so. question. do you make bread? it's such a rush. a delicious, wholesome, addictive rush. and the best part is that it's not nearly as hard as it looked before i started. 


if you're not so sure... hop over to the smithfield blog for my amateur how-to guide and a sure-fire recipe. i'm convinced that once you have this skill in your back-pocket, you'll be all the happier for it. happy baking! 

you know that feeling after a shower? the one where you can't take how generous everyone is and it almost makes you cry? yeah. i have that.

thank you, thank you, thank you.

so many wonderfuls... we got our car seat, we got amazon $$, lots of homemade goodness (including 2 incredible knitted blankets by my mom and my grandma!), a boatload of onesies, teeny tiny hats, a chic bouncer, the first animal friends for baby harmsie, and more. friends, i love you.



sisters (and mom), i love you too! thanks for everything.
ps. haley, remember when we matched with our dresses and leggings? that was fun.

it came! the big 3-0. it feels awesome. i snapped these pics before heading to school... where the preschoolers insist on telling me, every day, 10x a day, "miss summer, your tummy's getting bigger!" i didn't know if they would really care or not, but they are so excited about this whole baby situation. the little girls give me extra hugs and pats, and the little boys aren't afraid to stare. it's adorable.

congratulations, lizzy! you are the winner of the shabby apple giveaway!! yay! please email me with your contact info:)

hi guys, how was your weekend? mine was fantastic. full of baby. be back later with more!

happy friday, friends! tomorrow is my very first baby shower! i'm packing up a dress and my yoga pants and extra tissues for my bloody nose. it seems like it should be sunny and warm on the day of a party, but there are clouds and snow in the forecast.. oh well! it rained on my wedding day:) nothing can bring me down. and we're having muffins! so, all is well. 

be back on monday with an update on the babes and me. photos are a promise. 


don't forget to enter the shabby apple giveaway! 
it ends tomorrow night. i can't wait to see who wins! 

when i hear nat king cole, i think of hanging out in my bedroom in 4th grade.

i was a strange kid.

i had a vintage schooldesk in my room that i thought was the coolest. and i loved to sit there and write in my planner (4th graders need planners?) with a rainbow assortment of highlighters, and listen to nat king cole. i loved that my bed was made. always. i loved my mini blinds. i loved that part of my window was blocked by the slope of our roof. i loved that my room was tiny, but there were endless possibilities for how i could re-position my bed. i loved to make lists and avoid practicing my piano books. (and now i cry because there is no piano in my house for me to avoid.) i loved seeing vacuum lines on my carpet. i loved turning on my lamp instead of the light. and i really loved nat king cole. i would put in the sleepless in seattle soundtrack to go to sleep on, and i would lay awake until i heard nat sing "stardust."

i'm putting it on the baby's naptime playlist.

for the new season. 
for fun. 
for the love of little flags. 

and here's what's up.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

sunshine & snow
very little of it (sun) and still lots of it (snow). today is all fog, and the ground looks like a snow cone that you've let sit too long. but patches of brown-green grass are starting to appear around the edges!

hair
debating whether or not to cut mine. i think i fell asleep last night going back and forth. do it now? (meaning the next time i see my sister-stylist) or after the baby is born?

pancakes
had another trial last night. they were big, fluffy, whole wheat giants. with buttery maple and orange juice.

baby names
every sunday during our drive to church, there is a road that we turn on that seems to switch our brains to baby names. we inevitably start discussing our favorites when we hit this magic spot. yesterday we tried to settle on our top two. tried.

naps
i am embarrassed to tell you how long our sunday naps are getting. it's a little ridiculous. we always say "if we just lay down for like an hour, the rest of the day will feel so much better." it is never just an hour.

sunday night
has become compensation. in an effort to justify the extra-long nap, i get my house clean, dinner cooked, dishes done and put away, laundry started, grant's lunch made, table wiped, clean bed made, etc. and i love nights like this.

grant
is going to be the ultimate dad. is a sickie today. i'm going to make him soup.

the madness
so i'm getting really into this basketball thing. did you know that brackets are so much fun? especially when you have brothers and sisters to compete against... and prize money.

showers, of all sorts
first baby shower coming up in few days! yay. woke up to rain on our roof this weekend. i haven't heard that in ages. (i think it was supposed to be snow.) and i'm going to try vinegar water instead of conditioner in the shower today. my sister in law tells me it is pretty amazing stuff. wish me luck! speaking of the shower, i should get there. i'm substituting for the afternoon preschool class today.

why not take a picture, right? what makes them so irresistible that we must stop making dinner (yes) to do this? you know what i mean. if we pooled our egg photos, we'd have billions. and it still wouldn't be enough.



but i'm glad i ended up with egg photos on my camera, because it's the perfect way to bring up the revolution that has occurred in my life.. i scramble my eggs differently now. the butter and milk method i learned in girlhood is a thing of the past. there was a time earlier this year when i went off dairy for a bit, just to see how it affected me. so i laid off cereal (i really do love cereal) and picked up oatmeal. but i still wanted my eggs. scrambled eggs are a staple at our house.

that's when i discovered that my eggs don't need milk. my eggs don't need anything. the way to my heart is a good, firm, not wet, scrambled egg. happily, this is how grant prefers his eggs also.

dear baby

how i wonder what you are.

i can't picture what a little bit of your dad plus a little bit of me could possibly look like. will you have our dark brown eyes? will you have my chipmunk cheeks? will you get your dad's extra long torso? what will your hair look like? whatever you have, no one's ever seen it before. and i know i'm going to love it.

last week i made a list of a whole bunch of things we can do together someday. i remember a lot of them from when i was a little girl. (and can i tell you something? even though i'm going to be your mommy, i still feel like a little girl today. i love it.) my mom- your grandma- would tell us, "we're going to the library today" or "put on your swimming suit!" or "we're having fried egg sandwiches for lunch" ... and i thought that it was just the best day ever. i hope it's like that for you. we're going to have an awesome time.

i think you might've had the hiccups yesterday. it was the first time i felt like there was a rhythm to your flutters. it was right before we got out of bed in the morning.. right before your mom's nose started dripping blood. yuck! bloody noses are becoming quite the thing around here. but don't worry, it just means that my blood volume is on the rise, which is what we want for you.

speaking of things going up, your mommy's weight. exciting. sometimes i stand in the shower and can't believe that my stomach is real- and it's you. my middle is so thick that i really don't recognize it anymore. i'm still in my normal jeans, but it's getting to be pretty amazing that i can maneuver into them. and my t-shirts! where did all the length go? but yesterday i figured out that your daddy's white tees now fit me like a dream, so i can just steal from his closet until you get here.

well, i'm glad you spent your first winter safe and warm inside my tummy. i'm glad you don't even know about winter yet. and now spring is almost here! today it's supposed to be 54 degrees outside, which is the warmest it's been since the very beginning of november. yay. pretty soon the hub will be opening, which is our favorite way to celebrate spring. we'll take you there for burgers and fries when you get here. you'll love it.

look out for lots more oranges in the next few weeks.. your daddy just bought us a whole new crate! mmm. i've been eating a few every day, as i'm sure you know. hopefully they taste as good to you as they do to me.

keep the kicks coming, they are my favorite.

loves,

your mom

question: don't you love when dinner comes together in a single pan? doesn't it make everything seem simpler and more do-able? this is why i love skillet meals. and why i love my cast iron pan. everything tastes better in a cast iron. and did you know that food cooked in cast iron, especially acidic foods like tomato sauce, has up to 20x as much iron than it would cooked elsewhere? nice.

so i saw eat, pray, love a couple weekends ago, and have a new-found love for spaghetti and pizza. the italy part just drove me nuts. movies always start food cravings in me. do you deal with that, too? i remember watching charlotte's web as a little girl, and every time, i knew i'd see their stacks of pancakes, with a square of butter on top... dripping with syrup... and i almost couldn't bear it.

anyway, today you can hop over to find a super easy recipe i posted for skillet spaghetti with andouille and spinach on the smithfield blog. mmm. spaghetti.

ps. please tell me which movie scenes make your mouth water in the comment box. i'd love to hear.


----wow! you guys have such great movie-food memories, too! i love it! 

i'm 28 weeks now, but in my head that better translates to 2 weeks shy of 30. let's just smoosh these next 14 days together so i can put a 3 in front of my progress. not that i want it to be over, but i do want to feel like i've come a long way. who doesn't? i can't stop looking ahead. and 30 looks like a benchmark. maybe then i could even say i'm "close." i realize i keep marking this pregnancy's progress like there's something astonishing about it.. like time gone by is some sort of phenomenon. but it's the only way i can stand the wait. must mark the milestones, no matter how normal they are.

when people ask me how i'm feeling, i can't say enough good things. the baby behaves beautifully. kicking when i want to know she/he's there, allowing me to do 3 miles on the treadmill, giving me an honest tired at the end of every day, and by and large, letting me do my thing. it's honestly been a breeze. plus benefits. i feel pretty euphoric walking around with this little harmsie inside. sure, every day i wonder if my t-shirt will be long enough to meet the waistband of my pants, but it's amazing how a certain kind of bulging torso can make you feel like you've become important somehow. or at least a little bit special. praise the Lord for a smooth, healthy, enjoyable pregnancy. basically, other than this growing tummy (i am feeling bigger these days) and the bizarre movement inside me, i feel completely normal. better than normal. no "symptoms". i guess that just goes to show me the incredible naturalness of having a baby. i don't know what i expected, but God designed my body specifically to do this job, and He did it perfectly.


happily, no big news to report with this baby bulletin. oh, and no line crawling up my tummy either. i actually have a circle around my belly button, which i've read lots of people get, and they don't like the way it looks. well. i think it looks cool.

ps. no, i really don't have a hunch about whether it's a girl or a boy. i thought i did, but lately i just go back and forth. i'm no good at this intuition stuff.

and so many more. i've had this list sitting in my google docs for awhile, slowing getting longer. it's mostly made up of happy memories from my own childhood and things i've dreamed about for the longest time. not included that i already wish i had added: dance to michael jackson, teach them about camp shetek, and grant would probably like them to watch star wars sometime, too.

there's actually only 49 listed, but i figured you wouldn't take the time to count, and if you did... you would just smile at me.

happy friday, friends.
from the one who can't wait to be a mom.

i was loving the comment box. thank you for taking a minute out of your day to share your baby faves with me.
i can't wait to do some more shopping! and don't worry, amazon mom is definitely in my future.

and wow, so many of you guys know your randy moss!!
way to go. you win. grant was impressed.

wishing you a lovely thurs,
summer

ps. a minute ago i send grant an email telling him that i left my phone at the gym yesterday. my phone just rang a few feet behind me. pregnancy brain fog??

are you other mommys-to-be on this? i am! come and join me! it's seriously soooo nice. granted, we live in tiny town, USA and have very (very) limited shopping. and target is hours away. so...... amazon feels like you just handed me the sun, the moon, and the stars.

but anyway, i'm loving it because:
you don't have to roam the store with a plastic gun, feeling like every decision is the biggest one you've ever made, and get worn out after one aisle. (tell me i'm not the only one that feels this way.)
you can sit on your couch. and browse blogs when you are tired of comparing car seats.
they do that nice 10% completion discount thing. really nice.
they do "universal registry", so i've been adding things to my wish list from any site. anywhere!
they have a super nice thank you list that tracks who has bought things for you.
and amazon gift cards. from $0.01- $5,000. straight cash, homey. money in your baby piggy bank.

just thought you ought to know. it's out there, and it's awesome.
i already have a thank you to write!! how exciting. and while we're on the subject, please tell me,

what did you register for that you're really glad about now? or, what gift were you given that you couldn't live without? 

grant is going to love that i quoted randy moss in this post.
if you can tell me where i quoted him, you win.

to those of you who answered my call for pancake recipes last friday, i say thank you. i went through and looked up each one. it was 10 o'clock at night. and there was drool. do you ever find yourself with 14 recipe windows open on your computer and you're dying to taste all of them, and it's a totally inappropriate time to get up and actually make any food? that's me. a lot. i yearned for morning to come faster. of course, i'm going to try them all. it'll give me something to preoccupy my baby mind.

i let grant pick out which would be our first trial, and he decided on these cornmeal pancakes. he chose wisely. (thank you for the link, jackie!) they were yummy light and buttery and tasted... golden. i don't think that's technically a taste, but try them and you'll see.

cornmeal pancakes
lightly adapted from simple bites... an awesome site. i couldn't help but wander around.

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup milk
3 T. butter, melted and cooled completely
1 large egg, lightly beaten

whisk together first 6 ingredients. in a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients. whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just combined (mix will be lumpy). heat a large cast iron skillet over medium low heat. grease lightly with coconut oil or butter. pour batter onto skillet 1/3 cup at a time. cook until edges are set (bubbles may not appear as with traditional pancakes), flip and cook until golden brown. keep prepared pancakes warm on a baking sheet in the oven.




notes. i can't wait to try all of her homemade syrups! mmm. last night we tried her suggestion for buttery maple, and i'm never going back. yumm. such a simple way to make that spendy pure maple syrup go farther and taste even more delish. i also tried some with blackberry jam, and loved those bites too.

i omitted the sugar from the original recipe. you'd never know.

loved her suggestion to store your cooked cakes in a low oven until you're finished flipping. we do this at camp when we're making 400 pancakes at a time- why haven't i been doing it at home?! i actually got to sit and enjoy hot pancakes with my husband:)

so. can we have pancakes every night this week?

i love spinach and artichoke dip, don't you? today i turned it into a hummus for a healthier, more protein-friendly version of my fave. mmm. happy snacking. i've been extra aware about getting enough protein lately. for the babes. did you know that greek yogurt has like 20 grams of protein? amazing. and really delicious with purple grapes. 

seems like lately there's always something more i could be doing. (i.e. more protein) and other things i could be less doing. and other things i just don't feel like doing. this weekend i got a little restless. i found myself with a few spare sitting-down minutes and i spent them thinking, what should i be doing? growing this baby is now top priority. and nothing else really compares to that anymore. nothing else is as fun. i just want to be busy with my baby job.

speaking of the littlest harmsie, some of you have been asking how we are doing. thanks! you are so thoughtful. we're doing awesome. we're only 10 weeks away from being "full term." how about that for a little freaking out moment? (i realize that's only 37 weeks.. and the wait will probably be much longer. but it's just an exciting thought!) for more details, see my dear baby letter from last week. and expect another one soon.





hot spinach & artichoke hummus

15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
14 ounce can artichoke hearts, drained, rinsed, and given a coarse chop
1 handful fresh spinach
2 cloves garlic, minced
juice of half a lemon
1 green onion, chopped
2 T. olive oil
pinch cayenne pepper, or more if you like it hot
salt, to taste (about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp)
4 T. mayo
1 cup parmesan

combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth. scoop into an oven safe dish. bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. serve with salty crackers, veggies, tortilla chips, or naan.
for a more traditional hummus omit mayo and parmesan and add 2 T. tahini. serve room temp.



meanwhile, we're still buried deep in winter here and expecting more snow tomorrow. but we won't think about that right now. for now, let's eat hummus and be happy.

and i'm still hooked on this.
and i'm finishing each batch by myself.
and there's no sign of slowing down.


in other news.. last night i did an interview about pregnancy nutrition with an old high school friend. super fun. she's getting married this summer and will be living in australia, in a house near the beach. wowww.

and today i'm baking cakes with my mother-in-law.
and tomorrow i'll shop for maternity clothes/go to basketball games/look for a new blow dryer.
and all week i've been wanting pancakes. what's your fave recipe? i feel like trying 10 different kinds.

have been browsing gear for the babes- still no clue whether it's a little mister or a little miss. and i love it. it requires a little bit of subtlety. whites, creams, grays, and a bit of red is where my mind likes to dwell these days, and that suits me fine. neutrals might be my fave anyway. these are some things i love..

signature wagon onesie from black wagon. bear rattle from blabla. lotus print blanket from tea collection. wooden brush set from ore originals. red jogging stroller by joovy. (the only thing we actually have so far!) basic white onesies by gerber.

dear baby

they told me once you start month 7 (which we did 2 days ago), your arms and legs will be getting longer and stronger. enough to make an impression on my abs. well we found that out for ourselves at 3:30 this morning, didn't we? remember when your kicks woke me up?! that was fun. lately your mom has been sleeping like a baby long and hard. seems like i've heard somewhere that babies don't sleep through the night :) well, your mommy still does, and i'm guessing that will last a bit longer yet, but i wouldn't mind some more wake-up kicks now and then either.

your favorite times to really get moving are when i lay down to sleep at night (which now requires a small pillow between my knees, and it happens to be the one that your dad made in 8th grade home ec class) and right before i get up in the morning, but i'm noticing more and more of your flutters throughout the day too. we've started a little game where once you've given me one of your big kicks, i will start talking to you and press on the spot where i saw you. i think you like playing along with me. you seem to be even more active when we're in the game.

last night your daddy and i went to the last home game of the basketball season. we're pretty much regulars in the stands now, and i love to think that the next time we sit on those high school bleachers, you'll be with us! i wonder if you'll be a basketball player like your dad? speaking of your daddy, lately he's been teasing me about the infamous double-sneeze i've adopted since you came into the picture. it seems like i can't sneeze singles anymore. weird.

last weekend we had sesame chicken for the first time! did you love it? that was one of the things your mommy craved when you were just starting out, and we finally, finally got it. yay. someday i will take you to ming's, where your mom spent many a $3.95 on sesame chicken in her high school days. the days when i drove a black geo prizm with your aunt haley, when i was using my very first debit card- except not at ming's because they only took cash, when i was wearing my favorite white sunglasses, and listening to john mayer in a cd player in my green bedroom. the days before i knew your dad and before i had a clue i would get to have you inside me.

we are still loving the treadmill, even though we've slowed down for the home stretch. and we're also doing prenatal pilates! very good for us. lots of pelvic floor work. apparently, "if we keep this up, we'll be ready for delivery." that's what the lady on the dvd tells me. all i know is that i feel really good while i'm doing that reverse plank. and my lower back aches are gone! i had some little ones at the very beginning, and i thought they'd get worse as you got bigger, but they've disappeared. my chiropractor says my pelvis looks "awesome." i never knew i'd be so excited to hear those words. i never knew i'd hear those words, period.

today your mom is listening to imogen heap (you'll know her by heart, i'm guessing) and baking some bread. two of her favorite things. i'm also planning on adding a few things to our baby registry for you. i find myself sitting up straighter at the desk when i remember that i have you inside me. you're a foot long by now! it blows me away that you have enough room in there. but i hear you like to be cozy, so i'm thinking the tight quarters are pretty dreamy to you.

it's march today! only april and may can keep us apart now.

loves.

your mom