The Best Cookies In the World

It seems like only yesterday when I was a wee little college kid working at the cash registers at IKEA. I wore that hideous yellow & blue sweater and even had IKEA embroidered jeans. They were so ugly. They were unisex jeans so they fit more like men's carpenter pants. Talk about fashion faux paux. And I had a supervisor who made us wear them no matter what. I hated those damn things.

Anyway, there are a few things that I still love about IKEA.
These cookies are one of them.
I have no idea how to say their name. But they are delicious. And I probably would have never discovered them if they didn't force us to try them during the new employee orientation. They're a nutty/oatmeal flavor and sooooo good. I pick up a box every time we go to Ikea. They sell them in the little marketplace section when you check out. You should try them out.

And they're highly addicting.
So don't feel bad if you finish half a box in a sitting.

On Lemons & Oranges.

Check out this fruit that we picked off our tree this weekend. Isn't it scary looking? At first I thought some bugs ate it. So I picked it off the tree to throw out (I mean throw into our compost bin. I'm still getting used to that). But after looking at it, it really grew that way. It looks like it has little fingers (or as we say, "filanges" -- thank you Friends). How freaky! But that my friend, is a lemon. A lemon with filanges.

Have I told you that we have a lemon AND an orange tree in the backyard at our new house? As dumb as it sounds, it was kind of a selling point. When we first went house hunting, I told the boy that I'd love to have tree where we could just pick and eat something. I was thinking that we could just plant one. I didn't expect for our house to come with one already! DEAL! When we bought the house, I swore we had two orange or maybe grapefruit trees. But after we mustered up the courage to try the fruit (my husband is so brave), we found out the trees were actually an orange and lemon tree on steroids. I mean, these bad boys are ginormous. Grapefruit size. Sometimes watermelon size. I took it too far there, didn't I? Seriously though. Lemons the size of grapefruits.

I'm looking forward to getting a juicer so we can utilize them more. You can only eat so many oranges before it starts to get lame. So I'm thinking smoothies and juice on the regular. Any suggestions on a good juicer would be greatly appreciated. I've never juiced before and have no idea what to look for. I don't even know how to juice! I am 100% absolutely against the hand juicers. We live in the 21st century, people. I am not trying to get carpal tunnel. Electric all the way. So if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Thinking about it.. I have so much to learn.
Being a homeowner is tough. And then throwing first time mommy into the mix is even more complicated. But I'm sure the knowledge comes with time. Or at least that's what I'm hoping for, or else I'm screwed. Joking. But it's been an exciting/scary experience. We've already had more than our fair share of hiccups with the new homeowner process, so I'm thinking parenthood will be a piece of cake. Haha. Who am I trying to kid? I can't even pick up dog poop without throwing up in my mouth. Parenthood is going to be crazy! But I'm up for it and ready for the challenge. And trust me, there will be lots of blog posting to document it so I can tell it all to my kids one day. Blackmail!

Happy Monday!

17 Weeks & Counting

Holy crapballs. The bambino will be here in 17 weeks (or less).
And I say "less" for good reason.
Wanna hear a funny story? Or a couple?

Last night we were relaxing and watching some not-so-good-for-you/trashy reality TV show and the hospital calls me saying  "Mrs. Cortez, your room in the emergency room is ready for you. Please start to head down here."

I kind of looked at the boy like "What the..."
So I asked what this was for. And the nurse told me that the doctor had called in to prep a room since I was going into preterm labor.
UMMM...WHAT?
I told her that I hadn't even been to the doctor that day, but then she verified my name, address, date of birth, social and said everything matched the request.

I had a mini panic attack right about now. Or maybe I stained my pants. One of those two.
She asked if I was in any pain or if I thought I was going into labor and I said negative.
She started quizzing me about stuff I can't even remember now. 
Eventually she said she'd cancel the request but to head to the ER if I started to have complications.
Ummm...okay!

How bananas is that?!
They sure know how to scare the crap outta me.
Literally. Okay, not literally.
But good golly!

Wanna hear another funny story?
This morning, I woke up an hour late for work because I was dreaming about a sandwich.
True stuff right there.
Pregnant woman have crazy dreams. Or it could just be me.

Sometimes I just have to sit back and laugh at my life.
Cheers to Thursday!

Hello 2012!

Check out this photo I found from 5 years ago!
When we lived in LA, we LOVED Disneyland. We used to go alllll the time. We haven't been back there since we moved to San Francisco. But in my head, I know the next time we go will be with our little bambino! How crazy is that?! AND I cannot believe it's 2012 already! In a few month we'll be a proud mama & papa. I can't even begin to wrap my head around that. This baby bump makes it hard to forget. But at times I still can't believe there's a little bambino brewing in there. OUR bambino! I can't wait to kiss her little cheeks.

So as 2012 begins, I have no idea what goals I want to accomplish or what tasks I want to complete. I just know that our whole world is going to change this year and I can't wait! There will be lots of picture taking, lots more blogging and lots more giggles in our house soon. EEEK!

Hope you all have a fantastic start to your 2012 and thanks for following our blog for all these years. I'm so excited to get to share the next adventures in our lives with you all.

Updates on the Homefront

Well hello there! I lied when I said I'd be blogging more often.

Who knew being pregnant, moving into a new house and the holidays would take up all my time! HA! All joking aside, this little lady has been extremely busy. So busy that I took a 12 hour nap yesterday. True stuff right there.

But we've been working our behinds off. If you came to our house right now, I'm sure you'd call me a liar (this is not looking good for me). There are boxes everywhere! We've even carved out little pathways in each room. But what they don't tell you when you buy a house is that you have so many little things to do, that unpacking is the last thing on your mind. So far we've had visits from yardmen, blinds installers, movers, fence repairmen, alarm installers, air duct cleaners, satellite dish putter uppers, internet setter uppers and OY it goes on and on. And then you have issues like your patio roof blowing off when we had the crazy wind storms or your kitchen sink leaking so you have dishes piled up the size of Mt. Vesuvius. All of this, true stuff.

I've done all of my Christmas shopping online for 2 reasons:
1. Imagine this pregnant lady in a mall with crowds. I would so cut to the front of the lines and fight off anyone that said anything to me. I'd probably just walk around with a baseball bat just to ward off comments. (seriously joking. but i like to dream)
2. When you order online, you can ship directly to the recipient. That totally eliminates a trip for me to the post office. Again, I'd probably pull a #1 there as well. Those lines are bananas.

Wanna hear a funny story? This just adds to the insanity that is my life.
So I am an avid Amazon.com fan. So much so that we even order our Spam from there.
Anyway, the week that we moved into the new house, I ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon to be delivered. We were going out of town that weekend, so I expected to have piles of boxes at our doorstep when we got home.

Well, we got home and saw nothing. I checked online and it said that all our packages were delivered. I checked again. The boy checked again. Nothing. So I wrote a harsh/stern email to amazon describing how I was such a loyal Amazon user for years and have never had an issue with receiving packages. So they gladly shipped replacements for everything with overnight shipping. I was satisfied.

We came home from work the next day expecting packages on our doorstep.
Nothing.

What the BALLS. Remember crazy lady status #1 up there, yeah, I was about to pull that again. Picture me pacing back and forth in our house screaming "OH HELL NO!" I checked online again and Amazon had said that the new shipment was delivered. I immediately thought OUR NEIGHBORS! We just moved into this neighborhood and our neighbors are stealing our crap. GET ME THE BASEBALL BAT!

The boy for some reason went outside and noticed that our delivery man had nicely hid our boxes in a nook in our stairwell that is covered by a bush. There sat all 6 boxes, 2 of everything, that we ordered from Amazon. I could not stop laughing. I'm sure he placed them there because its out of plain sight from the street (so crooks don't steal them). He is so clever, that guy.

Talk about stress over nothing.
It's funny to laugh about it now.
Not so funny then.

Anyway, I promise more updates.
I promise more blogs.
I promise more pictures.
I promise to be a better blogger.
&& if not, there's always 2012 resolutions  :)

Happy Holidays!

Home Sweet Home

photo source

The boy and I have been shopping for home for almost 6 months now. And let me tell you, it's no easy task. Blog post coming later perhaps.

Adventure #1 involved a home we put an offer on and then had the inspector tell us we were better off living in a cardboard box. Adventure #2 involved some not so friendly people that we had to fire on the day of closing. Adventure #3 lead us to a bank that thought it was appropriate to take their sweet time. And by sweet time, I mean months to fund our loan.

Long story short, we finally got our keys and are moving in!
(insert happy dance here. my happy dance is the cabbage patch.)


Since before we got engaged, the boy and I made a list of goals that we wanted to accomplish. One of our goals was to purchase a house before we turned 30 years old. The reasoning behind that was because a usual home loan has a 30 year life span and it would be nice to not have a mortgage to worry about by the time you retire at 60ish years of age.

It's crazy to think that we were able to accomplish this. And years earlier than we expected.
And we have a bambino on the way!
As the boy says, I'm seriously on cloud 10 right now.


I'm so excited to be moving into our new house. But a little sad to be leaving behind our condo that we've loved for the past 3 years. It's bittersweet. We'll be spending the next few days moving and settling in, and then off on a little vacation. And boy do I need it!

We have some crazy adventures coming up, like living without a fridge, washer and dryer for the next 2 weeks since they can't deliver our new ones until then. And then the frightening thought of this pregnant lady unpacking boxes and dealing with hormones.

Future blog posts? I think so!
Cheers to a smooth moving in process.