Thanksgiving from Scratch (and Stove Top stuffing): How Americans do T-day in Africa

Before this year my main contribution to Thanksgiving dinner was making the topping for mom's sweet potato casserole. I also did an apple crisp in its entirety one year, but other than that I had zero experience. Unless, of course, you count watching my grandmother pick "Tom the turkey" clean or make a neck-and-gizzard gravy, or throw together a homemade oyster stuffing.

But nobody really counts that. It only matters if you get your own hands dirty.

So it will come as no surprise when I tell you that I watched Thanksgiving approach with mixed feelings. We celebrated the Saturday before Thanksgiving, as that is when our other American friends from Lesotho were in town visiting. Abby and I had planned out the menu and just hoped it would all come together. We'd both lived through our fair share of T-days, and how hard could it be? We can read recipes and know how to cook, right?

Right! It turns out that wouldn't be our problem, the cooking I mean. The interesting part would be gathering the proper ingredients, things that are so commonplace back home but are either nonexistent or really hard to track down in Africa. Creativity and ingenuity would be key.

And then there was the issue of space. My oven only measures 18 inches across, 14 inches tall, and about 15 1/2 inches deep. Let me put that in perspective: how big is a 9x13 casserole dish? That's what I thought.

The question became, how are we going to make a complete Thanksgiving dinner when we're working with a miniature, one rack oven? Todd came to the rescue on this one. He suggested making the turkey in the crockpot! Brilliant :)

The turkey was the most stressful part of the entire meal for me. I'd certainly never made an entire turkey before, and until the moment we unwrapped it and placed in the crockpot the night before the big day, I had no idea if it would actually fit. It was just about 8 pounds and that, come to find out, happens to be the perfect size for my crockpot. Turkey score!

It took several hours in a rather warm kitchen, finagling casseroles like a Tetris game in the oven, and praying the turkey would be done on time (and just generally "done,") but in the end we had our feast!

Oh, and not everything on our table was homemade...we had Stove Top stuffing imported from home and it was fabulous :) That goes on the list of things-not-properly-found-in-Africa. Both Abby and I have tried a brand of stuffing mix here, but it's just not the same.

Here's the day in review...

 The first thing Abby did was fry up some onion strips for the green bean casserole, because we're pretty sure French's in the can doesn't exist here. Thanks to some help from the Pioneer Woman, they turned out great! I don't do GBC, so I sprinkled some on top of my stuffing.

Thanksgiving day action shot: chopping pecans for the sweet potato casserole!

Everything we had to fit in the oven simultaneously: apple-cranberry crisp, sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole.

I'm so pleased with how my turkey turned out! It was so moist and flavorful and done in 4.5 hours on low! (uh, my crockpot is on the hot side) I Told Todd I couldn't understand why more people don't do crockpot turkeys, but then I realized it's probably because most families need something bigger than an 8-pounder :)

The chefs! Not pictured: Todd, who mashed the potatoes. The menu consisted of:
-Turkey
-Apple-cranberry crisp
-Sweet potato casserole
-Green bean casserole
-Mashed potatoes
-Stuffing
-Turkey gravy we made from our turkey drippings
-Pecan pie

Here's what my plate looked like! I couldn't believe I didn't have to fight anyone for a leg, but I was surrounded by white meat snobs ;) Really though, the white meat was some of the best I've ever tasted!

We were thankful for grace, family, friends, food, and sub-90-degree weather so we could cook in relative comfort and enjoy our dinner on the patio!

Hope your day was as tasty as ours :) Happy Thanksgiving!

The Wednesday Stork: Week 22

*Slight disclaimer: this picture is way off...I'm totally holding back because in real life, this thing is huge! I'll have to be more belly-aware for next week's picture to make sure you all get the full effect. 

More than once this week I had to remind myself that I was approaching 22 weeks...not 23. It's a bummer to forget where you are and—even worse—to think you're farther along than you are. 

Part of me wishes I had never started counting, but the other part knows there was no way to avoid it. First I'm counting to see how much longer I could possibly have to live in constant nausea. Then I'm counting how far along I am because somehow the farther it is the more valid. Then I start doing the counter math to see how many weeks I have left based on how far along I am. It's 18, in case you were wondering. 

Yesterday was probably the last doctor appointment I'll have for awhile since I plan to start meeting with and *hopefully* delivering with a midwife. The doctor said everything looked good! He's still a boy, and is quite nicely situated with his head down :) I suppose it's too early to hope he'll find it comfortable and just camp out there long term...

I told Todd yesterday that going to an ultrasound appointment is like getting visiting rights at prison: we get a few supervised minutes with Ty every few weeks :) 

And speaking of ultrasounds...am I the only one at this stage of pregnancy who still can't make out an ultrasound image? I can see the really obvious things, like yesterday I could make out his spine. When we got to the car Todd had to walk me through the pictures because I couldn't make heads or tails (literally) of them. "Even after someone's shown you?" Todd asked. I did think I could see the head, and it turns out I could, I just had the angle wrong. Apparently he was looking straight at us. I thought we were seeing a profile. 

I give up. 

Weeks: 22...is that it? 

Weight gain so far: It's finally happened: I hit 10 pounds this morning. Just over, actually. I guess I'm ok with it. There's no losing it now, anyway.   

Wearing maternity clothes? No, but I bought some cheap "big" clothes yesterday: an elastic-waisted skirt to add to my small collection, two tank tops and some sport shorts. Like I've said before, it's a good thing I don't go out much.

Got any prego stretch marks? Don't think so. Todd doesn't think I'll make it though, and I agree.    

How am I sleeping? Not too shabby! Todd has come around and is letting us sleep ALL NIGHT with the fan running, instead of setting it on an hour timer. It's nice to wake up dry, you know? Of course, this is probably due more to the fact that we've had some gloriously mild days that have helped keep the house at a bearable temperature.   

What do I miss? I think I'm stuck on AC.     

Feeling anything in there? Oh yes, and the movements are getting bigger! He was really putting on a show yesterday morning at about 6ish. I had Todd feel just how active he was being because I thought it was fascinating, but that big stinker (Todd, not Ty) fell back asleep and almost completely missed everything! Oh well...I guess it's just not as exciting for him ;) 

Aversions or cravings? Nothing too overpowering.  

What’s the gender? Boy.  

Any labor signs? Nope. 

How pregnant do I feel? This hasn't been a strong pregnancy week, as in, I don't feel terribly pregnant. But I look it. There's really no getting around it now. I think I've officially left the fat phase and entered into the bump phase.   

Belly button status: Still in. 

Still sporting my wedding rings? Yep! 

Another week down, 18 l-o-n-g weeks to go!

The Wednesday Stork: Week 21

Back again! Believe it or not, this week did feel like it went by quickly, but there's a perfectly logical explanation: we've been busy :) Never fails.

Company arrived on Saturday and it feels like we've been go, go, go ever since. We spent the last two days in Pilanesburg which is about 1.5 hours from our flat in Pretoria. It was a nice time of eating food I didn't have to cook and sleeping in an air-conditioned room. Is it weird that those are my vacation highlights?

In addition to living like royalty, we also drove around Pilanesburg National Park, a big 5 game reserve. While we only saw 20% of the big 5, we got in enough giraffe, zebra, kudu and impala to satisfy us for life. I'll do another post with pictures from this trip later.

Today's picture comes to you from the B&B we stayed in, and the belly looks like it took quite a leap from last week. I'm wearing a skirt I bought from Old Navy last year that I call my faux maternity skirt; it's got this panel that's supposed to be folded down but it does more good pulled up over my belly button ;)

All that said...

Weeks: 21 

Weight gain so far: No idea. The B&B didn't have a scale so I couldn't weigh in this morning, and I'm not about to go weigh in on my scale now, at this time of day. I've been on vacation and eating like I've been on vacation, so I expect it has been a heavy week.  

Wearing maternity clothes? No. And they can't get here soon enough. 

Got any prego stretch marks? No...*hesitates*...no.   

How am I sleeping? Great, in air conditioning.   

What do I miss? Air conditioning (yes, I'm also noticing a trend).     

Feeling anything in there? Quite a bit, especially in the evenings but not always. He's been a lot more active this week than last.    

Aversions or cravings? Suffice it to say, yes. 

What’s the gender? Boy.  

Any labor signs? Nope. 

How pregnant do I feel? Is being hot and tired a pregnancy symptom? Then I feel very pregnant.  

Belly button status: Still in. 

Still sporting my wedding rings? Yep! 

Not a very interesting week in the prego department, I admit. Ty did get a new outfit, his first pair of shoes, and a little crocheted hat this week! That was exciting :) And no, I didn't buy any of it for him. 

Till next time...

Romance, then and now

Todd has always been a romantic. I used to think it was so embarrassing, though it was always sweet and tasteful. Trouble was he was playing to me, a serious unromantic. 

Sometimes his romance was showing up at my basketball games with roses. Other times it was bringing me Starburst candy at work. Still other times it was planning out a birthday scavenger hunt or picking up Olive Garden dinners and taking them to the park for a quiet picnic or drawing me cartoons or comic strips of us and leaving them in places for me to find :) 

Of course, this says nothing of our countless walks or trips to Sonic for slushes (he actually proposed on one of our many Sonic dates). Not every date can be original and extravagant. But he tried to do things that I would find special or fun, and he was good at it. 

I might have thought his romantic side was silly sometimes, but looking back, it was so incredibly sweet. I wouldn’t want it any other way. 

Fast forward oh, say, three years. He hasn’t surprised me with an Olive Garden picnic in ages. I haven’t had a single birthday scavenger hunt since I turned 17, and who knows when I found the last cartoon drawing. 

But despite what appears to be a serious decline, he’s still the most romantic thing! Let me just tell you…

Now instead of asking me out on fancy dates he says things like, “why don’t you just leave the dishes? I’ll do them for you tomorrow.” Now he doesn’t stop by work with candy; instead he buys me a mister system to hook up to the patio awning because y’all, it’s HOT in my air condition-less South African home and this sweaty prego is about to keel over! 

As my life has changed, so has my perspective on romance. I still enjoy going out to dinner or a movie, and we still do those things often. But who knew that I’d think him volunteering to do the chores was on par with buying me pearls? Who would have guessed that I’d consider his installing a glorified sprinkler system heroic and heart-throbby?  

I might get fewer roses these days, but that’s really a credit to him. He knows me well enough to know that I’ve changed. And he’s changed his style so I can keep thinking he’s super romantic. That alone is pretty sweet, right? 

Oh, in case you weren’t getting a visual in your mind of what a mister system is, here's a picture of the box. I would have taken one of our own gloriously cool and refreshing set-up, but it's really hard to get a good picture of mist. Ahhh...so nice :) 

And here's Mr. Romantic himself ❤︎

The Wednesday Stork: Week 20

Happy halfway to me :) Or Ty, rather. I'm not really actively engaging in the overall process, though at times I feel like I'm training for some kind of insane athletic event. I have never had to ration my energy as much as I have these past few weeks and I'm starting to realize just what a precious commodity it is.

For instance, I try to take a walk most days though I don't always succeed, and somedays that's on purpose. If I look at my day and see that I have something else on the schedule that will require energy, the walk might get dropped. At least for the morning. I may make it up in the evening, but that's dependent on lots of other things going "just right." (Some examples of activities that require extra energy for me are mopping and socializing ;)

Here's something else I've been pondering this week: you're considered "pregnant" about two weeks before you're actually pregnant, and then it's another two weeks before you find out you're pregnant. By the time you've got all that out of the way you may have put in a good month's worth of pregnant time unconsciously.

It's a sweet deal up front but I have a feeling I'm going to be extra pregnancy-conscious for the second half of things...no four-week free pass this time around. Fair? I think not.

Did that make any sense to anyone else, or is it just me? It's probably just me.

Enough of my ramblings. Here's what you came for! (Unless you came to see the bump picture, in which case I'm afraid you were disappointed ;)

Weeks: 20! It's all...uphill from here? 

Weight gain so far: Yikes, over 7.5 pounds, but not 8 yet. I'm about 2.5 over what I wanted to be at this point, but when I set the goal of only gaining 5 pounds by 20 weeks, I didn't know if I was being realistic. I don't know where the weight's coming from or where it's hiding, but I guess it's there somewhere.   

Wearing maternity clothes? No, but have I mentioned how thankful I am for elastic these days? 

Got any prego stretch marks? Don't think so, but I'm probably not going to emerge unscathed.  

How am I sleeping? Not bad. It's so tempting (and I often give in) to sleep on my back, but I know that's not recommended. I try to do the side thing but only the right side ever works out. Sometimes I wake up with a sore hip and have to just flip to my back. I am so not a side sleeper. 

What do I miss? Feeling invigorated in the morning. It used to be my best time of the day. Now I don't have a best time of the day.    

Feeling anything in there? Yes, but he had me concerned more than once this week. I don't know if he's just been extra sleepy or what but he barely moved at all this weekend. I've caught him being a little more active the past couple of days, and I think it's still pretty early to read much into his movements. It's been an exercise in letting go of the zero-control I have anyway :) Oh, and he's super ornery. Already. He must be my sister's kid that I got accidentally. Sometimes when he's in a moving mood I'll have Todd try to feel him, but so often he just freezes as soon as Todd's hand is there. Ornery.   

Aversions or cravings? PB&J still sounds really good like all the time, but I only give in occasionally. 

What’s the gender? Boy.  

Any labor signs? None. 

How pregnant do I feel? I told Todd at least once this week that I need my stomach to s-t-r-e-t-c-h!!! It's not that big from the outside but I think I want it to be bigger just so it won't feel so...so like it's going to pop. I get the idea that I should probably just get used to feeling like that. Oh, and this is why I said that I probably wouldn't emerge unscathed in the stretch mark department. 

Belly button status: Still in. 

Still sporting my wedding rings? Yes, thankfully :) I'll be sad if I have to take them off!

So yeah, that's the week. How was yours, by the way? 

Understanding Evangelism: Step 1

I’ve never been very good at thinking through evangelism. Where do you start, where do you finish, what are the best scripture verses to take someone through…I was pretty well lost, and guys, that’s really sad. I’m not proud of the fact that this can be such a scary topic for me. 

I think part of the reason many Christians find evangelism intimidating is the sheer weight of what we have to say. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that salvation isn’t something we can bring about in anyone’s life (including our own!), but it’s still important that we represent Christ and his method of salvation accurately. It’s serious stuff, for sure, but that doesn’t make it impossible to understand or share with others. 

Our church recently did a Sunday school series that went through the steps and some relevant verses for evangelism, and I thought it was so well organized and easy to follow that I wanted to share it! It was especially helpful for me to think through these things since I want to be able to present the gospel (evangelize to) my kids. We’ll take a little piece at a time over the next few weeks, and hopefully you’ll find it as helpful as I did!

**Please note: this is not a complete recreation of the material we discussed at my church, but I am including the basic points and some scripture that we covered along with some of the ideas that have inspired my thoughts.

Ok, so, where’s a good place to start when we set out to share the gospel? Well, that will depend largely on the person you’re talking to. Some of us have church backgrounds that go way back. Others haven’t even heard of Jesus. That’s a big spectrum to try to say that one-approach-fits all. Sometimes you may have to stress a certain point with one person that would already be assumed for another. 

I think it’s probably best to be thorough. Go ahead and prepare your thoughts as if the next person you talk to will have no idea what God’s salvation plan is. Though if you’re from my part of the world (known as the bible belt), chances are you won’t have to hash things out to this extent. Most people will already be familiar with certain ideas about God and themselves.Of course, familiarity itself doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has a proper understanding of something, but it might help. 

That said, let’s look at the first step:

The Holiness of God

This really clicked for me when we covered it in Sunday school. I had thought before that when I talk to my kids about their need for redemption, I’ll have to tell them why they need it in the first place. It’s because God is a holy God. Take a look at what these verses say:

“For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness; with you, evil people are not welcome. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong; you destroy those who tell lies. The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, Lord detest.” Psalm 5:4-6 (NIV 2011, Zondervan)

“But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;  for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’” 1 Peter 1:15-16 (NIV 2011, Zondervan)

The verses from Psalms do a good job of telling us how God feels about sin and there are plenty of other verses in the Bible that do the same thing. It’s kind of a recurring theme, really. God hates sin. He is holy. Do you realize what this means for those of us who aren’t holy? (And by “those of us” I mean mankind, but we’ll get to that next time.) Just look at what this verse says:

“Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” Habakuk 1:13a (NIV 2011, Zondervan). 

And this verse got me thinking…isn’t this the same idea that Jesus himself expressed on the cross? 

“About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).” Matthew 27:46 (NIV 2011, Zondervan)

God’s holiness goes so far and is such a serious part of his character that he forsook his own son when he was burdened with our sin. We’ll talk more about Christ and his substitution in a later step, so forgive me for seeming to ignore it for now. 

This is an important step to cover in our gospel presentation because it sets the stage. Most of the steps set the stage, but each one is equally important. We need to know what standard God requires, and his standard is holiness: perfect, humanly-unattainable holiness. 

“Despair” might be a good word to sum up how we should be feeling right about now…BUT, this is only the first step :) Let’s chew on that for this week and let the gravity of God’s holiness really sink in. Next week we’ll look at the second step: The Sinfulness of Man. 

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, things aren’t going to get any better next week. In fact, they’re going to get a lot worse. 

What other verses would you use to communicate the holiness of God to someone? Let me know! 

BBQ Apple Chicken

On more than one occasion I’ve had a freezer of chicken breasts and had to figure out what to do with them. They’re a standard item on my grocery list but I don’t always know what I’m going to make when I buy them. There’s about a bazillion possible ways to prepare a chicken breast, but I often suffer from dinner block, a common condition known to housewives resulting from too much dinner cooking and not enough creativity. 

I’m not one of those girls who blindly reaches into the fridge or pantry and makes something delicious with whatever comes out. I like recipes and while I don’t always follow them faithfully, I’d be lost without them. But earlier this year I surprised myself; I came up with something!

Todd and I were knew to life-on-our-own here in South Africa, and while at the grocery store one day we stumbled upon a brand of meat rubs. The brand was Nando’s,  a restaurant specializing in chicken meals common in South Africa as well as the UK and Australia (though I think I heard it’s Portuguese?). Anyway, we had heard great things about the restaurant but hand’t gotten around to trying it. In lieu of actually visiting the restaurant itself we picked out a rub and thought we’d give it a go for dinner one night. 

The rub is BBQ “Peri-Peri,” peri-peri basically being code for SPICY! This was before I knew that in South Africa, peri-peri is typically beyond my spice tolerance (which I used to think was pretty good). This particular rub isn’t overkill, but it still has a kick!

But let’s get back to the birth of my chicken breast epiphany. I bought the rub with the intention of “rubbing” it onto chicken, but then what? Was that going to cut it? While I was sure it would have some nice flavor I was also pretty sure it would be dry, and I do not enjoy dry chicken. I needed something to help it stay moist, but I didn’t want to actually marinade it. What to do, what to do…

And then it came to me: apples. 

I had heard of cooking apples with a pork roast so apples with chicken couldn’t be horrible. Strange,  but not horrible. I cut up an apple and laid the slices on top of the chicken, hoping it would magically do the trick and that Todd wouldn’t think I’d lost it. Just to be safe, I’d also stuffed his with cheese (can you tell I was really reaching? BBQ and cheese…what on earth?). He pretty much loves cheese. It was my insurance policy on the meal.

When the timer dinged and the moment of truth was upon me, I was pleased :) Todd liked my little concoction so well, he said he wouldn’t mind having it often. It became one of his favorite ways we do chicken, as a matter of fact. Who knew?! I think baking the chicken in our little convection oven went a long way in helping it stay moist, so if you have a small family and a toaster oven, consider baking a few chicken breasts in that! 

Since it’s often proven successful at our house, I thought it was time to share it with yours, just in case you get a case of dinner block sometime ;) 

BBQ Apple Chicken

-Preheat Oven to 375 or 350, wherever you would normally cook chicken. 

-Take thawed chicken breasts and coat them in a BBQ rub or seasoning. While I doubt you can get Nando’s in the States, it looks like Wal-Mart carries a McCormick BBQ rub, but any one will do. 

-After coating chicken breasts, set in baking dish. Place apple slices along the top, either flat, or slightly stacked (as shown in picture). I recommend using a bigger apple than what I had on hand.

-Bake for 25-30 minutes,  or just until done. Don’t let them dry out on you! 

That’s it! Simple? Extremely. Now go use up those chicken breasts you’ve been meaning to cook :) 

A Quilt for Ty

This is a dream come true. I have made a quilt!

Actually, we have made a quilt. This was definitely a joint venture and I can't imagine doing it without Todd! I was clueless in the beginning. I didn't fully understand the pattern I found, was hopeless at making conversions (remember, we're on the metric system here and the pattern was in the imperial system), and didn't know the first thing about using a sewing machine.

Thankfully, Todd could fill in my gaps (a.k.a., giant gaping holes) and we had such a good time doing this project together! We picked out our fabric, Todd did the calculating and cutting, we both ironed and sewed and in the end could really say that we had done it :)

My favorite part of the actual sewing process was hand-stitching the binding onto the backing of the quilt. It only took me about 6 hours (not all at once) from start to finish. I also really liked learning how to use a sewing machine, and while those things are fantastic for actually getting things done, using one isn't the relaxing part of the process that hand-stitching is.

When I showed Todd the tutorial for the confetti quilt I'd found on Pinterest (which you can view here at Bijou Lovely) that I wanted to make for Ty, I asked him to pick out what colors he would like. He went with a nautical color scheme and I was happy about that :) While Ty is a boy, I didn't want to do something overly boyish or babyish for his quilt. I love the beach so nautical is perfect!

Here are the patterns we chose for the 56 circles, 7 of each pattern:

This one is the wave piece...it was pretty much perfect :)

This one made me think of the bottom of a shallow creek bed. Can you imagine you're looking at cool water dancing over brown and copper pebbles?

Here's some green-blue water, kind of like what you'd see if you visited the gulf.

And here's our deep sea representative.

This one looks more like the surface of a pool,  so blue and refreshing! Maybe there's an ocean somewhere that looks like this...

And this is obviously sand :) I liked the shimmery gold specks.

Technically, this is also a "sand" piece, but we mostly chose it for the pattern.

Here's the whole gang, complimenting each other beautifully:

We were off a little in our dimensions, so our quilt turned out a bit smaller than the one in the tutorial we followed. But we're still quite pleased :)

Oh, and here're some samples from the backing fabric:

While the overall product did turn out well, it is certainly handmade by beginner quilters. I made more than a few blunders with the sewing machine, and there's a place in my binding stitching that leaves a lot to be desired. I guess that just adds to the homemade-ness of it.

This was such a fun, rewarding project, and I'd definitely be up for making more...so long as Todd would be up for another joint venture :) I'm not quite ready to tackle it single-handedly.

The Wednesday Stork: Week 19

Another week already? Just kidding...it hasn't started flying by yet :) I'm told it does, but I'll let you know if that's true.

I had a request last week to do a belly shot which, as you know, is something I've been putting off. I still don't think it's worth sharing at this point, but the satisfaction of my reader(s) says otherwise. Therefore, it is my dubious pleasure to give you...

...the 19 week belly:

This was shot pretty much first thing this morning, so it's not being off-set by a stomach full of food; I wanted to get as true as I could to the real thing.

 However, I've never heard any other pregnant woman mention this, but I feel like I have two "bumps." This is the one that's comfortable, as in, I can still breath. If I let everything "go," the bump is slightly more impressive, but that's not how I walk around all day. If I did that, I'd suffocate. Has anyone else felt like that?

Anyway.

Weeks: 19. Todd called it "half way" and I promptly corrected him. This will almost certainly last the entire 40-41 weeks for me and, as you know, 19+19=38. 

Weight gain so far: I have no idea. I weigh myself nearly every morning and my level of fluctuation is off the chain. Today, I was back at just over a 3 pound increase, but last week I was at 6! And I held on to it for nearly the whole week so I was pretty certain it was here to stay. It was just this morning that I was w-a-y down again. Whatever.   

Wearing maternity clothes? Well, no....but I wish I had some! 

Got any prego stretch marks? No. 

How am I sleeping? This has been another pretty good week of sleep. I think I had my first difficult morning today.  

What do I miss? Oxygen. I'll get to that in a minute.   

Feeling anything in there? Yes. But the more exciting part is that Todd can too! I'm really surprised since I think it's technically still "too early" for him to be able to feel anything. But last night I could feel Ty moving around and told Todd that if he would just keep his hand there for awhile, he might be able to as well. It took a few minutes, and he says it was very subtle, like feeling a heart beat, but he felt it :)  

Aversions or cravings? I was on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich kick this weekend, but seeing how I didn't want another 2.5 pound weight gain this week I tried to lay off of them...but they still sound pretty good and it has been three days so maybe I've earned one.

What’s the gender? I'm still under the impression that the Dr. found it to be male. 

Any labor signs? None. 

How pregnant do I feel? A bit. I found myself needing to take deep breaths this week; every so often, I just have to do this great big inhale. I guess it might be the uterus starting to crowd my diaphragm, which does happen eventually. To tell the truth, I feel kind of silly to get as "winded" as I do being no bigger than I am. 

Belly button status: In. 

Still sporting my wedding rings? Yes. Although, I wake up sometimes in the night and feel that a few of my fingers have fallen asleep. I've thought more than once that maybe my fingers have swollen and my rings are cutting off the circulation, but that's not been the case. I don't know what causes the numbness at night but the rings are not yet the culprits! 

And that wraps up the past week! Stay tuned next week for: the big 20 :) 

The very best

Today, I need to tell you about the best teacher I've ever had: Todd. Surprised? Don't be. I don't know that I'd given it much thought before this weekend, but he really is the best.

We did a couple DIY projects over the weekend that I could never have attempted without him, primarily because they included mathematical skills, precision, and knowledge of how to operate a sewing machine. Before a few days ago I possessed none of these things. I still don't have mathematical skills or precision, (let's not get unrealistic) but I do now know how to basically operate a sewing machine! I feel very accomplished, very wife-ish :)

Anyway, back to Todd being the best teacher I've ever had. I realized this weekend that he is able to teach me and that I'm able to learn from him for three main reasons:

1. He can do things I wish I could do.
2. He is willing to teach me things.
3. He doesn't get aggravated or annoyed if/when I don't catch on or when I make mistakes.

Not everyone gets to live with someone who can do things, and I get that. Maybe I should take that off the list because it is kind of an unfair advantage. But the other two are legit. He really is willing to teach me anything he knows that I want to know. He'd even sit down and teach me all about building websites or using Photoshop if I asked him. He's just...willing.

And, best of all, after he's taught me and explained and reexplained, he doesn't get frustrated when I mess up! Do you know how liberating that is? He just says something like, "it's ok, we can fix it," or "you're doing fine," or "that looks great!" Who couldn't work under those kind of conditions? :)

Todd has confidence in me. And this weekend it dawned on me just how valuable that is in any teacher.

But enough gushing...let's get to the results of all this excellent teaching! Our "big"project, our piéce de résistance, deserves its own blog post which I hope to have up later this week, but let me just say that it's something I've wanted to do and am so pleased with how it turned out!

After we mostly finished our main event, we spent a little time doing some smaller projects. First of all, we were given a Boppy pillow by some friends who were also given it second-hand. I guess they didn't want it or already had one or something, so they passed it along to us. I was prepared to use it as it was, but Todd said, "do you want me to re-cover it?"

Here's what it was covered in originally:

Gross, right?

Todd pulled the pieces off and we pinned them to our new fabric. We cut those out and then he figured out how to sew them back together, and even managed to put the zipper back in! It was the first zipper he'd ever done and it turned out great! He let me do most of the sewing on the machine (but not the zipper part..no thanks).

The finished product:

Soooo much classier :) I'm glad Todd suggested re-covering.

The last project of the weekend was made with the leftover fabric. Todd wanted to make some placemats and came up with these:

He made the first one and then taught me so we could both do the rest. It was really very easy and now I'm inspired to make more...maybe something Christmassy.

To sum up, I'm grateful for a friend, teacher and husband who is willing and patient. It makes all the difference :)