Korean BBQ

I had the iphone, so I got to take the pictures tonight. We met up with Ian and his Girlfriend Andrea tonight to go to Korean BBQ. Yes, its kinda sad, I've never been to a place like that and I've lived in Vancouver for 2+ years now.

Richmond had the closest location, so off we went with a map from Google. We found out that the place we were supposed to find was closed, but there was a New Korean BBQ place right there, so we checked it out.


There were some crazy menu items that didn't have much description, like "Magic Mushrooms" which kinda looked like deep fried mushrooms. There was also sharkfin and jellyfish cold salad that Ian is eating in that picture. It looked like pink gloppy noodles. Thankfully not allowed to eat raw things I got to decline, but Tony also tried this stuff. Apparently "it wasn't that bad". I don't trust boys who eat jellyfish.


That was our BBQ thing in the middle of the table. Ian ordered squid (he was being adventurous all evening) and Tony had lamb. I had beef, but it hadn't appeared yet.


ohh If I could I would have tried this roll, it had salmon, avacado and spicy tuna or prawn inside. Tony got those ones and he loved them.


I got beef teriyaki roll and it was very good. I have really been liking beef these days.

was right about last night.

instead of falling asleep like I planned, I stayed up with the small light on and watched the show baby put on. It was fun watching my belly move without me doing anything. Man, she can defiantly kick hard when she wants to. It will be interesting when she gets bigger.

school doodles...

Typography class is that slow sometimes... well all the time. I did learn some very valuable things today though so that was good.

Time passes faster when its like that cause I am sitting still a lot and baby girl likes to wake up when I am still and move about. Shes not been moving so much today, so I am expecting tonight that she will keep me awake while I try to sleep.

Ohhh I am not looking forward to school this week. So many things to do and the tourists are migrating to Granville Island. Saturday + School + transit = bad times.

Baby Girls Crib arrives tonight!

My parents are coming to pick it up tonight and I am so excited! Now I have to clean my room up and shuffle things around. The shuffling will happen Sunday I think cause I have school all day tomorrow. I am excited about school tomorrow. I did all my homework in class and there was quite a bit. I also really like that class, the teacher is funny. Its my layout and design class.

The second class is typography....so basically all about fonts...ya, I couldnt really picture what you could talk about for 3 hours straight on fonts, but there is a lot of stuff. Its a class that requires some sort of caffeine or secret entertainment or else you are screwed. First class I learned that in order to stay away I needed to doodle while we talked about type or I would fall asleep. It also didn't help that the room can be very warm.

Coley came over and we went to Michaels to shop around. I got a better tip for my piping bag and bargin bin stamps for cards and things. Cant go wrong with a few of those.

I've also been creating things again. More mugs to be exact. I found my pink paint which I thought was lost forever and got right to work with it. Pink is perfect for Valentines day.



Obviously this is not the only one that I've made this week. There is a teal bunny one and a pink robot one that is valentines-ey.

This is my favourite mug so far because its pink bunnies :)

I shall have to make another though for a present. I also want to learn to sew these guys as little stuffies. Baby girl will grow up with all my weird creations, and she will need something strange. I think it alarms some people when they see that I am giving my baby Ugly dolls to play with when its older. Baby will also have regular toys, so don't worry, I am not that crazy.

Because I love valentines day...

I really do love Valentines day. My momma always gave us valentines and treats and sometimes made fancy dinner. Tony isn't so much into valentines day, but he knows that its important to me. I do have to remind him about it though...

So I made sugar cookies a couple days ago. They are awesome. I also made royal icing for the first time, using meringue powder instead of raw egg whites. The icing turned out really well, however, my piping bag sucks as its a dollar store variety. I really want a finer tip for it, and kinda just want a better one. I should practice piping more, but I know I can get it if the stupid tip didn't make things big and chunky.

(these are "pity cookies" for Aria)

Oh, and last night and this morning I've been having fun watching the baby kicking. If I lay still for a while or sit still, baby wakes up and moves. It looks like twitching, but doesn't feel like it because its one movement here and then it moves to another spot and does it again.

Awesome biscuts

I made these yesterday afternoon to go with my can of tomato soup. They have garlic and cheese in them, my favourite things! I saw the recipe and it looked super easy. It was so easy. Bisquick is my hero.

Recipe:

Ingredients:
• 2 cups buttermilk biscuit mix (such as Bisquick or Jiffy)
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder ( didn't have this, so used half a garlic clove)
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 Tbsp. butter, melted
• 2 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp. garlic salt (also didn't have garlic salt so I used the other half a garlic clove)

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, mix together biscuit mix, cheese and garlic powder. Add in milk, and stir until well mixed. (Heads up – the dough will get very sticky!)

With a spoon or with your fingers, shape the dough into biscuit-sized clumps, and drop onto the baking sheet. (Note that the dough will pretty much hold its shape when baked, so feel free to pat down random peaks in the dough if you’d like them to look more uniform!)

Bake for 10-13 minutes, or until biscuits begin to brown slightly around the edges.
While the biscuits bake, prepare the warm butter mixture by mixing together the melted butter, oregano and garlic salt in a small bowl.

As soon as the biscuits are removed from the oven, brush the biscuits (while they are still on the baking sheet) with the mixture until they are well-coated.

Serve warm.
(*This recipe usually makes about 15 biscuits for me.*)

Apparently these are served at red lobster. I don't remember if these were what we had, but they are soooo good.

Off to Michaels or something to check out the crafty goodness.

breakfast

I liked waking up and finding the shelf up with everything organized. Made me feel so happy. I also feel better about being able to store baby things in it that we accumulate.


On to breakfast! My mom better be proud of the fact that I made oatmeal from scratch instead of instant like I've been doing. Aria talked me into buying a big sack of oats yesterday while we were getting other junk.


Mmmm looks like goo. Fairly easy stuff to make too. I hope when baby starts eating food that she will love oatmeal like I did. We can have it together. I don't think Tony is a oatmeal person, I didn't make him any cause he was asleep after a long conference call with his group (school project stuff). He is a honey nut cheerios person.


Blueberries and Milk made it so good. I ended up adding only a little brown sugar to it.

When I was older I was allowed so much brown sugar . I would usually eat the brown sugar off the top first and the other stuff was "too plain". I would usually sneak more than that. My oatmeal usually left a brown sugary mess at the bottom of the bowl.

clumsy day

Today we (Aria and I) embarked on the adventure of putting together the expedit cube shelf from ikea. She has one at home that I've envied for so long and finally I had to have one for storage. Babies have tons of stuff and so I am getting ready to be semi organized.

She didn't want me to take any pictures of her early on in the building as she was not wearing makeup and was in her jammies. :P Reading the terrible instructions does help when putting a shelf together properly. We learned this after screwing on the top and bottom as if they were sides and then realizing that the inside shelves needed to go in before the outer part was complete.

I bashed my knee on the shelf and hit my thigh on the corner of the tv table. It has a scratch and the becoming of a bluish bruise. It was well worth it though.

After that we did everything by the book and lo and behold, a shelf was made!


She bought us the 3 blue cubes to hold stuff. They are super nice and she now wants them for hers.


Cute baby clothes and blankets come with neat wrapping and ribbons. We have baby things now in a couple of the cubes.


It was our treat for doing a lot of work yesterday, but since we both hate black ones, aria took them out and brought them home for my momma.

It feels nice to have all my stuff organized so far. My goal is to keep it that way. On the lookout now for 2 dressers for our room.

sunday breakfast

Yes its very weird I know, but the bird is allowed to eat scrambled eggs as a treat every once and a while. Tony shared his breakfast with the bird, and the bird LOVED it. Bird totally went to town on eating eggs. It was kinda hard for Tony to get near the plate as the bird is not totally into sharing his food.

mmmm eggy goodness. Call it cannibalism for birds, but its so cute when he gets all excited eating eggs.

In other news, we went shopping this afternoon and Aria and Momma ordered a really sweet pack-n-play for baby girl. It was at the baby warehouse place near my house. Its coming in 4-6 weeks and it was a good deal!


Its perfect for our place now, its portable and has a changing table thing as well. Aria also showed me that it vibrates and plays sounds and music. Made me laugh to think about vibrating beds for babies. She used to work at the baby department in Sears, so she is the one to take shopping for all this stuff. Stroller and Car seat is the next thing I need to find, and those I will have to get second hand.

Shopping was great. We saw Hello Kitty bedding, lady bugs, pink things and all kinds of girly stuff. <3

Aria is staying overnight to shop and put together the shelf with me tomorrow. Pictures of that will be up. We are watching Man Tracker, so I shall be off for a bit.

school...

I've really enjoyed this term of school, its way better than the first term. More programs to learn like photoshop and illustrator that I really enjoy. I even like Layout and Design cause the teacher is entertaining.

But lately I've been feeling bummed and therefore haven't applied myself as I should. It keeps coming back to the fact that I don't get to finish school this year and that I am going to be waiting at least a year to get back in again...AND I might have to re take everything again. ....le sigh.

What a bummer its turning out to be some days. Photoshop class is exciting for me, but sometimes I get that way thinking about school and that I get to maybe finish term 2 before baby arrives.

I hear all the teachers talking about the courses they are teaching us in summer and fall and I am all excited cause they sound so cool and I don't get to take them.

Having a baby has been something I've wanted for sooooo long, but the timing was not my plan.
There is a reason for this, God knows what it is and I will trust him.

Also, feeling kinda icky. The bird and I were playing with quarters and he kept dropping them and I had to bend down and get them and I was squishing the baby a bit and it didn't feel so good. Baby I am sure is fine as it likes to punch me ever so often.

Time to sleep I think, the stress of everything is getting to me I think.

sexy mac store + shopping

These were the cookies that I almost left in the oven when I left the house. Perfect timing that I raced back inside and they were done and I didn't burn down the house. My brain was just not working yesterday. I think I might blame pregnant brain on that (sorry baby).


Speaking of baby...I went shopping this morning. The trip was intended for picking up a new mouse and instead I headed to Zellers just to see if they had any plain onsies and I found recieving blankets and a onsie. These blankets were on sale and my momma said I could never have enough of these suckers, so they came home with me.

While shopping it also occurred to me that little girls get Hello Kitty things! OH MY! Tony might not appreciate the extreme cuteness of Hello Kitty and her friends, but he is a boy and he will never understand. Larissa appreciates this though, and that makes me happy.

These were things on my desk. My little notebook that I've deemed the homework book. It also has notes in it, but red text = homework. I have rainbow pens that now travel to school with me always. I heart rainbow pens and cute little things :)


There it is, my photoshop homework for this evening. Notice that nothing is checked off yet...

And here is the bird admiring the new mouse. He has now marked it as his own because as soon as I put the camera down, he was licking its glossyness and getting all excited...oh dear. We are going to have issues with this, I know it. There will be fighting, biting and swatting. Tony shall find this humorous I am sure.

Note: plain onsie is for experimental screen printing baby clothes.... :D that is a project that will be documented later

Results of the Manicotti

mmmmm baked pasta.

There were 4 cheeses even! Mozza, parm, ricotta and swiss that I had on hand. I was too hungry to make the plate look "pretty" and so there it is all kinda slopped on in its glory.

Tony approves on this vegetarian dish even. Shocking!

I found the recipe here. I didn't use as much sauce, I used a big can of Hunts rich and thick sauce and I didnt need as much filling, so I would half the filling amount in the recipe (I was also using cannaloni pasta noodles cause they were taking up space). I made 1.5 casserole dishes. (the tiny casserole dish has like 6 cannalonis in it, the big one I don't remember.

The tiny casserole dish is in the freezer for now. Its the best size for small lunch for us both. This big guy will be in the fridge with leftovers!

annoyance and manicotti making

Bird was pretty annoyed with his feather sticking out of his head. He must have felt like me after getting home last night.

Transit failed me, and the bus driver was a jerk. I got on the bus that I normally take home from the skytrain. It was weird that he was exiting the loop in a different direction, so me and 6 other passengers went to ask him what was up. Apparently he was driving the wrong route or had the wrong bus number, but in any case he didn't say sorry, he was rude and we had to get off and walk all the way back to almost miss the correct bus.

So when I am on the correct bus, some bigger guy decides to swing and put all his weight on one of those strappy hand holds and the heavy metal clasp popped off and almost hit me in the face. He didn't care, didn't look back nothing.

So I got home, got angry again, ate some toast and went to bed.

Today is looking better I think. I am at the moment making mushroom manicotti stuff and its baking in the oven.

We shall see how this concoction turns out in about an hour.

Bird is also better, Tony fixed his feather. Bird seems relieved.

visiting and treats!

My parents were in town today and decided to visit me! So happy they did, I was so bored today. I tried baking cookies and as I got to the part where I was to add flour, I realized I didn't have any more. Also didn't feel like going to get it from the store right away which was perfect cause they popped in and we hung out for a bit.

Mom and Dad brought us treats! Homemade blueberry jam, cobs bread and some other things like fruit and stuff. (excuse the terrible picture, its kinda blurry but I was in a hurry to take the picture and eat the toast before it got cold).

We went out and brought home pizza, it was good. Also talked about how we are going to fit a baby in our apartment and what Dad could build me for the house. Hopefully he will build me a cupboard thing that holds my crafts and stuff cause my rubbermaid-esque one is broken from me kicking it closed - a lot. I really have cut back on getting more, only stuff I need, like fabric paint for screen printing. Gotta mix it and make it pink cause baby girl will be wearing some of my creations. Crafts have been slowly taking over my living room, under my desk, the rubbermaid tub, wooden chest and kitchen table. I wouldn't even call it a kitchen table cause I don't use it to eat on, just to paint on or craft on.

So we have a plan for where to put it and where we can put our stuff and things we need. Dresser or 2 is on my list of things to get. Shelves from Ikea are on that list too. Shopping is next weekend and I cant wait! It will feel a little better to get some of this done.

feel the burn

These are my new bff! Its been 3 times this week that I've been almost in tears from heartburn. Been drinking more milk during the day, but it seems to happen any time I eat something past 6pm. So my new experiment is to stop snacking in the evening.

What other tips do you all have for curing this mess? I've been pacing around the house to try and stop it as well as eating 3-4 tums. Throwing up hasn't helped, and made it worse one night.

Girl

I was awake at 6 am this morning hoping that today we would find out what the baby was. Ultrasound was bright and early at 7:30 am. Did the drinking of all the water, uncomfortable, but not as terrible as the last times.

Baby was being difficult again, but not impossible. Today was to get good pictures of its heart, and we got that mission accomplished. Baby's head was too low to get a good shot of it, we only saw the top part. Baby was also kinda sleepy, not moving so much. Ultrasound tech told me that it was a GIRL! So exciting! I went to get Tony to tell him and also see if baby would start moving, and baby was not moving. Tony did get to see baby again on the ultrasound and saw its heart going real nice and strong. Checked out the baby to make sure we could see if there were any "extra bits" between its legs, and no, couldn't find any.

Tony is unsure about being a daddy to a little girl cause he doesn't know what to do with little girls. He will learn, and I told him that.

Mom and Aria went shopping today and bought things that were girly with some ruffles. We are going shopping for a crib playpen next weekend. That will be fun. I'm really excited to get more things ready for baby. I haven't been buying a lot of baby stuff, just little things. I would have been happy with a boy too, secretly I was thinking for the longest time it was a boy.

Its been a long day of school, but its been so good :)

brownies vs homework

and the brownies win! Chocolate chip brownie cake is what I actually made. Pretty good stuff too. I normally don't like brownies, but these have chocolate chips in them and that makes them good.

I have a topic for my one class picked out, so that homework is done. Still have to print a name tag (probably will happen tomorrow morning before I go to class) and find one magazine spread that I don't like. I think I can find that in one of my freebie ones from shoppers or bell.

Cooking easy casserole, the type that you plop a can of soup in with some veggies and meat and call it dinner. Mmmm easy dinner.

I've been trying to cook more homemade type foods cause its better than pre packaged noodle soups or things of that nature. So far making soups has been helpful cause they make so much and last for a couple days. Still have some cauliflower soup in the fridge that should go tomorrow in my lunch.

My friend Kelsey has bought a small freezer and its in her living room. Makes me a little jealous. Its so tempting that I might see about checking if Costco has them for cheap. It would be way better than my tiny freezer in the fridge that I have and way handy for when baby arrives.

Oh the recipe incase you just were here for that hehe, I got it from this blog called from scratch
I also added more chocolate chips than what she had used cause I like them more.

Hard to belive this is what baby looks like

Strange to think that from a small looking rice baby, it grew to be a big real looking baby. Its neat to think that it can hear loud noises or muffled voices.

Also crazy to think that if it were born today, its survival rate would be 16 percent, but at 24 weeks it gets to 44 percent.

Apparently your belly button goes to an outie around this time. So far I am lucky it hasn't happened yet, but I am sure it will later on. My belly button looks shallow and not like it used to. Tony thinks this is hilarious and wants to see it be an outie. weirdo.

I've been thinking of names for the baby recently. Found a bunch I really like. My momma read me some of the names of babies born in 2009 that were in the Chilliwack newspaper. In my opinion, most I heard were pretty bad. Like cant tell what gender it is from first or middle name bad. I guess someone finds these names pretty, or just wants a unique child, or wants to set up their kid for teasing for life lol.

I think I am going to keep my name choices a secret for the most part until baby arrives. That way that part is a surprise.

I shall post this part here as well as on facebook, but what do you all think this baby is, girl or boy? Hopefully if all goes well I shall have results on Saturday.

dinner = mir griddles

As incentive to wake up early with me today I told Tony there was bacon in the fridge. I then suggested there might be pancakes as well. He asked me sleepily if I could make him a mc griddle jokingly. Well, I took the challenge seriously and instead of for breakfast (cause I left home too early), I made it for dinner.

Eggs and bacon were easy, but pancakes were way more fun. Especially cause after a bit it was like a game. Every other bubble that popped in the pancakes needed to be filled with a drop or 2 of syrup. Sometimes I'd miss, but I got good on the second pancake.

Tony prefers my "mir griddles" to the mc griddles from mcdonalds cause I fried the bacon in the syrupy pan after doing pancakes. He requested that I do the eggs in bacon grease. I didn't like that idea cause its just kinda wrong, but I did it for him cause its his treat.

This is what Tony's dinner looked like:


This is what my dinner looked like (plus some bacon)


I don't like any mcgriddle really, so harvest crunch was the way to go. I love granola cereal.

23 weeks today baby

Its like baby hit a growth spurt or I did during the holidays. Probably a good mix of both. My living room looks like my crafts exploded all over it. It gravitated all the way to the table and table with the lamp on it.

I dream about having a craft room, and a room for the baby. For now, we shall share the space.

finished soup and screen printing

I accomplished 2 goals today finally! I made weird veggie soup and it was pretty good. Evil to clean up though, being cheesy. I hate melted cheese dishes. Oh well, thats price I paid for making a veggie I hate into something I like. So first the screen printing cause its got the majority of the pictures:



That is my finished screen. I wanted to try something really simple to start and these little guys will make great valentines.

inked and ready to be squeegeed!

Ah first print! Not bad for my first one. So now to do cards...


After the clean up...yay redish pink rings around my tub. I really cant wait to try the photo emulsion screen printing as you can use way more detail and its just plain cooler than this way.


And now the soup. I had a baguette with garlic on it and that went really well with my soup. I think it shall be a good evening soup to take to school. In case you are wondering its recipe, I shall post it:

(from Jamie Olivers Food Revolution Book)

Ingredients:

-2 carrots
-2 celery stalks
-2 onions (I only used one cause I hate them)
-2 cloves of garlic
-8 cups cauliflower (I cup up a whole one for this)
-900 ml veggie or chicken stock
-8 oz cheese ( don't know how many cups this is, I used my trusty scale that I measure soap on to get it right, but it took up I think 2 - 3 cups ish).
-salt
-pepper
-1 tsp hot mustard (they call it english mustard...Jamie Oliver lol)
-2 tbsp olive oil

Peel cup up carrots, celery, onions and cauliflower into small pieces.
Peel slice garlic
Put broth in its own sauce pan to boil
Put all chopped veggies and garlic into a bigger pot with 2 tbsp olive oil
Let that cook for 10 min with a lid askew, stir every once and a while
Grate your cheese
Add boiling broth to your veggies and let that simmer for 10 min

Once its done, take the soup off the heat and add the cheese and mustard. I used my immersion blender to make it smooth, but a blender works too. Season with salt and pepper.

If you want to be all fancy, you can cook some back for a topping. I just used garlic bread.

veggie tales

My veggie I've never cooked before:


Well surprise, its not anything too weird, I just never buy it or have cooked it at home.
Its going into a soup cause I don't really like it, but I love cheese, so hopefully it turns into a nice soup that I kinda like. Cheddar cauliflower soup this afternoon!

the bunnies are back

They are blue, I couldn't find my magenta pen and that made me sad. :( Hopefully I can find it to make pink ones for valentines day or pink robot mugs. I think a trip to the craft store is in order though if I don't find it today.


I have to be patient and wait for the paint to dry and then do the other side. Same with the teapot that I am making. The teapot has little blue birds on it. Kelsey has commissioned me to make it for her, but its a surprise so I wont show pictures of it yet.