Month: October 2012

Pregnancy: 34 Weeks Already!!!

/ Anna @ Piper's Run / Leave a comment

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

We’ve made it to 34 weeks with only aches, pains, many sleepless nights, multiple naps and 1 random hospital visit – not bad!

Weeks: 34 now.

Baby’s Movement: Rolling, stretching and loving my rib cage. Sometimes the movements are sudden and sometimes they go on forever and entertain other people.

Baby items we bought: We didn’t buy anything in the last two weeks.

Belly Button: Flat – kinda odd seeing it so flat.

Challenges:

  • Finding my days are getting harder to get through. Completely exhausted by the time I get home.
  • Out of breath – even when talking – kinda embarrassing when you’re at a meeting and have to stop and take a breath. Feels like baby is on my lungs all the time.

Cravings: No cravings in the last 2 weeks… well other than soy chocolate milk. I may need an IV put in with a bag of Silk Chocolate Milk attached!

Exercise: Pretty minimal at this point. Lots of walking – short walks 10 – 20 minutes, extra laps around the grocery store, parking further away from entrances, being outside and active with Lilly. We went to the Zoo one day and walked for almost 2 hours, followed by a 2 hour nap 🙂

Exercise wish list: An awesome prenatal yoga class and to swim.

Gender: Not sure. Wanna guess? Check out last week’s post here: Guessing Game.

Maternity Clothing: Getting tight on the belly. Some pants are falling down! Yes, falling down, I don’t get it.

Mood: Starting to get tired and getting close to “hitting the wall”.

Preparation for Baby #2:

  • Lots of talks with Lilly about the baby. She’s been telling us she is going to share this or that with the baby, bath the baby etc. We do family hugs in the evening before bed and recently talked to her about the baby being in our family hugs soon – she seemed happy about that.
  • Lilly loves putting stuff in the baby’s room (nappies, clothing, etc), very eager to help out when it comes to stuff for the baby.
  • Hospital Bag packed with a few more things – not 100% ready but well on its way
  • Still need to write-up our birth plan before our appointment next week (35 weeks).

Sleep: I seem to be up every morning from 4:00 – 5:30am. I simply can’t fall back to sleep during that time. Taking lots of naps when I can.

Still to do:

  • Finish packing hospital bag
  • Purchase and wash/prep cloth diapers before baby arrives
  • Finish getting last-minute things out of the baby’s room and set it up 100%
  • Figure out a plan for Lilly when we go into labour.

Symptoms:

  • Tones of Braxton Hicks contractions – not awesome.
  • Hips/back are always sore but massages help with that.
  • Forgetfulness (my husband just told me something 20 minutes ago and apparently I didn’t remember that I already asked, ha ha ha).

What I am looking forward to at this point:

  • Of course – meeting this little baby of ours
  • Introducing Lilly to her brother or sister
  • Running again (I’ve thought a lot about this today)
  • Christmas 🙂

What I am worried about at this point:

  • Early Labour
  • Having a premature baby again

Wedding Rings: Both (engagement and wedding band) still on but more comfortable when I wear only one.

Difference in pregnancy #2 Photos:

Okay – these two picture are completely unflattering pictures BUT they are the only pictures I have at 34 weeks.

I took the right picture tonight as I realised I haven’t taken any in a while – looks like I’m wearing a black onesie.

Trust me when I say I’m not.

Oh, the things we share on blogs.

Next update: 36 weeks.

Woah, Lilly was born at 36 weeks 2 days….let’s hope I have an update for you on the pregnancy not the birth.

{Vegan} Pumpkin Banana Muffins

/ Anna @ Piper's Run / 4 Comments

After I made my second vegan pie (post coming tomorrow), I had plenty of pumpkin left over. I figure I would just put it in my fridge and it would probably go bad 😦 OR I could make something else with it, right then and there.

So, I googled Vegan Pumpkin Muffins and came across “Week Of Menu’s” blog – it’s the only recipe I could find that didn’t call for nutmeg. Not that I don’t like nutmeg, but we didn’t have any in the house.

These. Are. Amazing!

I’ve made them twice since the first batch. These are a MUST TRY!

Vegan Pumpkin Banana Muffins

Vegan Pumpkin Banana Muffins

Makes 12 regular, 24 mini –> I found this recipe made more than the suggested amount.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup brown sugar
¼ white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup pumpkin puree (can)
2 bananas (riper the better) mashed well
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup water

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)
  • Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
  • In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugars, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together 1 cup pumpkin puree, vegetable oil, mashed bananas and water. Stir pumpkin mixture into flour mixture until smooth. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
    Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

So good…gone so fast.

Give ’em a try.

What’s your favourite “pumpkin” recipe?

How often do you try a new recipe from a blog?

Fall Bucket List: Make {vegan apple} Pie.

/ Anna @ Piper's Run / 3 Comments

I’ve never made a pie before!

Crazy, eh!

Yeah, I think so too!

As the Canadian Thanksgiving was fast approaching a few weeks back on October 8th, I knew I had to make an attempt at making a pie. Let’s rephrase that – I had to attempt to make a VEGAN pie!

My husband and I sat down and looked through one of our cookbooks: “How It All Vegan!” by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. “Amazing Apple Pie” and “Perfect Pumpkin Pie” seemed like the perfect fit for our family dinner that was coming up. The only problem was that I’ve never made a pie or pie crust…and it had to be vegan or my husband couldn’t eat it.

My first thought was, okay let’s make two pies! One as a trial run and the other for our family dinner. If I screwed it up the first time, I had at least a week to pull it all together.

Amazing Apple Pie was the first pie to make.

Amazing Apple Pie

Ingredients:

6 – 8 large baking apples (Granny Smith are best) cored and sliced

1/2 cup raisins (optional)

3/4 maple syrup

1-2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp cinnamon

2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder

1 pie crust (See end of post)

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
  • Core and slice apples into bite-sized pieces.
  • Bring a medium pot of water to boil, then reduce heat to medium and add the apples and optional raisins to simmer for 8-10 minutes.
  • Save 1/4 cup of “apple water” for use later (We actually drank the rest as our “fancy hot drink” on our Fall Bucket List.
  • Drain apples and place in a large bowl.
  • Mix carefully together the cooked apples, maple syrup, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Set aside.
  • In a small saucepan, mix the 1/4 cup “apple water” with the cornstarch over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture turns very thick.
  • Add the cornstarch mixture to the rest of the ingredients, stirring until mixed well.
  • Pour into a pie crust and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Pie Crust: (Similar to Cristco pie crust – one serving)

  • 1 cup and 1/3 cup of all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 stick of shortening (I use Earth Balance as it’s vegan)
  • 3-6 tbsp of ice-cold water

Directions:

  • Mix flour and salt together.
  • Cut up shortening and mix into flour.
  • Add water by the tbsp.
  • Put in fridge for 30 minutes to chill (or freezer for 10 minutes)
  • Roll into pie crust

 

Everyone loved it…even our toddler who never had a piece of pie before!

And it didn’t last too long in our house 🙂

What’s your favourite pie to make?

Any secret tips to pass along to newbies like me?

 

 

Piper’s Run Weekend

/ Anna @ Piper's Run / 2 Comments

This weekend seemed to go by pretty fast. I didn’t spend any time on email, Facebook or this blog and now in catch up mode! Sometimes I love unplugging for the weekend. I didn’t even carry my blackberry with me – freedom!

It was a busy weekend for our family and went a little something like this:

Friday:

  • Worked 1/2 day
  • Made vegan chili
  • Made Pumpkin/Banana muffins – Yum!
  • Picked up Lilly/made dinner for Lilly/played/normal bed time routine – my husband bathed Lilly while I did dishes/baking
  • I ate dinner at 8pm, crazy late and from Subway. I  just wasn’t in the mood to make anything – oh Friday’s
  • Bed around 10ish

Saturday:

  • Husband had a fire call at 2am – was back home at 4am
  • I was up from 4am until 5:50am
  • 5:50am Lilly woke up and came to cuddle in our bed (somehow I fell back asleep)
  • 7:30am We all got up “Time to get up” Lilly told us
  • Ate breakfast while Sai walked Maclean
  • Got ready for our Halloween Party
  • 10am – 12:30pm Halloween Party for the kids … who I am kidding it was more for the adults to get together and the kiddies to dress up and play together. It was our prenatal group from back in 2010! We still get together a few times throughout the  year. It’s so amazing to see how much they’ve all grown and developed. They all play so well together.
  • 1:30pm Nap time for Lilly and I (we slept for 2.5 hours) – My husband went to the fire hall as he had duty crew this weekend.
  • 5:00pm I crashed again – layed down for almost 1.5 hours – apparently I was exhausted
  • Lilly and Sai had a picnic dinner in the basement 🙂 Awww, wish I had a spy camera on them.
  • 6:45pm I bathed Lilly – not an easy thing to do at 33+ weeks pregnant and bedtime stories.
  • My husband and I watched Grey’s Anatomy since I can’t manage to stay awake on Thursday nights to watch it

Ladybug Lilly and her Gnome friend.

Sunday:

  • I slept all night (okay, minus 4 trips to the bathroom) – but I managed to not be awake at 4am – this was a first in weeks!!!!
  • Lilly climbed in bed with us around 6:30 and we got up at 7:15
  • Made oatmeal for breakfast – man I missed eating oatmeal for breakfast (still haven’t tried overnight oats, which is on my list of things to try)
  • My husband went to “school” for the day/training for ski patrolling
  • Lilly and I went to get a few groceries for “mommy, daddy, Lilly and baby” – Lilly’s words not mine.
  • Then we met our friends Jack and Jolene at the ZOO!!!! Probably our last trip as they close in a few weeks. It was dead – maybe 5-6 cars in the parking lot. The monkey’s were going crazy and the black bear was pacing in his pen. Nice day out until Lilly and Jack both dropped their apples in the sand. Tantrums began 😦
  • Made it home (30 minute drive) without Lilly falling asleep! Bonus!
  • Had Lunch
  • 1:30pm Lilly and I went down for a nap until 3:45pm!
  • 4pm Skype with Nan in England – always a great way to end the weekend.
  • 6pm Ate dinner (Salmon, mashed potatoes, carrots and corn; tofurky sausage for the vegan)
  • 7pm Lilly, bathed, books and off to bed (Daddy)
  • 7pm Clean dishes, folded 2 loads of laundry (Me) and my husband folded a load too! xo
  • 8pm Email, Facebook and a little Blogging

Busy weekend we had but I wouldn’t change it at all.

What did you do this weekend?

Anyone run in a race ?

I miss running a lot … but it’s just not on the table this late in my pregnancy.

Am living vicariously through many runners who blog.

Attend a Halloween party (for kids or adults?)

What are you/your kids dressing up for Halloween?

Piper’s Run