Spring Babies

Announcing...Miss Sophia Jo! 

Our good friends Adam and Kelly had their sweet baby girl at the very end of April and we finally got to meet her. She is so precious, beautiful, tiny and just absolutely perfect. We are so happy for you! Thanks for letting us get in some snuggle time! 

 

I stopped at the coolest kids store, Kangaroo Boo, while in Valley Junction this week and found this sweet little owl. Sophia's room is all owls and so I had to pick it up for her- I love how it is a mama owl hugging her little baby owl. 

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We had a triple baby shower at school this spring and I wanted to do something small but cute for all the new moms. I love Aden and Anais swaddling blankets and so I bought a new package and made these little cupcakes for the ladies. The frosting is a little onesie wrapped up inside the blanket. I also tucked a lullaby CD inside because I think that is only fitting since it is a gift from the band teacher. :o)

 

 I hope they enjoyed the gift as much as I enjoyed putting them together!

Freezer Meals

**I've gone back and made a couple of edits- you will see them in red!!**

I think I am finally done with my freezer cooking in preparation for the new baby!

I've gotten a few inquiries about what I've been making, so I will share the master list with you. It is very different from the first time I did this, mostly because of the change of season. I just felt like lighter foods would be better for the end of May and beginning of June. I still have a few heavier things on the list, and I will be eating those right after I get home since that is when I will most likely be STARVING!! Anyone else experience that as a new mother? I could not eat enough after Michael was born....I get so angry when new mothers say they were so busy they forgot to eat because I don't think I could ever do that! Maybe that is the key to losing the baby weight faster?

Anyway, last time I did a marathon shopping/cooking day and made about 12 meals all in one shot. This time around I didn't have the luxury of having that much free time (or energy) so I planned a few extra meals to make throughout the week. I would just plan a freezer meal or two for that week and I would make one and we would eat one. It worked out really well and gave us a chance to taste the recipes since they were all new to us. It is a pretty good system and if I was supermom, I would totally do stuff like this all the time!

I kept a running list on my fridge as I made things so I would know how things were adding up. I think this should be at least 2-3 weeks worth of lunches and dinners with some extra things like frozen pizza and take-out thrown in.



Here is the list:

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Ham, Broccoli and Cheese Roll (this was a post-easter recipe to use up some of the huge ham I bought)

Grilled Chicken Pesto Wraps
*cooked the chicken and wrapped individually in foil, then put in freezer bag*

Black Bean and Mango Chicken Salad
*cooked everything, in freezer bag*

Buffalo Chicken Wraps
*cooked the chicken, assembled and wrapped individually in foil, then put in freezer bag*

Cheesy Potatoes (also a post-Easter recipe- we had cheesy potatoes with our ham dinner and I just whipped up an extra batch)
*assembled and frozen in foil pan, will thaw and bake when ready*

Foil-pack Chicken Fajita
*assembled and used a frozen chicken breast, then put in foil and in freezer bag. I cooked them once before with a frozen breast and it worked out well, I will probably let them thaw a bit before I put them on the grill*

Foil-pack Chicken and Mushroom Dinner
*same as above*

Baked Mommy Mac
*assembled and froze in foil pan, will thaw and bake when ready*
Hammy Cheese (2) (also a post-easter ham recipe)
*assembled and froze in foil pan, will thaw and bake when ready*

Enchiladas (2)

Chicken Pesto Spinach Salad
*all cooked and assembled, in freezer bag*

I also thought I would do some breakfast things since I really like breakfast. I don't really have a lot of experience with freezing these types of foods so I hope they turn out okay.

Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Coffee Cake (this is to die for!)

Scrambled Egg Muffins

Apple Nut Muffins
*in freezer bag*

Breakfast Burritos
*also individually wrapped in foil, then in freezer bag*

The only holes I can see in my meal planning are things for Michael. Sometimes he will eat things we eat, and sometimes he just wants a hot dog and string cheese. Our fridge will be stocked with plenty of backups for him!

I had a lot of fun looking for good recipes to use and here are two of my favorite resources I found:

Once a Month Mom Freezer Cooking (I just picked recipes I thought that looked good, but to actually do the whole month long cooking thing is pretty cool!)

Kraft Foods (so good- every recipe has a photo and reviews)


Apple Muffins!

Here's to not going hungry after the new baby is here! :o)

Baby things

Well...I'm still here! I feel like baby can really come anytime!

We had our last prenatal class last night and little did I know it was going to be a quiz type class on everything we learned so far! I wish I had studied!! But really, I have read so much I think I have a pretty good handle on things.

The hospital tour was very informative and answered lots of my questions. There is room service for food (yay!), except the husband only gets one meal. However, we did notice one of the nurses had Jimmy John's delivered while we were on the tour so that is a helpful tip. Also, maybe this will be a good opportunity for Scott to finally try Big Tomato pizza which is downtown and carry out only. And yes...eating is my number one concern about being in the hospital! lol!

It was pretty slow on the floor when we had our tour, but there were two babies in the nursery. So cute!! It is so hard to imagine that in just a short time that will be ME and MY baby at the hospital. It just seems so unreal.

After the class we headed to Target and Scott bought me a birthing ball to use while we are at home.



We've used them a lot in class and I like sitting and bouncing on it, or leaning over it to stretch out my back. It also makes a pretty nice footrest (for the relaxing on the couch birthing position). It was only $8.99 and we can use it after the birth for abs (what are those?) exercises! I was impressed Scott wanted to buy me something to help with labor!

Also, I just discovered the online nursery where you can look at pictures of all the new babies born at the hospital. It is interesting to see what the babies are wearing!

Here is a link for all you baby gawkers like myself out there!

Gender Neutral Outfits

I went a little crazy today and picked up some more gender neutral outfits in smaller sizes. I really do not have a ton of clothes for the new baby and lots of my stuff is in larger sizes, just because I kind of picked what I liked at garage sales and whatnot.

I got several things in newborn size, and I am keeping the tags on those just in case they are too tiny! But you never know!

I really like these cream colored classic pooh outfits. The one on the right is a little jacket/pants/onesie set. So cute!

I thought these sleepers were cute too, although they looked pretty tiny in newborn size! I like the kitty one...and I think a boy could wear that. Boys like kitties too, right?



I also picked up some socks because I didn't have any! I thought these were too cute to resist!

Boppy Cover

I am happy to announce that try number two in making a boppy cover was a success!

Here is the finished result:



one side minky dot fabric, one side polka dot cotton.



However, much of my success this time around was due to an excellent pattern I found on vanillajoy.com. This is an awesome blog!

Instead of doing a zipper (because I have no idea how to do that) I sewed some velcro on the seam instead to close the cover. The nice thing about minky is that it is kind of like fleece where it doesn't unravel if the ends are unfinished. At least...lets hope so!

Here are both sides together. The browns don't exactly match, but that is a-okay with me!

Now off the the fabric store for more fun fabric to make another cover!

Sewing a Tag Blanket

I saw this cute minky dot fabric at Hobby Lobby the other day, so I thought I would make a tag blanket for a friend of mine's shower. It was really fun, and I can't believe how cute it turned out!


I got the information on how to make one from this source:
http://www.chicaandjo.com/
(although I think mine is much cuter!)



I also decided to make her a couple of matching burp cloths with the extra fabric I had. I think it just makes those gerber cloth diapers look so much cuter!

And here is her finished gift-so fun to put together! It is a little changing carrier with a changing pad, wipes, diaper cream, baby powder, and diaper bags/dispenser. I think it turned out pretty cute! I hope she likes it!

I got so hyped up after my successful sewing project that I went out and bought more material to make a boppy cover with. Results: big fail! Stay tuned for my second try on that one!

Sewing Baby Burp Rags

While Scott was gone all week on RAGBRAI, I started a fun sewing project and I just finished it this morning: Burp rags for baby!!



I had seen some very cute ones on etsy.com, but they were kind of expensive for what they were. So I thought, heck, I would try and make my own. I already had about 40 flat cloth diapers (the good ones with the thick part in the middle) so all I needed was the material. I found some great stuff that matches what I have in mind for the nursery at JoAnn's. I just bought half a yard of the dark brown, and then the other patterns were those quilt block squares, which I think is about a 1/4 of a yard. I think I spent about $5 on fabric-it was also 40% off that day.

Okay...enough rambling!

Here is the tutorial I used to get me started.

Let me preface this by saying I am not a professional, but I am lucky enough to have been handed down a sweet, sweet sewing machine from Scott's grandma. Here she is:



This is my favorite part of it:



Date of purchase: 12/17/56

Wow!! This baby is going to last forever! I'm so glad I have it!

So here they are:




All in all, this project probably took me about an hour to do. The hardest part was ironing down the edges of the fabric because I kept burning myself. I think they turned out very nice!

I hope the new baby likes them! :o)