The Happenings.

So, instead of having a baby this week, we've visited with family and friends, which has been very fun. Here's a picture of when Aunt Mindy came to visit and painted Chick's toenails : )

I also went to the thrift store on Monday, and bought a non-maternity skirt for me. I also bought a few baby items, and 2 suit jackets for $1 each (with plans to make a couple of THESE cutie patootie hats ...though smaller if I can manage it). Oh, and a big bag of crocheted pieces...mostly squares and a few random flowers. Unfortunately there weren't any hats, but I guess I'll just buy neutral hats and pin flowers on separately.

I've also done a surprising amount of freezer cooking. I made 2 sheets FULL of meatballs, and blended up tons of spinach for spinach ice cubes to use in smoothies. I froze strawberries (also for smoothies), and made 4 loaves of braided bread (though seriously, my mixer does all the work...I did 2 loaves and discovered that it took almost completely no work from me, so I did 2 more loaves). And I made some raisin bran muffins. Today I think I'll do granola bars if I feel industrious enough.

Anyhow, Chick had her last day of preschool yesterday. The mamas were invited for a celebration at the end. They got Grad necklaces & diplomas, sang songs that they've learned over the year, ate special treats, and were sent home with cute packets with their class picture and such. It was so much fun : )

Yesterday, as a condolence prize (since I wasn't getting a baby) I went and got a pedicure. Then I picked up pizza for dinner & rented a couple of movies.

Today we'll watch The Princess & the Frog (I've been holding out on that one because in the pictures she's the most immodest of all of the princesses -except Jasmine- and I hate that Chick thinks that you dress immodestly if you are a princess). Anyhow, I should probably do laundry and g-bars, and I hope to do some sewing and napping. And my aunt will take the girls for a little visit to the mall playground, so I'll get some alone time : )

Just waiting.

Nothing to report. No baby.

On Friday I just sat around--we watched "The Wizard of Oz" and took naps and that's about it. I tried to take a walk by myself...I think I might have gone a mile total, but by the time I returned home I was barely waddling & felt like my hips and/or pelvis were about to fall apart.

Saturday I did some laundry & cleaning, and HH worked on basetrim & deck railing.

Today was church. Also, during the insomnia hours of the morning I FINISHED COMPLETELY Monkey's baby book. The first year is entirely done, so the baby can come anytime now.

And for dinner we had Chicken nuggets with yummy peach sauce (THIS recipe, which is quadrupled for freezing). I made a few alterations: less butter, I baked them on a rack rather than directly on the cooking sheet, I substituted bran flakes for some of the bread crumbs, and I broiled them for a few minutes at the end to get them crispy. Everyone ate them & seemed to like them. They're definitely best with the sauce (didn't try them with ketchup, though...maybe they'd be good that way too). Since I've decided to boycott Tyson chicken as well as all store-bought nuggets (except maybe T. Joes...I'll have to look into that), I'm glad that these turned out well.

I don't have pictures of the scrapbook, but here's a picture of the most recent baby gown, which was made using a high school track tee (both parents are athletic, and the dad teaches & coaches track at Jackson High School). (HERE is the tutorial, for those of you who wanted it. Seriously, super easy). It looks like that's winning the poll, so I'll be making another one soon to have on the display table for F.F.

Hmm, I guess that's it. I have more little projects to work on until the baby arrives, but now that the scrapbook is done I don't have anything urgent...so the baby can come...preferably on Tuesday (5-25-10).

Freezer Cooking Adventures: Part 2

I'll take any baking volunteers...no discriminating based on age : )

On Friday I had a wonderfully productive & QUIET few hours of solitude after everyone else went to bed. It was heavenly. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's worth losing sleep to get things done...but this wasn't one of those times. Totally worth losing sleep.

Saturday I was working on layout & barely got any cooking done.

Sunday was church & family time, and I didn't do anything. We did EAT from the stash, though. yum.

Today I've done some, but still have the Baked Wontons & the Puerto Rican beans to cook up, as well as mushrooms to slice & freeze. I'm excited to take a final tally picture, but since I'm not entirely done I'll wait and post a "part 3."

Here's a picture of my menu sheet & notes. We spent about $170 (we already had some things, and have a lot of left over ingredients -- ie about 40 pounds of a 50 pound bag of flour) and I've made about 52 meals (plus rolls & smoothie ingredients, which I didn't count). So my final tally is $3.27 per meal, and $.82 per person. It's actually lower, because I have a lot of extra ingredients that I froze (like cooked ground beef that doesn't have a purpose right now, but can be part of a meal later). But that's my best estimate.

It's wonderful to have so much food stashed away. I do think that it's been harder than necessary having it spread out over so many days. I'll probably do more freezer cooking before the baby comes, but from now on it'll be smaller-scale batch-style cooking (like just chicken recipes at one time, rather than chicken AND beef AND tofu AND sausage). But JUST WAIT until part 3 when you see all the food that I have ready to eat!!

Freezer Cooking Adventures

I decided to do the freezer cooking. I've written about doing it before (I definitely like stocking up on meals and such before I have a baby), but I haven't done an entire month's worth in quite a while (not since I was expecting Chick).

I haven't done it all in one day, and I'm not finished yet, but I thought I'd post about it midway. I've been taking breaks between tasks & not really economizing on my time much because, well, I'm now in my third trimester & have two busy little creatures about & decided too last minute to find someone to do it with me. So I rest a lot.

Anyhow, on Wednesday night I spent about 3 hours prepping: beef in the crock pot overnight, chicken baking in the oven, and me chopping veggies galore. I started too late to do everything that I wanted to get done that night, but at least I was started. HH did the monster grocery shopping trip for me : )

On Thursday I made:

• Sour Cream Banana Bread Muffins (mmmm, delicious!)
• Black Bean Soup (we had one portion for dinner & everyone approved, though it could be thicker)
• Chicken Topping mixes for Chicken Ranch Pizzas
• Curried Chicken Tidbits (oh my, these are SO GOOD! HH wasn't home yet, but the girls & I had samples and we all loved it...and it's so easy! I don't know how it is after freezing, but it was great just when mixed together!!)
• Black bean salsa chicken
• Sauce for one of my favorite meals: Hawaiian Haystacks
• Enchilada sauce
• Brown bag Burrito stuff

Today I've made:

• Bisquick mix
• Stuffed Pancake cups (not so wild about these...hopefully HH will be)
• I assembled the Brown Bag Burritos
• Meatloaf muffins & meatballs (again, not so wild about these, but the muffin-sized ones are for HH's lunches...in hopes of replacing the overpackaged, undernourished, overpriced, and undertasty frozen meals that he buys at the store & clogs up my freezer space with. whew. I dare you to diagram that "sentence.")
• Easy Taco Bake

Still to do:

• Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Cups
• Sloppy Janes
• Cook up some tofu for vegetarian chili soup
• Pizza dough
• Beef Enchiladas
• Baked Wontons
• Puerto Rican Beans (for rice and beans)
• Butterhorn Rolls
• Tortillas

Though I definitely need the breaks, I'm really enjoying myself. It's always fun to try new recipes, and mixing them with some of my usual favorites + seeing my freezer fill up with yummy easy-to-reheat meals makes me super happy! Thanks, Once a Month Mom!

recipes taped up...

some of the prepped food (makes me feel like a food show star to just grab a scoop of whatever I need)...

what I do with the girls while I'm busy cooking. Just kidding....

**UPDATE: I've posted a part 2 here. Part 3 (with a picture of all of my frozen goodness gathered together!) is still to come.

Lately...

...Monkey is taking a step here and there, and she's so great at standing unassisted, but she still likes a hand to hold.

...Chick is old enough for longer story/picture books. I'm thrilled. All along the path of parenthood there have been little, "THIS is what I love about being a parent" moments...storytime is one of those things. We've read some good books lately:

"In a Blue Room," which has beautiful illustrations & a nice soothing lyrical quality.

Though I didn't appreciate this one until we'd read it 2 1/2 times, I liked "Rain Makes Applesauce." While we were out for a walk Chick was repeating, "You're just talking silly talk" which is kind of a fun phrase in and of itself.

...I haven't done any sewing. I had layout, and then I opted for reading a book ("The Romanov Bride" - the second that I've read by Robert Alexander) which made me very grateful that we are not having a revolution in this country right now. Both of his books (the other was "The Kitchen Boy") do have some swearing & inappropriate parts, but were fascinating nonetheless. Another revolution/ communist "must read" is "Wild Swans." It's hard reading, especially because it's not fiction, and much of China's history would have been better left in the realm of fiction/horror.

...My only project has been to reorganize the girls' clothing. Out with the summer clothes, in with the warmer fall & winter wear. Darn kids, just seem to keep growing. Anyhow, it's fun because it's like getting to wear new clothes myself : )

...We got our plane tickets for the cruise, which makes it feel very close. Which is good, because it is giving me motivation to get moving. I went for a jog a couple of days ago, a walk yesterday, and am considering joining the local YMCA. (I'm also going to play biggest loser with some friends, starting Aug 30th...I'll keep you updated).

...I've had fun grocery shopping--this is my favorite time of year for groceries because of all the "back to school" promotions. We've gotten a ton of pantry items for very little money. Some of it, like Skippy PB, isn't as healthy as we usually eat, but it's good to have on hand for when we run out of Adams. Anyhow, I love free food. Last night I spent $8 out of pocket and got: 2 cans of olives, 2 6-packs of Dole fruit cups, 8 boxes of cereal, 1 pk of M&M's for HH, a pkg of bacon, and 3 bananas. I have our year supply of pop tarts, totally unhealthy, but I like to have them on Sunday mornings as a special Sunday treat...and at 30 cents a box, who could resist? We also used coupons in combination with the Kraft promotion at Albertsons--so I got over $30 worth of Kraft products for $0. Yay!

...I thrifted.

The first pic is the rest of my $50 trip (I returned some). I didn't read the coupon carefully, though, and so when I returned it I forfeited the discount on the additional stuff. Oh well. The arm and the turtle weren't included in the purchase...she just wanted to help with putting things in the picture. (the items pictured are what I got for free--it's not $50 worth, but free is free)

I used a second "spend $100, get $50 back" coupon and got this: (Not pictured are 2 chairs, a stool, and a Little Tikes bike for Chick). The Halloween dress is for Monkey's costume this year--she's going to be a Halloween fairy. Chick is going to be the cutest little bee you've ever seen, but I'm making that one, so don't hold your breath. In the back are 2 red blankets to use in the living room. Better than the purple that we had that didn't match at all : )

Our Holiday Report

We had a great Christmas. We did the usual present opening in the morning, followed by Breakfast Casserole, which is my traditional breakfast (the tradition might have to expand next year, though--I was the only one who ate it this year!).

Just as I was about to start packing up to go to G&G N's house, HH told me that he didn't know if we could go because of a car repair that he had to do...not sure why he waited until it was time to go to tell me....

So here are pictures of what came next. I sent Chick out to play in the snow, Babe played with her new toy, and I had a sulky pity party for a while and then worked on organizing the new snapware that I'd asked for on my Christmas list. HH worked on the car.

He got things put back together again on the jeep in a couple of hours and we were able to go up to my sister's house after all (we didn't make the additional stop at G&G's--we saw them at J's). Evidently I forgot to take pictures there, but we had fun visiting and playing games and such.

Here are the girls in their Christmas attire... They both looked SO DARLING (If I do say so myself. I am biased, but EVERYONE agreed with me!)

(Babe's outfit is a gift from G'ma J & has ears on the hood but they don't show in the picture)

(Chick's outfit is a gift from G'ma N, with babylegs made by me)

Then we spent the night at G&G N's, and I got to spend my birthday up there, which was super fun! I didn't have to do any cooking, and my neice made a delicious cheesecake, and I went shopping with my Mom & Sister & Niece (in law) & the little girls...and HH got to play games with the guys. We all had an excellent time.

It's really Labor this time!

For sure.

That's what I told Handsome Handyman when I woke him up at 1:15 a.m.

About 10 minutes to 2 a.m. I debated calling my midwife, but decided to wait out a few more contractions so that I'd know better how far apart they were.

I fell asleep before I called her, though, and it's a good thing. By 5:50, when HH woke up (when he's supposed to be walking in to work!) I had to ask if I really had had contractions or if that was a dream.

So we're still waiting.

I changed the prego ticker due date--It was bad for my morale to see it add on days! So now it will go to Thanksgiving, which is my last possible due date (then of course there are 2 weeks of overtime before the baby is evicted).

Yesterday Chick and I stayed home from church. She got a cold (from Nursery) so she couldn't go (to Nursery)...ironic. Anyhow, we napped, so it was nice and relaxing.

HH's birthday was on Saturday, and was totally uneventful. I hadn't really PLANNED anything, because I didn't know if I'd be in bed with a new little one or not. He renewed his license at the DOL, we ran errands, he worked in the yard and on the car...that's about it. He'd been planning to watch the apple cup, but then gave the tv up to Chick so that she could watch "Movie...Bear?" (Bernstein Bear video). The most birthday-ish part was a brownie cake and cuddling up to watch the new Indiana Jones movie. Oh well, I'll make next year's b-day extra special.

But let me tell you about my grocery shopping--I love Albertsons sales. Here's what I got:

brownie mix & frosting,
25# flour,
2 bottles of cooking oil,
3 other baking items,
3# butter,
4 cans broth,
8 cans cream of mushroom,
15# potatoes,
and a 20# turkey

....all for $24.54
($78.84 savings, according to them)

This weekend

Well, of course the weekend got off to a rather rough start with Friday, though it was fun to take the pictures & video.

HH had mandatory overtime on Saturday, so Chick and I did the usual--I worked some more on layout (revising the cover...still not approved, but below is a picture of it as it is now) & we napped, ate, played, etc.

When HH got home we went grocery shopping. It's pretty rediculous that I get so excited from grocery shopping, but whatever floats your boat, right?

Anyhow, we first went to QFC, where they were having a holiday open house with lots of tasty samples & sales. Then we also went to Albertsons, Walgreens, & Fred Meyers. I won't list everything that I got, and I was more intent on getting things put away quickly than I was in taking a picture of it all (like the die hard frugality chicks do on the blogs to the right)...but here's a summary:

• 92 items purchased


• $100 spent


• The average price was $1.10. That's the average, but some things ended up being free, and the most expensive was Breyer's ice cream for $2.50 each...we have our priorities straight.


• Everything was on sale except for 3 cans of Tuna (Fred Meyer sells it for $.59 a can for the first three, which seems to be the best deal, regardless of sales)


• In addition to sales, I used $20 worth of coupons : )

Plus:

• $15 credit to spend at Albertsons next time we go


• a free loaf of Albertson's french bread


• a free DVD rental from Redbox (we watched Get Smart...pretty funny!)


• a free 8x10 from Walgreens

Update on Me & My Life

Last night was another midwife appt. All is well. I'm dilated to 2 and have a soft cervix (tmi?)...could be a couple of days, or it could be weeks. Hopefully I can get through layout, which starts today and will go through next week. Next Thursday (the first of my possible due dates) is a full moon, so that's not in my favor! But I am getting excited to meet the baby...when I remember that pregnancy ends with a baby (crazy that I could forget, but I do!).

So yesterday I moved the cradle into our room & made sure all the baby stuff was as organized as possible. I also bought the special treats that we'll have during and after the birth (T. Joe's Dixie Peach juice - my favorite!, and T. Joe's graham crackers for Chick). Last time I had my absolute favorite food: Breakfast Casserole, as the post-birth meal. However, it's our tradition to have it for breakfast on Christmas morning. The two events are too close together, so I need to figure out what else we can eat after the baby comes. Any ideas? My midwife always does a birthday cake when she has babies--the whole family eats cake sitting on the bed with the new baby. That's a fun tradition, but I tend to like savory rather than sweet.

And speaking of food, I've made a huge batch of raisin bran muffins & a couple more casseroles to freeze. Now all I need to do is prepare 1 or 2 more casseroles (lasagna--on the menu for Sunday) and cook up some chicken and ground beef and I'll be done! I'll have about 2 weeks of meals completely done, and another week or two of meal components to throw together.

Other news: I decided on which prego pics to order. I'll be getting #17, 18, 41, and 68. If you haven't looked yet, they're still online until Thursday. Click on the logo then select "Your Session" & enter "p.j." as the name, and "bebe" as the password. You have to then click on the photo to enter the gallery.

Lastly, our dryer stopped working completely (it hasn't worked well for quite a while!). HH had a new replacement that he was putting off installing (it required hooking up gas rather than electricity & changing the water heater, which we also had but put off doing)...anyhow, the demise of the old dryer was the nudge that he needed, and now I have a beautiful working dryer! Yay! Of course, now I need to help him get motivated enough to get rid of the old one!

Other Delights this Week...

So in addition to the pumpkin patch, and Halloween (posted below), I had a delightful week!

My parents got home from their cruise and came to dinner to tell us all about it. To celebrate the season, I made pumpkin gnocchi (and in addition to having enough for dinner & some leftover for lunches, I froze enough for a future meal post-baby). I also tried out crockpot lady's Rotisserie-Style Chicken, which was super easy & tasted great.

Chick and I picked apples from the tree in the yard (very organic looking & need a bit more paring than store-bought apples, but nice and tart...great for baking!), and then made an apple pie to eat for dessert. We had a lovely evening!! Glad the folks had a good cruise : )

The next day I used the carcass & made chicken stock. It honestly is the best stock I've ever made! I've always done it on the stove, but tried crockpot lady's recipe in the crock. SO GREAT! I froze it in a few extra ice cube trays, so I'm set for a while.

I've been enjoying the changing leaves--the trees in the greenbelt behind our house have finally started to change and fall. It's gorgeous. Since I've never lived here in fall/early winter, I can't imagine what it will look like when all the leaves are gone. I always like the change, though--I'll probably be excited for bare trees, too.

Oh, and last but not least, I found THE PERFECT lampshade. HH dumpster dove a black lamp at some point in the past, and I came across it and decided to use it in the bedroom. It didn't have a harp or a shade, though, so I bought a shade that didn't need a harp at Walmart for $15. I was ok with it, but it was a little more brown than was ideal. So then I took a quick stop at Value Village and found a shade (for $4) that was in new condition & was the exact same yellow as the yellow walls in my room & was mottled, just like the faux finish on the walls! It was so perfect! HH picked up a harp at Lowes for a couple of dollars, and TaDa...here it is!

They start so young, don't they?!

Chick isn't even 2, and already she knows the tricks. If we even SAY the words bedtime or naptime, or try to buckle her into the car when she doesn't want to go...what does she do? She signs and says "Potty!" Of course, once we get her to the potty she doesn't want to sit on it & doesn't have to go. And lately she's started signing "drink" FRANTICALLY when I say that it's naptime. Anything to stall. Is it just in the programming that they know to do it so young?!

Speaking of my Chick, she's going to be a sheep for Halloween (I have yet to make the costume). But I was thinking that maybe she should be Ophelia Frump (Morticia's sister from the Addam's family).... except that she says "baa" so cutely!

In my last post I mentioned that one thing I like about autumn is the apples on the tree in the yard. Here's a picture of part of the tree.

Last night was my midwife appointment. We're to the "every week" part, which is just crazy. I have about a month left still, but that's really not very long. But anyhow, everything was good, but the baby seems to be measuring a little small. I don't know how the measurements were with my last pregnancy, but it's unsettling to me to have anything seem amiss. The measurements aren't off by enough to require an ultrasound yet, but still....

Speaking of pregnancy, last night I used the free Redbox code (a new code every Monday--check in the frugality posts to the right to find the code) and got Baby Mama. I've got to say that it was a pretty funny movie. I thought it would either be too stupid or have too much yucky stuff in it, but I was pleasantly surprised. It did have swearing and anatomy stuff (really, how could you have a movie about pregnancy and not?) but it was cleaner than it could have been, and had a nice ending. Very cute.

And lastly, yesterday I made 3 pans of chicken enchiladas--one for eating this week, and two for freezing. So now I have 11 meals ready + beans & tortillas + muffins. I was going to make the tortillas yesterday, but decided to get real & just bought the mega pack from Cash & Carry. I only used half for the enchiladas, so now we have a good stash in the freezer.

What I've been up to

Hi. So this week I've been pretty lazy, really. But I have accomplished a couple of things. I've done extra cooking & baking to get ready for the baby. I made extra pear bread muffins, pizza crusts, pinto beans (some mashed for burritos, some left whole), and a casserole--all snuggly sitting in my freezer. Oh, the pinto beans aren't in the freezer yet. They will be though. I still have a lot of cooking ahead of me--I want to have a 1 month supply in the freezer, but I'm doing it a little each day (last pregnancy I did a TON in one day and was sore and exhausted at the end of the day).

Anyhow, besides that I've been learning a lot about couponing. I use coupons--like the 40% coupons for Michaels & JoAnns, or 20% off at Bed Bath & Beyond... but I have never used manufacturers coupons or learned about "stacking" coupons. I've spent (wasted?) a ton of time reading up about it on frugality blogs, etc. I hope to report lots of money saved in the future months : )

Aside from that stuff I've been totally lazy. Chick and I both have colds, so we've been slugs. Today I'm going to get my hair cut, because I get to have prego portraits taken soon! I'm really excited about that. The session is actually in payment for Handsome Handyman putting in a window at the photographer's house--sweet of him to choose a fun photo shoot for me rather than plain ol' money! She's given me the option of doing a logo design to use for print credits, too, so I may go that route. Anyhow, I didn't do professional pictures last pregnancy, so this is a fun new thing this time around!

Oh, and lastly, I had a midwife appointment on Monday. All is great thus far--my blood pressure is down, I've gained 25 pounds total, and I've not started dilating or anything (that's good, because my parents are on a cruise and I was paranoid about early labor). I'm at 35 weeks right now (give or take a week).

A little bit high

Let me start with some background history from last week. Albertsons was having a great sale on several things - Campbells soups, canned stocks, frozen veggies, and fish crackers. All things that I would like to have a good supply of, but since they aren't necessities my buy price is pretty low by today's standards. Well, last week they were all on sale at Albertsons for the right price PLUS if you spent a certain amount you'd get hundreds of bonus Education Label points AND free oreo cookies AND free apple juice. I spent $50, and saved $90-something. I came home on a total shopping high.

So this week Albertsons had another great sale! 70 cents for Hershey's chocolate chips, and $1.75 for several different kinds of juice PLUS free eggs if you spent a certain amount. I spent around $25, and saved $60-something. I came home on a high again.

Last week the high didn't last for very long, though--by morning I was back to my normal self (but with a lot of food storage!). This week my high lasted much longer...all thanks to my handsome handyman. While I was shopping he finished putting the carpet in our master bedroom AND he set up the bed. That might not sound so exciting, but we have been camping out since we moved to this house in January. First it was on a hide-a-bed in the living room, then a mattress on the floor in the guest room, then a mattress on the floor in the master bedroom, then the guest room bed. It has been a long process, but finally we got to sleep on a new bed (well, bought for pennies from my Aunt, who didn't use it all that long), a new mattress set (also from my Aunt & included in the pennies paid for the frame), brand new mattress pad & sheet set...and in our newly carpetted master bedroom! Talk about waking up with a high!

Everything takes so long to finish...I tend to forget how much work we've done and get frustrated that it's going so slowly. It's great when we have payoffs like last night. Plus we have enough chocolate chips to last for a couple of years!

(Here is a detail picture of the curtains that I made last week for the master bedroom)