The cutest little Storyteller

This is the Harry Potter Story, as told by my niece, a brand-new five year old! Happy Birthday, little B!

Just to see their faces.

We find out in three weeks if our baby is a boy or a girl.


We also hope to find out that the baby's heart is healthy and functioning properly. (I still have to get a fetal EKG even if everything looks good on the first ultrasound. My gosh, I'm not looking forward to that. Just hoping and PRAYING that the results are good and I can finally feel like we're really going to have a baby.)


Once we know if we're to expect little Beetle or little Butterfly, *smiley* I know the number one question (after 'when are you due?') is going to be:

What's the baby's name?


I've always wanted to come up with crazy names to tell people. Just to see a reaction. A blank stare, a fake smile, a clamped jaw in complete flabbergastment before they say something like:

'Oh, that's interesting/unique/original/nice!'
'Is that a family name?'
or
'Hmm.' with a completely ingenuine nod of approval.

And then I'll laugh and say what names we're really thinking of.

Definitely Albus.
Or Hermes.
or if it's a girl,
Ocarina.

Liebster Award

The German language is somewhat dear to my heart because my husband speaks it fluently. Liebster is German for ‘dearest’ or ‘beloved’-- but it can also mean ‘favorite’. The Liebster award was created to give some attention to those blogs with less than 200 followers. So when I found out that I won the Liebster Award from Carrie at The Rowdy Stroudy's, my heart just giggled.

In accepting the award, you are supposed to follow these rules:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

2. Reveal your five picks for the award and let them know. 

3. Post the award on your blog. 

4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the blogshare-other bloggers. 

5. Finally and the best rule of all………have fun and spread the love! 

And now here are my 5 faves that follow the guidelines for the award so you can check these lovelies out:

Darci, the Page Traveler. 

Mandy, at Dash it All.

Jamie, at What I did Today.

Saimi, at Archie and Family.

Meredith, at Haute to Sew.

It was SO HARD to choose these people among my favorites. I had to find people who didn't already receive the award, people who had less than 200 followers, and I had to leave out family (even though I love their blogs too. I couldn't just pick one.)

All of these people are either funny, insightful, creative, inspirational, or all of it rolled into one! 

Thanks for the award, Carrie. It made me happy. :)

Yep, I'm blogging at 5:00 am

I don't sleep well in the early morning. I just say to heck with it and get up. Course, I pay for it at night when I fall asleep at 7 pm. I missed out on Moneyball last night. I need to rewatch it.

But in my early-early mornings I do get stuff done.
Like today, I'm going to blog.
And make muffins. Delicious ones.
And hopefully a load of laundry before me and Bret head out to Mesa for the weekend. The only underwear I have left are the ones that don't fit very good.

And I guess I owe all of you a preggy picture.

Awe......
14 weeks.
It's cute until you see my face, which is un-make-up-ed (hello, people, it's just after 5 am!) and chubbied.

Heard a good, strong heartbeat yesterday. Always a good feeling.
Everything's ok so far, aside from my problems with asthma and migraines.
We won't know if the baby is 100% okay until after the next ultrasound and a fetal EKG.
NOT looking forward to that one but ready to know for sure.

Excited to find out if our baby is going to be Beetle or Butterfly though. :) (No, those aren't the real names we've got picked out.)

To be honest, I'm still terrified. I'm so, so grateful for this new little one who has already helped to heal my broken heart. It's just... hard.


***And I had to come back and add this: (not in my original post) After finishing my blog post, I went cruising Pinterest and I felt a tiny pop in my belly that I KNOW wasn't gas. Not the first time I've felt the baby move, but still, I had to share it.***

Reading Machine

In the last month, I've read four books. What's more... none of them were from the genre I typically read.
Which is YA fantasy fiction.
Because I like to write YA fantasy fiction.
So it's like homework.
The fun kind.

But this last month I've taken a break from my norm. sudden allusion to the television show cheers. Norm!
Anyway, I've been reading my brains out and have discovered complete GEMS!

The first

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I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie. My sister advised me on that. The movie was a fantastic adaptation but I'm SO glad that I read the book first.
In my limited experience with racial issues and civil rights (I love and have respect for all hard-working people, whatever shade of lovely they wear on the outside, but I'm not much of an activist.) I have to say this book was eye-opening, heart-breaking, and beautifully written. I loved it and I'm so glad it was gifted to me so that I can have it always. It's such a great book to have on my shelf.

The second:

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A friend let me borrow this book. A little bit of mystery and yumminess mixed in! I love the Josi Kilpack books. They're suspenseful and fun this one especially was a page-turner. I find myself wishing I was the main character, Sadie Hoffmiller's friend or neighbor. She's got spunk. This particular book is the fourth in the Sadie Hoffmiller culinary mysteries. They just keep getting better and better!

The next, naturally:

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My friend let me borrow this one too. She wasn't finished reading the latest book, Pumpkin Roll, but that one is definitely on my list and hopefully she'll lend that one to me too! (Thanks, Barb!!!)
This next installment in Sadie Hoffmiller's adventures was just as delicious as the previous. A lot of heart, a lot of questions that kept me wondering WHO-DUNNIT, and recipes I am dying to try as soon as I get over this pregnancy-induced nausea over anything that smells too much.
I just love that adorable Sadie!!


And the one I just finished today: (also borrowed from Barb)

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Oh. My. Goodness!!

At first I had a hard time getting into it. The book is made up completely of correspondence letters between writer Juliet Ashton and the various people in her life. At first I wondered who the main character was, if Sidney was a guy or a girl (he's a guy, Juliet's editor), who Susan and Sophie were, and was this book ever going to go to normal format? Then with an onset of migraine headaches, I was afraid to read for a couple of days. 

But then I got into the rhythm of the letters, got to know who was who and where they were from, and came to love the characters as though I was a member of their society. I was hooked and it became a quick read.

There's a lot of history in this book even though the characters are fictional. I found myself rooting for the good guys, feeling sorrow at their losses, and cheering with them at every triumph. Like the Help, this book gives a new perspective, sometimes a raw and sad one. But it was a beautiful book. Another I would one day like to have on my shelf. 

Want to see what's next on my list??

Of course you do.

I'm way too stinkin excited for these next ones to arrive in the mail to not share it with you.

This one is written by a friend of mine and she has promised to autograph it for me as soon as I can get it to her. Yay!!

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Aaaaaaand, *squeeeeee!*

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Sequel to my favorite book of all time, Austenland! Ohhhh I can't WAIT!!!

I ordered these on Amazon a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, they won't send Risen without also sending Midnight in Austenland and the latter won't be released until early February. Ugh. I hate to wait.

In the mean time, I'm also working on reading Book one of the Belgariad Series by David Eddings. (Thanks, Darci!)

Whew!! Hope all this reading reawakens the WRITING bug in me.

BLR soundbites

In all this political storm, sometimes it's serious. But sometimes I think it's taken too seriously. It's nice to laugh once in a while.

These are my three favorite Bad Lip Reading soundbites.

laughing. out. loud.

As requested...

The cinnamon roll recipe.

I got it from allrecipes.com via pinterest. I've made a few changes because the original recipe tells you how to make it using a breadmaker. If you have a breadmaker, definitely do the allrecipes.com version. (Just so you know, I'm not a brilliant baker. The instructions sans breadmaker were on the all recipes website in the comments.)
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/clone-of-a-cinnabon/detail.aspx

If you don't have a breadmaker, you can use this recipe:
Makes 12 cinnamon rolls

Ingredients:
1 cup warm milk
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast (can use rapid rise if you want)
2 eggs room temperature
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
4 1/2 cups bread flour

Cinnamon filling:
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, softened

Frosting:
1/2 8 ounce block of cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla (I accidentally put in a whole teaspoon but it was fine)
1/8 tsp salt

Directions:
-Dissolve yeast in warm milk
-Mix in eggs, butter, salt, and sugar
-Add flour slowly and mix well
-Put in a bowl and let rise in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled in size. (I preheated my oven to 200 degrees, then turned it off and let my dough rise in the oven.)

-Just before you roll out the dough, mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter filling. One thing I wish I would have done was cook it on the stove until the sugar and butter had all melted together. I'm not sure how to do this, I would probably just wing it. But I'd say maybe cook it in a small pot on medium, stirring constantly until smooth? *shrug* You can do it either way. Sprinkling it all onto the rolled out dough, mixing it together and spreading it that way, or cooking it first.

-Okay, now roll out the dough to about a 16x21 inch rectangle or until the dough is about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch thick.
-Spread your cinnamon and brown sugar mixture over the dough.
-Carefully roll it up.
-Here's a cool trick my friend taught me to cut the cinnamon rolls: Use a 12 inch piece of dental floss. Place it under the roll of dough, bring the ends together, and pull around the roll, tightening the loop until the floss cuts the roll. VERY handy and your rolls come out lovely and round.
-Place in a greased pan side by side and let rise another 1/2 hour to an hour.

-Bake rolls in preheated oven (400 degrees) for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

-Meanwhile, mix up your frosting, beating all ingredients together until smooth.
-Spread frosting on hot cinnamon rolls so it gets all melty and delicious.

-Enjoy! They're best while still hot and the brown sugar is still gooey.