It was quite a day!  I did a lot of stuff around the house, including washing General in the bathtub, and now my lower back is getting its revenge.  

I didn't want to give General a bath in the bath tub.  At home I either had the vet wash him or I took him to one of those do-it-yourself places so the mess was never in my house.  General sheds A LOT and with me being pregnant trying to wash him wasn't high on my list.  BUT, he needed it and I still haven't found a good place here so it had to be done.  

Our house here is 4 stories total (basement, ground, and 2 levels above).  Our only tub is on the 2nd floor.  General is scared of stairs period, but ours are made of wood planks and are the kind you can see through.  He doesn't even recognize them as steps.  So he stays on the 1st floor, which is ok.  There's plenty of room down there and it confines the hair, which I like.  

Jason had to carry him up to the second floor today though.  It looked like he was carrying a baby calf!  When we got up there General was completely freaked out, like he was on roller skates.  I don't know what his deal was - maybe he was still confused about how he got up there and where he was - this magical place above the floating wood planks?  It was a little funny but I also felt bad for him.  He would have preferred not to have a bath as well.  

A couple hours later though (I had to completely dry him too with my hair dryer so it took forever - spoiled dog!) he smelled like oatmeal, happily back on the ground floor and my bathroom was back in one piece and hair free.

On another note, we went back to what is quickly becoming our favorite little bar in Wiesbaden - the Belgian beer bar called La Petit Belge.  When we went to Belgium I was told about how I needed to try Speculoos.  I didn't see any  while we were there and therefore didn't try any, but continued to hear people rave about it.  

Well they had some for sale last night and its awesome.  It tastes like gingerbread cookies ground up in a peanut butter like paste.  Its better than Nutella in my opinion, but I'm partial to anything gingerbread.  

Last, we have had three friends this week give birth to three beautiful healthy babies and I'm just so happy for them all and thankful that everything went well for each.  Each one of these friends has their own unique path they had to weather in order to get to this day and I couldn't be happier for them. 

Welcome to the world Paul, Colette, & Audrey!  Can't wait to meet you in person!  

After seeing the 3D image of the baby yesterday, I can't help but wonder what she's going to look like!  She has lots of time to change over the next 11 weeks and still needs to gain all her baby fat, so her looks could change quite a bit from what we saw yesterday.

Anxious to meet her!

We had a good day here.  We had an OB appointment this morning and everything looks good!  I was anxious to go since, with my visit to the States, I hadn't been to the doctor since before Christmas.  They did a stress test where they strapped monitors to my belly and we listened to the baby's heart rate for 20 minutes.  Everytime she moved it would disrupt the monitor, it was kind of funny.  I felt like she was puching them.  Everything looked fine, she's growing just like she's supposed to and she's even head down - yay!

I then ran to the grocery where I bought my first pack of diapers (and it begins!), then I met Jason for lunch and headed home.  I finished the Ikea dresser - finally.  It took me almost 3 days because I needed Jason's help for some of it.  Second to the wardrobes, it was definitely the most complex thing I've built from Ikea.  

I'm excited to see her room start to come together.  I ordered a couple things online for her today using gift cards - some essentials that we were still missing.

Yesterday I did some shopping on Baby Gap.  I love their stuff!  The Paddington Bear line they have at the moment is super cute.  I used a gift card from my dad to fill in some gaps in her 0-3 month wardrobe and also buy a cute little outfit to take her home from the hospital in - Fun!

I've been cooking & baking A LOT since I got home.  I cook quite a bit usually, but I usually do it for a couple days and then get burnt out for a couple days (then repeat).  I've been on a longer streak than normal though.  I thought it'd be a fun task to attempt to organize my mass amounts of Pintrest recipes into tried and not tried.

I wanted to share some of the ones I've tried this week.

I've never made meatball subs before.  I'm not sure I've even ever had one before this week.  I had ground beef though and I'm on a sandwich kick (which is difficult to satisfy without deli-meat!) AND I thought Jason might like this.  

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  The meatballs weren't too hard to make and the end result looked almost exactly like the image above!  I went easy on the spices because it seemed like a lot and I'm so glad I did.  I might decrease it by half next time even.

This is not a new find, but its definitely a "tried-and-true" in our house.  My husband actually found this recipe and we continue to use it both for grilled and baked salmon.  I don't cook the fish in our house, that's all Jason.  I wanted to share though because its a really simple recipe and a lot of the stuff we usually just have on hand already.

These were great to have on hand this week.  I had never baked with fresh cranberries, so it was a little new to me.  These are very scone-like scones - i.e. not overly sweet.  I skipped the icing, but did sprinkle a little sugar on the egg wash prior to baking.  The cranberries are tart and they're not overly sweet (and also not really that bad for you!), but they were perfect with a cup of tea in my opinion.  

I will say though, that I had to use a lot more milk than it called for, just FYI.  I would start by adding a 1/4 c. at a time until the dough comes together.  Mine was still fairly sticky so I just did blobs for scones vs. cute little triangles.

This is my contribution to the Super Bowl snacks tonight.  I had made puppy chow once in Home Ec in high school, but not since.  It was really easy and turned out good!  I did end up mixing in the chocolate with my hands which was pretty messy, but I found it much more effective than trying to do it with a spoon.

Oh I saved the best for last!

These are amazing!  My husband said it was in the top 5 things I've ever made.  That and the fact that he ate 3 of them is the highest praise I could get.  He doesn't get overly crazy about food in general.

The dough for this turned out awesome - just like it was supposed to and the fresh cranberries (leftover from the scones I made earlier in the week) mellowed out after baking and complimented perfectly with the orange flavors.  

I used storebought icing because I had run out of confectioners sugar, but I still mixed in the fresh orange juice.  Also, I had some red juice from the cranberries sitting in the bottom of the pan when I took them out in the morning.  This didn't seem to affect anything though, just FYI.  

These would be impressive to make for company and it wasn't terribly hard.  I'd really recommend this recipe.  My favorite of the week by far!