Lazy (?) Sunday

On what might be our last baby-less Sunday, we decided to take it fairly easy today.  We went for our usual walk at the Loveland bike trail this morning (though I couldn't make it as far as we normally do), picked up our smoothies, and headed home to nest for the rest of the day.  While Stephen studied for school and watched the football game, I tried out a new recipe to add to our collection of frozen foods for when the baby comes.

Bobby Flay's Chicken and Dumpling Soup

6 cups of chicken broth
Cooked, shredded chicken breast
Carrots
Celery
Onion
Corn
Fresh green beans
2 bay leaves
Celery salt and pepper to taste
1 cup of pearled barley
Pre-made biscuit dough

I cooked the chicken separately, shredded it, and put it aside while I softened the celery, carrots, and onion in the soup pot (with a little cooking oil).  Then I added the broth to the vegetables, adding in the corn and green beans.  Next went the chicken and the barley, until the barley was tender.  When the soup was spiced (bay leaves added, salt/pepper/etc), I dropped spoon-size balls of dough into the pot, covered it, and let it simmer for a few hours.

My only issue with this recipe is that the broth all but disappeared -- but after reading the recipe reviews, apparently that's a pretty common issue.  I'll just add some broth when I'm ready to serve the soup.  Either way, it smells delicious and we have plenty to eat for dinner tonight AND freeze for later.

So far, our collection of frozen foods includes:
- Chili
- Lasagna
- Seasoned taco meat (for taco salads)
- Marinated chicken breasts
- Chicken and dumplings
- Shrimp (for pasta)
- Turkey burgers
- Ravioli
- Meatballs
- Vegetables, rice, and other sides

I feel pretty good that we have home-cooked meals prepared and that we won't have to eat Skyline out of a can every night once the baby gets here.  I know people will probably bring us food the first few days we're home, but it feels nice to be prepared for when the home visits slow down and we're left to fend for ourselves.  :)

My due date is in FIVE DAYS, but I'm saying right now...my prediction is December 1.

10 Days and Counting...

Here we are in the homestretch.  I am antsy and sore and have finally called it a day and asked to cut my hours down at work (five or six hour days) -- my official last day is November 23, next Wednesday, but my ankles and feet have been swelling too much to continue with eight hour days -- so it really is a waiting game for little G to get here now.  We've taken the hospital tour, we've installed the carseat, our hospital bags are loaded into Stephen's car, and we've planned the naming ceremony and newborn photos.  All we need now is the BABY!

I had an appointment this morning with the doctor I hate.  I thought I'd give him a second chance -- in part because I believe everyone is entitled to a bad day, and in part because I had no other option (he was the only one there today) -- but I still hate him.  For starters, I was taken back the room at 11:15 and sat half-naked for almost forty-five minutes waiting for him to come see me.  When he finally did, he AGAIN had no idea who I was or when I was due.  In the TWO MINUTES he was in the exam room with me, he never once asked how I was feeling or if I had any symptoms of early labor, and barely seemed to listen when I asked questions.  Or, if he was listening, he certainly couldn't be bothered to actually ANSWER the questions I had.  I literally hate him.  The good news is, I am making progress.  I don't think Gavin will be making his big debut this week, but I think there's a good chance I'll go fairly close to my due date.  The better news?  Even if I shoot past my due date, there's no way we'll have to wait more than three weeks to meet our little son.  Not even an awful doctor (who also seems totally unknowledgeable, for the record) can take that away from us.  I'm just praying he's not the one on call when I go into labor...

Our baby nephew, Quinn, is two weeks old tomorrow and getting cuter everyday.  I can't stand how cute he is.  My sister-in-law sent this picture to my mom yesterday and I can't get enough of his cutie pie little expression --

Holding himself up already!  And look at that EXPRESSION!  What a little personality!

Ack, I love him so much.

Thanksgiving is coming up and I'm hoping to enjoy lots of holiday food (and family time) to celebrate!  If Gavin isn't here by then (and I'm assuming he won't be), you can bet that I'll try and steal as much Quinn time as I can!  :)  I'm sad my grandma won't be able to join us for Thanksgiving this year -- there's just too much up in the air with my due date being November 25 -- but we're hoping to be able to see her and introduce her to our new addition as soon as we can after the holidays.  It won't be the same celebrating Thanksgiving without her, though.  This year's holiday will be different for sure -- but there will be SO MUCH to be thankful for!!!

Celebrations and Congratulations!

It has been an AMAZING two weeks!  Here's my feeble attempt at a recap --

1) On October 29, we celebrated the Fourth Annual Friends Thanksgiving at Steve and Ashley's house! It was super sweet of them to make it early this year so Stephen and I could attend (since we may or may not have a tiny turkey by the time ACTUAL Thanksgiving rolls around.)  We had a great time catching up with friends and ate way too much delicious Thanksgiving food...turkey, potatoes, homemade applesauce, veggie casserole, corn, rolls, stuffing...literally everything imaginable.  Steve and Ash really have the Thanksgiving banquet thing worked out!  :)

2) Our first wedding anniversary was on October 30 and was PERFECT.  We started the day by going to the Loveland bike trail for a walk, where we had some of our wedding photos taken a year ago.  We went down to the river, walked around the park, and generally reminisced about what a nice experience we had with Steve Lyons (our wonderful photographer) last year.

We got smoothies for lunch (yum) and spent the afternoon relaxing, and then Stephen surprised me by taking me to Melting Pot for dinner!  A pregnant woman's DREAM!  There were flowers on the table, which I always love, and he gave me a beautiful, engraved locket to hold pictures of our soon-to-be baby boy.  A+ work for my super thoughtful husband.  I don't know what I did to deserve him...but I'm really glad he's mine.  :)  We did the whole cut-into-the-anniversary-cake deal, but a year in the freezer did not do the cake any favors, so we were thankful to be already so full on all that delicious chocolate fondue.

Our still-beautiful but awful-tasting anniversary cake, gorgeous flowers, and a souvenir photo from our first anniversary dinner!

My present to Stephen for our "paper" anniversary!

3) After our anniversary came Halloween, one of our favorite holidays!  We both had to work all day (and Stephen had class) but we got home just in time to pass out candy for trick-or-treaters.  We live in a growing neighborhood, so usually we don't have a ton of kids pass through, but we had way more than we expected this year!  We ran through three huge bags of candy within one hour and had to call it a night, but it was fun to sit outside and chit chat with some of our neighbors and see some adorable little costumes.

4) Stephen aced his third math exam...meaning that he got A's on ALL THREE exams!  Because he's such a superstar, he doesn't have to take the final, nor does he have to attend that class for the rest of the term (three sessions).  I am so proud of him...but more importantly, he's so proud of himself!  He set that goal for himself at the beginning of the term and made it happen.  He still has a few more things to do for his other two classes, but he should have about a week off to relax before next term begins.  He'll be taking a writing class and his first computer tech class starting November 15.  Yay!  Starting to move past the gen-eds!

5) Gavin and I had our 36 week appointment earlier this week -- I'm 37 weeks, FULL-TERM, tomorrow! -- and I'm happy to report that everything is still right on track.  I'm not dilated or effaced yet, but G is riding really low and is in position for his big debut in a few short weeks.  My doctor said that most first-time moms deliver up to a week late, so we're thinking Gavin could even end up being a December baby...but who knows!  We're prepared for him to come next week...we're prepared for him to come in four weeks.  We're just prepared for him in general.  :)

6) Perhaps the biggest news of the past two weeks is that my brother and his beautiful wife welcomed their first child, Quinn Allan Berg, into the world on November 2!  Quinn is absolutely the cutest thing ever and Doug and Mindy are so in love with their new little bundle.  Stephen and I are also in love with their new little bundle.  Actually...I think everyone is.  :)  We spent the afternoon at the hospital with the adorable family yesterday and couldn't get enough of holding baby Quinn and marveling at his chubby bunny little face.  Gavin kept kicking every time I had Quinn in my arms -- he was either totally jealous or totally excited to meet his new BFF!

The happy threesome!

Quinn Allan Berg -- SO precious!

CONGRATULATIONS, Doug and Mindy!  We are so happy to have a new little nephew and can't wait to spoil him rotten (and sign him up for the same t-ball team as Gavin, of course.)

I think that about covers the many, MANY celebrations from the last few weeks -- and the upcoming weeks are bound to have many, many more!  Our family is so blessed right now.  :)

Pumpkin Muffins

Everyone knows how much I love pumpkin.  Love it.  It's part of the reason I love this time of year so much -- there is pumpkin and pumpkin spice EVERYWHERE!  This week, my sister-in-law Jill gave me a recipe for pumpkin muffins that I was dying to try --

1 can of pumpkin
1 box of spice cake (or yellow cake) mix
1 bag of chocolate chips

Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes.

That's it.  Seriously.  Three ingredients!  I was skeptical, but I made them last night and they are DELICIOUS.  They taste just like a regular muffin, which is SHOCKING without the oil or eggs or any of your typical ingredients.  It's almost as much a mystery to me as Diet Coke cupcakes.  (How can a box of cake mix and a can of Diet Coke make such wonderful cupcakes?  I don't understand how it took me so long to find this recipe!)

Jill is the pumpkin expert -- she has an entire cookbook of pumpkin recipes! -- so I'm sure she'll continue to be my resource for ways to incorporate my favorite Fall flavor into my baking and cooking.  I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as I did!  Happy baking!

 

Getting close!

1) Mindy and Doug will be having their baby any day now!  I'm super excited to meet my new little nephew, and also SUPER jealous that I will still have to be pregnant for a few weeks after Quinn gets here.  Maybe Quinn's arrival will make Gavin want to hurry up a little -- he'll want to meet his new best friend, after all!

BFFs

2) Work has been crazy lately because I've been picking up shifts here and there and learning a whole new set of tasks.  I feel good because I'm now cross-trained on most office jobs -- even though my job will change drastically once I get back from maternity leave and the office begins the transition to electronic medical records.  Then the real fun begins for me, as a huge portion of my job will be to help with the transition.  As for now, though, I'm trying to learn as much about office management as I can and really increase my rolodex of skills.  Stephen is also trying to broaden his professional horizons -- there have been some job postings at Mitsubishi that sound interesting to him, so we're getting his resume and cover letter together this week.  He's had a few people at work ask him if he'd be interested in applying for the open positions -- including the man who is currently doing one of the jobs -- so that's made him feel confident that there is no harm in applying at least.  He's such a hard-worker, and SUCH a team player at Mitsubishi, so we'll see what happens!  He also starts a new term in mid-November and will be taking a writing course and his first computer course (7 credit hours total), so it'll be a busy but really exciting end to 2011.

3) It's been awhile since I've posted some photos, so here are the updated photos of our finished nursery and bathroom:

We are so happy with how everything turned out!  The dot decals in the bathroom cost a whopping total of $15 and made a huge difference, and we love our new custom glider in Gavin's room!  He won't be sleeping in the nursery for probably 3-6 months (we have a bassinet we'll be setting up in our room), but the room is all ready for Gavin to love.  Plus...we can't wait to dress him up in all his cutie pie clothes.  

4) We're done with holiday shopping!  Since the baby isn't due until the end of November, and rumor has it that most first time mothers deliver up to two weeks late, we thought there might be a chance that Gavin will be a December baby.  That being said, there was no way we wanted to spend our first few weeks of maternity/paternity leave fighting mall crowds with a newborn.  So everything is purchased, wrapped, and ready to go!  :)  Now the hard part is keeping our gifts a secret.  I'm the world's WORST secret-keeper when I find a gift for someone that I know they'll love.  I usually end up giving Stephen his gifts early because I just can't wait to see him open them!  So I'll have to keep my mouth shut for the next two months, but I'm really happy to have that huge task knocked off my to-do list.

5) Speaking of our to-do list, there is still a long way to go before reaching the end of it, but we have managed to take some time to enjoy typical Fall things like pumpkin patches and football games. 

HAPPY FALL!

Photography

I love photography and have always tried to document special events -- it's just nice to have mementos from great days to look back on when things get a little rough.  So, Stephen and I were planning on having maternity photos taken last month so I could look back on this experience and remember the good things about being pregnant.  (It was also meant to give me an excuse to get all dolled up and feel somewhat pretty again.)  Unfortunately, my computer had a meltdown and we found ourselves needing to spend that money on a new one rather than on maternity photos -- so we cancelled the session.  I didn't really mind, because in all honesty, I don't really feel like I look like myself, and I'm not sure I'll really WANT to remember the way I've looked throughout this pregnancy.  (Some people get the pregnancy glow...some people just sweat and swell.  I'll give you one guess which category I've fallen into.)  Now, when I've lost all this baby weight and my hair and skin start cooperating again...then let's have some photos taken.  Until then, I'd much rather have a new computer.

Still, I'm really excited to have photos taken of our newest addition when he arrives!  We hired our photographer last week and are really excited about working with her.  Check out her blog:

http://jenrosephotojournal.blogspot.com/

So here's the thing -- I don't think it takes much to make a newborn look cute.  Naked babies with little knit hats sleeping on blankets or in a buckets/baskets are ALWAYS adorable, so I didn't want to spend $500 to get a studio session and 10 digital prints.  Seriously, that's what some people were charging.  Our photographer is in the process of building her portfolio, so for $150 she'll come to our house for 2-3 hours, provide props for the session, and give us the rights to ALL of the retouched digital prints!  Her prices are going up in December, and we're due in late November, so we're feeling pretty proud of ourselves for stumbling across her blog.

Another thing off our checklist!  Still to go --

- Order and install room-darkening blinds for the nursery.

- Get our carseats installed.

- Pack my hospital bag.

- Build the bassinet and pack n' play.

- Get through six more weeks.

Third Trimester Blues

Oh...this week was not the easiest.

Like I mentioned earlier, work is starting to get exhausting.  I'm just sore and tired (constantly, constantly tired).  My body just feels really out of whack.  It doesn't help that temperatures shot up from 60 degrees last week to 85 degrees this week.  I don't know...aside from the physical ailments, I'm just getting antsy to meet our little one.  Time is flying and going SO SLOW at the same time, and with just over six weeks to go, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work we still have to do while simultaneously feeling 100% ready to bring our baby home.  I'm totally emotional and totally uncomfortable and totally wondering how people do this pregnancy thing more than once.

Aside from the regular pregnancy-related stuff, our house decided to fall apart this week.  For starters, our bathtub was leaking into the basement -- Dad came over and fixed it earlier this week, so at least that's one problem solved -- but today, our electricity started going crazy.  Our lights were working, but our stove and dryer weren't.  Our clocks stayed on, but our garage door wouldn't open.  We felt like our house was possessed.  This happened a week ago and Duke Energy told us it would cost $700 to fix -- apparently we had a faulty underground wire? -- but then the electricity turned back on and all was fine.  We thought we had averted a pretty expensive crisis.  Then the lights started pulsing while we were using the washing machine last night and it all went downhill from there.  Luckily, we were able to get Duke out to fix the problem today, and since the issue was less than two feet from the transformer, the repair was FREE.  So, that $700 was able to remain firmly in our savings account.  Hooray -- Gavin can go to college!  :)

At the end of the day, our house is fixed and Gavin will join us when he's ready (he still needs to bake a little longer, I know) -- but I have just been feeling really ill-equipped to handle stressful situations (like our air conditioning not working when it's 85 degrees out), so it's been a challenging week.  Stephen and I are going to have a SUPER chill day tomorrow in hopes that next week will be better, calmer, and more manageable.  My mom sent me a text today that said "Sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug."  Today, I was the bug -- but tomorrow, I'm hoping to be the windshield.  Or at least a less hormonal bug.