I are not buying a change table.  We’ll just put a change pad on top of the dresser.  OMG…you would have thought that the world was going to end.  I find all of these comments extremely annoying since I’ve always been the type to know what I want and research it tons so it’s not like I’m just deciding this stuff randomly!  Ughhhh!  My mom also commented that she wants to be around after the baby is born to help out and “teach” us how to take care of baby.  Hmmmm, yeah right!  She can come cook and clean, but that’s about it.  I don’t need help learning about the baby.  I understand that this knowledge used to be passed down from women to women, but nowadays we have so many sources of information to get help.  I so am not the type to want help when I haven’t asked for it so I told my mom that we’ll see after Dre goes back to work.  Most likely, I’ll let her come for a week and that’s it.  At least Dre’s parents usually stay at SIL’s house when they’re in town so it’s not like I’ll have them around 24/7 when they do come and visit.

Dre and I went to look at baby stuff on Saturday in some baby boutiques and then we went to register at Baby R Us.  I wish we had more places that sold baby stuff so we could register there too because I feel Baby R Us is still pretty limited in the stuff that they carry.  Now, I have to edit my registry online because I think I missed some things!  Dre and I also found the nursery bedding set for the baby and it has fishies on it! I like the colors so I’ll live with the non-modern look of the whales swimming across the blankets.  Dre is convinced that the baby needs fun stuff to look at and that shapes aren’t going to cut it.  I’ll post a picture of it at some point.



Week 19



Week 20

The overall weight gain has picked up speed in the past few weeks.  I definitely have a pregnant bump now since it’s hard and pretty rounded.  My average weight this week is 161.3 lbs. which is a 1.3 lbs gain from last week.  Overall, I’ve gained 8.3 lbs.  I think that I’m still doing well with my weight, but I probably should stop eating dessert all the time just because I can.  Yesterday, I made Dre go with me to Baskin Robbins so I could get some ice cream.  I’m not a big ice cream person normally, but yesterday I had an ice cream craving!

I’ve been having quite a bit of heartburn.  I even took a Tums on Saturday evening because it got so bad. That helped a lot so I guess I’m going to go out and buy some more Tums to make sure I don’t run out!  

Baby has been kicking a ton!  The first day that I really started to feel a lot of them I mentioned it to Dre and he put his hand on my belly.  I didn’t think he’d feel anything, but he says he can feel some of them so he’s really, really, really excited about that.  He’s started talking to my tummy all the time now trying to get the baby to kick some more.  I’ve mentioned this to a few people and they have all told how great that feeling was.  I guess I’m the weird one because I think it feels completely weird to have something moving in you all the time and poking you.  I get very strange looks when I tell ppl that it feels like a tiny alien is kicking me.  Being kicked right now definitely does not feel like I expected it to feel.  Dre asked me what I thought it would feel like and I couldn’t really put it into words.  I guess I thought it would be more like when someone hits you or kicks you just not a hard and on the inside.  So not like that at all!

I need more maternity pants!  It’s an emergency!  I did laundry yesterday and all my maternity stuff is still drying on the line so I had to squeeze myself into a non-maternity skirt today…good thing it’s still kind of warm.   Buy more pants is definitely on my list of things to do this week.

No stretch marks, but I need to be more consistent in buttering up my belly in the morning.  Dre does a good job at night, but I tend to run around in the morning and forget stuff like that.  No labour signs or BH contractions this week.

I’m looking forward to getting the nursery furniture now that we’ve emptied 99% of the baby’s room.

Imagine a real cantaloupe because this one is huge for some reason!

Baby is the size of a cantaloupe this week!  So big!

Week 19!!!!

I’m a little late writing this for this week.  I was going to post this update yesterday, but I couldn’t find my sheet with my weight on it for last week so I had no idea what it was. 

I’m here now though, and I am 19 WEEKS!  That’s almost half-way done which is completely insane when I think about it.

So I had my first pre-natal yoga class and I loved it!  It was all about relaxing and stretching different parts of the body which was so great.  I don’t understand how you’re supposed to breathe slowly through your nose for the whole time.  I felt like I was suffocating half-way through and started inhaling through my mouth.  Because I’ve always had allergies, I tend to breathe through my mouth more than the average person so I guess I’m just going to have to practice yoga breathing.  I don’t know about tonight though because Dre seems to have given me the lovely gift of a cold so I can’t breathe through my nose very well.  Yoga does seem to aggravate my lower back pain though so tonight I’m going to try not to do too many of the lower back stretching exercises to see if that helps me not spend the week in pain which is what happened last week.

Since I mentioned the cold that my loving husband decided to share with me, let me tell you guys that I haven’t had a cold in over 2 yrs.  I never got sick too often when I was younger, but since I started seeing a chiropractor regularly I’ve pretty much stopped getting colds.  Dre, on the other hand, gets everything that floats around.  I usually don’t catch whatever he has even if we do keep sleeping the same bed and all that stuff.  I usually figure that by the time we know that something is wrong he’s shared the germs with me already.  I didn’t even catch Strep when he got a really, really bad case of it at Christmas time last year.  So, I’m guessing that pregnancy has really weakened my immune system and that I’m going to have to start religiously washing my hands like a crazy person all through this upcoming cold and flu season since I don’t want to be all stuffed up again.

In nursery news, I’m trying to track down one of the new dark cribs that IKEA advertised in their 2012 catalogue.  In Canada, the crib standards have not changed so IKEA has kept selling all their existing cribs (I really like the Gulliver crib, but it only comes in white.).  Their catalogue shows the Sundvik crib in brown-black which is perfect for my white dresser, black crib combo that I want to use for the baby room.  Hopefully, IKEA doesn’t take too long answering my inquiry about when they think this crib will start being sold!



Week 18



Week 19

Weight gain for the week looks good.  I’ve finally started putting on weight somewhat steadily instead of seeing the numbers go up and down erratically every day.  My average weight this week was 160lbs which is a gain of 1.9lbs from last week.  Overall, that is a gain of 7 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight of 153 lbs.  According to everything I’ve read, I’m still on track to gain between 25-35 lbs this pregnancy which is what my doctor recommended I gain.

Nausea seems to have departed for good.  My gag reflex is still acting up when I brush my teeth or drink something cold too fast.  I have mild heartburn several times a day and some indigestion every now and then.  The digestion has gotten better overall. 

I think I might be starting to feel kicks overall.  During our ultrasound, we saw that our baby boy is very active and likes to kick me a lot.  I still can’t really feel them most of the time, but every now and then I get sudden jabs or pokes from the inside.  The feelings are not consistent at all so I can’t wait until I can feel him more consistently.

I’m now only wearing maternity pants.  I’ve entirely given up on pants that weren’t made for maternity.  My belly has gotten too big to deal with pants held up by a hair elastic.  I still wear a lot of my pre-pregnancy shirts, but I’ve noticed that the ones that don’t have a lot of stretch to them are really starting to bother me.  I think it’s time for another visit to Thyme Maternity so I can get a few more pieces for the office.

No stretch marks, but since I’m scrutinizing my body for them all the time I’ve really started noticing the ones I got on my butt from puberty.  I think I might start putting Bio Oil on those too to see if they fade a little.  No labour signs yet.  I did think that I might be having Braxton Hicks contractions on Saturday, but it might just have been my body telling me it was tired. 

I’m looking forward to buying more baby stuff.  I feel like time is just flying by and that the baby will get here before we get the baby’s room together and get him a car seat.

Have I mentioned how proud Dre is that this baby is a boy?  Well, he is super happy and proud and can’t stop talking to my stomach and telling the baby that he’s Daddy’s boy.  Very cute!

Baby is the size of a mango this week!

It's a...

BOY!

Man, was I surprised when the ultrasound tech told us that!  I've been constantly referring to the baby as a he and have had this suspicion that it would be a boy so I think my subconscious knew.  But I think that I had my brain firmly convinced that it was a girl.  So when the tech said, "You have a boy.", I was beyond shocked!

Everyone's been asking me if I'm excited and the answer is...It's complicated.  Of course, I'm happy!  I'm super happy that the baby looked good on the ultrasound and that the tech told us that everything looked fine.  I'm happy that it's a boy, but I guess that I just really convinced my brain that it was a girl.  That's what I was expecting and it's thrown me for a loop to find out I'm having a boy. 

I have 2 nieces and all my friends had girls so I'm really used to dealing with girls.  I guess that I'm going to get a crash course in dealing with baby boys now:-)

So overall, I just wanted to put feelings down on here.  I'm excited that I can start to plan the baby's room colors and start to buy super cute onesies!

So let the planning start...

I need to come up with a guest list for my shower for my SIL.

Pick colors for the baby's room.

Buy furniture for said baby's room.

Start looking at baby boy names.  (Lots of terribly cute ones out there, but Dre insists that the name be pronounceable in French too which makes this quite a bit more difficult.)

That should keep me busy for a while and now everyone can buy me tons of blue baby stuff!  I love blue!

Week 18

Week 18 is finally here!  I get to have my anatomy ultrasound later on today!  Exciting times!

This last week, Dre and I attended our first pre-natal course.  Even though we’ve done the first 2 classes, we ended up staying for the whole thing because the group was so much fun and the teacher/nurse talked to us and asked about our experiences and input.  It was a much more dynamic class than the one we took in February.  So we’re going back for our second class on Thursday and I can’t wait.

Last week, I finally figured out how to sign up for pre-natal yoga with the city.  I have a friend taking the class and she told me about it, but I couldn’t figure out how to sign up with the community center where it’s offered.  Turns out I had to do it online with a password that I had to call the city to get.  I had been trying to go to the community center while it was open to sign up in person which is how the community center by my house does it.  Anyways, tonight is the first yoga class and I’m excited, but kind of nervous about it all at the same time.  We’ll see if I’m any good at yoga!

In an hour, I’m having my big 18 week ultrasound.  I can’t wait to find out the sex of the baby!  I’m keeping busy by writing this post so I don’t spend too much time thinking about it.

Week 17

18 weeks 2 days

This is the first week where I’ll be using a weekly average for my weight.  So my weight gain was at 4 lbs last week.  This week my weight average was 158.1 which is a gain of 5.1lbs.   I think that’s pretty good overall.  My weight gain seems to have really picked up in the last 2 weeks so we’ll have to see what it is when I go to the doctor’s in 2 weeks.

Nausea is floating around some days, but it’s not as bad as it used to be.  It just comes and goes sometimes.  I’ve had some heartburn and a lot of indigestion.  I’m back to thinking about every single piece of food I eat since I might be haunted by it for 3 hours afterwards.  I’ve also started walking every day with Dre to help the digestion along.  It seems to help.  I’m still having a lot of random aches and pains around my hips, kidneys, belly…wherever baby could be compressing/pushing something.  It isn’t too bad though…just a little annoying at times.

I’m wearing my old pair of capris today with an elastic to keep my pants up.  Yup, I’m still doing that!  I think this is it for my non-pregnancy pants.  They get really uncomfortable even when I have them completely undone.  I can still fit in most of my skirts and dresses, but the pants are going to be packed away this weekend.  No stretch marks in sight.  Dre slathers on pounds of lotion and cream every night so I’m pretty well covered there.  If I do get stretch marks, it won’t be because my skin wasn’t hydrated enough.

No labour signs to report which is good since I’m still 6 weeks away from viability.  Belly button is still an innie, but that might change sometime soon.  

I’m looking forward to being able to settle on a theme or décor for the baby’s room.  Once we know the sex, we’ll be able to plan a lot more stuff and buy a lot more stuff.  

Weekly wisdom of the week is that I should go buy more maternity pants.  Even though I want summer to stay, I think I have to accept the inevitable and get some stuff suitable for cool fall days.

Alright, Dre just got here to go to the ultrasound place so I have to run…

Baby is the size of a sweet potato this week.  He or she is growing really fast!

Surprise!

This is me right now!

My doctor is PREGNANT! 

This would be my family doctor who's also an OB and a pediatrician!  Do you know what is also magically, awesome news right now?  She's due in FREAKING JANUARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would like to know how she thought she could be my doctor if she's going to be on mat leave while I deliver and need her pediatrician skills?  Hello?

Dre tells me this on the phone a few minutes ago.  He heard it from his co-worker who also has the same doctor.  I was like, "Oh, OK.  No big deal 'cause she's super tiny and has no bump so she must not be as far along as I am."  Hmmmm, right! 

Dre's co-worker heard it from the receptionist at the doctor's office when the receptionist accidently let the information slip.  Now, I'm wondering when my doctor would have seen fit to enlighten me to the fact that she would not be around and I need to find out who's going to cover her.  The suburbs that I live in are notoriously short of doctors.  You can find one when a new office opens, but that's about it. 

My doctor's office has about 9 other doctors working there also, but I know that that practice isn't taking any other patients which means that those doctors have full patient rosters.  Also, she's apparently only planning on taking 7 months of mat leave which is fine...in fact, she should take her full year, but when doctors go on mat leave it really leaves the rest of us in bind. 

Alright, I'm done freaking out now.  I have 2 more weeks until my next doctor's appointment so I guess I'll ask her about it then.

In other news, I'm going to the baby show tomorrow!  This is exciting!

Pickle Canning Adventures

Canning! 

My sister-in-law and I decided to attempt canning this year.  I have to say that it was a fun and long process.  I felt like my grandmother at times since she would have done this many, many years ago quite regularly.

So SIL and I went to the farmer’s market on Saturday looking for cucumbers of various sizes that we could transform into pickles.  We found tons of cucumbers at a pretty good price.  They even had baskets of tiny cucumbers so we could make dills which are my favourite!

We decided to do the canning at my SIL’s house and she went to buy most of the supplies we needed while Dre and I watched her kids.  Apparently, even though a pile of cucumbers can look like a mountain of cucumbers it’s still a pileJ  We thought we had way more cucumbers than we did and bought a ton of canning jars.  After washing them all this is what they all looked like.

Cucumbers waiting to become dill pickles!' 

Closeup of the future dill pickles.

 =

The mountain of massive cucumbers that made bread and butter pickles and icicle pickles.
The ones on the right are all from my SIL's garden.  She had mutant, giant cucumber plants this year!

So we started early on Monday (around 10am).  We had to peel some of the cucumbers, slice some of the other ones, as well as slice onions and peppers.  Around this time, I called Dre to come and help us because the prep work was kicking our asses!  When he arrived with extra onions and saw me dicing them, he goes “Why aren’t you using your food processor for that?”  Hmmm, good question!  SIL and I completely forgot that we own them and that they would have diced the damn veggies and some of the cucumbers in about 5 minutes.  We’re smart like that!

We started stuffing some of our jars with cucumbers that would soon be turned into dill pickles.  This is when we ran into our biggest problem which would also be a re-occuring problem.  The liquid for the pickles was not our friend! 

We made a batch of the dill liquid to go in the jars according the Dre and SIL’s grandma’s recipe and started filling jars.  (Remember, first canners here!)  While SIL is filling the jars, I’m nervously hoping the things don’t explode from the hot liquid since we haven’t warmed up to containers since BIL’s grandma hadn’t said anything about it when explaining how to get the lids to pop.  At the same time, Dre is trying to fish lids out of the boiling water with tongs that don’t work while wearing oven mitts.  Hilarious!  I should have taken a picture.  Anyways, we figure out that the lids cool off pretty fast and that we can use our hands if we go quickly (not to fish them out of the boiling water ppl…sheesh).  Then…we run out of dill liquid.  Really? 

In the meantime, Dre decides to go back to cleaning the house and the baby room ‘cause 2 women yelling at him in the kitchen is making him batty.  Hehehe!  Poor man!

We made another batch of liquid and I think we actually managed to run out one more time before finishing the dill pickles.  We’re talented like that!

By the time we got around to making the bread and butter pickles we finally got the hang of putting the lids on the jars fast enough and flipping them upside down to get them to pop, but we ran out of liquid…again!  This time we calculated how much liquid we were putting in every jar and made that exact amount of liquid.  We ended up with way too much liquid.  Weird!  We can count, I swear!

Then we went on to making icicle pickles.  I’ve never tasted these by the way.  But SIL and Dre claim that they are the pickles from the gods!  We’ll see since I love, love, love dill pickles.  The problem is that icicle pickles are made with Apple Cider Vinegar which is the NASTIEST smelling stuff ever.  (SIL’s kitchen smelled like it for a couple of days!)  Also, we didn’t make enough liquid again.  We don’t learn from our mistakes; we just keep doing them again and again!

Eventually, (4PM) we were done and we still had 2 cases of 1L jars and 8 500ML jars.  Since we have now become canning pros, we just figured that we’d make applesauce and can that instead of returning the unused jars.  We like challenges!  So we are applesauce making in a couple of weeks…wish us luck…we need it!

Here are all the pickles.  Pretty aren’t they?

All hanging out upside down to make sure they pop and get properly vacuum sealed.

17 weeks

It’s Week 17 and I feel like the time has started to just fly by!

Dre and I have our pre-natal courses starting this Thursday.  We’ve already done the 1^st 2 classes so I think we’ll just show up to register and then leave.  Also, the course is in French which I’m sure is going to make some stuff difficult to understand, but hopefully we get what we need out of this course.

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend!  Dre and I spent ours relaxing, cleaning, and I even did some canning with my SIL (more on that later).

Things are moving along well in the baby room.  Dre and I have the room almost all emptied out.  We’ve managed to sell a few of the furniture pieces we put online which provides a little extra cash.  Also, Costco re-stocked their beige gliders.  When I saw that, I called Dre and then ordered it immediately!  Also Dre and I have agreed on what kind of crib we’ll get.  We’ll be getting a crib from the States and hoping that we don’t have to pay too much duty on it when we bring it back into Canada.   I’ll take pictures as I start getting everything. 



Week 16



 17 weeks 2 days

 And I decided to show you a month ago versus now again just for fun!  I'm definitely starting to show a lot more!

Now.  17 weeks

13 weeks

 So on to my weight gain.  I’m up a total of 4 lbs this week.  Since my weight seems to go up and down quite a bit, I think I’ll do a weekly average of my weight starting next week.  What to Eat When You’re Expecting suggests this and I think that it makes the most sense.  Last week on Sunday I had a gain of 7 lbs and this week I have a gain of 4 lbs which is kind of weird.  Hopefully, by giving the average gain from a week I’ll get a more accurate idea of my weight gain.  I seem to either be freaking out because I’m not gaining enough weight or I’m gaining too much weight.  Who knew that pregnancy could be so stressful for such stupid reasons?

My nausea has briefly reappeared, but it hasn’t been bad at all.  I’m still having a daily struggle with heartburn and indigestion.  There has been some Round Ligament Pain going on lately, but mostly I notice that one of my sides hurt around my hip areas a lot of the time.  I spend a lot of time rubbing my belly or my back to ease the aches.  I guess this is why you always see pregnant women rub their bellies.

I’m sporting the maternity gear today!  I was showing pretty early with this pregnancy, but it was not obvious at all.  Now, it is very, very obvious.  I seem to have really started popping out the belly.  I noticed because all the pre-pregnancy shirts I used to just wear around the house are too short, too tight, or getting too short and too tight.  I’m going to have to get a few sweaters for the winter since all of my zip up hoodies won’t zip up anymore.  No stretch marks to report!  I know that it’s still early, but since my goal is to avoid them at all cost I’m counting this as a win!  I pee all the time.  That includes at least once a night and on some night like Saturday night it’s 6-7 times a night.  So annoying!

No labor pains yet.  It’s still really early for those and I might really freak out if I got them now.  My belly button is still in, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be an outie pretty soon.

I’m looking forward to knowing the baby’s sex!  After that I feel like I can start planning all kinds of things!  Also, I’m looking forward to making applesauce in the next few weeks with my SIL.  I love fall!  It brings so many fun things that you can do with your family.

The weekly wisdom for this week is that I need to start making exercise a priority in my life.  I don’t want to try to start walking when it’s -20C outside so I have to get into the habit right now.  That’s my goal this week!

Dre declared this week that I don’t rub my belly enough which is why he needs to rub my belly so much; otherwise, the baby will feel abandoned and unloved.  He’s so funny that husband of mine! 

Baby is the size of a large onion this week!  He or she is really growing in there!