A Bun in the Oven

It's official...there is a bun in the oven! We found out I was pregnant a week or two ago and we are very excited. I'm only 7 weeks pregnant, which is probably still early to spread the news. But, we told family and friends anyway. I went to the doctor yesterday and got to see the little nugget and hear the heartbeat. It's unbelievable being able to hear a baby's heartbeat at only 7 weeks pregnant. The doctor said after you hear the heartbeat, the chances of a miscarriage go down. That leaves me a little more comfortable, but there is still a little nervousness about miscarrying. I just fear that because it would be devastating. But, I know God is in control of everything so that puts me more at ease.

I thought it was very clever how I told Mr. Spouse I was pregnant! When we found out we were expecting Sam, I took the pregnancy test and we looked at it together. I asked him a while back with another kiddo, would he want to be there again or would he want to be surprised. He said either way. So, I wanted to surprise him this time! I took a pregnancy test weeks ago and it was negative. I told him about that test, so I figured he knew I would be taking another one because it was probably too early to detect a pregnancy. I was anxious! I had a feeling I was pregnant, just like I did with Sammy. So, one morning I woke up to take the test. A few minutes later, I went back to the test and saw the results...I was pregnant! That was the last pregnancy test I had, so I actually went to the store to get more just to be certain. I know the chances of a false positive pregnancy test are slim but I wanted to be certain I was pregnant before I told the hubby. I took another test and it confirmed that I was pregnant. Oh my goodness. This is happening! Again. I was anxious to tell him.

I didn't want to call him up at work just to say, "Oh hey, I'm pregnant." That's not very fun. So, I thought about how we'd always joke about a "bun in the oven". That's it! I'm going to literally have a bun in the oven when he comes home from work. I had some frozen dinner rolls in the freezer. So, I decided to cook one of them to have it nice and fluffy and have it in the oven when he got home. When he came home (which seemed like FOREVER!) I had the bun all ready in the oven. He came through the door with a big smile, which made me wonder why. I said, "I have a surprise for you!" (He later told me he had a feeling I was going to tell him I was pregnant.) When I said, "It's in the oven", he said it completely through him off and then thought I had made him cookies or something. He opened the oven, saw the roll, and said, "Oh, yay!" and grabbed it like he wanted to eat it. WHAT?! Ha. I said, "Neil, what is that?!" He said, ".....a roll?" I asked him what else it could be, shocked that he didn't get it right off the bat. He said, "...a biscuit?" I was floored. How is he not getting this? Again, I said, "What ELSE could it be?...it starts with a b?..." He said, "...a bisuit?" Again. Ha. This was not going as planned, and I couldn't help but last. I tried asking one last time and he said, "A bun? A bun. A bun!??" and he got a huge smile. He was so excited and he gave Sammy and I a huge hug. We were excited and all smiles! (I'm just happy he finally got it!)

We are excited about Baby #2 on the way and we hope everything goes well. Please pray for our new little bun in the oven and our growing family. We are excited about our family and are excited to meet the little guy or little girl in nine months. We're going to keep this one a surprise again, just like we did for Sammy, and just like we'll do with all of our little ones! It's such an exciting feeling not knowing the sex of the baby. It's like a big Christmas present at the end of a nine month wait. We're excited!

Our new little one at 7 weeks and is the size of a piece of rice! Amazing.

Just Keep Stitching

When Sammy was a couple of months old, I quickly realized I would like to start a project to keep me occupied during the day between the diapers, bottles, dishes and dinner. Years ago, I used to cross stitch. I realize this is sometimes reserved for women 70+ but in all honesty, I like it. Even if I am 24 years old! I went to Hobby Lobby and found the most gorgeous cross stitching portrait that I had to get. Ever heard of diving in head first? Well, this would be the case. Here I haven't cross stitched in years and I choose one of the most difficult patterns available. But, I know that I'll have here and there to work on it since I am a stay at home mom. So, it will get done (one day!).

The portrait is a beautiful European bistro that has many, many colors and details to make it look so warm and rich. I've been working on it off and on and have done a little piece of the picture. However, it is a large 11x16 portrait so I will have this project for a long time. Even though it was a $40 project, it is well worth the money and knew it would be a source of entertainment for many, many, many months. It is a piece by Gold Collection, which I quickly found has a great selection of quality pieces. I think this will be my go-to brand for cross stitching projects. The more I work on it, the more I realize how beautiful it is going to be when it is all done. My plan, when the project is all done, is to get it framed at Hobby Lobby and to hang it near our dinner table. I'm excited to be at that point, though it may be years down the road! But, in the mean time, I'll just keep stitching!

Enter gDiapers

A while back, my friend Anna had her second child and told me she was going to do cloth diapers. Honestly, I thought she was crazy. (Sorry, Anna! I'm just being honest.) I thought cloth diapers were something only our parents used. Well, needless to say I was wrong. When she talked to me about it and all of the options out there these days, I was starting to change my mind. Could I really do this with my little one?

I started doing a little research on cloth diapers and soon came across gDiapers. I didn't know they made cloth diapers so easy these days. And to think that I thought doing cloth diapers meant I'd be folding up cloth and pinning them with safety pins. That is completely not the case. These awesome gDiapers look and function just as a disposable diaper with the Velcro fastening and cute colored covers. And, because I wanted to use cloth to save money, you can use the cloth inserts instead of the disposable inserts. I talked with Mr. Spouse about it, and I think he was happy to see that I'm finally seriously jumping on his saving money bandwagon. It took me a little longer to get there. But, I'm finally here! Hey, that's what counts, right?

To start off, I ordered a pack of 6 gDiapers and 18 cloth inserts. I'm going to have to learn the routines and ways of making this process go swiftly and quickly. I'm sure I'll learn along the way. I'll admit, I'm a little nervous. But, I'm also kind of excited. I'm a stay at home mom, so I finally thought, why am I not doing cloth diapers? I'm home all day. I don't need the convenience of a disposable diaper. And, soon after that decided to begin to make our own baby food. Hey, maybe at the end of all of this I'll be able to expose my Super Mom emblem underneath my shirt. But, we'll cross that bridge if we ever get there.

I ordered my gDiapers and liners from Diapers.com where you can get free shipping and $10 off your order for first time customers. So, that was a plus. I was going to try the flush-able gCloth liners that line the cloth diapers to make #2 an easier cleanup. But, Diapers.com apparently had them unavailable in my area. So, you can get them on Amazon. They aren't free shipping there, so that deterred me. But, I would still like to try them to see if it makes #2's a little easier to cleanup.

My gDiapers order should be here in a couple days so I need to go out to get a small trash can with a lid to use for my cloth diaper laundry. I need to set up a routine to conquer this cloth diaper venture. For those of you that use gDiapers or any cloth diapers, let me know how they work for you. I'd love any tips for this new journey into the land of saving money. I'll keep you posted as to how it goes when I start. Hopefully I won't want to burn any cloth diaper in sight because it goes terribly wrong. But, I'm optimistic and think things will be just fine. This is just one of those money savers I should be doing since I'm a stay at home mom. Wish me luck!

Up All Night

Recently, a new show debuted on Wednesday nights at 7 PM that has Neil and I labeling it as "our show". It is called Up All Night and it is a show any parent, especially us new parents, can relate to. Once we saw the previews, we both said, "HA! We need to watch that." Now I look forward to Wednesday nights to see "our show" and what's going on that week.

The reason we think this show is so funny is because it's a show based upon everything we are going through! It's about a couple with their first child perhaps about 6 months old? Not sure. But, in every show we find such humor in it because what they go through parallels our life. From the months of being up all night, not feeling like the "cool" couple, and the wife ditching anything remotely sexy for sweatpants and shirts donning spit up. So funny! We just find it hilarious and is definitely something I look forward to in the week.You should check it out! It'll keep both you and your hubby entertained (Well, at least it does us anyway).

Kiss the Slow-Cook(er)!

I'm in love with the slow-cooker! No, I'm not talking about the "slow" cook. I'm talking about my Crock Pot! I received it as a gift a year ago and have never opened it. I wasn't an experienced cook going into my marriage so I had a lot of learning to do. And, I always looked at the Crock Pot as just another kitchen thing I didn't know how to use. Well, throughout the past year or so we've been married, I've dabbled in a lot of different cooking. About a week ago, I busted out the Crock Pot and have been in love every since. It was love at first slow-cook!

I made some baby back BBQ ribs that the hubby and I absolutely fell in love with. It compared to any restaurant style ribs, if not better! I was such a proud cook. Who would have thought something so delicious such as BBQ baby back ribs could come out of a slow-cooker? And I thought they were only made for cooking stews. Boy was I wrong!

We've been wanting to have Neil's grandparents over since they haven't seen the house and Sammy much for that matter. So, we wanted to make them a meal. We knew just the thing to make! Of course, our local grocery store was out of baby back ribs when we made the rib run. But, regular back ribs would work just fine. They were coming at 11:30 for lunch. So, when we calculated the 7 hours the ribs needed to cook, we realized we needed to wake up at 4 to prepare and put them on! Oh well, we were excited for our lunch date so we didn't mind. We cleaned the house, got out our best dishes and glassware, and I made a peach cobbler to top off our meal. We made BBQ ribs, baked potatoes, and the best sweet corn I've had in a while. The frozen sweet corn in the bags are better than nearly any fresh sweet corn I've had.

Lunch went off without a hitch (except for my peach cobbler which I feel had too much dough). But, it was a new recipe so, it was worth a shot. We had a great lunch and visited for many hours. We had such a great time! I'm so happy that they enjoyed lunch. Let me tell you, the ribs literally fell off the bone! I was so excited that everything turned out like it did. (I felt like such the proud cook!) I'm still learning, but it's so nice to be able to make a delicious meal for wonderful company.

Many people have asked me for the rib "recipe", so I will give it to you all. You will laugh, as this is not a "recipe"! These are the most delicious ribs I've ever had. And, the absolute easiest. Give it a try...you will not be sorry. Here's what you do: 

Per rack of ribs, you will need one bottle of any kind of BBQ sauce and an onion. (That's it!) Pour the BBQ sauce and a thinly sliced onion into the Crock Pot. Cut the ribs into 2 to 3 rib sections and place them in the Crock-Pot, stir to coat, and slow-cook for 6 to 8 hours. Voila! You'll have the most amazing ribs. I stirred a few hours into it, but do not know if it's necessary. If you try this "recipe", let me know how you liked them. I'd love to know how they turned out for you. The first time I made them I used one rack of baby back ribs, one bottle of BBQ sauce, and one onion. The second time I made them I used two racks of back ribs, two bottles of BBQ sauce, and two onions. You get the idea.

I can't wait to make these ribs again. And, as we speak at 9:10 in the morning, I already have a roast cooking in the slow-cooker. I'm addicted. But, the hubby loves having these amazing meals to come home to. And, I have to say, I'm loving it as well! For the first time ever, I actually feel like a cook. When we don't need water to choke down my dry meals, you know I'm doing something right!

 Yummy, tender baby back ribs.

 Notice, the bone is not in the rib!

All that's left!

Christmas, Already?

A couple weeks ago, I frequented Hobby Lobby and wandered with Sammy for hours searching through the Fall and Christmas decorations. At the time, the garland and wreaths were 50% off. I spent the first couple of days getting Fall decorations then already started into Christmas...in September! I look forward to the holidays so much that I couldn't help myself.

When I was looking through all of the garland and wreaths they are gorgeously decorated wreaths with some not so gorgeous prices. I was not going to purchase a Christmas wreath for $80, even if it was half off. So, I decided to make one myself. I've always been the crafty type person so I thought, why not? This was before I discovered Pinterest, which has now fueled a craft-driven frenzy. Small frenzy, but still a frenzy. They have the most amazing ideas.

I went to the furthest section of garland and wreaths which was the plain, inexpensive wreaths of just simple greenery. There was a large $10 wreath, which was half off for $5. I grabbed a large bow, $3, and a pick of snowy, berry greenery. It was $9, which was half off for $4.50. So, this brings my grand total to $12.50. Works for me! Now, mind you, this is not nearly all that I purchased, but let's not get into that now. (Maybe the hubby has forgotten about it!) With a few hot glue gun burns and a carpet full of fallen greenery needles, the finished result was beautiful and looked just as good as the pre-decorated wreaths. Can't wait until Christmas!

 I fluffed out the wreath to make it look full.

 I attached the bow by the twist tie on the back.

  With some wire cutters, I cut apart all of the pieces of the pick.

 Hot glued all of the pieces then...Voila!

4-Way Park

Out of all the pet peeves that I have, the hubby and I share one major annoyance...the 4-way stop park. Does anyone else in the world share this annoyance? I'm usually not a nit-picker about other drivers. As long as we're safe and no one puts us late or in harms way, I'm usually okay. Call this my small rant. Hey, I get one every now and then right? 

With every 4-way stop we arrive upon, it never fails that the human brain is perplexed by this stop and go system. Just this weekend, we pulled up to a 4-way stop with three cars at alternate signs already stopped as we rolled up. And, who was the first person to venture out of this stop you ask? Us.  We pulled up to these cars and all three were simply parked there, staring, and not moving a single muscle. This is really annoying. Maybe when you live in a busy city like us, you tend to want to get in and get out. But, with these highly complex roadway systems (sarcasm, of course), it's no wonder these 4-way stops never work quickly. If you stop, you go. I think that sounds pretty simple.

Okay, okay. I know I'm not a perfect driver. However, I do get my chance to do a little pet peeve talk every now and again, especially when these 4-way park situations happen over and over again. I guess I just don't see what is so hard about something so simple. Okay, I'm done. Small rant over pet peeve...check!