Third Trimester + Bake Off Bake Along Week 1

I am officially in my third trimester of pregnancy–the home stretch!

baby bumpin’ in Iceland

(Well, kind of. It could still be um, three months or so…)

Everyone tells me the time will fly by but to be honest, when you’re counting days and weeks like you do during pregnancy, the time does not always go quickly. A part of me feels like I’ve been pregnant for yeeeeears (and will continue to be pregnant for years). I am not one to catalog my symptoms or cravings for the internet, but I will tell you that pregnancy is a roller coaster! You feel horrible for weeks–then you feel great. Then you feel so-so, then horrible, then great, and the cycle goes on. This goes for physical and emotional feelings. It’s a wild ride!

Besides the normal (or, totally weird until someone says “Oh yeah, that’s a pregnancy symptom”) aches, pains, weird relationship with food and a hit-or-miss sleep schedule, I feel lucky that I’ve had a pretty healthy pregnancy so far. At our last check-up, our little babe was pronounced “happy, healthy–and cheeky!” which is just so incredible.

Part of the emotional roller coaster part, is, I’m sure, the fact that my life has been in upheaval the last few months–and really, since we found out about the baby in the first place! At the moment, E and I are staying with my parents in Montana. We’ve been all over America since we got back in July (after traveling all over Europe), from Montana to Washington to Texas to South Carolina. Our plan was to come back to the States, get healthcare (which we still haven’t managed to do, I mean really America?!?), and decide where we wanted to live from here.

Well, along the way, E got a fantastic job opportunity–in ANOTHER COUNTRY.

Prenatal care in three separate countries, man.

Well, after weeks of hoping, that plan fell through. Our visa was taking longer than we hoped and we decided that E will work for this new job remotely until the spring. (So stay tuned for that announcement! I don’t want to say anything until we know for sure another move is happening).

To say that I’m disappointed would be an understatement–it’s hard to be in limbo while you’re pregnant! And this new country is one I’ve always dreamed of living in–but fingers crossed, it will still happen.

Still, we’re trying to make the best of things. This means we’ll get to be close to my parents (and hopefully E’s!) when the baby comes along–and we’ll get to be here for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, which hasn’t happened in, well, ever.

Another way to for me to make the best of things?

Join up with the lovely Amanda from Rhyme & Ribbons for the yearly Bake Off Bake Along!

(If you haven’t heard of the Great British Bake Off, click here!)

Last year I made an amazing chocolate bread, a perfect pumpkin cake, a classic lemon drizzle, a Victoria sponge cake, these disastrous pastries, weird Yorkshire puddings, crazy difficult Viennese whirls, and E was a guest-baker with these lemon delights.

My first bake last year–the classic lemon drizzle–was not a huge success, although I found out later I was using the wrong kind of flour (blame it on the Hungarian translation!). The first week is traditionally cake week–this year, a fruit-based cake, chocolate mini rolls, and an illusion cake. I chose to do a fruit-based cake, to hopefully start this year off strong!

I made this sour cream blueberry cake, as kind of a last homage to summer (but only because it’s still so warm–I am more than ready for cooler temperatures, fall flavors, and my favorite season!).

It also felt appropriate to use a recipe from the BBC…since it’s the Great British Bake Off and all. Of course, I forgot the measurement system is not the same here (why, America, WHY?) and coupled with my current high altitude, and lack of kitchen scale, my cake was definitely not perfect.

In fact…I would say it’s more informal than anything else (miss you, Mary Berry!).

Still, it was fairly delicious and that’s half the battle, right?