Archive | April, 2011

What Eagles eat

29 Apr

When I had the time (pre-Georgia) I really liked to cook, and I would even go as far to say that I loved cooking with Ryan. We’d run to the store, grab the few things we needed for that night’s meal, a bottle of wine and then go home, cook and finally sit down to eat at about 9pm.
 Then, something weird happened when I got pregnant: cooking or eating anything that needed to be cooked wasn’t appealing. And once Georgia was born, cooking totally went out the window.

But lately, with Georgia eating dinner around 6pm with us, I’ve started planning meals that we can eat together as a family. I do some searching online – or find recipes on the apps I put on my phone – and then plan out the week’s meals on a week-at-a-time calendar.

So far, all the meals this week were a success!

- Tuesday’s Stuffed Green Peppers (minus the mustard) and Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Newman’s Raspberry and Walnut dressing – my FAV!
- Wednesday’s Corn Flake crusted chicken strips. (just like it sounds: crush corn flakes and then dip the chicken in egg, then cornflakes and bake. yum!)
- Thursday’s Turkey burgers. (is it weird that I had no idea how to use coriander?)

I’m already thinking about the new recipes I can try next week. Any suggestions?

What we learned in the first year

28 Apr

By no means are we experts, but we did learn a few things in the first year:

  • It gets better. I promise.
  • Expensive doesn’t always mean better. Chances are, they’re going to barf or poop on it. 
  • The one exception: don’t skimp on the car seat.
  • Buying gently used things is a great way to save money. Have friends who have older kids? I’m sure they have a basement full of stuff they want to go to good use.
  • You can love that little person more than anything. One toothy grin can brighten the worst of days!
  • Organize the clothes baby grows out of in 6 month increments. Same color plastic tubs will keep you organized and make it easy to find the old clothes if you want to share with friends.
  • You might think your baby isn’t learning….but one day it will all click and you’ll be amazing by how much they picked up.
  • Some of the best days are the ones where you do nothing but pull out all the toys and play for hours. 
  • You start to sing EVERYTHING. 
  • Really, it will get easier.
  • Even when your baby is 1, nap when they nap. Kids are exhausting!
  • You can’t keep every germ off of your baby. It’s impossible, so relax. (and this is coming from a clean-freak and someone with major control issues….it’s just not worth the extra worry)
  • You need to totally love and trust your daycare provider – and so does your babe. Read your baby – if they are happy to be dropped off (or almost jump out of your arms) and seem to be thriving, you found a good one.
  • Take videos! Even if they’re just with your phone or an iFlip, you’ll be glad you did.
And don’t take any moment for granted, because before you know it, you’ll be looking back on the first year amazed that you’ve made it this far!

Sick baby girl

26 Apr

Since Sunday, Georgia has been running a pretty high fever – all the way up to 103. I’ve been home with her (thank God for flexible jobs!) and I’m sort of afraid that by tomorrow she won’t be back to normal.

We did go to the doctor on Monday: not an ear infection, lungs and throat look good, just a nasty virus, the doctor thought.
So, I apologize for being MIA, but I’m babying the little one and when she crashes, I crash too!

But don’t go too far, big changes are coming to the blog!

Easter

25 Apr

I hope everyone had a great Easter with their family. We spent the weekend up at my mom’s and ate way too much food.
When was the last time you ate Snicker salad? (we make it like that recipe, but sans bananas) I completely forgot it existed, but I sure made up for lost time over the weekend. Oompf!

Now we have a sick baby girl, so off to the doctor. Fingers crossed it’s just a virus and she’s better soon. When she’s sick it makes me so sad.

Celebration

22 Apr
http://www.youtube.com/get_player

A little video of us celebrating Georgia’s actual birthday as a family. Yes, more cake!

She’s 1!

20 Apr

One year ago today (at 3:06am to be precise) , we experienced the biggest surprise, biggest rush, scariest and happiest moment of our lives – all rolled into a 6lb 3oz package. Just shy of being a full 3 weeks early, my water broke and less than 4 hours later, we welcomed our baby girl into this world. Georgia was impatient from the very beginning! But our unhappy newborn (struggling with acid reflux and momma and daddy struggling with constant crying – we don’t miss those days!) has turned into a wonderfully chubby, happy, sweet 1 year old.

When we brought her home from the hospital, she weighed less than 6lbs and at 1 year old she hovers somewhere around 25lbs.
She loves all food – except cottage cheese. I swear, we have yet to find anything other than cottage cheese that she won’t eat.

Here are some of her stats:
Favorite foods:
bananas
toast
mac ‘n cheese
mandarin oranges
grilled cheese
peaches
pears

Words she can say:
Hi
Bye Bye
Nice
Puppy
No
Duck
Quack
Dada
Mama
Ball
More
Book

Average hours of sleep a night:
11 hrs

Number of teeth:
6

Her favorite things to do:
Climb the stairs
Jump on the bed
Walk behind her push toy
Go on walks in her stroller

When I ask her what a puppy says she pants like a dog. When I ask her what a duck says, she says ‘quack,’ though it often sounds like a naughty word…eek!

She gives the best kisses, loves to snuggle when she’s sleepy and has a raspy, throaty giggle that can break any bad mood. Before we had her, I knew I wanted kids and that I would love them to pieces, but hearing her voice over the monitor first thing in the morning makes my heart skip a beat and seeing her reach for me when I walk into her room….. Well, there is just no other feeling like it.

Happy 1st Birthday, Georgia Mae!
We love you more than you even know.

Toys Toys Toys

19 Apr

Georgia has a ton of new toys! I joked that it looks like a plastic factory exploded in our living room, but honestly, this girl got so many new toys for her birthday that you can’t get this big ‘ol grin off of her face.

Places to go

The number of miles this girl has put on is incredible. Any given day she has the same pattern: living room, through the dining room, circle the island.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
I’m exhausted just watching her!

First (chilly) wagon ride around the block.

New picnic table (poor Ari was stuck inside)

Now if only the weather would get warm so we could spend more time outside with these new toys!

The Big Party

18 Apr

On Saturday we celebrated Georgia’s BIG birthday! The day was pretty icky – cold, windy and gray, but with the heated (thank goodness), enclosed pavilion and the bright decorations and food, we didn’t have any trouble getting into a festive mood.

I took tons of pictures, so I’ll just let them do the talking.

DIY poms – as crafty as I get!

Me and my birthday girl

Cupcakes from FancyPants Cupcake Co

Friends! (babies: 1, 10 months, 6 months)

Georgia’s peach cake

“Hmm….what is this?”

“I don’t think I need this…”

She likes it!

She liked it so much she kept trying to pick the whole thing up to take a bite.


“You guys want some?”

She REALLY likes it.

How perfect are those cheeks and arms?

“I guess I like cake!”

 We actually had to take the cake away from her because she would’ve eaten a lot more had we let her. And I’m glad we didn’t, because after we got home, she did barf on me….that’s the sign of a successful party!

This is the house we got G.

She loves it! but it won’t be in our living room for long!

Awesome day. Awesome family and friends. Pretty incredible little girl!

Lots to Do

15 Apr

In about 24 hours, we’ll be celebrating Georgia’s 1st birthday with lots of our family and friends and I’m JUST starting to feel a little overwhelmed by all of the things that need to be done.
Here’s the run down:

We’ve set up catering with Palmer’s – the best deli in Des Moines! (side note: when I get a chance to run in there for lunch, most times I’m completely satisfied with trees and raisens and their crunchy cabbage…mmmmm!) And, an added bonus was that their catering was cheaper than all of the other places I called, which completely surprised me.
The cake and cupcakes will be delivered today and I can’t wait to see the creations that the girls at FancyPants Cupcakes Co came up with!
Last night the hubs and I started making some of the tissue paper pom poms and got glitter from the pink tissue paper ALL OVER the living room. Oh well, who doesn’t love a bit of glitter in their life??

And the family starts to arrive late this afternoon and then they’ll be lots of setting up at the pavilion and prepping for tomorrow. I am a bit overwhelmed with the to do list here in front of me, but it’ll all get done when it gets done, right?

Also, I have to share this picture of the toys that have started to accumulate in our garage.

Spoiled Rotten

 Lets’ just say I’m a bit nervous to take stock of all of the new toys that come home with us tomorrow, when this is what our garage has looked like for a week.

I can’t wait to share pictures of the day with you! I think Miss Georgia Mae is going to be overwhelmed and it’ll be dang cute to watch her dig into her cake and rub it in her hair – which is her new favorite thing to do with her slimy, grubby hands!

TGIF! Enjoy the day!

Orange

14 Apr

Obviously Crate & Barrel is in an orange phase, too. Check out the email I just got from them:

Do you feel like you get a color scheme in your head and you can’t get it out? You want to decorate every room in your house with it?

Previously it was green and black, then before that it was gray and yellow…and now it’s orange!

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