The Nearly Catastrophic No Bake Cheesecake Incident:

So, not only was this past Saturday Valentine's Day - but Sunday was the 1 year anniversary of our engagement! In 1 year, Scott and I got engaged, got married and are 5 1/2 months pregnant! Can you believe it?!? So, to celebrate the big weekend - I stayed home and Scott went up to Lake of the Woods ice fishing with his buddy, Dave. My decision to stay home was easy...the bigger I get, the more uncomfortable I get. Sitting on the lake, on a hard seat, bent over my big belly, looking down a hole waiting for a fish to bite didn't sound like too much fun...not to mention the lack of bathroom facilities! So, I stayed home and started working on the nursery.

Since I was home by myself, my friend Steph (who is also pregnant -due in April) came over on Friday night. She brought the tomato juice - I had the O'Doules and some green olives - we were up for a night of bloody Non-alcoholic beers and lots of baby talk! I had been craving cheesecake all week, so before she came over I decided to make cheesecake for us to eat. Since I don't bake (I try - but don't measure closely enough, or lose interest, forget about it and burn it), I got a No Bake Cheesecake mix thinking that it would be a breeze for me and that I couldn't possibly screw it up! Right?!?!

STEP ONE - make the crust: I got all of my ingredients together (butter, sugar and the contents of the bag from the box), mixed them all together and pressed it into the pie dish. Alright, step one done without any mishaps! Phew...

STEP TWO: One and a half cups of milk and the contents of the bag out of the box. Easy - how could I mess that up?!?! Well, I got the ingredients put into the bowl and realized that I needed my hand mixer...so I reached up on my tiptoes into the top cupboard and grabbed it. As I came down, the mixing bowl with my cheesecake ingredients lodged between my big belly and the counter! I was stuck! I didn't know what to do?! Since I couldn't stand on my tiptoes for much longer, I came down - trying to put the mixer on the counter and grab the bowl at the same time. Well, before I could grab the bowl, the pressure from my belly pushing down onto the bowl caused it to tip over! Sugary milk spilled all down the front of my pants and into the drawers and cupboards below...I was distraught! I couldn't even make a NO BAKE cheesecake - how was I ever going to make my kid cookies or cakes - things that actually have more than 3 ingredients and that I actually had to bake?!?! In total disbelief of what just happened...I cleaned up the mess in the drawers below and as I got to the countertop, I realized that the bowl was still pretty full of milk and mix. I decided I would try adding some more milk and mixing it up, just to see if it would still turn out! Ha! I poured it onto the crust and put it in the fridge in hopes that in 1 hour it would be edible.

By the end of the night,Steph and I spent hours discussing cloth vs. disposable diapers, glass vs. plastic bottles, strollers where the car seat just clicks in vs. joger strollers, high chairs vs. chairs that just sit on the chair, trying to figure out the baby registry at Target, looking through Pottery Barn Kids catalogs and discussing our nursery plans over one bloody non-alcoholic beer (which was delicious, but gave us both instant heartburn)! On his way home from the basketball game, her husband, Paul, came over to pick her up. He joined us for some cheesecake (which everyone agreed was delicious - despite the belly mishap). The three of us looked through the 100,000 Baby Names book that Scott had given me for Valentine's Day...One hundred thousand baby names and we still weren't able to come up with anything except for names that we had already come up with on our own. We also joked about having to make sure that the names we pick go together, because our children will pretty much be twins. And if we have a girl and they have a boy...our girl name will have to go with their last name, Drange... And if we have a boy and they have a girl...their girls name will have to go with Petrowski...because our kids will probably get married!

So, in the end...it was a good night. Not only did I have someone to talk baby with all night long...the cheesecake turned out!