New hair!

Hey all!

I just thought I would pop on here and share my new 'do with you.  I was getting sick of the super-long locks, so I chopped it off!  This is so much lighter and easier to maintain.  It will be great for when the baby gets here!

Above is a picture from last week just for comparison.  I took off 14 inches from the back and 12 inches from the front.  I will be sending it to Locks of Love.

And here are the front and side views (obviously belly pictures! Haha. 25 weeks by the way!).

I love it a lot!  It's so much lighter.  Yay for change!

Today's Outfit:

I thought I would just pop in here to post an outfit.  Hopefully if I can get my husband on board with taking frequent pictures of me, you guys can have an idea of how I dress my bump.  If nothing else, it will be a good reference for myself on some go-to outfits during pregnancy.  Here is my work attire for the day:

It could use some accessorizing, but it's not bad for 6:30 in the morning. :)

It's a GIRL!!!!

Well, as promised, I figured I would come back and update the world on our news:

We will be having a baby girl!!!

We are both so thrilled with that news.  Here are some pictures of our adorable daughter:

I'm sure we will have gobs of fun shopping and preparing for this little lady!  This is such an amazing time for us.  I love my little family!!

Happy New Year!

Well, as the title says, I want to wish you all a happy new year!

Here's my exciting announcement from my Christmas holiday:  I got a new camera!  Yay!  My fabulous parents were very generous this year.  Now I don't have to keep torturing you all with my terribly edited cell-phone pictures.  It's a Fujifilm S4000 Finepix.  I'm very new to the whole fancy-camera game, so I don't know much about it, but I'm very excited to start testing it out.

(This is me at 18 weeks, by the way)

See?  So much better.  And probably even better when I start learning how to use it.  In other news, we find out what gender the baby is in 5 days, so I'm sure you can expect a post soon after that.  Can't wait to see my little munchkin wiggling around on the screen!

I hope you all have a fun, safe, and glittery New Year's Eve!  Until 2012...Tucker out!

I'm Baaack!!!

Hello again, folks, and Happy Holidays!

First of all, I want to apologize for my very long absence.  Between school, work, and holiday prep, I haven't had a second of free time to dedicate to my blog.  As the semester at school has been winding down, I've also been immensely busy studying and prepping for finals.  Only 5 months left until I graduate!!  From now until Christmas I will be busy trying to squeeze in my gift shopping and crafts and any baking I may do.  I'll be sure to post about anything creative I manage to accomplish.

There has also been another reason for the silence on the blog.  I knew if I came here in the last few months, I would have spilled the beans on our little secret.  Fortunately, the cat's out of the bag to all of our family and friends now, so I'll share the news with my readers too:

Yep, that's right!  There's a baby in there!  T and I are so very excited to announce that we are expecting and everything is going swimmingly so far.  We can't wait to find out the gender (hopefully around New Year's), and start shopping and working on baby projects.  Naturally, I'll share plenty of the details of those things with you.  I look forward to any creative input or suggestions you folks may have too!

Quick Tip Tuesday!

I'm just popping in with a quick tip for you all today.  I'm not sure if I will make this a regular segment of the blog, but hopefully I will be able to find the time.

I'm not sure what it is like in other areas, but where I live, we have very hard water.  All of the mineral deposits can clog up our faucets, showerheads, and pipes.  I especially have trouble with the dishwasher.  It seems like it doesn't drain very well, and all of the dishes end up with foggy deposits all over them.  This is especially troublesome considering my recent switch to all glass food storage.  Solution?

One cup of distilled white vinegar tossed in with each load.  It magically makes my hard water troubles disappear!  I <3 vinegar.

Homemade Butter

Two posts in one day!    You can all tell that Thursdays are when I have the most free time now, huh?

Well, today I did a deep clean of my kitchen, and when I reached the fridge, I realized that I had a whole container of whipping cream that was nearing its expiration date.  I picked it up meaning to use it to make sugar cream pie for my husband's coworkers, but totally forgot (Don't worry guys!  I'll make up for it with tons of goodies this holiday season!).  So since I had to use it up quickly, and I had already promised my husband some banana bread, I set to work in the kitchen.

The muffins turned out just as scrumptious as always, and my mother-in-law showed up just as they were coming out of the oven.  We enjoyed some Starbucks and met up with my hubby during his dinner break at work.  When I came back, I finished whipping up the butter.  There was so much extra whipping cream that I decided to make whipped cream too.  I was inspired by our salted caramel frappuccinos and decided that I could use it to top my coffee drinks at home.  Unfortunately, I wasn't even thinking of this process as a possible blog post, so I didn't take any "in-process" pictures.

So yummy!  And such an easy, quick way to use up left over whipping cream.  I forsee yummy, buttery muffins and a frou-frou coffee drink for my breakfast tomorrow!