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Today is the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux! Hooray for the little flower. We will pray some special prayers to her today, and maybe get some roses for the house. But I think the best way to celebrate this saint’s day is by doing little unseen things for the people in our lives. After all, that’s what got her to Heaven.
Shower of Roses (a really cute blog!) has a wonderful roundup of recipes, craft, and prayer ideas for St. Therese’s day! Go on over and check it out (after you finish reading my post, then leave a comment, right?)
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I need to read a book that is not (a) baby related or (b) deep theology. I am already reading one of each of those. What I need is some good fiction. I am thinking of going back to a Flannery O’Connor collection of stories I read in college. Any recommendations?
*** 3 ***
On Tuesday I had my 26 week appointment with the doctor. It was pretty uneventful, for the most part. Until we had an ultrasound to see how the baby is growing. (Since the major risk for me is a huge baby, I’ll basically be getting an u/s pretty much every appointment from here on out — they call them “growth scans”.)
Baby girl is smack in the middle of the growth range for 26 weeks. Everything looks good, and she weighs 2 pounds. We also got to see her adorable little feet (I can’t wait to kiss those toes!), and her face, which looks way less skeletal and much more cute and newborn-ish than at the last u/s (which was at 18 weeks). And yes, she’s still a girl!
Remember how at my last appointment I had gained 8 pounds in one month? Well, between that appointment and Tuesday, I gained….Zero pounds! Ha! This brings my grand total of weight gain from weeks 1-26 to approx. 10-12 pounds (I approximate because I don’t actually know how much I weighed when we conceived). I’m very excited about this because I know I will put more weight on during the last trimester, and I was so scared of going over the 25 pound recommendation that my doctor made. But it seems like I will probably manage to stay in that range! 🙂
*** 4 ***
The nursery is coming along pretty well. We finished painting the changing table/dresser. We are almost done updating the curtain rods (they were bright pink, we are painting them purple) so we can hang up the awesome light and noise blocking curtains I found that match the changing table perfectly.
Then the next big order of business will be putting together the crib! Atticus and his dad will be working on that project in a few weeks. With the number of advanced degrees between them (Atticus’ dad is a college professor), I figure it should only take them about 5 hours to put it together. ;P
I’ll try and take some pictures this weekend, once we get the drop cloth and all the painting stuff out of the room!
*** 5 ***
Date night! What are you all doing for date night this week? We’re having date night on Saturday. I think we’re going to eat at our favorite greasy burger place, Five Guys (my reward for not gaining any weight in a month?), and probably going to watch a movie. We have “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” from NetFlix, and we also have “Fireproof”, which we are supposed to watch before the marriage prep classes we’re helping with. Maybe we’ll flip a coin.
I’d love to know what you all are doing for date night (or have done recently). Dinner and a movie is easy, but it can get old. Maybe this way I can steal some of your great ideas and wow Atticus next week.
*** 6 ***
I was planning to make several pies on Wednesday for the feast of the angels. I had no pie crust at home, so I pulled out a recipe to make some. Then the recipe called for 9 sticks of butter. Does anyone (especially anyone without children) ever have 9 sticks of butter around at once? I had 4. Lame.
So, I improvised. I found this recipe for “Mom’s apple cake” on Smitten Kitchen. If you’ve never been to smitten kitchen, prepare yourself. The recipes and photos are so enticing! The cake is a bit on the labor intensive side (really just the peeling, coring and chopping 6 apples part), but the cake was so very good! Atticus loved it, as did the friends we had dinner with on Wednesday evening. I would make it again for sure. Yum!
Last night, I bought pie crust from the store, and today I’m going to make the promised apple pie. Atticus loves pie. I’m pretty fond of it myself.
*** 7 ***
That’s all folks! Have a blessed weekend!
Fumbling Toward Grace 
2. I’m with you! I hope someone gives a good suggestion!
3. That’s great!
4. I can’t wait to see the nursery!
5. Warning: I bawled during Fireproof. As in, I started crying within the first five minutes of the movie. So let this be your heads up that (a) it’s a tear-jerker and (b) the acting is pretty bad… but I still recommend watching it once anyway!
6. NINE sticks of butter?? Seriously?!? That had to be some sort of typo, right?
My mom’s pie crust recipe uses Crisco instead of butter. And that cake does look yummy!
#1~Thank you for the link, very cool!
#3~Yay for good appointments, and good weight gain
#4~ Looking forward for pictures!
#5~No help here, dinner and a movie is our standard. This weekend is Invictus.
Good weekend!
2. Since my reading time is so short, I find myself in children’s/young adult novels frequently. They’re a good bit easier, so I can fly through one in less time. 2 of my favorites: Robin McKinnely’s Spindle’s End (a retelling of Sleeping Beauty) and Trenton Lee Stewart’s The Mysterious Benedict Society (brilliant kids trying to save the world using puzzles). They’re fun!
4. The nursery sounds adorable. Can’t wait to see it 🙂
5. This week we’re double dating with dear friends of ours. We’re going out to dinner, then coming home to play strategy board games until the wee hours. Often, we just play games on our own, too. We also have “date mornings” on Saturdays where we leave our cell phones at home and go to the farmer’s market for breakfast. We’ll grab a loaf of bread, some fruit in season, and wander around for a couple hours just enjoying each other’s company. We’re not big movie people 🙂
Back in the old days when I occasionally or rarely made pies I had trouble with them boiling over in the oven. I guess I was not good at sealing the edges. Then I read that if you cut a smaller circle for the top crust and leave an entirely open space of maybe 3/4 inch between the upper crust and the top edge of the bottom crust the juices bubble up there and don’t erupt over the edge.
And then I took a more lazy approach and just put the apple pie filling in the bottom of an 8 by 8 or 9 by 9 baking dish and put pie dough on top to make a cobbler. No flowing over the top.
And now I almost never bake pies. Poor Charlie.
Date night suggestion: Check the schedule for student music groups at Butler or at Marion University. They might have symphonies or concert bands or jazz bands. We have sometimes enjoyed student performances by Purdue’s symphony. Those schools might also have good theater performances. And the rates are much lower than the professionals and sometimes free.
There might be Catholic high schools have good musical performances. Jefferson High School here in Lafayette has a great musical performances.
-We need to see nursery pictures. It is imperative.
-Love five guys. They also do a vegetable sandwich with or without cheese, so its veg friendly.
-Pie is actually supposed to be a very sensible dessert, since it is heavy on the fruit and relatively light on carbs compared to other desserts.
-Recently I read “The Other Boleyn Girl”- normally I don’t do historical fiction, but I couldn’t put this down. It was so good the hubby was annoyed I was ignoring him. Also, it tells about England separating from Rome from Anne/Mary Boleyn’s perspective, which is interesting.