Shopping for Baby

Eric and I have always known we wanted kids and that raising a family was kind of the most awesome experience we could share together, it was just a matter of when it was going to happen. The baby urge started to creep up on me when we had been married for about six months and after working with babies for a while and realizing that I could be comfortable with them I knew it was time.

I can remember a time in the not too distant past when I really wasn't interested in babies. I have always always always loved kids (the kind that are old enough to talk to and play with) but I never used to really see the appeal of babies, I mean, what do you do with them? This must have been mostly due to my lack of exposure to babies because once I got a job where I work with new borns every day it didn't take long for me to become totally fascinated with them, now I think they are completely and utterly amazing!

So what I'm trying to say is if you are not in that "baby" place in your life and you find all this baby talk uninteresting I totally get it and I'm sorry to blab on about it. I was just like you not long ago. Unfortunately I am now in super baby mode and it consumes my every thought, and I figure that's probably a good thing seeing as I am having one :-) Not only will thinking about our new arrival help me feel prepared, it's fun for me to think about he/she. I'm not going to be pregnant forever so I might as well enjoy it.

Ok, enough rambling, all this is leading up to the fact that I made my first baby clothes purchase the other day and I'm kind of in love with baby clothing now. Since we don't know the sex of the baby yet I got all gender neutral stuff but it is just so darn cute! Everything comes in the most adorable animal patterns and it's so tiny! Squeee!! Ok, sorry about that, freak out over :-) Here is what the babies wardrobe consists of so far, I'm sure I will be adding many, many more outfits once I know if it's a boy or a girl.

The whole bunch of clothes I got, some of which were gifted from my mom (thanks mom!)

Pandas

Party animals

Raccoons

Umm... a little bit of everything I guess :-)

Aren't the prints just darling? I got all of these at Once Upon a Child, a consignment store for babies and children. I found that some of the furniture in the store was a bit pricey but the clothes seemed like a good deal. most of these onsies cost about $3, definitely worth a look if you are in the market for gently used baby clothes. My mother in law Jody has also been scoring me some great deals on baby gear at garage sales and consignment sales, I can't wait to see everything she's picked up in person!

Dinner by Eric

This is from a few weeks ago but I am a little behind in my posting and I still wanted to make a point to go back and brag about my husband's culinary skills. Eric has been shifting his work schedule so that he goes in extra early and gets to be home by around 4:00 each day. This is partially in preparation for starting a family but mainly he just wanted to shift his day so that he and I would have more time together in the afternoons. Luckily he works for an awesome company that really values him and allows him to be flexible with his schedule :-)

Back when I worked at an after school art studio I had hours that kept me at work until almost 7:00. This was when Eric and I were dating and I would usually head to his apartment after work. He would always have dinner ready for me (can you see why I married him?) and it was nice to be taken care of that way. Well, since I usually get off earlier than him these days I have been in the habit of making dinner but now that his schedule allows him to come home early he will occasionally treat me to a special dinner that he cooks up all on his own. I do love to cook but I don't mind having a break now and then and it's something he enjoys doing for me.

His latest dish was something he thought up completely on his own ( I usually at least have to start with a base recipe and modify it from there). Here's a picture of the dish,

I think I have mentioned before how I am currently craving fruit and all things tropical and this dish really fit the bill. The base was saffron rice cooked in coconut milk instead of water and mixed with pineapple tidbits and cashews. He topped that with mahi mahi coated in cornmeal and fried in peanut oil and garnished with toasted coconut and grilled limes. The flavors went so well together and the whole thing was delish! I will have to let him make me dinner more often (although I already have him making me smoothies every day).

I have also been cooking up some pretty fun dishes in the kitchen lately so I will be sharing those soon along with some more baby related stuff :-)

New Macro Lens

After months of wishing and waiting I finally broke down and bought a macro lens (with some encouragement from Eric). I am so in love with it! It's a Nikkor 60 mm 2.8 and it just came in the mail today! It's a really solid, heavy lens with metal mounting and all and I've had very little time to play with it since it just came this afternoon. Here are some of my initial trials with it. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it more the more I use it but so far I am very pleased.

Bloom on my tomato plant

baby pinecone on my Eastern Hemlock

Blueberries!

Some kind of bug on a dandelion in the front yard.

Some of my potted succulents. 

Eric's eye, I'll get a better one when I have better light to work with :-)

The Garden in April

I have really enjoyed gardening so far this year. It's so much fun to run out to the garden every day and check on all my little plants, they are getting so big! Here's what's happening in the garden this month.

Overall view of the gardens, they aren't getting as much sun as they were now that the leaves on the tress have come in but they still get good afternoon light. 

Radishes, you can see that some of them are starting to bulb. I have even harvested a few so far and will be getting more in the coming weeks. 

Cayenne Peppers with little buds on them. 

Cucumber plants getting large!

Red bell pepper with little buds on it and even one flower. 

The tomatos have all kinds of buds on them! Can't wait to try these!

The carrots are growing painfully slow, I'm impatient with them

Here you can see all three of my blueberry plants. I have three different varieties, tifblue,  becky blue and emerald. 

Emerald blueberries

Here are some radishes from my early harvest. They are still little so I might leave the rest for another week or two to see if they get bigger. They taste great and are extra spicy!

I apologize for my lack of posting recently. I have had a really busy work schedule and have had no energy to photograph or write anything. Later this week I will be going on a much needed mini vacation and then by next week I will be getting back to my normal schedule and hopefully will have more time and energy to post things :-)