joshandpamelavv

So we were sitting on the couch tonight watching "The Kid" and a very strong kick startled me...I've been feeling movement for a while now, but not super strong and certainly not from the outside. This was more on the order of what I remember from six or seven months along, not four months. :-P I started poking and prodding and looking for a heartbeat, which I found just like always (and heard plenty of someone moving around as I was looking). Then, I noticed when I was just poking around, that the little person was moving in response. Josh felt it as well when he started applying pressure. So yeah...we were suddenly both able to feel movement from without. Not sure what's up with that or if it'll be a few weeks till it happens again, but I figured I should note it.

I hope the baby enjoys his or her time moving around a lot since in time it'll much more cramped quarters and this is probably the most it'll be able to move till it comes out. :-D I can't wait till the baby's kick catches Felicity's attention while she's nursing. :-P

We just celebrated our first year of parenting...and had the most delightful time watching Felicity open and enjoy all of her gifts. She was so excited about each part of each one that she threw a fit every time when she was strongly encouraged to move on to the next. :-P Probably her favorite gift of all was a dining set from Uncle Gabriel; she plays with the fork and spoon all the time and likes to bring them to the table at meal time. She doesn't actually use them to feed herself, though. She plays with the food in her bowl and gets upset if I try to feed her using her utensils, so unless I know she's really hungry or likely to eat what I've given her, I've pretty much decided to give her a bowl and a spoon and stick with finger food and feeding her. We'll try again on the whole eating with utensils thing ... sometime soon.

New developments....

 - Two molars have cut through on both sides of her top gum. I'm not sure whether to include them in her tooth count (which had remained at a steady eight for quite some time before these molars grew in) as they are still coming in (kind of like my ridiculous wisdom teeth have been for the past decade, only hopefully her teeth won't take that long).
 - Twirling - she likes spinning around and around and will even do it herself, standing, just because she likes feeling dizzy.
 - Stacking blocks - I love that she's finally decided to start doing this, as I was slightly worried that she hadn't seemed interested when I tried to get her to do it a month or so ago.
 - Talking - Really, nothing major...but she loves to mimic and sometimes I hear words and phrases that make me wonder how intentional she is being. It's unpredictable, though, so I'm not sure we can really consider this a skill just yet. The other day, I heard her saying, "A, B, C." I thought maybe I misheard, but then she said it again, so I repeated it after her, to which she responded with a long and clear, "D!" :shaking head: She really doesn't talk much beyond saying baby and bye-bye and da-da - and even those things aren't super clear sometimes, so I don't know what to think. Oh, well...I suppose it's kind of like when you first start feeling movement during pregnancy and you can't really tell for sure, "Is that it? Maybe that's it. Surely that's it!" And then, one day, there's really no doubt. I'm looking forward to the interesting conversations and endless questions. ;-)
- Walking is definitely her way of getting around and she has become quite good at it. I guess she has been walking for almost two months now, but it seems like she has become bipedal overnight.
 - Intentionally kissing...she had been very sparing with kisses for quite some time, but she seems more willing to give and receive them now, which is fun.

Felicity is still nursing and has, since becoming able to request it more clearly, decided that frequent nursing is a necessity. I do give her plenty of water to make sure she's not dehydrated, but I find it difficult to refuse her when she wants to nurse so badly. From what I've read, the milk quality and consistency should be changing in the next month or two since I'm pregnant and some babies choose to wean at that point, so I guess we'll see what Felicity does. The idea of weaning her before she's two is unappealing.

I can't really think of anything else particularly new with her, though she is becoming more and more fun every day as she develops into a darling toddler. I love this stage of development. I love that she challenges her boundaries and forces us to be extremely consistent in teaching her what is and is not appropriate to touch, though overall she really is quite well-behaved. I try to pay attention to each detail of her personality and think through what would motivate her to do what she's doing before I try to curb annoying things like shrieking for no apparent reason. Maybe shrieking isn't the right word, but it's definitely some sort of vocal exercise that is for no reason other than enjoying the sound of her own voice and what she can do with it. Since I read recently that this is normal experimentation at this age, it isn't surprising and, unless there's some particular reason to keep her quiet, I just let it go...and watch as she makes noise while putting her ear on the ground to see how it sounds when she does that. LOL! Watching a baby discover the world is fun.

I am nearly seventeen weeks along with this pregnancy. I was able to get an inexpensive fetal doppler recently and found water to be an excellent sound conductor for listening to the baby's heartbeat. As best I can tell, the average heart rate right now is 140 bpm. Being able to hear this has really made this pregnancy more of a reality for me, beyond seeing my ever-expanding waistline. I've started gaining weight as of the last week or two, after losing around ten pounds in the first trimester. Maternity clothes fit differently this time since I'm thinner, so figuring out what to wear is interesting, but as I'm at home pretty much 100% of the time these days, my quandaries are usually limited to Sunday mornings, family gatherings, and grocery shopping, none of which requires me to be more than semi-presentable.

The worst complaints I have about pregnancy at the moment are terrible headaches in the evening if I don't drink at least three quarts of water throughout the day and difficulty getting enough protein due to a distaste for meat most of the time. One thing that I do love, though, is scrambled eggs with cheese, and that has to be one of the easiest, cheapest forms of protein I've ever encountered, so it's not all bad; I just feel like I shouldn't eat that all the time. I mean, you know, I should at least boil eggs occasionally. I do like eating meat occasionally, but I'm never really sure if I'll enjoy what I've cooked till after it's done, so that makes meal planning somewhat challenging, especially since Josh's taste for food also varies depending on his mood. Felicity's the most reliable of us all, since she always knows that she likes hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, bread, and broccoli. She'll eat different kinds of fruit and veggies and she loves most types of pasta; she also enjoys sliced cheese. :sigh:

I've mostly given up on grocery shopping alone. Last time I tried that, I was so tired from carrying an infant around and taking care of groceries, etc., I just wanted to give up...and then when I realized how much I wrecked Felicity's nap schedule (variable though it is), I just finally decided that evening shopping is my best bet. That works out well for us as we are hoping to sell our van soon and go down to just one car, our awesome little Lancer. This does mean that my "deal shopping" is somewhat impractical in that I can't really hit five stores in a day just to get the best of each and I can't really pick one or two a week to get the best of unless I'm very strategic and pick places where I can get the rest of what I need as well. Fortunately, as I've worked more on menu planning for a whole month, I've reduced my major shopping to once a month, so that will help quite a bit. I've mostly quit buying newspapers and clipping coupons because I just couldn't deal with the stress of making sure I was actually getting my money's worth out of the newspaper. You know something's amiss when you can't figure out whether you can really justify spending $1.25 a week to try to save money...and that's not even accounting for the major clutter the newspapers were causing. I do pay attention to the coupons coming up and have, lately, simply determined that there are so rarely items I'd actually get (even if they were free) that it's generally not worth it. I already have a decent stash of the things that were free or better, so I guess I'll work towards using them up before restocking.

I'm not much for major stockpiling. :-P I'm the kind of person who changes her mind about what I like often enough that I'll be tired of whatever it is before using it up if I'm not careful, so I figure I'm saving money, trouble, and storage space by keeping everything minimalistic.

Anyway, it's midnight and Felicity is asleep and ready to be put in bed, so that's all for now.

Thirteen years ago today, my family and I arrived in Northwest Arkansas from even more humid Hawaii, where I had lived for thirteen years. So now I've officially lived as long in Arkansas as I did in Hawaii. And the best thing about Arkansas is the widespread use of air conditioning. LOL! Since we aren't completely broke yet, we're thoroughly enjoying keeping our thermostat set at 71 degrees. I love not having heat-induced headaches.

I was fourteen years old when we got here...full of youthful idealism (and then some), dreaming of one day getting married and having kids. And here I am, twenty-seven years old, and my dreams have all come true. I'm not rich, but since I didn't ever really dream of that, I guess it's all good. While my wonderful husband is gone at work during the day, Felicity and I hang out and try to think of things to do to keep life less boring. Currently, Felicity is sitting in my lap and trying to grab my hands so she can use the keyboard. I'm playing music for her, but I guess it isn't an adequate distraction. I love taking her outside to play for a few minutes. She runs around in the backyard, going from tree to tree and looking through knotholes in the fence. And she's happy. And I'm happy.

And should everything go well, we'll have another little person join in the fun in approximately six months (Dec. 16th). After the unpleasantness of things like being weak and lightheaded, having headaches, not being able to eat (yay for losing another ten pounds, though), and other fun side effects of the first trimester, I'm quite excited to be heading into the best phase of pregnancy. We'll see how long it lasts. LOL!

 On a completely unrelated note, I finally figured out a menu that I think will work for my poor, confused stomach and protein-desiring body. We'll see how it works out. These things are so frustrating to me. I tried freezer cooking and found it quite disgusting after a certain point, maybe because the kinds of things I stuck in the freezer were things it turned out I didn't feel like eating. This pregnancy has been hilarious, as the cravings I had last time were for things like sushi and Mexican food; this time, Cajun food is the best stuff...and the traditional "cuisine" of our country as well (mac'n'cheese, etc.) I don't really know what the difference is, but I do know that trying to ignore my cravings and just eat unappetizing food really doesn't agree with me. So I went shopping today and got lots of ingredients that I can just save to cook whatever I want whenever.

That said, inspiration and plans are good, so here's the menu:

BBQ Chicken Legs, Mac Salad, Green Beans

BBQ Chicken Legs, Baked Potatoes, Salad

Roasted Chicken Legs, Potato Casserole, Broccoli

Salmon Patties, Rice, Broccoli, Tartar Sauce

Salmon Patties, Mac'n'Cheese (box), Ranch/Carrots, Tartar Sauce

Tuna Casserole, Peas, Boiled Eggs

Tuna Casserole, Green Beans, Deviled Eggs

Chili Beans, Cheese, Sour Cream, Chips, Raw Veggies/Ranch

Chili Cornbread Casserole, Salad

Chili Leftovers, leftover veggies

Sirloin Soup with Veggies, Rolls/Butter, Salad

Leftover Soup Thickened, cooked with Biscuit Topping

Ritz/Provolone Chicken, Loaded Mashed Potatoes, Corn, Green Beans

Ritz/Provolone Chicken Leftovers, Alfredo Pasta, Raw Veggies/Ranch

Chicken Wraps with Tortillas, Chicken, Lettuce, Cheese, Ranch

Loaf Sandwich with OM Deli Fresh, Cheese, Lettuce, Tomato, Ranch, etc.

Bean Soup with Ham or Turkey Chunks, Cottage Cheese, Rice, Salad, Rolls

Leftovers of Bean Soup, Rolls, Cottage Cheese, Raw Veggies/Ranch

Chicken Lo Mein (Spaghetti Noodles, Egg, Chicken, Veggies, etc.), Boiled Eggs

French Toast, Sausage Links, Fruit

Omelet or Scrambled Eggs, Toast, Fruit

Well, little Felicity isn't so little these days. Sometime in the last couple weeks, she actually took her first steps and has, since then, been practicing walking very frequently. She hasn't managed more than 6-8 steps at a time (and usually she falls to a sitting position after just two or three), but she's definitely getting steadier. I love that she's a careful child and not inclined to get hurt from trying to walk. Sitting in the grocery store cart, however, is another matter, as she's always finding ways to get fingers, toes, feet, etc. lodged in various small places.

Josh and I have made some efforts to teach her a few signs, though she mostly figures out on her own how she wants to communicate and, amazingly enough, usually uses the right signs (Josh learned quite a bit of sign language, so I assume she's following his lead, but I'm not familiar enough with it to know). Most of the time, though, she manages to communicate quite effectively without really signing. She chatters a lot without saying anything intelligible, but I'm starting to think some words may be intentional, and the two most recent ones I've noticed are "baby" (she loves pointing to pictures of herself or other babies) and "please" (she actually says "peez" and says it as a question, especially when she is asking to nurse).

She loves electronics and always wants the controllers. She does not appreciate it when Josh removes the batteries, however, and will just quit playing with a controller altogether if she sees that it's not going to work. She also seems to be a bit OCD, as open doors, drawers, cabinets, etc. really bother her. Josh and I would be somewhat thrilled if she turns out to be an organized neat freak, as neither of us really has that tendency.

And that's about all....for now, anyway.

Sometimes I feel like it's a never-ending pile of dishes, laundry, and food that is about to go bad.....

And, this past week, a constant opportunity to wipe a snotty nose.

All in all, though, I really enjoy it. Having a precious little girl to care for is the world's greatest opportunity and a whole lot more fun than it seems like it should be. I love taking her places, too, because she's usually pretty well-behaved and I love seeing the way people smile at her and talk to her...and how delighted they are when she smiles back with a smile that lights up her whole little face.

Last month, we were able to head east and see some of my side of the family, which was a very long trip, actually. It seems like we spent about as much time in the car as out of it, but Felicity did amazingly well. And, the day after we got home, after we had been home all day, she actually seemed overjoyed to see her carseat when we went somewhere that evening. :-P So I guess she got used to it. Josh did all the driving except for the last hour before we got home, so I spent most of the trip in the back of the car next to Felicity, entertaining her whenever she wasn't sleeping. Thankfully her naps in the car were generally a couple hours each. Entertaining babies is something I've done on road trips at various times due to having several younger siblings, but it does get tiring.

Towards the end of the trip, I noticed Felicity getting congested and, about a week later, she had a fever and a very snotty nose, along with some other symptoms. After we gave her some stuff to help ward off the seeming infection, she started recovering pretty rapidly, and she's almost well now - so I'm very grateful. This is her second illness ever and the first time she's had a fever, so I'm glad she did so well. I'm also quite glad she's rarely sick. And I'm grateful for Puffs Plus Lotion. ;-)

Well, Felicity still isn't walking....though she did take one step on her own recently (without noticing); we even have video of it. And I can see in her eyes sometimes that she's considering trying to walk, but she always thinks better of it so far. But she is much faster at crawling...and getting to things before I do and sticking them in her mouth. Josh is becoming quite adept at fishing things out of her mouth. I suppose it might be time to consider further childproofing. Honestly, Felicity is a pretty easy baby compared to some, though, so I'm not quite as inspired as I could be. And she is suddenly doing better in her playpen, so when she's had too many mischievous moments in a row, she usually gets to play in there for a while.

From April 2010

One of her current favorite activities is flipping through magazines. She is amazingly good at turning pages, which I guess maybe I haven't ever noticed with babies before since they usually aren't allowed to touch magazines. Since I hardly read the ones we receive, though, Felicity usually gets them. And checking the mail every day is a favorite activity for both of us because she knows she gets the magazines and packaging and I know I get the coupons and free stuff, so we both get excited.

From April 2010

Another favorite activity began this past Saturday when I went outside to take Josh some juice while he was working on the garden. I put Felicity down on the grass and that was the moment when she realized that she always wants to be outside. So, due to her insistence and grief when I don't respond, we've instituted a new activity: going outside once in the morning and once in the afternoon. She lives for this time. When Josh is preparing to leave in the morning, he usually pulls up the shade and sometimes opens the blinds at our window and that's usually one of the first places Felicity goes because she's so excited about the world outside. And then, when she's outside, she has this contentment on her face, absolute serenity and happiness, especially when she can feel the breeze on her face and arms.

From April 2010

Let's see...another developmental milestone is that Felicity wants to dress herself now. She picks clothes and tries to put them on. She's very persistent and doesn't like to give up, so she'll usually try for a really long time. Her motor skills aren't sufficiently developed for her to succeed so far, but it is fun to see her taking an interest in clothes. Josh stopped by a garage sale recently and picked up a bunch of stuff for her and she was absolutely delighted to go through it with me when he brought it home.

Music and dancing are another interest. We started watching "Singing in the Rain" last night and Felicity had a blast with all the music. She loves most music and sometimes will even sing herself and start dancing if nothing is playing. For naptimes, I often play "Amusing" (by Chris Rice) for her, as that seems to calm her down and make her happy faster than anything else.

And she wants to feed herself (with a fork) these days...trying to figure out a way to do that safely can be interesting, but if I stab banana pieces or beans with a baby fork and hand it to her, she can take care of the rest, so we do that occasionally, though most of the time we still stick with letting her pick things up with her fingers. We just bought her some baby plasticware, but when I tried to use it to pick up some food for her, I realized that it may not ever work. I mean, it's about like trying to ride a bicycle with training wheels. It's just much harder! Sure, it might be safer at first, but at what cost of efficiency. So we'll see whether she actually ends up using it.

That's about all for now. We occasionally upload Felicity videos on YouTube - my username is songofjoy02.

From April 2010

Well, my progress is slow. My baby very rarely naps on her own and she usually doesn't give me very long at a time to do things before she wants to be picked up. I tried to allow for that in my planning, but....I guess I was still a tad too ambitious. That said, I am still quite pleased with my progress. Just the intentionality of it all will pay off, I know.

And I'm mostly on schedule as well, as much as space permits, actually. I cooked all the meat requiring pre-cooking for the recipes I'll use it in. I cooked the 2 pounds of pinto beans, used some in taco soup, and divided the rest into two twenty-ounce portions of mashed beans for later (chimichangas, a side dish for enchiladas). I made some of the sausage into patties and cooked them, fried eggs, made biscuit-like bread dough and boiled and baked it as rolls for breakfast sandwiches - assembled with cheese, wrapped invidually to be frozen. I made 16 of the sandwiches. I don't care for pork, so I have no intention of eating them, but I'm sure my husband and brothers will find them useful, especially as they contain a fair amount of protein.

I made the pepperoni loaf the other night and made an enormous batch of dough and was able to make several personal-sized pizza crusts. I also made the sauce, which I'll either use later to assemble the pizzas...or just leave for the boys to do their own pizza assembling while we're gone. I don't really think wrapping unbaked pizzas would be much fun. Oh, and I made too much of the pepperoni loaves, so I was able to save four portions for the freezer to add to lunches in the future. So that's fun. Unfortunately, it also means that my freezers are almost full, so I've decided to defer the bread baking for a while. Maybe I'll do a batch of dough and freeze it for the week or something. And, besides, I really don't know how well bread dough will freeze. So we'll see about that.

Tonight Josh grilled a roast (he hardly ever lets me cook meat in the crock pot), and I made mashed potatoes and a large batch of gravy. Pillsbury crescent rolls were our bread and we had chopped up strawberries and carrots for sides. The meat ended up being kind of dry, so I chopped up the leftovers, mixed them with some of the gravy, and topped it with potatoes, so now I have a meal safely stowed in the freezer for some day when I don't feel like cooking. The other gravy, I saved in a couple containers for future meals. I have salisbury steak planned, so we'll use it for that for sure...and the other container will probably be part of my chicken casserole(s). I was going to make the whole gallon of milk into cream sauce to be modified for whatever I needed, but the pot didn't hold enough and I didn't think the gravy would be flavorful enough if I made it too versatile, so I'll do the cheese sauces later, probably whenever I'm ready to use them. And, honestly, that's how the rest of the cooking will be as well. Whenever I make a meal that uses the same components as several others, I'll assemble all the related ones. So by the end of next week, I'll be set for the rest of the month, I think, with very minimal daily effort.

I also went shopping today and was thrilled when I realized that I really didn't spend too much money and shouldn't have to spend much more for the rest of the month...maybe all my effort is starting to pay off. It really took Josh forcing me to stock up, as stockpiling and spending money at all is very contrary to my nature. I very much dislike spending money. My usual approach is to spend as little as possible and do without as much as possible to make ends meet, but my attempts in that direction usually leave me hungry, which is rather unpleasant.

Anyway, next week I want to make tortillas, partly because it's cheaper and partly because it tastes better. But, as rolling out tortillas with a rolling pin is pretty rough on my body as well as time-consuming, I think we're going to find a tortilla press. (I will say, though, that rolling out tortillas is a piece of cake compared to trying to roll out pasta dough with a rolling pin. :-P) And if the tortilla press makes it super easy to make tortillas, we might start eating a lot more of them.

So now, with supper meals planned out for the whole month, I have more time to focus on improving the quality of our other meals. One of my personal struggles has been with figuring out what to eat during the day. A little bit of cereal when I finally get hungry enough to eat doesn't seem to be adequate, so I think I'm going to start trying to make myself burritos and such to thaw and eat for lunches, because I'm much more inclined to eat when I don't have to think of what to make.

Instead of doing everything in two or three days, though, I've mapped out a week of hopefully reasonable tasks that will allow me to do everything else I need to do (like make sure Felicity takes her naps). My two main motivators here are that I'm dealing with some sort of dizziness or vertigo or something, not constant but enough to be draining, and we're going to be gone for about nine days a little later in the month, so I want to have food frozen for my two brothers who live with us. I still need to figure out veggies and get all my freezer space organized, but I'm pretty sure I can make it all work pretty easily. And so here's my plan:

Thursday:

Cook 2# pinto beans in one pot; save 2 cups of cooked beans for taco soup; mash the rest and divide into two portions of refried beans (about 20 ounces each).

Bake 5# chicken on pan in oven; when done, trim and cube into 2-3 portions depending on how much meat there is (chicken tortilla casserolex2, chicken alfredo, chicken divan); will need to buy more chicken for grilling later in the month

Brown and crumble 5# beef; divide into portions for Taco Soup, Italian Casserolex2, Spaghettix2, Beef Enchiladasx2, and Beef Chimichangasx2)

Brown and crumble 2# of sausage; save 1.5 for sausage gravy and use the rest for breakfast burritos later

Make 2# of sausage into roll-size patties and cook out grease; drain on paper towels and freeze on cookie sheet before storing for later.

Make taco soup for supper and serve with leftover cornbread (I dumped a bunch of the beans and some of the browned beef in the crock pot with a can of broth and some misc. seasonings that should be like taco seasoning; I plan to add corn later and serve it with sour cream and cheese)

Friday:

Thaw beef for grilling tomorrow

Make bread dough to freeze (rolls for Sunday?)

3x batch pizza dough

6x batch of roll dough (like pizza dough recipe only with 1/4 c. oil per cup of water and more kneading and rising)

5x batch Italian bread dough (each batch: 1 c. water, 1.5 t. salt, 1T. yeast, enough flour)

Make granola and then granola bars (combo of old fashioned oats, quick oats, flour, brown sugar, salt, oil, vanilla, and sugar water baked and broken up; to make into chewy granola bars, I've been melting butter and marshmallows and mixing in the granola like rice crispie treats - it's the only thing that really works that I've tried so far)

Make sandwich rolls (I'm planning to make bread dough with less yeast and more baking powder and then boil the rolls before baking them)

Mix up dry ingredients for pancakes, muffins (I'm planning to make some kind of apple cinnamon pancakes with yogurt in them and oatmeal muffins that are really oatmeal cake without frosting)

Make as much of the Italian tomato sauce (8-10 cups) as possible (if only I could find a cheaper way to buy tomato sauce than in the 8 oz. cans...anyway, I just add garlic powder, basil, salt, and a dash of cayenne pepper...along with whatever else suits my fancy)

Make pepperoni loaf (pizza without sauce all rolled up and baked as a loaf) for supper and bake personal size pizza crusts to freeze

Saturday:

Shop for remaining ingredients

Make 1 gallon of milk into cream sauce/gravy and melt cheeses (parmesan, cheddar) into appropriate amounts for cheese sauces; freeze gravy into correct portions (I just use milk, cornstarch, oil or butter, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and pepper and cook it just hot enough to get it to boil without curdling the milk; I basically cook it like pudding without sugar; for alfredo sauce, I add parmesan...for macaroni and cheese, I add sharp cheddar...for gravy, I can add meat broth to thin it out a bit)

Grill beef roast or steaks

Bake rolls

Make mashed potatoes

Sunday:

Rinse, tear up lettuce

Shred carrots

Serve leftovers with salad for supper

Monday:

Make tortillas

Make enchilada sauce (tomato sauce with cayenne pepper, cumin, chili powder, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and a tiny bit of sweetener)

Make 16 beef enchiladas

Make 16 beef chimichangas

Serve half of beef chimichangas with sour cream, corn, rice, etc.

Tuesday:

Thaw chicken for chicken alfredo with linguine

Mix up muffin batter and bake

Mix up pancakes batter and cook

Make omelets to freeze (I'm going to do salted eggs with cheese, fry it in butter, and possibly add in green onions and bacon bits)

Fry eggs and assemble sandwiches (using the sausage patties above, fried eggs, and sliced cheese)

Scramble eggs and assemble breakfast burritos (eggs, cheese, salsa, and sour cream)

Wednesday:

Bake hamburger buns (using roll dough, I just put a lot more space between the rolls)

Make 2x potato wedges and freeze half for later (I've just been seasoning the potatoes with salt after coating them with canola oil, as everyone seems to like that best)

Grill cheeseburgers for supper (beef patties from the freezer, sliced cheese)

Meals Whenever:

• Creamed Tuna (mixing the gravy/cream sauce from above with tuna; serve with shredded cheese), Rice, Peas, Muffins
• Italian Casserole (Italian tomato sauce, beef or pepperoni, lots of cheese, pasta), Garlic bread (Italian bread with butter and garlic powder) – make double and freeze half for while we’re gone
• Spaghetti (Italian tomato sauce, beef), Garlic bread – make double spaghetti and freeze leftovers in personal portions for while we’re gone
• Chicken Tortilla casserole (gravy/sauce, RoTel, cubed chicken, cheddar layered with tortillas and topped with more cheddar) – make double and freeze half for while we’re gone; also assemble chicken divan (chicken, broccoli, gravy/sauce with mayo, and cheddar) at the same time if enough chicken (may buy canned chicken for using in chicken tortilla casserole)
• Corn Dogs (bought a big box of frozen) and Potato Wedges – use leftover potato wedges from cheeseburger meal
• Salmon Patties (egg, filler, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder), Boxed Mac’n’Cheese, Tartar Sauce (mayo, vinegar, milk, dill relish, onion powder, etc.) – make extra to save in personal portions
• Beef enchiladas (beef, onion, enchilada sauce, cheese), rice, refried beans if available – already made previously
• Macaroni and Cheese (homemade) – cook pasta, combine with previously frozen cheese sauce (can make bread crumb topping by food processing bread slices and mixing with melted butter and parmesan), bake rolls earlier, bake corn dogs (three things in oven at once?)
• Salisbury Steak – broil six beef patties, thin gravy with milk, make mashed potatoes, bake rolls
• Grilled Chicken Salad – leftover cubes of grilled chicken, rolls, leftovers from other meals
• Biscuits and Sausage gravy (mix sausage with gravy and a little milk to thin it)
  

Sometime:

Make/freeze cookie dough

Saturday Meals:

• Grilled beef

Loaded baked potatoes (bake twice as many and turn leftovers into frozen twice baked for later)

Oatmeal Muffins

• Grilled chicken x 2 (grill extra chicken and cube for another meal)

Twice baked potatoes from above

Rolls

WHILE WE’RE GONE (to my brothers):

Help yourself to salad, carrots, fruit as sides.

Chimichangas

Heat in microwave for 3-4 minutes covered with wet paper towel; let stand. Serve with sour cream.

Italian Casserole

Thaw in fridge previous day; bake in oven, covered with foil (shiny side down) for 30-45 minutes at 350°F; put frozen leftover garlic bread in baking pan in oven to thaw and heat it for last 20-30 minutes (on a different rack or side by side)

Beef enchiladas

Thaw and bake for 30-45 minutes in uncovered pan at 350°F

Cook rice in pot for two meals.

Chicken Divan

Thaw and bake for 30-45 minutes in uncovered pan at 350°F

Eat with leftover rice.

Leftover Spaghetti

Frozen in personal portions; microwave.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Canned biscuits – bake according to directions

Sausage gravy – thaw/warm in microwave (might start on lower heat)

Chicken Tortilla Casserole

Thaw and bake uncovered for 30-45 minutes at 350°F till bubbly around edges and center is hot; cook rice.

Pepperoni Pizza

Frozen as personal pizzas – bake as you would any frozen pizza (400°F for 15-20 minutes or till done; reduce temp if burning).

Leftovers

Please be sure to get the leftovers eaten up throughout the week!

From March 2010

Here's Felicity with her favorite uncle. He likes her a lot and has always entertained her magnificently. He taught her to clap when she was just a tiny baby, though I don't remember exactly when. He's the youngest of my siblings and so this has been his first experience with a family member younger than him. When Felicity was first born, people were always telling me how much she looked like Gabriel. I didn't see it, as I was so busy comparing her to my own baby pictures...

At any rate, having had a number of younger siblings over the years, I have something to confess:

I sometimes forget my baby's name and whether she's a boy or a girl. In fact, just the other day, I started calling her to come with me from the kitchen into the living room and I called her "Gabriel." :-P Yeah, I only have one child, and I still can't get her name straight. It does help, however, if she's dressed in pink...so I've been using that more often. And, thankfully, I do usually remember who she is. I just have these momentary lapses, kind of like the double take I do when I see my 18 y.o. brother Benjamin, who looks very much like my brother Malachi used to look at one time (at least out of the corner of my eye).

Anyway, Josh looked at the above picture and commented on how alike Gabriel and Felicity look, adding that it was no wonder I got confused. ;-)

So as soon as I typed out the sentence about how Felicity didn't get into much mischief, I started thinking, "I'll bet this is about to change." And did it ever. ;-) Okay, maybe it didn't really get quite that bad, but her curiosity suddenly increased significantly and my diligence at teaching her "no" and "don't touch" became vital. Not only that, but Felicity has just figured out that she can stand on her own, even though she only does it a few seconds at a time. Her balance isn't quite good enough for walking, but I'd say she should be capable of taking steps in the next month or two. And, frankly, I'm ready for her to walk.

I know that increased mobility is this huge responsibility for me to deal with (especially with the climbing that is sure to accompany the ability to walk), but it is just getting really hard to pick her up constantly when I want to leave the room. And she cries if I even try to get her to crawl to go with me. I weighed her the other day and she's about twenty pounds. That's too much for me to carry around while I do everything else, especially since this particular twenty pounds has arms and hands constantly getting into everything. While I was brushing my teeth the other night, she pulled the soap dispenser off the counter (I was holding her) and it crashed and broke into pieces. :sigh: Oh well...back to the plastic soap pump we go.

I also neglected to mention that Felicity has been teething off and on. She has two bottom teeth, three top teeth, and another top tooth about to cut through. I am sincerely hopeful that her fussiness these last few nights has been due to teething, because if it's a new habit, I'm going to be really tired someday. LOL!

And, in other news, Josh took the money he made doing the paper route for a month and a half and turned it into a budget for starting his own design work. He's still going to work at the sign shop, of course, but this may provide an adequate secondary income for a time as he builds a portfolio and clientele which will hopefully lead to greater profitability in the future. So far he has purchased a monitor calibrator (pantone huey), amazing design software (Adobe CS4 Design Premium), some books to help him improve his skills, and office furniture (set up in our living room - making it way more awesome and functional) - an L-shaped desk, a couple of lamps, and an office chair and mat. He was able to find great deals on all of this stuff and it wasn't even used. It all works beautifully. I'm really excited to see what he's able to do with this, as I've definitely seen his design skills take off over the past year. And, while he's gone all day, I can borrow his desk and his new software and everything as much as I want. ;-)

Well, you know, as much as my baby and keeping up with all the cooking and laundry will allow me to...

So yeah. That's our excitement for right now. While Josh was looking for a second job and having very little success finding one, we were a little concerned about the effects of him getting one: no time as a family, no time to further his career, no time to sleep, no time in general. And really the main concern, overall, was that it would be a self-perpetuating cycle: he'd make just enough that way to sustain but not have a job that would increase his wage-earning potential. So then he'd be stuck working two jobs for the rest of his life. Hard work isn't a bad thing, but no family time is. So if he is able to increase his marketable skills in this area, perhaps he can turn it into a better-paying career that will allow him to keep his work hours shorter than he would otherwise. Even if he ends up putting in fifty hours of work a week or more, I think we'll still come out ahead this way.

One thing I've begun to wonder over the last few months of not having a job is why I thought it was so necessary for me to be generating an income. I'm sure it did help, but I just don't know how much. I was just sure we'd be facing some degree of financial ruin within a month or two, but that has yet to materialize, over three months later. I think part of the reason is that my predictions are based on a less than optimistic view of how much money we're likely to spend in a given time period, so I guess we're spending less overall than I had imagined. Maybe I need to look into improving my budgeting skills.