November so far....

I feel like I have neglected the blog the past while but life has been VERY busy! A lot has gone on in November and the month is not even over. First of all I am happy to announce that my Immigration documents have safely arrived and are waiting for me at my parents. It will be nice to take those to the US border at Christmas and have all of my paperwork processed so this can all be behind us and there will be no more concerns of me crossing the border. Yay!
In October I had bought a pumpkin for Daniel and I to carve together but since I was gone for so long it never happened. So I decided to put that pumpkin to good use. A couple of years ago Brenda made a delicious pumpkin meatball stew that was SO yummy! Daniel has been asking me to make it ever since so I decided this would be a good time to try it out. It turned out awesome and will have to be a yearly tradition for us in the fall!


The pumpkin was pretty big and I didn't want to waste the rest of it so I decided to cut it up into chunks, boil it on the stove and freeze it. Once it was cooked I used our mixer to puree it and then froze the pumpkin in muffin tins and then transferred it to a large ziploc so I can pull some out whenever I need it. We love anything that has pumpkin in it and this works great and is so much cheaper than buying the cans of pumpkin.


We have also been busy getting everything ready for the baby. There is so much to get and it has been quite time consuming researching everything and trying to figure out exactly what we would like. But it has been a fun process and I think we are just about done everything! Our car seat arrived today and we just need to pick it up and I am excited to look at rocking chairs tonight as well!
We wanted to get a dresser for the baby that we could also use as a change table. We didn't want to spend a lot of money so Daniel and I have been checking craigslist everyday and have made many trips to the second hand store. Last week I was so excited when I found this dresser for $25 at the Salvation Army:

I know it looks quite hideous but I knew it had potential! And it was the perfect size for the baby's room. When Daniel was at school I got it sanded down and then in the evenings Daniel found some time to prime and paint it. We both thought it would be better if I steered clear of the fumes while I am pregnant :) This ugly duckling turned out to be quite a little gem and it will be perfect for the baby's room!

Drumroll please...................

Here is our new dresser/change table! I am so happy with how it turned out. I am glad we took the time to find something to fix up ourselves rather than go out and spend way too much on something new from the store. Now I can't wait to get a crib to match it!

Yesterday I washed all of the baby's clothes and I am excited to fill these drawers up today! When I was doing the laundry I had to laugh when I looked at my piles because almost everything was either white or yellow. It will be nice to get some color added to those piles in a few weeks so our baby doesn't always have to look like a little duck!
Wednesday night this week a couple friends from the ward had a baby shower for me which was a ton of fun.There were lots of ladies from our ward there. We had fun visiting, eating and playing games. Everything was decorated so nicely and they even made me this beautiful diaper cake!

It looks so pretty I don't think I will ever be able to take it apart and use the diapers!

I am now 37 weeks! woot! woot! not too much longer!

Daniel and I are getting very excited, we just wish we knew when this baby is going to come. If it is anything like Daniel it will be early, but not too early. And if it takes after me it will have every intention of being on time but will most likely arrive late!

One last project I did this month......

 Last month I found a coupon online to get a 16X20 poster developed for FREE! So I went to my trusty pinterest and found this cute printout of Alma 7:23-24. I found the frame for it at the second hand store for $3.00 it just needed a little touching up. It makes a great addition to our living room!

Today is Daniel's last day of classes before Thanksgiving break. It will be nice to see a bit more of him next week! We officially have snow down here and so I think we might break out the decorations tomorrow and get the tree up!
 Hope everyone is staying warm and has a great weekend!

I Heart Fall!

Aside from being detained in Canada and my 3 hour interrogation at the US border October has been a great month! I love fall and have been enjoying the cooler weather! I love watching the leaves on the trees change color. Mr drive to and from Canada was beautiful with all of the trees in the mountains. I wish I had pictures to share but decided that was a little unsafe while I was driving and I was always to anxious to get to my final destination to make a stop! Before I left for Montreal Daniel and I did take some time to go down to the Botanical Gardens and take a walk around. Here a couple pictures from then:

At the beginning of the month for our date night we decided to go apple picking! I found an apple and pear orchard 30 minutes from our place in Garfield WA. We went after Daniel was done school one day. We misjudged how early it got dark though so by the time we got there it was already dusk. We had about 20 minutes to pick as many apples as we could. Thanks to our mad picking skills we picked 90 pounds of apples! That was a bit more than we were planning on but it was pretty hard to judge how much we had picked while we were in the process. We picked 4 varieties: Macintosh, Spartan, Liberty and Golden Delicious. They were so yummy!

I bought an apple peeler/slicer/corer to process some of the apples and froze them for baking and then I took some up to Welling where my Mom and I made applesauce! We used an apple sauce machine which made it really easy! You just wash the apples, quarter them, boil them and put them in the machine and then can the apple sauce. Yum! We have been enjoying it on our pancakes!

Another fun project my Mom helped me with during my time in Welling was bottling dried beans in a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers have always scared me but I feel fairly confident now that it is something I could do on my own. I am trying to be a little healthier in my cooking and develop good eating habits. I decided I better start now so that by the time our kids are eating the same food as us they will hopefully learn to like some of these healthier meals!

 

We canned red kidney, pinto, garbonzo, navy, and black beans. So far we have tried the black beans in 2 dishes and I must say they taste much better than canned beans from the store! Can't wait to try the rest.

And to finish off I did get around to some baby projects this month. I will share one of my favorites which was a little boy tie!