MOMMA MONDAY-Wrap Me Up Before You Go Go...

So let’s talk baby talk. It’s Momma Monday! Yay! Ok… so maybe it’s not so exciting that it’s Monday, but come on people, work with me. I’m trying this new thing called positive thinking. It’s not quite working yet considering I’m sleep and caffeine deprived, I have bean burrito on my skirt (YUP, joys of now eating 1 handed), I have to work, and my mother in law just called me and told me that my daughter laughed for the first time and I wasn’t there… But I’m thinking POSITIVE right??... Maybe??... We might try again for tomorrow. 

Anyways, wanted to share some of my experience from this past week. I attended Mommy-Con in Memphis for the first time ever. Let me just say, it was one of the neato-est things I’ve ever been to. (Yes I just said neato-est and it is a word in my dictionary). I went with Baby H, of course, and my 3 sisters and their nursing babies. We all have children 15 months and under. Crazy huh? It was 500 mommies and daddies gathering where you get to see a lot of the new baby products out there on the market and listen to various discussions on hot topics out there for parents.  

Let me just say it was crazy! From Joovy to Itzy Rity and Ergo, there were tons of companies and their newest products out there that you get to look at and try. You even get to go through the different booths and try with your baby the newest carriers out there. Speaking of, that’s what I wanted to talk about. I never ever thought I would be one of those mommas that had my baby strapped to me with a long piece of fabric. It just honestly never looked safe and didn’t look comfortable and I only thought the groovy hippie chick moms could pull them off. WRONG! The one I tried was the Ergobaby Wrap and let me tell you, it was the most comfortable and easiest carrier I have tried! I attended one of the classes with one of my sisters where they show you how to wrap it, insert your baby and various ways to carry them. I loved how they showed you the various safe ways of wrapping so that your baby would actually have to fail and fall through 3 different “seatbelts” as they put it, before they would even fall out.  So easy with the elastic material, convenient with how small you can wrap it up and carry it around, and comfy with the soft material and Baby H LOVED it. Plus, I felt like she was extremely secure and safe. Safety first! I even saw daddies wearing them! 

I was so thrilled with my experience and the ease of putting it on and how much Baby H liked it, that I went home and told my husband and he said HE would even wear it. Of course, only if I didn’t get any girly colors. He has to keep up his manly-man persona you know… lol So we just figured out our next baby purchase.  

So let me just say, if you ever are interested in wearing your little one, which I extremely encourage, don’t be afraid to try something new such as wrapping your baby. If I can do it, you can do it. What carrier do you like to Go Go with your baby? 

Maybe we’ll see you next year at Mommy-Con, but until then… 

TTFN (Ta Ta For Now) 

THANKS AND THOUGHTS THURSDAY-Catch Um' While You Can

As I'm starting to type this post, I'm typing one handed while laying on the very edge of the bed trying to avoid any sudden movement, halfway humming a song I don't even like but it's the only one coming to mind for some reason and I'm longingly looking at my now empty ice cream cup wishing for more.

 Why am I in this predicament? My 3 month old daughter almost refuses to be put to sleep at night without being nursed and even after, if you aren't right up against her for awhile, she will wake right up. I'm sure mine isn't the only one. So as I was laying here, again on the very edge of the bed because she is sprawled out in the middle, (she's a very big 3 month old) I'm thinking of all the things I should be doing. We leave for a weekend trip out of town tomorrow and I'm still not completely packed, there are dishes in the sink, laundry that needs to be washed, dried, folded (I never hardly put them away though), my bathroom DESPERATELY needs to be cleaned... and the list goes on and on to the point I have a headache. 

 Then I stop and look down just as my daughter sighs in her sleep, letting me know she is just about completely in La-La Land, passes very loud gas and she smiles. :) As I lay here chuckling it's things like that sweet sweet smile that remind me of these little moments that are the most important. Yes, I will always have things to do and yes I could be doing some right now, but she will only be this size and be like this once. She won't remember these moments, but as long as I'm here to catch them, I will. I guess that's the part that is important. Making ourselves available to our children while they want us and need us. When I think about the fact she wants ME to be there with her, to soothe her to sleep, to feel my presence... it makes me feel so warm and tingly. I almost want to do a happy dance but again won't because of the no sudden movement thing. 

Nursing her to sleep has by far been one of the hugest bonding factors for me and her. It's those couple of minutes when she is drifting toward sleep. She looks at me and slowly starts to take longer to open her eye lids when she blinks. When she coos up at me trying to fight going to sleep. These are moments that I will never get back if I miss them. Yes I hear my husband getting to watch whatever he wants on TV in the living room and it occurs to me that my bedtime is now pretty much anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30 because of laying her down and the fact I get up with her at 4 to 5:30 every morning, and I feel a little pang of jealousy. But then again I'm in here making memories.   What moments did you find that you treasured most when you had your children or if you don't have kids, the ones you made with your parents? 

If At First You Don't Succeed...Try Try Again

 

 

 

 

 

So yet again, it's a long time no post. LOTS has changed and happened. Including the gradual face lift this blog is going to have. The biggest change is we now have our healthy baby girl, Baby H. From the time she was born, which happened to be a 28 hour nightmare (that's a story for another post), she became the light of my life. So many things have changed, many I knew would, others not so much. ( Like typing one handed right now) 

 

I figured out the hard way that blogging and pregnancy... just didn't work for me, obviously. I just couldn't hack it. However, I'm gonna try and test the waters with juggling being of course full-time wife and mommy (priorities priorities), my spiritual routine, my part time job, house-work (which would be at the very bottom of my list except my husband and I don't like living in filth except for the leaning tower of dirty dishes currently residing at my sink that I keep pretending are covered up with an invisible force field), and now blogging. This is something I want to start doing for me since now those things are far and few. 

 

 

So to do this, I'm going to try and start out being organized. ( I know Ha Ha right?) At the beginning of the month, I'm going to do a post about "A Day In Our Life" where I'll document through pictures what an average day for us is like from start to finish. This will probably just be for your entertainment purposes since it will most likely be me tripping and spilling on myself over half the day. Then weekly I'm going to try several posts. I know, I know. I hear your laughter since I didn't even manage an average of once a month before. We can hope and dream right? We'll hopefully have " Momma Monday" where we'll talk about something only us momma's will relate to or enjoy whether it be just a thought, a product review, a baby recipe...you get the idea. 

 

 

Then we're gonna have "Thanks and Thoughts Thursday". I am a huge believer in the fact that we all take so much for granted and in the long run, it's the little things that matter most and leave the biggest imprint on us. I was recently talking to my mother in law about the idea for this day and she was telling me about this friend who every morning when she wakes up first thing, spends 5 minutes praying about nothing but the things she is thankful for. I love that thought and am thinking about trying it myself but... for the sake of being realistic with the blog and not having too high of expectations, we're gonna limit it to Thursday.  

 

 

Plus, last but not least we're going to aim for "Foodie & Fabric Friday!". The most blessed day of the week since not only is it the last day of the work week but now we get to concentrate on FOOD! and an occasional craft. Yes, this is a subject I get very excited about. :) Can't you tell? I feel like I have the heart of a foodie even if I don't cook as much as I'd like too. When I do cook though, I love trying new things and trying to make things healthy while tasting good. To add a little kink in the line though, I just recently found out that my 3 month old daughter has a dairy allergy. That means we just need to be even more creative now since all things dairy are off limits for me because I'm breastfeeding. Chow ice cream, sianara cheesy goodness.

However, thank goodness for Pinterest ( My secret indulgence is Pinterest and I've already got several full boards of ideas. (Early morning "research" happening) SO EXCITED! 

 

 

 

So to wrap it all up, let's look forward to new beginnings and hopefully, me sticking to it this time. Hopeful thoughts! 

 

 TTFN (Ta Ta For Now) 




 

Not What I Thought....

Let me just start off by saying, I am not who I thought I was. I foolishly thought I was this organized person who could make up their mind and decide what they wanted to get done and make it happen. EEEHHHHH…. Wrong. I am not. I started this blog journey (very, very short journey before it plummeted off of a cliff) with goals of what I wanted to accomplish for me and figured out actually a lot about myself in just the fact that I hadn’t stuck with it.

Let me say, I tip my hat to all of you mama/pregnant blogger ladies out there. Pregnancy was not what I thought it would be and neither was blogging. Of course I’m not reversing being pregnant, can’t find that darn remote (just joking by the way), and I’m not giving up blogging but I now realize I’m going to have to approach these two things differently then what I thought as well as many other things. I may have just hit a bump in the road for a while there, which by the way ended up being on my stomach, but I’m going to keep going. It may take me a while and I’m going to have to learn some serious discipline for myself along the way, but I know I can do it. After all, isn’t this what my blog is about, figuring out what works and what flops?

Let me just really quick get you up to speed in the gap of time that has elapsed. I am now 25.5 weeks pregnant with a chubby cheeked baby girl! Yay! Morning sickness has finally left but I caught the other sickly things several times that have been floating around from other people in the process. I have started up cooking again with a healthy long-term view. My obsession here lately has been weight loss and healthy food blogs. I’m already curious to see how others have gotten their mummy tummies off after baby and improved their way of eating and living with a healthier view even though they didn’t have one before. I seriously need some cues from people on that so I’ve been yearnin’ for some learnin’ and have found a couple of things I’m going to try. Trying to set goals of organization and things that I want to get done on our house and just in general before she comes (I.E. my husband actually do because I can’t even reach my toes) and then also things that I want to do after.

I’ve had a couple of small craft “pinny projects” (things I’ve found on Pinterest that make me go Ooohhh…) that I have tried (making my own stencils for the nursery as seen in the pictures) and didn’t think were half bad plus some future ones I’m going to be trying to share with you guys that I haven’t done. However, I think I still see lots of food things in your future since after all, I am still pregnant and even if I wasn’t, I just love food. J

 I also want to share with you a new thing that I’m hoping to do with you guys. As I said earlier, I’m already curious about the mummy tummy dilemma. So therefore, I will be sharing my journey as well for getting to a healthy size for me and way of life. Now let me say, I do not want to go drastic and I’m not saying I won’t be proud of my baby belly after. It took a lot of work to make that thing you know? But at the same time, I know it will be healthier for me, my child, and my poor loving husband (who has suffered from indulging in my craving rage) to get to a healthier way of living. I don’t want to be “skinny” people. There is no real “skinny”. Each person has their own perception of what skinny, beautiful, fat, chunky, pudgy…. are and I’m not interested in any. I want to be healthy and there is nothing wrong with that. If you can be happy with who you are then that is great. However, I know I wasn’t before I got pregnant and I’m certainly not going to be afterwards.

So, to round up the rodeo, more will be coming. No promises what, when or how... but just know there will be more.

TTFN (Ta Ta For Now)

So Far...

      So, long time, no hearing from me again. Looks like I'm gonna have to try a little harder to be more consistent with doing the things I say. One thing I can assure you of though is, you haven't missed out on the chicken and dumpling or the morning glory muffins, because they have yet to be created in my kitchen or touch my palette. lol But I promise they will be coming. I have goals, I'm just falling short of them here lately while I try to find my middle ground with all of the changes going on between the constant exhaustion, trying to get a crib, that by the way fit through our front door, into our bedroom door without having to tear it apart (which eventually did happen after taking it apart piece by piece and the removal of a door with the skills of my awesome and patient husband), trying to seal some things up at work... and the list goes on. I guess I'm figuring out more and more that this is just the beginning of my unscheduled life from now one. :) But I will find some sort of balance...eventually. I just ask that you stay cooperating with me for a while longer if your still out there...Anyone still there?

     Anyways, in the mess of everything, we've been able to still remember to take pictures of me every week so far except for week 12. I didn't want to post them quite yet because I wanted to make sure we made it to our 2nd trimester safely and we have. Welcome to my 2nd trimester and week 14! I'll just do a quick recap.

8 Weeks

     Still having the constant pain in my butt from the injections but as weird as it sounds, I think I'm starting to get used to it so it's not so bad anymore. I've moved on from constant sickness to every now and then. I was sleeping like a log for a while there and I LOVED it, but now I'm at that stage where my husband says I constantly "wiggle" in bed trying to get comfortable and "burrow". I'm normally a person who sleeps on my belly or back so moving to my side WHILE adjusting to getting bigger has been an interesting challenge but I WILL SUCCEED! I haven't broken down yet and gotten a pregnancy pillow but I have a feeling pretty soon, that will be changing.



9 Weeks

     The cravings have started up. Out of no where, I will say to my husband, "Guess what sounds good?" It's almost become a game. lol I think he's getting tired of it though because he now just replies back bagels and cream cheese every time. He does know me well though and would normally be right. I'm kind of a bagel junkie. I love a good bagel and smear. :) The latest craving was last night and I wanted melon of any sort, which, unfortunately is the wrong fruit for this time of year. So disappointing. :(

 

 

 

 

 

10 weeks



     We will be hopefully finding out what we're having over the next couple of weeks so I'll keep you updated. Of course we won't find out for sure till about the middle to end of December, but can't you tell I'm excited???!!!! I don't wanna wait!

11 weeks



     Anyways, that pretty much brings you up to date. Getting bigger, can't sleep good, and always hungry from first thing in the morning to about middle afternoon. I'm gonna try, again emphasis and try, to do a weekly update from now on of the pregnancy and then get back to recipes. My boss has been putting in requests for things so this might be a good opportunity for you guys to actually get some foody stuff.

13 weeks



Till next time as usual...

TTFN (Ta Ta For Now)

14 weeks

Long Time...No Posts

     Hi everybody! Let me just start off by apologizing for my absence. It's been a long couple of weeks with little to no creativity and cooking in the kitchen and a lot of me becoming mold on the couch. Since my last post, we went out of town and had a nice weekend together.

     When we came back though, we had LOTS of appointments and tests for the baby. We found out the baby is good and healthy, thank goodness, but also found out we have some "bumps in the road" in the form of complications with me, resulting in more tests and more doctors appointments than normal AND injections everyday that are literally a pain in the booty. Yay me... (Do you detect the sarcasm there?)

     Anyways, who doesn't have complications with pregnancy anymore right? I'm figuring out it's a lot more common than I thought. So when my morning sickness started getting better and I finally thought I was getting back to normal, I go and blow out my back, leading to the becoming mold on the couch. The important part is I'm back on the road to semi-normalcy, hopefully, which means giving some attention back to you.

     Okey dokey artichokie, so here are my "plans" for the next week if I can help it. I have seriously been craving some homemade muffins here lately so I'll be sharing with you my recipe for my Morning Glory Muffins. They are so great because you get a yummy treat, plus you don't feel like you're overindulging because you get the healthy aspect of lots of fruits and veggies in them so you can have your cake and eat it too.

     Then we're actually going to start on our crafts. I'm going to try and do some type of decoration for the baby room from some of the ideas I've found on Pinterest. We are getting our crib tomorrow and are starting to get some of the bigger things for the baby so I'm getting really psyched about starting the baby room. :) So now we'll start seeing more crafts.

     Then we are going to try a new recipe for Chicken and Dumplings. I have also been seriously craving this and have yet to find ANY that are in comparison to my moms. We'll see if this will be a flop or not. What's your favorite Chicken and Dumpling recipe?

Till later...

TTFN (Ta Ta For Now)

Fiesta Stuffed Peppers

So for my first recipe that we tried, I had scanned Pinterest for a while looking for food that's new that sounded good and that didn't look like it would take very long to make either. This normally isn't hard at all on Pinterest considering all of the yummy stuff that pops up, but right now with going back and forth between feeling like a normal human being and feeling like all I do all day is throw up, it was a little more challenging than what I thought. Then I saw a pin where a woman had made stuffed peppers. It wasn't because they sounded good that I stopped, oddly enough, but it was how pretty the peppers are. I mean, who doesn't want their food to look appetizing? So after a little more hunting on various stuffed pepper recipes, I combined about 3 different ones and added a little twist of my own.

First things first, you want to choose your pretty peppers. I thought about going with making stoplight peppers (green, yellow and red) but oddly enough, I'm not a huge fan of the green ones, so I settled on red and yellow and they looked beautiful in the store. For this recipe, you want to choose 4 medium to large peppers. If you do a small medium, you could probably get away with 5.

Next you want to get a large pot of water boiling to soften you peppers and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. While the water is boiling, you want to cut the caps off of you peppers. Cut down from the stem area about 1/2 inch leaving the top intact.

Then you want to remove the middle section with all of the seeds. Do this with your hands by just grabbing the total clump. Most of the time it's easy because it's still intact.



After all of the caps are cut off your peppers and they are clean, slowly drop the peppers into boiling water, I would suggest using tongs since they do tend to splash and after all the water is BOILING. Boil for 8 to 12 minutes or until softened to your liking. Be careful when you remove them so they don't fall apart. Place in an oven proof baking dish big enough for all of your peppers.

Next you want to start on your filling. Take 1lb. of lean ground beef, 1 tsp. ground chipotle powder, 2 Tablespoons garlic powder, 1 tsp. cumin and 2 Tablespoons onion powder and brown in large skillet.

After meat is browned turn heat down to medium-low and add 1 cup of frozen corn and 4 oz. of cream cheese. Stir into beef mixture until cheese is completely melted and well combined

into mixture. Then add 1/4 cup diced fresh cilantro and 1 1/2 cups of cooked rice and stir into mixture.

I used a package of Mahatma saffron rice. I LOVE this stuff. It's easy and has great flavor and one made package is just the right amount for this recipe.

Next stir in 1 cup of salsa of your choice. I used Hot Pace because my husband likes things a little spicier and this way you can control what your spice level is. If you didn't use a seasoned rice mix like I did, you might want to add 1 1/2 cups of salsa.

After this is stirred together, you want to stuff you peppers. As you stuff them, try to compact the mixture down into the bottom as you go that way they are good and full.

I put my caps back on my peppers because I notice it keeps the inside mixture nice and moist but it is completely up to you. You want to bake them for 15 to 20 minutes or until completely heated through and your peppers are completely soft. Then enjoy with you sides of choice. I put sour cream on mine and some guacamole on the side for some chips. I've also served it with black beans too. What side sounds good to you to serve with your Fiesta peppers?

I think I'm going to enjoy my fiesta pepper and then maybe take a little evening siesta. ; )

TTFA (Ta Ta For Now)