My Day in the Kitchen

This post is coming way later than I planned.  A whole month later haha but here it is!

This past Monday on Labor Day I spent a good part of the day in the kitchen working on stocking our freezer with meals for the fall.  Every once in a while I go through this and it makes our week nights that much easier.  We can just pull something homemade out of the freezer and voila! dinner is prepared.

This pretty much took my entire day!

All the ingredients gathered and ready to go! 

The Final Products

• 10 lbs ground beef cook with onions  (most recipes call for onions cooked with the ground beef.  I love having it cooked already so I just need to thaw it and warm it up.  I can use it in casseroles, add taco seasoning for tacos or whatever.  
• 5 lbs ground turkey cooked with onions (I use this the same way as I do the ground beef)
• 3 meals of Beef Stroganoff Mixture-you just add pasta and sour cream when you are ready to eat. (Could not find recipe online)  
• 2 Meals of Salsa Sloppy Joes
• 2  Enchilada Casserole
• 2 Pans of Cheesy Potatoes (No Recipe)
• 2 batches of  Meat Loaf Miniatures
• 2 Beef Toutiers (a pie like casserole) (Could not find recipe online)
• 2 batches of Hot Taco Pockets (Could not find recipe online)
• 2 pans of Tator Tot Casserole (No Recipe)

Most recipes came from the new Taste of Home Freezer Cooking Recipe Book I found on the shelf at the checkout line at the grocery store except the cheesy potatoes and tator tot casserole which ar emy own recipes.  

Total Meals Prepared:  

15 Meals

15 lbs of ground meat

2 side dishes

My New Meal Planner

So I love to plan meals but it takes so much time to figure out what we want to eat and then make the list of what groceries we need.  Well I stumbled across this wonderful program called eMeals.  It is a service that for $5 a month will put together 7 dinner meals each week and will include a list of groceries you need and includes recipes for each meal.  They email the meal plan to you on Wednesday and you can just print it off and go.  LOVE IT!

So when you sign up you can choose the # of people you will be feeding (1-3 or 3-6).  Since it is just John and myself I chose the 1-3 option.  Then, you choose what kind of meals you want.  Options include: normal, low fat, low carb, low sodium, organic, vegetarian, vegan, and there is probably more but I can't remember.  I just picked normal but I can change it at any time.  The last thing you choose is where you plan to buy your groceries like Whole Foods, Walmart, and some others that aren't in this area.  You can also pick "use your own store".  I picked Walmart because then they use many of the ingredients on sale at Walmart that week.  I might not end up buying at Walmart but it is nice to know approximate cost.  So for each ingredient it will list the current price it is being so for and the the approx. cost at the end.  For 1-2 people it ends up being between $45-$60 a week.

So I have used it for two weeks now.  So far I like having it.  I signed up when they were having a 10% off deal too.  When I get the meal plan I will look it over and cross off at least one or two meals.  We don't prepare that many meals a week, we go out of town a lot, and some nights we order in or go out to eat.  No point in buying groceries for meals we will never eat.  I also like to pick out a favorite meal that I already make.  Another great thing about this is that I hang it on the fridge and it is easy for John to look at it and start dinner without me having to tell him what to do.  He can just pick a recipe off the list and go with it knowing we have all the ingredients on hand to make it.  Last Friday it was a delicious ham and egg quiche.

I do have to say the meals we have tried so far as pretty tasty.  Of the seven meals they are all pretty varied. There typically is a crockpot recipe, an egg recipe, a sandwhich recipe, and then others.  Just a great variety!  Also each meal comes with a main course, vegetable or salad, and a fruit.  It seems like all food groups get hit on.  I just signed up for three months but so far I am happy with it and would consider continuing with the service.  I did switch which type of plans we were getting from the "classic" plan to the "low-fat" plan.  You can change your plan one time a month.

Here is my last weeks plan:
Meal 1:  Chicken Avocado Club SAndwhich with Chips and Grapes
Meal 2:  Beef Stroganoff, Egg Noodle, peas, toasted rolls
Meal 3:  Spinach and Tomato Pizza Fresh Carrots
Meal 4:  Loaded Baked Potatoes and Spinach Salad
Meal 5:  Honey Mustard Turkey Tenders, Brocolli and Cheese, Pasta
Meal 6:  Favorite Beef Stew, Crusty Parmesan Rolls
Meal 7:  Ham and Cheese Quiche, Cinnamon Apples

The ones I crossed out are the one I decided not to make.  I knew we were going to be gone over the weekend so we wouldn't need all the meals.  I do want to make the Turkey Tenders recipe sometime though.  It sounded really good.

Can't wait to get our new plan today!

Meeting Baby Piper!

A couple of weeks ago Elsie and I made a trip up to MN to finally meet Baby Piper.  We both had been battling colds and we finally got over them so we could go and visit.  Elsie did a great job again riding in the car even though she slept very little on the drive.  I have come up with a system to keep her happy and busy.  Up on the passenger seat next to me I keep her bag of toys along with 3-4 pacifiers.  Every now then I will "drop" a new toy to her for her to play with or whenever she seems like she is done with her current toy. It is also nice to have the extra pacifiers right by so I don't have to dig around her carseat looking for the one that fell out of her mouth.  Our system seems to work pretty well for us.  

We got up Friday evening around 5:00, played for a while with Grandma and Grandma and then ate dinner.  Elsie once again had a rough night with sleep.  I think her worst nights of sleep happen at my parents.  I think the fact that I sleep in the same room as her might have something to do with it.  

On Saturday we woke up and went to a fundraiser breakfast for my cousin's hockey team.  It was so delicious!  Then we did some shopping, came back to my parents for a short bit before heading up to my sisters.  Elsie had fun playing outside with Grandpa and Uncle Stub.  The grass was so soft (compared to our dried, brittle grass at our house).  She loved playing with the leaves and the grass.

We finally made it up to my sister's and met Baby Piper. How adorable is she!!!

Piper Lynn at three weeks old

 Allie loves being a big sister!

Elsie loved Piper.  Right away she was drawn to her and wanted to touch the baby.   No longer is she the littlest one anymore.  She gets to be the big cousin :)

Piper was in the swing and Elsie loved watching her from this chair.  

Elsie and Piper are going as the same thing for Halloween this year.  Our little flowers!   

Grandma and Grandpa with their three girls! 

I just love my new little niece. 

Elsie Marie-9 Months

Three Quarters of a year...that is how old our little girl is now.  I can't believe she will be one year old in three months!  She is one busy little bee these days but is so much fun!  I love it!

This past month she had her Dr. appointment so her official weight on her chart was 18 lbs 3.5oz and 28.5" long.  When she wear her little jeans and tennis shoes she looks so much like a little toddler now even though she isn't walking yet haha.  She wears 3-6, 6-9, and 12 month tops, 12 month onesies, 12 month sleepers, and 12 month pants.  She is now is size 4 shoes.  Just growing like a weed these days :)

Elsie loves eating finger foods.  She has been eating puffs for awhile now but this past month we have moved onto other finger foods.  Elsie loves the little Gerber carrot and apple chunks and I cut up other food like pears, peaches, avocado for her to pick up.  The new foods this month are avocado, chicken, salba grain, oatmeal, yogurt and yogurt melts, the longer puff thingys, mum mums, wheat, teething biscuits, a little taste of some ice cream, broccoli, and spinach.  She has gotten good at spitting out her food at us when she is done or doesn't want something ;).  Oh boy!   We continue to tell her no spitting and how to sign that she is all done.  One of these days I am sure she will get it.  She is eating 3 meals a day.  For breakfast normally she will have cereal (either oatmeal or rice) and a fruit.  Lunch she has yogurt and a veggie, and dinner will be avocado, fruit, veggie, chicken, really whatever we feel like giving her.  I try to give her at least one finger food with each meal now.  She might have a snack or two throughout the day and I make sure those are finger foods like yogurt melts, puffs, or cut up fruit or carrots.  For bottle and formula she is still drinking about 5 times a day between 4-6 ounces each.  Some days she doens't want very much and some days she drinks a lot.  Her feeds that are consistent are her morning bottle and her right before bed bottle.  She almost always drinks at least 6 oz.  She has been getting a middle of the night bottle these past few weeks too (more on that in the next sleep section).

Looking back Elsie's sleep has been all over the place.  When I read the monthly blog posts the description of her sleeping habits is different each month.  Well this month it is the no different.  Her sleeping habits have changed once again.  Shortly after moving into her ninth month she began to wake between 3-5:00 AM and nothing would stop her from crying and being so upset except a bottle.  I DID NOT want to give her a bottle in the middle of the night.  I was worried it would start a bad habit.  I mean, she hadn't had a nightime feeding since she was like 3-4 months old.  Why would she need one now?  Amy, a friend of mine gave me some good advice and I began to feed her a nighttime bottle, hoping that it wouldn't last long, wouldn't become a habit, and wouldn't be something I would regret later.  I definitely don't regret it.  On tope of waking to eat she has also been waking up an additional 1-2 times a night and gets up for the day between 5:00-6:00.  When she wakes she gets so upset, cries hard and stands up in her crib crying Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma.  Uhh...we tried one night to make her "cry it out" for like 20 minutes and it was terrible and John and I decided we would never do it again.   I plan to write  a whole separate post about Elsie's lovely sleep habits and where she is at 9.5 months. Things have definitely changed.  We are still on the same bedtime routine as we have been and it seems to be going really well.  She goes to sleep without a fuss at all.  Same thing for naps most of the times.  Her morning nap starts between 8:30 and 9:00 and sleeps for about 45 minutes to and hour and her afternoon nap starts between 1:00-2:00 and lasts between 1 hour to 1.5 hours.  If she wakes up earlier than an hour I can typically get her to go back to sleep for another 30-45 minutes.

EVERYDAY I look at Elsie and see something new she is doing.  She is constantly learning something new or working to do something better.  It is so much fun!  One of the big changes I have seen in her over the past month is how she acts with books.  She still loves to put them in her mouth but she is also starting to treat them like books.  She sets them in her lap, she is learning to turn the pages, and the books that we read the most often she is learning how to lift the flaps, and is coming to expect what is on the next page.  It is amazing how she is learning those things!  She is also cruising around the furniture like crazy!  She is getting more brave each day with letting go of the furniture or my leg and testing her balance (which she doesn't have much of yet).  She has cried a couple of times when we tell her no and she is getting a little bit of a sass to her.  She will cry when we take something away (even if we give her something new to play with) or when we try to redirect her.  She knows what she wants and she tells you in her own little way when she isn't getting it.  I think this is something we will deal with for the next 18 years haha.  She loves to play with her foam letters and shapes still, she absolutely adores Cinder and is getting more and more brave of being close to her and Cinder is doing a wonderful job of letting Elsie pet her and climb on her.  She loves to play with her clean cloth diapers, likes to carry things all around the house, and has begun to be pretty proficient in climbing the stairs and trying to climb up the furniture.  We are still working on waving bye bye and pointing to her nose, mouth, etc.  She just isn't quite there yet where she is doing it all the time.  She is still jabbering like crazy and I love how she has inflection in her "words".

This month things have slowed down a bit with all of our activities.  We went back down to Lake Rathbun over Labor Day, we celebrated both my parent's birthdays, we found out my brother is engaged, and Elsie is no longer the youngest grandchild since my sister had her little baby girl!

We are so much looking forward to the last quarter of this little girl's first year of life!!!!

                                           

A Weekend At Home

This weekend was a GREAT weekend!  We had nothing on the books as far as plans go and we just went with the flow.  Friday night I finised cleaning the house.  This seems to be an ongoing thing.  No longer can I clean and pick up the house and it stays that way for the next week until I do it again.  This is something I have to adjust to.  I struggle with having clutter on the counter tops and things not clean.  Like I said, this is something I am working on to let go.  

Saturday John had to work so Elsie and I played, I did some laundry, and then when she woke up from her morning nap we went for a walk.  It was a little chilly out so I got her all bundled up.  I was worried about her getting too hot but she never did get a sweaty head or anything.  We walked to the post office and met John and Grandpa Dale for lunch.  Then on the walk home she zonked out :) which of course messed up her afternoon nap but oh well, she eventually took it.  Saturday afternoon/evening I wanted to work on a couple of projects one of which was to paint our exterior doors.  I ran into a bit of a glitch with the paint roller so that bummed me out that I couldn't finish it.  We watched the movie Bad Teacher and called it an early night.

  

Sunday John, Elsie and I headed down to Des Moines to do some shopping and to make some returns.  We had some tile that we didn't use in our bathroom that we needed to take back.  It was a great day spent together as a family.  When we got home I finally got Elsie's 9 month pictures taken for her blog post and we went for a walk together.  That is two walks this week with John.  Elsie and I felt pretty lucky!  After Elsie went to bed I got things ready for the week, relaxed and watched the Emmys.  It was a wonderful Fall weekend.  

Elsie's Nine Month Dr. Appointment

Yes, that is right...nine months!!  I seriously can't believe that she is that old already.  She is just three months away from one year!!  That is so nuts to me!  Yesterday morning she had her Dr. Appointment and everything went really well.  I made a prediction that she was going to be about 20 lbs since last month I weighed her on the Wii by weighing myself, then picking her up and it told me I was holding something 18.3 lbs.  I also went with a list of questions.  Here is how it all went:

Weight:  18 lbs 3.5 oz (52%)
Height:  28.5 inches long (83%)
Head: 44-3/4 (75%)

Yes I was wayyyy off on her weight haha.  In fact, she weighs less than the Wii said she weighed a month ago.  I knew that the Wii was off but not that far off haha.  So she is still right on track with her chart and where she has been on the chart at her past visits.

On the way over I was talking to John about the things most 9 months old should be able to do and on most lists it says "Plays Peekaboo".  So we play this but what does it mean when the baby plays this??  Are they supposed to be doing something?  Well sure enough on the sheet we fill out we are supposed to mark if they can play peekaboo or not?  So I asked the nurse what that means.  I am sure it was a dumb question but is Elsie supposed to be covering her face too??  Nope they just want to make sure the baby is reacting to us playing by laughing or something along those lines.  If they don't it sends out a red flag for maybe something like Autism.

We also had to decided if we should give Elsie a flu shot.  I asked if now is the right time since she has a cold and one of the things they ask is if there is an egg allergy.  Well Elsie has never eaten eggs.  How do we know if she has an egg allergy.  The Dr. responded that since she doesn't have a fever she is okay to get the shot and as far as eggs go, she most likely has been exposed to eggs at  some point in the past 9 months and it really isn't a big deal.  So we decided to do it.  She also got her final Hepatitis B shot too.

So most of my questions revolved around Elsie's eating and sleeping.. I guess that makes sense since those are two of the most important things.

Q.  How much formula should Elsie be drinking each day?
A.  18-24 ounces which is what she is currently drinking.

Q.  Should we still be waiting 3-5 days between introducing new foods?  When do we stop doing this?
A.  Yes, up until 1 year old.

Q.  Do you think she has a banana allergy?  She kind of got a little puffy and red by one of her eyes after eating it.  I don't know if it was a coincidence or not.
A.  Most likely not.  She would get a whole body rash, really puffy eyes (both of them), diarrhea right after eating.  There would be no question that she was allergic.

Q.  Should we expect Elsie to sleep through the night?  She wakes up a couple of time a night.  Mainly just once between 3:30-5:30 AM.  The other times are really just her stirring and fussing a little.
A.  Yes.  We shouldn't have to go in and put the pacifier back in.  She will figure out how to comfort herself. Unless she is standing up and crying out for us it is okay to let her cry for 10 minutes.  He doesn't reccomend going any longer than that.  If she is still crying then we should go in, pick her up, comfort her and put her back down.

Q.  Is it okay for Elsie to still get a nighttime feeding, like when she wakes during that 3:30-5:30 range?
A.  Yes it is still okay to give her a bottle in the night.

Q.  Elsie sometimes wakes up between 5:00-6:00 AM and doesn't go back to sleep.  How can we get her to sleep later?
A.  If she wakes up and doesn't go back to sleep that just means she is ready to start the day.  (We have an early bird just like her daddy).  We can also try to limit naps during the day to 1 hour so that she may try to get more of her sleep at night.

Q.  Can we give Elsie a blanket or lovey to comfort her at night?  At what age can we do that.
A. There still should be nothing in the crib until 12 months of age.  If she is cold, that might be waking her up so we may need to adjutst temperature or change what we put her to bed in.

There are non eat and sleep related questions.
Q.  Elsie's pupils are still different sizes.
A.  He checked them again and told us the same thing he said at the 6 month appointment.  If they are still the same way at 12 months he will then refer us to a ophthalmologist. It is not something to worry about.

Q.  Can we give Elsie's infant ibuprofen instead of acetaminophen? (We asked the nurse this?)
A.  Not not yet (I didn't ask when but I know I have heard other people say they give it to thier 6 month olds so I am not sure the reasoning).

That is about it!  another great appointment

Another Addition to Our Family

It all started when my brother was stationed in Germany.  He is in the Air Force.  Of course we were sad that he was going to be living so far away but in the end this move would change his life.  Because he lived in Germany he took a little vacation to Ireland where he met this Polish girl who was going to school there.  Well this chance encounter developed into a relationship and she ended up moving to Germany with him while she completed her internship.  They lived together for awhile and then she had to move back to Ireland to finish classes and my brother was finally coming home to the US and would be stationed in Mountain Home, ID.  They decided that she would come too.  So last April she got a tourist visa and came to live with him until this week (her visa expires).  Well, last Monday I got a call which with some very exciting news!!!  My brother (finally) asked her to marry him and she said Yes!!!  We couldn't be more excited for the two of them!!






I am so happy for them.  My brother has told me on numerous occasions how happy she makes him and how much he loves her.  But he doesn't have to tell me.  I can see it myself when I see them together (which isn't too often :).  Tony will be stationed in England for 4 years starting next May which will make seeing each other a lot easier since s doesn't need to worry about getting a US visa.  Then sometime later they will get married.  We can't wait for the big day.  We welcome with open arms Magda into our little family.  Congrats to the two love birds and we love you both!