Pumpkin Muffins

Everyone knows how much I love pumpkin.  Love it.  It's part of the reason I love this time of year so much -- there is pumpkin and pumpkin spice EVERYWHERE!  This week, my sister-in-law Jill gave me a recipe for pumpkin muffins that I was dying to try --

1 can of pumpkin
1 box of spice cake (or yellow cake) mix
1 bag of chocolate chips

Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes.

That's it.  Seriously.  Three ingredients!  I was skeptical, but I made them last night and they are DELICIOUS.  They taste just like a regular muffin, which is SHOCKING without the oil or eggs or any of your typical ingredients.  It's almost as much a mystery to me as Diet Coke cupcakes.  (How can a box of cake mix and a can of Diet Coke make such wonderful cupcakes?  I don't understand how it took me so long to find this recipe!)

Jill is the pumpkin expert -- she has an entire cookbook of pumpkin recipes! -- so I'm sure she'll continue to be my resource for ways to incorporate my favorite Fall flavor into my baking and cooking.  I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as I did!  Happy baking!

 

Getting close!

1) Mindy and Doug will be having their baby any day now!  I'm super excited to meet my new little nephew, and also SUPER jealous that I will still have to be pregnant for a few weeks after Quinn gets here.  Maybe Quinn's arrival will make Gavin want to hurry up a little -- he'll want to meet his new best friend, after all!

BFFs

2) Work has been crazy lately because I've been picking up shifts here and there and learning a whole new set of tasks.  I feel good because I'm now cross-trained on most office jobs -- even though my job will change drastically once I get back from maternity leave and the office begins the transition to electronic medical records.  Then the real fun begins for me, as a huge portion of my job will be to help with the transition.  As for now, though, I'm trying to learn as much about office management as I can and really increase my rolodex of skills.  Stephen is also trying to broaden his professional horizons -- there have been some job postings at Mitsubishi that sound interesting to him, so we're getting his resume and cover letter together this week.  He's had a few people at work ask him if he'd be interested in applying for the open positions -- including the man who is currently doing one of the jobs -- so that's made him feel confident that there is no harm in applying at least.  He's such a hard-worker, and SUCH a team player at Mitsubishi, so we'll see what happens!  He also starts a new term in mid-November and will be taking a writing course and his first computer course (7 credit hours total), so it'll be a busy but really exciting end to 2011.

3) It's been awhile since I've posted some photos, so here are the updated photos of our finished nursery and bathroom:

We are so happy with how everything turned out!  The dot decals in the bathroom cost a whopping total of $15 and made a huge difference, and we love our new custom glider in Gavin's room!  He won't be sleeping in the nursery for probably 3-6 months (we have a bassinet we'll be setting up in our room), but the room is all ready for Gavin to love.  Plus...we can't wait to dress him up in all his cutie pie clothes.  

4) We're done with holiday shopping!  Since the baby isn't due until the end of November, and rumor has it that most first time mothers deliver up to two weeks late, we thought there might be a chance that Gavin will be a December baby.  That being said, there was no way we wanted to spend our first few weeks of maternity/paternity leave fighting mall crowds with a newborn.  So everything is purchased, wrapped, and ready to go!  :)  Now the hard part is keeping our gifts a secret.  I'm the world's WORST secret-keeper when I find a gift for someone that I know they'll love.  I usually end up giving Stephen his gifts early because I just can't wait to see him open them!  So I'll have to keep my mouth shut for the next two months, but I'm really happy to have that huge task knocked off my to-do list.

5) Speaking of our to-do list, there is still a long way to go before reaching the end of it, but we have managed to take some time to enjoy typical Fall things like pumpkin patches and football games. 

HAPPY FALL!

Photography

I love photography and have always tried to document special events -- it's just nice to have mementos from great days to look back on when things get a little rough.  So, Stephen and I were planning on having maternity photos taken last month so I could look back on this experience and remember the good things about being pregnant.  (It was also meant to give me an excuse to get all dolled up and feel somewhat pretty again.)  Unfortunately, my computer had a meltdown and we found ourselves needing to spend that money on a new one rather than on maternity photos -- so we cancelled the session.  I didn't really mind, because in all honesty, I don't really feel like I look like myself, and I'm not sure I'll really WANT to remember the way I've looked throughout this pregnancy.  (Some people get the pregnancy glow...some people just sweat and swell.  I'll give you one guess which category I've fallen into.)  Now, when I've lost all this baby weight and my hair and skin start cooperating again...then let's have some photos taken.  Until then, I'd much rather have a new computer.

Still, I'm really excited to have photos taken of our newest addition when he arrives!  We hired our photographer last week and are really excited about working with her.  Check out her blog:

http://jenrosephotojournal.blogspot.com/

So here's the thing -- I don't think it takes much to make a newborn look cute.  Naked babies with little knit hats sleeping on blankets or in a buckets/baskets are ALWAYS adorable, so I didn't want to spend $500 to get a studio session and 10 digital prints.  Seriously, that's what some people were charging.  Our photographer is in the process of building her portfolio, so for $150 she'll come to our house for 2-3 hours, provide props for the session, and give us the rights to ALL of the retouched digital prints!  Her prices are going up in December, and we're due in late November, so we're feeling pretty proud of ourselves for stumbling across her blog.

Another thing off our checklist!  Still to go --

- Order and install room-darkening blinds for the nursery.

- Get our carseats installed.

- Pack my hospital bag.

- Build the bassinet and pack n' play.

- Get through six more weeks.

Third Trimester Blues

Oh...this week was not the easiest.

Like I mentioned earlier, work is starting to get exhausting.  I'm just sore and tired (constantly, constantly tired).  My body just feels really out of whack.  It doesn't help that temperatures shot up from 60 degrees last week to 85 degrees this week.  I don't know...aside from the physical ailments, I'm just getting antsy to meet our little one.  Time is flying and going SO SLOW at the same time, and with just over six weeks to go, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work we still have to do while simultaneously feeling 100% ready to bring our baby home.  I'm totally emotional and totally uncomfortable and totally wondering how people do this pregnancy thing more than once.

Aside from the regular pregnancy-related stuff, our house decided to fall apart this week.  For starters, our bathtub was leaking into the basement -- Dad came over and fixed it earlier this week, so at least that's one problem solved -- but today, our electricity started going crazy.  Our lights were working, but our stove and dryer weren't.  Our clocks stayed on, but our garage door wouldn't open.  We felt like our house was possessed.  This happened a week ago and Duke Energy told us it would cost $700 to fix -- apparently we had a faulty underground wire? -- but then the electricity turned back on and all was fine.  We thought we had averted a pretty expensive crisis.  Then the lights started pulsing while we were using the washing machine last night and it all went downhill from there.  Luckily, we were able to get Duke out to fix the problem today, and since the issue was less than two feet from the transformer, the repair was FREE.  So, that $700 was able to remain firmly in our savings account.  Hooray -- Gavin can go to college!  :)

At the end of the day, our house is fixed and Gavin will join us when he's ready (he still needs to bake a little longer, I know) -- but I have just been feeling really ill-equipped to handle stressful situations (like our air conditioning not working when it's 85 degrees out), so it's been a challenging week.  Stephen and I are going to have a SUPER chill day tomorrow in hopes that next week will be better, calmer, and more manageable.  My mom sent me a text today that said "Sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug."  Today, I was the bug -- but tomorrow, I'm hoping to be the windshield.  Or at least a less hormonal bug.