Life Happens

Holy Cow...has it been forever since I've updated here. This last year has been nutso...summer flew by with grad school and being home with Lewis. This fall was crazy busy with getting back into the school year AND taking 2 grad classes. So now we're finally slowing down, but not for too long.

Lewis is now 2 and loving life. He's recently transitioned into a new daycare and so far, so good. There have been some tears at drop off, but he's typically chipper and ready to see momma when she arrives after school. He's chattering up a storm and looking more and more grown up by the day.

Kyle is still in sales at a local music store. He's been there a year and is still loving it. Plus...he's only days away from the big 3-0! Woot!

And I'm still teaching and working on grad school. This semester I'm only taking one class and that's ok, because... We're having another little peanut this spring!! Woo! I'm 25 weeks and it feels like a lifetime ago that we found out, but we are so thankful for a healthy baby and momma thus far.

It's been a full year of emotions, school, learning, and growth...but 2019 is already looking up.

So...tell me. What are YOU looking forward to this year?

It's a party...that we're a few years late to.

A few years ago, I got Kyle The Bread Baker's Apprentice for Christmas...or his birthday, I can't really remember which. And we had the best intentions of baking bread from it. There were so many that looked SO good. Annnnddd....it never happened.

Fast forward a year or two or three. My dad sent me a few "no fail" bread recipes and we've loved making them. Then I started getting an itch to make some sourdough bread. I can't justify spending $4-$6 on a tiny, mediocre loaf of sourdough at the grocery store that isn't even baked locally.

Soooo....I pulled out The Bread Baker's Apprentice again earlier this week. After reading through the introduction a few times and perusing the extensive list of breads found between the covers, we decided that we'd bake through the entire cookbook.

What an ingenious idea! How original! See here, here, here, and here. Oh...and here too.

Original. HAH. What I've come to find out, is that we're more than a day half decade late and a dollar short. BUT, power on we shall.

We started at the very beginning. Kyle had last Wednesday off and I prepped the starter on Tuesday night for two loaves of Anadama Bread. The first formula in the book. I even received a snap during the day of the dough raising.

Unfortunately, I don't have a snap of the final product, but let me tell you...it was mighty fine.

A short little interjection before I continue with our story... When we were first married and living in our first apartment together (think fall 2013 to spring 2014), we had a desire to become fabulous bread bakers. We tried a few recipes and they never turned out. So we set out to make scrumptious bagels...and those were successful...once.

With the re-introduction and the new resolve to work our way through Bread Baker's Apprentice has come a sigh of relief with each loaf that's been successful.

That being said, we had a half day of school yesterday due to Blizzard Axl (think Josh Duhamel's son) so I started making the next formula in the book!

Greek Celebration Bread.

First I had to make a poolish. Yeah, I had no idea what it was either. And while that sat for a few hours, I relaxed.

Here are a few low high quality pictures of the process.

 secondary rising

 ready to go in the oven

 fresh out of the oven at 190 deg. internal

ready to eat

I'm excited to taste it. With cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, almond, and lemon in it--this bread has all of the ingredients to cozy up with during a blizzard.

I'll be here all winter long with pictures of our loaves and hopefully those of you with experience will give some input!

Happy Tuesday!

Just a little update...

Summer is here and we've been busy over the last week or so. So far we've gotten a few things done.

The garden is planted.
We've got beans, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, corn, carrots, squash, & watermelon.

Our new(!) window boxes are up and planted:

Kyle's made progress on the nursery, aka--it's almost done!:

The door frame is done.
The baseboards are getting done for now.

We've taken a few more baby prep classes...hopefully they actually come in handy. Our car seat has been installed and inspected. :)

This was our practice doll at class last night.

We're home from vacation and sticking close for now.

And that's a wrap for today.

Happy Wednesday!

Week 21

Time is flying by and we're officially past the halfway point. We had our ultrasound last week...and no we didn't find out the gender. But things are getting a little more real up in here. If you're following along on IG, you already saw the post about the cradle arriving... So here's week 21.

How far along: 21 weeks

Size of baby: the same size as a pomegranate

Gender: There's a new poll in the right sidebar for you to take a guess!

Nursery: No progress there...yet. But the cradle is in our room and we just need to order a mattress for it.

Movement: #babyentzel is still a wiggle worm. S/he has definitely gotten stronger throughout the last week. S/he was moving so much at our ultrasound, that the tech had a hard time getting clear pics!

Symptoms: Still dealing with heartburn. No matter the time of day or what I eat, it's bound to show up at some point. Also, I can feel my hips starting to move...and it does not feel nice.

Sleep: Sleep is not quite as restful as it has been in the past. I took a 1 1/2 hour nap on Monday night and it felt awesome. But then when I wake up in the morning, everything ends up hurting. We've got a long ways to go...

Cravings: Not many (or any) really. I still really like carbs and my headaches stay away as long as I have my coffee in the morning. And I'm not complaining about the coffee in my routine. At. All.

What I Miss: I feel like a broken record, but I really do miss sleeping on my back. And I also miss having multiple cups of coffee each day...especially after a long day at work.

Best Moment this Week: Seeing our baby for the first time (and only time til birth)!

Looking Forward to: Finally looking pregnant AND finding daycare for this fall. Yikes!

Happy Wednesday!

 

Welcome to our little corner...

It's been a while since I've had an update for anyone who is new to this space. So, I figured that on a Monday, and Daylight Savings Monday to boot, I'd share a little about us and some popular posts to help you get acquainted.

Here's some information About Us and here's a follow-up to that post. Here's what I learned in our first year of marriage.

And we've got a little nugget on the way...and s/he is arriving in July. So here's the announcement I made about that. If you're interested in following along with anything baby, labels on blog posts are tagged with #babyentzel, pregnancy, nugget 1, and pregnancy journal. You can follow me on IG and baby posts are also tagged with #babyentzel.

Since we're entering into this parenting adventure, I even shared a post about some unwanted advice that I've received...and this was before I'd even reached week 15!

Some of you have been around here for a while, so you know about our house. But for those of you who don't, here are a few posts about house hunting. Our house and the our wonderful realtor.

As a part of Bailey Jean's Blogtember Challenge for 2015, I wrote a letter to my sixteen year old self.

And if you want to go poking around this site, feel free to do some digging. Some more popular posts can be found here and as always, there are suggested posts at the bottom of every post.

Thanks for stopping by and be on the lookout for #babyentzel Week 21 update, coming soon!

OH! And make sure to participate in the #babyentzel gender poll in the right sidebar. :) Gender to be announced sometime in July (fingers crossed).

Happy Monday!

Week 20

It's hard to believe we're already at the halfway point! On one hand it feels like we had been keeping a secret for so long and we've known since November! Wowza. Our anatomy scan is this afternoon, so be on the lookout for an update on FB, IG, or Twitter.

How far along: Halfway!! 20 weeks. Yikes!

Size of baby: The size of a banana.

Gender: We will find out in July--but give me a week or two and we'll get a poll up here.

Nursery: We are starting to get everything cleared out. Kyle replaced the ceiling fan/light in there last week...so once everything is out, we can start painting!

Movement: S/he has been awfully active this last week! Whenever I'm sitting still I feel her/him moving around in there. Still no outward signs for Kyle...soon enough, though.

Symptoms: Tight pants...duh. And the heartburn has gotten pretty consistent since Friday. Other than that, I seem to get a headache about every other day. Silly hormones.

Sleep: Thanks to the headaches, I've not slept well. I tend to wake up at least once a night when I have a headache. And I seem to take the liberty to use the bathroom around 3:30-4:30. Oi.

Cravings: Still not much. I'm starting to return to my daily coffee every morning, though. Thank goodness!

What I miss: Still missing sleeping on my back. The other night my hips hurt, so I rolled onto my back. Kyle said I fell asleep in about 30 seconds and started to snore. Loudly. Hah! I'm missing my energy too. So if you know where I can find it, let me know!

Best Moment this Week: Being able to be outside and get some fresh air! And I'm sure our anatomy scan will fall under this category this afternoon. :)

Looking Forward to: Again, still looking forward to actually looking pregnant instead of just extra chubby. Hopefully that will happen soon-ish. :)

Have a great week and keep your eyes peeled for an update from this afternoon!

Happy Tuesday!

Five on Friday

It's Friday! Thank. Goodness.
A. Liz Adventures hosts Five on Friday every week, so head over there to see what she's got in store today.

one | Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day will be our fifth Valentine's together. I do realize I've not yet written our story, but this will have to do for now. Our very first date was on Valentine's Day 2012 and our first married Valentine's Day was in 2014.

So since our fifth Valentine's Day is coming up this weekend, I'm excited for all of the events of the weekend. As far as I know, we don't have much planned, but I certainly hope we do something.

two | Master Chorale concert

Kyle sings with the local Master Chorale and they have a concert tonight. L'amour: bliss and angst is the name of the series tonight and apparently it's a compilation of love songs. Kyle wasn't too pumped about singing in French. Too bad.

And my parents are coming over for the concert, so that should be a lot of fun.

three | woodworking

Kyle asked for a shelf for Valentine's Day and he doesn't believe that I made some of the furniture pieces I say I did. So I'm making him a shelf. Check it out.

four | book club

We are reading Me Before You this month for book club. If you've not gotten a copy of it yet, make sure that you do. I'm about half ways through and I'm not sold on it, but it keeps getting better!

 

five | The Life of Bon

Disclaimer: I don't watch "The Bachelor". I have a handful of coworkers who do, but I've just never gotten into it. However, I've found myself going back to read Bonnie's recaps each week because her take on the whole thing is just hilarious. If you watch "The Bachelor" or even if you don't, go check her out. She's funny.

And don't forget to check in for the Valentine's post.

Follow me here, here, or here to see what's up first.

Happy Friday!