Les Miserables Review

We finally got around to watching Les Mis last night. It snowed all day yesterday and the only time we left the apartment was to go eat dinner. We thought about going to the movies but we didn't see a movie that we really wanted to watched for $25.00. So we went home and rented Les Mis.

I give it a solid B/B-, depending how I feel. Before I start into why I think that, here's some background. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE LES MIS. It is one of my all time favorite musicals. My friends and I sang it all the time in high school in the chorus room. And I was really bummed I never saw it on Broadway during a class trip. Two of my most favorite songs are from this musical (both sung by Eponine).

So now here's why I gave it a B/B-:

Goodbye 1st Trimester!

I am officially in my 2nd trimester! And, thankfully, I am starting to feel better. The best part, no more nausea!!!!!! That makes me the happiest. Now I know that I'm just always hungry. I have my other symptoms but it's so much more easier to deal with now. The most important thing is I have no more nausea!! As long as I keep my appetite in check.

I had another appointment with the doctor a few days ago and so far so good. I am actually doing pretty well with the weight gain (and, yes, it's a good thing =p) and the Bean seemed okay. I didn't have an ultrasound done but she did use a doppler to check the heartbeat of the Bean and that was normal. David came with me this time so he got to listen to it as well. I have listened to it before, but it's still pretty incredible to hear something we have created feeding off of me. And, I just thought of this.... I am part TIME LORD!! For the next 6 months anyway. After all, time lord/humans aren't meant to be.

Unfortunately, I'm not quite up to working out yet. Every time I do a set of push-ups during work, I feel hungry/nausea after I'm done. I feel like it's a pretty obvious sign that anything more strenuous will not be good. Once that feeling goes away, I will be a happy camper. Days have been really nice and I've been wanting to do something outdoors that's not just walking. Running would be fun or even a more rigorous hike instead of a leisurely stroll.

Since finding out I was pregnant, I've been doing a lot of research about, well, everything. A great website I found that has very good general information was FitPregnancy. It's a great site that talks about the stages of pregnancy, health, nutrition, babies, working out and the like. The one thing that really caught my interest was that it had a focus on health and exercising (the Bump doesn't really do that) and articles have just enough to where I get the information I need. If I need more detail then I know what I should google for.

Pinterest has been giving a more personal insight into pregnancy where I would read women's blogs about their personal experience. As usual a lot were not so good, but there were a few that were really helpful and interesting. If you want to see the things I have pinned so far check out my Baby Board!

And I've been doing a lot of baby product research. Just like weddings, everything is so much more expensive when you tag on the word 'Baby' to stuff. Thank God people give away a lot of baby stuff. Our first stop will be Goodwill and the like. However, there will be a few things that will not be used, like strollers and car seats. I will gladly spend a reasonable amount of money for stability and safety. I know that eventually we will have to go out buy this stuff, but man it's intimidating. A lot of crap for a lot of money for a small amount of time. Luckily, there are a few things that are versatile so I'm hoping that I could get most of those.

I have my super important ultrasound in a month so it's more sitting and waiting until then. Which I hate but I know it can't be helped. Can't rush the Bean.

Obligatory bump photo

I would like to note that most of that bump is bloating and fat. Oh and my internal organs being shoved up towards my diaphragm. But it's a bump, nonetheless, I guess. Yes, I am vain. I'm just really looking forward to when I really look pregnant. Just a few more weeks!

So far, 4 people have told us that we are going to have a boy. Anyone else have thoughts?

Classic French Toast

I love french toast. It is definitely one of my favorite breakfast foods. I haven't eaten it a lot since it's bread but it's definitely a nice treat once it a while. And a treat it is since today was the best I felt in a long time! I still get tired easily but the nausea is gone as long as I keep my hunger under control.

So to continue celebrating I am sharing my awesome french toast recipe with my friends so you can join in on the yumminess. Sidebar: When I cook something that's not from a recipe, I tend not to measure things, but I will explain/describe to the best of my ability (sorry).

Serving: ~7 pieces of french toast
3 eggs
7 pieces of bread
2% milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
Cinnamon sugar
Powdered sugar (optional)
Syrup/Honey

So, before I get to the recipe part, a few notes to the ingredients so you know why this is the best french toast (I'm so modest).

Yum!!

The recipe makes 7 pieces but if you want to make more or less, here is the formula to make it work and you won't worry about making too much or too little batter. For every egg you add to the recipe, double the amount of bread + 1. For example, for this recipe I used 3 eggs so I used 7 slices of bread. This definitely depends on how much batter you put on the bread, but I found it to be a good rule of thumb. OR, if you don't care how much you make just keep making them until you run out of batter!

I know people these days are afraid of whole milk but skim and 1% milk are too watery for me; I think 2% is a good compromise. Making french toast today was a whim so I used whole wheat bread. BUT if you are planning to make some ahead of time, buy Pepperidge Farm's Cinnamon Bread. IT HELPS MAKE THE YUMMIEST FRENCH TOAST. But seriously, use whatever fancies you. Just don't get super porous bread, then the french toast gets too soggy.

So you have your ingredients:

I love recipes that have minimal ingredients

1. Once you crack the eggs in a medium bowl, pour the milk until you see only the yolk and little bit of the whites
2. Add the vanilla and cinnamon sugar (measure at your discretion) and whisk it all together
3. Grease (or PAM) your pan/griddle and once it is hot enough, dip the bread in the batter on both sides and place on pan
4. After 2-3 minutes, flip and cook for another couple of minutes
5. Keep doing that until you use the whole batter

This is what I mean by not measuring. Make sure your milk and eggs look like this

So you finished making the french toast but it's a little boring so it's time to add a few embellishments. I sprinkled a bit more cinnamon sugar (I really love cinnamon sure) while they were toasting. And then I sprinkled a little powdered sugar to make them look pretty. Lastly, I added some fresh strawberries.

So now enjoy with your favorite syrup! Happy Sunday!

Simple Turkey Burger

I wouldn't say that my diet is incredibly limited but it has become a little more difficult to plan for meals. We used to decide meals together where each of us would choose something for lunch or dinner. Well, since my body went all wonky, David learned early on that I should just choose all the meals because there are certain foods I don't want to eat. So I am now scouring Pinterest to find meals that I will want to eat.

I came upon this recipe for a simple turkey burger. And because it is a burger, the variations of ingredients are almost endless. So I took this recipe and changed up some of the ingredients to make it more palatable for myself (David will eat just about anything so he has no say).

Servings: 4-6 patties

1 lb ground turkey

1 medium yellow onion

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 cup chives (or any other herb you prefer)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Toppings:

lettuce

tomatoes

cheese

whatever else you want

Dice the onion and if you have fresh chives/herbs, chop them up finely. Toss the onion and chives in a bowl with the ground turkey, garlic powder, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Form into patties. Grill or pan-fry them. We don't have a grill so I pan fried them. Sidebar: when you do buy ground turkey, make sure to get the one that is not so lean. This way your patties will hold better together and be juicier. I find 15% fat works pretty well. There is a time and place for lean turkey meat, burgers is not one of them.

Besides the burgers being better for you than beef burgers, having the onions and chives in the patty helps the flavor of the burger and if you don't want anything on your burger, you'll still have flavor in your burger and not just the taste of meat.

This is dinner for the week

Denver Art Museum

I love it when I go on a trip on the weekend. Since I work at home, going out on the weekend is a real joy. Of course it won't happen all the time (ex: bad weather, illness), but it feels like an extra treat. Besides being the weekend, Saturday called for sunny skies and warm-ish weather, high 50s. Great weather to be out and about. So we went into Denver.

David wanted to go to REI, which is a HUGE outdoor/sporting goods store, because they were having a members' only clearance sale. Apparently it's a huge big deal so we had to get there early. So we headed out early and took the light rail into the city. Unfortunately, we left so early that it was pretty cold so I had to make sure I layered myself so I could stay warm during the morning but not swelter in the afternoon. While David was doing his special shopping, I walked around the store (warehouse really) and was amazed at how huge the place is. Three stories and each department was in its own section of the store. Aside from men, women, kids, there was also, hiking, winter outerwear, bicycles, shoes, winter sports equipment, and I know I forgot a few.

After David's shopping spree, we decided to have breakfast before we arrived at the Denver Art Museum. It wasn't like we were at the store for very long but I need to be fed every couple hours now. So we found a breakfast place that was pretty decent called the Delectable Egg.

The logo is so cute!

It was a nice place. And the food was pretty good. I didn't even finish my food there was so much of it.

Seriously. Who actually needs that much butter?!

After breakfast we decided to walk to the museum since it wasn't too far and the weather was nice.

Nothing like still seeing snow in 50 degree weather.

When we got the museum there were some funny statues heading to the entrance.

One of the entrances to the museum

It was a pretty cool museum. They have a thing every first Saturday where admission is free. And, well, yay free culture! When we first started walking around, I thought it was pretty small, really interesting, but small with only a few galleries. However, we realized that the first three floors were connected and the rest (7 floors in all) you had to take the stair or elevators. The two buildings that made up the museum were also connected. A lot of great things to see. But what made it really awesome was that there were a lot of stations for kids where there were interactive toys the could explore or actual art stations. Then, while we were there, some kind of yoga session was also going on. That's what I call my kind of museum.

I would definitely go back.