26 weeks!

I've only taken 1 bump pic over the last 2 weeks. I guess my mind is preoccupied with going back to work. 

26 weeks 3 days 

Pregnancy stats: 

Weight gained: 20 lbs. 

Craving: pumpkin sweets and jalapeños - separately  

Feeling: physically- lower back pain after I work out or do too much house work

Emotionally- still great but moody at time, less patience 

Baby is: 14 inches and almost 2 lbs! Wow he's getting up there! His eyes are growing and he is building antibodies. 

Movement: He has been very active lately. It's usually the same time of day every day- when I'm hungry during the day he seems to kick a lot and when I eat, especially anything sugary. At night he is very active when I sit down. We decided to get a flashlight and shine it on my belly to see if Rob could see movement. It worked! I think it woke him up because before the flashlight he wasn't moving a lot and after he was pretty active for awhile. I felt bad doing that because I don't know if it hurt his eyes and I don't like the idea of waking him up. 

I'm reading a book, "praying through your pregnancy". The author gives you prayers for each week of your pregnancy. For week 25 the focus was on babies hands. Here are two scriptures I wanted to share...

I pray that my babies' hands are formed perfectly and he always uses them for Gods purpose. 

I had my gestational diabetes test. You have to drink a sugary orange drink. Lots of people say its gross but I thought it tasted like flat orange pop. It was really sugary though. I'm a dork and took a picture. 

I had the apt at 2:50 and you have to drink the drink exactly an hour before they draw your blood so I had to drink it at work. And you have to finish it within 2-3 minutes of drinking. The kids didn't even notice. 

Over the weekend I did a lot of cleaning, working in my classroom, and cooking! I hardly sat down. It was exhausting but fun and rewarding too! 

I went to B&BW and got a couple new fall soap scents for the house. They smell delicious! My favorite is pumpkin cupcake. 

These new mason jar candles are so cute! I got this one! 

I also got these scents for soaps:

I wanted to make a pumpkin dessert too so I made these:

Pumpkin whoopie pies 

I had never made whoopie pies before. It was super simple. The batter was really lumpy when I mixed the ingredients using just a spoon. I put them in the oven anyways. 

 For the next batch I brought the hand mixer out and the lumps went away. 

Without the icing they taste like little cake bites. I'm so glad I discovered these because sometimes you just want a bite of cake. Well maybe thats why cupcakes were invented. lol Shay over at mix and match mama makes many different varieties of Whoopie pies if you want to try. Delicious! 

I saw this pin on piniterest from graciouslysaved.com

I was so excited to try some new crockpot recipes. Being back to work makes it super hard to cook. Throwing food in a crockpot is so easy! Plus these recipes are paleo for Rob or I can add things to make them non paleo for me! Bonus! I will probably be rotating these recipes all fall/winter! 

The first one I made was taco chili. Rob said it was in the top 10 for things I've cooked. Love to make my hubby happy! Of course we made this on a Saturday when Rob doesn't usually follow Paleo so we added cheese, sour cream, and fritos! It was great for leftovers too! I didn't use the green onions nor did I freeze it. 

Sunday morning I decided to make a blueberry French toast casserole. It was from a website that has clean eating recipes so it was healthy. It was delicious! The blueberries made it even better. Here's the recipe. I made bacon to go with it and poured syrup over mine. But at least it was whole wheat bread right? I didn't add almond or vanilla to mine because I had vanilla almond milk so I didn't want it to be too vanilly. 

It is 96 degrees here today! Definitely does not feel like Fall! Stay cool!