OHC's Co-Ed Baby Shower

This past weekend, good friends of ours hosted a co-ed baby shower for our pending kidlet. It was a very nice venue, and fantastic evening full of good food & friends. Our families even participated and sent up some fun things up in advance for us to open as well that evening.



Parting gifts for everyone.



Some custom blended rosemary sea salt.



Julie's yummy from scratch coconut-chocolate cake.



Lots of nice candlelight, and flowers everywhere.



Yummy cucumber tea sandwiches.



Orange, my FAVORITE color.



Friends mingling.



Having a good time.



Making people pose, much to their dismay. My iPhone camera sucks!



Cute Pregnant Holly...!



People's backsides.



The nice spread that Steve, Kelly & Yvonne put out for everyone.



Everyone watching us open gifts. A little overwhelming.



Amazed and very grateful for the generosity of all our friends who took the time to come celebrate with us. You truly all our loved. Holly and I appreciate everyone's thoughtfulness.



Smile for my crappy iPhone camera...AGAIN...!



The Raiders onezie's from Patrick & Noelle, became a practice run for me to see how quickly I could put it on a "practice baby." I'm going to be an awesome Dad! Cookie Monster makes a great practice baby btw...!

Pressure Canning Garbanzo Beans

Like I mentioned in my last post, I've had a lot of fun with my new pressure canner. I took the opportunity over New Years long weekend to try several projects. Canning a bunch of garbanzo beans for our pantry was something I've wanted to do for a long time. I use these for my batches of hummus, and for homemade indian food or soups & salads.



Doing a quick cook of the beans after a 24 hour soak.



My new favorite kitchen gadget.



Loading up the canner for an intense steaming session...LOL.



After pressure processing, I got 12 pints of garbanzo beans. Also soaking in the background is cannellini beans. Finish one project, and move on to the next project.



Another view.



Beauty in a jar.



This will make a great addition to our pantry. I'm pretty excited to try more projects this upcoming week. I want to make some sirloin chili, and some other on-hand ready to heat from scratch organic soups.

Pressure Canning Chicken Stock

I was pretty excited to get a pressure canner for Christmas. Granted it's a practical gift, and I'm a pretty practical person. Over new years weekend I had my first four pressure canning projects.



We had roast chicken for dinner one night. It was the perfect opportunity to boil the carcass down with vegetables and herbs and made a big batch of homemade chicken stock for our pantry.



It took a few moments to learn how to gauge the pressure in the canner, with the amount of gas I had burning underneath. Once regulated, the countdown begins on steam processing times.



The finished project. 7 pints of rich, dark, chicken stock chuck full of flavor. I love my new pressure canner. Simple pleasures. Nothing beats healthy, homemade food.

Merry Christmas 2011

This year was a different year for us. Usually we go to visit our family out of state, but this year since I would be 34 weeks on Christmas we decided it would be cutting it a bit too close to travel. So, instead we shopped and shipped our Christmas presents to family and had the great opportunity to have my sister Linda and her daughter Amanda spend Christmas with us.

We decked out house out for the season as usual. It always makes me smile to see all our decorations out, especially the nativity, which we added the wise men to this year. I love all our white cut out candle holders and the spider on our tree from Dan's mom.





We also had out our various tins and cookie jars, Williamsburg pineapples, and new this year a pomegranate from Greece.






Christmas Eve was a little hard for Dan and I this year. We both had a bit of a cry fest missing our families, listening to Christmas music and calling to talk to everyone made us feel a bit better :) Then Linda and Amanda arrived and we headed over to our friends house for a wonderful dinner and acting out of the Nativity story. I enjoyed being around friends, family, and even a few little kids. After dinner we went home and watched movies and put out our gifts to each other. Quite a haul!





Santa came and filled our stockings and left us a few things! Looks like we were good kids this year :)





We woke up and had breakfast, Dan made yummy pancakes, roasted potatoes and chicken sausage with fruit and juice. It was just what I needed.



We opened gifts, and were totally spoiled this year (as usual!). Here's my loot:





Dan's loot:




We both got ornaments from Santa. Mine was the elephant with a peanut on his nose, Dan's was a copper pan.



Santa also left us some Christmas books to add to our future advent collection. We hope to have 25 books to wrap and open with our son the month of December as a new family tradition. We're off to a good start in the collection.



New decorations put out, plus me posing with my FAVORITE gift of all, and 11 lb tub of Nutella :)




To top off a wonderful day we opened gifts from Dan's family and found the candy cane pillow case Dan had as a child, a fun blanket sewn from fabric found in Sherry's sewing room, a silver baby spoon, and a traditional tin that held homemade candy that Dan remembers from his childhood as well. We also got the story of the Elf on the Shelf, which apparently is pretty popular now, but the idea was from back in the 60's. The modern elf was removed from the box and replaced with a Sherry creation. She made a ton of little elves that hung in garland to decorate the home, and would sometimes see the elf hiding elsewhere in the home checking in on the kids to report back to Santa. These fun traditions and memories brought tears of joy to our eyes.




Finally we had so much food and candy that day it was crazy! I've eaten myself sick the past few weeks and wanted to see if I could still see my feet...I can, but just barely :)