home

I absolutely love being home. I love hanging out with my brothers. I love doing stuff with my mom. I love chatting with my dad. I love all of the Christmas decorating. I love living in a place that doesn't feel like a cave. I love grocery shopping with my mom's credit card :) I love having a bunch of live-in babysitters. I love spending more time with Matthew. I could go on...

I L.O.V.E. being home.

November

This month truly was a lot slower for new meals, and just meals in general, when you factor in that I wasn’t feeling very well the first part of the month, and then my family was in town and we were out and about all day, and then we went to Colorado for Thanksgiving. Still, there are some things worth mentioning:

Apple Spinach Salad: A delicious, fall-themed salad with apples, spinach, candied almonds, and feta cheese. (Source: Annie's Eats)

Butternut Squash Soup: I’m pretty sure I’ve never had butternut squash before in anything, but the variations on butternut squash soup looked so pretty, I decided it needed to be tried. And...I almost like it. My reaction was “this is interesting. Not bad. Different taste…” but I couldn’t quite get over the hump of “this is interesting” and make it to “this is really good.” It was almost there. I’m sure if I’d had previous exposure to butternut squash I really would have liked it a lot. (Source: Loosely based on several different recipes)

Chicken Flautas with a Roasted Tomatillo Sauce: As far as I can tell, flautas are very similar to toquitos, but with a flour tortilla. We put beans, chicken and cheese in them, fried them up and served it with the tomatillo sauce. It ended up being a really good meal, and one that Matthew especially really loved. (Source: Galley Gourmet)

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles: These weren't too different from normal snickerdoodles, and the pumpkin flavor didn't make them taste "weird" or anything, so if you are looking for something a little different but not too crazy, here ya go. (Source: Annie's Eats)

Slow cooker pork loin with sweet potatoes, orange and cilantro: I liked the interesting combination of flavors that made an ordinary pork roast pretty exciting. (Source: America's Test Kitchen Cookbook)

Roasted Sweet Onions with Herbed Bread Crumbs: Love carmelized onions, and love bread crumbs. We really enjoyed the combination of the two flavors and textures, and it was definitely a unique side dish. (Source: For the Love of Cooking)

Student Evals

Today was Matthew's last day of student teaching. I know, where has the time gone?? Anyway, he came home with his students' evaluations of him, what he did well and what he could do better. Oh my goodness I laughed so hard at some of them:

"Okay dude. You were good. I mean sometimes you were boring. But other than that, sir, you were way good!" Thanks, I think...

"More food!!!! And you should give me an A even though I don't deserve it! JK your awesome don't change I'll miss you :)"  That last part in there reminds me of the generic stuff you write in people's yearbooks. And actually, two other people said he should have brought food and candy...?


"Well I didn't want to shoot myself in your class so your doing great." How's that for a ringing endorsement?

"Say your name more cause I just called you sir."  This one was really weird to me. How do you not know your teacher's name?

"I thought you were a great teacher, fun and you let us call you coach." Apparently a lot of kids really did call him coach. I'm just now finding out about this. I feel like this is one of those stories that should have been shared during daily 'tell me about your day' storytime. I feel so out of the loop.

"You could improve your jokes."


And, the last thing that we learned from these evaluations was that most high school students do not know the difference between "your" and "you're".

favorite things

Eight months old is a good stage for Natalie. She is doing things that I absolutely love right now.

She will crawl around and follow me as I walk around the house. If I go in the bedroom and leave her in the living room, she starts coming back to see me. If I'm walking back and forth, putting things away or something, she tries to follow me and just ends up going in a circle. Pretty funny. If I'm doing the dishes, she crawls up, comes in between my legs and then turns up and smiles at me. Or, she grabs hold of my pants and pulls herself up to standing behind me. She's not necessarily wanting to be held, she just wants to be near me. I love it.

Also, she has been so happy lately. Or, more accurately, her happy times are really, really happy. She has started to laugh uncontrollably when we are playing with her. It is the cutest, most adorable thing in the world.

And she loves sucking on our noses. I laugh so hard every time she does it. haha.

crazy exciting stuff

Guys. My entire family comes in to town today. My brother is done with his mission Wednesday. (Side note: he's serving in Salt Lake). We basically get to spend all week with him. I'm so incredibly stoked I cannot wait. I've been counting the days for the past six weeks. My family is all staying in our little apartment. Needless to say, it will be quite cozy. I can't wait to see Jonathan. I'm so excited!!

10 months later, I think I can finally tell this story

First of all, I want to say thank you for everyone's ideas about money-saving techniques. There were a lot of really good ideas that Matthew and I took note of. Now, on to today's story about being in the hospital at 7 months pregnant for the dumbest two days of my life.

If, perchance, you have diabetes and are pregnant, and have a decently high blood sugar when you are at a doctor's appointment, and the doctor wants you to check in to the hospital because she is so worried and wants to get your blood sugar down, and that hospital is the one that is 5 minutes from our house... don't think, don't blink, just waddle away as fast as your 7 month pregnant body can take you. You know what the regimen was at the hospital to bring my BG down and in control? The nurse would use a glucometer to check my blood before and after meals. Yeah, the same thing I do at home. I was so annoyed, and I hated every single minute of it.

One of the worst moments was when one nurse was in the room and was checking my blood and noticed that I had an insulin pump. And then she said something to the effect of "Oh this is really different that you are in here. Usually we don't have people like this. Usually when girls go on the insulin pump, their blood sugars aren't really a problem any more."


Right, because going on a pump definitely solves all your problems (eye roll). Totally misinformed. Very insulting in the moment.  I think the reason that this rubbed me the wrong was was that I had been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to keep everything as good as possible, and she made me feel like I was weird or doing something wrong. In actuality I was really doing quite good overall. So, like I was saying earlier, before you get to this point, WADDLE AWAY!!!

bumblebee

I'm not usually behind the times this much, I mean Halloween was almost a whole week ago. I'm a stay at home mom with only one relatively easy baby and lots of free time, c'mon get your act together woman! Actually, the reason this is a bit late is because the pictures we took of her on Halloween just didn't turn out super awesome, so I made us dress her up again today so we could take better pictures. I know, I know, was that really necessary, but you will never get your baby's first Halloween back and we needed a picture with a real smile!

 

She is so stinkin' adorable. I can't even handle it.

October Food

Happy first day of November!

Chicken Noodle Soup: How have I never made chicken noodle soup before? It is 143% better than anything from a can, very easy, and wonderfully comforting.(Source: very loosely based from Pioneer Woman)

Challah: By far the prettiest loaf of bread I have ever made. Also, very scrumptious. Similar to brioche, a richer loaf of bread that makes excellent French toast. (Source: Annie's Eats)

Hummus, Chicken and Roasted Red Pepper Sandwich: Ohhhhhhh baby. This was definitely one of the most delicious sandwiches I’ve ever had. Probably in the top three. The crisped ciabatta roll (instead of the pizza crust suggested in the link, definitely a good choice) paired with creamy hummus, chicken, red pepper, swiss cheese and onions… oh baby. It was a party in my mouth. I loved this so much. Here is a tutorial for making roasted red peppers.(Source: Panini Happy)

Jerk Chicken Chili: A fun, slightly different take on chicken chili, although neither Matthew or I were super impressed with it.. (Source: Smells Like Home)

Honey and Sweet Potato Rolls These were excellent, did not taste overpoweringly like sweet potato (actually, not really at all), were easy to make, and each roll gives you approximately 33% of your daily vitamin A. There you go. (Source: How Sweet It Is)

Red Velvet Brownies with White Chocolate Frosting: So. Dang. Good. Oh. My. Gosh. (Source: Macaroni and Cheesecake)

Creamy Cauliflower Soup: Despite that the title says “creamy”, this is a very healthy recipe, as the creaminess comes from plain greek yogurt (okay, in the recipe link it comes from a potato, but I skipped that and just added yogurt at the end… yum). It wasn’t at all bland, had a nice combination of flavors, and there were no leftovers. (Source: Annie's Eats)

Tomato Cobbler with Gruyere (or Cheddar) Biscuits: So the recipe uses gruyere cheese, but yeah right that’s like the most expensive cheese in the store, let’s stick to some sharp cheddar, which worked out great. I loved that the tomato mixture was just the right amount of juicy, but didn’t take away the flakiness of the biscuits. I’m excited to make this again… (Source: Annie's Eats)

Baked Pumpkin Spice Donut Holes: These tasted a lot like those mini donuts you get at the fair or wherever… you bake the donuts in muffin tins and then roll in butter and sugar and they are soft and moist and sugary and delicious. (Source: Pennies on a Platter)

Pumpkin Applesauce: Apparently we went on a pumpkin kick for a while…This was very simple, just pumpkin puree mixed with some just made applesauce (sans sugar). I really love freshly made, warm applesauce and the pumpkin just made it a fun fall side. (Source: Pennies on a Platter)

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes: These may be too good to really be counted as a breakfast item, as they almost taste like something you would eat for dessert, totally in a good way. You have a pumpkin pancake with a cinnamon swirl cooked in, topped with cream cheese icing… Matthew said ‘you can make these anytime you want!’, which I think about sums it up. (Source: Recipe Girl)

This actually was a little bit of a slower month for making new stuff since there were two weeks in there where I was actually really, really busy. Especially when you consider that the hummus/red pepper sandwich, cauliflower soup and tomato cobber dishes were all things I made for myself for lunch, since Matthew would definitely not touch any of them. Oh well, I sure enjoyed them all by myself :)

Matthew’s favorites: Donut Holes, Pumpkin Pancakes and Sweet Potato Rolls

My favorites: Hummus/Red Pepper Sandwich, Tomato Cobbler, and Pumpkin Pancakes

a few more of Natalie

There are just so many cute pictures of this sweet little girl...

 

 

  

Okay, and here's one of us too...

 

what I think about our lovely security-enforcing friends at the airport

You know, I don't really have a problem with TSA in general. You want to do the backscattering images? Fine. Whatever. I'll take my shoes off. You can run special tests on my baby's bottles. What bothers me is the inconsistency.

For example, many airports have both the metal detector machine and the backscattering machine. And in the Kansas City airport, you can choose which one you are going through by which line you get into. To me, that begs the question, why the junk is the backscattering machine even there? If you have something bad that could be viewed in that machine, but not in the X-ray machine, would you really choose the backscattering machine?

And let's say, for example, that you wear an insulin pump. Every other time you've flown, TSA agents have either told you that you need to put it through the X-ray machine or that you don't need to put it through the X-ray machine; and once, they rubbed it down with a special little pad and put that pad in their fancy chemical detector machine. That time, it came back negative (obviously, I'm not rolling around in weird chemicals.)

Except the last time I flew, coming back from Kansas City, after checking the baby's milk, the overeager TSA agent decided I needed to get the pump rubbed down and checked out in their little machine. It turns out that it came back positive. So then, 20 minutes before the flight, I got taken to the little back room and groped down because that checked out positive. In fact, it didn't even necessarily register positive, just "not negative." I don't know about anyone else, but I almost feel like the grope down in the little back room is more awkward than if they just did it there. Maybe not. I dunno. Then they patted down Natalie. Then they decided that, "oh hey, let's rummage through her purse too, even though it has already gone through the X-ray machine." Seriously? Oh and at this point, it's something like 7 minutes before my flight leaves and they've called my name twice for final boarding. Finally they let me go and I all out book it to the gate, and made it, barely.

One other fun factoid, when I flew to Kansas City from Salt Lake and went through security, the TSA agent who watched me walk through the X-ray machine commented on how my pump didn't set off the X-ray machine, and then let me go through. None of this "extra screening" business.

So here's my beef. I'm totally okay with the procedures in general, but for goodness sake do you need to pat down the baby? And go through my purse that went through the X-ray machine just fine? And different procedures about what I have to do with my pump depending on the airport and TSA agent that sees me? (That's the one that really annoys me. The other complaints are secondary to that.) And while I'm talking, do I really fit the profile of a terrorist as a young, white, cleancut woman with a little baby? Good one.