Nesting!

     We get to meet our baby girl in just about 3 months!  One Saturday morning, my husband, Brian, and I decided to buy a crib and register for our upcoming baby.  This set the nesting mode in motion.  :-)  Our parents bought us a few of the "big" items and we are now in the full swing of getting ready for our sweet baby girl!
     The room that we are turning into the baby room is a mauve-y, brown color.  I'd maybe call it mocha.  We decided not to paint the room because it works for our daughter, and if we have a son one day it would work for a boy too.  That means that when I decorate I get to girl it up! 

First, Brian (with a tiny help from me) put together the rocking chair and the crib.  

     When we were registering we found a ton of cute pink things that had monkeys on them.  We decided that pink and monkeys would be a super cute theme for our baby room!  One weekend Brian went ice fishing, so I decided to get to work on the baby room.  We talked about what I was going to do to the room before he left, so it wasn't a total surprise.  Here is what happened:

     

     Ahh!  Those are zoo animals and monkeys in tutus dancing around the words!  (It's a Zebra, Hippo, Lion, Elephant, and 5 Little Monkeys.)  Ha!  I love it!

     The next weekend I was babysitting some relatives kiddos and my husband decided to put together the changing table/dresser.  This turned out to be quite a project.  It took him like 4 hours to put together, but it is so awesome and sturdy, and it's adorable!

     There was one more wall I wanted to girl up.  :-)  We bought a wall decal to put up, which apparently, you need to be an engineer to do.  Ha.  The decal is a tree and Brian had to put up the entire tree.  Literally, the one part that I started "helping" with we had to cut out with an exacto knife.  We hid it pretty well though, so that's good.  Even though Brian had to put up the tree I could do all the leaves and birds myself.  This is how it turned out.  

     Ahh!!  Can you tell we are excited!!  I love this wall and the entire baby room!!  We've still got plenty to do, but the baby room is coming along so nicely and the big stuff in there is done, so I thought I would share my excitement with you.  I can't wait until we get to meet our sweet baby girl! 

Kiki's Pancakes

I know this is only my 6th post, so I'm sorry that this is already my 2nd recipe post - but trust me this recipe is totally worth it!  

     About a year ago I wanted pancakes but we didn't have any pancake mix, so I decided to go online and find a yummy pancake recipe.  We also didn't have eggs and I wasn't planning on leaving the house to go buy any ingredients, so I searched for an egg-less pancake recipe and stumbled upon this little gem.  It's a recipe for blueberry pancakes (which I will also post below), and they are fantastic!!  One thing I especially like about this recipe is that it makes 1 serving.  At our house it's just my husband and I, and I have a habit of cooking for an army, so this recipe is kind of nice that way.  Though, sometimes we times the recipe by 10 and freeze the pancakes because then you can just pop them in the toaster on a work morning when you don't have time to cook.  They freeze well.  
     I'm not the only one who loves this recipe - my niece and nephews love them too, and so do their parents!  When my sister had her 2nd baby I made a big batch of these and froze them so her family could have easy breakfasts, because they had their hands full with a 2 year old and a new born.  My then 2 year old nephew is now almost 3 and whenever they have pancakes he still asks if they are Kiki's pancakes.  I also made these pancakes when my brothers family was in town.  A few days later I got a text asking for the recipe because my niece wanted the pancakes Kiki made.  My niece and nephews have parents that don't feed their children just anything.  My brothers kiddos love green smoothies and frequently ask for fruit as their dessert.  These pancakes are parent-approved!  They have oats in them, and the blueberries and vanilla extract make them sweet, so you can omit the sugar, plus oil is optional.  
     Now that I've gotten you so excited about these yummy pancakes, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:  (Remember this is for 1 serving, makes 2-3 pancakes)
- 1/3 cup of flour
- 2 Tbsp of rolled oats
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2/3 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 Tbsp sugar (optional)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup of milk
- I add 1 Tbsp of oil and reduce the milk by that amount but again this is optional.
- 1/2 cup blueberries

Directions:
Mix all of the dry ingredients, then add the wet.  Stir, then fold in the blueberries.  Grease the griddle then cook your pancakes at 250*- 300*.  These pancakes are thicker so they need to cook at a lower temp for a longer time so that they cook all the way through.  Flip each pancake once.  Then devour the deliciousness!

     Since we fell in love with this recipe we have created many variations of it.  One of my nephews loves blackberries, so often times we replace the blueberries with blackberries - SO yummy!  I would imagine you could replace the blueberries with just about any berry you'd like.  Believe it or not, I don't always have fresh fruit in my house, so we have made them as just plain old pancakes too.  When I make them without fruit, I also take out the cinnamon, basically just because I'm not a huge cinnamon fan and when you don't have fruit in them, the cinnamon flavor really stands out.  
     My new favorite variation on these pancakes is Banana Chocolate Chip!  This morning I had a couple bananas that were getting old, and we had chocolate left over from Valentines day, so I decided to make Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes!  All I can say is YUM!

Here is the ingredient list for the Banana Chocolate Chip version:
- 1/3 cup of flour
- 2 Tbsp of rolled oats
- 2/3 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 Tbsp sugar (optional)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup of milk
- 1 large ripe banana, mashed
- 1/4 cup of chocolate chips.  (I just cut up "fun sized" Hershey bars to make chocolate chunks, but I would guess it was about 1/4 cup.  You can add as many chocolate chips as you would like.)

Mix and bake as you would in the recipe above, and again devour the yummy-ness!! 

     I plan to continue coming up with new variations since they all seem to turn out so well, so I will keep you posted on any extra great ones.  Maybe I'll have to try something maple-nutty or something less healthy like s'mores, or super healthy like "green" pancakes!  

Love is in the Air

     It's been a few weeks since I have written, so it's time for a new post.  I was thinking that since it was February I would write about love, but my blog would sound something like this...

"I'm feeling so blessed... I am so in love with this little baby girl growing in my belly... I have the best husband ever... I even love my dog so much more than I ever thought I would..."  

SO BORING!  And so braggadocios to those who aren't feeling all the love this month!  So, instead, I've decided to spare you my mushy love letter and share a few of my favorite blogs with  you.  

I've come across a lot of super awesome blogs lately, here are 3 of the best ones I've read this month.

This first blog may be slightly controversial, but I think it's fantastic.  The writer of this blog is a Christian woman, and she is sharing her view on contraception.  I happen to have a similar opinion on this topic, but I really like how she writes about it in her blog because she's done the research and gives facts, and if I were to write about it, it would just be my opinion.  You can find this blog here ---> Privilege and the Pill

Another great blog I read lately was, a father who had written a letter to his daughter about the make-up aisle at a store.  This blog is so sweet, and since I have a baby girl on the way, it makes me think about different issues my daughter will face. Here is the link for this feel-good blog. --->   Words from a Father

For the foodies out there, I also love this blog.  It is the blog of a food stylist, and a food photographer.  Two of the reasons I love it are because they don't just share recipes, they share stories that go along with them, AND the photography is amazing!  

Here's the link ---> Pheasant & Hare

Since I spared you the smooshy love post, here is a smooshy love engagement photo from a few years ago.  :-)