And it’s a…

I should've know those Chinese Charts never fail...It's a girl! I can still hardly believe it. I have to keep repeating it over and over to myself. :) I am VERY excited though. I have always wanted a girl. I asked the tech how sure she was and she said you can never be 100% sure but if it her she would buy pink. She was already being shy and stubborn. Every time we’d try to look at the face she’d cover it up with her hands. Then she did the same thing when we tried to look at her heart. Now the fun task of name picking comes. I have n0 names on the list right now so this could be quite the challenge.

Here's a couple pics!

   

 

Also more belly pics as requested. Just to compare, this is me at 8 weeks.

And this is in the same shirt. It's starting to pop!

1 Week Left!!

Reminder to anyone else who wants to get their guess in for Baby J's gender you have one more week! Our ultrasound is next Tuesday morning. Hope it all goes well and later that day I can post the results. Come on do it...you know you want to!!

Free Sweets!

Tomorrow is a pregnant girls dream...free pastry at Starbucks and free cone day at Ben & Jerry's! Doesn't get much better than that!!!

Cooking Club III

Last weekend we had our third round of Cooking Club. If was Jeff and Jenny's turn to host and they did a great job. The food was all very good even if Cran and I did chop for 2 hours straight. :) Brent was gracious and stayed home with Mikayla that night due to some issues she was having. Cran asked Cari to sub in and be her date for the night. Thanks Cari! I think unofficially the theme for the night was mangoes - and as a bonus Jenny's baby was the size of a mango that week too. Perfect. All the recipes were from a cook book they got on their trip out east.

The night started off with cocktails/mocktails called Mango Bellinis.


The hors d'oeuvres was plantain chips with mango pomegranate guacamole (This might've been my favorite of the night. soooo good!)


The first course was the one Cran and I made and consisted of julienne chopping MANY ingredients. They were delicious though. Spring roll salad with green apple-mango vinaigrette


For the main course we ventured into seafood. Jenny is the only one who's had experience making scallops. This dish was very rich. Shrimp beurre blanc atop pan-seared sear scallops. Served with long grain rice and vegetable confetti.


The evening rounded out with chardonnay poached pears served with a raspberry sauce.


All in all a success. I've uploaded all the nights pictures.

Seeds!!!

Look what came in the mail today!!



(all the seeds in white if you need an answer) That means this weekend we can start our indoor planting. So excited!! We're doing it a little smarter this time and only starting the herbs, peppers and tomatoes inside. The rest can wait until outdoor season.

I am trying a new veggie this year. Edamame- maybe that's not even a veggie but we'll call it one since it's going in the garden.

Happy St. Patti's Day

How I plan to celebrate the tiny bit of Irish heritage that I have.




Mmm mmm a million times better than green beer (to me at least) :)

Sacrifices

Over the weekend I was thinking to myself how fun it would be to go see Lady Gaga if she ever came here. I had pretty much decided that I was going to try and get tickets if she did. To my surprise yesterday there was an article in the star trib saying she's coming!! (I am slightly psychic) Seemed a bit to good to be true. I read down a little further and saw she was coming Aug 30th - 16 days after my due date. Not ready to quite give up yet I thought of all the ways that I could make that work until finally I saw a picture of myself arguing with the bouncers about why I should be able to bring a breast pump into a concert. :) That's when it hit me. I'm going to me a mom...and its was time to start thinking about my little baby before myself. Although I was slightly disappointed, thinking about how I'll be spending Aug 30th cuddling up with my baby totally made up for it.

Pictures compliments of startribune.com

Game Time

I'd like to draw every one's attention to the new gadget at the top of the sidebar...It's time to guess the gender of Baby J!! I'll give you a few stats to help your guess.

The heart beat has been 139 and 155.
I have been craving spicy foods (which supposedly means boy).
The Chinese calendar charts say I'm having a girl.
Justin and I were both 8 lb + babies (yikes!!)
I was delivered 2 weeks late.

So go on and guess! We have our ultrasound appointment set on March 30th to find out the results of the sex.

It was meant to be

I was reading my baby name book this morning on the way to work (on my new nook!). The book is categorized into chapters by the meaning of the names. I was reading the chapters on animal meanings. As I was reading through the boys names I thought to myself, wouldn't it be funny if Conner meant dog. I pushed the button for the next page and at the top was...

Connor (Irish) "dog lover" Conner, Conor, Konner, Konnor.

How funny is that???

Restaurant Review

I got to check out 2 different restaurants for restaurant week this year: one for dinner and one for lunch. Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of the food! Use your imagination.

Oceanaire was the first one. We went there for dinner on my birthday. I've always wanted to go there and have heard so many great things about it. They did not disappoint. For my meal I choose:
App - Maryland Style Crab Cake Appetizer Mustard Mayonnaise
Entree - Grilled Costa Rican Mahi-Mahi Ancho Chile Sauce and Mexican Pickled Vegetable “Escabeche”
Dessert - Banana Bread Pudding Glazed Bananas and Caramel

We also added 2 family style sides of asparagus with hollandaise sauce and red potatoes topped with a thick cut bacon. They staff must've thought we hadn't eaten enough because they brought out an extra dessert for my birthday where a liquor was lite on fire and then poured over the top of it. Very festive and fun. The food was all outstanding. The crab cake was the best I ever had with HUGE chunks of crab in it. I highly recommend checking this place out especially for restaurant week. Such a great deal and the portion sizes were huge. I didn't come close to finishing anything...besides my crab cake.

Pic of the desserts. The one in the middle is the extra one they brought out.


The other restaurant I checked out was Ginger Hop in NE. It's a new Asian restaurant where The Times used to be. We were there for a lunch and I got:
App - beef satay with sesame sauce
Entree - pad thai

I'd say the food here was good but not wonderful. The satay was really good and done perfectly. The pad thai couldn't compete w/Spice (my fav thai restaurant in Savage) Instead of asking how spicy you wanted your food they brought out this spice tray where you could add your own spices/sauce to any part of the meal. I was glad they brought it because my meal would've been really bland without it. Plus baby is craving REALLY spicy foods so I could load it on. (no I don't get heartburn...yet at least) I'd go back if someone else wanted to try it but it's not a place I'd crave on my own. Also their restaurant week deal wasn't that great. I think I only saved $1 on my meal.

Conner shares his love

Sorry to whoever ate that corner of the cake...

GOT!

Remember how much I wanted this??

Well I got the Barnes & Noble version of it...The Nook! I'm so excited. Can't wait to download some books. It'll be great for on the bus and especially for traveling to AZ and Dallas this spring!


Of course once I had it the first thing I did was buy a few accessories. Had to get a case.


And then I just couldn't resist this cute bag. It's big enough to fit the Nook inside the above case.


Pictures from Barnes & Noble and Borsa Bella.