25 Weeks and Valentine's Day

As of yesterday, I'm 25 weeks along now. After going through all of my first trimester without gaining a pound, and actually losing a few, I've caught up now. I've gained about 15 pounds so far, and that's all been in the last month or so. I feel like a blimp, and I'm told that's only going to get worse! Obviously...

I most definitely look pregnant, but I don't have any pictures to prove it yet, so you'll just have to take my word for it! Maybe I'll get Jacob to take some pictures for me soon. I have taken some pictures on my phone, to text to a few people, but they're the cheesy reflection-in-the-bathroom-mirror-with-the-toilet-in-the-background pictures, and not really great for the blog! We'll see if we can do better. I'm getting all dressed up for a date tomorrow night, so maybe we'll get one then. We need one of both of us then...

I'm still not really craving anything specifically...just everything in general. Food, basically, and lots of it. :)

I've had the hardest time with this Valentine's Day. It's hard living with someone and hiding stuff, and that's just the facts! Thankfully, Jacob works 7-3:30, so I have lots of time alone to work on stuff like this. It's also tough because we're never apart...if we go to town, we almost always go together. I did go off with Dave (my brother) this past Monday, so I swung by Walmart and picked up a card. I was going to get him other stuff too, but darn it...I had to buy toilet paper and only had a certain amount of money with me. I mean, truffles or toilet paper..how do you pick?! You pick toilet paper, obviously. Dave did take me out for coffee that day, and the coffee shop had chocolate covered espresso beans, which Jacob loves, so I got him 1/4 lb of those. Funny thing...he didn't know he loved them until this time last year... :)

So anyway, all I had was a card and 1/4 lb (which is a tiny amount) of coffee beans, and I felt like I was lacking. So I tried using my imagination. I can be crafty sometimes, but not when it comes to stuff like this. He really loves truffles and I had really wanted to get him some, but do you know how much they cost? Like, a lot. I knew I had stuff to make truffles at home, but I'd never covered them with chocolate before...which is how he really like them. I figured I'd give it a go, and they actually turned out pretty good. I made the truffles and then froze them overnight, so maybe they would stand up to being dipped in melted chocolate. When Jacob got home from work that night (Tuesday) I told him "there's something in the freezer, and I don't want you to know what it is, so I want you to stay out of the freezer!" Wow....that was soooo hard on him! He dearly wanted to open the freezer, and he bugged me about it all the time! "Is it something to eat tonight? Can we eat it later when we get home? It's for Valentine's day isn't it? What is it? Is it chocolate?..." and that just went on and on! He never did find out though, and I covered them with the chocolate Wednesday morning and then wrapped them up and hid them in the fridge. They did okay for a little while, being dipped in the chocolate, but when they started thawing a bit, they started leaving chocolate residue in the melting chocolate and that ended up making it too thick and weird.

So after I covered them with chocolate and they set up, I drizzled them with white chocolate. I wrapped them in foil squares, twisted the ends shut, and tied some red ribbon around it. Then I dipped fresh strawberries in the chocolate (I actually got the order of things wrong...I dipped the strawberries before the chocolate started acting up) and after they set up, I drizzled those with white chocolate as well. I didn't have a gift bag or anything fancy to put all this in, and it sounded cheesy to lay it all out on the table, so I found a box, probably 10 inches square, and cut the bottom four inches off. I covered it (Modge Podge) in lovey-dovey scrapbook paper I had leftover from last year, and glued on some cute stuff that matched. Then I wound up a bit of tulle (leftover form the wedding) and stuff it in the bottom, and added the candies. I had covered a tuna can (short and squatty!) with the lovey-dovey paper, put the coffee beans in a little baggie tied with a ribbon, and then put the beans in the can. In went all of that and the card, and voila....a very thrifty homemade Valentine's Day gift for my husband.

So, last night, Jacob got up at 2am to feed the fire like he always does, and I woke up having to go to the bathroom, like I always do, but I sort of pretended to be asleep until he came back to bed and fell back asleep...sort of. I got up at 2:30am, pulled the door shut behind me (otherwise he could see into the kitchen) and very quietly went to work. See, some of that stuff had to be refrigerated so it would be chocolate goo in his gift basket, so I had to assemble pretty much everything right then. So, I fixed everything all up, left it beside his lunchbox on the kitchen table, and went back to bed...at which point he was very much not asleep, but apparently didn't think anything of me being up and gone for 15 minutes when I'm usually gone for 1.5 minutes. Then I laid there for an hour because I was thoroughly awake and worried to death that the strawberries would sweat or that the inside of the truffle would leak out. Does he even like chocolate covered strawberries? Then I finally fell asleep again.

Jacob got up at 6am to get ready for work, and I seriously spied. I laid there in bed and peeked at him, while he opened his card and ate some candy. He sort of laughed when he bit into the truffles...a good laugh...I'd never tried anything like that before, and they're a lot like the ones from the store. Then he put some in his lunchbox. :) So anyway, I guess it was a success...

Now I'm off to finish up a few things online and get home to work on some other stuff. Jacob was going to take me out for supper so I wouldn't have to cook, but we decided it would be more fun to go out on the weekend when he didn't have to get up for work the next day, so I'm cooking tonight. I think I'll make Shrimp Alfredo, which is one of his favorite meals I make. I was going to make Pots de Creme for dessert, but I think I'll make strawberry shortcake instead...we have lots of chocolate around right now! So, I've got to get busy making shortcake and cleaning up the house a bit and making alfredo sauce and all that fun stuff!

Who am I kidding...I've just got to get off here and go find something to eat because I'm officially starving. It's probably been like an hour since I've had anything to eat. Ok...it's been longer than that....