Meet Calvin James - Born April 30, 2011

Today we met our son, Calvin James Ferland. What a blessing.

Born Saturday, April 30th at 10:02 am. He was 7lbs 14 oz and 20 inches

Belly pics -- weeks 11-39

I'm not going to lie - I haven't been very good about taking weekly belly shots.  I felt kind of silly because for the first 20 weeks, I pretty much looked the same as I do everyday.  Documenting the lack of a baby bump didn't intrigue me.  As a result, I have pieced together a compilation of pictures that span the weeks of 11-31.  There are some that we have that are still missing but for the most part, you can see my progress here.  I'll update this post as my waistline continues to expand.  Thankfully this has been somewhat of a slow process and given me time to get used to my new figure.

                                           Week 11 -- needle and thread test

                                           Week 12 -- 1 year anniversary

                                                     Week 18

  

Week 20

                                                        Week 24

                                                  Week 26 -- Nashville visit

                                                       Week 28

                                                     Week 30

                                                  Week 31

                                                               Week 32

                                                       

                                                             Week 33

                                                       Week 33 belly

                                                              Week 34

                                                                 Week 35

                                                                 Week 36

                                                                 Week 38
                             (I know, we missed Week 37 but nothing changed I swear)

                                                               Week 39

Out with the Old, In with the New Counter Tops!

One of the last major home improvement projects that we needed to complete before the baby arrives has been our counter tops.  Whoever lived in our house before us installed these travertine tile counter tops in our kitchen.  The grout ended up absorbing ALL possible dirt and food particle ever prepared in that kitchen.  The travertine tiles themselves had lots of holes and divets to also collect crumbs etc.  I have hated the counter tops ever since we moved into the house in October 2008 but we were saving for a wedding, carpets, blah blah blah.  I put my foot down after getting pregnant exclaiming that it would be unsanitary for us to raise a baby with tile counter tops.  Nothing but granite would do!  I might've been over the top but I now have beautiful granite counter tops that have completely increased the value of our home and will save Jon from having to hear me complain about them daily.

Before Pics -- hideous travertine tile

Overall view

 

 

Gross grout -- this is after scrubbing diligently

Yes -- full of dirt, crumbs and debris

After Pics -- beautiful granite

 

Demolition

 

Leveling everything off

I love coming home to this!

Easter Menu 2011

Last year I tried out some new recipes for Easter and some worked out well while others fell flat.  Fortunately, I was feeding Jon, cousin Mikey and Dustin, so things I would normally worry about like, "flavor profiles" were somewhat lost on a group of hungry men.  They enjoyed it all and ate it happily so it was an overall success.

This year, my apron strings will be stretched to capacity and I will have to do some advanced planning to bake things on Saturday so Sunday is less hectic.

Here is what I have planned so far.  It doesn't seem like enough food for 4-6 people but I always seem to make too much.  I might double the beet salad since I could eat the entire thing on my own!

I need some ideas for desserts --

Menu:

• Ham
• Lasagna 
• Asparagus
• Roasted beet and goat cheese arugula salad
• Scalloped potatoes
• Biscuits (pictured below)

Ramp and buttermilk biscuits with coriander seeds (www.epicurious.com)

car seats and cat calls

Forgot to mention it earlier, but a few weeks ago, I was hard at work one Saturday installing car seats. Once I had it as best I could, I brought it to the fire house for them to check it (they are all certified in that). They were in the middle of some other training, but they send one new guy (mid-20’s) out to look everything over for me.

As we are in the middle of everything, we hear the group of firemen behind us start hooting and hollering – turns out there is a wedding party getting into a limo across the street and the guys wanted to show their support. When the bride finally comes out, they really get excited and get some honking and sirens from the fire engine. Nice little sendoff for the ladies I’m sure.

And I felt a little bad about taking the guy away from some good ole fashioned cat calling, but figured he would get over it pretty soon