Pregnancy Update; Team Pink vs. Team Blue

Hello everyone.. I am back at it again (shocking right?!.. I'm shocking myself too, believe me) and I thought I would share some of my experiences so far with my pregnancy. 

Here is our pregnancy announcement in all its glory in case you haven't gotten a good look at it yet (it's pretty adorable right?!) and most would say it's extremely fitting.. (bun in the oven... catch the baking pun?) 

 

So while I have always wanted to be a mom and experience pregnancy (those baby bumps are quite envious, don't you think?), I really never knew what to expect once we saw those two pink lines on the pregnancy test. My mom had always told me her not so pleasant experiences, so I figured that was what I was in for. But, I also heard (and hoped) that every pregnancy was completely different. 

For me I have had it relatively easy compared to those horror stories that I encountered. Aside from feeling complete and utter exhaustion & some heavy bouts of morning (more like all-day) sickness from time to time, I've been doing great. Like most, I have my good days and my bad and I have been feeling really good lately. Especially since we get to find out whether or not this little one inside of me is a boy or a girl on Thursday! So much excitement is ahead and it helps to look forward to that whenever I am feeling gross. Here's little one at my last ultrasound weeks ago.

Another thing that helps me feel wonderful is being able to hear my little one's heartbeat just pounding away. I was told not to buy one of these before I got pregnant because it could cause unnecessary stress if I couldn't find the heartbeat, so I put off buying the Doppler until I knew I could probably hear it. While I was frustrated at first because it took me about 20 minutes to finally find the heartbeat, once I did it made everything worth it. The sound is so soothing (to me & Ty at least) and I could fall asleep to it. I guess the feeling of knowing your little one is so alive inside of you is what makes me the happiest. Here's a little video from today of our little one's heartbeat. I think little one is sleeping in this video because its heartbeat at the doctor yesterday was way up in the 160s. 

What do you guys think if you had to guess? Team Blue or Team Pink? Tyler & I don't have a clue and will be over the moon with a boy or a girl. We cannot wait to see what little one is! 

That's all for now. See you all Thursday ;)

Breakfast with the Johnson's

Such an old picture. We have always loved cooking together.

 As most of you know, Tyler & I love to eat. If you didn't know that, then well.. take one look at our Instagram's and you'll be in for a real shocker. But seriously, as much as we eat, we love to cook and cook together, at that. We are always scrounging up ingredients in the house to make something to satisfy our hunger pains or food desires.

So, while we love food, we love breakfast foods especially, though it's hard for either of us to get up and actually eat breakfast during "breakfast hours", we usually just make it for lunch or dinner. Maybe even dessert. It still counts right? ... Okay good. One our favorite things to make, aside from the classic egg over easy on toast with turkey bacon, is crepes!

The thing I love about crepes is that you can do pretty much anything with them and with all the berries in season right now, it makes for my favorite crepe which is raspberry & pastry cream. YUM! I could eat these all day. Tyler isn't a huge fan of raspberries, however he did have a few bites of mine and liked it. Tyler's favorite crepe is strawberries & pastry cream. And of course, Nutella & banana crepes are always a hit.

Another one of our favorites is puffed pancakes! We heard about these not too long ago from one of my favorite bloggers, LoveTaza. Since then, we have made them quite a few times and like crepes, they are pretty versatile, but we usually just stick to putting fresh fruit & syrup on them. (that sounds kinda funky doesn't it?, it's good. trust me.) Since I have been getting a couple requests for our recipes that we post, I figured I would kill a few birds with one stone by posting the recipe on here for everyone to enjoy. Here you are. Enjoy!




Crepes: makes about 12 crepes
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

Combine all ingredients in blender and pulse for 10 seconds. Allow crepe batter to sit aside in fridge for about an hour, this allows for the bubbles to subside so that there isn't any tearing when you're cooking the crepe. If you're impatient, go for it. I've done it and haven't had any problems. (don't blame me if they don't turn out... you were warned)

Pastry Cream: makes about 3 cups (this will be enough)
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla

Crack eggs into a container and lightly beat, place these on the side. In a medium saucepan over medium heat combine milk sugar and cornstarch. Let the milk start to bubble but be careful because it is really easy for the cornstarch to clump on the bottom of the pan. Once the bubbles form, take off the heat. Before you add the eggs, you need to add about a 1/3 of a cup to the eggs to temper the eggs before the eggs can go into the milk mixture. If you don't do this, you will end up with egg whites in your cream. Once you have mixed the mixture into the eggs, add that to the milk base and continue to stir. Once stirred in completely, put the cream back onto the burner and let cook for about 2 more minutes; don't let it boil. Take off the heat and add vanilla.

*If you get egg whites into your pastry cream, strain mixture and it should take care of the little whites and it'll solve the problem for the most part.

Puffed Pancakes:
3 tablespoons butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup milk *heated for 20 seconds in microwave
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
pinch of salt

 Preheat oven to 400 degrees. White you're doing this, put your 3 tablespoons of butter into a large saute pan (I use a clear pie pan). Meanwhile, combine ingredients into a blender and pulse for 10 seconds to insure that is combined well. If you mix by hand, make sure everything is combined and not clumpy. Take out your pan from the oven. Swirl butter to make sure it's coated completely and pour batter into the pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until it is golden brown around the edges. You can add fresh berries (or any fruit you desire), whipped cream, syrup, powdered sugar, or anything your heart desires on top! Enjoy!

New Adventures as Husband & Wife

Hello everyone! It has been just about forever since our last post... I can't believe it's been about six months. There has been so much chaotic goodness that has happened in both our lives so I'll try to keep all the gushing down to a minimum.

As most of you know, Tyler & I got married!! It was such an insane day full of so many emotions. Maybe one day I'll share all the hectic events that happened/didn't happen on our wedding day.. that will be an entertaining post. So far we have had a somewhat quiet couple months of marriage and to be honest, it does not feel any different being married.. maybe when I settle into my new last name I'll start feeling different? Maybe not. :) The important thing is that we are happy and enjoying being newlyweds.

On to other exciting news, I also graduated college. It was such a wonderful day. I actually said the words, "I'm going to miss school... a lot" yesterday. HA! Miss school?! Who would have thought. But, I am truly missing some amazing people that I left behind when I moved back home. Ah. Distance sucks. 

Is that enough exciting news for you guys? I hope not because I have yet to share the most exciting news of all...ready?!

There is a bun in the oven baking up a storm right now. That's right... we are expecting!

This has been one of the biggest dreams come true for us. I feel like we have been talking about little one's since we started dating.. (we are crazy, I'm aware) and always knew that we would want to "start trying" (I really hate that term.. but whatever) once we got married. We didn't think it would happen so quickly, but we are more than thrilled that it did. I cannot even begin to explain the love I feel for that little one growing inside of me right now. My heart is overflowing.

Okay, I promised no gushing, but seriously?! That's kind of impossible for me. I guess I'll blame it on my pregnancy hormones.

 I will leave you guys with a ton of amazing pictures of all the awesomeness that has taken place in the past six months. Unfortunately, there aren't too many pictures of our big day since we are still waiting to get those pictures back (the wait is almost over! hurray!).

Wedding Registry Excitement!

Hello friends and family, I hope you are all enjoying the week so far!
As for me and Tyler, we are extremely busy with work and school
however, this weekend we were able to finally finish registering for our wedding!

Doesn't he look like Michael C. Hall as Dexter in this picture..?
Maybe it's the creepy face and knife, I don't know.... ;]

Of course I'm scanning cupcake tins....

We registered at of course, Target. And Bed, Bath, & Beyond. 

You can view both of our registries here:
 Target Registry & Bed, Bath, and Beyond Registry.

I think registering has been Tyler's favorite part of all this wedding planning so far. Not just picking out gifts for our loved ones to get us,
but walking around and getting ideas of what our future home will be like.
It's so exciting, and I think it's safe to say that registering has been one of my favorite parts as well.

Other than registering, Tyler and I have been enjoying cool weather by baking, cooking and glorious cups of espresso. Here are a few pictures to leave you with.

The Proposal

It wasn't too long ago that I proposed to Michelle and saw the tremendous amount of happiness in her eyes, but time is flying quick (already 7 months until the wedding)!

Anyways, for those of you that haven't heard how it all went down, this is the post to read:

Michelle and I had a camping trip planned at Huntington Lake, nothing out of the ordinary, just another regular camping trip we wanted to take like all of the others we love so much. I figured that that weekend would be the perfect opportunity to pop the question; us being in the mountains and surrounded by trees, it's everything we love. 

So I decided that I would place the ring on top of the frosting on a cupcake since baking is her biggest passion (it's what she's basing her life around anyways!) But that wasn't easy, I had to sneak over to buy the cupcakes without her noticing or finding them in the fridge since I had bought them the night before. The next day came around and I was glad she hadn't found them yet, but now I had to sneak them into the car with all of our camping stuff and hope she wouldn't see them again, and thankfully it worked out... again.

As the night rolled on and we were all settled in at the campsite after a fun day, I got more and more nervous to get the cupcakes out, set the ring on top, and bring it out to her in a cute and romantic way. Eventually when the time was right, I walked over to the car and opened up the cupcake box and opened I up... they were both melted to the point of looking like hot fudge splattered all over the inside of the box. My heart was racing and I had NO CLUE what I was going to do now. The night was coming to an end and we sat inside the tent talking before bed like we usually do, but my mind was so pre-occupied I couldn't really concentrate and felt like she could see something was wrong. 

The next day, after a lot of thought, I figured that I would just take her for a drive and see if I could find a cute, secluded and elevated area to pop the question. We drove around and eventually came to the Huntington Lake dam and decided we should walk down and just relax by the water. We found an area just past the damn with a secluded shoreline where we could just sit right by the water and hang out. I finally realized that this would be the perfect area to propose, but there was only one problem. The ring was still hidden in the car (from me thinking there would be nothing special by the dam). I needed a reason to go back to the car to get the ring, so I made up an excuse to head back to our camp a mile or two back to get my swimsuit, which I really didn't have and needed. After we got back to the dam I made sure to stuff the ring in my shoes in our tote bag. 

The view from the dam

We hung out by the water for 30 mins or so and ate some snacks and tried to catch minnows with Ziploc bags (for Michelle, I swear she insisted we catch one). I eventually noticed that to the right of where we were sitting the shoreline stuck out a bit (to where you couldn't see what was around it) and then back again. So I tucked the ring box into my waist band of my swimsuit and walked across the rocky shoreline to the alcove (while almost dropping the ring in the water) and saw a perfect tiny log to place the ring on. So I set it down on top of it and tried calling Michelle over to me to sit where I was and hoped that as she came around the bend she would notice it and I would ask her those four words. But she didn't want to come over at the moment, so I walked back to her and sat for a few more minutes. 

Proposal right around the corner!

Eventually I said we should go to where I was because there was shade and we didn't have sunscreen. She finally gave in and began walking over while I walked right behind her. She got about halfway over (right to the point where you could see around the bend) and stopped. I could tell she noticed something weird. 

Turns out she was just pointing out some trees along the water that looked like they grew cotton on them... great, she didn't even notice the ring! A few second later after admiring the trees she asked me what the heck was over there and I told her I have no idea what you're talking about. She said, "Ty, I think there's a ring over there, OH MY GOD I think somebody was going to propose here!"

She had no idea!!!

Just as I came up right behind her to pretend to see what she was talking about, she turned around and saw me on one knee. I told her how much I loved her and asked if she would marry me, and I was only able to make it about halfway through before the tears started flowing (and she almost got me going too!).

And I don't know why so much nervousness had built up inside me all weekend from just the thought of me asking her, because of course she told me yes, albeit in the midst of her crying.

I swear we spent the rest of that weekend camping just looking at the new ring on her finger with huge smiles on both of our faces; we couldn't stop talking about it! But I guess that's what happens when you decide to spend the rest of your life with your best friend and the most amazing girl in the world.