simple season

This season, I am most thankful for a simple life.

The other day, I listened as a friend talked about the busyness of her day-to-day.  She has three school aged children and she was not complaining one bit, but between school and homework and extracurriculars, they are jam packed.

It occurred to me then that our life right now is so opposite.  Don't get me wrong, we certainly have things to do.

We fill our days with work, speech therapy, specialists appointments for Luke and OB appointments for me.  We have play dates, church and community group.  Adam and I are both consistent about working out.
 
But we move slow around here.  We are rarely in a big rush.  There are almost always enough hours in the day.  I rarely wonder how I'll get it all done.

Adam comes home at a decent hour every night. I only work two days a week.  We are home by seven every evening, when Luke goes to sleep and Adam and I have several hours to ourselves.

After the chaos of graduate school, it's a welcome pace.  Truly, it is.
I wouldn't trade these slow, simple days for anything.

Playing with cars.

Hanging out at the park (pun intended).

Snacking (seriously, always).

And waiting for daddy to come home for lunch (our favorite). 

I know there will come a day when we've got one in soccer and one in ballet.  When we eat dinner on-the-go and breakfast on our way out the door.  And I will try to see the beauty in that season, too.  But today, I am just so thankful for this one. 

we're expecting baby #2!

Yes, yes.  Luke has a little announcement.

His only child status is expected to expire May 18, 2013 and we are so excited!  We used this t-shirt to tell our families several weeks ago, but I've waited to tell the cyber-world until just now.

We found out on the morning of September 8 when I was just barely 4 weeks pregnant.  A faint little line lead me to believe it was positive, and a digital test confirmed our news.

I took the test alone early that morning while Adam was out for a ride and Luke was still sleeping.  I'm surprised that I didn't wake him up with my giggles and squeals.  I was absolutely ecstatic. 

My plan was to tell Adam that night, at a romantic dinner for two.  But when he walked in the door from his ride later that morning, I just couldn't contain myself.  I actually forgot all about my plan to wait, and I just  blurted it out!

He was shocked.  And excited.  And a little overwhelmed.  :)

I am 14 weeks now and feeling pretty good.  I was sick through the first trimester with Luke, so this pregnancy has surprised me with far less nausea and just a little bit of tiredness.  Glad to have rounded the corner, though, and entered that blessed second trimester.

We've gotten to see the baby on ultrasound twice and hear the heartbeat several more times, thanks to a doc who's keeping a close eye on things.

I've craved snow cones and beer, but due to the season and something called fetal alcohol syndrome, I haven't been able to indulge either.  (Except once!  We actually found an open snow cone stand a few weeks ago and ahhh! it was wonderful!)  (Oh, make that twice.  I actually forgot I was pregnant for a few moments and ended up drinking about 1/3 of a Shiner Bock sometime around 8 weeks.  Yum.  And oops.)

I started showing much earlier with this baby than with Luke, though I feel like since I've popped out I haven't grown much.  Still in regular jeans, but today I had to use the rubber band trick because they were too uncomfortable buttoned up.

Here's a pic at 14 weeks.

whole roasted chicken

I've got my friend Kelly fooled big time, but the truth is -- I'm not a very good cook.
I love to cook, and I love to eat, but I'm still learning my way around the kitchen a bit.

Since I had Luke and have become a mostly-stay-at-home-mom, I've become more and more adventurous in this department and I enjoy cooking more and more.

The other day I was in the meat department at HEB and they had their whole organic chickens on "manager's special," which means they're about to expire so you'd better buy them now.  The chicken was a great price so I put him in the buggy and took him home.  I usually just cook with chicken breasts, so I thought it would be fun to spice things up a bit.

I've never roasted a whole chicken before, but I've done Thanksgiving turkeys several times, so I figured - how hard could it be?

My friend Ashley is a great cook so I called her and she gave me some tips for roasting this bird to perfection. 

I chopped up tons of vegetables, made a beautiful little bed for the bird, seasoned him up really well, stuffed him with lemon and garlic and other goodness, laid him in my dutch oven, and put him in to roast.  He looked and smelled wonderful.  I was so proud that I took his picture.

We sat down to eat and I proudly began cutting him up into servings.  I was heartily disappointed to discover that the chicken had no breasts.  He had legs and thighs but when I tried to cut into the top, salivating over the crispy-skinned well-seasoned hunk of white meat I was going to find, I just got bone.  There was no white meat. 

Damn bird.  Defective.  No wonder he was on sale.  The "manager" should have warned me.  I was so disappointed.

We ate the dark meat and the veggies -- which both had excellent flavor -- and it looked like we'd polished off the entire chicken.  I was a little embarrassed that my family of three had eaten an entire chicken, but hey, it was a faulty bird afterall. 

After dinner, I went to throw the thing away and as I lifted him up out of the pot something caught my eye. 

There they were - chicken breasts.

I had cooked that stupid bird upside down and the good parts were hiding underneath the whole time.
This might sound really ridiculous to all of you seasoned chicken roasters (no pun intended) but I had no idea. 

I think I'll stick to plain jane chicken breasts from now on.  That way, I'll always know where to find them! 

oilman 70.3

Adam is hanging up his bike for a little triathlon break, but not before he completed his ultimate goal.

In one year, he did a triathlon of every major distance: sprint, olympic, half ironman, and ironman.
Yesterday was the Oilman 70.3 race, a half-ironman distance.

He was rewarded at the end with a lick of watermelon sucker.  It doesn't get much better than that!
So proud of you, babe!  And looking forward to you taking some time off, too!  :)