33 Weeks Pregnant

Do I even look bigger than two months ago? Photos don't do justice. I feel HUGE!! Yesterday Kevin and I were just walking around a store, and I had to sit down on a store display chair every 5 minutes or so. The baby feels like it's just going to drop out of me any day now and it's getting harder and harder to do anything.

Speaking of which, we've been a little nervous lately because I have suddenly been having a lot of contractions! The doctor got nervous, too, with the frequency that I have been having them, and he put me on some medicine to slow it down lest I go into preterm labor.

If you think of it, pray for me! I've had to suddenly restrict my activities and now I just spend most of my time either in bed or sitting down. Walking, driving, bending over, and lifting are just agony on the poor uterus, who is now toting around something like a 4 lb. baby.

But the baby is doing just fine! It's happy and content in mommy's belly, and seems to be preparing for a career in dance or acrobatics with the amount of kicker-cising it has scheduled for itself everyday. :) Thank God for that.

The Secret Ingredient Is...

In the last month, I went through a baking frenzy - I made muffins, tarts, empanadas, focaccia bread, power bars (a.k.a candy bars), and more. It was in my system, this need to bake all sorts of creative things before the 3rd Trimester fatigue kicks in. The criteria for my goods were that they had to be healthy and delicious. In other words, Kevin had to be able to eat them and like them.

I made these muffins with a secret ingredient. It was sitting on my buffet for awhile and I had to think of a way to use it up. Kevin couldn't guess what it was and neither could my parents when they tried these yummy muffins. I'm telling you, these are YUMMY muffins! They turned out moist and fluffy, with just the right amount of sweetness and crunch on top.

The secret ingredient is...squash! In this case, I used the Japanese Kapocha squash that you can get from any asian market. The muffin is sweetened with squash and honey, and it is topped with a brown sugar-walnut streusal topping that gives just the right crunchy scrumdiddliumptiousness when you bite into it.

Here's a link to the recipe I used if you're interested in a healthy, low-sugar sweet treat: http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2008/10/spiced-pumpkin-or-squash-muffins-with-a-streusel-topping.html

The only thing I changed in the recipe was I used white flour instead of whole wheat flour, although I plan to bake more with whole wheat flour in the future (a challenge, since whole wheat flour can make baked goods taste heavy and wheaty).