The Gus Fuss

Buffalo Mac-n-Cheese

2012-02-12T10:54:00.000-06:00

While on maternity leave I've really enjoyed being able to cook some good dinners and eat a little healthier than we normally do. It seemed lately that I kept seeing recipes for Buffalo Chicken Mac-n-Cheese...so I figured it was a sign I should make it! I looked at many recipes on the web, but a lot were from scratch and just seemed too time consuming for me and too many ingredients to buy. So I found this recipe on the Kraft site, but then made lots of changes...I really like how my version turned out:

Ingredients
3 boxes of the cheap Kraft Mac-n-Cheese with the powdered cheese
1 bunch of green onions
1 container of crumbled blue cheese (probably was about 1 cup)
1/3 cup buffalo wing sauce (use more or less depending on how spicy you want)
2 cups chicken (I used some frozen diced chicken pieces and defrosted in microwave)
1/2 block cream cheese
This will make a lot- probably 10 good serving sizes.

Directions
I boiled my 3 boxes of pasta in a large pot. Drain water and return to pot. Add the powedered cheese from the mac-n-cheese box. I also stirred in a little bit of water (maybe 1/4-1/3 of a cup) or you could use milk. I then added about half a block of cream cheese cut into cubes. Stir until all of the powder cheese is dissolved and cream cheese is melted. Stir in chicken, buffalo sauce, half of the green onions, and half of the blue cheese. Pour into a 9x13 pan (I lightly sprayed with non-stick oil). Sprinkle remaining onions and blue cheese over the top. I baked at 350 for about 20 minutes just to let it all come together.

I forgot to take a picture, so had to use a generic from the internet:

Lachlan - 1 Month

2012-02-02T14:48:00.001-06:00

Lachlan turned 1 month on Jan 13, so just imagine this post was up a couple weeks ago :)) Here is a quick recap of his first month and some pictures:

We came home on the Saturday after he was born- as much as I actually really liked being in the hospital because we were so catered to, I was ready to come home. On Sunday we had Jill from In the Moment Photography come over to take newborn pics. Unfortunately Lachlan was cranky, but she was great with being patient and getting some awesome shots! A few are shown below here:

Dustin was off work until after the holidays, so it was a huge help to have him available 24/7. My heart goes out to new mom's who don't have someone around to help them because it is just exhausting! We had many xmas celebrations where Lachlan got some really cute gifts. I was able to get out a xmas card/birth announcement just in time. I used a photo from our newborn photoshoot and then bought a pdf on Etsy to use. Dustin then just took it to Office Depot to print and cut down to size.

Lachlan had his first doctor's appointment and everything looked good. He had slightly surpassed his birth weight, so we no longer have to wake him at the 4-hour mark at night to feed him.

After New Years, Dustin was back to work, but my mom was here for a week to help out. Then it was all on my own...which I actually enjoyed and wasn't too bad at all since he was almost a month old at this point!

Here is pic on 1-month birthday:

Here is a typical 24-Hour period for us at 1 month:
·        Every other night Dustin gives Lachlan a bath
·        Around 9-9:30 swaddle in the miracle blanket and give a 3 oz. bottleto fill up that tummy
·        Lachlan sleeps in our bedroom in the Fisher-Price Rock andPlay. We play the sound of a waterfallon the sound machine, which basically just sounds like loud static. I really think the success of his sleeping is due to the Swaddling, Sound machine, and Rock and Play.
·        I have to awake and pump around 1am.
·        Around 3am Lachlan wakes up- change diaper and give abottle. I pump again. Usually Lachlan goes back to sleep pretty easily.
·        Around 5:30-6am- change diaper and givea bottle. I pump again.
·        Normally will wake again between 7-8. Some times I lay him in bed with me onboppy lounger for a while longer. Sometimes I will nurse him so I can stay in bed longer.
·        Around 9, we get out of bed and I take ashower while Lachlan is on boppy lounger in the bathroom. He LOVES just laying in there and listeningto the shower!
·        Then the day is just filled with random feedingsand sleeping here and there.
·        The only toy he really uses is the swing andsome days will nap in here for hours or just be content swinging away. He really likes to be held and will sleepthat way. When there is any free time, I am pumping, washing bottles/pump accessories, doing laundry or some chore.
·        Dustin gets home around 6:30 usually, just in timefor the cranky period! We rarely can both eat dinner at the same time in peace and quiet.

Welcome Lachlan!

2012-01-26T09:12:00.003-06:00

This post is WAY delayed because it turns out that having a baby around really occupies your time! I'm going to try to be much better about posting (even if they are just short) so that way I can keep people updated and have something to look back on for myself.

This post will go through my labor and birth of Lachlan on 12/13/2011!

5:37am: The day started with a phone call that completely jolted me out of a deep sleep. Thehospital said they were ready for me, so Dustin and I had one last snuggletogether in bed and then were up showering and getting ready! I was not expecting to get called so early and were just told it would be sometime that day. We snapped one last picture before leaving the house to capture me at 41 weeks. It was a dreary, rainy morning and took us awhile to get to the hospital cause was rush hour- I was just relieved we weregoing for an induction and I was not in labor stuck in the traffic!

7:30am: We checked in and they put mein my room, gave me the gown, and got the IV going. I was dilated to 3cm. The IV did not hurt, but just grossed me out to look at this tube going into my arm...so I actually covered it with a towel for the first few hours so I didn't have to look at it.

9:00am: They gave me Pitocin, which is adrug used to start contractions. About20 minutes later the doctor came by and broke my water. There was an initial gush of fluid that cameout and basically just feels like you peed the bed, but I was not prepared forit to continue to leak out for hours afterwards. I frequently asked them to keep changing thepad I was laying on cause it just felt disgusting laying in this wet fluid-- was not prepared for how that was all going to feel/work! We had brought dvds to watch, so we popped inSeason One of 30 Rock since we had not seen those episodes before. The contractions were either not noticeableor not too bad at the beginning here. However, then they started getting noticeable—they were not crazypainful, but on about the same level as menstrual cramps. My back was killing me around this time and Iwanted a heating pad we had brought from home, but that was not allowed- sothey brought me a hot towel to put back there which helped some. I wanted to get the epidural in BEFORE theygot really bad, so I asked about getting the epidural at 10:40. The nurserecommended I wait just a bit more maybe until 11:00 and then she would havethe doctor check to make sure I was progressing and had moved past 3cm. I was a little skeptical of this because figured come 11:00 everyone would be busy and I'd be sitting around waiting long past that.

11:00am: Luckily the doctor came almost right on time and said I was at 4.5cm, sothey called for the epidural and got that put in pretty quickly and was not a painful process. After that point, I went back to feeling nocontractions at all for a while. Woo-hoo! For the next few hours I'm thinking this delivery is going to be a breeze because of how well this epidural is working. Theysaid to plan on dilating about 1cm/hour. I continued on slightly faster than that...
12:30pm: 6 cm dilated

1:10pm: 7 cm dilated- the nurse and doctor comment on how well my body is responding to this and hopefully the delivery will be a breeze and go as smoothly as everything else has so far.

2:45pm: 9-10 cm dialted and ready to start pushing soon. So it seemed that I was well on my way tohaving a baby in the next couple hours and the pain was perfectly tolerable- Icould only feel slight pressure when having contractions. Life is great at this point!

3:00pm: Now all hell starts breaking loose! So the nurse explains to me how to push and I felt like Ijust could never do what she was asking. As I’m laying on my back she wants me to basically do a stomach crunchand curl up around the baby and then push 3 times for 10 seconds each whenever I have a contraction. My problem was that the baby was so big andI’d been uncomfortable for so many weeks, I just couldn’t hardly “curl uparound the baby.” And when I did that, Icouldn’t breathe in adequately to effectively push for so long. It felt like my lungs were crushed that I couldn't breathe. So we just kept trying over and over andover. It was discouraging cause theprogress was so little each time-- she commented after lots of pushing that the baby had moved a few millimeters (yes, MILLIMETERS)...and I thnk she was just saying that to be nice and keep my spirits up!

4:00pm: Eventuallythe pain started getting horribly bad on my right side to the point where Icouldn’t even attempt the pushes anymore. The pain was extending down my right thigh. So I keep telling the nurse that I’m havingreally bad pain- and she always comes back with asking if it is "pressure" or"pain" because I should be feeling pressure, but not pain. Since I’ve never had a baby I didn’t know ifI was just being a wimp and this was normal or not. Finally it was so horrendous I just brokedown crying and was borderline freaking out cause there was no way I could goon pushing under these conditions and didn’t know how I was going to get thebaby out. This was just the worst feelings and pain that I never want to live through again. So she called the epiduralpeople to come back and see if there was anything they could do. Luckily, they were able to adjust some things andhave me lay on my right side to get that numbed a little more. I then went back to trying morepushing…I could tell from the nurse that still no progress was being made, but at least it was a little less painful.
6:00pm: Finally the nurse called the doctor in to look at things and thedoctor said the baby’s head was at -1 and needed to move to a +3 to getout, so I wasn't even close. She said basically no progress hadbeen made in the baby’s position from the start—just what you want to hearafter going through all that excruciating pain! She said I was probably looking at like 3 more hours of pushing and maybe I would get to that point…or theother option would be to do a c-section. Immediately I’m like- give me the c-section. A huge sigh of relief came over me and I've never been so happy to have surgery before!

6:30pm: A crew of people came in to give me drugsprepping me for the surgery. Dustin got his scrubs.

7:00pm: They wheel me down to the operating room. Everything just seems now to start happening really fast and my memory may be slightly fuzzy for events in the room cause I wasn't feeling the best. Dustin was by my side for the surgery and the main thing I remember is I started shaking really badly. I look over at my arms and they are flopping around like a fish out of water- so this scared me some that I was going into some sort of shock of having some reaction. However, they assured me this was common and okay. I couldn't see or feel the lower part of my body, but I was scared it was shaking too and they weren't going to be able to do the surgery or I was going to jerk and then they would splice something open they shouldn't.

7:13pm: Lachlan is born and I hear his little cries! However, the moment is not all joyous as I hear someone say, "Call the NICU" immediately when he is pulled out...so I am so scared that something is majorly wrong with him that they were able to determine that so quickly. For those that don't know, NICU is basically where the babies go when they would have something wrong or born prematurely, so it is not good news. The other 2 things I hear from the other side of the table are, "Whoa- he is such a big baby!" and "Look at all that red hair!" I kept telling Dustin all along that I want a blonde kid and not a redhead....so was not happy to hear about the red hair at all...but was the least of my worries at the time!

So now they start the about 20 minute process to sew me back up. They bring Lachlan over to the side to perform tests, weigh him, etc. so I can see him during this time and Dustin can be by him. The first thing I do is just inspecting him head to toe trying to see what is wrong. For a second I thought he was missing a finger, but it then popped up and was just folded back. So I can't see anything wrong with him...and he looked HUGE....and his hair did not look very red to me- maybe strawberry blonde. He weighed in at 9 lbs 4 oz and supposedly pooped twice before he hit the scale.

Finally a nurse tells me that they had to call someone from NICU because there was unexpected merconium, so they have to make sure he didn't swallow any...which he didn't. I'm also feeling just very naseaus while they are sewing me up and feels like it is taking FOREVER. They get me a bucket and I'm freaking out what is going to happen if I throw up. I'ts so hard on your stomach and body and obviously they are trying to do surgery, so this can't be good if I start puking. I'm also still just shaking really badly. Poor Dustin was over by Lachlan and taking all sorts of pictures that I had asked him to do...but I called for him to come over by me cause I just needed him there to hold my hand and be there in case I did get sick. This time period was really the only downside to the whole c-section process.

8:00pm: We go back to recovery room and it was kinda nice to just get some time for the 3 of us and to just relax and take a deep breath! I got to hold Lachlan and I'll have to say that it really just was kind of weird...to be holding this little guy that is now our son and that just less than an hour ago was that painful thing inside me. I thought he looked so adorable though and was so happy! Dustin left for a few minutes to go out to the waiting room to tell his family and I called my mom and sister. After a while, they took Lachlan to the nursery so they could clean him up and do tests, so Dustin went briefly with him, but then came back to hang out with me.

9:45pm: Unsure of the time here, but they take me to our room and get us setup in there. All I can think of is WHAT A DAY! Was glad that it was over, we were all healthy, and just exhausted!

At the end of the day, I’ve had such a positive experiencewith the c-section and the recovery so am glad I got to go that route. And if there are peoplelike me that were very scared and apprehensive on the whole labor process, Iwould seek out a doctor that will voluntarily give you a c-section. Who knows, maybe if the baby was smaller andthat epidural had worked better, the labor would not have been bad….but I knowI NEVER want to experience the pain and feelings like I had that day. There was very little pain/discomfort withthe c-section process. They give you tons of drugs for the recovery and at the 1 week mark, I was completely off allmedication and had essentially no pain. The scar is down so low that no one will ever really see it- can stillwear a bikini if I desire. And I likedthat we got to stay in the hospital longer- it gave us more time to get helpbreastfeeding and having the nurses monitor the baby.

Here were our predictions vs. actuals-- we ended up in a tie :(
Time of phone call: Amy- 9am; Dustin- 6am; Actual- 5:37am (Dustin wins!)
Baby's Weight: Amy- 7 lbs 9 oz; Dustin- 8 lbs 5 oz; Actual- 9 lbs 4 oz (Dustin wins!)
Baby's Length: Amy- 21 inches; Dustin- 24 inches; Actual- 22 inches (Amy wins!)
Time Baby is Born: Amy 5:16pm 12/13; Dustin- 11pm 12/13; Actual- 7:13pm (Amy wins!)

Get ready for many more posts all centering around baby Lachlan now!

Tomorrow is THE DAY!

2011-12-12T19:55:00.004-06:00

So, I'm sitting here tonight at 40 weeks and 6 days...so basically I have the dreaded 41-week post since this stubborn little guy refuses to come out! However, I'm not using my normal format and just writing down some thoughts-- I'll have to take a bump picture tomorrow when I look better than now!

So as of last Tuesday, my doctor setup the induction for tomorrow 12/13 and I was 6th on the list to be called. However, I'm sure some of the 5 people ahead of me had their baby this last week, so I've probably moved up a little. They usually start phone calls around 5am and will just depend on how busy they are with people coming in for natural births. If I haven't heard anything by noon, then I can call and get a status update. So we sit around tomorrow and wait for THE CALL!

We are both really ready cause feel like our life has been on hold lately cause keep thinking the baby could be coming...so almost every day we have spent just sitting around the house...watching tv, playing some games, etc. I've been working from home and Dustin is technically on vacation, but basically was working from home. The one good thing with the baby coming late is that we had time to explore 3 daycares and think we have decided on one. As much as we are ready and excited, it's also just really hitting me and kinda makes me sad that the life Dustin and I have known will come to an end and take a whole new direction starting tomorrow...although I know it will all be for the better!

This last week has been brutally uncomfortable, but some of it could just be in my head since I know I was overdue. Sleeping has been really difficult and generally only sleep for about 2 hours at a time before I wake up and either my ribs or back is throbbing. The heating pad has become my new best friend! It's been tough cause it's so hard to get comfy-- if I sit too long, it's killer....if I stand or walk too much, it's killer...there is just no good position to be in! Dustin has been so good to me the last few days cause there's been a few crying meltdowns when I'm so uncomfortable and don't know what to do....usually a good backrub cures that then! I've already decided for the next baby that I will need to make sure I have a doctor that will induce a little earlier- like maybe 2 days after the due date or something. Waiting a week was just too much! And considering he was last measuring 9 days ahead of schedule, I'm paranoid now he's HUGE.

I must say that I'm not near as nervous as I thought I would be. I've been dreading the actual labor FOREVER, but I think I've been so uncomfortable that I really am just ready to get it over with. I would be way more nervous if I was doing some sort of public speaking thing tomorrow, so just goes to show how much I hate that I guess! I think I just know I gotta get through whatever pain...and hopefully in a few days I am feeling SO much better than right now :)

Just for fun, we made a few predictions so we'll see who gets the most right:
Time of phone call: Amy- 9am; Dustin- 6am
Baby's Weight: Amy- 7 lbs 9 oz; Dustin- 8 lbs 5 oz
Baby's Length: Amy- 21 inches; Dustin- 24 inches
Time Baby is Born: Amy 5:16pm 12/13; Dustin- 11pm 12/13

Hopefully next post is to share a POSITIVE birthing experience and the fact we have a HEALTHY baby!

Chicken and Dumpling Casserole

2011-12-08T16:30:00.000-06:00

We made a very easy casserole Sunday night, which has provided us with yummy leftovers for the week. I seriously love Plain Chicken's blog and used another one of her recipes for Chicken and Dumpling Casserole. This was better as leftovers than it was the original night because it thickened up a little more. It had a great flavor and we'll be making this again! (I'm thinking next time it could be good with some onion, mushroom, and celery thrown in here too)

Chicken & Dumpling Casserole
1 rotisserie chicken- shredded
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup butter
1 cup flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup skim milk
1 can Campbell's cream of chicken soup

Preheat oven to 400.

Melt butter in the microwave and pour into bottom of a 9x13 pan. Shred the chicken and spread it on top of the butter.

Whisk together the milk and the flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly pour over the chicken. Don't stir.

Whisk together chicken broth and cream of chicken soup. Pour soup over the flour and milk mixture. Don't stir.

Bake uncovered for 35 to 45 minutes, or until top is golden brown.

Nursery Progress- Modern Yellow/Gray

2011-12-07T15:36:00.000-06:00

While we've made a ton of progress with the Nursery, there is still a little left to get done.
As I posted earlier, my mom painted the nursery a dark gray color instead of the beige color that our entire house was painted. We also installed some room darkening disposable shades-- I highly recommend these as they are less than $10 at Lowe's, EASY to install, and the gray color conveniently matched the room. We'll eventually replace or do something different with the windows, but it works for a quick fix for now. Our main pieces of furniture were a white crib and dresser we had delivered from Amazon and then a gray rocker chair.

Let's talk the crib first. We didn't feel like we needed anything expensive and went with one of the cheapest options, but should work fine to get the job done! We went with the Graco Sarah for about $150 from Amazon. We also ordered our mattress from Amazon and is one that can be used as a more firm side for babies and then slightly softer side for toddlers eventually. Instead of purchasing a whole bedding ensemble, it is much cheaper to just get the pieces you actually need. We got a solid gray fitted mattress sheet. And then I bought fabric in the color scheme of our room for a DIY crib skirt. I had seen this on Young House Love blog which gave me the idea to just use the iron hem and velcro to simulate what a crib skirt would do. What I liked about the method I used is that I got to use 2 coordinating fabrics and as the mattress height gets lowered as the kid grows, then I can easily adjust the polka dot layer to be smaller. (I cheated for now and just did the front...will work on the sides later!) I found that Michael Miller fabrics were the ones that really caught my eye...unfortunately I didn't find some superstore in St. Louis that carried these that I could go look at them. But many sellers on etsy offer these in coordinating bundles and www.fabric.com was a good price and retailer to use.
For anyone wanting to use fabric for a DIY crib skirt, I recommend looking around the internet for ideas. I can share my steps at a high-level, but really differs based on your crib and the look you are going for. Step 1 was taking measurements for your areas on the front and sides of the crib for the pieces of fabric. Hopefully you ordered the right amount and the next step is cutting it down to size. For the polka dotted fabric, I was lucky and able to cut one long piece for the front. For the striped fabric, the longest length I could get a piece was 44 inches and I needed more than this, so I had to cut 2 pieces and sew them together. I was terrified I would screw this up, but it really turned out looking fine...even though it was sloppily done!

For the polka dotted fabric, I didn't need to do any nice looking hems after cutting because the edges are all hidden (either under the mattress or behind crib parts. For the striped fabric, I had to hem (or make pretty) the edge that is displayed near the floor. I am in love with this iron hem tape- which you can find at wal-mart or any craft store!
I just followed the directions on the tape. I used a measuring tape and folded over about an inch and ironed that.

Then I placed the tape in the 1-inch seam I just created.

I then ironed the seam with the tape inside pressing for 3-5 seconds each section.

We then used some velcro and just assembled to the crib where it made sense! End result:

Now, on to the dresser- this thing was a pain to assemble, but in the end was worth it cause we didn't want to spend a lot of money and just wanted something functional that looked decent. We ordered from Amazon, but usually Wal-Mart has slightly cheaper. On top we have the changing pad along with a basket full of diapers, wipes, and supplies. Above the dresser I bought white frames from Target and then just made my own pictures and printed. Etsy was a great source of inspiration for DIY nursery art, so definitely recommend looking around on there and then just doing yourself to save some money.

In the corner between the crib and dresser, we have a rocker chair. It was around $350, so definitely one of the more expensive items in our room, but we felt like it was worth spending something decent on....and this is still cheap compared to some of the rockers out there! We had to get it custom upholstered with this gray fabric, so took about 7 weeks for it to come in and we ordered from Philips Furniture here in St. Louis. I have some other Yellow/Gray Michael Miller fabrics, so will probably sew a pillow to sit in here too.

Above the chair are some floating white shelves we got at Lowe's. I really didn't have anything to put on these, so had to scramble a little! I bought some wooden letters at Michaels to spell his name and then spray painted them gray and yellow. This cost less than $10 to do since I already had the spray paint at home. I then put some baby books we've received up there with some metal bookends purchased from Amazon. I had started making some felt-stuffed owls for a mobile, but decided to nix that idea and use them with the bookends. I filled the bottom of the owls with popcorn kernels to weigh them down....then filled the top half with pillow stuffing.

One items we still need to install in the room and will be here Thursday this week is a large vinyl wall decal. I ordered this from etsy and is similar to this listing shown below, but I've changed the colors to make it basically white, gray, and yellow. It will be 5 feet by 7 feet and go on the right side of the crib...slightly extending some over the crib too.

That's about it for the nursery progress! Will share more as the room changes!

40 weeks

2011-12-06T16:05:00.001-06:00

Okay, so I guess I shouldn't complain that I have a 40-week post...it should be expected....but here's to REALLY hoping there is no post titled 41 weeks! If I do make it 41 weeks (12/13), then I will be called in to be induced some time that day....so I guess at the VERY latest we know by 12/14 we'll be new parents!
How I'm feeling?
I'm okay at times, but just completely miserable and uncomfortable at others. I mainly get frustrated because doing anything for a lengthy amount of time gets uncomfortable. So I just can't plop on the couch and watch tv for 3 hours at night....after an hour my back is hurting or stomach/ribs ache that I have to get up. Or if we are out shopping/standing/walking for quite a while, then that just wears me down and can't take it. So it just gets annoying constantly having to change things up. And almost every night for the last week I wake up around 3:30 and is really hard to get good sleep after that point cause am so achy. I can only lay comfortably on my left side and is hard to just stay in that same position all night long. Then I got a completely new pain yesterday that left me nearly unable to walk...seriously thought I'd have to resort to a wheelchair until I delivered. Basically the baby's head is lodged so far down into my pelvic region so is stretching things out and makes it hard to walk after sitting for a period of time. The doctor said his head has turned a little from last week causing this discomfort. It is so much better today and just slightly there...so just hoping it doesn't come back like yesterday.
Luckily Dustin is on vacation starting yesterday throught the end of the year. Although he still has a lot of work to do, so is moreso just working from home until the baby comes. I am most likely going to be working from home until the baby comes just cause it's more comfortable at home and then the 2 of us are together in case I go into labor...especially since we only have 1 vehicle. Anyways, we wake up this morning to hear from co-workers and the news that the roads were terribly icy and the interstate was shutdown at Eureka...so we kept figuring this will be the time that I go into labor and we need to leave! Luckily that didn't happen...and we're just hoping for no more ice/snow for the next week now!
Dr. Appt: 12/6/2011
Weight: 157 lbs
Belly Circumference: 40 inches (keeps growing!)
Internal Exam: nearly 3cm dilated
BP, Fundal Height, Heartbeat: Didn't really pay attention to these stats or ask since was at the end- they were all normal
Appt Notes: As mentioned at the start of the post, she set up the induction date but really doesn't expect us to make it that far. 90% of babies are born by this point, so hopefully I fall into that category. I was more dilated so things have been moving along, but still don't have any recognizable contractions. When she did the internal exam, she also stripped the membranes around the uterus some which can trigger contractions to start...not a pleasant experience and am doubtful it's going to work. I'm convinced baby is just as terrified as me for this whole labor process so he's just procrastinating and wanting to stay put. Next time I see the doctor will be 6-7 weeks from now...such a nice change from these weekly appts!
Picture:

Easy Pecan Bar Recipe

2011-12-02T06:30:00.000-06:00

I really love looking at Plain Chicken's blog and decided to try her Pecan Bars since I had almost all the ingredients at home. They got better as they sat, so I'd actually recommend making these a few days ahead of when you plan to serve them. I also added mini chocolate chips to half of the pan cause thought that sounded good....however, I didn't care for them near as much as the side with just nuts.

Pecan Pie Bars1 can (8 oz) refrigerated crescent rolls
3/4 cup chopped pecans (I also threw in some walnuts)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
2 Tbsp butter or margarine, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg, beaten

Heat oven to 350°F.

Unroll dough and press in bottom and 1/2 inch up sides of a 9x13-inch pan. Firmly press perforations to seal. (Tip: It is very important to make sure the perforations are all sealed otherwise the pecan goo will seap through and make it difficult to cut your bars and possibly create a soggy mess. Or better yet, see if your store has the sheet of crescent rolls without the perforations.) Bake 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, in medium bowl, mix remaining ingredients. Pour filling over partially baked crust.

Bake 18 to 22 minutes longer or until golden brown.

Cool completely, about 1 hour, and cut into bars.

39 Weeks

2011-12-01T17:05:00.000-06:00

How I'm feeling? It's really hit or miss, and at least there are some good times....but overall I just feel really huge and uncomfortable! I hate our family room furntiture cause there is just no comfy place to sit for a period of time. Also, I seriously have to walk at a turtle's pace and anything faster just ends up aggravating pain. The ribs are still sore, so use the medicine some...but other days they feel better. I was glad I felt good on Thanksgiving and got to enjoy all the good food....although despite efforts not to overeat, I still did. On Black Friday, the weather was GORGEOUS outside, so I met my sister and we shopped for about 4-5 hours going around to different stores. Neither of us had anything we were out to get, but moreso just browsing....and we didn't up buying any gifts, but just stuff for ourselves! We then spent time putting up the xmas tree and decorating for the holidays. It was my aunt and uncle's 25th wedding anniversary, so we met them briefly on Saturday. I then ran some errands again on Sunday, but it just completely exhausted me-- bought some king-size bedding, so will need to post pics of that room soon. Also just got some other things for the house we needed like shower curtain, rugs, etc. So I was really glad with how much we got accomplished during our holiday time off and hopefully can relax a lot until the baby arrives!
Dr. Appt
Date: 11/29 and 11/30
Weight: 158 lbs
BP: 110/70
Baby's Heartbeat: ?
Fundal Height: 35 cm
Belly Circumference: 37 inches
Internal Exam: 2 cm dilated and 70% effaced (no change)
Notes: So this week was interesting- we showed up on Tuesday to our normal appointment and got to our exam room slightly before the appt time of 12:15 and the nurse tells us the doctor will be there in just a few minutes. We wait....and wait.....and wait....and Dustin is getting so ancy cause he has a large meeting/presentation back at work at 1:30. Finally it is 12:50 and she still hasn't came in yet, so we decide we have to leave and reschedule otherwise he will not make it back in time. So I was bummed cause we had already spent so much time away from work and got nothing accomplished and just meant I was going to have to go back another day to do this all over! So they got me in the next day and I just went to it alone. Everything pretty much measured the same. She said my bag of waters was bulging and the baby's head is still right there and located really good. She said (again) most first-timers will go after their due date, so is better to expect that and then will just be a surprise if I go early. So will be interesting to see if I have a 40-week post or this will be it!

Picture (again, sorry for the no makeup and disheveled look...but it's effort enough to just put on normal clothes and get the pic taken!):

It's starting to look like Gusmas!

2011-11-28T21:00:00.001-06:00

This last weekend we spent a night digging out the xmas decs and putting up just a few things. We have an artificial tree and I was worried it was going to look dwarfed in our family room that is 2 stories tall....however, it looks just fine. Don't get me wrong, I could get a bigger one, but considering how expensive they are this will do just fine for a while! As usual, it was fun hanging the ornaments and reminiscing about so many memories with each of them and telling stories.

I went shopping on Black Friday with my main goal to get some things for the mantle. It still could use some work, but I'm hoping to get some cheap stuff after xmas that I can then add next year. The candles and vases were all items I had leftover from the wedding, so I just spent about $5 at Michaels to get the sticks/berries (which I didn't do a very good job of photographing). And then I bought fresh garland to lay up there...however, it just made a giant mess and I can't even smell the fresh pine/fir....so kind of a bummer.

I really wanted some coordinating stockings to hang and searched many stores before finding these simple ones at Target. They also had initial pins, so I picked up those for just $3/piece.

And here's the look all together-- I think it looks much better in person than how it photographed here:

That's really about it for decorations this year though, but at least feels festive to me while sitting in the family room. We really need to hit the sales after xmas to pick up some more stuff for next year!

38 weeks and 1 last shower!

2011-11-26T07:54:00.000-06:00

I will now finally be caught up on my weekly posts! This should have been posted on Tuesday, so just a few days late...

What's new? Mainly the only thing going on is Dustin listening to me complain nonstop about feeling uncomfortable. The rib pain is just horrible at times on my right side....then to top it off, my left ribs periodically feel awful due to self-diagnosed Texidor's Twinge which I've had for years. I don't think our family room furniture is very comfortable and supportive, so I just can't sit/lay down and watch tv for long periods. At least it has forced me to stay a little active around the house though! I tried taking 2 of my pills and it still wasn't like any miracle drug...it maybe made the pain a little better, but that's it.

I've had 2 days of heartburn, which I've never had in my life before...so kinda caught me offguard that it creeped up right at the end of the pregnancy cause this is such a common symptom for people. I'm really not sure what caused it but think it could have been 1 buffalo wing I ate, so think I'll just avoid stuff like that for the next few weeks.
We got the last piece for the dresser, so now that is done! We then hung up the prints I had made above it- so not that little area actually looks complete.

This week we did more with the house-- I bought a ton more disposable shades and put in the windows downstairs and some upstairs. We got some of our bedroom furniture delivered....so FINALLY sleeping in a bed vs. just a mattress on the floor! Dustin installed a garage keypad and hooked up the waterline to the refridgerator. We bought a xmas wreath for the front door, which will probably be our only holiday contribution to the outside of the house this year. And I baked a ton of monster cookies I made from scratch...froze a chunk of them to have later too.

Dustin's work group was also super generous and threw him a shower-- he was so surprised and caught off-guard! We got a really nice-sized gift card to Target, so that will be awesome to spend down the road when we need baby stuff.

Dr. Appt
Date: 11/21 (had to switch to a Monday)
Weight: 157 lbs (YIKES)
BP: 110/62
Baby's Heartbeat: 140
Internal Exam: 2 cm dilated and 70% effaced
Notes: Today's exam was routine and quick- Dustin was luckily able to join me. She again was pleased with the progress I'm making and said I will appreciate this later because my body has already done some of the prep work to dilate now. She also explained that I could just stall and stay at 2cm for weeks, but they will definitely set an appt. to induce at 41 weeks if I haven't gone into labor by then....but chances are extremely good that she expects me to go into labor naturally before that. Which is good cause 3 more weeks seems like too much longer to deal with this baby inside me!!!
Picture:

37 weeks

2011-11-25T16:32:00.000-06:00

What's new? Well our good friends that were due only 5 days before me had their baby this last weekend....so that has made us kick into gear a little more! My main issue is still that my ribs are killing me, so just makes it really hard to relax and get comfortable. A hot shower is really the only thing that feels great-- consequently I'm going to hate to see our water bill this month! I'm also just moving a lot slower, which I didn't think was possible...but it's just hard to walk at a decent speed and am feeling more pressure down in my pelvic area.

We got the car seat installed and inspected by the fire department, so that is set now! We didn't think our car had a latch in the right spot, so poor Dustin spent forever using a seatbelt to try and install the seat base. Ultimately we just gave up cause the seat wasn't getting tight enough with the seatbelt...so luckily the fire dept showed us the latches and in less than a minute put the base in all snug and secure!

We also got our hospital bags packed as much as possible at this point. Although I've gone through so many lists and recommendations from people, but still doesn't seem like there is much we are bringing. I've stashed some towels in the car and at work in case my water would break at either of those places since I spend a lot of time there....but let's hope not!

We worked some more in the nursery. I made some cute prints/signs to frame for the wall above the dresser/changing area. We worked some more on the dresser, but unfortunately still waiting for 1 replacement piece to arrive-- due to Dustin scratching the front of one of the drawers.

One big item this week was that we had been sleeping on a mattress on the floor and was getting very frustrating for me cause was hard to get up/down from...and if we suddenly had the baby, wasn't really ideal for me to be camped out almost on the floor. So we decided we just have to go buy a bedroom set and new mattress, cause wanted to upgrade to King bed. So after many stores, we finally just picked something and got it all ordered. We were able to get the mattress, bed, and dresser in the next week...but the mirror and nightstands will take 4-6 weeks. Since all I really cared about was the bed/mattress, then that was good with me!

Dr. Appt
Date: 11/15/11
Weight: 154 lbs (no change- up 23 from start)
Blood Pressure:
Fundal Height: 34.5 cm
Internal Exam: 1.5 cm dilated; 70% effaced
Appointment: Dustin was unable to go to the appt with me, so we were both bummed about that. My doctor said that everything looked good and was pleased with the rate at which I was moving along. I brought up how I still have a lot of pain on my right side with my ribs and it's just brutal at times. The prescription from last week didn't seem to do anything. She said I could try taking 2 pills instead of just 1 and see if that helps, but only do in the evenings or when have no plans cause will probably knock me out. She also said it could be several things that are causing the pain, but if it is bruised then this pain will probably continue for a couple months after I deliver....not what I wanted to hear!

Picture: (feeling oh so large....ugh)

Just Because...

2011-11-22T17:28:00.000-06:00

Dustin just grabbed the camera and took this pic of our nephew and thought it turned out so cute! Since I don't have time for lengthy posts these days, at least this is something to share! He is nearing 2.5 and at that fun age where almost everything out of their mouth is hilarious.

36 Weeks and another Shower!

2011-11-21T20:26:00.000-06:00

About 2 weeks behind in my postings...so here are brief Week 36 updates, when I am actually at 38 weeks!

What's new this week? It is really nice being in the house and having the move behind us. However, there is just so much to deal with on the house that it is keeping us swamped! Still just feeling somewhat uncomfortable at times and the rib pain is the major nuisance.

Major accomplishment this week was my mom painted the baby's room- we went with what we thought was a medium gray color, but it ended up a little darker than planned...but I LOVE it! It looks really great with the white trim in the room and white furniture. Here you can see the transformation in progress:

I had some co-workers in town this week from out of state, so the week was also busy with trying to spend some time with them in the evenings since we only see them a couple times each year. And my work group threw me the most awesome shower that week on Wednesday at lunch as a surprise! It was absolutely amazing at the number of people that showed up for it cause hardly anyone comes into the office anymore and is so dead most days. Then there were a number of people who have retired or work in other groups and many of them were there. It was just very nice and we were so appreciative of seeing everyone and the nice gifts. So many of them also are very talented and made gifts for the baby which were just amazing! Here's a pic of my sister and I sorting through clothes and getting the tags off for washing:

Baby Name: I know I gave a teaser a while ago of the name we picked out with the letters scrambled, but I don't think I ever revealed it.....so here goes! We decided on the name Lachlan, which is pronounced like lock-lin. The more I say it and get used to it, the more I like it. I had found it in a baby book and brought it to Dustin with a list of like 20 others and Dustin just immediately loved it and settled on it. I really liked it, but was still a little unsure...but now I'm glad we've settled on it.

Dr. Appt
Date: 11/8/11
Weight: 154 lbs (up 13 from start)
Internal: 1 cm dilated
Notes: I was glad to get back to seeing my regular doctor. She told me to stop taking the medication the other doctor had prescribed because it wasn't doing anything for the rib pain- and the doctor had prescribed thinking maybe I was having contractions, but I'm not. She said the other doctor was just being precautious.

Picture:

35 Weeks & Shower

2011-11-09T20:05:00.000-06:00

Waaaaaaay behind in posting, but will hopefully get caught up in the next few days. I had delayed posting this cause had wanted to add more pictures, but my small camera is temporarily lost, so no more pics to add from the other events! I should have posted this on 11/1 at 35 weeks.

How I'm feeling? This week was just crazy busy, so I almost just didn't have time to feel lousy! Overall I felt fairly good and think your body just can kick into gear when it needs to. So here is how my busy 35th week went, which is way more exciting than me whining about pregnancy for this weekly post....

We spent Wednesday night packing up at the loft since moving day was fast approaching! Thursday we were off work to do the final home inspection and then close on the house!! Closing was a little stressful, but it all came through okay in the end. That night Dustin had bowling league, so we were up at the alley watching the Cards win game 6 of the world series. Only the game was the most stressful game ever cause was do or die for the Cards and the score kept going back and forth. I finally caved and went home to watch the rest in bed cause it went to extra innings....only I fell asleep at a commercial break and the next batter was David Freese who hit a homer to win the game! I woke up and the game was over, but I got to see the replay. My mom also got into town this day and luckily was able to stay for the next 10 days to help out, which I seriously don't know how I would have got through all we did without her. It was a really busy time for Dustin at work. Friday my mom and sister both came over and we spent the day packing up the loft, then we headed over to our friends annual halloween party and to watch the Cards win game 7! We then went out on the streets and to Busch Stadium to celebrate....it was the longest I'd been out in a while....I think was about 1am when we made it home. Then Saturday was moving day and exhausting, even though I didn't do much. Then Sunday was a family shower at the London Tea Room, which was a great time and actually was a nice end to a busy few days! Monday I was off work and my mom and sister came over to help unpack some more and we started preparing the nursery. Missy (sister) did a great job of assembling the crib! Then it was time to answer the door for all the trick-or-treaters and meet some of our neighbors. Then I crashed on the bed and put this hectic week behind me!
Dr. Appt. Date: 10/31/2011
Weight: 153 (up 22 lbs from start)
Dr. Appt Description: I had a follow-up appt. with the other physician. She said I was still at 1 cm, so that was good news and agreed everything looked great from the ultrasound. So was a fast and good appointment!

Shower Pictures:
So many cute things and much needed clothing!

Duck cupcakes for desert:

Name settings for the table made by my aunt all with different cute embellishments:

And my sister has rocked with putting together cute favors for both showers! There were little packets of tea wrapped up in the felt that looked like a diaper. It was perfect since we had the shower at a tea room!

34 Weeks

2011-10-27T18:45:00.000-05:00

How I'm feeling? Well this week has not been the best, but hanging in there. The nausea is getting better-- I've cut down the anti-anxiety meds to only taking every other day and have noticed a big difference and have my appetite back. Prior to doing that, I was eating a lot of Jell-o and Sprite cause nothing sounded appealing. You'll read more below, but I've had a lot of discomfort all across my ribs-- right under my chest. I also am starting to get some back pain and in general it's just hard to find comfortable positions for me to sit in. Dustin owes me big time cause we drove down to Nashville to meet up with his college friends over the weekend. I was somewhat dreading the trip cause just wasn't sure how I would feel. Overall I did okay though and it was better than I had imagined. On the ride down I was very uncomfortable in the car and somewhat going crazy. However, on the ride home we made it the whole way without stopping and I was pretty much fine.

Dr. Appt. Date: 10/25/2011
Weight: 151 (up 20 lbs from start)
Blood Pressure: 98/64
Baby's Heartbeat: Forgot to write it down, but at the u/s it was 123 (this was quite a bit lower than previously, but she said was still fine)
Fundal Height: 30 cm (no change)
Belly Circumference: 37 in (no change)
Dr. Appt Description: My usual doctor was not in the office, so I saw another doctor in the practice. I realized how much I enjoy seeing the same doctor every week-- and at the start of the pregnancy my doctor also said she thinks it is important to have the same person continually see you because they become familiar with you and have better ability to recognize what is normal or not. So anyways, this doctor calculated my fundal height at 30cm, which was the same as 2 weeks ago-- however, I've read in my books that this measurement varies a lot from doctor to doctor with how they measure, so it's hard to tell if that truly stayed the same or not. She was concerned because it was smaller than the acceptable range, so I explained that basically I've measured behind the whole time, but we did an ultrasound last month and everything was fine. However, she had a good point that it wouldn't hurt to do another u/s in case something has changed in the last month...so we were to come back in 2 days for the u/s. We also had some discussion on just how uncomfortable I've been lately, which I just figured most of what I was feeling is normal. My most painful area is basically in my ribs and it's not the baby kicking me, but almost a constant pain that feels like it has been badly bruised. I'd imagine if you were in a car accident and the seat belt restrained you, you would feel sore and some bruising-- which is what I can best describe this as. She also wanted to check my cervix and discovered that it was 1 cm. dilated. So she ended up prescribing some pills that I take 3 times a day now that seem like the goal is to help with the rib pain and hopefully less contractions too. I go back next Monday for her to see me at 35 weeks....then it will be back to my normal doctor for weekly appointments starting at 36 weeks.

Ultrasound Appointment: Since I'm late writing this, I can also document how the u/s went.....which was.....REALLY WELL! The baby should have been at 34 weeks and 1-2 days, but she said he is measuring at 35 weeks and 3 days! The estimated weight is 5 lbs 12 oz. So the technician thought everything looked great and he is definitely bigger than expected based on looking at me. Also, he was no longer breeched, he was head down. In fact, his head was so far down in my pelvis that she couldn't get real good measurements on that. So will be interesting to see when I actually deliver, but both we left the appointment realizing we really do need to be prepared ahead of time because it seems like there is decent chance he could come before 12/6....and previously I just always had feelings that I would go late, so never felt a lot of urgency to get things done too much earlier! We also could get a decent look at his face, but it still was a little creepy looking to me....haha! I hope it was just the view, but he looked to have a pig nose.....so hopefully his nose comes out looking a little more normal....and if not, then let's just hope he never sees this blog cause hey, we all love pig noses....right?!

Picture:
The laptop is not recognizing my camera card, so pic will have to be uploaded later :(

33 Weeks & Shower!

2011-10-18T18:19:00.001-05:00

These next few weeks are going to be hectic since we are moving, but my goal is to do a weekly update on pregnancy items until the baby arrives....so we'll see if that happens! I'll post updated stats and profile pic next week after my 34-week appointment.

How I'm feeling? Still just generally not feeling and well and uncomfortable a lot. My biggest issue is just nausea and only limited foods sound good to attempt eating. I really thought this was due to new medication I started, but now am thinking it is just how my body is responding this trimester. I researched on the internet today and found that nausea is so commonly associated with the 1st trimester, but very often occurs in the 3rd also. I also continue to be super tired, but is just because I'm not sleeping well at night....and then last weekend woke up both mornings at like 6:30 instead of being able to sleep in!
Cravings? For the most part, I wouldn't say I ever had any strong cravings for this whole pregnancy. Lately though I have just been really wanting fruits and juices-- something about those just taste cold and refreshing and light!

Baby's name? Well, we did finally decide to just stick with the one we had liked and have started telling people. I'll give you a hint this week-- here are the letters (scrambled....hee, hee):
N A H A C L L

And the biggest event this last week was my first shower!!!!! My sister threw it for me and did an awesome job!! This one was just for some friends and was held at Lucas Park Grille, which is a restaurant across the street from where I live. We did it on Sunday and was a brunch. The atmosphere was perfect- we did not have a private room, but the place was not crowded and our area was very segregated. We had a little area with comfy chairs by a fireplace where we could gather after eating to open gifts and worked out well. Here are the group of girls that were there (and sadly a few close friends had to miss it cause live too far away now or weren't feeling well that live in town, so I missed their company!):

We started off the fun by playing a few games while we waited for the food. The first game was a sheet of 20 excerpts of song lyrics that had "baby" in the title...then we had to name the song. Most of us were pretty bad, so luckily she then passed around a cheatsheet to help which told us all of the artists. My friend Katie won that game- she is a dance teacher, so she is probably listens to music a little more than the rest of us or pays better attention to lyrics!

The next game was a sheet that had baby pictures of us on there and you had to guess who was who. Along with that, also had to match the person's name to the correct meaning of their name. I killed this game, but of course couldn't take the prize (complete unfair advantage that I knew my info plus my sister and sister-in-law)...so I believe Lydia and Jill won that one.

We ate and then opened gifts and got the best stuff ever! Nearly everything was from my registry or stuff that we needed and I really liked, so can't imagine that any of this will get returned or not used! Here's just a few pics:

Lastly, here were the cutest little favors ever-- candy bars in this adorable wrapper with a baby sock for the hat...awwwwwwwwwwww:

32 Weeks

2011-10-12T21:10:00.001-05:00

How I'm feeling? Overall, I am feeling better than at my 30-week post. I was just so stressed out at that point and since we have now purchased the house, I feel so much better and like things are just rapidly all falling into place. I've been taking very small doses of the medicine to help with my freakouts, but unfortunately I've had a terrible time dealing with the side effects. It makes me extremely nauseas, tired, and just dizzy/shaky at times. So with all those symptoms it has really sucked. And there is so much I want to do in the coming weeks to prepare for the move! My goal is to really feel like we have everything under control and then I can stop taking the meds and hopefully feel much better!
Clothing: My main goal was to find a couple cute outfits to wear to my showers and events...but that is easier said than done! First of all, I don't feel up to going to umpteen stores to browse around and find something...and the few stores I did check just didn't have anything great. Second of all, anything that is remotely good, is also usually the most expensive...which I don't want to spend a lot of money on clothes I'll hardly wear. So that's all kind of a bummer.

Other:

We finished the birthing class, so guess I am as prepared as I'll be at this point! Was feeling pretty sick at the last class, but was able to stay for the whole thing. I really just get light-headed and sick thinking about the whole birthing process. I left class for some of the time and just sat in the bathroom cause it was making me so queasy!!!
Baby is still very active- usually I notice it most at night, but am noticing him moving more and more throughout the day too. Generally I just feel uncomfortable and still like there is just not enough room inside me for everything. I can't believe I still possibly have 2 more months left and it this feeling gets any worse....I'm already for the baby to be here and just get back to my usual self! There are some nights where it's just very hard to get comfortable no matter how I try to sit or lay.
We ordered a glider chair for the nursery! Yea- our first big baby purchase and furniture purchase for the new home!

Dr. Appt. Date: 10/11/2011
Weight: 149 (up 18 lbs from start)
Blood Pressure: 102/70
Baby's Heartbeat: 160 (higher than recent weeks)
Fundal Height: 30 cm (still in the normal range!)
Belly Circumference: 37 in
Dr. Appt Description: This appt was very fast and routine. She said everything is looking great. It was the first appointment that the husband had to miss cause he is just swamped at work.

Picture (Rapidly growing!!):

We bought our first house together!!!

2011-10-05T20:32:00.001-05:00

It's been a looooooooooooooong road, but we are both excited for our purchase. We spent really 9 full months looking which is just a long time and eventually wears you down. And where did we end up buying a house?? In one of the neighborhoods we looked at back in Feb. and decided against it...so it really does pay to never completely rule places out and circle back and check again. It's a neighborhood of new homes, but this is a spec/inventory home that is nearly completed-- will be done in 2 weeks! So we really don't get to pick out any finishes, but we were able to get a great price and the finishes are very neutral and similar to what we would have done anyways. The neighborhood has a pool that looks great and we've seen tons of kids around, so hopefully we really enjoy the atmosphere.

I don't have any real pictures at this point, but to give you an idea here is the info from our builder for our house. They loaded it with basically all the optional features, so that was nice! Promise I'll post real pics as soon as I get out there with the camera!

This is most similar of the pictures I could find to ours. Ours will have a 3-car garage will be the main difference.

DIY Word Art

2011-09-30T22:34:00.000-05:00

I was down to my last large frame that still needed filled and I felt like I had already gone overboard with the wedding pics. So I feel like this has done the job of filling the frame...and was cheap, so extra bonus!

I used Microsoft Publisher and created text boxes all with different sized fonts and different font types and different color shades, then I would fill in things that describe St. Louis. I did some neighborhoods, popular streets, locations like restaurants and museums, etc. Then just took the file to Office Depot and they print for around $1. My opening was for a 11x14 print, but you have to print on 11x17 paper there since they are not really a photoshop...but is fine with me cause those extra inches don't really matter. It would be around $10 to get this printed at a walgreens on the 11x14 paper.

I really think doing some word art like this is such an easy, cheap way to fill frames around the house. I can't wait until we get a house and to make some things for the nursery!

Here's the whole thing framed on the wall:

And a close-up to see some of the fonts and words:

30 weeks

2011-09-29T20:31:00.001-05:00

How I'm feeling? Really each day is different. I've been taking tylonel pm a lot so the sleeping has got much better, which is a huge relief. I can think and function much better at work! I still will just have some stomach pains or bouts of feeling uncomfortable and not good. The only way I can describe it is that it just feels like there is not enough room inside me and everything is all scrunched up together. Bending over and moving around is just getting harder-- we have a standup shower with no bench or ledge, so every time I shave my legs I keep thinking this is going to be the last time, but I keep managing! My anxiety and emotions have just skyrocketed out of control, so I actually talked to the doctor today and am going to try some medication to get it under wraps. The house situation has been very stressful this last month because we had found a house that we liked and planned to put an offer down on-- however, I was all set to pay close to what they were asking and at least start the negotiating to see where they stood. The husband and realtor thought it was better to just wait a while and then put in the offer...which made me nervous that we would lose our chance to even make the offer if someone else beat us to it. Well, ONE night before we had plans to meet with the realtor and draft the offer, they accepted one from somebody else. So I was extremely upset that we never even really tried to get the house and was somewhat angry with the husband for screwing this up in my opinion. We were pretty sure that it was going to happen, so had spent time looking at flooring, checking into the daycare nearby, looking at 2nd cars we would buy, etc. Just not a pleasant situation to deal with, especially being almost 7 months pregnant counting on moving before the baby gets here! So now we are still looking for houses, but also figuring out what our plan B will be because there is good chance we will not be moved by the time he arrives.

Clothing: Full time into maternity pants now cause they are so much more comfortable...or just large loungey pants when I'm at home or not somewhere important. I still wear all my regular shirts- just have the 2 maternity shirts (one of which you'll see in the picture below!).

Name: Well I think we have settled on a name, but I'm just holding out a bit longer to make sure. Dustin is itching to tell people, so I guess we will-- I just need to be 100% convinced of the name first to make sure I don't waiver on it if anyone has negative opinions. I told Dustin he could have control over the middle name of this kid (but I have some veto power or final say if it's ridiculous) and I'm doing middle name of our next child. Of course Dustin is just coming up with stuff I hate, so this is not good....although it's not like the middle name really matters. Again, he's all into inventing names-- like it would be this great idea to come up with a blend of our names to make his middle name. Um, can't we just pick something simple like Michael that isn't going to be all confusing and weird?! We'll see what he comes up with, but told him to keep thinking on this.

Other:

Baby is very active- usually I notice it most at night. It is weird when I look at my stomach and I see the entire thing flinch when he moves.
We had more baby classes. Last week we had really got into the actual birthing process and I seriously was about to toss my cookies and couldn't even look at the screen at times and had to think about other things. I think actually it will be easier for me to go through it than if Dustin was the one going through this and I had to watch him.
My belly is getting so stretched that my bellybutton is getting very shallow....and it looks freakishly tiny compared to this huge stomach. I just look at it in the mirror and don't even recognize it anymore, so is just weird.
I've started working on a custom baby memory book that I want to put together. The ones in the store just don't seem all that great. I've seen some good ones on etsy, but are so expensive that I figured I could just make my own. We'll see though if this really gets done on top of everything else!
I've also started on making a mobile for above the crib, so assuming it turns out I will do a post on how I made that and what it looks like!
I think during these last 2 weeks is really the first time people have looked at me and really could tell I was pregnant vs just a little chubby. It's all been people I know, but have commented how I'm finally really showing or actually look pregnant. I still don't think I've had any stranger that has said something to me...but I also haven't been out a bunch or in situations where people would really do that. There are still days in some outfits where people do a double-take when I mention that I'm due in December saying that they can't even tell...so that is always funny to me. I got 10 weeks left and 10 lbs to gain, so should end right on track!

Dr. Appt. Date: 9/27/2011
Weight: 146 (up 15 lbs from start)
Blood Pressure: 90/62 (little lower)
Baby's Heartbeat: 148
Fundal Height: 28 cm (moved up to the normal range!)
Belly Circumference: 36 inches
Dr. Appt Description: This appt was very fast and routine. We had the ultrasound last week, so she just briefly went over those results saying everything looks really good. The baby was at 56th percentile, so just above average size. She says there is plenty of amniotic fluid, so that is a good thing. The baby is breeched now- he is basically sitting in a V-shape with his head on my upper right side, then his butt is at the low point, then feet on my upper left side. They could see his hands playing with his feet in the ultrasound, but I am really bad with making out any images or what is going on still. She said at this point being breeched means nothing and most babies will move around more in the next several weeks.

Picture:

Super Easy Appetizer

2011-09-21T17:42:00.001-05:00

I absolutely love this appetizer cause takes less than 5 minutes from the time you start until it's in your mouth! The cold weather and football also made me in the mood for this. It may also be good with some jalepenos or green onion on top.

Ingredients
1 pkg cream cheese (I used reduced fat)
1 can of chili (I use with beans and meat)
Half pkg of shredded cheese (I just used a colby jack combo cause that's what we had)

Spread the cream cheese in shallow dish- I use a corningware dish that is about 10-12 in. round. Spread chili on top of that. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover and microwave 3 minutes or until hot! We eat with fritos.

Fall Stew

2011-09-20T12:06:00.001-05:00

With the cooler weather moving in, I decided it was time to start cooking hot dinners again. So we decided to try a new stew recipe-- and it was super easy to make. It tasted pretty good, but will make a few modifications next time (which I'll mention below). I also used a lot of help from the grocery store of buying items like baby carrots you can just dump in the pot, rather than chopping up.

Ingredients

2 cans tomato soup (undiluted)
2 c. red wine (I had used water, but would have been way better with the wine, trust me)
1c. flour
2 lbs. beef stew pieces
1 bag of small white onions (just peel and put in pot whole)
1 bag of small red potatoes (just clean and put in pot whole)
1 bag of small yellow potatoes (just clean and put in pot whole)
1 bag of baby carrots
4 stalks of celery- cut into 1 inch chunks
1 large package of whole mushrooms (approx. 24) (just clean and put in pot whole)
Minced Garlic (we did not use, but will add next time- probably would use half of a bulb)
2 T. Italian herb seasonings
2 Bay leaves
Fresh ground pepper

Directions
Mix together soup, wine, and flour until smooth. Combine with remaining ingredients in covered roasting pan (make sure you have a nice large pot for this). Note: It appears that the sauce barely covers all of the items, but once it cooks the sauce will thin out and you'll have plenty. Bake at 275 degrees for 4-5 hours. We served with fresh crusty bread!

28 Weeks

2011-09-15T19:13:00.003-05:00

EEK! It is hard to believe I'm now in the 3rd trimester and this is really nearing the end! I'm a couple days late getting this posted.

How I'm feeling?
To be completely honest these last few weeks have been much harder for me for all sorts of reasons. I'm going to sound like such a complainer here, but I want to somewhat accurately capture this, so I can look back and remember! First, I've just had several days of stomach aches and just feeling sorta sick. Next, I've had several nights of insomnia-- I usually can fall asleep pretty easily at night or at least within an hour. However, many times I wake up anywhere from like 2-4am and am wide awake, brain is churning, and there is no going back to sleep. A couple nights ago I got a total of 2 hours of sleep that night...and then end up just being exhausted at work the next day. I asked the doctor about this and luckily she said it's fine to take Tylenol PM, so if I have a few nights of bad sleep, then take this to guarantee a night of better sleep. I'm hoping this weekend I can catch up on some hours. I've also started having contractions, but these aren't really that uncomfortable/painful, but just something else to deal with when I can feel my stomach clench up and get hard. Another symptom that has started is my heart feels like it is racing at times- which first freaked me out, but read on the internet it was normal and doctor confirmed this as well. Along those lines I also feel like I have heightened anxiety-- I am starting to just freak out with how much we have left to do these next few months, although they aren't all things that MUST get done, but just things I would like done. So I need to keep reminding myself that everything is going to be fine even if we don't get it all done. I don't feel like my husband has the same desire to get these items done or has the same sense of urgency, so then just adds more frustration to me and more anxiety. More than anything I would just like for us to find a house- we've been looking since January basically and I'm just burnt out and ready to be done and pick something. Once we pick a house, then need to find pediatrician nearby, need to get on daycare list, we need to buy another car, we need to get some additional furniture including the nursery, need to pack up our place, need to deal with renting out our current place, etc. I'm sure it will all get done and work out, but just seems overwhelming dealing with all that on top of everything and just feel the burden is on me to get a lot of that done.

Clothing?
I acutally just ran to Target Labor Day weekend and just picked up a few things there- jeans, work pants, lounge, pants, work tops, and some casual tops. I've been going back and forth with wearing these clothes and my usual stuff. Even though I can still wear my normal pants with the belly band, I think the belly band is probably getting too tight for me and may be contributing to my stomach aches and not feeling well. I think the maternity clothes definitely make me look more pregnant so I like the fit of those better than some of my clothes, which I just feel make me look chubby.

What's new?
We have started taking childbirth classes at the hospital- it is 4 weeks long on Wednesday nights. I was hoping we might meet some other couples in the class, but not really anyone there that we would be friends with after this is over...so kind of a bummer. I'm a little undecided on the class- a lot of it is pretty general stuff that you'll get from reading books, but there have been a few helpful tips and is a good opportunity to get some questions answered specific to our hospital. I thought a funny thing happened this week in class. For the last 5-10 minutes, she turns down the lights and plays soft music and we (the woman) is supposed to lay down comfy on the floor with pillows and blankets while she talks us through practice contractions. Then the partner (in my case, my husband Dustin) is supposed to massage you or calm you. So for the beginning part I'm really annoyed with Dustin cause he has this awful habit of always shaking/jittering his legs....and he just won't stop....so how was I supposed to relax laying there as he was all jittery?! Then I almost get a case of the giggles cause I'm thinking about how UN-relaxed I am compared to everyone else in the room. Finally then Dustin stops moving and is just still- thank goodness! Well come to find out, he FELL ASLEEP! So I'm glad in the end he was nice and relaxed while I laid there anything but that!

I got pre-registered at the hospital, so we can quickly check in once I go into labor. Also got the form filled out and submitted for the epidural....definitely don't want to waste time at the moment having to do all that stuff!

Dr. Appt. Date: 9/13/2011
Weight: 145 (up 14 lbs from start)
Blood Pressure: 102/62 (holding steady here!)
Baby's Heartbeat: 148
Fundal Height: 25 cm
Belly Circumference: 35 inches
Dr. Appt Description: This week I had my glucose test, which consisted of drinking some "potion" that tasted like a mix of fruit punch and medicine- had to drink 10 oz in less than 6 minutes, but not gulp it. Then an hour later they took blood samples. The results came back good and no diabetes!! They did find in my blood sample though that my iron count went done and am anemic, so need to take an iron supplement now. The rest of the appointment was very standard, but my fundal height measurement was a little on the low side. So average would be 28cm and 26-30 cm. is the acceptable normal range. So my doctor doesn't think there is an issue, but just to be sure we are doing an ultrasound next week to check the baby's size and fluids. (And I'll have the tech double-check this really is a boy...doesn't hurt to get a second opinion on that too!)

Picture:
We were slackers and didn't get a picture taken until 29 weeks, so this is a week later...and you'll have to excuse how I look, but figured was better than nothing!

Random Good Things

2011-09-12T17:52:00.000-05:00

I realized all of my posts are turning into things baby-related, so here is one of just random stuff going on with us right now! As you'll see, this post truly is just random of stuff we've enjoyed lately...

Good Restaurant (in St. Louis)
Labor Day weekend we had a free night and decided we had to get out and do something to take advantage of our free time pre-baby. We got in the car and just drove towards SLU and Central West End to see what kind of restaurant we could find-- we didn't really see anything new catch our eye, so decided to go to Dressel's since we had never been there. It was a good find cause the atmosphere and food was great! They use local food in a lot of their dishes-- Dustin got some lamb special that he said was awesome. The beer they had was amazing- lots of Belgian choices...so we'll definitely be coming back here once I can drink again!

Good Movie
We had decided to see a movie that night since we rarely do this due to the obnoxious cost they charge these days. We had settled on The Help since it was at the Moolah Theater, which is my favorite place to go since they have comfy leather couches to sit on. However, we get there and the line was so long that we had zero chance of getting a couch....so we decided to leave cause we didn't want to see the movie all that badly and sit in their uncomfy old seats. So we headed out to the county to go to a large multiplex type place and just pick something that was showing. One of the only choices was The Debt and it was great! I NEVER write movie reviews and grade them, but felt like this one was so good and the users on yahoo were ripping it apart, that I had to log on and stick up for it. Definitely a good movie to see or rent-- I thought it told a great story and had a good amount of suspense and surprises in it.

Good Concert
Our local radio station (105.7 The Point) sponsors a huge concert at least once a year called Pointfest. I used to love this station back in the high school and college years, but now I never listen to it anymore. I think it is described as Alternative, but for some reason I just don't care for the bands anymore and is too heavy sounding....ya, I'm sounding old I know. Anyways, this years headliners of the show were right up my alley, so we got tickets. Cake was one of the main bands and I have LOVED them for at least 15 years now. They were great to see live, but only got to play 30-40 minutes so barely got in any older songs...and considering basically the entire Fashion Nugget album is awesome, we were bummed we got to here maybe 2-3 songs from it. We did hear Stickshifts and Safety Belts which is one of our faves, so that was fun.

Here's us with our friend Crystal at the show....being old and lame sitting...guess gray was the color to wear that day! We were commenting how a few years ago we thought- who would go to a concert and sit, what is wrong with those people?!?! Now that's us! Although we did stand for all the songs of the bands we liked, so we aren't 100% lame....yet.

Next up was Chevelle, which I'm embarrassed to say, I did not know anything by them since I don't listen to this style of music anymore! However, I enjoyed listening to them...the lead singer was good to look at....so I may go download some of their music. Next up was The Urge, which most people do not know who they are, but in St. Louis they have a HUGE following. 10 Years ago they played Pointfest as their last show before breaking up....and then they reunited for this show and announced they are now back together and will be coming out with more music. It had to be incredible for them-- this was at a large outdoor ampitheater and the whole place was cheering and singing and supporting them...I just think if I was in a band, that moment has to feel awesome. It seemed like 90% of the people there were purely there to see The Urge and after they were done, the place cleared out. Lastly, Bush closed out the show. Man, I thought Gavin Rossdale used to be good-looking back when I was young, but he did not seem to have aged well at all! He sounded awesome though and was VERY appreciative of the fans (who stuck around). (Gavin is on the bottom right of the pic with the guitar)

One annoying thing about the show was that we were in actual seats vs. the lawn and it was no smoking in the seats. Well within 5 minutes of sitting down, people are lighting up all over the place and it is just driving me nuts how disrespectful they are. I was debating to go complain, but figured it was useless...until my hero in a yellow security shirt arrived and patrolled it! He couldn't catch everyone, but he did a decent job at finding the people and making them stop....but as the night went on, he disappeared somewhere and then there was no hope. It seriously was just a different breed of people at this show-- I always say going to most concerts at this venue and Six Flags just bring out these people who I wonder how they even function in society. Half of them just look like your typical white trash people-- something we would put together only for a halloween costume! The guy behind us apparently just came shirtless to the show, despite the fact that it got down to nice temps in the 70s all evening....and he had a fat gut, so it was so gross when I was sitting and he's standing up behind us and I can see this emerging pale gut next to my face. They really need to require shirts, regardless of how hot it is. Ugh.

Good Video Game
I've been spending the last month probably playing Lego Harry Potter on the Wii....yes, this sounds lame and I HATE harry potter and know nothing about that series, but the lego video games seriously rock! They are the exact style of play that I enjoy-- lots of levels where you have to collect money and find hidden objects. Dustin usually plays with me, but had to stop for a while cause thought it was giving him headaches-- I told him that is going to be an issue just as we have a baby boy that he can no longer play video games cause gets headaches! He claims now that it is better or tolerable...so we'll see!

Other than that we primarily spend our time doing something baby-related or house-hunting!

26 Weeks

2011-08-31T18:03:00.000-05:00

This post is a day behind, but I took my picture and stats as of yesterday so they'd be accurate! I'm down to the double-digits in my countdown of only 97 days left. One interesting thing we read in my weekly pregnancy book is that the baby now weighs 2 lbs and has developed sleep cycles. I was curious if/when they sleep, but am thinking this explains why maybe I don't feel any movement for a while and then will feel constant movement for a while.

How I'm feeling? Well, overall it had been good until these last few days. On exactly my 26-week mark I started feeling really ill after lunch with flu-like symptoms. I was in the bathroom for 45 minutes after lunch and only at my desk for like 2 minutes, so decided I had to go home. I hate the feeling of being sick and not being at home-- it feels overwhelming to think how I was even going to get home cause didn't want to leave the bathroom. I don't know how it came on so fast, but my heart just started racing and I started feeling very over-heated. I thought for sure I was going to throw up and just sat in the bathroom cause was sure it was coming. Well, on the good side I never threw up, but on the bad side I had horrible diarrhea. My husband is awesome and was so busy at work, but I called him from the bathroom and he said he'd walk back home to get the car to get me...perfect! Only I get a call 10 minutes later that he is home and can't find the keys and thinks they are in my purse....ugh. I honestly don't know how I did it, but managed then to walk the whole way home, which is about .25 mile and the hubs walked with me. Once home and spending a little more time in the bathroom, I laid down and fell asleep until Dustin came home from work...and I felt much better. So hopefully it was just some bug or something I ate.

Clothes: Only have limited pants I can wear anymore with the belly band....or lots of dresses! This weekend is labor day, so plan to go shopping and hopefully hit some sales!

Names: We actually have 2 name books now! One book is smaller and I was so glad to see Dustin take some initiative and pick up the book-- although he went through all the boy names and didn't find one that he really liked...and the ones he somewhat liked, I vetoed right away. The other book has over 100,000 names, so I told him we better find something in there! He has not opened the book, but I've gone through quite a bit of it. I was up early last Saturday morning and had added some more to a list I started, so Dustin (stalling to not get out of bed) tells me to bring it back there and read it to him. So he had a few on there that he hated, but some that were possibilities....then I said one name and he's like- "I like that one, that's the best, we're done." I'm like- "excuse me, we're done? Just because I wrote down a possibility and you like it, that can't just mean we are done cause was first one we somewhat liked!" This is prime example of why we don't work well together on tasks like this-- I like to explore all options and hem-haw around....he just wants the quickest way possible. So I think I convinced him that we need to look a little more, but is good to have a name to compare to. We still haven't decided if we'll reveal the name once we decide on it or wait.....but no one will ever guess-- when I looked up info on it, it's not even in the SSN database for statistics cause is not in the top 1000 names, which surprised us both a lot. This has been a great site in researching names: http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/. Once we come up with a possibility, you can go here and see statistics like how popular it's been over the years, what the name means, but also people post how likely you are to get bullied because of your name and mean/funny nicknames people come up with. So for example, I put in my name- Amy- I never had anyone make fun of my name, so didn't think there would be anything. But one of the most common ones was people calling you Lame-y...which I never should have told Dustin cause he calls me lame all the time now for going to bed so early, so now he'll probably latch onto this nickname! You should go try it out with your name- it was fun!

Cravings: None

Purchases: None

Baby To-Do Items:

I've been working for several weeks on researching items for the registry. My plan is in the next week to get that all finalized. One interesting thing we learned was that I made Dustin go to Babies R Us this last weekend and take the carseat we registered for to try it out in the car. He was annoyed with me thinking I was nuts, but said he would do it if it made me feel better. So....fast forward a few minutes and guess who can't get the carseat to fit in the back of our car?!?! So now we have another headache to deal with-- we absolutely love my car (RAV4) and want to keep it for a few more years....but they are just not ideal with a carseat. With most vehicles you put the carseat in the middle, but with ours you can't. So what you have to do is put it on the passenger side, but in order for it to fit the front passenger seat has to be all the way forward with zero recline...not ideal for anyone to sit there, so then your passenger has to sit in the back seat with the baby. So the point is we can make do for a while, but will be getting a 2nd car pretty fast and may just have to do away with the RAV4 sooner than we'd like.
I've also done a lot of researching into some nursery options and what color scheme and such we want to go with. I think I have it narrowed down to 2 options, with 1 being my favorite....but gotta show the hubs and see what he thinks. I also hope to decide on that this week.
I've slowly been looking into photographers, but want to just get that booked as many are filling up. It's been hard cause I don't want to spend much money on this, but want someone good and want someone who will give me a cd with the rights to the pictures.
Figure out what baby classes we'll sign up for at the hospital and get registered for those.
Sign up for cloth diapering class at Cotton Babies store.

Date: 8.30.2011
Weight: 144 (up 13 lbs from start)
Belly circumfrence: 35.5 in
Picture:

100 Days Remain!

2011-08-27T07:43:00.001-05:00

Well, I officially have hit 100 days remaining until my due date! In some ways this still feels like a long time to go, but in other ways feels like I'm almost there and is crazy how time flies! We have a LOT to do in this next 100 days....mainly find a house, move, find a renter for our loft, furnish our new place, and buy loads of baby gear!

Future easy sewing project (DIY burp cloths)

2011-08-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

Numerous people have told me not to get the cutesy burp cloths cause they just don't work well. Supposedly the best absorbant cloths are the Gerber prefold 6-ply diapers, so I'm registering for a couple packs of those. They are just plain white and nothing fancy...which is fine with me. But then I saw this super cute idea on Etsy where fabric was sewn just on one side-- I thought it added a cute touch, but then still left the other side all absorbant and plain. I think I'll get some cute fabrics and give this a whirl...assuming I have enough spare time between getting these and the baby!

Easy DIY baby blanket

2011-08-18T17:49:00.001-05:00

I know I've been a bad blogger lately, but hopefully I'll have some good posts coming up here. For today, I have a new topic/hobby....SEWING!!!

I had seen a really cute idea on Amanda's blog (here) to do a rag quilt, but was skeptical that I'd actually be able to do this. The only time I have sewn something was back in Home Econ in 7th & 8th grade. My sewing machine was still in the box from xmas...so I figured I didn't have much to lose and would take a stab at making a really small baby blanket. And at least if it didn't turn out well, it's not like a baby is going to be too picky!

I looked up some instructions on the internet, but ultimately just kinda made it up as I went. The instructions I saw all called for the cotton squares on the front and back of the quilt, but you'll see that I just did the front like that and used soft minky baby fabric for the back.
First step was to go to the fabric store and pick a few items up. Luckily for me, they had a bundle of blue/orange/brown fabrics already cut to about 6x6...so I bought those since would save me the initial step of cutting down my fabric into squares. It came in a pack of 20 squares and ended up being a perfect little size. I also bought some white minky fabric for the back just because I LOVE how soft it is...it just oozes baby when you see and feel it!

1. Design your layout.
First I arranged the squares on our coffee table with 4 squares across each row and 5 columns high...then after way too much thinking/consideration, ended up with a pattern I was pleased with.
2. Pin and Sew Squares to form Rows
I used pins to pin the 4 fabric squares of each row together. I pinned at least 1 inch from the edge.
I sewed the pinned seams together to form a row. I tried to sew about a half inch from the edge.
Repeat this for all of your rows.

3. Pin and Sew Rows to form columns
Now it is time to pin 2 rows together and sew them. I started with my bottom 2 rows and just kept working my way up....pinning and sewing. At this point my blanket looked pretty bad, but trust me that even if you sewed crooked or however, it will probably look fine. Just sew over seams however you want-- you'll end up cutting these anyways, so it really does not matter- you can see how caddy-wompous some of mine looked.

4. Wash blanket
At this point, your entire front should be sewn together and somewhat look like a blanket. I washed and dried my blanket at this point so that it would shrink to size since it was cotton and I was using minky for the back, which most likely would not shrink. The edges will start to fray a tad.

5. Cut, pin, sew backing
I then cut a piece of the minkey fabric just slightly larger than the blanket and pinned on the back of the blanket. I had read to pin this very well cause he fabric is soft and moves around very easily. I sewed about a half inch from the edge around the whole perimeter of the blanket. This was very difficult for me to sew this straight and have it look good, so my advice would be to take it very slow here. I also learned afterwards that I could have used white thread in my bobbin, which would have looked better on my minky backing and not shown how crooked I sewed.

I then trimmed the backing so that it was slightly smaller than the size of my blanket. I probably could have avoided this step by cutting the minky to the correct size to start with :)

6. Rag the quilt
This was the most excruciating step-- with a good pair of scissors, cut slits in every single seam so that it will fray better. I made my slits probably 1/4 inch. You can also buy a tool at the fabric store to snip these cuts which probably works a lot easier.

Wash several times to fray and you are done!

24 Weeks

2011-08-16T21:12:00.004-05:00

How I'm feeling? Overall still feel good. The 100+ temps have worn me out a bit, but that probably would have happened even if I wasn't pregnant! The baby is definitely very active, so that is just a little uncomfortable at times....I'm sure a couple months from now I'll call me crazy for thinking this is considered uncomfortable! I've been getting more of an appetite too.

Clothes: Wearing the belly band more and more often....or lots of dresses! Still haven't bought anything new and am in my usual clothes though.

Names: Still slacking and haven't started

Cravings: More sweets than usual, but nothing overboard.

Purchases: My mom came to town so we she bought just a few items. We went to Once Upon a Child which is a resale shop and picked up some cute sleeper outfits for like $2 each. I also went to a consignment sale Recycled Kids, but only bought 1 super cute blue plush Tigger outfit-- I really don't know what to call this thing cause it reminds me of a snowsuit, but is made of soft material...anyways, it will be warm for the winter! Everyone has told me not to buy any clothes cause you'll get so many as gifts, but I felt like it didn't hurt to stock up on some of these items since they were so cheap and in great condition. I also have purchased 5 diapers, which I'll post more about later...so I guess those are officially the first mom and dad purchase!

24-Week Dr. Appt
Date: 8.16.2011
Weight: 142 (up 11 lbs from start)
Blood Pressure: 100/68
Baby Heartbeat: 143
Belly circumfrence:
Fundal Height: 22.5 cm
Description: We had a long wait for today's appointment, so that is always frustrating...but once we were in, it was all routine and only took less than 10 minutes. Everything seemed to be going great! You'll see one new statistic I added was for the Fundal Height measurement. Fundal height is a measure of the size of the uterus used to assess fetal growth and development. It is measured from the top of the mother's uterus to the top of the mother's pubic bone in centimeters. It should match the fetus' gestational age in weeks within 1 to 3 cm. So 24 cm would be average target for 24 weeks, so I'm just slightly under but she said that is completely normal.

Picture:

22 Weeks

2011-08-02T17:47:00.000-05:00

How have I been feeling? Overall still good, despite the heat that continues with heat indices over 100 degrees. I have found that doing too much in the heat makes me feel very dizzy and weak and not well, so we have limited doing much at all.

Felt any movement? Yes, finally!!!! I actually started feeling really faint signs of movement just after my 20-week post. The last 4 days now it has been 100% noticable and definite that it is the baby I'm feeling. I actually don't like it at all, but assume I will get used to it or maybe it will grow on me. It just is uncomfortable and kinda weirds me out-- it's not painful by any means, but reminds me of having an upset stomach almost. Normally when you have some sort of rumble in your tummy it indicates bad things may be happening, so I think it's just hard at this point cause is so noticable to me. Dustin has yet to try to feel any movement cause every time he is around the baby is still...unless it is the middle of the night in which cause Dustin is sleeping while I'm laying there annoyed!

Clothing? Still wearing my normal clothes, although for the last 4-5 days I've worn pants or shorts I've had to wear the belly band to make them more comfortable. (In case you don't know what a belly band is, it's like a circle of spandex that you stretch around your waistline and it will hold your pants up so you don't have to button them-- see the pic below. Ya, you feel officially fat once you hit this point! With it being so hot out, I actually find it a little uncomfortable to wear, but will do for the next few weeks.)

Purchases: None

Names: Still haven't started thinking on this. Although an interesting topic has been discussed recently, so I'll digress a little into the debate-- why do some people decide not to share the name until the birth? I really had never thought twice about once we decide on a name or a few names of being open and sharing that with people-- it just didn't make any sense to me to deliberately not tell. But, A LOT of people choose to do this, so I started asking around about it. So some people do not tell because they say they want to keep people interested for something after the birth-- which I personally disagree with and would not do for that reason. It's not like your co-workers or random people are hanging by a thread so interested in your baby name that it needs to be some big secret and revelation. Other people say they like knowing something and having the power trip to tell someone that they can't be told that information-- which I also personally disagree with. I actually think that is just rude and un-necessary. Again, no one really cares about this name as much as the parents...so if I ask someone what the name is and they don't want to tell, but are feeling like it is some power trip-- I really don't think it is cause I'll find out later and not going to lose any sleep over it! So, then the number one main reason why people said they don't tell is they just don't want to hear people's opinions or negativity about the name. This actually made me kinda sad to hear that basically they are not telling something just because others can be so rude. Generally people are not near as open about their negative feelings on the name if it is announced once the baby is here. I've talked to many people who said with their first child they shared the name and will never, ever in a million years do that again because they all had stories about people saying how much they hated the name, thought it was weird, associated it with xyz, etc. So now this has made me re-think everything cause the last thing I'm expecting or need is some un-solicitated input from joe blow. I wish people would just learn to keep their mouths shut and opinions to themselves, but people just don't get it....my husband included. Several years ago we had some friends who said what they'd be naming their baby, which was a completely normal name....but Dustin did not care for it and flat out told them that name sucked, he couldn't believe they were going to name the baby that, it was awful, etc. After the couple left I was furious with Dustin and tried telling him how rude that was and I seriously thought he should apologize because I would have got in the car and cried the whole way home if someone had said those things to me. He just didn't get it and didn't feel like it was rude at all. So I know if my own husband is capable of this, then at some point we will encounter this with some other moron ripping me to shreds for choosing whatever name. So....stay tuned for if we'll share or not! It bums me out actually to feel like I can't share because I'll be hurt by rude comments....but guess that is life!

Cravings: None

22-Week Stats
Date: 8.2.2011
Weight: 139 (up 8 lbs from start- that is 4 lb gain in the last 2 weeks since I started eating the ice cream! I'm not one that usually obsesses over my weight, but it's a very hard concept to accept to just feel your belly getting fatter and knowing it's okay/normal. I just feel disgusting and like I should be on a diet!)
Belly circumfrence: 35 inches (I had to use a different type of tape measure today, so hopefully this is accurate, but I swear my stomach has ballooned out like crazy in the last 2 weeks, so think it has grown way more than 1 inch)

Picture (20-weeks is on left compared to my current status on right-- see, definitely more than 1 inch gained around my belly!):

Funny video

2011-07-26T17:44:00.000-05:00

So I have watched this video way too many times....and way too many other home movies of these kids, but they are awesome at the dancing/singing video games! It's so addictive and funny. They are only 3 years old, so really is amazing how well they follow the screen and coordinated they are. Check it out!

20 Weeks: WHOOOAAAA...we're halfway there!

2011-07-19T17:21:00.004-05:00

Completed 20 WEEKS on Tuesday this week! It is absolutely crazy to think I'll be over the halfway mark! So here's the lowdown on where things stand...
How have I been feeling? Overall really good. I've felt more tired the past few weeks though than before-- but think a lot of it is just due to the draining near 100 degree temps outside. Just had a few days here and there where I just don't feel 100%, but I always say that could just be normal and not even due to being pregnant!

Felt any movement? Not a thing. A couple weeks ago I thought maybe I was feeling something, but now think it must have been gas or food passing through me. Lately I don't feel a single flutter or anything. The doctor did say today that my placenta is up front, so that probably explains why I don't feel anything. She said to think of it like somebody punching you through a pillow and that pillow really cushions you from feeling anything.
Clothing? Still wearing my normal clothes, although my pants are definitely starting to get to that snug point!

First Items: So the very first item our baby has received is a cute cookie monster hooded bath towel from some relatives. I felt a little guilty then that I had slacked and not bought anything, so I did something about it and bought fabric this weekend and made a little blanket! There will be a separate post on that in the coming days. And a generous co-worker bought a little illini football shirt. So we got a towel, blanket, and shirt....now only 1000 more items left!

Names: Nope, still haven't really started looking into this.

Cravings: None

20-Week Dr. Appt
Date: 7.19.2011
Weight: 135 (up 4 lbs from start)
Blood Pressure: 110/62
Baby Heartbeat: 156
Belly circumfrence: 34 inches
Fundal Height: 18.5 cm
Description: These appointments are really pretty uneventful during this timeframe. Dustin has made it to all appointments so far. The doctor said she wasn't super concerned with my weight, but that I need to make sure to gain at least a pound per week from now on and is concerned I may not be getting enough calories. So get this-- she seriously said to try 3 times a week to eat a bowl of ice cream after dinner on top of what I normally eat. Dustin was jealous cause he loooooooooooooves the ice cream! And he's concerned he is going to start gaining weight cause is impossible for him to watch me eat ice cream and refrain. Dustin cracks me up at these appointments and thinks every little piece of info needs shared with the doctor and that I'm hiding stuff. I seriously don't think he trusts me to go on my own. So when she says this business about eating a few more calories...dustin pipes up with "Well, she did weigh a little bit more earlier this morning if she would have weighed in then." I'm sure he got the death stare from me tunneling over "I can't believe you just said that out loud!" The doctor politely said something about bowel movements don't affect the weight all that much and I still should follow the advice she just gave. At least now I get a chuckle out of it, but why someone would feel that was important altering information to share?! She also said they do not do any more ultrasounds unless there would be a medical necessity. I was somewhat surprised with that, but she said she participated in a study at wash u and they confirmed there was no value added to doing them after 20 weeks-- at this point they are able to see everything they need to see. We can elect to do one in the 3rd trimester if we want...but I got the feeling that most insurance companies will not cover it if you are just doing it for your own benefit. She also said she didn't have an issue with me having like a glass of wine occassionally....woot woot!!!! My mouth is already watering thinking about dinner this Saturday night and having a nice glass of white wine with my meal....yum! For some reason, I am one of those people that just always wants what I can't have....so before getting pregnant it wasn't a big deal most of the time if I chose not to have a drink. Then when I couldn't drink....it killed me to go out to dinner and not be able to order something! So I think this will help knowing that I can have a drink if I want....but I'll probably still choose not to on most weekends.

Here is my 20-week picture on right compared to my starting picture on left:

Easy DIY Photo Collage

2011-07-16T17:59:00.000-05:00

I had bought some frames on sale at Michael's probably about 2 years ago-- I had hung them on the wall and filled the smaller frames, but didn't have anything in the 11x14 frame.

I decided to do a collage of photos from our wedding from the photo studio. I used Microsoft Office Publisher and it took me less than an hour. I inserted a bunch of the pictures and then just started making them different sizes. I would also crop some of the pics where there was dead space. I just worked my way across and down the page to keep filling it in.

I took it to Office Depot on a flash drive and they printed on 11x17 glossy, thick paper for only $.49! What a steal! Walgreens and most photo sites wanted at least $9.99 to print. I have another 11x14 frame to fill, so I'm definitely going to put something together and get it printed there.

Here's some pics of the finished product:

It's no longer an "it"....we are having a....

2011-07-12T20:04:00.000-05:00

BOY!

So here are all the details on how things went....

First, we had sent out an email to our family to invite them over Friday night where we would find out the baby's gender all at the same time.

As our way for everyone to find out the gender at the same time, we decided to give everyone a cupcake and we'd bite into it and see if it was pink or blue filling, indicating if girl or boy. Everyone is puzzled how we did this, so I'll explain all the steps.

1. So my sister kindly came over Thursday night and we baked cupcakes. Since Dustin does not like chocolate, we made 2 kinds-- Chocolate and Carrot Cake.
2. After they were baked and cooled, we took a sharp knife and just cute a round hole in the center of each one about halfway down to the bottom. We scooped out this cake, while still leaving it somewhat in tact (you'll use it later to plug back in the hole).
3. We had mixed pink and blue icings/fillings-- a whipped cream mixture for the chocolate cakes and cream cheese icing for the carrot cake. I spooned this filling into the holes-- I filled 12 with pink and 12 with blue. You can then plug the whole with the cake you had just cut out...and it's amazing how you can't even tell that there was a hole ever cut! So keep track separately of which ones had the pink vs. blue.
4. We then iced the tops-- chocolate fudge on the chocolates and cream cheese on the carrot cake.
5. I had 2 identical containers, so we loaded pink fillings into one and blue fillings into the other, then labeled what was in each one and put that in an envelope taped on top. (So at this point they looked identical and I had no clue what was in which container.)
6. We had the doctor's office put whether it was a girl or boy in an envelope and did not look at it.
7. We asked some girls in our building to look in the envelope and if it was a girl, then put it with the container labeled girl....if it was a boy, then put it with the container labeled boy. We would then serve and eat from the container she told us to. (So basically you just need a neighbor or any outside person to look at your result and assign it to the right cupcakes).

So we went to the appointment Friday afternoon and they did the anatomy check where they make sure the bone structure looks good and the organs are functioning/developing properly. We were very fortunate that everything went well there, so that was a huge sigh of relief. We told the technician that we did NOT want to know the gender. However, she was scanning all over the place for this anatomy scan, so it was making me nervous that we were both watching the screen that we were going to be able to tell the gender! There were a few times she was showing us profiles or down by the legs (and I am awful at reading the machine), but I swore to God that I could make out male parts. So then I started looking away cause I really didn't want to know...but Dustin had his eyes glued to the monitor the whole time. So at the end she turns the screen from us to do a printout for us and write on there if it's a girl or boy. We leave the appointment and as we are in the elevator we both look at each and say at the same time- I think it was boy based on what I saw! I think Dustin could see the panic in me cause I had my heart set on a girl, so he tried back-peddling then saying we aren't experts at reading the machine, etc. But I felt like I just knew. So all afternoon I was able to kinda prepare myself for the fact there was like 99% chance now it was a boy....but still had that hope it was still a girl!

It's now close to arrival time for our guests, so I go put on my brightest pink shirt convincing myself that I probably don't know what I saw earlier. My sister arrives in her pink and I'm psyched. Then everyone decides to show up wearing freaking blue, except my step-MIL who showed some girl support! I start having this feeling like I'd rather just not bite into the cupcake and I think- 'I'll just wait until delivery and see what comes out...I'd just rather not know.' Except now I got all these people here, so pretty much have to follow through!

So here we are pre-cupake bite (minus dustin's brother who is taking the picture and can see our nephew roaming the background):

Ready, Set, GO!

And for the record, I did have an immediate smile on my face (but the picture is blurry) after looking at my cupcake and discovering this:

Slightly forced smile here...

But then I think-- hey, there is still a chance that the girl screwed up the instructions and we bit into the wrong cupcakes, so I better check the official paper from the doctor. Crossing my fingers......and nope, the doctor says it's a boy too!

It's crazy cause at the beginning I really didn't care if it was a girl or boy and thought- I'm not going to be one those greedy people who really wants one over the other...those people should just be happy and thankful they have a healthy baby on the way. But as the months went on, I just wanted a girl more and more. These last few weeks, I just had my heart set on a girl and really, really, really thought that we would have a girl, so this was a bit of a shock. Dustin has the WORST luck of anyone...and so now for one of the most important things in our lives, he finally hits his good luck and gets a boy! I know in the end I will be 110% happy and never think twice that I wish it was a girl, but I will admit that I had a hard time accepting it this weekend. Let's just say there were tears on Friday after everyone left....and more tears the next morning.

Even though we plan to have more kids and could have a girl later, I think I just loved the relationship I had with my sister, so wanted to pass that on and have daughters....so was just hard accepting that it will not happen. I reminisce about my sister and I making up dance routines together, playing school, playing beauty shop, being in the same sorority, etc. And I just wanted to pass on that same experience...which I know in reality I could have 2 girls that are complete opposites and don't do anything together....but is just the vision I had. So like I said, just hard for me to accept that my kids will not be able to duplicate all my happiness and will have their own version...which for all I know could be better than what I had!

And then I started thinking what if our next child is a boy, I'm going to feel outnumbered and alone cause they will all be watching sports and doing boy things, etc. I can hardly stand to be home on football Sundays with 1 male screaming at the tv....what will I do with more now!! Which I also know is crazy cause for all we know we could end up with a boy who is more interested in tap dancing then sports! So you really just never know and they will ultimately decide their own interests and futures.

So poor Dustin got a double-dose of crazy from me this weekend, let's just leave it at that!

I am excited though to start looking at names for the little guy and I began looking at nursery pictures this weekend to get some ideas. These next months will be busy, but I am excited to meet this little person and I'm sure I will look back on this and be like- My goodness Gus, you need to lay off the crazy pills, cause you have the cutest son ever that is WAY less drama than raising some girl!

18 weeks

2011-07-05T17:02:00.003-05:00

Not too much new to report. I have not had the bad pain return that they thought could be a kidney stone, so that is good! Feeling chubbier, but still able to wear all my regular clothes-- I have a few pants that I'm nearing the end of being able to wear. We have an appt later this week, so I'll have a post next weekend hopefully with the okay that everything looked healthy and if it is a boy or girl!
Weight: 135 lbs (+4 from starting)
Belly circumference: 33 inches (I measured this at the start, but looks like I forgot to document it. I believe I started at 30-31 inches, so is up a couple)

Here is how I'm looking at the 18-week mark:

Staycation in the loop in the lou!

2011-07-04T12:01:00.000-05:00

We started out the day by heading to the Soulard Farmers Market. It is less than 2 miles from our house and we had NEVER been- shame on us! It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G though and now we are hooked! There were more stands than I could have imagined selling everything from veggies, fruit, meat, pasta, pickles, sauces, donuts, nuts, meats, cheese, plants, soaps, clothes, cologne, purses, etc. There was live music in several places, people sipping bloody marys as they shopped or noshing on fresh donuts, every kind of people- old to babies to foriegners to vacationers, etc.

Next up we got Massages at Massage Envy. I had a gift card to use, so was even better that it was free! My back was so knotted and tense, so she worked a ton on that and it was super painful, but the good kind of pain. For days afterwards it was killer sore, but I think it did help work out some of the muscles.

We then headed down to the loop which is a stretch of Delmar in University City-- it has very unique stores and is just a fun area for killing time. People watching is interesting as there are lots of young people with interesting tattoos and piercings. A hotel recently opened in the area called Moonrise, which is where we stayed, and it was awesome! (And more awesome cause I had won they stay for free at a work event!) The hotel is the perfect location, modern, clean, and great service-- free drinks at check-in even!

You can see on the view from the outside where they have a nice rootop bar/patio which we took advantage of.

The lobby had a glowing pink/purple staircase which I loved.

Here's a hodgepodge of shots from around our room and lobby:

We then headed out to check out the stores and scenery along Delmar. Along the sidewalk they have stars of famous people from St. Louis and then a little blurb about the person. In the past I had glanced at these stars and it seemed I didn't know most people, but this time I was shocked at how many I did know! We actually found this very interesting and will be a fun activity to do with our kids when they are older. Here were just some of the famous ones I knew...

We stopped in at Vintage Vinyl which was one of the stores we used to come to in high school and college to get CDs. Before going in we were commenting that we were amazed they were still in business, however after browing their merchandise and prices I'm not surprised at all. It seemed their prices are competing with the online market and things were very cheap! It was fun finding the old bands I used to look for here- Stir and The Urge.

It was a little early for dinner, so we went to the hotel roof bar to get some drinks-- I had a great bloody mary (virgin, don't worry!) and we had a nice breeze so didn't get too hot.

We then headed out to dinner at Momo's- it is a Greek restaurant that has belly dancers, so we thought that could be interesting. There was so much good sounding food on the menu, but the problem was that it was tapas style and we like such different things-- Dustin wanted lamb and meats, while I wanted the vegetables! The food we got was okay, but think it would have been great had I ordered what I wanted. One thing we ordered was a dip sampler platter served with pita bread. The dip on the left was the best- roasted red peppers, feta cheese, capers, and some other seasoning. The one in the middle was mushed potatoes with garlic and olive oil- sounded the best, but was my least fave. And the one on the right was hummus- which was good, but not the best I've ever had.

All the time at dinner there were major storms moving into the area and warnings, so we decided to get out of there and back to the hotel. We went back to the roof and thought we'd just sit up there, but they were forcing everyone into a crowded covered space because of the lightening. Shortly after we arrived though they opened the entire patio and let us all sit out there cause the storms seemed to be passing over us and the lightning was far away.

After a drink we returned to the room and decided we'd just watch a netflix movie. The storms started are going CRAZY out there-- some of the hardest rain we have ever seen in our lives with heavy wind. I didn't get pictures, but the next day there were trees down all up and down Delmar.

We were very excited to have lunch at Cheese-ology, which just makes all versions of mac-n-cheese. However we were there at 11 and they didn't open until 12 and we had to meet our realtor, so we had to go to plan b and went to Market Pub House which is where we stopped in for Dustin to have a beer yesterday. They just had bar food, but some interesting things. I got buffalo potato skins- yum, yum!

And then we shared mac-n-cheese topped with pulled pork, bbq, and fried onions:

And that was the end of the staycation!

16 Weeks

2011-06-22T20:05:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I completed 16 weeks! So here's some more info on where things stand....

How I've been feeling?

My main issue is getting headaches. I got a prescription after my last appointment and it works wonderful! I'm just sick of getting them at least twice a week, but at least the medicine works.
I had a few days a couple weeks ago where I had some nausea in the mornings, but started eating a few crackers before getting out of bed in the morning and that fixed it.
I still go to bed between 9:30-10 usually, but have more energy and have been trying to get back into going to the gym after work.
I got sciatic nerve pain starting last Wednesday. Basically what happens is with your uterus growing and things shifting around inside you, the sciatic nerve can get pinched. This is in your lower back and the pain extends into your butt and leg-- it is the largest nerve in the body. It would just come on hit or miss, so I tried to minimize bending over and moving slowly between sitting/standing. We were on a boat on Saturday and that must have jostled it some more because I had the most pain then-- it hurt just walking. The pain has now gone away.
Then on Sunday I had a killer stabbing pain in my left side and lower abdomen. It was so bad that I had nausea and of course we were at the lake with Dustin's family, so I'm trying to hold it together. The stabbing would come and go....and when it would go, I would just be left with a dull pain that was tolerable. This continued all day. I then remembered people talking about Round Ligament Pain which starts in the 2nd trimester and occurs from your uterus starting to grow. So I looked that up on the internet and determined that is what I must have....but then my pain seemed way more horrible than what others were describing, so didn't know if I was a wimp or what. For some reason on the car ride home it was just miserable and I was crying...I think some from the pain and some just cause I was frustrated with not feeling well and didn't know how to get it to go away. I woke up Monday morning and had the stabbing feelings again, so called the doctor. The nurse on the phone said this could be Round Ligament Pain, but probably not cause my symptoms didn't completely match up-- she said with RLP you should be able to massage the pain away, similar to a charley horse. I was in so much pain and it hurt 100 times worse when just lightly touching the area, so that was not an option! They had me come in and do a urine test so they could see if was some sort of bladder infection, something with kidneys, etc. Urine sample came back clean. The doctor today seemed to think the best guess was probably a kidney stone, so if it happens again I'm to call back and they will do an ultrasound to find out. She said it can be as small as a grain of sand and I could have passed it without knowing. I woke up today and have been 100%- no trace of pain, so I'm just glad it's gone!

Cravings? No specific cravings and my appetite in general just is much less than normal. I just get full much faster for some reason.

Physical changes? I feel like I have a definite baby bump, but only at times does it really show. Dustin finally agreed with me a few days ago that my stomach has never been this round/fat before. Of course on picture day I feel like it is barely showing, but I swear it is there!

Felt any movement? Nope, still have not felt the baby.

16-Week Dr. Appt
Date: 6.21.2011
Weight: 133 lbs. (+2 lbs from starting point)
Blood Pressure: 100/62
Baby's Heartbeat: 155
Description: Today's appt was probably the least exciting so far! We got to hear the baby's heartbeat, which was much louder and prominent than last time. Other than that they just checked my stats and we didn't really have any questions. She explained that in our ultrasound in 2 weeks they will be doing tons of major checks to verify the baby is developing as it should-- make sure the heart has 4 chambers, the kidneys work, the baby urinates, etc. So it sounds like besides having a good heartbeat, this is the next big check!

Picture at 16W (excuse the bad quality-- apparently next time I need to give dustin step by step instructions on how to make this look better!):

Semi-Fresh Salsa

2011-06-16T18:45:00.000-05:00

Last night I was just hungry for something fresh tasting. I decided to walk to the grocery store and pick up a few items-- and some salsa was just calling my name! We love making salsas and make it differently each time, but I got this idea from my Aunt's house. I love the cilantro-lime flavor in here. My husband usually likes super spicy salsa, but he agreed that even this mild version is very tasty! He doesn't like corn, but you can't even taste it in here, so a good way to sneak in some veggies! This makes a pretty large batch:

2 cans diced tomatoes- drained (I used ones with chili's to give it a slight kick)
1 can corn- drained
1 can black beans- drained and rinsed
1 purple onion chopped/diced
1 bunch of cilantro
Juice of 1 lime

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl, except for the lime. Cut the lime in half and squeeze each half over your salsa. Tip: to get the juices flowing first, roll the lime on the counter back and forth with some pressure or just pop in the microwave for like 10 seconds. Mix well distributing the lime juice and serve with chips!

I bought the multigrain tostito scoops and they tasted great with this!

Diapers

2011-06-13T18:09:00.000-05:00

I'll preface all this by saying, BASED ON WHAT WE KNOW NOW....we plan to try and cloth diaper our baby for hopefully a majority of the time. I definitely realize there are times and situations where using disposables will just be easiest (e.g. the first few weeks at home, overnight, going to a baby-sitter, etc). If you are like me and aren't up on the baby scene in the new millenium you are probably thinking I'm crazy and picturing us cloth diapering using something like this:

This is what I pictured and thought only like hippies or people really into saving the environment did this....then I got halfway educated and have changed my mind! There are TONS of options out there and from what I've read it really just depends on the kid which brand works best and what the parents prefer. I think we would go with All-In-Ones (AIOs) where all of the components of the diaper are one piece...as the name would lead you to believe! I believe you can add extra liners in here for instance at night to help absorb more. You can get snaps or velcro-- I've heard definitely go with the snaps cause over time the velcro will wear down. So you can visualize what I'm talking about, here is an example:

Notice all the snaps- this is so you can adjust as your baby grows and get lots of use out of them! And then when you have a 2nd kid, can reuse again and get your money's worth even more! they say you will spend about $1500-2000 in disposable diapers for each kid...so let's just say that's about $3500 total if we have 2 kids. Cloth diapers do require an upfront investment, but I estimate for about $300 you can get started. It depends how many diapers you want to buy and which brands you choose- obviously the more diapers you have, then the less often you'll have to do laundry!

We will have to plan to do diaper laundry probably every 2-3 days, which could end up being more of a pain than I want to deal with, but am hoping it will just become second nature. And there is of course an extra cost of doing all this laundry, but is MINIMAL compared to the expense of going through disposable diapers.
There is a great store in St. Louis called Cotton Babies. You can link to the website by clicking here and it goes through a lot of Q&As. They offer a class on all (or at least most) Saturdays that will go over cloth diapering basics and what you need to know. I think in the next couple months we will go learn about it and check out the items in store and see what we think. I feel like I really don't have anything to lose by attempting to do this....if it doesn't work out, then at least I'll know we tried and just wasn't for us. Crossing my fingers that it will work out though!

Also, they make some super cute patterns- check out some of these!

Newborn Photo ideas

2011-06-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

I know, I know....I'm waaaaaaaaay jumping the gun here, but I am on a mission to learn how to take better pictures before the baby is here. I seriously have visions in my head of like spending all day posing the new baby in all sorts of cute/funny poses/outfits....and I'm sure realistically I will never learn how to work my camera, won't have the time to be photographing the baby nonstop and will hire someone! Anyways, still is fun to look and come up with ideas-- right now I am obsessed over babies in knit hats...I think they are HILARIOUS! See below for some ideas--
We LOVE the bear ears for some reason, so something like one of these will be our first purchase:

Also cute is just a little bobble-top and more simple:

I can almost guarantee that I plan to dress the baby up in this for easter- cutest pic ever!!!!!

And I could not find a picture of this, but how funny would a Hello Kitty picture be?!!?

And since ours will arrive hopefully right before xmas, I have all these visions of putting the baby in a gift box, a stocking, laying on the mantle with the stockings hung, santa outfits, etc. Here are a few ideas, although none of these grabbed me as super awesome, but are good ideas to start from.

Aren't those all adorable and just gets you thinking about all the possibilities?! I can't wait!

First Trimester

2011-06-01T21:02:00.000-05:00

Big news (which anyone with 1% of a brain would have guessed from the title of this post), but we are expecting our first baby! Eventually I plan to make a pregnancy scrapbook/journal...but currently all that stuff is packed away, so I'm just going to document it online so I don't forget and then also get to share it with others. There is a lot packed into this post since I wrote this all at once since as I went!

How and when did we find out? I had taken a pregnancy test on 3/27 and it was negative...and it was supposed to be like 80-some percent accurate. So I basically take out my jump to conclusions map and just took that as 100% accurate and was all mopey and annoyed that I was not pregnant. So on Wednesday 3/30 I had Jury Duty- and I am a big weirdo who loves when I get called for duty...so I go there and can just feel that I'm going to get my period, only I forgot to bring tampons with me....and the bathroom there had none to buy! Eek! Then I get seated in the front row and the whole time I'm thinking this is just great- I'm going to get my period, I have nothing here, everyone is going to laugh at me, ugh. So every break possible I'm in the bathroom checking and breathing a sigh of relief. Finally they dismiss us early afternoon cause they reached a settlement, so I go home. I have this huge surge of energy and go crazy cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and doing all sorts of housework. Dustin comes home and asks if I got my period....cause today should have been the day and I always get it on time....and I mope and tell him no, but it's coming so don't get his hopes up. So he has to meet up with a co-worker in town for drinks that night. He gets home and before bed, he's like you just need to take the test....so I'm like, well I guess I'll do it again. I do it and I see this (looking back, probably should have wiped this off before the picture, but your mind just isn't thinking straight...so sorry if this disgusts anyone!):

I think all I can say is, "OH MY GOD- NO WAY!" So dustin hears me and runs into the bathroom and once he realizes it is good, he just has the happiest look on his face ever! Then he has to remind me, our lives are forever changed at this point.

Who we told and when? I really didn't want to tell anyone until I went to the first 8-week appt just to be sure. However, my sister and I had plans to go to dallas in about 2 weeks for her 30th birthday...so we obviously had to tell her so she wouldn't wonder why I refused to have any delicious alcohol! I got her a frame that said I LOVE MY AUNT since this will be her first niece/nephew. Next up was my parents because they were in town for Easter, so we felt like we had to take advantage of telling them in person. We went to dinner at Favazza's on the hill and everyone was exchanging gifts for birthdays, so it wasn't really odd that we had brought some gifts. We had just got them kids books that tied into Grandma and Grandpa, since this will be their first grandchild. We then told Dustin's mother and family on Mother's day and his Dad and family that same week at dinner. We then told our first friends on 5.22 because we were going the Bon Jovi concert, so was going to be a little fishy possibly if I wasn't drinking and everyone else was. It was really cool though cause our good friends told us the same news- that they are expecting a baby like the week before us! I told work after my 12-week appt on 5.26.2011. Since then we have been trying to let family and some friends know...and now I'll post on my blog and facebook for everyone else!

How I've felt? I started out just feeling great and so energetic that I didn't believe I really could be pregnant. Then, 2 days before leaving for Dallas it hit me like a brick wall. I think for 2 days I worked from home and lived off of 7up and crackers....and it SUCKED! I have never thrown up, but just felt very naseaus at times. Since then it has just been hit or miss with feeling bad, but I've never felt as bad as I did those 2 days. Lately I've had bad headaches, so the doctor prescribed me some meds last week. Unfortunately you can not take Excederin while pregnant, which is what works wonders for my headaches.

What I'm most nervous about? Um, DELIVERY! Not nervous about anything with the pregnancy or dealing with a newborn baby....just the entire painful delivery process.

What I'm most excited about? At this point, I just can't wait to find out if it's a girl or boy. July 8th is hopefully when we find out, so that can not come soon enough! I want a girl and Dustin wants a boy. We are waiting to start thinking about names until we know the sex.

Resources? I have a book called the Mother of All Pregnancy Books that is a good reference tool. We've really enjoyed the book Your Pregnancy Week by Week...I'm trying to remember each week to bring the book to bed and have us jointly read through the upcoming week. I am reading so much, that I want Dustin to at least hear some of this stuff....and the only way to do that is basically hold his hand and force it! I also am part of a small online local community that are a pretty reliable source for anything and everything. I also recommend the book Taking Charge of your Fertility for those trying to conceive and you just want to learn the basics cause you are like me and if you ever learned this in Health class 15 years ago, it is long out of your brain! We would probably still be trying if it wasn't for this book educating me.

Diet Changes? First, taking pre-natal vitamins, so hopefully those mostly do the job. But I've also tried to start paying a little more attention to what I eat. I'm not a big fruit-eater, so been trying to incorporate more of that either by having a bowl of cereal and loading it with fruit or drinking juice or bringing a banana to work. The dr. also said based on my bloodwork it would be good to eat a little more red meat (at which I made a puke face at her...seriously)...but we have been doing that by making sloppy joes and casseroles where the meat is crumbled up and more edible than just eating a steak or burger.

Any cravings or aversions? no

8-Week Dr. Appt
Date: 4.26.2011
Weight: 131 lbs.
Blood Pressure: 102/62
Baby's Heartbeat: 170
Baby's length: .75 inch
Description: Dustin attended the appointment with me and it was extra special since it was on my 32nd birthday! I really wasn't too nervous-- I would just say a normal amount of excitement/nerves for a person in the situation. We had to wait over an hour in the waiting room, so that was not making us too happy since we were there on our lunch hour and didn't have all the time in the world. We finally were called and went back to the ultrasound room. We got a bag of free goodies, coupons, literature, etc. Luckily our wait was not very long for Dr. Botney. So she starts the ultrasound process of looking for the baby and I'm watching the screen waiting for something to appear. I'm watching....and watching....and watching....and nothing. I start to get a little more nervous and am looking at Dustin but he is clueless that anything is possibly not right. So then the Doctor stops and is looking at my chart and asking, so when did you take a pregnancy test....and did you just take one? Well, she FINALLY finds the baby and then tells me that my uterus is just in an odd place so she couldn't find it....but that is no big deal and it won't cause any issues later. She said about 30% of people have their uterus tilted further back like mine. Ok, good to know! So then we see our little blob on the screen:

Some of the big things we learned at the appointment were #1- I was not supposed to be drinking diet soda cause of the artificial sweeteners...oopsie! Gus lives off her diet soda! She recommended to try Mendota Water instead-- this stuff should be banned it is so disgusting. #2- My dr. needs to have some corrective surgery, so she can not perform any deliveries, which we decided doesn't really matter cause we'll most likely get the doctor on call, so would have been slim chance we got our dr. anyways. #3- My dr. doesn't want more than 30 minutes of exercise done at a time and for my heartrate to go over 140. Another oopsie! I had to walk way slower than normal on the treadmill in order not to go over 140 that I don't even feel like I get a workout anymore! I asked her again about this cause I know several other people that do not cut back their exercise routine when pregnant, but she felt very strongly cause said the baby can not regulate its body temperature, so you have to make sure yours doesn't get too high.

12-Week Dr. Appt
Date: 5.20.2011 Ultrasound and 5.25.2011 Appt
Weight: 132 lbs. (+1)
Blood Pressure: 102/62 (No change)
Baby's Heartbeat: 175
Baby's length: 4 cm (from what I remember- not really sure)
Description: I was told for the Ultrasound that I needed to drink 32-40 oz of water by 11am. I'm not a big water guzzler normally, so I decided to start at 7:30 when I got up and drink about 8 oz. each hour. Well 10:15 comes and I have to pee so unbelievably bad, so decide I have to go to the bathroom and then start this all over :( But it ended up being fine and I was able to quickly drink a bunch, so now I know how to do it next time! We got into our appt very quickly this time and our tech was awesome. The blob had started looking like a human! We could see the head, arms, legs, eyes, etc. It was moving around like crazy, which I couldn't believe how active it was. My Dr. had requested this ultrasound cause the baby was a little smaller than expected at the first one, so they were predicting my due date about a week later than what I had calculated. Now the baby was a good size and matched my date, so the due date was moved from 12/12 to 12/6. We then went the following week to the Dr. Appt where she just used a doppler to hear the heartbeat through my stomach...which you could makeout what was a beat, but kinda just sounded like flipping through all the static radio stations. I was happy to confirm that I can occasionally have my favorite soda- Caffeine free Diet Ski- it uses sucralose which is safe for pregnant women.

So here is a good side view of the little bubbas:

And here is a view from the back of the butt and legs:

I do feel in the last week or so my stomach has gotten a little pooch-like...may just be from my lack of exercising too! This will be as close to a starting point as I have documented. This picture was taken at 13W1D (13 Weeks 1 Day):

Microwave Caramel Corn

2011-05-31T20:00:00.000-05:00

This is so easy and delicious that I'll be trying to make it more often. We watch a lot of movies, so occasionally I'll go the extra step and make us a batch of salty, buttery, heavenly popcorn. I decided last week that caramel corn was sounding better, so we gave that a try....it made WAY too much, but better too much than not enough!

I started out by popping a little over 1/2 cup of popcorn kernels.

In a microwave safe dish, combine the following ingredients:
1/2 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 light karo syrup
1/2 tsp. salt

Cook until mixture starts boiling and then cook another 2 minutes. I'm not sure, but am guessing mine was in the microwave in the neighborhood of 3 minutes. Remove and add 1/2 tsp. baking soda and stir. Pour over the popcorn and mix well....and enjoy! (Although next time I will cut this all in half and we'll probably still have leftovers!)

Bring on the health!

2011-05-19T18:03:00.000-05:00

This post will probably bore quite a few people, BUT too bad. Just think, bathing suit season is right around the corner, so you may want to listen up! With spring here and summer practically around the corner, I'm trying to eat healthier...and now is a good time to try and make that move since you can start getting fresh fruits and veggies! I encourage you to check out your local farmer's market. We started doing this last year at the Old Post Office Plaza on Thursdays in downtown St. Louis and loved it. They will be back on Thursdays this year, but over the lunch hour. Soulard is another great market to check out.

Something new I'm going to try this year is also ordering food from Community Helpings Coop. They have TONS of locations all over St. Louis and your city may have something similar. There is no commitment, but you order your produce/food online by the due date and then pick it up at a designated time/place. Everything is grown locally. The best deal I've heard about is to do the $23 deal where you get a huge box of assorted food- but this only works if you aren't picky about what you get. Visit the site here.

Here are some switches we've also made at the grocery store to be more healthy:
Mott's Medleys- these juices taste terrific! They have carrot juice blended in with them so you get a serving of veggies (and fruit) from a glass, but you can't even tell. I in fact like this better than just the standard juice. The other thing is we always try to buy our juices with Calcium or some sort of extra vitamin.

Smart Balance- We switched from just buying Parkay or the cheapest butter/margarine at the time to getting Smart Balance which also gives you Omega-3's. Not really sure how healthy this is, but it tastes good and has to be a little better than what we were using before! I saw Dr. Oz talk about this and he claims it is 1 of 5 vitamins that every woman should be eating. He goes on to explain- It's good for your joints, skin, vision, brain, heart, helps lower bad cholesterol levels and even boosts fertility. It's an anti-ager and an anti-inflammatory. It's found naturally in a variety of delicious foods including walnuts, salmon, tuna, olive oil and avocados.

Healthy Life Bread- The only bread we ever buy anymore is Healthy Life Bread wiith 35 calories per slice. You can get many varieties (white, wheat, wheatberry, etc.) and even get it fortified with double wheat, flaxseed oil, etc.

T-shirt Quilt

2011-05-11T18:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, I've been a HUGE slacker and need to get back to blogging. Here is a short post, but something I thought was really cool. So back in high school I had heard about this idea and thought it would be cool to have my mom make me one. I had a lot of t-shirts from over the years that were memories of vacations, school sports, etc. You may not want to really wear these around anymore, but you want to save them...so what better way then to turn them into a blanket! Well my poor mom has been working on this for like almost 10 years I think now cause she did one for my sister also...but the time was well spent, cause it turned out awesome! If you look around on the internet, you will find tons of pictures and different ways people have gone about these...luckily I like mine the best!

Here is the entire thing laid out:

Here is a closeup of one of the t-shirt squares:

Here you can see some of the different materials and stitching done:

And lastly, here is the material that is on the entire back:

Great job mom!

Bald Eagle Trip

2011-04-01T16:59:00.001-05:00

In February we ended up having a beautiful weekend- I think it was like 60-some degrees, so we drove over to Alton and Grafton in Illinois to spot bald eagles. Dustin has been wanting to go for years...and this is not really my cup of tea....so when the weather was so gorgeous, I was actually excited to get outside and do something!

So we get to Alton and find a spot where a tour bus is stopped and people are all watching. I quickly notice how EVERYONE has binoculors except for us. We walk up and look in the direction they are spotting these eagles....and see nothing! There were some trees on the other side of this lake that I guess they were looking at. I thought someone may be nice and offer for us poor saps to use their binoculors, but no such luck. So we leave and decide to find a different spot....so at this point I'm a little annoyed with Dustin cause I'm like why didn't you tell me we needed binoculors?! He says as a kid they would come here and went to some dam and were up close right in front of them, so you didn't need them. So then we start driving aimlessly looking for this spot he remembers as a kid. I quickly stopped that cause he can't remember how to get to a place he went to last week, let alone from 20 yrs ago!

So I suggest we drive along the river road and head up to Grafton and go to the state park and try to get some information on the best sites to go to. On the way up there, we spotted an eagle sitting high up in a tree, so finally a little excitement! We get to the park and no eagles, but it was still fun to just walk around. It's not every day that you have snow on the ground, a gorgeous blue sky, and warm weather! Here are a few pics from the park:

So we decide this whole thing kinda sucks and the eagles must be hiding out, so we decide to head back home. Then holy moly, I had my head out the sunroof for like a 10 mile stretch cause there were eagles flying around everywhere! They were all really high, so my photos didn't turn out well, but you get the idea!

Now, would I do this again or recommend it? Definitely not worth it if it's cold out. If it's a nice day, I'd definitely go do it again....and would be better if Dustin knew where that dam was at and if you are still able to get a great view there. There were also a few wineries, ice cream shops, etc. that it would make a cute day trip too!

Double-stuffed cookies

2011-03-30T20:16:00.000-05:00

I had a night in to myself, so decided to bake a few treats. I had seen an idea on the internet to make chocolate chip cookies, but put an Oreo in the middle. Sounded good to me! I had some frozed dough in the freezer, so I let that thaw out and then just patted the dough around the oreo. They turned out REALLY BIG cause it took a lot of dough to surround that oreo...and then they melted in the oven into ugly shapes....so they didn't really look the best, but sure did taste yummy! I baked mine at 350 degrees for about 12-13 minutes. They were best warm....so grab a glass of milk and dunk these monster cookies in and enjoy!

My 2 ingredients:

Before baking:

Right out of the oven:

Insides:

Guest Bath and easy/cheap home decor

2011-03-22T19:00:00.001-05:00

Our guest bathroom is very small, but we like the modern look of it and it fits in very well with our loft. Everything in here came standard when we built the place. I used some leftover candles from our wedding to decorate the shelf below the mirror....and then have just used rolled up handtowels and decor on the shelves. It really is multi-purpose cause we don't have room to store much, so is always handy to be able to store something and let it serve as your decor!

We had picked this shower curtain out cause the husband loves blue and the different shades of blue seemed to fit with our vanity. We also painted the ceiling of the bathroom to an aqua color that was similar to the vanity top.

Then I had a blank wall with only a towel bar that needed to be filled with something. I went to Lowes/Home Depot and just picked up a lot of large paint swatches in the blue/aqua/gray families. I then cut them down to the same size and placed them in these floating frames. This is such a cheap thing to do and is so simple, that I hope someone else can use this idead if you haven't seen it somewhere.

Easy Swiss Chicken

2011-03-20T18:52:00.000-05:00

WOWSER- this dish hit the spot tonight! I had just read on Plain Chicken's blog about a Swiss Chicken recipe....it sounded perfect cause chicken is my most frequently cooked meat (and was on sale for $1.99/lb this week) and we LOVE swiss cheese. She adapted it from Paula Deen and I made a hybrid between her and Paula's version. Below is how I made it and it turned out so good that I don't think I'd change a thing!

6 skinless boneless chicken breasts
4 Tbsp butter, melted
Salt and Pepper
4 slices Swiss cheese
Shredded Swiss- about 1 cup
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup stuffing mix, crushed
cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spred melted butter in 9x13 casserole dish. Add the chicken to the casserole dish and season with salt and pepper. Layer the cheese slices on top - I broke my slices in half and covered each chicken and then I broke up my last slice to fill in the missing areas. I used some shredded swiss to also help get the chickens thoroughly covered in cheese, which I would recommend doing cause it melted in with the sauce and gave it all a great flavor.

In a medium bowl, combine the soup and wine, season with salt and pepper, and pour over the chickens. Sprinkle the smashed stuffing mix on top and spray with cooking spray. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve.

Easy Appetizer and Casserole

2011-03-15T18:16:00.000-05:00

Here are 2 recipes I've done in the last month that were EXTREMELY easy and tasty. Sorry I didn't get pictures of either one :(

This first one was an appetizer/side and would be great for a party.

Feta Cheese Bake

approx. 1 cup of crumbled feta cheese
1 can pizza sauce
crushed red pepper flakes
Toasted bread

Using a shallow baking dish or pie dish, pour the pizza sauce into the dish. Add a few shakes of crushed red pepper (or more if you like a little kick) and spread somewhat evenly around the bottom of the pan. Crumble the cheese into the pan. I baked about 30 minutes in 350 degree oven. I had bought of loaf of french bread, sliced it and put in the oven to toast a bit. Dip the bread in the cheese/sauce and enjoy!

Note: For a stronger cheese flavor, this would be excellent with goat cheese.

This next recipe was one I made for dinner and we loved and seriously took less than 3 minutes to assemble- however it does take a while to cook! It's perfect for us cause I can quickly put it together after work and throw in the oven while we are at the gym. Then it's ready and waiting when we are home.

Hamburg-Tot Casserole

1 lb hamburger meat
Tator Tots
red onion
1 can cream mushroom soup

Using a 8x8 or 9x9 pan, press the raw meat into the bottom of the pan. Spread the soup over the meat. Cover with some diced onion. Pour as many tater tots heaping onto the top as you can! Bake at 350 degrees for 90 minutes.

San Fran Trip

2011-03-08T19:37:00.000-06:00

I know I've been major MIA lately, but hopefully this will be a lengthy post and make up for it! I never get to travel for work, but I found out a few weeks ago that I'd be visiting our California office in San Ramon (about 45 minutes from San Francisco)...and I was super excited! I had never been to this area before, so it would be a great way to check it out and not have to use my own money :) It was AWESOME and since Dustin has never been to the area, we will definitely be putting this on our trip list for some point soon!

We arrived Sunday afternoon and a very sweet lady that works in the CA office came to our hotel and drove us into San Fran for some quick sightseeing and dinner. We only had about an hour of daylight, so we didn't get much in. We started out with a cable car ride-- it was a great way to experience the CRAZY hills and see some of the city.
!

We got off the trolley and went to Ghiradelli square- sampled some wonderful chocolate!

You can see Alcatraz in the distance here.

And if you look real closely you can see the golden gate bridge in this photo....I know it looks small, but I promise it's there and I could see it!

We then walked around Fisherman's Wharf and ate dinner at Scoma's. The menu was HUGE, but there was like 2 things that were not fish or beef (which I don't really eat)-- mozarella sticks or a BLT. I went with the BLT and was some of the best bacon I've ever had!

Monday was our first day at work and it was so great to meet all these people that I've worked with for like 7-9 years and NEVER met before! We just had a blast and I am so lucky to have such great co-workers.

On Tues evening, some co-workers took us to a nearby area called Walnut Creek. The downtown area was basically a huge outdoor shopping mall and I seriously felt like I was in heaven...and I'm not even a shopper! They had everything from local stores to chain stores...and it was every single store you could ever think of- Crate & Barrel, BCBG, Tiffany's, Urban Outfitters, Williams Sonoma, etc. For dinner we went to the San Francisco Creamery and I just ordered a fabulous Hot Fudge Sundae for dinner! Man vs. Food filmed an episode here where he attempts to finish the Kitchen Sink which consists of 3 sliced bananas, scoops of up to 8 flavors of ice creams, 8 servings of toppings, mounds and mounds of whipped cream, chopped toasted almonds and cherries. I also ordered a basket of Funnel Cake fries-- best invention ever! Looks like french fries, but was just strips of funnel cake...YUM!

On Wednesday evening a bunch of people went to play Bocce Ball and eat dinner. I couldn't believe how many people had never played bocce ball before- it's such a great game for any age and you can just play in your yard at home.

On Thursday for lunch they took us to Bridges, which is where Mrs. Doubtfire had a scene filmed-- the food was really great here also.

And how could I have almost forgot this-- the HIGHLIGHT of my trip was going to In-n-Out Burger!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been waiting years to try this and had really high expectations and the burger exceded those expectations! It was hands down better than my beloved Big Mac! The menu is very basic- hamburger, cheeseburger, fries, shakes, soda. However, they have a "secret menu" that my co-workers were so kind to make sure I reviewed ahead of time! I got the Animal Burger- which basically means they grill the burger in mustard, and add grilled onions, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and spread (which is similar to thousand island dressing). I went a little overboard and also got the Animal fries- which is basically all the same toppings but with melted cheese. If I did it again I would just have the fries plain cause it was a little too much of the same flavors. Oh yum, I gotta quit thinking about this!

In a nutshell, that about sums it up!

Warm cookies...at any time!

2011-02-23T18:31:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure why I didn't think of this sooner, but thought I'd share my latest evening snack! So I had some coupons and there was a super special on Pillsbury Cookie Dough- the kind where you just gotta break apart, plop on a cookie sheet, and throw it in the oven. I think I ended up with 6 packages total! Then I got home and thought what will I do with all these cookies cause the husband does not like chocolate and just isn't a big sweets fan....and I can't eat all of this myself! Well, I could, but probably would not end well. So, I opened each package and broke apart the dough into the cookie pieces, and I rolled into a ball. Then I put them in ziploc baggies with labels and stuck in the freezer. At night, I just take out one frozen dough ball, put it in my toaster oven, let it cook, and presto- I get a warm cookie to enjoy! And I don't have to worry about over-eating. Yum, can't wait for after dinner tonight!

Good Target deal this week!

2011-02-21T18:41:00.000-06:00

I've been slacking lately on using coupons at the store and trying to find great deals, but I will have to get to Target this week and take advantage of some offers. They have a promo where if you buy any 7 frozen items, then you get a $5 gift Target card. If you are not in the St. Louis area, then check your Target ad online for your area as they may have this deal or one similar to it.

I am hooked on Lean Cuisines or Smart Ones when I need a quick meal and want it to be low-cal. Here's how to get a great deal on the Smart Ones at Target:

Weight Watchers Smart Ones Entrees $1.80
Buy 10
Use $5/10 Smart One- Target Store Printable Coupon
Plus
Use $3/10 Printable Coupon HERE
Pay $10
Get $5 Target Gift Card
Final Price = $.50 each wyb 10

Would be a great time to stock up on frozen veggies-
Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers, Select Varieties $1.27
Use 7 $.50/1 Printable Coupon HERE
Final Price = $.06 each wyb 7 participating products

Or maybe you just want to get junkfood, you can use it on that too!
Tony’s Crisp Crust Pizza 5/$5
Buy 7
Use $1/2 Printable HERE
Pay $6.00
Get $5 Target Gift Card
Final Price = ALL 7 for $1

Dippin Dots $1.02
Final Price = $.31 each wyb 7 participating products

So get on over to Target and gift your gift cards!

Cold day treats

2011-02-16T19:19:00.000-06:00

So up until a few days ago, we've been hit with some killer cold weather in St. Louis...topped with a nice dose of snow/ice. So for several days we did not venture out and just worked from home-- so nice to just stay in my PJs, grab my laptop to do work, and have some winter treats!

I got in the habit of making myself some dynamite hot cocoa! Had some Swiss Miss packets in the pantry that I heated with water to make the hot chocolate, then topped it off with some large marshmallows....pop it in the microwave for a few seconds to start melting the marshmallows...then enjoy! So simple, yet so tasty!

I just happened to also have all the makings for a smores in the pantry also. These were heavenly!!!!! Topped a graham cracker with some chocolate chips and then 1 large marshmallow. I microwaved for just a few seconds and the marshmallow would expand HUGE! I couldn't get enough of these...once I finished off all the ingredients, got to the store and bought more!

Kitchen Tips

2011-02-13T18:50:00.000-06:00

I'm no longer sick, so really don't have an excuse for not posting...just been lazy or busy! Once I get some pics downloaded, I have several posts that will be coming your way!

Until then, here are just a few kitchen/cooking tips to share:

1. To easily remove garlic from the skin, pop a clove in the microwave for 5-10 seconds. The skin will EASILY fall right off and then is ready to use!

2. When I have recipes that call for fresh lemon juice, don't just squeeze the lemon and throw it out. Cut the peel into several chunks and stick in the freezer. You can later take a piece out to run through the garbage disposal and it makes your kitchen smell fresh-n-clean!

3. Can't get a jar open? Grab a rubber band and put around the lid and it will surprisingly usually open up easily!

4. I re-use those plastic food containers, but if it starts to smell, fill it with newspaper to deodorize it. After a couple days, wash and will be ready to use again!

Products I'm Lovin

2011-01-24T18:26:00.000-06:00

I'm still sick, so this post is taking my last ounce of energy. I thought I'd just share a few products we've been using that I absolutely love...and wish I had known about years ago!!

First up, are onion goggles....and yes, I own this very same stylish pair in pink. If you are like me, I get halfway through chopping an onion and have tears streaming down my face and have to call the husband in to finish the job. Well, if you own these handy glasses, then you put these on and they form a nice comfortable seal around your eyes and you can chop onions all day with no pain! Normally people who do NOT wear contacts are more sensitive to the onions.

Next are the Cascade ActionPacs. We had been using the powder detergent and our dishes weren't getting cleaned all of the time-- sometimes we had to run the whole load through a 2nd time. I read on the internet to try these because most people use WAY too much detergent and this controls the amount. Since moving to these our dish cleanliness has improved to nearly 100%! If you go to Sam's you can get a huge tub of them- I think contains over 100 of them.

I've posted about these before, but I love the makeup remover towlettes. I usually buy the store brand or whatever ends up being the cheapest...then I cut them in half once I get home cause find I usually don't need the entire towlette with eash use. It feels so refreshing to clean your face off and is so easy to just dispose of when finished!

Lastly, the electric toothbrush!!!!! Dustin has been using it for years, but I just recently switched over and it is fabulous. I didn't care for it at first cause it just tickled, but now I'm used to it and love it. I still have the occassional accident where it splatters toothpaste all over the mirror, but I'm getting there! It is a little pricey to continue to replace the brushheads, but just keep your eye out for rebates or coupons.

Amazon deal...and some good sites

2011-01-19T20:50:00.000-06:00

I've been loving Groupon ever since I discovered it last year. However, there are many other great sites out there that have daily deals. Today I was able to get a $20 Amazon gift card for only $10. Not the best deal ever that I'll go scream it from the rooftops, but I'll take a free $10!

The site I used today was Living Social, which you can click on to link to the site. This is very similar to Groupon.

Another one is Tanga. I've ordered few magazine subscription deals here for a great rate! The best deals are when you can use a coupon code for the magazine on top of the sale.

And my aunt had told me about this site, but I have yet to use it- Brads Deals. It looks like this will show you coupons and good deals currently available around the internet.

Happy thrifty shopping!

Golden Globe reviews

2011-01-17T18:32:00.003-06:00

I've been more absent than planned lately cause I've been dealing with a miserable cold. When my head is this clogged, even sitting here typing a blog seems like too much work! Anyways, I did have hours to spend devoted to the tv watching the Golden Globe red carpet and awards.

In the last 2 weeks just by coincidence I had seen 2 of the movies nominated- Inception and The Kids are All Right. I don't think I've added these to my movie review page yet, but I'll probably give Inception a 3. Dustin really enjoyed it, but it was just not my style of movie. Hated the ending- that's all I'll say. The Kids are All Right was better....but still don't think it's near award-worthy! I'm toying between rating that a 3 or 4. I really want to see a lot of the other movies nominated- Social Network and Black Swan are at the top!!

Now, on to the most important part of the evening-- who looked the best and worst! One trend that I was a little surprised with was the number of long-sleeved dresses. In my opinion, Angelina Jolie was the only one that pulled off the look...Anne Hathaway came in 2nd-- I didn't care for the poof on the sleeves, but her dress had an open back that was really pretty. The rest all looked disgusting.

I'll continue on with more looks that make me say- WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!

And now my selection of the best looking dresses/people of the evening-- there were a lot, so was hard to narrow it down to the best. Obviously I really liked the black dresses and champagne-ish colored ones! Eva Longoria and Piper Perabo also had very classy looking black dresses, but I just got lazy and did not include their pics. All the women below deserve A's in my book!

And lastly, the fashion critics did not give Natalie a good review, but I thought she looked great!

Last batch of recipe ideas

2011-01-10T21:23:00.000-06:00

I found a few recipe ideas that could make for cute small gifts to hand out. My plan is to tackle some, if not all, of these this year.

These first 2 are from Plain Chicken's blog. First up is homemade butterfinger bars which only use 3 ingredients and is made from candy corn (yes, how strange is that?)! I'm not a huge butterfinger fan normally, but they are fairly tasty and if you can nab some leftover candy corn after halloween, this would be a really frugal xmas gift! Check out here for the recipe and pictures.

Another item super simple to do is homemade vanilla-- only 2 ingredients! Click here for pics and the recipe. Below were some cute packaging ideas I saw.

This next idea is for homemade Limoncello. I had never had limoncello until last year when some friends of ours made a bottle....and let me tell you- it was AWESOME! Now Plain Chicken does have a recipe here on her blog, but it is for a creamy limoncello. I will probably choose to attempt a more simpler recipe such as this. Following are just a few pics of cute bottling/label ideas.

And lastly, my sister had some homemade toffee that was DELICIOUS...I sadly devoured my last bite of it last night and am having an intense craving for it tonight! I'll have to get the exact recipe used, but I found this on All Recipes that has good reviews/feedback and doesn't seem to hard.

A few more xmas recipes

2011-01-05T19:05:00.000-06:00

When I have the time, I really love cooking for dinner and trying new recipes...however, I never really bake or make sweet things. Probably because my husband is a moron and doesn't like chocolate, so it seriously rules out about 90% of desserts! At the last minute, I took a stab and making some tasty treats for me to munch on over the holidays and to pass out to family. I swear both these recipes are SO easy and taste awesome that anyone can tackle them!

First up was Sugar-n-Cinnamon pecans. You know those kind you'll smell at the mall or a fair and then just HAVE to buy them to satisfy your craving?! I mixed together a few recipes for these and here's how you do it:
Sugar-n-Cinnamon Pecans

Ingredients
3 egg whites
1 T water
1 T vanilla extract
2 pounds pecan halves
2 cups white sugar
1.5 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Grease baking sheet.
2. In a mixing bowl, whip together the egg whites, vanilla, and water until frothy. In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, salt, and cinnamon.
3. Add pecans to egg whites, stir to coat the nuts evenly. Slowly add the mixed dry ingredients into the nuts and toss to coat well.
4. Spread the nuts out on the prepared baking sheet.
5. Bake for 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes. This is important so they don't burn!

Since that went over so well I decided, I love peanut brittle let me see if it's possible to make that at home. Seriously, I did not even know that you could make this yourself! So I found a recipe on the internet that used the microwave and no special candy thermometer or odd gadgets. I read zillions of user comments on the recipe to get all the tips, so I'll summarize below what worked for me. It seems everyone's cooking times vary, so you may need to adjust depending on your microwave.

Peanut Brittle

Ingredients
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup salted spanish peanuts
1 T butter
1 t vanilla extract
1 t baking soda

Directions
1. Spray cookie sheet with non-stick spray (or use butter). I then turned on my oven to 350 degrees and let the cookie sheet warm in there. (I had read this from other users that it will help in the end when you pour the brittle on here).
2. Combine sugar and corn syrup in a 2 quart glass bowl (I used a 9x9 glass square pan) and microwave on high 3 minutes. Note: I read several reviews about dishes cracking, so be aware this gets hot and you need glass or something sturdy.
3. Stir in peanuts and microwave on high 3 minutes more. I just eyeballed this and used about 3/4 of the container, so was a little more than the 1 cup.
4. Stir in butter and vanilla and microwave for 1 minute.
5. Stir in baking soda until light and foamy. Pour onto cookie sheet and tilt cookie sheet around to try and spread the brittle. Do NOT try to use a spatula, knife, etc. to spread the brittle cause will just ruin in.
6. Cool completely and break into pieces and serve.

A few tips: Do NOT soak your glass dish immediately when done or it may shatter. But once it is cooled down, do soak it and your cleanup will be super easy! Act fast when adding the ingredients between your microwave sessions, you don't want the mixture to start cooling down. I also sprayed my spoon with non-stick spray in between each microwave session so that the brittle wouldn't end up terribly sticking to the spoon. I made another batch with cashews cause I LOVE cashews, but the spanish peanuts really tasted better in my opinion. Hope you give it a try and enjoy!!

A few xmas recipes

2011-01-02T20:24:00.000-06:00

Hi, I hope everyone had a great xmas and new years...I know I enjoyed the time with family and friends and some relaxing!! Here are some cute recipes to tuck away...

First up is something my sister had got at a cookie exchange and I couldn't believe I had never seen something like this before! They are little mice made from a Hershey kiss and cherry. After looking around the internet I see there are several variations of this, but basically she just dipped a maraschino cherry with stem in melted chocolate. Then dip the flat side of a Hershey kiss in the melted chocolate and attach 2 almond slivers to form the ears. Then attach the kiss (head) to the cherry (body). She then just used a toothpick to dip in the melted chocolate to make the eyes. Here is a link to more detailed instructions I found and here is a picture of the ones my sister had:

Next up was something I had seen various versions on the internet for-- Smores jars you assemble and give as gifts. These were more time consuming than I had planned and was disappointed with how they baked...but hey, the jars looked cute! I would recommend playing around with the recipe some and it may be better-- I think the butter needs greatly reducted-- maybe try with 3/4 stick instead. Basically I had a 1 Quart mason jar from Michaels and filled the bottom with 1 sleeve of crushed graham crackers. Then I added 1/3 cup brown sugar and really patted it down to compress as best I could. I found cute xmas tree peeps (but you could make these for easter, halloween or any holiday and use those peeps) and used 1 peep and about 1-1.5 cups mini marshmallows. Again, I'd keep pressing them down to cram in as many as possible. Then fill with about 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Close the jar and attach a cute tag with the baking instructions. Here is a pic of my jars after they were filled:

Front of the tag:

Inside of tag with instructions:

I'll have some more recipes later this week for you too!

House party

2010-12-15T17:54:00.000-06:00

Thought I'd pass along an interesting site I heard about through a friend. It's called Houseparty.com and you basically sign up to get free stuff and then host a party to show off the products. It's hit or miss with the parties they offer, but there are some pretty sweet ones!

I had filled out the application to host the EA Sports party in December where we would have got the free video game and then just have to invite friends over to see the game...how fun is that?! Unfortunately, I didn't realize my app was incomplete until after the deadline, so I didn't get it in in time. Now I'm just waiting until another interesting product is available to host!

Just to give some examples, currently you could have signed up to host a NYE party if you have a PS3-- They give you all sorts of paper products, THREE games, 2 controllers, and a PS3 camera...not bad! Other ones may center around food products where you have people over to try Pizzas...or even Wine!

I'll be sure to post an update if I end up getting picked and host something!

T-shirts recycled!

2010-12-14T17:33:00.000-06:00

I've seen this idea on a few blogs and thought I'd give it a try while trapped inside with the snow yesterday! One lucky person (that does not read this blog) will be getting this as a xmas gift...and if she thinks it's ugly, then she can throw away since it was free! I made a scarf out of old t-shirts...and thought it turned out decent. Don't think it's going to rock anyone's world, but is unique!

Here's what I did: Grab 1 or more old t-shirts. (I used some of Dustin's since he has I swear over 100 t-shirts piled up.) I picked Orange and Blue for Illini colors. I cut about .5-.75 inch strips across the shirt. Then wrap each strip several times around your hand to make it into a loop. Take small pieces of the shirt fabric (can use sleeves) to tie in a double knot to tie 2 of the loops together. Continue in this fashion and can leave open at the end or tie it into a circle.

Snowy Day

2010-12-12T14:23:00.000-06:00

I was looking forward to going on a holiday house tour today, but awoke to snow on the ground and is still coming down...so those plans are cancelled!

Dustin is monopolozing the tv with football, so what can I do stuck inside here all day??? Here's what I've came up with to pass the time (and force me to be productive):

1. Wrap all the xmas gifts!

2. Vaccuum the floors. It's been 3 weeks and they are FILTHY

3. Pick up the bedroom and Gus Mountain (the heap of clothes in the background).

4. Eat a delicious hot dinner and sip a hot drink! We have leftovers of a great Cream of Asparagus soup that I found on Gina's Skinny Taste blog. I used a combo of fresh and canned asparagus. This has so few calories and is so healthy, but tastes as good as if it had 1000 calories per serving!

All right, time to get to work!

Hilarious Boy Dancing on TV

2010-12-10T21:31:00.000-06:00

So I saw this live on the Today Show and was laughing out loud at this kid who was amazed at seeing himself on tv, so he starts to dance and do funny moves....all during what was supposed to be a serious film segment. If you need a good chuckle, check him out:

Walgreens = FREE wrapping paper + money

2010-12-10T08:18:00.003-06:00

Hi, so as I find super good coupons or deals, I'm going to try to pass them along on here. I visit Clippin with Carie daily for good deals in the St. Louis area-- of course, some are better than others. But it is amazing the money I've saved since using her site!

UPDATE: Carie reported on 12/10 that
Walgreen's has pulled this deal and no longer issuing the jingle cash. Sorry!

Here is a current deal where you can get Hallmark wrapping paper for FREE at walgreens PLUS actually make $1 on the deal.

Buy 2 Hallmark Wrapping Paper $1.99 – B1G1 Free this week
Get $2 RR/Jingle Cash
Use (2) $.50/1 Printable Coupon HEREFinal Price = FREE + $1 Money Maker

You can view Carie's site for an explanation on the Jingle Cash or RR if you are not familiar, but basically it will print a $2 Walgreens coupon to be used on your next visit (usually within 10-14 days). If you are like me and do not visit Walgreens often, then just get something in the store now that you need/want and have them ring that up as a second separate transaction and use your $2 coupon right then and there.

A lone voice

2010-12-09T19:21:00.000-06:00

Last night we took a mini-trip to Columbia to watch Vandy take on Mizzou in basketball. Mizzou was ranked 15 and Vandy is just outside of the top 25, so we knew it would be a good matchup. Unfortunately the game was neck and neck all the way to the end...went to OT....and Vandy lost. It was killer cause the game was tied in OT, Vandy has the ball and can hold to get the last shot to hopefully win. The moron is dribbling around wasting time and Mizzou steals the ball, runs down the court, and slams it in. Booooooo! Have I mentioned that I just HATE Mizzou...ugh! The only good thing is Illinois plays them in 2 weeks and we'll just have to demolish them!

So here's the funny part. We went to the Illini-Vandy game last year at U of I and Dustin and his friend LOVED that the arena gets silent when we shoot free throws. So they would scream out and be stupid whenever this silence happened. Then that night walking down the street they get approached by these students who were like "You are the guys! You are the guys from the game!" So they felt like celebrities since I guess half the stadium heard them and turned to stare at the bozos. They still talk about it to this day. So we go to Mizzou and as the game nears the end, everybody in the stadium gets super silent for the Mizzou free throws. So Dustin SCREAMS "Let's Go Vandy!" as a player shoots his free throw...and misses! We were excited it worked! Then today my parents are reading the stltoday article on the game and look at this excerpt:

Vandy went up 72-70 on an Ezeli tip-in with 1:07 to go. Five seconds later, English missed a free throw as a lone voice called out, "Let's go, Vandy." He hit the second to make it 72-71.

So now Dustin has sent this to everyone he knows and wants to be known as "the lone voice." I think he's going to have more fun going to visiting arenas to see Vandy just so he can pull this stunt!

Another New Page!

2010-12-07T20:47:00.000-06:00

It's still in progress, but you'll see I've started a new page ranking movies we've seen. I'm always interested to know what movies other people saw that were good/bad, so thought I'd share my views.

Maccabeats Video

2010-12-05T14:23:00.001-06:00

I had seen a clip of this on the Today Show and it instantly got stuck in my head-- I think they did a great job of making this parody! It's a take off on the song Dynamite and they have transformed it into a Hannukah song.

Blog changes

2010-12-05T14:14:00.000-06:00

Hi, you've hopefully noticed that I've spent several hours today changing up my blog some. It's still in progress, but hopefully all the changes will be for the better! So far you should see I've re-done my tabs up top and added a new page where you can link to the other blogs I read. I've also added a sidebar on the right where you can quickly reference older post either by searching the archives by date or by the labels.

The other change I've learned how to do is make my photos larger. So instead of where this was as big as my pics would post:

Now I can take a little extra time and step to make them larger like this:

I can't say these few changes didn't come without near meltdowns unfortunately! I seriously just struggle with learning all this computer stuff!!

Adventures in baby-sitting!

2010-12-03T12:44:00.000-06:00

So a couple weeks ago we baby-sat for Dustin's brother Keenan who is just over 4 years old. His parents were going to a Rams game, so it was a little over 3 hours-- perfect amount of time I thought. Well, by the time the runt left, we were EXHAUSTED! How do parents do this full time?!

Within 5 minutes of being there, he all of a sudden takes off down the hall and into our bedroom...so I follow after him and he's in our closet. It was like he had a magnet on him and knew there were xmas gifts back there! I had a stack of stuff in the very back of the closet, most of it were all girl gifts for poor people we were buying for....but there was 1 game of Hungry Hungry Hippos in there for him. So of course he asks about this stack of gifts and I say those are xmas presents for some little kids I know and let's just go back out to the living room with dustin. He looks at me and says, "But I'm a little kid." It was so cute and I'm like- well we still need to go shopping for you, so how about you tell me what you want. So that gets him talking and moving out of the closet. Ok, hopefully he just forgets about that stuff back there now!

So we go play some board games he brought over-- Candyland, Hi-Ho-Cherry-O, and I Spy. I told Keenan that in our house when we play Candyland, that also means we eat candy...so him and Dustin were excited to much on some skittles and suckers.

Well then he decides he wants to just wrestle around with Dustin and stop focusing on games. Dustin is flipping him all around no the couch and of course, I tell them to be careful cause the brick wall is right behind them. Within 3 minutes later, Dustin slams his head on the corner of the brick wall and blood starts gushing everywhere! Keenan had blood all over his hand and I thought he was going to freak out, but luckily he really didn't scream and was just softly crying/whimpering some. So we made him put a cold washcloth on it for a while and I was worried how bad it really was....but after a few minutes he's insisting to us he's fine and he can still wrestle. We're like- NO WAY- we can only sit and play games for a while! There was blood on the couch, so I was cleaning that off and he came over and asked if that was from him and then said "I'm Sorry." Here the poor kid is apologizing when Dustin bashed his head in! So after all this, he takes me back to the bedroom closet and points to Hungry Hungry Hippos and asks if we can play that cause he has seen it on a commercial and looked fun. What are you going to say at that point...so I'm like, sure we can open that and play that.

So after a bit we played some more active games again. One was just covering dustin with pillows on the floor and mild wrestling. Then I taught Keenan how to gather all the blankets and pillows and build a tent with the table and chairs. So we do this and he tells me he's done this before with his dad and grandpa and it's called Big Bad Wolf and you huff and puff and blow the house down. So Keenan and I would sit inside the tent and then dustin would storm in as the wolf and demolish it, then we'd run and hide while the wolf chased us. We had all the lights off and drapes closed, so it was actually pretty scary for me...but he loved it!

One cute story is he picked up this replica Eiffel Tower we have on our bookshelves and he's like "WOW!" I ask him if he knows what that is and he says yes, he's seen it on tv before. So I'm all impressed this kid knows the Eiffel Tower at this point! I tell him Dustin and I just went there on vacation and it's real far away from here. He says- no it's not....come here (and pulls me over to the window). He's like- it's right there, I think we could walk there! He's pointing at a red and white like cell phone tower or something! It was hilarious.

Finally we get hungry so decide to preheat the oven for a pizza. All of a sudden I notice a ton of smoke billowing out of the oven.....I go open it up and it pours out and there was some burnt cheese (from yesterday's pizza) causing this issue. So I shut the door and turn off the oven, but our place is filled with smoke at this point. So we open the windows, open the door, am fanning by the smoke alarm....the last thing we need is for the building to be evacuated or sprinklers go off! Of course Keenan is running around asking if there is going to be a fire? At one point he ran over to the window and shouted outside- Someone call the fire department! Hey, at least he knew what to do in an emergency! And in the midst of all this he asks if he can still have pizza or what will he eat-- I'm like, we'll clean the oven and get you some pizza. Well, his parents come to pick him up before the pizza is done, so he never even got any :(

So get this-- all he can talk about to his parents and to his grandma the next day is NOT the fact that Dustin gashed his head, but that Amy set the pizza on fire and there was smoke everywhere!

On thanksgiving, Dustin's dad brought him downtown to see the parade, so we met up with them for a bit. It got freezing cold out there and started raining, so was just MISERABLE by the end....so Keenan finally agreed that he wanted to go inside to Dustin's work to warm up for a bit and just watch it from up high.

Cooking!

2010-11-29T19:04:00.000-06:00

A few good recipes to pass along.

Chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes
I usually don't like baking desserts, but I saw this recipe on Amanda's blog and decided it looked too good to pass up! It is for chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes-- YUMMMMMMMMY!!! If you are into making your own cookie dough and icing, then please view her blog, but if you are like me and into shortcuts, then I can tell you in 2 seconds what I did.

I had store bought Pillsbury cookie dough in the fridge. I rolled that into balls. I stirred up my store bought cake mix (I used chocolate fudge, she used vanilla) in a bowl according to directions and pre-heated the oven according to those directions. Real hard so far, huh?

Place the cupcake liners in the pan and fill each about 2/3 full with batter and drop in the cookie dough.

Bake according to directions or until appears done-- the cake will puff up and completely surround the cookie dough! I used storebought buttercream frosting for the top and mini chocolate chips to garnish.

They were awesome!!! (I did freeze some of my cookie dough balls and did not others-- I really liked them both ways and could not tell a difference. When not frozen, it will bake a little more into a cookie...while frozen will stay more doughy.)

Chicken Noodle Soup
So this is really not much of a recipe since I just throw whatever I want in a pot in whatever quantities look about right....but it was my best pot yet, so I'll attempt to document it.

I used a HUGE pot and filled with chicken boullion/broth. I then chopped up half a small bag of baby carrots, some celery (include those leafy tops!), turnips (awesome new vegetable I tried), and onion-- add all to pot. I bought a herb-roasted rotisserie chicken and pulled chunks of chicken off of there-- add to pot. Chopped up fresh dill and parsley-- add to pot (I think these fresh spices were key this time and I have never used dill before cause thought that would be weird, but now it is a must for me!). Add freshly ground pepper and let simmer for a while. Once the onion is transluscent and veggies soft, then I add wide egg noodles. Enjoy!

And I also have got all of my recipes torn out from magazines and from friends into an organized binder-- and I LOVE IT!

Who's going shopping?!?!

2010-11-23T20:59:00.000-06:00

Just a few things I've found for those going out shopping this Black Friday. I personally don't have anything I'm after this year, but will probably still venture out.

1. Wal-mart announced they will price match items in other ads!

“Walmart is kicking off three days of savings, typically reserved only for the Friday After Thanksgiving, on this seasons’ must-have holiday gifts, including the strongest “price match” guarantee in the market. In fact, Walmart is one of the only retailers that will price match competitors’ ads on “Black Friday.” Customers simply bring in competitors’ ads and Walmart will match the price of any identical product right at the register, making Walmart the easiest place to save this holiday season.”

2. Shop-n-Save has a great deal. Buy $100 of gift cards at their store to participating retailers and you'll get a $20 gift certificate for Shop-n-Save. Best Buy and Kohls are retailers listed that I normally shop at, so I'll probably try to buy some this week, knowing that I will shop those stores on Friday or at some point coming up. Now I'm not a fan of shop-n-save, but it is fine for getting frozen foods, soda, canned and boxed items, etc. I'm thinking you can use this on Thursday when they offer $10 off a $50 purchase...so really it will be like getting $50 of groceries for only $20!

3. BFads.net is one of the best sites I've found so far if you know what you want to buy and looking to price compare. For example, let's say you want a Nintendo Wii-- instead of looking through each store's ad, you can search for Wii and it will return all ad entries and prices for the wii!

4. Look online because many stores will have their deals available online (unless you are going after a super spectacular doorbuster item)! If shopping online, always check first to see if your store is available through ebates. Ebates will give you cash back (a certain % unique to each store) for your purchase if you link to the store through them.

If you sign up to ebates, please use this ebates link as I will get referral money!

Good luck and have fun!!

Europe Day 15&16 Munich (Finale!)

2010-11-23T07:16:00.000-06:00

I'm combining Saturday and Sunday together cause we really didn't do much sightseeing, we just spent both days at Oktoberfest. I have to say that by at this point in the trip we were just getting worn down, but this was the big moment we had been waiting for....and unfortunately I think I had built it up WAY too much. It was fun, but it was basically just like a huge carnival with beer tents and rides and concession stands. And I was thinking they would have a selection of great beers to try, but it was so crowded and busy that there was just 1 type of beer they bring you-- which was okay, but not great. Still, it's something to experience and I feel like we were the perfect age to do it!

We were a little nervous how the whole thing worked as I had heard MANY different things from people on the internet. We did not have a reservation, but since there was just 2 of us, I was basically assured that we would be able to find a table if we just kept asking people. Well, we went to the first tent- Hippodrom- and weren't finding ANY place to sit, so then we moved on to the Paulaner tent. It was so close, but the grounds were so packed with people that I swear it took us 30 minutes to navigate less than 1 block. We get there and start asking people that have room at their table if we can join them and luckily we come across 4 guys from switzerland who had space....and they turned out to be really great, nice, fun people to sit with! We really couldn't have asked for a better situation!

Then on Sunday we went back and watched this HUGE parade-- we actually only watched less than half cause the parade was like over 3 hours long and I just started getting bored! We met a super nice retired couple from the states that day on the train and joined them for the parade. They were touring Europe for like 45 days or something insane that we were jealous of! We then just wasted time walking around the fairgrounds and killing time until we had to get our luggage and head to the airport for our flight back to paris.

Entrance to the grounds-

Inside Hippodrom, which is where celebrities will be. This year I know Hayden Panetierre and Kim Kardashian were there- go figure I didn't find anyone famous.

Here's just a few shots to show the crowds and atmostpher and all the rides and tents!

Here was our tent-- we actually got a spot outside on some picnic tables they had setup.

The pretzels were enormous!!

And enormous beers to go along with that!

They sold these cute iced gingerbread cookies everywhere-- I bought a few for souveniers for friends.

I got some video footage, but don't know yet how to post that, so here is a still pic showing the people at our table. They would stand up occasionally and sing this song...but unfortunately we had no clue what they were ever saying, so couldn't join in!

And then it was goodbye Munich!

We arrived in Paris and just stayed at a hotel in the airport-- next morning we got our flight home and it was back to the Lou!

I must say that overall this trip was awesome and we can not wait to go see more countries!!!!!

Europe Day 14- Munich

2010-11-22T20:15:00.000-06:00

It's Friday and we start the day by taking a tram/bus to Nymphenburg Palace, which is just a tad outside of the city. This was the summer residence of the palace (Residenz) we toured yesterday.

The place was enormous and it was really amazing that besides the palace, it had a HUGE garden/park area (490 acres) with all sorts of little buildings. Here was the view standing on the terrace of the back of the palace. It was also much windier/chillier than expected, so dustin was such a sweetie and traded jackets with me cause his was much warmer. I couldn't believe he actually fit into my fleece-- and of course I had to get a picture of how ridiculous he looked!

So we started tackling all of the little buildings and exploring the park. First up was a building I believe they used for when they were hunting-- they would stay at this place. You can notice in the bedroom there is a door that blends into the wall-- a lot of the bedrooms at these palaces had those and were so the mistress could slip in and out of the bedroom. the last picture is what the kitchen looked like.

Here's a few shots of the area-- some of it was basically like a walking trail and more wooded, while other areas were huge open fields. We even spotted a deer!

I can't remember what this next building was used for, but I took a picture of the bathroom/washroom. You can see the water spouts on the wall, so not really sure how this whole setup worked.

This next building was a japanese style building and everything was decorated with a definite asian inspiration.

Lastly, we went to the chapel building. The inside was small, but incredible-- every inch was decorated with shells and rocks. It was beautiful and my pictures just don't do a justice!

Luckily one of the buildings was converted to a restaurant, so we stopped for some food and I FINALLY insisted to Dustin I was ordering my Diet Coke, even if it was like $5 for 4 oz. or the tiniest portion ever. But every last drop tasted heavenly! We decided to get a light lunch since it was late and we wanted a decent dinner. So we see they have a snack menu, so dustin orders the sausages off the snack menu and I got a salad. His snack was FOUR sausages and fries!

Lastly, we finished a part of the main palace that stored all of the carriages/coaches used. It was really cool to see how many they had and all the different styles.

We then were just playing by ear what to do in the afternoon and decided to go to Dachau. We got there mid/late afternoon, so we knew we didn't have much time. We started with a museum that was indoors cause that closed earlier than walking around the outdoor parts. Well unfortunately we went waaaaaaaay too slow because we weren't even halfway through when they closed. I found it very interesting and wish I would have known there was so much more to see and would have gone faster. We walked around for a bit outside, but there really wasn't much to see out there. Rows of buildings used to stand here, but they got rid of all of them but 2 that were setup still as models of what it looked like inside.

My view from the inside looking out-- always bars on all the windows.

There was a trench around the entire outside perimeter, along with tons of barbed wire, concrete walls, watch towers, etc.

We then went to Altes Hackerbrauhaus for dinner, recommended by rick and was decent. More just awesome traditional german food!

Afterwards, we checked out Jodelwirt (also one of Rick's recommendations) and was glad we stopped in. It was a very TINY place and definitely seemed like where the locals hang out....they would be playing music and everyone singing along and shouting things out! We got one of the last seats in a corner by the bar area so decided to stay for a drink and I was hoping to order dessert. So we ask if they have a dessert menu and the girl is like, "uh, normally we do, but today is special celebration and we only have pig...so if you want some pig for dessert, that is what we have." Obviously i'll pass on that! But then they were so nice to us and said they would specially make something for us...so I got the Apple Struedel with ice cream and it was THE BEST I'd had there-- exactly what I had been searching for!

Europe Day 13- Munich

2010-11-16T21:34:00.000-06:00

Our last city! We started out our morning by having to move hotels. We originally thought we would only be in Munich for Thu-Sun, but had found such a cheap flight for Wed, that we came a day early...but then our hotel didn't have availability to extend our stay a night earlier. So this took up a couple hours-- we took the metro to the stop by our new hotel, which was more out in the suburbs. We get off at the stop and seriously feel like we are in the middle of nowhere and have no clue where to walk to get to our hotel. It is in a somewhat residential area and then there is also just some abandoned areas and areas with factories. We ask a couple people and no one can help us. Finally a taxi shows up to drop people off at the metro so this kind girl offers to go speak german to the taxi driver to try to get us directions...well it ends up the driver is from the US, so we talk to him and decide to just pay him to take us there. And thank goodness we did cause it was quite a walk to the hotel and dustin's suitcases had a wheel in the process of busting off. So we get all checked in and then head back to the metro to go sightsee.

We went to Marienplatz, which is like the town square area. We watched the Glockenspiel for about 5 minutes since we were there when it was set to go off-- it was some music that played and these little puppets that would twirl around. You can see it best in the second picture and if you look closely in the first picture, you'll see it in the tall spire. We went in a few churches and of course climbed one to get a view of the city. You can see the city overall just has more modern buildings. Marienplatz is the open area in the center-ish part of the picture.

We ate lunch at Spatenhaus and it was very good.

We then went to Residenz and I really enjoyed it-- it was amazing how much of it you got to tour! Unlike the other palaces, we got to view over 100 rooms! The palace was built back in the 14th century and where the Wittelsbach rulers lived. Much of it was destroyed during WWII (as was most everything in Munich), so a lot of the palace had to be rebuilt. As with any palace, you'll see it has it's own chapel...of course!

One of the rooms had the flat ceiling painted to make it look 3-D. I took a picture of it cause it looked pretty amazing-- this is all just on a normal flat ceiling, but appears as if it is much taller and ornate!

For a part of the tour, you got to just see a few rooms that contained all of the family's royal jewels and belongings. It was amazing cause I believe they said this diary belonged to one of Charlamagne's grandson's. That means this book is from around the year 1000 or even before-- just befuddles me how ornate it is and that it could be that old! This was one of several crowns that I'm not sure how old, but believe it was from waaaaaaaaaay back then around the year 1000 or so too. I'm just amazed how people created stuff like this!

By now it was late afternoon, so we went to the Hofgarten and English Garden. We were somewhat idiots and decided to walk to this English garden cause Rick told us there was a nice beer garden area to sit and have a drink. We walked FOREVER and come to find out, this park is larger than central park! It was cool though cause on the way to find this beer garden, we stumbled across a stream where people were actually surfing! This was the start of the stream through the park, so the water was rushing out and making waves and they would just take turns surfing for like 20 second stints.

We went to Augustiner for a small dinner and sat with 2 really nice girls from NY- Gina and Marian. It had been a while since we had made some friends, since most of the time in Paris we just ate and kept to ourselves! We ordered some appetizer that was traditional for German's-- I can't remember what it was called, but is basically some bread with raw onions and a cheesey-butter spread. It was okay. The city was hopping that night and we were glad that we did Hofbrauhaus the night before...there was such a mammoth crowd outside of it, you didn't look like there's a chance to get in.

Ok, this post was way too long-- what happened to trying to cut back on my trip recap?!

Europe Day 12- Paris/Munich

2010-11-11T17:16:00.000-06:00

Today will be a short post!!

Our last morning of our routine of stopping for breakfast and riding the metro.

We had until about 2 or 3:00 before we had to be back at our hotel to go to the airport for our flight to Munich. There wasn't anything we were dying to do in this short time. We walked to some Palace, but they were having an exhibit and charging some outrageous admission, so we left there. Then we just walked along the Seine, where dustin got scammed-- Rick had warned us about this, but Dustin was too cool to read any tour books. A guy came by and drops a ring on the ground when you aren't looking, then pretends to find it and insists that you keep it and then asks for money. So I'm busy taking a picture of another couple and I can see this happening out of the corner of my eye. So the guy puts the ring on dustin's finger and then dustin gave him money! I'm like- no more of that- quit being so stupid and nice!

We had tried to find a lock cause wanted to put it on this bridge where people just hang out and picnic on, play music, etc. Locks were too expensive for Dustin to spend the money on, so we didn't end up doing that. So everything was just not going our way so far today!

We stopped for lunch in the Latin Quarter again and went to a different place and just ordered 2 cheese fondues-- it was SO MUCH CHEESE!!

We then took our flight to Munich and got to our hotel there. We dropped off our stuff and took the metro into downtown and went to the Hofbrauhaus. I had the BEST cheese spaetzle ever there. They used swiss cheese and carmelized onions to really give it some flavor! The beers were enormous and Dustin was in heaven. The place was HUGE and had to have held thousands of people-- you can see in the picture it's just a room full of long tables where people gather...then there are just many, many areas like this upstairs, downstairs, outside.

Europe Day 11- Paris

2010-11-10T17:30:00.000-06:00

It's Tuesday and our last full day in Paris. We didn't have any set plans for this day, but a few options. One option was to take the train to an outlaying area and go to wineries...but that just seemed like too much hassle. So we stopped for our usual breakfast to select something from the MANY good-looking items.

We then just took the metro and did Rick Steves Montmarte walk. It is an area that is up on the hill just a short distance from the city.

The main attraction was seeing Sacre Coeur. They must not have allowed photographs cause I don't have any of the inside and there was a service going on, so our visit was pretty short.

It's a very artsy area, so we walked around the square where many artists have booths setup selling their work. Neither of us are interested in art/craft fairs, but we were AMAZED at the work being done! If we were rich and could easily transport the goods home, we would have loaded up...but instead came away empty handed. We got to see where Van Gogh, Renroir, and Picasso all lived...crazy that they all lived right here together!

We saw Moulin Rouge and grabbed lunch in the area at La Marmite and my food was awesome! It was a little more americanized, but was basically some sliced potatoes (seasoned and buttered up real good) topped with a salad.

Next, we left this area and decided to go do a few things from our Historic Paris Walk on ile de Cite yesterday that we didn't have time for. We went to the Archeological Crypt which is near Notre Dame. Here we just looked at a bunch of roman ruins-- it was pretty cool to see what all existed underground and where buildings used to stand.

Also nearby we went to the Deportation Memorial which is dedicated to the french victims of the nazi concentration camps. You can see behind the one set of bars, there was this long lit hallway with a bunch of tiny lights- each for one person that died.

We then walked over to Ile Sainte-Louis and got some ice cream, recommended by Rick....and it was awesome!!!! I got peach and was probably the best peach I've ever had- and that is saying a lot cause I am in love with Breyer's peach ice cream!

We then headed home and then back to the Eiffel Tower for a picnic-- this time sitting on the grass in front of it (instead of our hidden bench in the back)! We stayed for a couple hours, but once it got dark there were BATS everywhere and I was uncomfortable. They would swoop down right next to people-- I had my hood up on my jacket and sitting in a ball. So we then walked up a little close to the tower and noticed they have the whole thing secured off, police or military people with guns guarding it, and people all dressed up standing outside of this area (evacuated from the fancy restaurants in the tower)! So of course any one else that speaks english that we talk to, also doesn't know what is going on. So after a bit, we decided to just leave...and later found out there was a terrorist bomb threat.

We walked for a bit to a place that had boat cruises and took a tour of the Seine at night. It was a nice relaxing end to our paris nights!

Europe Day 10- Paris

2010-11-09T19:43:00.007-06:00

Today is the last day of our Museum pass. We started out by grabbing some baked goods on the way to our metro stop. yum yum!

We did the Rick Steves Historic Paris Walk. It started at Notre Dame. Outside is a small metal disk on the ground that is called Point Zero- it was the center of Paris 2300 years ago and is the spot from which all distances in Paris is measured. We went inside and then waited in line for over an hour to climb to the top. Had we known it was going to take that long, I don't think we would have waited! The good news was there was a crepe stand across the street, so i got to eat a crepe while waiting!

The next main part of our sightseeing was walking around the Latin Quarter, although it looked more like the Greek Quarter cause there were a lot of gyro places that looked FANTASTIC! This was the first time we had seen a ton of restaurants advertising fondue, so we stopped here for some lunch and it was delicious.

That afternoon we visited the Conciergie which was an old prison and where Marie Antoinette was held. This is where they kept the prisoners before taking them to the guillotine. The building was really beautiful today.

Then we went to Sainte-Chapelle which was another really long line...probably an hour even though we got to cut into a shorter line with our museum pass. It was built in 1242 in just 6 years in a gothic style and had incredible stained glass which depicts over 1000 bible scenes. A lot of the glass was still original and was so dirty.

We then did Rick Steves Marais Walk, which explored an area of town where we had gone to dinner previously and really liked the area. The main thing we did here was the Holocaust Memorial-- which we wished we would have known that this was a HUGE museum and allowed for more time. Instead we had about an hour to rush through before they closed. It's something we would probably go back to if we went to Paris again and had time to spare.

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were exhausted from a ton of walking and decided to just eat dinner near the hotel. We walked a block and went to Cent Kilo and it was decent-- not the best ever, but good enough! I got fajitas cause it was one of the first menus we had seen that had more American-style food that you would expect at most restaurants here. They were ok, but not sure how to describe them...just a little different than what fajitas taste like here.

Halloween update

2010-11-01T19:52:00.007-05:00

Ok, gotta take a break from the vacation postings to get my halloween pics out cause we had so much fun! Friday and Saturday night we went to friends houses for parties. See if you can figure out what Dustin and I were...

If you guessed Tiger Woods and his enraged wife Elin, then you are right! Friday was almost like a trial run and we were able to greatly improve on his facepaint for Saturday night....and we surpringly won first place in the costume contest Saturday night! However, we didn't feel like we had the best costumes at all, but we'll take it!

Here are some other pics, Missy smurfing around the grocery store in costume, Lydia as Jem (cartoon from 80s), and Crystal as Batgirl. You can also see how decorative Crystal's house is for her party-- and this is just one tiny segment of what they do!

Then Sunday we visited Keenan and Liam to see them dressed up all adorable! We got Keenan this gun for part of his late bday gift and he loooooved it. He dressed up as a Transformer and Liam was a shark (as you can probably tell!).

Europe Day 9- Paris

2010-10-25T14:16:00.006-05:00

Day 9 is Sunday and since our Museum Pass was still valid, we had to knock out more museums today. I think I forgot to mention, but I would highly recommend this to other travellers- we bought a 4-day museum pass for around $50-60 each. It covers your admission to practically all museums and for many museums, you can go through a special line to avoid the crowds and wasting time waiting in line.

We went to the Orangerie Museum-- it was very small and just okay. It contains HUGE works of Monet's art.

Next we went to the Orsay Museum, which I was really looking forward to; however, they had re-arranged stuff, so we couldn't follow Rick's audiotour or book notes. We toured the entire museum, but I hadn't found like 80% of the famous pieces that were supposed to be there....so I stopped to ask a worker where these paintings are and every single one is currently out on loan for an exhibit in tokyo or somewhere. So, in my opinion, we saw a bunch of junk instead of seeing Whistler's Mother, some famous Van Gogh's, famous Degas, etc.

We grabbed lunch from across the street and the food was just okay and our waiter rude. He said they didn't have any tap water, only some bottled water for 6 euro...but then brings the table next to us a glass of tap water to put their ice cream spoon in!

Next was Rodin's museum. This was decent cause was outdoors and the day was beautiful and we just browsed his sculptures. Most famous is the thinker.

Next was Napoleon's Tomb and the Army Museum, thank goodness we didn't have much time left so Dustin had to move fast. I did a lot of sitting during this portion!

We came back to the hotel to change clothes and head to this area called Marais which I really wanted to check out-- it was described as SoHo...more trendy boutiques and restaurants. We went in St. Paul church since we walked right past it, then went to St. Catherine Square and ate at Le Marche, which was EXCELLENT (and recommended by Rick)! I ordered some vegetable soup and came out looking disgusting, but was FANTASTIC!

Europe Day 8- Paris

2010-10-25T13:57:00.013-05:00

Today was one of the days I was most excited for-- it was our trip to Versailles! You can read about the history of the palace here, which will be faster than me trying to recap it! There are 3 main parts to tour- the Chateau (main palace), the Gardens, and Marie Anoinette's estate.

The palace was packed when we arrived, so we walked through the gardens and thought we'd start with Marie's place. It took us over 30 minutes to walk the gardens because it was soooooooooooooo huge! They were beautiful though and the fountains were all running (only run on Saturdays during certain months, so we were lucky to get to see this) and had classical music playing. It really felt royal and I could envision people hundreds of years ago just parading around back here. The best part is that certain areas of this garden are open to the public as a free park, so you'll see people just having a picnic and hanging out by the basins. Notice the rainbow in the one from the fountain spurt!

When we arrived at Marie's place, we had about 15 more minutes until they opened it, so we grabbed lunch at a little cafe they had there. There were multiple buildings and mini-palaces as part of her estate, along with tons of garden space. First up here was an enormous area much like a farm. This is where the servants would stay and they raised the animals and crops for eating. It's crazy how you really felt you were in the middle of the country out here! Supposedly she never really liked all the royalty stuff and attention and was more of a plain-jane and liked this country atmosphere she created here.

I'm not really sure why they called this whole area Marie Antoinette's estate, because some of these houses were used to house the King's mistress or for him and his buddies to come stay as a summer house. This first building here is where I believe he would have his mistress stay....nice little shack!

And this place was more where the King and his buddies would come to get away from things. Notice the flower beds here in front of the building-- these were changed DAILY to give the king a new view and aroma!

Here is the view looking out from that last building-- just perfectly landscaped gardens EVERYWHERE!

The interiors were okay, but not going to get too in-depth to show those! We were so pooped after all this walking that Dustin even agreed to pay for the tram to take us back to the Chateau and avoid the 30+ minute walk uphill! We toured the Chateau, but I must say overall was disappointing compared to the Gardens and Marie's place. Both of those had more of a WOW factor than the palace....partly because they only let you see such a small portion of this huge palace. That just drives me nuts when I see this huge palace with probably hundreds or even thousands of rooms and you get to see 15 rooms. Really?!? Anyways, here is a pic of the front of it (still can't fit the whole thing into the camera view) to try and give you a sense of the size...just mammoth!

And a view of us in back of a small section of the palace...

Here are a few shots of the interior. The art is just incredible that they have painted on the ceilings in some of these places!

This is the hall of mirrors which is where I think the treaty of Versailles was signed and many famous people have been in here.

We then caught the train back to Paris to the Eiffel Tower area and assembled food for a picnic. Went to a cheese store and bought 2 cheeses they recommended- didn't think either of them were that great! Went to a produce store and got THE BEST GRAPES I've ever tasted...would give anything to find grapes like this here! Went to a bakery to get some breads. Then to a wine store to get wine. We are getting to the Eiffel Tower and we see signs everywhere the alcohol is prohibitted and no one else is drinking....so we start getting scared that we will get in trouble, so we stop at a bench that is pretty un-scenic before you technically enter the park and decide to eat there.

After eating, we move closer to sit on the ground and just watch the Eiffel Tower- it lights up once it gets dark and then does special lighting effects starting at 9pm. Of course, just as we round the corner we see everyone sitting on the lawn with wine/beer hanging out...so we were nervous for no reason- just needed to get closer!

After watching for a bit, we then went to Arc de Triomphe again so we could see the views at night. It was really pretty up there, but we were too dumb to know how to take pics with our camera to get the night landscape to turn out. We met a really nice young man named John from Germany who had studied abroad in the US and stayed with a family in Oklahoma. He was so nice and took our email addresses and emailed us his pics that he took up there since he was a little better with the photography!

Then as descending the 50 million stairs to leave, I wiped out and fell down the stairs :( Embarrassing!!!! My hand was scraped up and bleeding, but not badly. My butt had a huge bruise on it the next day then and I couldn't sleep well cause hurt whenever I'd move. Oh well, overall it was a GREAT day of our trip!