Home Inspection

We had our potential soon to be home on the 21st (yes, the same day as our ultrasound, it was a big day!)  The inspection went great, there are definitely some things that needed to be fixed, but they were all things that we could do ourselves for fairly inexpensive.  We put in our request for things to be fixed and she agreed to fix most of them.  All we have left is the appraisal and some final paperwork stuff with the bank!  We got to spend a few hours at the house, wandering around, taking a few more pictures, and planning where we want to put furniture, measuring things...it was great!  The place was bigger than we remembered, still not huge but bigger than we remembered.  We took a few more pictures, they aren't as cute as the pictures in the listing, but they are mostly for us to remember some small details and spacing things for planning furniture. We are even more excited for it to be ours!

The closet in the baby's room.

Inside the baby's closet.

The oh, so lovely washer and dryer closet...and yes the washer and dryer stay!

This is the front hallway, the closet you see on the right is the hallway laundry closet.

Andrew standing next to the kitchen table, looking down the hallway towards the bedrooms.

From the middle of the living room, looking toward the kitchen table.  You can see the front hallway off to the right too.

This is me :)  Looking at some paperwork while I stand on the heater and and warm my toes.

Standing by the kitchen table looking in toward the living room.  We are thinking that we will put the couches along this wall.

The view of the whole living room.

A view of the kitchen and the kitchen table area.

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Happy Birthday Tyler!

MENC Conference

Last weekend Andrew and I went to the MENC conference in Bellevue. Well Andrew went to the conference, I went to the concert he was in, and stayed in the fancy hotel with our friends. It was way fancier than anything we normally do. Luckily for us, Western paid for the hotel room on Thursday and Friday night and then we split the cost of the room with friends for Saturday night. The hotel we stayed in was right across from Bell Square shopping mall, I felt like we were in some fancy compound that connected with tons of hotels and shops (there were skybridges!). My mom and sisters (and Levi) came up on Saturday afternoon and we walked around the mall and ate. It was a delightful way to spend the afternoon! Overall, it was a great weekend hanging out with friends, eating way too much good food, and spending a large amount of money eating out!

P.S. It's crazy to think that we probably won't do anything like this again before baby comes!

Knitting

Andrew made our baby a sleep sack! He hasn't decided yet whether to put a zipper or a tie on the bottom, and it still needs two buttons at the top around the neck, but I think it's adorable. It is so soft! We are a little worried about it being too small, but if we have a big baby then he has plans to make it into a doll.

Ultrasound

We had our "20 week" ultrasound on the 21st, I loved it! Even though we stuck to our plan not to find out if we were having a boy or a girl it was still very exciting to see the baby wiggling around. I could watch a hand jump around on the screen and feel it at the same. So fun to be able to identify what those movements are! It's amazing to me what you can see on this ultrasound. The baby is almost completely formed and is just working on growing for the next 19 weeks. In fact, I've been told that in less than 2 weeks our baby will be considered viable, meaning that it would likely survive if born. Of course, I would rather Baby Bybee stayed inside to cook a little bit longer, but it's exciting to know that it is getting so developed!  The technician checked the baby out thoroughly and everything is perfectly on schedule.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the ultrasound.

Somebody is happy to see us!

Check out that spine!

See those fingers?

All the toes are there too!

Do think baby look more like Andrew or me?

Update

On top of all of that other stuff we have going on...I'm sick.  Viral pneumonia, which basically means you got the flu and got fluid in your lungs. No antibiotics, you just have to let it run it's course and hope you can prevent getting a secondary infection.  It's not fun.  I haven't been this wiped out in a long time.  I am currently on movie number 4.

I'm thinking that in the next 24 hours I might actually be able to get some posts written while I sit on the couch.  Here's what I want to get down in writing:

Our ultrasound on Monday
Our home inspection, more pictures of the house, and where we are in the process
Baby shower fun
The MENC Conference we went to
Our lovely midwives
Birthing Classes
More knitting by Andrew
A post about Lucy

Now that I'm actually reading the list, that all sounds very ambitious. 

Socks

Andrew completed his first knitting project for Baby Bybee and his first pair of socks!  Aren't they cute?  I love the bright red color and they are so soft!  I love that I have a husband who can make cute and functional clothing for our baby.

Wine

We bottled our Green Tomato Wine and the Cherry Wine. Andrew says they are both delicious, and they haven't even aged completely yet. Here is a picture of their last moments in carboys.

Mediterranean Minestrone Casserole

This is another one of those super easy and delicious recipes that you can throw in the crockpot the night before, start cooking in the morning, and eat dinner soon after you get home. I loved it so much that I ate it for lunch for days after!

Mediterranean Minestrone Casserole
4 carrots chopped
1 onion chopped
1 cup water
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cup cut green beans
1 cup uncooked elbow macaroni
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Mix all ingredients except green beans, macaroni, and Parmesan cheese in a 4 quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours. Stir in green beans and macaroni, increase heat to high. Cook for an additional 20 minutes or until beans and macaroni are tender. Sprinkle with cheese.

Our New Potential Home

Here's link to the MLS listing, it has pictures!Click on the button that says "view all photos", otherwise the photos look all distorted.

Just as a teaser...

It's a cute, small place.  Two bedroom, two bathroom, on a bright sunny 1 acre lot.  It has two garages and a shed...we like it!  The view is amazing from almost every room in the house.  Did you see the bathtub?  The acre has plenty of useable space for a garden, chickens, and it already has fruit trees!  Can you tell we are excited and that we hope it will work out?  We will have to do a little downsizing to get of some of our extras, but it will be nice to have some garage storage space so that we can keep our gardening, hiking, camping, canning, and alcohol making gear out of the house.

Exciting News!

Sorry for the sporadic blogging, but life has been crazy the last week.  And it probably won't be slowing down anytime soon.

Here's the recap, more details later:
Monday: we got approved for a mortgage!
Tuesday: Andrew taught trumpet lessons, and then we looked at some homes online that our real estate agent sent us.
Wednesday: Dinner with friends, a much needed break!
Thursday: Andrew taught some more trumpet lessons, and then we had our first birth class.
Friday:  We crashed at home, and browsed more listings.
Saturday:  We spent 4 1/2 hours driving a large loop around the county doing drive-bys of houses for sale and narrowing the list of places that we are interested in.  Then dinner with friends at our place.
Sunday:  We spent 4 1/2 hours driving around with Andy, our wonderful real estate agent, and touring homes.  And...we made an offer on one!
Monday: The sellers made a counter offer, we talked to our lender, we accepted their counteroffer.  We went out to dinner to celebrate our exciting purchase (not to celebrate Valentine's Day, we don't do that).  Then I filed our taxes while Andrew worked on a transcription.
Tuesday:  Andrew dropped off our earnest money and is now teaching a full evening of lessons.  I set up an inspection on our possible soon to-be home and am working on listing some things on craiglist.

Want to hear about the next week?  It's just as crazy:
Wednesday:  20 weeks pregnant!  I have an appointment with naturopath, Lucy goes to daycare, and then we catch our breath.
Thursday:  Andrew leaves with the Western Wind Ensemble to go on tour and go the MENC conference (a music conference) I go to our birthing class.
Friday: I drop Lucy off at the kennel, then head down to meet Andrew at MENC.
Saturday: MENC conference in Bellevue.
Sunday:  Check out and drive home.
Monday: Pick up Lucy at the kennel.  Home inspection in the am, 20 week ultrasound in the afternoon.

And I can't think past that point.  I still have posts from last week that are almost done, and I have tons of things I want to write about.  I want to share pictures of our potential new home, tell you about our midwives and our birth class, mention the things we are getting rid of...the list goes on.  Maybe I will have time, but don't hold your breath.

19 weeks!

Our baby is the size of a mango this week! (According to The Bump).   Baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and is about 6 inches long from head to bottom.  Supposedly, baby can recognize our voices now...fun!  I am feeling great now, I'm rarely even nauseous in the mornings.  I definitely feel pregnant, meaning I notice the bump all the time now, but I'm not uncomfortable yet.  Now I see why people enjoy the second trimester!  I think that our registry is just about done.  We've picked out all the major items, can you see anything we've missed? Suggestions really are appreciated!  Here is the link to the registry: Baby registry.

Mexican Food with Family

At least a portion of my mom's side of the family has lived in the Portland area for my entire life. And, as long as I can remember, we have lived in the Seattle area. You wouldn't think that it would be hard to drive the 3 hours between Seattle and Portland, but it's a little too long for a day trip and it is always hard to find a few days to get away. So, we have a long standing tradition of meeting in Centralia, half way between Seattle and Portland.  Depending on who all is coming to meet, and what the occasion is, we usually eat at either Burgerville or the Mexican Restaurant.  This time, we chose the Mexican Restaurant.  We were missing a few people due to last minute illnesses and work, but it was still great to be together and catch up.  We don't get together nearly often enough, I wish we weren't all so busy!  It was nice to see everyone, it's never long enough.  Granny was kind enough to send me the pictures that she sent as I didn't take any of my own, if anyone else has any...you should send them my way!

Nicole and Manu

Nicole and Si'i

Missy Emma

Nate, Levi, and Rachelle

Rachelle, Levi, Taylor, and Alec...I think you also see parts of my parents.

Me trying to keep Manu occupied.

Menu

It's a really eventful food week (can you sense the sarcasm?):

Veggie Curry
Mediterranean Minestrone Casserole
Red Beans & Rice (it's from a box, I'm trying to use it up!)
Dinner with friends
Spaghetti with garlic bread

This Week

This week has flown by!  The highlight of this week was definitely Monday, when Andrew had the day off student teaching and I took one of my personal days.  We decided to take advantage of an "extra" day and met up with some of my family.  It was fun!  My mom took me and Andrew and Rachelle and Taylor and Levi out to lunch.  We met up in Marysville at one of our favorite lunch places, Cristiano's.  If you ever are in the area you should definitely check it out...delicious pizzas and huge salads for a good price!  I know my mom took some pictures, and I will post some when she sends them to me (hint, hint :)

Excitement for this week:
Meeting with a lender on Monday, dinner with friends on Wednesday night, and Thursday night we start our Birthing Classes!

Posts for this week:
Our menu for the week
A new recipe I'm trying tomorrow, Mediterranean Minestrone Casserole
A pregnancy update
A project Andrew recently finished
Some pictures from a family dinner way back at Christmastime
A little something about the two wines we bottled today

Interesting

I know I posted the link to this on facebook almost 2 weeks ago, but I still think about it almost everyday when I get a minute to read through my blog reader (which includes a few subscriptions that fit into the Mormon housewife blog category).  I don't know that my reasons are quite the same as the author's, but it does intrigue me that many of the most popular blogs are written by Mormon housewives.  It makes me curious how many people there are out there who are secretly reading these blogs but couldn't really explain why they check back in on a daily basis.

Why I can't stop reading Mormon housewife blogs

Curried Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew

This was one of those wonderfully easy recipes.  I made it the night before while I was cooking dinner (sweet and sour veggies) and stuck it in the fridge.  We pulled it out the next morning, put the crockpot on a timer, and had dinner waiting for us when we got home.  I've decided I'm trying for at least one crockpot meal a week so that we can have a night off of cooking without having leftovers or eating out.  Sorry there is no picture, but you really aren't missing much.  It looks like a brown and orange chunky mush.  But it smells and tastes amazing, try it!

Curried Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew

• 4 cups of 1 inch pieces of peeled sweet potatoes
• 2 cups of 1 inch pieces of carrots
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 cups of chopped celery
• 3/4 cups dried lentils
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/s teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped gingerroot
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 2 cans (14 oz) vegetable broth
• 2 cups green beans

In a 3 1/2 to 4 quart slow cooker, mix all of the ingredients, except for the green beans.  Cover and cook on low heat for 5 to 6 hours.  Increase heat to high, stir in green beans, cover for 15 to 20 minutes, until green beans are hot.  Serves 6.

Housing

We want to move out of this house.  It's been good to us, and we've learned a lot, but we are ready to move on. For a few reasons:

• The creatures that keep returning under the house if traps and poison are generously and regularly used.
• The funky smell from under the house (probably related to above) that sometimes gets into the house if we haven't been home much.
• The age and condition of the carpets.  They are never clean.  Fine for us, not so fine for a little one.
• Our crazy landlord and his plethora of half finished projects and cars all over the property.
• We are tired of investing time, money, and energy on improving someone else's property.

We would like to buy a place if we can.  We found a really great real estate agent who has met with us a few times already, walked us through the process of buying a house (since we have no idea what we are doing), helped us research first time homebuyer programs that we qualify for, and recommended a few lenders to us.  All at no immediate benefit to him.  And he seems pretty positive that based on our finances and programs we qualify for that he will be able help us find something we want.  He even showed us some examples that look great!  The past couple of weeks we have been doing some of our own research on first time homebuyer programs and are trying to set up a some appointments with lenders to get approved for a loan.  Wish us luck!

But, if for some reason we can't purchase a home right now, we are going to look for something different to rent.  When we moved into this place, we always meant it to be an experiment for a year or two, just to see if we like living this far out, having chickens, planting a big garden, and being a little more rural.  I think the verdict is in that we most definitely do.  So, the experiment has been successful and it is time to move on.  To some place that we would be happy with for the next 4 or 5 years (at least) as we raise a baby, whether it ends up we are renting or buying.  Long story short...be looking for news on new places to live in the next coming months!

Lentil Chili

I swear that I have posted this recipe before, but a friend asked for it and when I tried to find it on the blog I couldn't.  If you run across the original post, would you let me know?  This is another favorite recipe of ours, we always keep some stocked in our freezer.  It's easy (you can't really mess it up!), cheap, vegan, healthy, and tasty!

Lentil Chili

• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup lentils
• 1/2 cup pearl barley or brown rice
• 1 red onion, minced
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 3 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp suger
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp vinegar
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 chopped carrots
• 5 stalks celery
• 1 15 oz can diced tomatos
• 4-5 cups tomato juice

In a soup pot combine the water, lentils, pearly barley or rice, onion, and garlic.  Let simmer.  Chop the carrots and celery.  In a small bowl mix the chili powder, sugar, black pepper, cumin, vinegar, and salt with hot water to make a thin paste.  Add chopped veggies, can of diced tomatoes, and spice mixture tot he pot.  Add tomato juice as needed to keep at desired consistency.  Simmer until lentils are cooked but still firm.  This recipe makes quite a bit, but it is a great dish to freeze part of.

P.S.  It's great served with pita bread, fresh veggies, and hummus!

Belly

We really have been trying to take pictures for the past couple of weeks. But our schedules have not been cooperating with the rain or the darkness. We tried to take pictures one evening last week, and they turned out terrible because it was so close to dark. We had to settle for Sunday morning at 10 am, and after looking at the pictures, I realized that it's probably not a big deal that we waited a little while in between photos.  I know that everything fits tighter in the evening than in the morning and I feel bigger at night, so maybe that contributes but I look at these pictures and I feel like I look bigger than that. When I compare the past 7 or so weeks, I really don't think I look any different...it's like I popped out suddenly and early and then stopped growing. But you can judge for yourself.
Me at 13 weeks 4 days
Me at 10 weeks 5 day

From the front...is that a bump?  17 weeks and 4 days

From the side, it's a little more obvious.  17 weeks and 4 days

Yes, we were really trying to take pictures in a windstorm. I'm telling you, the weather hates us.  But Andrew liked this one, so you get to see it too.  17 weeks and 4 days.

How I'm doing (now that we've covered how I look):

• I feel so much better!  I rarely throw up anymore.  I'm still nauseous for the first 2 or 3 hours of the morning, and I can still throw up if a strong smell comes by during that period, but it only happens once or twice a week.  Once the morning nauseousness passes, I feel great the rest of the day!  My appetite is back and I am starving all of the time.
• Due to my overactive appetite, I'm back up hovering right around my prepregnancy weight!  Never thought I would be excited about a few pounds.
• I'm craving pears all of the time.  Perfect since they are tasty and cheap right now. 
• My energy is back and I am perfectly happy with my eight hours of sleep a night.  I love feeling like I can accomplish a few things outside of work.
• I have felt the baby move, a few times.  Mostly little butterfly flutters, but occasionally a funny little tapping.  Usually I can only feel the movement when I am laying down, curling up at night to go to sleep, but we've also discovered that fast paced music makes the baby move!  I can't wait until the movements are strong enough that Andrew can feel them too!
• No aches and pains and I am genuinely enjoying this stage of pregnancy!