3 On Thursday: 3 Weird Foods

Two blog posts in one day!  I am on a roll today!  I had to join in on Andrea and Cole’s Three On Thursday!

This week they ask:

What 3 foods do you eat that are weird? What foods do you eat that other people would think are strange?

According to my husband I eat a lot of weird foods, but if you ask me, he’s the weirdo for not eating them!

1.       If you grew up in Maryland (and most parts of Delaware) it’s probably a given that you love Chesapeake Bay crabs!  There’s nothing like having your closest friends over and eating a bushel of delicious steamed crabs!  It’s even better when you caught those crabs! It’s been years since I’ve been crabbing with my dad or one of my uncles, but I love getting the crabs, putting them in the crab pot and watching them steam with the smell of Old Bay!

For those of you who don’t know what the inside of a blue crab looks like, here’s the best picture I could find:

That yellow stuff? We call it mustard…it’s actually the crab’s ummm poop.  We don’t eat it, but if I happen to get some on a piece of crab while picking it I don’t clean it off.  Grossed out yet?

We had Crabs this past weekend and they were delicious!! Usually we try to get crabs at least every other week.

2.       Another love of mine is also a summertime food.  I love tomato sandwiches.  All it is a few sliced of tomato with some salt inbetween two slices of bread with some mayo.  It is my absolute favorite thing to eat in the summer!!!

This absolutely grosses my husband out!  He hates tomatos and mayonnaise.

3.       And finally, I think this will gross most of you out! It’s called scrapple? Ever heard of it? Scrapple is defined  by Wikipedia as is traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices.  And let me tell ya, It is yummy!  This is another one of those foods that I think you had to be raised on to love.  I believe you can only get scrapple in Maryland, Delaware and certain parts of Pennsylvania.  We use it as a breakfast food and serve it with eggs, pancakes or french toast.  We also make Scrapple and Egg sandwiches.   Daniel and I both love scrapple and Cecilia is a lover of scrapple!  It’s her favorite breakfast meat, she prefers it over bacon and sausage any day.

The show Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel actually visited our favorite Scrapple brand, Hughes Maid Scrapple’s headquarters (which is 15 minutes from my house) to see how scrapple was made. 

So are you grossed out yet?  Sorry!  There are a few foods that everyone seems to like, but I can’t exactly acquire the taste for… namely coffee, guacamole and onions.

Have a great Thursday!  Tomorrow is Friday!!!! Enjoy your day and be sure to link up with Andrea and Cole for Three on Thursday!

Baby's First Photo!

On Tuesday night around 11:00 I started cramping a little, as the night went on the cramps became more painful and it almost felt as if I was getting my period (sorry if TMI!), but worse!  No matter what position I tried to lay in, I couldn’t get comfortable.  Around 4am I had to go to the bathroom and when I wiped I noticed bright red blood.   My mind instantly thought the worst case scenario miscarriage.  I debated on going into the ER, but Daniel talked me into waiting until my doctor’s office opened at 8 and calling them.

I decided to go ahead and go into work and just call the doctor’s office once they opened.  I called at 8:00 and left a message with one of the nurses.  She immediately called me back and asked me to come in for blood work and then to come back at 1:30 for an appointment with one of the doctor’s.   At 1:30, Daniel met me at the office for my appointment. My blood work came back good, my HCG level was at 34,000 which my doctor was right on for 7 weeks.  He did an internal exam and confirmed that my cervix was closed.  He still wanted to send me for an ultrasound just to make sure that everything is okay.

We headed over to the hospital, I had to get more blood work done and then we were taken back from the ultrasound.  The technician was wonderful and explained she couldn’t tell us anything, but if she started pointing out things that more than likely everything was alright.  The first thing she said once the wand was on my stomach was “See that flicker? That’s your baby’s heart beat!”.  Tears immediately came in my eyes and Daniel squeezed my hand a little tighter.  Everything was going to be alright!

The technician continued to look at other things, my ovaries, measured the baby and it’s heart beat.   The baby was measuring 4 days behind then what I had thought. So instead of being 7 weeks for 4 days, I was only measuring 7 weeks.  The heart beat was 146 .  After my ultrasound they held me at the office so they could call my doctor.  Once the got a hold of her doctor, they let met talk to him.  He explained that had a few cysts on my right ovary and more then likely that was what was causing the pain.  They want to continue to monitor the size of the cysts throughout my pregnancy.  I was told to take it easy, not to do any heavy lifting and to get plenty of rest.
So without further ado, here’s the first picture of baby #2!

After the ultrasound we had to head up to Labor & Delivery so I could get the Rhogam shot since I am Rh negative.  It was funny to be on the labor floor and to see one of the nurses who helped prep me when I was in labor with Cecilia.  She remembered us (she also went to school with Daniel) and asked how Cecilia was.  It’s hard to believe (fingers crossed!) in 8 months I will be back there delivering baby number two!  It just seems like a lifetime away!

P.S.  Cecilia has been asking me to take a picture of the baby since we told her we were pregnant.   She looks at her sonogram pictures in her baby book all the time and she wants to know what her little sister (she’s convinced it’s a girl) will look like.  When we showed her the picture she said “That’s not a baby!” So we had to explain the baby’s really little right now, but every week she is going to grow and get bigger and bigger! 

7 Weeks

Pregnancy:  7 weeks

Weight Gain: I am too scared to step on the scale!!!

Sleep:   Up until this last weekend I have been sleeping well, but for some reason this past weekend I couldn’t fall asleep until almost midnight every night.  Needless to say I am dragging at work today.  I have really tried hard to avoid caffeine this pregnancy, but I have a feeling today I will need a diet coke to get me through the work day!

Gender : still undetermined!  I am 90% convinced it’s another girl!

Names:  Boy: Dane Michael, Girl: ??????

Feeling:  Still very tired!!  No morning sickness though!  (YAY!)

Health: Great as far as I know!  My first doctor’s appointment is a week from today!!!

Movement: None yet.

Belly:  I am huge, it’s official!  My grandfather and my husband’s step dad both mentioned it over the weekend.  My grandfather asked if I was for certain I was only 7 weeks, because I look about 4 months pregnant (Thanks, Pop pop!).  My husband’s stepfather asked if I was carrying twins (haha, not very funny!).

Here’s the belly picture from this week.  Please ignore my hair and lack of makeup.  I forgot to take a belly picture until Cecilia's bath time last night.  This was after a day out on the water with my family.

Three on Thursday: What Won't You Do?

I'm linking up with Andrea & Cole's Three on Thursday today!

This week they ask: 

What 3 Things Will You Never Do?


1.  I will never own a cat.  I'm allergic to cats and besides that I am not a cat person.  I love, love. love dogs! But cats? No thank you! Luckily the hubs agrees with me.  Unfortantely, that little three year old who lives with us loves cats. 

2.  I will never take a cross-country road trip.  I hate driving (or riding) and I get car sick fairly easy.  A car trip over 12 hours is way too much for me, I'd much rather fly!  We are driving to Tennessee for vacation in July (and I will hopefully meet one of my longest blogger friends!). It's an 11 hour drive.  I am not looking forward to the drive, especially when I'll be 14 weeks pregnant and with a potty training toddler!

3.  I will never do drugs.  I was a goody-goody growing up, my dad was a police officer and everyone knew him.  I saw what drugs did to certain family members of mine (who I have nothing to do with) and I vowed to myself I would never follow in their footsteps.  I have never even had  a cigarette.

You can link up with Andrea & Cole by going here.

A Big Fat Success!

Forgive me the picture-less posts I’ve had lately.  My DLSR is not working and it costs almost $200 to have it repaired.   I haven’t gotten around to taking it in to get it repaired yet.  My cell phone (a piece crap Samsung phone from Sprint) takes HORRIBLE pictures (as you can see from my bump updates).  I am keeping my fingers crossed for an iPhone for my birthday in July!  I’ve considered buying a cheap point-n-shoot until I get my DSLR fixed, but I can’t see spending $150 for one of them when I can get my camera fixed for $200!  Decisions, decisions!

Anyway with that being said, here’s another picture-less post.

Last month I wrote a post about giving back and why I decided to start a Relay For Life Team.  You can read it here.  Well, this past Friday was our biggest fundraiser to date, our First Annual Quarter and Silent Auction.  For those of you who don’t know what a quarter auction is, it’s basically the new bingo around these parts and I have to admit they are a ton of fun!  Basically with a quarter auction you have several items up for auction, some of the items are worth over $200 and some are worth $25.  At our auction 100% of the items were donated so we decided to offer two types of paddles, an All In Paddle for $25 or a Quarter paddle for $5.  With the All-In-Paddle you could bid on all Quarter Auction items without putting in any quarters, with a Quarter Paddle, you had to put in quarters for the items you bid one.  Each item depending on it’s price was worth 1 to 4 quarters.  You never bid more the 4 quarters for any one item. 

Like I said before 100% of the items were donated and we had so many great items to auction off, including a $100 Gift Certificate to the Melting Pot, dinner cruises, a weekend away in Washington, D.C. or Cape May, NJ, theater tickets, items from Pampered Chef, Tastefully Simple, 31 and Celebrating Home and much, much more!  We had over 130 items to auction off between the Quarter and Silent Auction.  The last few months myself and the rest of our Relay Team has been busy getting donations, posting flyers about the auction and selling tickets.   

Friday the auction finally came and I was happy to say it was a huge success!! Between, the Quarter Auction, the Silent Auction and selling concessions we made almost $3000!  I am so thankful that people came out to support our team.  The Camden Moose Lodge (who donated their space for FREE) was packed that night.  By the time the auction was over we were having people come up to  us and telling us that this was the best Quarter Auction they have ever been to and wanted to know when the next one was.   I am so, so, proud of our team!  We worked our butts off and Friday was proof that all of our hard work paid off!

Of course our Relay Team was allowed to participate in the auction as well ( if we paid our money!)  I   came out a big winner, I won this super cute clutch donated by a local boutique here in Dover, Bel Boutique valued at $50, a basket full of Tastefully Simple items, dinner theater tickets to a Comedy Show in Lancaster, PA and sailboat ride along the Kalmar Nyckel which goes out of Wilmington and Lewes, Delaware.

Our Relay Event is two weeks from Friday and I cannot wait!  I promise to take plenty of pictures one way or another!   If you would like to donate to our Relay Team you can do so by going here.  Every donation counts, whether it’s a donation of $5 or a donation of $50!

Cecilia Is Going To Be A Big Sister

It’s official all of our families know about baby number two.  When I originally found out I was pregnant, Daniel didn’t want to tell our families until after my first doctor’s appointment which was June 12^th at the time (I managed to get it moved up to June 5^th).  He wanted to make sure everything was okay before we told them .  My feelings differed from his, he didn’t want to tell our families in case something were to happen.  I believe 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage the first trimester.  I wanted to tell my family so I would have that support in case something did happen. 

I convinced him to let me tell my parents on Mother’s Day and then we could tell his family whenever he felt the time was right.   There was a little more than a week between the day I got the positive pregnancy test and Mother’s Day so I had to figure out a plan quick!  I looked and looked for a shirt for Cecilia on ETSY announcing she would be a big sister, but no one could get one to me in the time frame I needed so I looked online and found a shirt on Cookie Baby Inc’s Website. 

It was perfect for what I needed .  I ordered it and did priority shipping so it would be guaranteed to be here by Mother’s Day weekend.  When it arrived I immediately thought I should of ordered a size or two smaller, because a 4T was way too big. 

  I didn’t have time for exchanges though.  I stuck that baby in the washer with hot water and prayed it would shrink.  It did, but not by much!

Come Mother’s Day trying to convince Cecilia to wear the shirt was not fun.  My girl is a girly girl who loves her dresses and tutus, not a white t-shirt two sizes too big for her.  I had to bribe her with gummies, but eventually she agreed to wear it.  When we first arrived at my parents, my dad was outside grilling by the pool and my mom was inside getting things ready.  I tried to hide Cecilia’s shirt from my dad so he wouldn’t see it before my mom.   When all went inside Cecilia ran to my mom to give her a hug.  As my mom bent down to pick her up she read her shirt.  She looked at me “Really!? Is this true?”

I told my mom, “No we just bought her a shirt saying she’s going to be a big sister for the hell of it.”  Then my mom started crying!  Both of my parents said congrats.  They asked “How far along?” “When is it due?”…  Then my dad told me “Cecilia already told us anyway…”  I was like ‘What!?” He said ‘Yeah, when we had her on Friday night and we were driving over to Pop pop’s (my grandfather), Cici kept on saying ‘Mommy has a baby brover (brother) in her belly!  I have a baby brover (brother) in my belly! Pop pop has a baby brover in his belly!” My mom claimed she didn’t think anything of it, but my dad knew then that I was pregnant.  I know my parents are really excited for us, but like me they are really cautious too.  My mom wasn’t able to get pregnant after me.  She wouldn’t have any problem getting pregnant, but then she would miscarry during the first trimester.  It was really hard and it’s not something I would wish on anyone!

This past Friday Daniel told me he wanted to tell his family this weekend.  He had called his dad and sister, Lauren and arranged for dinner at either our house or my in-law’s house on Sunday.  We were also going down to the beach on Saturday for our anniversary so we would tell his stepfather while we were down there.

Saturday we stopped by his step father’s house before heading to dinner.  I was going to let Daniel decide when to tell him.  Somehow it came up on in conversation about “having more little ones” and Daniel said “Well it’s too late for that..”  His step dad looked at me and said “Are you pregnant?” I shook my head yes.  He gave us both hugs and was happy.  This will be his fourth grandchild.  Daniel has two step sisters and they each have one kid, and of course we have Cecilia.  We asked him not to tell Daniel’s sisters, we wanted to tell them ourselves.

Sunday we had dinner at Daniel’s dad’s.  Since Ci was with us I could use the shirt trick again, except for Daniel’s sister wasn’t expected to be there until 5:30, we got there at noon.  Once Lauren arrived and everyone was sitting down for dinner I had Cecilia put her shirt on.  Once again she didn’t want to put it on, so this time I bribed her with strawberries. {See I am not above bribing my kids!}  Lauren was the first one to notice.  Her reaction? “OMG! Seriously!? SERIOUSLY!?” She was thrilled!  She said “Cici you are going to be  BIG Sister.”  Then Daniel’s dad, Danny said “WHAT?!”  He looked at me, then at Daniel, then read Ci’s shirt and he was like “WOW! Really?” He asked how far along I was. (6 weeks) and whether it was a boy or girl (uhhh way to early to tell!).  Daniel’s dad, step mom and Lauren were sooo excited!

After we got home from dinner, Daniel said “Let’s tell Kim and Tammy too….text them and see if they can skype.”  I texted them and said ‘Hey, Ci has something to show you…can you skype?”  They immediately came back with yes.  So we tried to three way skype for the first time, Tammy lives in southern Delaware (about 45 minutes from us), but Kim lives in Arizona.  The three way Skype  Video didn’t work, because we didn’t have a paid Skype account, but we were able to tell them on a three way Skype conference call.  Cecilia said in her soft voice “I’m going to be a big sister.”  Kim screamed and Tammy was like “Wow!”  After  we announced it, we skyped one on one with each of them to talk to them and show them Ci’s shirt.  They were both really excited!  I think everyone is secretly hoping for a boy since girls are out numbering boys right now and on Daniel’s dad and my parent’s side Cecilia is the only grandchild. 

So now the cat is out of the bag with the family!  We have also told my grandfather and we still want to tell Daniel’s Aunt Pam in person.  We have to make arrangements to see her and her family one night.  We are still waiting until the end of the first trimester to go “public” on Facebook.  I know it’s kinda crazy I am telling the blog world, but not my Facebook friends, but honestly not many of my real life friends even know about this blog and if someone were to find out through my blog or Twitter then they know… it’s not the end of the world!

Cecilia swimming in the shirt!

A Bitter Sweet Anniversary

This past weekend Daniel and I celebrated five years of marriage. It’s hard to believe we have been married for five years!

Here’s a look back at our wedding on May 19^th, 2007. We were both so young (23) and we were so care free. We had no idea what the world had in store for us over the next five years. A year after our wedding Daniel’s mom was diagnosed with cancer and four years to the day of our wedding she passed away after a three year battle with cancer. We became parents to a gorgeous little girl, Cecilia in 2009 and just two weeks before our fifth wedding anniversary we found out we were expecting again! We built our first house, I was promoted twice in my career field since our wedding.

You can look back at a slideshow from our wedding by going here.

Looking back these were the good ‘ol days. Days before budgets and babies. We came and went as much as we wanted. We took fun vacations twice a year and took our life and family for granted. I love our life now, I just wish Daniel’s mom, Paula was here to celebrate it with us. I hate that our anniversary is no longer a joyous occasion, we are constantly reminded what happened at 1:40 AM on May 19, 2011 when his mom took her last breath.

We tried to make the best of our five year anniversary, I broke down crying a few times. I could blame it on the pregnancy hormones, but when I am not pregnant I can be an emotional mess. We started the day by being woke up by Cecilia. She was in our bedroom at 7:30 ready to go. We convinced her to cuddle in bed for a little while and watch Disney Jr. We got up at 8, I made blueberry pancackes for breakfast and then I cleaned the house while Daniel went to visit his mom’s grave. At 2, we took Ci over to my parents and we headed to Rehoboth Beach for our anniversary dinner. Daniel let me pick where we ate at, out of all the places in Rehoboth, I chose Nicola Pizza, because I was craving one of their famous Nic-o-boli’s. LOL Sad, huh? Blame it on the baby. Pizza

After dinner we walked the boardwalk, visited a few shops and then decided to head home. We were planning on staying the night at Daniel’s family’s beach house, but after talking to Cecilia on the phone before she went to bed (She told us to come pick her up.) We decided it would be better to go get her first thing in the morning, besides we missed her!

We are planning on heading back down to the beach this weekend (with Cecilia of course) and staying the three day weekend there so we will get plenty of beach and family time in

6 Weeks

Pregnancy: 6 weeks

Weight Gain: I haven’t weighed myself, this week! I am scared to get on the scale!  

Sleep: I’m up once or twice a night to go to the bathroom and it seems like my body automatically wakes up at 6 on the weekends.  Hate it!  

Gender: No clue, still think it’s a girl

Names: Boy Name is Dane Michael    Girl Name: ????

Feeling: Still extremely tired, I was nauseous one day last week. I am looking forward to a relaxing three day weekend!

Health: So far, so good! *Fingers Crossed* My first doctor’s appointment has been moved up to June 5^th (two weeks from Wednesday!)

Movement: None yet.

Belly:  Still a huge baby bloat!  I feel as big as a house (and I look like a house!!!). UGH!!   You can tell from the picture below.  I cannot fit into any of my clothes so I am living in flowy dresses... This is the dress I wore out for our anniversary dinner.  (PS See Cecilia trying to sneak her way into the picture!)

Five Weeks

Pregnancy: 5 weeks

Weight Gain: 0 pounds

Sleep: I’m up at least once, most of the time twice a night thanks to my bladder. 

Gender: No idea yet…I am thinking girl!

Names: Still undecided, Daniel and I can’t agree on a boy or girls name..

Feeling: Tired!!! A special thank you to Daniel for letting me take a two and a half hour nap yesterday! The morning sickness hasn't hit me yet.  I was extremely sick with Cecilia my first trimester. 
Health: It’s been good, I have my first doctor’s appointment on June 12^th.  *Fingers crossed that everything will be okay!*

Movement: None yet.

Belly: I have a big baby bloat! I seriously look five months pregnant right now, I know it’s too early to be the baby (it’s only the size of a poppyseed) , but this bloat popped up over night last week!  

Guess what?

I am horrible at secrets, especially my own.  A friend can tell me something and tell me not to tell anyone and I will take it to the grave with me.  However, when I have a secret of my own, especially a good one, I want to tell the world!

So, since I can no longer keep this to myself I am going to tell the blog world.  My real life friends who read this blog already know the news, but my family doesn’t know yet and I know none of them read my blog.

I am pregnant!  I’m only 4 weeks.   We weren’t trying yet, but we weren’t preventing it either.  We decided in early April that I would stop taking my birth control and see where it went.  In no way did I expect to get pregnant my first month off of birth control, but I am happy I did.

I found out on Friday, my period wasn’t due until Sunday, but I had a feeling .  I went and bought a pregnancy test, I took it and two faint lines came up.  I was in denial.  Daniel was out of town this weekend so I sent a picture to my friend, Erin.  She immedialtly replied, “I SEE TWO LINES!”  I still didn’t want to get my hopes up,  the next day I took another test…same thing two faint lines.  Daniel came home on Sunday and I couldn’t hold the excitement in.  I called him into our bathroom and showed him the tests.  They were both really faint lines, but he said “SERIOUSLY?” Then he said ‘No, this line isn’t dark enough!  You have to take another one.”  I was out of tests.

That day I needed to go get a birthday present for a party we had to go to that afternoon.  When I picked up the gift, I picked up another test.  This time a Clear Blue digital one.  I couldn’t take it right away, we needed to go to the party first.  The thought of taking a pregnancy test in a Chuck E. Cheese bathroom creeps me out!  We stayed and partied at Chuck E. Cheese until Cecilia started getting tired and fussy, then we went to my in-laws where Daniel was.  I put Cecilia down for a nap, then I went back to the bathroom and took the test out, peed on a stick and within seconds “Pregnant” came up.  I cried for joy.   I have been wanting a second baby for so long, but convincing Daniel was the problem.  Once I had him convinced I thought for sure it would take us six months of charting to get that positive test.

I am beyond ecstatic and so is Daniel!  I have told three close friends, because I needed to tell someone!  My plan was to tell our families on Mother’s Day, but Daniel wants to wait until after our first appointment which is June 12^th.  I don’t know if I will last that long.  I am trying to convince him otherwise.

According to my last missed period the baby’s due date is January 12^th.  Another January birthday. I have three cousins with birthdays in January, the first, seventh and eighth.  Daniel’s birthday is January 15^th, my sister in law’s birthday is January 29^th and my grandmother’s birthday was the 24^th.
I plan on doing weekly bump and pregnancy updates on here.  So I will keep everyone posted on Baby #2! 

How long did you wait before telling family and friends you were pregnant?  If it was your second child, how did you tell your little one he or she was going to be a big sister or brother?