Menu Plan Monday

We have a really hectic week for some reason, so we'll see how it goes. In order to have time to eat before Kyle leaves for work at 3pm we'll probably end up grabbing something out at least one day, but I'm going to make a plan anyway. Hopefully we'll stick to it. We grocery shopped today and only needed $67 worth of stuff for this plan and that included coffee for $9, cumin for $5 and barley that we don't necessarily NEED this week but I ran out of last week (well the coffee is for Kyle and he probably considers that a need). Anyway most of the stuff I had on hand. SO.....
MONDAY: breakfast for dinner: eggs, aidell's chicken and apple sausage, red potatoes o'brien. Today is our "stork appointment" aka tour of the maternity process and preregistration since last time my appointment was April 4, but our baby came Feb. 16--turned out we didn't need it. I cancelled it on April 3 when Reese was transfered to their nursery as a "feed and grow" baby where he stayed 13 days. I was never a patient there.
TUESDAY: Spaghetti and aidell's meatballs - we never got to this last week
WEDNESDAY: leftovers--Reese's potluck for his last day at Holly Ridge before summer break
THURSDAY: sloppy joes, garden salad
FRIDAY: french dip sandwiches
SATURDAY: Lobster and Gruyere Ravioli with Garlic Alfredo sauce both a la Costco
Sunday: leftovers or eat out

Get more ideas at Organizing Junkie!!!

Longaberger Open House

FRIDAY JUNE 5, 2009
4pm-9pm
8461 Van Decar Rd SE
Port Orchard, WA
871-2891

Bring your buddies!

HUGE INVENTORY REDUCTION
CASH, CHECK, VISA, MC

Shop from the great selection on hand or place an order from the current catalog. Great gift giving/entertaining choices.

Leave me a comment for directions and I will send them directly to you!

WOWZER A ZILLION PEARS!!

I really hope you can see this well -- it's as far zoomed in as I can make my camera go. This is a little puff of leaves on our pear tree less than 12 inches square and it is just COVERED in itty bitty pears. In fact the more I stood there looking the more pears that seemed to just appear before my eyes. Even a few branches of new growth have pears on them! This year I think we'll have enough pears I may have to get a booth at the farmer's market to sell some! The year we moved in (Oct. 2006) all the pears were slippery goo on the ground. In 2007 I picked what I could but we were in Everett during the appropriate harvest time for Kyle's work. In 2008 I got some but lost some while we were in San Diego for Kyle's work AGAIN! So this year I am determined he will not work off station so we will be here to pick every last pear and hopefully get them all canned. They are a little later in the season than my mommy group usually cans so hopefully we won't be too burned out to make lots of yummy pear butter and pear halves and pear ... whatever else I can find a recipe for.
Now we just need to get our garden prepped and get our veggies in the ground. We should have quite a bit of homegrown organic produce this year! Last year I had no bug problems so I am hoping we repeat that so I don't have to find any non-chemical bug repellents. Mostly I just need to keep the neighborhood alley cats away. And slugs/snails--my gigantic zucchini leaves did attract some snails towards the end of the season and that really grossed me out so I just stopped picking them after that.

Snacktime: he's signing "more" while chewing the last bite in a goofy show. He's storing up his energy reserves so he can show you his new drum moves.

Reese has now mastered (mostly) the foot pedal for the bass drum.

Name Game Revisited

For all the inquiring minds who just can't wait to know our lasted list has been whittled down. Our top 3 choices in alphabetical order are.......drum roll.......Angus, Miles, Sawyer. Kyle can't decide--I have a favorite but I'm keeping it in to see if Kyle comes to the same conclusion on his own. He waivers daily almost announcing a new favorite. So we shall see. He is pretty adamant about not wanting anymore babies so this is the last opportunity to use any of the names. (I am still holding out for a girl---since we are likely to avoid the NICU this time maybe I can convince him.)
This is Reese when he was the same age as BBB2 is now---a super lot cuter than BBB@2 looks!

No one commented on BBB2's full frontal face ultrasound photo does that mean everyone else agrees with Mimi that he looks pretty ugly in this photo?
Obviously it will be hard to be as cute as Reese but seriously how cute can a skull shot be? I am sure he is quite adorable. And he probably already has more fat on him than Reese did so he'll avoid the alien look I think.

Menu Plan Monday

I must tell you that last week's meatloaf was fantastic! I really think the key is the jar of roasted red bell peppers. The roasted pepper adds a great flavor that you just don't get from adding raw peppers in. Reese gobbled it up and LOVED dipping it in the huckleberry bbq sauce. This week Kyle is working 5:30pm-6am, so he'll need to sleep from 7am-1pm-ish. This means I'll have to get up with Reese --normally Kyle does that---and then do dinner when I'll likely be desperate to nap. SO....I'm planning EASY meals that create leftovers. AND Tues/Wed/Sun are all meat free meals, oh and Saturday too! Now that I'm in week 33 I feel like I can't fit in too much food, so I'm shooting for a couple more nutritionally packed options. Last week I made these kiwi strawberry muffins and they were YUMMY--we've had them for breakfast several days now.

TUESDAY: Barley, corn, black bean burritos
WEDNESDAY: tortellini with Alfredo garlic sauce and peas (Holly Ridge from 11:30-1pm)
THURSDAY: spaghetti and aidell's meatballs and I think I'll throw a bit of the alfredo in the sauce to give it a little kick of creamy goodness.
FRIDAY: leftovers (NST/OB appointment from 11am-1pm-ish)
SATURDAY: the last of the precious stash of butternut squash ravioli with Alfredo garlic sauce (this is a sauce from costco so it's more than the tortellini will use, hopefully this meal will use it up.)
SUNDAY: Red Beans and Quinoa Chili

Check out OrgJunkie for tons of menu ideas!

BBB2 (Benza Boy Baby #2) latest ultrasound

At this point (ultrasound #6) all the profiles really look the same, so I scanned in the front view of the baby's face. You can see 2 eyes, nose, mouth and a little hand up by his temple. This was taken at 32 weeks 5 days. (If you look at the stuff typed in the photo it's off by 2 weeks because that's my c section date which is already in their computer and it was auto populated as the due date, so just ignore that stuff). At this point he was measuring between 33 weeks 4 days and 34 weeks 2 days, so he's still on the big side. Luckily the beta blockers have not restricted his growth and my placenta's blood vessels have not been comprised, so taking him 2 weeks early will hopefully still get us a "typically" sized newborn.
We saw Terminator Salvation last night. During the heavy gunfire scenes he really kicked like he's a big ol' bruiser!

33 weeks

Kyle took the day off of work for his birthday today. We ended up "running out" to pick up a pair of jeans for him and go to Costco. Well that turned into needing to go to Kohl's, Penney's, Macy's and Sears at the mall and Fred Meyer in search of the jeans he wanted--and all they are is a pair of Levi's 527, but they either don't have the right size or color or don't have it at all. Then we hit Costco. About 1000 people stopped to ask about my due date and if it's a boy/girl etc. even men! So I either looked about to pop or I must've been making an uncomfortable face or something because I have never had so many folks talk to me in one outing. Everytime I washed my hands in the bathroom today I thought ooh I have to remember to take a photo today because we didn't last week and I actually look decent today. Then of course all the photos turned out yucky. But here is one so you can see my mammoth size.After a long day of walking around my feet ache and my hands and feet are puffy. SO now I plan to do mostly nothing. Yesterday I had my Hypertension Clinic apointment at UWMC. My last one ever! Except now he said I have to start going to the regular OB twice a week in case anything changes. I drove myself over in the am traffic and home in the pm traffic--MISERY-- I don't know how people commute to Seattle everyday and not lose their minds. By the time I got home I had pitting edema--it went away after a 3 hour nap with my feet up. SOOO I think I am done with much galavanting--especially in one day. We are sticking close to home from this point forward. On Wedensday I had an ultrasound and got a cd to take to UW but of course it won't let you save the photos from the disc so I can't get them on the blog. I will scan my print out later tonight and post those tomorrow. At this point the baby is measuring about a week bigger than I actually am (I was 32 weeks 5 days and he measured 33 weeks 4-6 days). His estimated weight is 2268 grams (Reese was only 975 at birth). So we have a buffalo baby!! My perinatologist assured me I will get MUCH bigger by the time I hit my 38 week delivery appointment. Honestly, I just can't even imagine how it could be possible to get any bigger than I am right now and still be able to stand up!

Picnicing in the Living Room

Reese is getting a lot of use out of his picnic table in the living room lately. Here he is having a snack and watching Elmo. He LOVES Elmo, Abby Cadaby and Murray. He says about 20-25 words now and 2 are Elmo and Abby. Generally I don't let him eat at this table because he doesn't necesarily stay seated for long.

It is his favorite playing surface for everything from driving his cars and trucks to pouring beans from bowl to cup and back again. I like it for coloring and play doh since it's plastic and it keeps potentially ruinous things off our real furniture.

I snapped this photo because the nano second I put his plate down he deconstructed his veggie burger. For some reason he was displeased with his slice of cheese. then he proceeded to dip the bun in BBQ sauce and suck it off without taking a bite. It's so funny how he's developing those weird toddler eating habits you read about.

Menu Plan Monday

WOW I haven't done my menu plans for the past 2 weeks--well I jotted them on paper but I didn't post them online. The posting online makes me feel a sense of obligation to mostly stick to the plan. By not being accountable to blog readers we totally fell off the wagon and ate out a BUNCH! So, back to menu planning we go or we'll go broke on eating out.

MONDAY: ravioli (a frozen thing from costco that includes the veggies and sauce)
TUESDAY: meatloaf cups (made in muffin tin will post recipe once I concoct it), mashed potatoes and a veggie from the freezer
WEDNESDAY: Chicken and Pork Risotto, peas
THURSDAY: the boys will have leftovers, I will eat on the ferry ride to UW and will hopefully be home by the time Kyle has to leave for work
FRIDAY: Kyle's Birthday -- he took an annual leave day so we'll eat out and go see Terminator Salvation at the movie theater
SATURDAY: camping food with Kyle's peeps
SUNDAY: leftovers

Check out Organizing Junkie for more menu ideas

Suddenly Grown

Do you see the boy in this photo?! This can not possibly be my sweet baby. This looks like a kindergartner!!! Okay perhaps that's an exaggeration, but seriously I think he looks so grown in this photo. It's a little bit traumatizing our baby is growing so fast.

A Day at the Farm

Last Monday we had Holly Ridge's farm day at the county fairgrounds. They were supposed to get their photos taken with these stuffed mechanical horses and they had bales of hay around to look like they were in the barn. Reese did not enjoy them but he did like "feeding" it a carrot.
Checking out the horse padlock.

Petting a bunny.

Petting a goat with Daddy and his teacher, Miss Keary.

Riding the pony---he was a bit unsure at first but then he warmed up to the idea. These 2 people are workers we don't know. And Kyle walked around with him too since he's not really big enough to stay securely in the saddle without help.

He really liked the llamas.

Reese had a great time and we got free lunch so Daddy had a good time too!

Happy Mother's Day

In a fit of pinkness to celebrate my mommyhood we went to see Star Trek. While I have to admit I thought it was pretty cool it still totally counts as a boy movie...on Mother's Day. So of course, my husband thinks I rock---and of course he's right!Reese laughing hysterically.Here is full belly shot at 31 weeks 2 days. Hard to beleive it can get any bigger, huh?

The Exersaucer Saga

Our basement had a bathroom when we moved in but it was yucky so we ripped it out. The toilet was somehow connected to the concrete weirdly so the normal plumbing cap off thing doesn't fit. Kyle stuffed it with a rag and we rhino coated over to seal it up when we did the floors. So we have been using it as long term storage for our baby gear -- swing, jumper, exersaucer -- which we put in big trash bags to keep out the dust and spidery-ness. This is our exersaucer:

I am perfectly happy to reuse it for the new baby as they are all essentially the same level of cuteness -- really not so cute. However, I'd love to replace the rainforest jumper with the new cowboy version, but that would be wasteful.
So we decided to unpack the gear. I noticed it looked a little shredded which Kyle quickly assured me was due to all the screws exposed poking out of the ripped out walls. Kyle stripped the bags from the swing and jumper but I couldn't get the exersaucer out. I went to get scissors and when I came back I smelled urine. So I said "It smells like pee!" Then suddenly Kyle, who had been tearing in to the exersaucer trash bag held his hands out and shrieked "There's pee on me!!!!!" So .... RODENTS crawled up the toilet pipe and chewed through the rhino coating and used the exersaucer as a toilet!!!!!!!! Go ahead take a break to control your gag reflex.
Out on the trash it went but it doesn't fit in the can so it's on top. Now we have to buy a new one, grr!!!! I really wish the stupid rodents had peed on the jumperoo instead so I could buy the cute cowboy one! Anyway last Monday I head out to the car and hear a door close then realize someone is behind me and I see her get in the driver's side and close the door. She's alone, so that first closing door must've been the trunk. As I pull out I see the rat pee exersaucer is GONE!!!!! So this unsuspecting woman trash picked our exersaucer which looks brand new as we never let Reese eat in it and he never had any diaper issues in it and I cleaned it before packing it away. I wanted to chase her down to tell her about the rodent urine issue, but I didn't have time for that. So either her baby or some sucker shopping on craigslist is going to use our rodent peed on exersaucer. GAG!!!!
We will never be using used baby gear without a detailed history. Maybe not even then.

31 Weeks and counting

Today (Friday the 8th) I had the first of maybe 7 non -stress tests. I don't know if everyone gets these or not, but I will have one every Friday until the baby comes. I meant to have the nurse take a photo once I got hooked up and then I totally forgot. But it's not hard to envision. They have a huge, fat, comfy leather lazy boy for me to sit in and they hook up two round hockey puck sized monitors to my tummy: one for the baby's heart rate and one for contractions. They gave me a little jeopardy buzzer to click when I felt the baby move. He had to increase his heart rate above the baseline by a designated amount with each movement to "pass" the test. They scheduled an hour for the test but after about 30 minutes he was doing perfectly so we finished early.
I had a regular OB appointment as well. I asked if he thought I should go ahead and sign up for Lamaze or whatever type of natural childbirth class they have -- by natural I do not mean drug free, be assured I want the drugs. He said it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that I will not have a c-section, so I am not taking the class. I told him to just make sure the nurses don't expect me to know anything since this is my second baby because everything from the past 2 weeks to the end is first time for me. But really we are having a c section most probably. I am even scheduled for June 26 which will be 38 weeks. So unless anything crazy happens between now and then we'll have a June 26 baby: a cancer and an (earth) ox, just like his mommy (except I am a water ox).
Onto Reese's latest happenings. He has been waking in the night and staying awake for extended periods (greater than 30 minutes) if we don't relent and let him come into our bed. On the occasions when I can not bring myself to respond Kyle goes and Reese is in our bed almost instantly. When I can get myself revved up for the struggle I stay up until I can make him go back to sleep in his own room. (If we let him scream it out he vomits and I can NOT allow him to sleep in a vomited in crib and I can not deal with cleaning it at 3:30am, so don't suggest the cry it out method.) Last night I was tired at 3am when he woke so I didn't try to make him stay in the crib we just went to the couch and snuggled, he fell asleep, I stood up, he woke up frantically pointing to the couch, I sat, he crawled over to the couch pillow and snuggled in, I covered him and went to bed. He slept on the couch until 9am. So tonight he fell asleep on the couch while I was on the phone so I covered him and went about my business. The I got on the computer about 10 feet away for about 30 minutes. I went to get a drink and realized he had moved to the floor without me noticing. So he spent close to an hour in this position before I moved him to bed. Hopefully he'll stay asleep until morning because I am so over the late night wake ups---I want to sleep through the night for the next 7 weeks!!!

Late Start Garden

OOPS! I waited until April 28 to plant my garden seeds. I think that's a bit late, but gosh I've been lazy. I think I bought my jiffy tray and seeds in early March. I was much more on the ball last year and had fantastic tomatoes, beans and zucchini, so I hope I haven't messed up this year already.

Reese's favorite part was pouring the 10 cups of warm water into the jiffy tray with the little coin style peat pots that grow when wet.He successfully got some seeds in place. He was in charge of the pumpkin seeds--we're going to give these a try this year and see how it goes. He tried to plant some on top of the tomato seeds, but I think I successfully separated them all correctly. I guess we'll see when they grow if anything looks mixed.
So this year we are growing beans, zucchini (though MUCH less than last year as they overpowered everything), bell peppers, beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and pumpkins. Last year the bell peppers, brussel sprouts and carrots were so overshadowed by zucchini they didn't grow. I'm hoping this year to have a little more control over the zucchini growth. I am really hoping to get a good bell pepper harvest---we'll save so much money!! I will dice and freeze whatever we don't eat fresh to use throughout the rest of the year in spaghetti sauce, chili, sloppy joes, etc. At the grocery they have been $1.50 for one lousy green bell pepper so I think we'll save a bundle if our harvest is good. Then I won't feel so frivolous spending so much at Local Boys in Purdy on salsa (can't wait for them to open -- we ran out of salsa before Christmas!) berries and asparagus and whatever else we don't grow.

Dentist

Reese went to the dentist last week. It seemed like it took forever for his 6 months to pass! I was nervous I would be in the hospital by this time and wouldn't be able to take him, but luckily no bedrest for me! He used to be super compliant with the tooth brushing, but while he totally loves it now he wants only to do it himself. It's quite a struggle to get a really good brushing in. So...he keeps getting grayish slime build up. I was alarmed it was cavity at first hence the anxiety that the 6 months would never end. But it's plaque. When Kyle needed to replace his sonicare we got a 2 pack at costco--I hate it. So I haven't been using mine. We put the tiny head on it and it is now Reese's so we were getting more of the slime off.

He liked the chair well enough.

He really liked brushing the alligator's teeth.Not a huge fan of the hygenist. BUT she did successfully use the spinning buffer thing and he is now grayish slimy plaque free--hooray!!! And now the sonicare is keeping it at bay. The dentist was very happy with his teeth---apparently the under 6 crowd of this generation has really crappy dental hygeine habits leading to "root canals" and crowns and pulled teeth pretty frequently. So she was very happy Reese's at least twice a day habits.

Pregnancy Update 30 weeks

Here is a photo of Reese so you have something cute to look at. He's playing with a balloon at the Big Apple Diner.
I should've updated last week as 29 weeks was when Reese was born, but I got sick and I'm still sick (as is Kyle) so I am not taking a photo today, but still wanted to update.
I went to the perinatologist at UW yesterday. My blood pressure continues to go up but comes back to normal after I lay in bed for 2 hours. I swell, but it goes back down. My blood flow is still less than normal but higher than it was 3 weeks ago, so he was happy enough with that. But my protein is now at 408 units of whatever measure they use on a scale of 300 is preeclampsia. So he was very not happy with that. At my 28 week ultrasound the baby was bigger than he needed to be and my placenta had good blood flow and I have higher than needed amniotic fluid. He said "This baby is a giant! We have baby to spare!" So as of last night I started 25mg of atenolol (a beta blocker) a day. This will cause fetal growth restriction, but since we've made it this far with good growth it shouldn't be terribly dramatic (meaning this boy will be a bruiser compared to his "big" brother). It will bring my resting heartrate down (it's been 104-116 since at least mid-January) and should keep my BP from spiking, but is a mild enough dose to not make my BP go low. Previously the atenolol made me tired but I was on a high dose, recovering from a c section, trucking it 70 miles each way to visit Reese in the NICU, etc...Hopefully this lower dose will not knock me out as badly. AND if it keeps my BP from going crazy high I should be able to avoid the post pregnancy high dose. Starting next week Friday I'll do weekly non-stress tests until delivery. So we shall see how far we make it. My skin is burning a lot so I'm hoping for not too much more belly growth as that is most uncomfortable!!!
On a more fun note this baby is like Animal from the Muppets! He is a crazy kicking machine all over at once. Reese never progressed beyond the flippy fishy feeling movements. This boy kind of percolates -- a fast succession of smallish kicks, he pushes out some body part and then kind of drags it along the whole expanse of my belly, he kicks low then high like there really must be extra limbs in there! It's crazy!