The way to this pregnant woman’s heart. It makes my hubby pretty happy too. A couple of people have mentioned they miss my recipe postings (I haven’t been cooking much that is inspired lately but I’ve got a few things I’ll share in the next few weeks), so here is my loose recipe for guacamole. Warning – if you are one of my fellow Guatemamas, this is NOT the guacamole you ate in Guatemala. Their guacamole is bland – just avocados, lime juice and salt. I like mine a little more flavorful. A couple of my “secret” ingredients are courtesy of my mama who paid attention at a restaurant at the Riverwalk in San Antonio that made it table-side. And those who read regularly know I’m more of a cook by feel kind of girl so my recipes are more of a guideline than an exact science.

Guacamole

4 avocados (if you don’t know how to cut and seed one visit here)

2 plum tomatoes or 1 regular garden variety tomato

1/2 onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

lemon juice

lime juice

orange juice

cilantro

salt

2-3 strips of bacon

Peel and pit the avocados. Smash with either back of a fork or potato ricer. You want it slightly chunky rather than completely smooth. Finely chop the tomato, onion, and garlic or throw it in the food processor and pulse a few times. Add to the avocados. Squeeze a couple tablespoons of lemon juice and lime juice into your mixture. Squeeze a tablespoon of orange juice in (less than the lemon and lime…you shouldn’t taste the orange juice – it should just add a little something in the background). Add salt – a little more than you think you should. Crumble the bacon into your mixture. Trust me – adds a nice smokiness. Mix it all up. Taste it – if it seems to be missing something add a little more salt, lemon and/or lime juice. Eat. Yes, avocados have lots of fat in the them but it is the good kind plus lots of vitamins and minerals.

For the juices and cilantro, fresh is always best but I’ve been known to use dried cilantro when I don’t have fresh and those plastic lemons and limes for juice. I truly believe the garlic has to be fresh to get the back ground bite that it provides but do what you will.

And just because I am so excited I have to share that Baby Girl #2 finally has a name!  We should probably tell family before I blab here…but you all know I can’t keep a secret for long.

Happy Mom’s Day to me, to all of my readers out there, and to my mom(s).

I have a Happy Non-Mom Day post in my drafts to bitch and moan about what morons NBC execs are but decided I don’t feel like working myself into a lather over it today. So if missed the hub-bub over declaring adoptive moms “non-moms” or you just want to read more about it, check out this post. (Thanks for the link Leigh.) Moving on…

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you out there. Last year, I spent Mother’s Day in Guatemala as a mom for the first time. This year, I spend it at home with my sweet hubby and beautiful daughter while expecting daughter #2 later this year. I never would have imagined this 2 years ago.

I don’t anticipate we will do anything particularly special today.  Steve has mentioned some homemade blueberry pancakes for breakfast and something on the grill for dinner.  The gift he ordered didn’t arrive on time so I’ll get to spread the celebration out an extra day.  My momma sent me a cute tea pot and some teas (thanks momma). I might run down to the nursery and pick up some herbs to plant.  But honestly, being at home with my family is a great way to spend the day.

I just feel blessed this year to own the title “Mom”.

Sabrina playing mom to her dog…trying to strap him into her booster seat:

And she has one other new word – Ball (which can mean ball or balloon – she loves both):

I’ve reached the point where it is pretty obvious to the world that I am pregnant not just fat. Sunday marks 28 weeks. I’m even outgrowing some of my maternity clothes. I’ve gained way more than baby weight but for the most part am waiting until after the baby comes to freak out about it. Why freak out before I can do much about it (other than put down the ice cream and trust me when I tell you that wouldn’t end happily for anyone in this house)? But I’m feeling huge and lazy now. I am thinking about selling advertising space across my stomach. I was wearing red yesterday and was thinking of painting a white bullseye and asking Target to sponsor me.

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Speaking of ice cream, I heart Blue Bell. They make a 1/2 gallon that is half vanilla and half chocolate with no added sugar and less fat that is pretty darn tasty. At least I’m not eating Ben & Jerry’s.

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I had a small world moment today. At a play date, I met a woman who graduated from the same college as I did and is from a little town in Ohio that I’ve been and she has been to my little town.

Last week, the receptionist at the eye doctor’s saw my OU sweatshirt and asked if I was from Ohio. She said she was too but that it was a tiny town no one had ever heard of. Turns out I worked in that tiny town’s domestic violence shelter for a year.

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I’m obsessed with Pad Thai right now. I’ve pulled together a few recipes and made something that meets the need. My other obsession is fresh guacamole. Avocados were on sale last week and Steve begged me to stock up and make a bigger batch this time. No complaints here. I miss the cheap avocados in Antigua! I could make guacamole for just over $1 there…here I can get 1 avocado for that but only if they are on sale.

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Steve decided not to buy a lawn mower but to hire someone to mow our lawn instead this year. So I called a guy who left a flyer on our door. The lawn hadn’t been mowed yet this year when we moved it so it was getting rather long. The guy said they mowed several lawns in our subdivision already and quoted me the price which I thought was outrageous for our little patch of grass but I figured I could shop around later. I warned him the grass was long. He said he would make sure they got to it quickly. I received the bill this week. The bill was for $70 for 1 mowing – no where near what he told me he charges. Steve called him and told him there was a mistake on our bill. The guy said there was no mistake. His guy told him the grass was knee high and he had to mow our lawn 4 times to complete it so he thought he was being rather generous to only charge us $70. Funny, both Steve and I were home when he mowed. He had to go a little slow in spots because it was long (a little past ankle – not even knee high on Sabrina) but he didn’t make more than 1 pass in any part of the lawn. If the guy had called to say he needed to tack on a few extra dollars for the extra gas and 10 or 15 minutes of time of his employee we would have been fine but to send us such an outrageous bill for our little yard is ridiculous. And bad business because he lost a customer and we are refusing to pay the full bill.

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Sabrina’s newest words are “hi” (said 375 times a day in a cute little voice) and “cheese” (said only when the mood strikes her). She is deathly afraid of the garage – especially if the door is down. And is so sweet hugging and kissing her stuff animals it just melts my heart.

The girlie tendencies amaze me though. Her toys are pretty evenly spread along the spectrum of gender. She has 2 baby dolls but also a lot of animals. She has a toy purse but also 2 barnyard sets. Her clothing is largely pink and girlie but that is mostly due to hand me downs and sales. We don’t treat her in a particularly girlie manner other than often telling her she is beautiful. But she is such a little girl. She loves her purse and turns other items into purses. She will pick up the mulch on the playground and pour it over my hands and arms just so that she can clean me up again. She will brush me off until I am clean and start over again. And she will pat and rub my back when she hugs me and she will kiss and hug her stuff animals as though taking care of them. I don’t know if she is just imitating me because she spends most of her time with me or if the whole girl thing is rather innate.

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One bad thing about this time of year: the windows are open so the neighbors can hear me yelling at my child.  Good first impression!

You can leave your mother of the year kudos in the comments.

We stopped at Applebee’s to grab some dinner the other night.  The restaurant wasn’t busy – there were many open tables in different sections.  They seated us next to a long table of a dozen kids and 6 adults having a birthday party.  The kids weren’t being bad but a dozen kids hopped up on sugar can produce a lot of noise.  A lot.  We couldn’t even have a conversation without coming close to yelling at one another.  Steve was really unhappy.  (I wasn’t thrilled either.)  I reminded him that we are now seen as those people – people with kids.   When we walk in with a toddler, they want to put us somewhere that our child will cause the least disruption to other diners.  That means we will always get the crappy seats.  And I don’t think explaining to them that our child is different will change things.  Sabrina doesn’t cry or screech or squeal – and if she starts, we remove her from the table and walk outside with her.  We’ve only had to remove her a couple of times even though we eat out with some regularity.  She is just a good child.  But it doesn’t matter – whether in a restaurant or on a plane or another public place that noise can be disrupting, we will be seen as people with kids and strike fear in the hearts of those around us.  And I’m afraid baby girl #2 will be a demon child to pay us back for being so spoiled by Miss Sabrina so our days of eating out may come to an end.

I swear there is a whole category of weird and humiliating things that seem to fall into the “only happen to me” genre.  They must happen to other people too…maybe they aren’t dumb honest enough to admit it to the whole internet.

I had several places to be this morning:  the doctor’s office, the old apartment, the post office, and finally meeting the hubby for lunch.  Notice that meeting my hubby for lunch is the last on that list.  As Steve and I are waiting in line to order at a Mongolian BBQ, a woman comes up and says “Excuse me ma’am.”  I thought I was in her way and tried to move.  She moved her face closer to mine, causing me to give her an odd look and try to back away.  It turns out, she wasn’t trying to invade my space, she was trying to be somewhat discreet in telling me I HAD A HUGE HOLE IN MY SKIRT AND MY ASS WAS HANGING OUT FOR ALL OF THE WORLD TO SEE.

Just so no one thinks I am exaggerating, here is the hole with my hand to demonstrate the amount of skin and underwear I was flashing:

It is a broomstick skirt so there is a lot of extra material so it wasn’t that my pregnant butt was too big for it…apparently buying a cheap skirt at Sam’s Club is just asking for an embarrassing moment.

I’ve been sitting here wondering all afternoon exactly how long my butt was hanging out before someone had the courage to be kind and tell me.

It is only 5 days in so I will hold back from declaring May my favorite month here in TN…but it might be the case.  It has been sunny (but not too hot) and lovely so far.

We went to the park to tire the girl out before her nap.

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Today, there is a virtual baby shower for Mrs. Fussypants.   She is scheduled to have boy #5 on May 15th so go give her a little comment love at her baby shower.  *Bonus* no silly shower games!  Sadly also no cake but you don’t have to shower to attend – life is all about trade offs.  And if you don’t know Mrs. Fussypants go see her.  She is one of my blogger friends turned real life friends (actually I met her briefly in person before reading her blog but got to “know” her through her blog) and she is perfectly lovely.  In her bid to take over the internet, she has started a new cafe press store…I’ll pimp it out later this week but she has the link up on her blog today.

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Thanks for the thoughts and comments on the stroller.  I do hope to put the baby in a sling and keep Sabrina in her single stroller for awhile but do know that there are times we will want a stroller for them both – especially as they get older and heavier.  I’m still contemplating but 50% off is tempting.

The move is done.  All of our stuff is under one roof for the first time in a year.  I did a quick cleaning job at the apartment and Steve will turn in the keys tomorrow.  I predict a major purge of things as we unpack because it seems that we can’t possibly need all of this stuff. I wasn’t able to purge much when I packed up the house in PA because I didn’t want to make those decisions without Steve but now we are both sick of carting it around and ready to start gifting it to Goodwill (or the curb when appropriate).  If it didn’t just add another thing to my list of things to do, I might hold a garage sale.

Now I just have to find the energy to do it.  But it feels good to have everything here and to call that part of the move done.

We had a lovely day here in Tennessee today. It was sunny for most of the day, breezy and in the low 70’s. We went to the spring arts festival – and surprisingly didn’t really buy much of anything. We both love those types of things and love to get something for the house when we go (feeds my pottery fetish). Today, I just bought Steve a Father’s Day gift. I don’t know if it knowing I still have so many boxes to unpack or what but even with the offer of a Mother’s Day gift if I wanted something, there wasn’t anything I felt like I would regret not picking up so I walked out with just a bag of kettle corn.

Sabrina had a ball because everyone brought his/her dog so she got to see lots of puppies. And she loves kettle corn as much as momma so a good day was had by all.

This is the first booth we saw upon arrival – it made me chuckle because it sounds so southern:

That’s Chubby Bubby’s Smokehouse if you can’t read it.

Sabrina was pulling out all of the cute today.

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One more thing…I’ve been doing some browsing for a double stroller. I am looking at one that I found on super sale (because I can’t bring myself to spend $300 on a stroller). It is a Peg Perego Aria Twin – I say super sale because for that brand it is super cheap but comparatively still a little pricey. Steve says just buy it. I hate to buy it without test driving it – the site I’m looking at has good ratings from everyone but some other sites have some good and some bad…guess you can’t please everyone. Anyway – does anyone have this model or another double stroller that they love? It has to be light enough for me to get it in and out of the car by myself. And despite getting overwhelming feedback about Phil and Ted’s excellent strollers, I can’t bring myself to spend that much on a stroller. So I’m taking suggestions and here is the one I am looking at if you have any feedback.