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Follow us on our journey through the last few months of pregnancy and our first days with our baby boy (due 2/15/11)

Friday, December 31, 2010

Sweet Potato and Curry Soup

I've been craving soups... and Ben's been craving Indian food since coming back from England last week. So this was a good compromise :) He much prefers blended soups, and this one turned out to be pretty hearty and velvety. Ben's suggestion was to add some bacon to it (for texture), maybe we'll try croutons next time. We ate it for lunch today with some Naan, delish! ENJOY!

Sweet Potato and Curry Soup

From Soup! by Pippa Cuthbert & Lindsay Cameron Wilson

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp curry powder
1 kg (2 lb, 4oz) sweet potatoes, chopped into chunks
3 1/2 cups chicken stock
1-14 oz can coconut milk
salt and ground pepper, to taste

Heat the oil in a large stockpot or saucepan. Add the onion and saute for 3-4 minutes or until softened, but not brown. Add the curry powder and stir to combine before adding the sweet potato. Stir until the sweet potato is evenly coated in oil and curry powder. Add the chicken stock and coconut milk and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 20 minutes or until the sweet potato is cooked and tender.

Option 1 - Transfer to a blender in two batches and puree until smooth. Return to the pan.
Option 2 - Use an immersion blender and puree until smooth.

Then, bring back to a boil, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

2010...

This is what 2010 meant to us...2011 is only a few hours away, and will likely be very different from the past year.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

33 week update

Went back to the Dr. today... good check-up. Baby's HR is 140BPM, I managed to gain one pound since last time 2 weeks ago (over Christmas, how did that happen?) We go back in 2 weeks, and then every week after that - eeks!

Here are a few pictures of baby's room and some fun Christmas presents Ben and I bought for each other :)
The white letters for his name will go above the crib. The nails are already up! The changing table will go below the picture frames (l.) as the bassinet will move downstairs into our room, much to Stella's anticipated dismay... This I copied from Noelle's blog... (Thanks!)
How far along? 33 weeks.
Total weight gain:
23 lbs. (eeks!)

Body Changes?
I finally have that little dark line down the middle of my belly... weird!

Sleep:
The last four nights have been AWFUL. Twice I got up in the middle
of the night to eat a muffin... I have bad leg cramps, behind my knees (think growing pains) which the Dr. says is from needing more calcium (baby is stealing all of mine!)
Best moment this week:
Christmas. Thinking about how next year we'll be wrapping presents for Baby!

Baby Gender:
Boy, all boy.
Food Cravings: Crunchy vegetables (green beans, peppers) and Gatorade.
Symptoms: Still having food aversions (chicken - blech!).
Movement:
All the time. Especially when I'm sitting down. He likes getting stuck under my ribs. Always VERY active right as I'm laying down to go to bed, as well as 3am. I guess that will be his witching hour, hooray.
What I am looking forward to:
Meeting the little guy!
Milestones:
Putting together the "My little lamb" swing from Aunt Ali and Uncle Michael (Thank you again!) and beginning to put together the hospital bag...

A fairly long-overdue story:

The Alson Family Bassinet (left)
This is a family heirloom. Pretty much everyone in my family has spent time in the bassinet, dating back to my grandfather and his older brother. My grandmother had it painted with a nice, new layer of paint and shipped down to us (in the largest box we have ever seen!). She decided that it's about 8-10 years away from being considered a true antique. We decided to keep it away from Stella as long as humanly possible! Isn't it beautiful?? We can't wait to add "Peanut"s name to the bassinet's list.

Sunday, December 26, 2010


Yes, she's almost 2 years old...
and her life is about to change DRASTICALLY.

White Boxing Day

This is what we woke up to this morning. Stella peeked out of the window at 6am, saw that it was snowing and would NOT stop whining until we let her outside. We were afraid she had to go to the bathroom, or something semi-serious. She did get a bit sick (too much Christmas we think!), but mainly she wanted to play in the snow. We let her out for a little bit to make snow angels, eat the snow, and get it caked in her paws (see video above). Then, came in and I went back to bed. There are about 6-7 inches already down, and it's STILL SNOWING!
There are a good 6 inches of PERFECT snowball/snowman snow outside. We went to the store this morning before the snow melts and re-freezes. We've got enough 'supplies' (plus Christmas leftovers) to last for a while.

Ben's lost bag? Well, it was left in London - but JUST now (4pm) landed at RDU. We'll see how long it takes to get down to Fayetteville...


Here are some pictures of Ben's nephews in Penzance: (Joby and Max, top, Nat, bottom)

We had a a great Christmas yesterday, although we missed spending it with our families in England, Colorado and Connecticut. Christmas dinner (no pudding, it was in Ben's bag!) made both of us stuffed and exhausted. I'll put up more pictures later of all the great baby clothes we got from various family members :)

Happy Boxing Day! Enjoy the football!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Recap: The last 31 1/2 weeks


I will fully admit that I should have started this a while ago... now I have a lot of recapping to do! Here it goes:

This what started it all: I'm pretty sure that after three tests (June 10th), we knew! :)


We spent two weeks with Ben's parents in Europe in June and July. It was a great trip, although I wasn't feeling 100%. During the first few weeks, I only got 'sick' a handful of times. It was more food aversions - I still can't stomach the thought, smell, or look of chicken. For those of you who know me well, that's a very strange thing.

In July, we went up to Connecticut/NY/Boston in July for my grandma's birthday,
and to see our family and friends that we hadn't seen since we moved down south.
My grandmother was VERY excited to tell everyone that she was going to be a GREAT grandmother.


Other summer 2010 events included: buying a new camera (yay!) and trading in Ben's car for a CR-V. Stella has been our test subject for the camera, but we're going to be using it a lot more in the months to come!


We found out on September 7th that our little munchkin is a boy. (Although I already knew it) He was certainly not shy about showing us his ::ahem:: boy-ness. He did a full split for us. Thank you!

'Aunt' Meredith came down from DC to help us paint the little guy's room one weekend in October. We bought a bedding set from Target and wanted to paint the walls to match. It took a few hours, LOTS of painting tape, and some steady hands, but we love how it came out.


We also went back up North for Thanksgiving. We took the train, because I was too far along to get the "okay" to fly. The sleeper train up wasn't bad, and we both got a lot of work done on the train. The family had a nice shower for us on Saturday, and we really enjoyed seeing so many of our friends and family. (Thanks Mom and Mike!)

While in CT, we also participated in the Canning family tradition of decorating Gingerbread houses. Last year, we made Stella's doggy house, and the year before a couple standing outside getting married. This year? BOY!
I think that's a very brief run-down of what we've been up to since June.
Off to nest some more :)
Happy Holidays!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog!

I figured it was about time to jump on the bandwagon and create a site for our soon-to-be-born little guy so friends and family could get updates at their leisure.

So, here's the latest photo of "Harry Porter" (no, that's not really his name, we PROMISE). It was taken just over a week and a half ago, at my 31 week check-up. They estimated him at 4lbs 13oz, which puts him in the 55th percentile for weight. Ben and I were both impressed with and shocked by the technology available with ultrasounds, we didn't know we were going to see him in 3D or 4D! He was also sucking his thumb, practicing his breathing, and kicking like mad! Any thoughts about who he looks like? :)

above: Baby Porter at 31 weeks

Ben is in England until tomorrow evening, and my dad was here for almost a week. It's crazy to think that this is our last Christmas just us... well... Stella too. Next Christmas is going to be a whole lot different. With a 10 month old baby? We don't even know what we're in for.

Those of you who have gotten our holiday card, have seen the pictures we had taken a few weeks ago. Stella was an absolute ham, but we got some pretty good ones. (Thank you Tara King!) She'll hopefully come back to snap some pictures of the munchkin once we're settled.

above: Stella's Photoshoot

Bookmark the site, save it to your favorites, whatever, come back and visit us often! I plan on updating somewhat regularly with pictures and videos, once I figure out exactly how to work this thing :)

Merry Christmas to all! xoxo