mighty katie mugg

This year for Katie's birthday we just couldn't decide on a gift. Nuno's been hired by Teletoon to produce a winning contest prize - a personalized Mighty Mugg of the Wolverine contest winner. To get a bit of practice, he made a Katie mugg for her birthday. It's been fun to see how the process has come along. Here it is in photos: The process started with several coats of Krylon spray to prepare the surface.
Here is the work station at home. Sanding, mixing paints and masking.

Nuno started the whole process by breaking down all the pieces in Illustrator and printing off the template to work from. It really helped with making the mugg perfect!

Here she is and Katie loves it!

happy birthday katie

Yesterday night we celebrated Katie's birthday by attending Trash Palace's first Niagara screening at the NAC. It was a great time, especially since so many of our friends came out. Katie got the chance to promote her Incredibly Strange Movie Night and her sign-up sheet was impressive. Looks like loads of people are interested in being a part of her idea. So to explain - Katie is organizing summer-long backyard screenings of underground/hard to find movies. I can't wait to help out and host one myself. It's probably one of the things I'm most looking forward to this summer and I'll be sure to blog about them as they happen.


I made these cupcakes for the birthday party we had before the Trash Palace screening. They remind me of soft serve from Dairy Queen, but I've heard these style cupcakes are called Hi Hat Cupcakes (which are typically finished by dipping in chocolate). They may look like a ton of work, but they are not. I decided to bake them because I had all the ingredients on hand and was limited to baking without butter. Both recipes are from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. The cupcakes were the One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcake and her Almond Swiss Meringue frosting. The frosting was different than any other I've made in the past. I actually prefer it to butter cream or whipped cream icing. Can you believe it only takes 6 ingredients? Egg whites, sugar, salt, vanilla & almond extract and cream of tartar. I think of it as a somewhat guilt-free icing. The finishing touch was a toasting from the handy kitchen blow torch. One day I think I might do the chocolate dipped version. They are so fun, I can't wait to one day bake these for my children's grade school bake sales.

cravings continue...

The cravings are still going strong. This is probably the most intense and characteristic pregnancy symptom I'm having on a week to week basis. So here's my running tally of food I had to eat or I could not continue - salads, broccoli & cheddar salad, avocados, Italian wedding soup, chocolate milk, buffalo chicken wraps, falafels, fruit smoothies, breakfast for dinner, rich tomato sauce over pasta. Being pregnant is so unpredictable, and it may sound silly to feel this way - but it's fun.

I sometimes wonder if I'll start to feel a bit more isolated from friends with our new baby. In the short term, I'm wondering if it'll be strange to be the only pregnant girl. I know only a couple of people who've been through pregnancy recently and I'm not close to anyone going through it right now. So in that respect, I think as I grow I'll make an effort to put myself out there more. It would be nice to meet other new moms and make friends with people who could potentially be friends. My plan is to take prenatal yoga which I just signed up for beginning in early May. I'm really looking forward to it because I haven't done any yoga since discovering I was expecting (ashtanga yoga while expecting - not a good idea, right?). I'll also be taking prenatal classes - probably as many as a can because I need a major parenting crash course. I trust my instincts and common sense, but I'm open to as many pointers as possible.

This may sound totally selfish, but I wish with all the planning I'd done to get life in order for the baby that I'd planned a pregnancy with a friend. Is that too Gloucester Massachusetts High School pregnancy fiasco of me? I guess I see the attraction of it.

"twoooooo"

Yesterday was my nephew Ronan's 2nd Birthday. As you can well imagine it was the cutest! He never walks - just runs everywhere. As he plays and runs his tongue gets right in on the action - it's quite hilarious.
Ronan and I share something in common, we both love the movie Cars. So is it any surprise that we gave him the ultimate Cars gift? It went over so well, it managed to be not only the biggest hit with Ronan, but with the adults alike.
Ronan's Cars cake had the most intense red icing which he licked off the cake and smudged all over his face. He looked a little like the Joker.
:::
Today I spent a few hours in the backyard pruning back the mangy rose bushes. They look so good now! Only problem is my hand is so sore I can barely type. So this entry is really brief for the sake of my stiff left hand and that I'm quite exhausted.

monthy photos

Yesterday was the day Nuno and I decided to share the happy baby news with my grandparents. Our baby will have three great grandparents on my side and one great grandmother on Nuno's. I'm so excited for them to get the chance in their lifetime to be great grandparents. They were all so pleased. We had a few requests to have the baby named after them. We like old fashioned names, but I'm not big on naming children after family members. I want our little one to have their own identity.

My sister-in-law, Sarah, who's also expecting (she's midway through her pregnancy now) has sent all of us belly shots to see how she's growing since we don't get to see her (she lives in Calgary). I thought it would be cool to do the same thing so I took a shot this morning. I don't think I'm showing yet, I'm the same size from the start. So here's the establishing shot - only to grow bigger!! Can't wait!!

easter brunch

I mentioned in a previous entry that we were holding an Easter Brunch, now that it's over I'll share. We held the brunch Saturday for my in-laws who all came down from the GTA.
Nuno and I spent all Good Friday prepping for the brunch. I began by making mini quiches - spinach & gruyere and some asparagus & gruyere. Tot loves to hang out in the kitchen when there is baking going down. Look what our little snooper got into.
The other appetizer we prepped was a veggie tray. We also premade the creme brulee because it tastes better if it sits a day or two.

Yesterday morning we got right to work making the brunch. We served eggs benedict, honey & grainy dijon glazed ham, thyme roasted potatoes with shallots, buttermilk biscuits - half cheese and half plain with strawberry whipped butter and spring salad with olive oil & lemon dressing. I served my favourite coffee from Sarnia which everyone couldn't get enough of. The brunch was a total success. We put a lot of effort into details and I was so happy everyone noticed every little detail. From the vanilla bean for the creme brulee to the from scratch crusts for the quiche, they are the sort of people who notice the small things, like me. Everyone loved their meals and it looks like the family wants to start a yearly tradition with this. I don't mind because I love throwing brunches over dinners, I'm not quite sure why. This was our first time having all the in laws over, so I have a lot of confidence we can definitely do this again.
My only regret was that I was too busy having the brunch to take photos. This is the only shot Nuno grabbed before everyone arrived.

Yesterday, my nephew Ronan was pretty much the star of the show. We gave him an Easter basket with Cars eggs and an Easter book. Because he loves toys and is small, Hot Tot spent the whole time watching Ronan. She trailed him around like a side-kick. They even went on a walk together to look at the boats which Ronan got completely obsessed with.

I have so many nice memories of our Easter this year.

wrappin'

Because it was so gloomy and rainy, I decided to spend all Saturday afternoon in the kitchen. Nuno and I started out making salad rolls for next week's lunches. We made so many we had to stop only because our largest container couldn't fit any more!
Next up, a brand new experience for us, turkey dumplings! The recipe indicated that we would be making 80. The filling included ground turkey, iceberg lettuce, mushrooms, green onions, soy & sesame oil.

I think I may have found my new calling - dumpling assembly.

Too bad it begins to get a little monotonous and by the end I was pretty spaced out. I don't think listening to Yo La Tengo while doing all this helped take me out of a dreamy state.

Here's our army of dumplings. We froze most of them.

But we steamed a bunch for dinner along with some of my absolute favourite dim sum - shrimp dumplings and pork shao mai. The turkey dumplings were the best of the bunch. Definitely worth the hours of labour!

ultrasound #1

Yesterday was our first ultra-sound, a very exciting time for first-time parents. I got a little nervous about this experience because of the movie Marley & Me. I saw it two days before the ultrasound and there is a scene in the movie where Owen & Jennifer are having their first ultrasound to discover a miscarriage. I nearly lost it - talk about bad timing. But, not so typical to my usual outlook, I have an optimistic view on my pregnancy and I feel strongly that everything will be just fine. I am happy and loose no sleep in worry about any detail of our lives. Everything feels so right and hopeful.

So yesterday's ultrasound was, in a way, very cliche. I had to drink 2 of my water bottles full of water in an hour, so every bump on the car ride was intense. Once they took me in for the ultrasound I could not believe how ancient the building and equipment is! I bet I looked the same to my mom & dad during their first ultrasound 30 years ago because, I don't exaggerate when I say, the equipment was that dated. Eventually after a lot of prodding, which was only uncomfortable because of my intense need to pee, the technician let Nuno come in so we could see our baby. It's a bit too early to recognize very much, but the one thing we could see was a heart beat. That's all I wanted to see and it made me ecstatic! The beat is so fast, I think the baby was nervous about having us see it for the first time. Since I don't have all the horrible, typical signs of first trimester misery, I sometimes wonder if I really do have a life inside me. So yesterday solidified it in my mind. Since getting pregnant my senses seem heightened and I have extreme joy knowing there really is a baby inside me. It kinda blows my mind!

spring cleaning

For the past 3 weekends Nuno and I have been doing a spring house cleaning. It's been very intense. We've cleaned the windows, cleaned out the refrigerator, organized drawers & closests, moved every piece of furniture and cleaned & vacuumed it and under it. The finale of this blitz is this weekend in our basement. The basement is huge and seems to have turned into a catch-all since we moved. Right now it's cluttered with all the items that came with our home and decided not to use, tons of artwork and life drawing, cardboard boxes from every purchase we've made since buying the house (why do we keep boxes?) and spare pieces of furniture. Well, what doesn't get sorted into storage is headed to Habitat for Humanity or recycled.
I can't wait till all this is done. Once our house is totally clean we will be ready to focus on our Easter Brunch! More on that later...

cravings and maternity clothes

This week I'm having strong cravings for lunch meat. Last week it was cream cheese and the week before it was fruit smoothies. This latest one concerns me. I swear my body is playing chicken with me because I'm quite aware of the warnings of pregnancy and listera. But I can't feel satisfied without having a Subway sub. So I'm having them toast it and hopefully the heat will better our chances.

I did a lot of shopping for maternity clothes this week. I know, totally silly right? Well, my reasoning behind this is that I want to buy up all the winter items from the stores while they are discounted seeing as how I'll be at my largest in the fall and winter. So this plan has been working out great. I've picked up super cheap maternity clothes at Thyme, Motherhood and Target ($5.00 shirt!).

Being pregnant has made me so happy. I'm almost thinking I'm the happiest I've ever been. I swear it's the hormones or the multi-vitamins but I feel incredible. My thoughts are always so pleasant. I'm so excited, I just love life and am charmed by everything around me. I do a lot of thinking and planning and the future is so bright and happy.
Feeling this way is just so unexpected to me. I anticipated the same old thoughts I've had for the past 15 years - the pain, morning sickness, getting really big. I felt it just couldn't be worth it. Wow, does your perspective ever change. I can't believe the way I thought before this, I'm almost ashamed. But, I had my sister in law say to me, you know when the time is right.

Nuno and I worked together on Sunday dinner dessert of Creme Brulee. They turned out perfect!

I heard you can scorch the top of a creme brulee in the oven under the broiler - but I don't have a lot of faith in that method. I decided that to make creme brulee, I need a torch. Do you think they are easy to find? No. We ended up finding a high quality one at Niagara Kitchen & Restaurant Supply for more than we wanted to pay for it. So it looks like I'll be making loads of meringue pies and brulees to justify this investment.

I've been wanting to talk about my recent discovery of Niagara Kitchen & Restaurant Supply. This store has it all! It's located in the most inconspicuous neighbourhood in St. Catharines, but the place is always busy. It's pretty much Crate and Barrel in Niagara. I even found some items I purchased at C&B there! It's quite high end, and if I'd known about it a few years ago I would have definitely had my bridal registry there.

woah! my pregnancy test is positive *squeeeee!*

Nuno and I decided we wanted to start our family. Who knew it would happen this quickly. Our pregnancy test came back positive today.
I'm not sure how to describe my feeling other than complete shock and excitement. I took 3 tests before this which came back negative. But I know my body and I just knew I was pregnant. So it's a relief to have an answer. Nuno cried at the result - the happy & excited type of cry. It's so very exciting and a little scary not knowing what is to come.

totty can you hear me?

This week Hot Tot went to the vet for flea, heartworm and kennel cough meds. She used to love visiting the vet because she could meet so many people who were willing to love her up as well as meet other dogs. She was always a little ham and enjoys being the centre of attention.
But this time she wasn't too enthusiastic about her visit. She somehow shed half of her fur in fright! It's probably because her last vet visit lead her into an Elizabethan collar.

Unfortunately, she seems to have reoccurring ear infections. The vet gave us drops to administer daily. At night Nuno and I must get together and surprise her with an ear drop attack disguised as a family cuddle.
Poor girl. You know what? She's so good about it.

pizza is easy!

After watching last Thursday's episode of Martha Stewart featuring the owner of Co. Pizza in Chelsea NYC I got inspired to make homemade pizza. It's been a couple years since I've done it and I really don't know why it's been so long. It's so quick and easy when you have a pizza stone.
This time around I picked up a couple really awesome techniques I wanted to share. First is to heat your oven to 500 degrees. This works to get that really rustic thin crust style. Second is to dress your pizza once you've placed your dough on the hot stone. This pizza is a Margarita with homemade tomato sauce, a little mozzarella and basil leaves.

shrove sunday

A co-worker of mine always hosts a pancake lunch every year on Shrove Tuesday. She made crepes and shared me with me the techniques. That night, I rambled on an on to Nuno telling him how delicious and simple it was. My absolute favourite is to squeeze lemon and sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar over the crepe.

So we decided to invest in a crepe pan and have a dessert style crepe buffet this morning.

We had Caramelized Apple Crepes and Bananas Foster Crepes.

They are so delicious.