The Big Announcement... It's a... an Alien Bean!!

I have finally announced to my friends that I am pregnant. And I thought this would be a perfect time to talk about my other life from these last few months.

And let me just say how crazy we are before I go into detail about my time so far.

We got married in October 2012 and at this point we agreed that we would try to have children starting 2013 or after David got a job and we moved. Well, David had a couple interviews since the wedding and we knew for a fact we would probably be moving by the end of 2012. So we decided, what the hell, we'll start trying now. That was December. David got the job and we were scurrying around getting our ducks in a row to move and squeeze in a trip to my parents for Christmas. We moved here at the beginning of January 2013 and one week later I found out I was pregnant. One month later I got confirmation at the doctor's office. This was all in 4 MONTHS. We may be a little crazy.

Like I said, a little crazy

So, back to me being pregnant. I am in my 12th week and, no, I am not really showing. I have packed on some pudge, but my pants still fit even at the waist, except when I sit. There is pressure on my abdomen when I sit. Very annoying.

Actually, there are a lot of annoying things. I've been doing a lot of reading. And everyone says the first trimester is always the worst. That's when the morning sickness, constant hunger, constant bathroom breaks, painful breasts, mood swings and fatigue all happen at once. Thankfully, my morning sickness hasn't been so awful where I've been vomiting. But I have been having constant nausea. I eat all the time but at the same time I don't want to because of said nausea. And my bedtime is at 9:30, but I'm actually tired by 6.

Now I understand that my symptoms aren't horrendous, BUT it's been messing with my normal routine and that's what's really bothering me. I can't workout because I'm either between I just ate or I'm really nauseous. And then when I do eat, I have to do it carefully because sometime I can't tell if I really am hungry, full, or nauseous. I'm usually fine in the mornings, but when 2 o'clock rolls around nausea hits me for the rest of the day.

And how on earth am I maintaining my health if I'm not working out? I've been really conscious about what I eat. I definitely have been eating more, but I've been eating a lot more frequently and smaller portions, which is what experts recommend. I've also been eating a lot of wholesome food like fruit with plain yogurt, lean meats, veggies, cheeses and the like. The one thing that came back into my diet, and I'm not too thrilled about, is gluten. Before it used to be that something super gluten-y was a weekend thing and I really wouldn't eat it on the weekdays. Not any more. If I had a craving, it was to have gluten carby stuff. I needed bread (or pasta) back in my diet and the only thing I can think of is that my body needed quick energy which is what carby grains provide. I haven't gone overboard but it is a daily intake. Oh, and I really don't want to eat anything kimchi (which saddens me) and super garlicky foods (which also makes me sad).

Yay wholesome food!

Active-wise, I wish I could be better. But the food/nausea thing really screws me up. Luckily, I've doing some sort of walking (mostly hiking) on the weekend and I do some small exercise sets while I work. And I got a yoga ball to sit on for part of the day (this also helps with my digestion). Thank God or I would go crazy.

Here's hoping to a better second trimester.

Smash

(from imdb)

I wasn't immediately hooked when I saw the first episode. One of the main reasons was Katharine McPhee. She has a really great voice but I wasn't too keen on her character and her acting. It also took some time for some of the other characters to grow on me. But I had a feeling that the little things would not matter if I kept watching. Also, I saw that Jack Davenport was in the show and I thought, "Steve and Norrington guy is in this show?! He's awesome!" He plays such a great jerk. Anyway, I was right. I LOVE this show now!

Granted I am still not a fan of Karen or Katharine McPhee and the storyline is pretty typical. HOWEVER, at least it's written well and the music is fantastic. I can handle a cookie cutter story as long as it is kept interesting and the characters are memorable. And that's what I think Smash does. You can definitely see a lot of the plot unfolding from a mile away but the characters are engaging and you get pretty invested into their development. I may not have been completely fair with the typical plot, there are some moments where a kink is thrown in and it's pleasant to come across. And, I will say it again, the music is FANTASTIC!

And season 2 has gotten to be pretty drama-filled. And I can't wait to see what happens to Bombshell. Although it's great to see that they are not completely focusing on that. I was kind of curious how they were going to keep going once Bombshell would be on Broadway, but they found a good way to keep that from happening in a pretty realistic way.

I just finished watching the last episode, which wasn't too song heavy, but Ivy has an amazing voice and I love listening to her sing. And the end of the episode wasn't earth shattering or cliffhanger-y, but it only gave you a snippet of what was to come. A very good ending.

This is how Glee should have been in my opinion. Have a great consistent story, stable characters and stop trying to cater so much to the fans. That's what made Glee fall apart so much. Although it seems that Glee is trying to bounce back. We shall see. Smash is still superior.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (Flourless)

I am not the biggest peanut butter fan. I don't like peanut butter jelly sandwiches and you will never see me eat peanut butter out of the jar. That's David's go to quick snack. However, I do enjoy peanut butter cookies. Probably because the extra sugar helps mask some of the peanut taste. So I definitely enjoy these cookies.

They are especially tasty because they are gluten-free. When we decided to cut back our gluten intake, I started to be on the look out for desserts and snacks that were gluten-free. We both love sweets and dessert-y stuff, so finding recipes that were gluten-free was a little important. I happened upon this recipe in a Southern Living magazine a couple of years ago and immediately copied it so I could bake it at home. It was a huge hit for everyone in the apartment. Not only are they good cookies, but we found they were a good snack after a big workout and great travel food. If they didn't have some self-control the guys would have probably eaten a good 3.5 dozen cookies in 2 days.

The cookies aren't exactly healthy, but if you are cutting back on carbs and/or gluten, this is a great cookie to have around. I made a few adjustments to the original recipe because I felt too much sugar was being used and the chocolate chips weren't quite right. One more note before I share the recipe, 1 cup of peanut butter is about half the jar. So I just use the whole jar at once and this way you don't have leftover peanut butter if you don't eat a lot of it and you make more cookies at one time. The recipe I'll be sharing is for using a whole jar of peanut butter and yields 3.5 to 4 dozen cookies.

1    jar creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup sugar
2    large eggs
1    tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 bag mini-chocolate chips

*If you are going to half the recipe, keep using the 3/4 cup of sugar because that was in the original recipe. Or half it if you want to still cut back on the sugar.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Stir peanut butter, sugar, eggs, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl until well blended.
3. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
5. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until puffed and lightly browned. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack to continue cooling.

The batter will be a little mushy but will stiffen up when the chocolate chips are added.

I spray baking Pam on the tablespoon so the batter won't stick to it and will drop onto the pan easily.

If you use regular metal pans, I highly recommend using parchment paper. But if you use a stone pan, just spray a little baking Pam and it will work great.

The cookies are REALLY soft when they are taken out of the oven, so definitely let them sit and cool for a few minutes before transferring them to the cooling rack.

They are great with tea or milk or coffee. And perfect as a dessert or a snack.

Enjoy!

Mount Falcon Park

It feels like it's been forever since my last outing. And it feels like that because I didn't really have a weekend last weekend. I had to work all day Saturday and, because of that, I had to do all my chores on Sunday. It wasn't a very fun weekend.

We originally had different plans Saturday but due to several circumstances we didn't do them. There was the Winter Mountain Games going on in Vail that we were really interested in going to. But I was feeling under the weather during the week and wasn't sure if I could go. And then we found out the weather was probably going to be spotty; neither of us are very experienced with snow driving or mountain driving and we really didn't want to start with both happening at the same time. So, last minute plans to go to Mount Falcon! It was closer to home and if we needed to beat the weather, we could. It was a good thing we did that since it started snowing when we were leaving the park.

Mount Falcon is just south of Red Rocks park so it seemed familiar. But the trail we went on was completely different than the one we went on at Red Rocks. The trail we decided to hike went up and around a side of the mountain and was about 5 km long.

The side of the mountain you see is where we hiked

We started going up the trail and the incline wasn't incredibly steep but it was steep enough to have me breathless at some times if I was walking too quickly. The trail also had a different feel as you went along the trail.

The first leg of the trail looked mostly like this.

The view along the trail was pretty great too. I had to make sure to look around me as we were hiking so that I wouldn't miss the scenery. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't fall on my face or off a ledge so I was looking down a lot. Still, make sure you look up to drink up your surroundings.

Even with the zoom maxed out on my camera, the parking lot is still far away

There were snowy parts on the trail!

It was very sunny when we were hiking late morning so there were a lot of people hiking. And people biking... up the mountain... in the snow! More power to them.

Then on our last bit of the trail we saw wild animals! David looked them up and found out they were elk. The first group we saw was passing by across a little valley from us.

One of the three we saw in the first group. They were pretty far apart.

Then we saw another group a lot closer to us. Once we were done taking pictures of the first group, David turned to keep walking, and he started because he saw another elk that was no more than 10 ft away from us.

Surprise!

Then we continued walking we saw that it was with two others.

We were interrupting meal time

It was a pretty awesome way to end a great hike.

For more pictures from the hike: Mt Falcon