My life is amazing.

I'm playing a little catch-up with this blog post because I haven't posted anything in forever and a lot of food has been cooked and Christmas trees put up!!  

I'll get this out of the way first, I made the Split Pea Soup from our cookbook Forks Over Knives, it lacked.... almost everything.  It was really bland and very watery.  If I make this again I would add noodles and probably celery and ... just more vegetables or something.  And probably 2 cups less water. Soo not the best thing I've ever eaten.

THIS WAS DELICIOUS.  We were watching Destination Truth and were really craving a dessert, so Joseph looked online for some good vegan desserts because, if you don't already know this, every delicious dessert under the sun is made with butter and milk and BUTTER.  But! we found this recipe for cookies that was amazing.  If I remember correctly, it was 3 cups instant oatmeal, 3 bananas, some amount of prunes, 1/4 cup vegetable oil (or applesauce), 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg.  I put a little peanut butter in it as well.  If I were to make this again I would probably put some nuts in (I didn't have prunes so I have no idea if it's good or not).  This was seriously a delicious cookie and it made the house smell AMAZING.

Layered Tex-Mex Lasagna

5 stars. So good.  I really didn't miss the meat or the noodle in this!  It had pinto beans, corn, green chiles, corn tortillas, and some serious red sauce.  If you like your local mexican restaurant you will really like this, it tastes exactly like something you'd get there.

I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

Our neighbors had us over for dinner on Sunday and surprised us with helping them put up their Christmas tree, BEST IDEA EVER.  Dinner was yummy and tree was beautiful!  Kendra helped me make some origami ornaments since we had three ornaments last year.  They turned out so amazingly awesome and now our tree looks fantastic!!!!!

Tim-Tam Slam.

Our neighbors, Adam and Kendra, enjoying their very first Tim-Tam Slams.  Aren't they cute?!

Haha, I don't even know what he's doing.

So I hadn't had milk in a couple of weeks and when we drank some at A & K's house it was so weird!  It was really strong and just kind of strange tasting.  I think I made Joseph drink some of my milk because I just couldn't handle it which is kind of exciting.  I love eating vegan meals and feeling generally more healthy.  We're not completely vegan yet because our supply of meaty and dairy foods seems to be never ending but in all the time we've been eating vegan meals we stopped drinking milk.  So I guess I'm just excited my body is okay with not drinking it and I don't really miss it too much anymore especially now that it tastes crazy.  

I LOVE MY BODY!  It really is kind of amazing how it knows things.  For example, Saoirse had her first taste of bananas about a week ago and she never really liked them much although I would force feed them to her everyday.  As it turns out they were likely causing an allergic reaction and she was super off the whole week until finally her body produced a lovely rash.  No more bananas, rash gone, happy mommy.  Well.... kind of happy, this means that while I'm breastfeeding her I probably shouldn't eat bananas either.  Bummer.  I guess Joseph will have to enjoy those cookies all by himself.  Anyway, I think she didn't like them because she already knew they were no bueno for her tummy.

P.S. A banana allergy is often accompanied by a latex allergy!  Weird.

My project.

Saturday night Joseph and I went over to spend time with Robin and Neal and their two little kiddies (who were very shy upon our arrival).  Caius (the eldest), as soon as he would talk to me, would call me "Mommy, ... Grandpa,  ..." and then continue with whatever he wanted to show me.  It was really cute and made me laugh every time.  While we were there, the boys went off to play some computer game in the back room while Robin and I worked on some projects.  She made several Christmas stockings - which I now want to make for my growing family, and I started on some little tiny baby booties!  Once we left I had finished one booty which was so stinking small!  Over the next couple of days I worked on a matching hat and then the other booty (the second one didn't take me nearly as long to finish as the first).

I got sick of doing the hat about half way through.. so it's really small and *might* fit a premature baby.  Hopefully we won't have to use that one...  BUT..

BOOTIES!!  They're extra small and extra adorable.  One is also slightly smaller than the other, it's hard to make things the same size!!  When I finished the second one, I attached them together with a bit of yarn so I can hang them on the tree and they can be baby's ornament.  Then she can wear them when she's born (after detaching them of course)... then they'll go back up on the tree next christmas!!  Yay for completed projects!!!

Our three ornaments.

We put up our Christmas tree just before we left for Iowa for Thanksgiving.  I couldn't wait any longer.  Really, I wanted to put it up several weeks before Halloween... but Joseph didn't like that idea, not to mention the fact that having a Christmas tree up at a Halloween party looks weird.  So I waited as long as I could and thought that it would be nice to come back from Thanksgiving with our tree up and decorated!

Our little tree is only about 4 feet tall and made of various types of plastic.  I ordered it from the most wonderful place in the world, www.christmascentral.com.  I don't know why I didn't know about this treasure trove before but thank goodness I know now.  Our tree was $8!  Best, idea, ever.

We literally have 5 Christmas decorations, a tree, a string of lights, and 3 ornaments.  All of which can be seen in this picture.  Did I mention that I made our 3 ornaments?  (I also made that little baby hat on the shelf there, it's small and glorious, yay babies!!!)

I have started the nesting phase of my pregnancy, which is nice because I'm able to keep pretty busy all the time.  Besides constantly doing dishes and keeping the kitchen clean (which is where we spend most of our time) I've started cleaning and clearing out our office/second bedroom/junk room/food storage room.  There are a lot of things I want to give to DI that I have no use for but have held onto for some reason.  My mother was also kind enough to send in our POD along with all of my furniture a load of the toys and things I played with as a baby/child.  Which is great, I don't want to get rid of my Polly Pockets, but I don't want them in my house either.  I have a stinking box full of them!  Fortunately, we're having a girl (WOOT) so I can introduce her to the world of miniature and she will love it.  That equals less toys that I have to buy.  I got rid of a bunch of stuffed animals and some blankets as well - believe me, I have a lot of teddy bears that take up a lot of room, and parting with them is such sweet sorrow.  But don't get confused, I'm only getting rid of half of them.  AND since Joseph is finished with his Apple job for this year we had to send back all of the things they lent us (including the billion boxes we had to keep to send everything back in).  So there's that.  Oh and the forrest of trees Apple sent us in hand-out card type things that can be recycled or something.  Pretty much all I'm saying is that the room will look fantastic in no time at all.  

Ahh!!  My wonderful mother is getting us the crib of my d r e a m s.

It's a mini crib (for the mini space we have) that converts into a toddler bed.  It's so fantastic I could barf. I cannot wait to get it all set up in baby's room!!!