Low-Fat Homemade Granola

I found an awesome recipe for low-fat homemade granola here.  I left out the raisins and apricots because I didn't have any and did a full cup of dried cranberries.  I also added a small bag of sliced almonds.  This added a little fat, but almonds are good for your cholesterol.  I also left out the maple flavoring...because who has that?

In other news, we are down to almost single digits with this due date.  I'm getting slightly distracting because of it.  Example:  While on my walk today, I couldn't figure out why my Ipod wasn't playing.  I kept pressing play, turning it up, etc.  But to no avail.  Then I realized that I couldn't hear it because the ear buds were in my hand and not in my ears.

Twenty-Five Years and Counting

Happy 25th Birthday to Katie! Last night we got to celebrate at Gram & Dun on the Plaza. Great atmosphere and great food, definitely recommend it.



Please note that in front of Emma is a large platter of Chicken and Waffles.  We're talking three huge breasts of fried chicken.  Johnny pointed out that it took more than one chicken to make her meal.  This was before Johnny, Mike, and Emma spent the last half of the meal discussing opening a Waffle House/KFC/Taco Bell. KenTacoHut better watch out.

It was great to have Emma and Sarah come in, but we missed Jane and Sarah Mann!  Over 15 years of friendship for some of us.  Baby Hutson is lucky to have so many wonderful aunties.

A Reese's Peanut Butter Day

Today is Katie's birthday (more to follow), and I got to make the cake for the celebration tonight.  She gave me free reign, so I decided to make a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cake.  I combined two recipes from smittenkitchen.com.  The cake recipe is here, and the icing recipe is here.  I also chopped up peanut butter cups and put them in the middle as well as on the top.



Seeing all these Reese's reminded me of one day at little ol' Delaware Valley.  Delaware Valley Charter was the first school where I taught in Philadelphia.  Now this school had a million problems from the fact that I had to buy my own paper after two reams a month (try copying 130 five page tests on two reams a month) to firing people by putting notes in their mailboxes (including the vice principal).

Just one of these problems was the janitorial staff.  The school hired some cheap company to come in at night and sweep the floors, empty the trash and so on.  About two thirds of the way through the year, I was noticing that my trash was rarely emptied in the mornings and my floor wasn't anywhere near clean (including the strip in the middle that was just concrete because my classroom was actually two nursing home rooms combined and they never bothered to replace the floor where the middle wall was torn down).  I think at that point I had noticed that a few little things had gone missing as well.

So I decided to do an experiment.  One of the big fundraisers for almost every club at DVC was selling candy bars.  I had purchased a few Reese's Peanut Butter Cups from someone, so I decided to leave the package out on my desk after school.  I left around 6:00 and locked my door.  When I came back the next morning, the Reese's gone, and there were crumbs on the desk.  The janitor who had stolen them had not only stolen them but had sat down at my desk to eat them...and then didn't clean up the mess.  Classy.  So as I am wont to do, I loudly made my rounds to the other teachers and found out that other people had had various things stolen including money, and no one had spoken up about it.  I raised a huge fuss, an investigation ensued, and the janitorial company was fired.

The best part of the whole deal was that the vice principal (this was before she got a note in her mailbox telling her that she was fired and her nephew jumped the principal's nephew, and we had to pull them off of each other) came to my door and gave me a dollar to pay me back for my missing Reese's.  Sweet Victory.

**One caveat.  I don't publicly share the majority of my stories about my ridiculous experiences at DVC out of respect for the students.  A lot of my students worked really hard and succeeded, no thanks to the Philadelphia school system and the people in charge.

Fabric Recycles

I mosied into a new fabric store yesterday called Fabric Recycles on 92nd and Metcalf.  The premise of the store is that they sell already cut pieces of fabric that they've purchased from estate sales or from individual collections.  There are all kinds of sizes and patterns, and they say that the fabric is sold "at a fraction of the price" of retail stores.



Now if that "fraction" is 7/8 of the price, I would agree.  The fabric is slightly cheaper than retail stores like Jo-Ann's, but the selection is so large and smashed together, that I found it difficult to find anything.  And when you remember that you're buying used and randomly sized fabric, you wonder why it isn't cheaper.  I did think that it was a good place for getting really small pieces of fabric.  I was able to get a few pieces for $0.65 each since I only needed scrap sizes for the project I was working on.  Overall I would recommend that people check it out, especially if you enjoy searching through a lot of options for a good deal.  However, I personally will probably not be hurrying back any time soon.

And Another Pinterest Craft

After spending some time this morning snooping around Pinterest, I found this tutorial for how to make fancy burp cloths.  I have a ton of scrap fabric, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.



It turns out that these were extremely easy and only took about 20 minutes a piece to make.  They were also extremely free because Johnny's mom had already given me these burp cloths that she found at a garage sale, and I already had all of the fabric.  Best kind of craft there is.

Now we're ready for all kinds of spit up.

Day 260

Dear Baby Hutson,

        We are now on day 260 of this whole pregnancy thing.  I think that seven pounds is big enough now to warrant you coming out a little bit early.  I know you are having a lot of fun kicking my ribs and squeezing my bladder, but there are a lot of fun things to do out here too.  Also, you have made your mommy get so big that even daddy's shirts don't really cover you very well anymore.  I think we would all be happy if you just came out today.  Then people would stop asking me why it's taking so long for you to come.  And if you came now, Daddy might win his pool at work.  Double points.  Just think about it.

Love,

Your Mother

Last Ultrasound

Baby Hutson got to have his/her final close ups yesterday.  This is a picture of the face lying on its side.  You can see the little arm pulled up under the chin also.  I personally think Baby Hutson looks kind of creepy, so don't feel bad if you think that too.



Obviously, Baby Hutson is running out of room.  He/she is currently measuring 6lbs and 13oz.  Assuming he/she comes on the due date, add 1/2lb each for the next 3-4 weeks, and we're looking at an 8.5-9 pound baby.  This puts Baby Hutson more in the 38 week range rather than 36.  More good news is that I'm already dilated 2cm (too weird to share?).  The doctor said not to read too much into this as far as an early due date, but she did say it's less work that I have to do later down the road.  We're still looking at March 11 which is 24 days away.  My doctor also said that they wouldn't let me go beyond 41 weeks, so we will definitely have a baby in 30 days!  Gulp!

Tonight is our breastfeeding class (definitely weird), and I've got a list of things to bring to the hospital taped to our door.  Anything I've forgotten?

A Humble Heart...shaped Macaron

One of my biggest personal struggles in life is always wanting to be in charge.  In school, I always ran group projects, even senior year in college.  I like to do things by myself and really hate when I have to wait for other people to do things.  You would think that I would realize by now that all the times I waited on God's timing, it worked out way better than anything I could have ever done (waiting to get involved at Wheaton which led to crew, waiting to pursue Johnny Hutson which led to him pursuing me, and the list goes on).  I am sure you can also imagine that this makes a partnership like marriage difficult for someone who always likes to be in charge.  Luckily for me, I have an extremely patient and kind husband who tells me when I'm being ridiculous.



Well this Valentine's Day, I almost ruined it again with my take charge mentality.  I tried to let Johnny help me prepare everything and tried to tell him what to get me, knowing that in the end, I would be really disappointed because I wouldn't have been surprised at all, and he would be disappointed because I didn't let him do it by himself.



On Sunday, I don't even remember what it was, but something in our church service convicted me of my selfish attitude, and I told Johnny that I wouldn't do a single thing to get in the way of his plans.  And once again, letting go had a much better outcome than whatever I was going to do.



Ever since moving to Kansas City from Philadelphia, I have been disappointed in the severe lack of good, French style macarons.  But Johnny did some research and drove all the way downtown to Bloom Baking Co. and got me a dozen of the best macarons I've had since our trip to Paris over a year ago.  I would have never thought of that.

He also made cheese fondue for dinner.  And it was way more delicious than whatever I would have made.

I don't want this to be a post where the girl takes a picture of the giant bouquet of flowers her boyfriend got her and then posts the picture in order to make people jealous of her wonderful guy.  I certainly have a wonderful guy, but I want to show instead how flawed I am and how I am working on being humble instead of prideful and patient instead of selfish.  I know it's going to be a lifelong process, but days like this Valentine's make it seem a little bit easier. 

Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies

Happy Valentine's Day!  I hope that you are enjoying the true meaning of this holiday, which is to be sure that you eat as many sweets as possible in one day.

I spent all day yesterday making Valentine name cookies for my family and for the kids I babysit.  Johnny got to sample his early.



I wanted to give you all my sugar cookie information because I have tried a lot of different combinations, and I think I've finally found one that is relatively easy and as close to perfect as we can get.

For the actual sugar cookies, I use the Martha Stewart Recipe.  They are really quick and simple, and they don't rise or move much once they're in the oven.

For the icing, I don't like using buttercream or cream cheese icing because they don't hold color very well, and they bleed.  I also don't like using Royal Icing because it has to either have raw egg or meringue powder, both sound gross.  The icing that I do like to use is a corn syrup icing.  This recipe is excellent, except I add a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla (clear vanilla is best but who has that?), and I find that I end up using more than 1/4 c of water...just be sure to add in small amounts.

Finally, here's a great resource for icing and flooding cookies.  She uses royal icing, but the instructions are the same.  I also have no problem using pastry bags or Ziploc bags with the tip cut off, but she doesn't like that.

I highly recommend all three of these websites.  Enjoy!

Boy or Girl?

Well, Baby Hutson's bags are packed...



The rocking chair has been purchased...



And I made two little hats.  One for a boy and one for a girl.  Any thoughts on which one we'll get to use?



Here's the pattern I used, by the way.  These are some of the first ones I made, so don't look too closely.

February Book Club

The book that our book club read for this month is called The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright.  

http://chicago-chic.com/2011/10/14/free-book-giveaway-the-forgotten-waltz/

Though we are still trying to figure out the title, for the most part, everyone liked it.  The story is written in the stream of consciousness style where the main character regales us with the details of an affair that she had.  Enright does a brilliant job of portraying not only how ruinous affairs can be for everyone involved, but she also writes characters that are so true that we ended up not liking anyone.  Next month: The Omnivore's Delimma by Michael Pollan.

Also, the girls in my book club were so sweet that at the end of our little meeting, they had a cute baby shower where they each gave Baby Hutson some of their favorite books.  Yesterday I read him/her a few of them, and he/she kicked the entire time.  

4 Years Later

It was four years ago today that Johnny Hutson asked me to marry him.  Best "Yes" I ever said.

10 Minute Heating Pad

"Ugh," you sigh.  "If only I had a heating pad at this very moment.  But all I have is a bag of rice and a sock, and I have to be somewhere in ten minutes."  I hear you, friend.  So I am going to tell you how to make an awesome heating pad in ten minutes or less.

Step 1: Go to your sock drawer and find a nice, clean, long sock.

Step 2: Get out the giant bag of rice that you bought at Costco this morning.  Note: the rice does not need to be brown nor does it need to be organic...heating pad/socks don't need to be health conscious.



Step 3; Using a measuring cup or a funnel, fill up the sock with rice until it reaches the size that you would like.

Step 4: Sew up the hole at the top of the sock with your sewing machine or with a needle and thread.  Then cut off the extra sock.

Step 5: Heat up the sock in 30 second to 1 minute increments.  Voila!  You just made yourself a heating pad.

I decided to make this today because we're starting to get our hospital bag ready.  I wanted to have some kind of heating pad, but I've been using a hot water bottle at home.  I assume that the hospital won't have boiling water available whenever I need it, so I decided to make something that I (and by I, I mean Johnny) could quickly microwave.  I was going to go and buy one, but this one was essentially free.

My New Wedding Ring

Don't worry; I didn't lose them.



About a week ago, I noticed that my rings were getting a little tighter than normal due to Baby Hutson making my hands swell. I heard a few horror stories from people who almost had to get their rings cut off at the hospital, so I decided to take mine off early. I went a few days wearing nothing on my finger, but it just felt too weird. So a rubberband it is.

The sample lady at Trader Joe's seemed to think I was all hip and cool and not influenced by worldly things when she asked me if the rubberband was my wedding ring. I think I disappointed her by telling her that I had a real one at home.

Our Plan is Working

Back in the good ol' days on Wheaton Crew, our teammates used to joke that Johnny and I would eventually have nine kids to fill an entire boat, and we would call that boat "The Putsin' Hutson."



So far our plan seems to be working.  I went to the doctor today for one of my check ups, and after measuring the baby, the doctor informed me that we have one big baby on our hands.  It seems that Baby Hutson is measuring a little larger than an average 35 week old baby, but we'll be able to guess the weight better in two weeks when I go in for my last ultrasound.  This doesn't change the due date, so it's possible that Baby Hutson could be Mitchell-sized, 10 pounds. Sigh, I knew our baby would be advanced.