It's a.....

.....mystery! We didn't find out the sex of our baby. We didn't even ask the ultrasound tech to put it in our chart just in case at a later date we want to know. So if we change our minds...too bad. We'll find out in August!

I'm preparing for both. I have a blue blanket and a pink blanket.

And I will buy one blue outfit and one pink outfit for the hospital as I don't really want to do neutral colors. My mom and sisters will be down when I have the baby so my plan is to send them out with my bank card to buy pink or blue when our little girl/boy arrives.

I love surprises!

Sew Wonderful

I know most of you can sew like crazy. Me? Not so much. So the fact that I made a baby blanket all on my own is remarkable.

It all started at Christmas when my mom bought me a sewing machine and told me that it was for me to make baby blankets with. Ya okay Mom!

I headed out to Wal-Mart, and with the help of the kind sales lady there in that department, we figured out how much material I would need and what supplies I should purchase. I came home with this:

I spent so much money getting my "start-up" sewing kit. Oh well. I started on cutting out the 8x8 squares. Ya the first half dozen or so that I cut out I measured a little wrong so they weren't completely square. Whatever! I wasn't going to recut them all. I'll just make them work. See, I told you I knew ALL about sewing.

Then onto the X-ing of the squares. Well let me tell you, by the time I got to the last few of the 35 squares I didn't even need to draw guide lines on the fabric to help me sew in a straight line. I'm such a quick learner -- hehe.

Now just laying out the pattern. I had to lay it out on the table cuz otherwise I probably would have screwed up on the sequence when sewing it together.

All put together. Now onto the cutting of all those seams. My hand cramped during that part.

And here's the almost final project. I had to empty the lint trap on my dryer at least 100 times while trying to get the rag look of this blanket. And now the blanket is all wrinkled *sigh*. I'll take care of the wrinkles later.

Not too shabby for my first sewing project eh? Don't look too closely at it cuz you'll notice all the mistakes, but I'm sure my baby won't mind. Actually now that I made a pink blanket I'll probably end up having a boy and need a blue one. Perhaps I'll tackle blue fabric next....

My Valentine!

I had the best Valentine's Day! My husband cooked me an amazing dinner. I got home from work (he had the day off) and he had prepared scalloped potatoes, honey butter carrots, a salad, and steak. We had Shirley Temples to drink. Oh wow was it all yummy. And for dessert...chocolate dipped strawberries. Mmmmmm! It was all so nice. And my gift (I told him to keep it simple this year) he bought me some Cocoa Butter because he says my tummy is starting to poke out and he heard that cocoa butter helps to prevent stretch marks when pregnant. Sounds good to me and it smells divine. Oh but the cutest thing was we sat down to eat and he got up and dimmed our dining room light. He said he was going to buy some candles then he thought "hey I'm an electrician...I'm just going to install a dimmer switch" -- he's the best and I'm so lucky.

And now you ask what I got him for Valentine's Day. Well the day before we had this crazy weather in Stirling. I was honestly snowed in and couldn't get to work. I stayed home and baked. Tim has been asking since Christmas for some sugar cookies with icing on them. So I made heart-shaped cookies with pink icing. My dear husband has already eaten all of them. They were a hit.

But because I was home all day I thought I'd try again to make bread dough. I had much better success this time. Elevation....needed much more flower last time. How come no one told me about elevation making a difference until I read that here? Duh! No wonder I could make bread dough in BC with my sister, but when I tried to make it exactly the same in Alberta it wouldn't turn out. (Thanks for the tip Casey) Anyways, I made two dozen buns (turned out perfectly).

But you see Tim loves cinnamon rolls. I thought I'd do a slight variation on the cinnamon rolls and make sticky buns. Sounds good right? What a perfect gift/treat for him on Valentine's Day. Well with sticky buns, as soon as they come out of the oven you have to flip them upside down and then the sticky sauce runs all over them. They came out, they looked great, I tried to flip them but the stupid glass pan was too heavy. I asked Tim to flip the pan over for me. And the last thing I said to him was, "Don't flip them into the sink!" Tim flipped...right into the sink. I had my large bowl in there that I had the dough rising in so they fell in a heap into that (at least they missed the water). I didn't get mad. It was too funny to get mad at. Tim felt horrible! Do they look pretty? We ate them anyways. Happy Valentine's Day Tim! Only the best for you...

Christmas Lights & Baking

After my venting this morning and my update on Friday of what we were up to mid December. Let’s move on to the end of December and talk a little about getting ready for Christmas.

We went out and bought a bunch of outside Christmas decorations. Of course the day we plan on putting them out it had to have been the coldest night we’ve had all winter. That wind cut right through ya. But we got them up with our frozen fingers. It for sure wins over last year’s. But I'm no photographer -- I find it VERY difficult to take a picture of outside lights. So just trust me that they looked good in person. See the presents under the tree in our yard?

Can you see Santa climbing our chimney?

I did some Christmas baking again this year. They turned out much better than my last year’s disaster. They look yummy right? I’ve been told they were. I didn’t eat them. The morning sickness kept me from enjoying the sweets. Blah! However Tim was a little upset that I didn't icing the sugar cookies. It was 11 pm and I was tired. No icing for you!

Suzy Homemaker...I think not

Took yesterday afternoon off work. Went home and tried to be Suzy Homemaker. My sister gave me a recipe for bread that she said was fool proof. I've never made bread before as it takes way too long to make it in the evening when I get home from work. So this was my first attempt yesterday. And well...not so good. Actually horrible. The dough (or what was supposed to be dough) landed itself in the bottom of my garbage can.


That now leaves me with 6.5 months to learn some homemaking skills before I'm off work and home full time. Cuz if I can't make bread by then, well good luck trying to learn with a newborn baby in the house. Or maybe I should just stick with what I know and bake cookies and banana bread instead. Suzy Homemaker...I think not!

Pampered Chef

My Pampered Chef order arrived last week, but because I went away for the weekend and then away on business for the week I wasn't able to open it. Last night I did. Now I'm just waiting for my Pizza Stone to arrive. I'm totally excited to use my new stuff this weekend. What should I make?

I'm Having A Party

Hey you! I'm having a Pampered Chef Show next week and you're invited. Oh and bring along a friend or two.
Date: Wed, Feb 7th
Time: 7:00pm
Place: Ashlee's House in Stirling

Let me know if you can make it so that I can plan the menu (there will be yummy food). Leave me a comment saying you're coming or send me an email at ashleenilsson@hotmail.com and I'll send you my address and a map if you need one.

What's New?

Haven’t posted in a while...no good stories to tell I guess. We got our satellite installed last Thursday. If I wanted I could watch Oprah from 8:00am until 11:00pm (Oprah’s not my weakness, but for some that’d be awesome). I do love that I can watch Days of our Lives in the evenings now though. Way more channels and much clearer. We had three "snowy" channels downstairs in our living room and four "kinda clear-ish" channels in our bedroom upstairs. We’re really moving into this new age stuff. Tim has TSN now and loves it. Boxing is on all the time.

What else? I’m still working away. So nothing new there. Tim’s still at school and we’re surviving on one income (I guess it’s practice for when I’m at home with our baby). But all is well. At least he'll be completely finished with schooling when he's done this time.

We’d like to buy a new car. Actually a new, used car. We’re not sure that’s the wisest thing to do right now while Tim’s in school. But driving the truck 100 km every day for me to get to work is not so nice on the pocket book. Truck = 20 mpg and Car = 50 mpg....and you wonder why we’d like a car. However we would keep our truck as well cuz we have dogs and horses you know. The car dealership was trying to talk us into leasing a car (not so smart for us). Our families live out of town and WE live out of town. Getting to work and trips to see family last year alone was 32,000 kilometers on our truck. And we only lived out of town for 6 months. However we did drive to Vegas.

Tim’s super busy with the Fire Department. Not putting out fires...mostly just training and other courses. He was gone all last weekend and will be again this weekend. Not to count the meetings he has on Wednesday nights. In March he gets to start some of the EMT courses. He’s wicked excited about those.

And I made this matting for The Living Christ and A Proclamation to the World. Took me forever as I'm not too crafty. I ended up hanging them going up my stairs. They look pretty darn good. Except for the non-matching paper. I'm going to have to buy some paper to match the Proclamation and print The Living Christ on it. They look silly hanging on the wall two different colors.
And that’s that.

Christmas Baking

Well I'm trying to do some Christmas baking. I actually really enjoy it. It's just kinda hard finding time to do it in the evenings after work. Anywho, Monday night I started with the Whipped Shortbread and I had problem after problem. I started the dough and I ran out of flour upstairs in my pantry. I didn't worry as I was sure I had a bag or two downstairs in my food storage. I went to check it out and to my surprize I had three bags of sugar and no flour. Now I live out of town so it's not like I can zip over to the grocery store. I started by phoning my Aunt to see if she had some...no answer. Then I called my cousin next door and she said she had some in her food storage that I could us and I said I'd replace it tomorrow. She called me back a minute later and she, like me, only had bags of sugar. She didn't even have one cup. Then I remembered that I keep a little canister of flour near my stove for making gravy (easier than bringing out the huge tub of flour from my pantry). I barley got one cup from it. But it's all good. I continue with the recipe that ends with a pinch of salt. I finished up and put the dough in the fridge and plan to bake it tomorrow as now it's too late and I'm tired. Fast forward to Tuesday (last night)...I bake them all (3.5 dozen) and then do a taste test. THEY WERE HORRIBLE! I don't know how much salt I put in, but it sure was no pinch. My beautiful cookies taste like salt blocks. So I have to toss them out and start all over again tonight. They look yummy though, but don't taste them. I'm starting to think the cookie stuff is not for me.
My Chewy Gingersnaps were much better. Thanks to Tim's sister Rachel for the new recipe. They're wonderful.

Family Wall

I've added some photos to our "Family" wall. Our family is pretty small with just Tim and I plus a couple horses and dogs. We'll have to get some pictures of our extended family or it'll just have to stick with what we have in the frames. I want to change the photos to sepia from black & white. I think it'll go better with the color scheme of our house. Oh and sorry about the blinding flash reflecting in the photo. If I didn't use the flash then the picture was blurry. And I need to reprint the one that has Tim's head cut off.

Hanging Pictures

Okay so we moved to Stirling July 6th and just a day or two ago I finally got around to hanging my pictures on the walls. I know what you're thinking. However, now it's done. Well my main level is done. I haven't hung any upstairs (don't rush me). So I took some pictures of my pictures to show you. Oh and I also bought these letters that spell FAMILY just this weekend and really wanted them up. They were my inspiration to hanging the others. Now I just need a picture of my family hung under the word. We'll see how long that will take me.

Halloween Baking

I was finished my housework Saturday morning and then started doing stuff in the kitchen. My sister and her husband were coming so I thought I’d whip up a bit of Halloween baking (remember Tim now loves cookies). From 11:00 until 7:00 I was working like mad in the kitchen. I was so wrapped up in it that I didn’t even hear or see Tim outside our house with all his firefighting buddies and the fire truck testing out the fire hydrant. I totally missed them. Anywho, in the kitchen I made special Halloween Rice Krispie squares with little orange pumpkin candies in them, some fudge, and bat and pumpkin sugar cookies. I think they were a hit. Tim ate tons of them and I sent some home with my sister too. I swear it tastes better than it photographs.

In addition to my baking I made homemade turkey soup, a spinach artichoke dip, and a bean dip. It was my first time making turkey soup and the taste was great, but I put too much rice in and.....not so good. However Tim ate it up (he’s so sweet). The spinach artichoke dip was a new recipe and it was good, but I’ll stick with my old recipe for next time. And I’ve got the bean dip down to an art now.

Hardwood Flooring

On Saturday Tim had another firefighting course (actually it was all weekend long). While he was gone it gave me a chance to get caught up in my housework. I did a good cleaning of my bathrooms, kitchen, living room, and floors. For any of you that are planning on putting hardwood flooring in your homes, be prepared to clean them all the time. I love my hardwood. It’s a beautiful walnut color. However, I am constantly cleaning it. The dark wood shows absolutely everything. Now that I have this type of flooring it makes me wonder how much was "hidden" in my carpet in the other house. It makes me a little uneasy thinking about it. But in my new house I do have the cleanest floors around.

Just Another Day

So what have we been up to? We’re just busy, busy, busy. There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day anymore. It feels like we’re always running. Here’s a typical day for the Nilssons:

6:00am We’re up! Tim starts getting ready for work while Ashlee goes downstairs to make Tim’s lunch for the day.

6:20am Tim’s out the door and goes to feed the horses while Ashlee cleans up from the morning and gets herself ready for work.

7:30am Ashlee leaves Stirling for the 35 minute drive to work.

4:30pm Ashlee leaves work and does all her errands in town (appointments, groceries, returns, Wal-Mart stuff, etc).

5:15pm Tim finishes work (if it’s a good day) and then he does his errands in town before heading home (horse feed, dog food, vehicle maintenance, helping his wife, etc).

6:30-7:00pm Tim and Ashlee both arrive back home (that is if the errands go quickly). Ashlee starts dinner while Tim feeds the dogs and exercises them while going over to check on our foal (and feed the foal again).

8:00pm We eat dinner.

8:30pm Ashlee cleans up dinner while Tim starts on his "Honey Do" list (leaking toilet, mow lawn, clean dog’s pen, hang mirrors, finish our deck, etc)

9:00-10:30pm Tim continues on his "Honey Do" list while Ashlee attempts to get some housework done (baking for Tim’s lunch, laundry, vacuum, clean bathrooms, etc).

10:30pm We call it a night and decide to stop with the chores and such. Tim will finally get his shower. If we’re not too tired we’ll go in our hot tub before bed, but if it’s been a rough day then we just say goodnight and fall asleep watching CSI.

And it all starts again at 6:00am. Yes, that’s a typical day for us. The days when we have home teaching, visiting teaching, firefighting meetings, and Elders Quorum meetings are even worse. I feel as if I’m running on fumes. Our weekends are packed so full we don’t get to recuperate during them. I'm sure the majority of you are going through this as well. I know we're not alone with a busy schedule. Maybe things will slow down a bit this winter........maybe.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

So for two years of marriage Tim has told me that he does not like cookies. It doesn’t matter the kind of cookie…he just doesn’t like them. So I have been going about life this past couple years never making cookies. Until yesterday…

Tim and I are picking up some groceries yesterday and he turns to me and asks why I never make him cookies. Are you kidding Tim? Anywho, he asks if I’d make him some oatmeal raisin cookies. So me, trying to be a good wife, said that I’d make some for him tonight while he’s at his meeting.

Now I don’t have a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies so I went to some recipe website and found one that had a picture and they looked great (check out the pix). I made them and cooked up the first sheet… and they were HORRIBLE! They were the driest cookies I’ve ever had. They weren’t soft, moist, or chewy at all. They went to my dogs and I didn’t even bother cooking the rest of the dough.

So if any of you have an awesome oatmeal raisin cookie recipe that you could share with me, my husband (who has this new love of cookies) would sure appreciate it. As it turns out Casey, you’re the only master cookie maker.