11*11*11

This is what we were up to at 11:11 on 11.11.11:

My cute mom called me and reminded me to be sure to document this moment. That only happens once in a LIFETIME. We were at the park, sunny and in the 60s. Nothing to complain about there. Amelia did not like being stopped to take a picture with mom, as you can tell. She is getting so good at parks, going up and down slides all by herself.

Another cute thing about Amelia, she has to sleep with her baby and her blanket. Those are the two mandatory items. But often times the other baby joins her, and the glow worm, and Minnie Mouse. And they don't just stay in the crib, she hands me all of them before I can pick her up and get her out after nap. Today she was begging me for nap, and in her delirium grabbed the glow worm to put in the crib with her. I quickly changed her diaper and she peeks into her crib and says, uh-oh. Wrong baby in the crib. And she ran out to get the right baby. She cracks me up.

One last note about Baby #2. Notice that I am no longer referring to her as Lucy. The name is subject to change! Lucy is still toward the top of the list, but Juan was getting cold feet about it and now another name has emerged as a front-runner. I love it! I love looking at names and so I'm excited for the possible change. We do still have 2 months-from today actually!

Another Quilt

First off, I had a few requests for the Caramel Apple Cheesecake recipe, so I thought I'd just post it here. I got it from http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2010/09/caramel-apple-cheesecake-bars.html. It is delicious. And I have a history of messing up with desserts, but I have made this twice successfully. There are a lot of steps and it takes work, but well worth it!

Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars

Crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

Cheesecake Filling:

3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons, divided

3 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Apples:

3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Streusel topping, recipe follows

1/2 cup caramel topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, combine flour and brown sugar. Cut in butter with a pastry blender (or 2 forks) until mixture is crumbly. Press evenly into a 9x13 baking pan lined with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with 3/4 cup sugar in an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth. Then add eggs, 1 at a time, and vanilla. Stir to combine. Pour over warm crust.

In a small bowl, stir together chopped apples, remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Spoon evenly over cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle evenly with Streusel topping. Bake 40-45 minutes, or until filling is set. Drizzle with caramel topping and let cool. Serve cold and enjoy!

Streusel Topping:

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. I like to really combine it by using my clean hands to thoroughly combine the butter into the mixture.

I have finally started the quilt for baby #2. With Amelia, I had her quilt done by this time in my pregnancy. So I'm getting a bit of a late start. I thought I'd be a professional sewer by now, but actually no, I haven't done 1 sewing project since! The above picture IS NOT the finished product of a quilt I made, but instead my inspiration. I love the aqua/dark pink combo. But please do not expect my quilt to be that beautiful.

I loved making Amelia's quilt and I am excited to get started again! I have the fabric and have already cut out a few squares. I'll get a picture of my fabric once the squares are all cut. 

See you next time!

Halloween!

 Our little bee.

It makes me happy when I successfully capture all our memories with the camera. We had the best halloween weekend filled with fun parties. And we're headed to another party tonight! 

 Delicious Caramel Apple Cheesecake that I made for a party. The perfect Fall dessert.

 Amelia LOVED the bouncy house at the ward party. She stayed pretty close by it all night, which worked for us because we could see her from where we were sitting to eat dinner.

 I'm not going to reveal what Juan was until the end of the post so I want you to think real hard. If Amelia is a bee and I'm a flower, what could Juan be that fits with the theme?

 I was sad that the pumpkin patch didn't have a cut-out for pictures like this, and so I was thrilled to see our church party had one. Unfortunately Amelia's head looked like this in both pictures, she was too interested in that monkey!

 Our car all decorated for Trunk or Treat!

 Amelia taking a rest and trying a treat after a long night of trick-or-treating (10 cars total, haha)

 Juan and Jason passing out candy. And if you look closely, you can see the princess resting safely in the trunk between them. 

 Amelia helping dad carve the pumpkin.

And now that I've held you in suspense... Juan is Honey! More specifically the honey that comes in the bear with the pointy spout. That's right folks, genius. Pat yourselves on the back if you guessed right.

29 weeks Update

 Please note Amelia's adorable cowboy boots that my sister Kelly sent. 

I had a doctor's appointment today. Amelia came along and chilled in her stroller the whole time like a good little girl. Everything was good! Baby's heartbeat is strong, all my vitals are perfect. I have been feeling great. Although some days I go overboard and have some rough evenings where I literally can't peel myself off the couch.

 I had a rough round with RLS, restless leg syndrome. Does anyone else get this during pregnancy? When I'm trying to fall asleep, it just feels like I need to shake the life out of my legs, they don't calm down. I finally started wearing socks and Aveeno lotion on my legs before bed. That has seemed to help. 

I'm so excited for the Holidays! We have some Halloween parties to hit up this weekend. And in honor of Halloween, Amelia has been playing her own dress-up around the house:

How do you like her new look?

Fall Fun

It is Fall here in Texas. Today it was 85 degrees and breezy, quite nice really. But still shorts weather. We got a pumpkin for our family today at the Pumpkin Patch. And we are getting our costumes ready for Halloween! Time is flying by.

 We have been busy spoiling our little girl. I found her this table at Toys R Us for only $15 and she loves it. She eats every meal there and she reads her books. 

 I am still having to show off her new outfits. My friend Kasee picked out this little cardigan for her and it is just my favorite thing on her! And another serious model pose. 

 Amelia reads books for hours every day. Seriously she could go two full hours looking at book after book, and some of that time I read to her also. But most of the time she is Miss Independent.

 She has recently become obsessed with The Lion King. It is the only movie she has sat through. She's seen it about 3 times now, but asks me every day to watch it and can always find it on the dvd shelf. She got this Simba last year from Juan's mom's boyfriend, and now they are really bffs. She sits on him and plays with toys and drags him all over the house.

 We headed to the Pumpkin Patch today. Poor Lexi took a minute to warm up to the pumpkins. Amelia loved the pumpkins, but not the camera so much. 

I got this cute little bike at a garage sale this today for $3! Amelia LOVES it. I love when she loves the toys we get for her. She has spent half the day outside riding her trike, which she's still a little too short for. 

And I found these shoes at the garage sale also for $2. Adorable, and completely Amelia. She loves the flowers and tries to smell them.

I have been spending my time exploring. We have found new parks, amazing parks. And neighborhoods that I can't wait to drive through with Juan and drool over the beautiful homes. I'm 28 weeks already! Like I said before, time is really flying by.

San Antonio

Saturday was our long day in San Antonio. We were able to visit the temple. We woke up bright and early and made the drive. I stayed at a church right by the temple and hung out with Amelia while Juan went to the temple. And then I took my turn as Juan went to lunch and hung out with Amelia that afternoon. It makes for a long day, but not too inconvenient really. In our church, we make an extra effort to attend the temple as often as we can. In Utah, the temple was 1 mile away. In Texas, it is a 90 minute drive. The San Antonio temple is beautiful.

After the temple, we decided to explore San Antonio a little bit. We ate at a restaurant along the Riverwalk, Zuni Grill. Bad bad bad. I got enchiladas, it was canned chicken and soggy corn tortillas. I couldn't make it through. I hate wasting money on food, so next time we'll need a recommendation. And we'll also want to go back at night when all the restaurants are lit up and reflecting off the water.

We also saw The Alamo! There was a bride there getting all her wedding pictures done and I thought that was just perfect. A classic Texas backdrop. A lot of people are not overly impressed by The Alamo, I thought it was very neat. And it's right downtown, for some reason we thought it would be in the middle of nowhere.

I spoke in church on Sunday on Building our Faith in Jesus Christ. The times in my life that my faith has grown the most has been through trials. Our little family is experiencing a huge change right now, with living in a new place and so far from family, and Juan starting a new job. We have tried to focus on our scripture study and our prayers. And I know that Heavenly Father has blessed us here. I never thought it would be possible to feel so at home in Texas so soon.

And best development of all, Amelia stayed in nursery this week during the last hour! Amelia didn't like being left behind by mommy and daddy. But this week, week 4 I believe, she did it! So here's hoping that she continues and Juan and I can enjoy our church meetings while Amelia is happily playing and learning too.

Smile for the Camera

 This picture is a couple weeks old, this is me at 24 weeks. I'm showing a lot more than last pregnancy, which I think is typical. I do love being pregnant, I am very blessed with comfortable pregnancies so far.

 Our newest milestone is Amelia now poses for the camera. This is very new and VERY hilarious. I tell her to smile big and she turns to the side and closes her eyes tight with a huge smile. Ha ha, that is her BIG smile.

 This is her soft pose, almost with a modern dance move in there a little bit.

 And there's her real smile! It has been a long time since she smiled for the camera so I am thrilled with this new development. She is showing off her new pajamas.

 The weekend was spent buying furniture, assembling that furniture, and hanging pictures. We got a tv stand, which is really a bookshelf. A lot of our friends have it and we just had to join the club because it is so practical, super cheap and great for storage. I love the look of it also.

 Our kitchen. I kept waiting to take this picture until it was clean. Well there is a reason I didn't include the sink area in the picture, my kitchen is never clean. And I'm content with that.

 Amelia just started wearing the next size up and we were given some pretty cute pair of jeans. This is the first time I've ever put her in jeans and so the first day she was walking stiffly, barely bending her knees. She is used to them now. Isn't this the cutest picture ever! And she looks so grown up.

And let us not forget the serious model pose. She is still working on keeping those eyes open for the flash, haha.

Our weekend was also spent watching General Conference. I especially loved the talk by Sister Dalton on Fathers raising daughters. That hit really close to home, and of course Juan and I both listened very hard when she said the best way to raise good daughters was to Love their mother. Love that. We also spent the weekend with many friends. We feel so very welcome here, and we love our old and new friends!