Irish Soda Bread

Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients
1 cup flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup rolled oats (not instant)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons melted butter



Preheat oven to 375 F. In a large bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in oats. Make a well in the center and add the buttermilk all at once. Stir together until moistened. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently 10 times. Shape into 6-7 inch round. Make a cross shape slash 1 inch thick into the center of the loaf. Place on a lightly buttered cookie sheet. Bake for 40 minutes or until loaf is slightly browned. Remove, place on a cooling rack over wax paper and brush with melted butter.

It is baking now. I've made bread several times before and it's fun. I don't have any eggs, and I wanted something quick and easy! I shall let you know how it turns out!

Vegetable Medley....

So last night I made a dish that I've made a few times before. It's completely vegetarian and totally tasty!

2-3 medium zuccini (yellow/green or both), sliced
1/3 cup chopped mushrooms (or 1 small can)
1 regular can of corn
2 medium tomatoes or 1 regular can of tomatoes, chopped into bite sized pieces
2 medium onions, diced or sliced

1. In a saute pan with extra virgin olive oil, toss in potatoes, zuccini and onions over medium heat. Salt, pepper, season to taste. You might need to turn down the heat a bit if the zuccini is browning too fast.
2. When zuccini is browned, add mushrooms, corn and tomatoes. Saute until hot.
3. Enjoy with pasta or rice!

You could also add potatoes, but they need a few more minutes than the zuccini.

I love this dish. It's so quick and easy. The hardest part is opening a can....or chopping the onions that make you cry, ha! Takes less than 30 minutes. I'm all about quick and easy! And tasty and healthy!

dunDunDUN!!!!

Well, it's confirmed: I have PUPPS! No....not puppies...PUPPS! It's a rash that some pregnant women get. Lo and behold, I have it! Coming on gradually for 2 weeks, but now the itching is driving me to distraction! So I called my doctor's office, spoke to a nurse: YES! I have PUPPS! She suggested I take Benedryl (I have to dig it out of a box!) and also try Johnson & Johnson Baby Oil Gel right out of the shower before drying off. I did find a website where many women had tried Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap. Sounds odd, but they insist it works! I don't know if I'll try that, but I'm getting the baby oil gel this afternoon!

Moving and the Weather....

Currently, it is a freezing 32*F. Last week is slowly dropped from a perfect 65*F - 70*F to a warm 47*F. Suddenly, at night on Saturday it dipped to 30* but felt like 20*F! With that sudden change in temperature, I've had a sudden onset of a minor cold. Not enough of a cold to keep me from Church or doing things, however! It's just annoying. With all the other ailments of pregnancy, which I must admit I'm not getting much of them compared to other women!, I'm haggling with an annoying cold. Allergies are enough to contend with, exacerbated by pregnancy. In anycase, I think I'm over it now. It's just super cold here. However, Mom would be proud of me, I haven't turned on the heater once! :-D If I'm bundled up in thick fuzzy socks, top and bottom long johns with a thick fuzzy top and bottom, with mittens AND a blanket.......and I still can't get warm and it's been awhile.....THEN I'll turn on the heater. www.weather.com has said all last week we were going to get snow all through the weekend. I was worried how that was going to effect our move. It did not effect our move....because it didn't snow! There was a light dusting Sunday morning on the way to Church, but it didn't stick on the ground, and it was all melted on the cars by the time noon rolled around.

So we covered the weather. We're going in reverse order of the title today, ha!

YES, we HAVE moved again....but this is the last move in a long Long LONG time. The old apartment we felt was just too tiny to add another person. And rather wait until the last minute, when I KNOW it will be extremely cold and snowy in February, we moved now. Plus, the old place had tile everywhere except the bedrooms, and tile is not exactly baby friendly: it's cold and hurts more that carpet if you fall.

The new place! One bedroom is almost twice the size as our smallest room in the old place. Even though we had a SUPER duper nice kitchen in the old place (which the Bishop's wife commented was better than her own kitchen!) I would gladly trade a not as nice kitchen for more space. The living room is about average sized for an apartment, but big enough to have a couch, an over-stuffed armchair with large ottoman, my desk by the window, and Danial's desk by the dining room, plus a small tv cart we picked up, and a couple of shelves we had around.

The kitchen and bathroom has some really nice hard wood flooring, I think it's real wood, medium-dark shade:

The kitchen is traditional apartment style, looking out into the living room. There's enough space to put a small dining room table, for now we'll be using our card table/chairs. Mom made some great table clothes while we were living in Kansas for our card table, when we also used as a dining room table. The kitchen has a good sized pantry. Actually, I think I like the layout of this pantry better than the old place: it was so big and L shaped that it was hard to get certain things out! The new place has shelves on both sides, with a blank wall when you first open the door. There's so much space between the shelves, more than enough for 2 people....we tried even with the door closed.

The bathroom is very good sized, you can actually turn around with room to spare now, unlike the old place! It's a very spacious bathroom....not much else to say about a bathroom. It functions with all the necessary accutraments....with space!

Straight down hall, with the bedrooms on both sides, there's an open linen closet (no ceiling or door) with shelves. We're going to get a tension rod and curtain to make it nice and pretty. Actually, Danial came up with that idea first. I'm so excited I have a linen closet! At the old place, I just cram jammed blankets, sheets, towels, etc into any place I could find space! The old closets had these cumbersome organizers that took up so much space and didn't hold much in the closet that left not very much room for hanging clothes! So all my linens are in one place now! woohoo!

The baby's room, as we call it, is on the right on the linen closet. Right now, it's just holding all of our STUFF so that I can organize it. There will be a place for everything, and everything will be in it's place! Most of it will not stay in there. Our room, to the left of the linen closet, is the bigger room. We have a couple of bookshelves to put together that will go in there, plus 4 sets of large storage drawers that work nicely for a dresser. There's a little alcolve perfect for the bookshelves....or a bassinet! After the baby is born and starts to be more mobile, we'll move the desks into our room. Yes...there's plenty of room for that, I still can't believe it! I think I'm worried the baby will get into the cords and either hurt himself or hurt the computers. Either way, it's a valid reason.

So, at some point, I will take pictures of our new place.....once we have things unpacked! The kitchen and living room are the only rooms in the house that are unpacked and organized! My next goal, is to get our room situated. We have clothes scattered about in both rooms in suitcases, boxes, bags and crates. You know the old addage....a happy home is a clean home....well so is an organized one!

Ultrasound pictures

Here are a just couple pictures from the ultrasound we received. The first one you can see his eyes and nose. The other one....well...it's unmistakable and undeniable it is a BOY!!! (no scanner, but a snazzy camera does the trick!)

baby Names

here are some of the boy names we have talked about when it comes to our child with respective middles names


Soda Pop
Seven Up
Coco Puffs
Mars Bars
Bubba Gump
Dr. Pepper
* @
Braxton Hicks
Paper Roses
Fort Knox
Kal-El
He-Man
Wheres Waldo
Charactacus Potts
Boy Wonder

And the answer is.......

For all of you that voted for a girl...........................




















You would be INCORRECT!!!

For all of your that voted for twins...you're still incorrect!!
















It is a BOY!


Now on to the trains, mud and mini suits! Hopefully not all in that order, ha! Woohoo!

Last chance to vote!

Last chance to vote before we share the news...........is it a boy................or is it a girl...................