All Things Baby!

Everyone has been asking, so here is the full scoop on our newest member of our family!

March 17th, 2014 we found out we were pregnant.  We love St. Patrick's Day so I couldn't have asked for a better day to find out the news.  Of course we are really excited!  Things kind of spun out of control since we found out, but in a good way.  Not being able to keep it in, we each told some super close friends.  I knew I needed someone to chat with.  My doctor's appointments were every 2 weeks the 1st trimester so it was nice to get text messages the morning of from some of my girlfriends asking how it went and filling it with excited smiley faces.  Those short texts meant so much to me and they still do. 

I feel very lucky as I haven't had any morning sickness or issues.  I did have a couple of things that didn't agree with me, but nothing that I would classify as horrible.  There was about 4 days in my 1st trimester that I came home from work and just wanted to sleep, but that was about it.  So far so good!  As far as cravings, I think about desserts more than I ever have.  I don't act on them though as they aren't strong.  I did make some cookies 2 weeks ago at home! Preston calls me Cookie Monster every time I eat one, but it makes me laugh.  I'm sure I'll polish them off by the end of this week. 

As far as telling people we are having a baby, we just didn't have time! In April we called our friend and started the process of putting our townhome on the market to sell and finding a new place to live.  The months of May/June went by FAST.  We sold our home and signed the contract to build a new one.  To add to everything we had a trip to Germany planned that we had booked back in January.  That trip was in June.  Soon we were telling family and friends the exciting news of the baby! But there was one person we wanted to tell in person and that was my sister who we were going to see in Germany.  Because we didn't want her to find out prior, we didn't post anything on Facebook. 

Once we came back from Germany and she knew, then we mailed out announcements to everyone else we hadn't told in person.  We got so used to not putting it on Facebook it was nice to just keep going.  This is the card we mailed to tell people we were moving and having a baby.  The back had our change of address and baby due date.  Which, by the way, is November 2014.

 

 

With our trip to Germany in the middle of our doctor appointments it delayed finding out the gender.  Once we found that out, we created some fun cards to mail out to everyone! This we did post on Facebook.

 

 

 

We are having a little boy and I'm getting more and more excited about it every day.  Today we went to the mall and I realized that we won't have to buy prom dresses! Oh the drama.  Yesterday we took our first stab at registering and boy was that intense.  Totally not sure if we got all the stuff correct, but we had fun doing it! All the stuff is so cute and small. 

 

So that is the cliff notes of what has been happening.  I'm currently 23 weeks and my official due date is November 20th.  A week before Thanksgiving.  We will be bringing the baby home to the apartment as our new house won't be ready until early January.  Not how I pictured this all happening, but sometimes that is just how things happen.  Team Blue! 



Preston's Birthday and Pot Roast Sunday

Preston's Birthday was last week! The 18th.  This was the first time since I have known Preston that his birthday fell on a Friday.  I was pretty excited about this.  We could have a Birthday weekend for him!  Friday night we did a dinner with 13 of his friends.  It was a lot of fun, but I didn't get any pictures. Was having too much fun.  He has been wanting an Xbox One since they came out last year to replace his perfectly working Xbox 360.  I don't see why it needs to be replace.  But he also doesn't understand why I need more than one purse, so we just go with it.  Saturday was spent doing pretty much nothing except setting up the Xbox.  I have to admit, it's pretty cool compared to the 360.  It looks better and has more features.  Once we move into our new house it will be nice because we will be able to have an Xbox downstairs and upstairs.

A random fun fact about Preston and me is that in our youth we both loved Tippins French Silk Pie.  I rarely got to go to Tippins, but when I did I always got the Chicken Pot Pie and a slice of pie for dessert.  I don't know what it was about that place.  I think maybe the long cases of pies when you walked in or the fact that it was usually after a day of just my mom and me when we would go.  It always felt like a treat.  Preston also has similar stories.  Fast forward to 2014 and I found their pie!! Of course I had to buy one as a surprise.  I waited till Sunday morning to bring it out and we each had a slice for breakfast.  It was so good! But kind of made us both sick as we don't normally eat sweets so just one slice it was. 

I think his birthday was a success so Happy Birthday Preston!  Next year your birthday will be on a Saturday so maybe a weekend trip?

The weather here in Dallas has been unseasonable cool for July.  I love that, as I do not like the heat unless I'm working out or doing an activity that I'm suppose to be sweating.  The cool air has made me want to cook up some of my winter dishes.  I've been fighting it so far, but finally gave in and bought stuff to make a pot roast.  I really didn't want to use our crock pot so looked for reciepes that I could use our dutch oven.  Found One! It was from the Pioneer Women.  I always hear so much about her but never made one of her recipes.  This one was ok, but not a repeat.  Preston even said it was ok, but liked my crock pot recipe better.

Here are all the ingredients.  Roast, salt, beef broth, carrots, and onions. Very simple. 

Chop up the onions in big chunks.  I use baby carrots instead of chopping up regular carrots.  This is before photo, but you brown them in the pot with olive oil before putting in for the long cooking. 

Remove carrots and onions and then put in the pot roast.  Coat it will salt and pepper, pretty heavy and brown it on both sides.  (add more olive oil if needed)  Add thyme and rosemary. Then remove.

Pour in the beef broth and scrape up anything that is left from the browning of the carrots, onions, and roast.  Then put everything back in the Dutch Oven.  Fill with beef broth half way.  Cover and cook at 275 for about 3 hours!

When finished it will just fall apart and is super juicy.  You could probably add potatoes if you wanted.  I put it all in one dish for easy leftovers the rest of the week.

It's not part of the recipe, but I made some gravy with the leftover juices.  There was a lot left over so I removed about 75% of it then slowly added flour until it was the consistency I liked.  There you go, gravy. 

We ate it for about 3 days then we lost interest.  Ready to move on.  I did try to make a pot roast wrap for dinner one night.  That was a fail, but we laughed about it and still ate the mess it was.  Just picture pot roast, in a tortilla with lettuce, then gravy as dressing.  Roll it up then put it in the sandwich press.  Yup...not a good idea.  Oh Well!  I tried!  The weather is starting to heat up, triple digits.  I will go back to making our summer dinners of grilled/broiled chicken with steam veggies.

My First Sunday Prep Day!

For the first time ever, I prepared some food for the entire work week.  I have never done that before.  The idea always seemed so nice and I have plenty of friends who are great at it.  My friend Alysia is amazing.  She has her own blog called Slim Sanity and the things she post about food prep seem so out of my league.  Click here for her website if you want to check it out.  She also post some great recipes.

So I'm starting small.  Breakfast.  While we were in Germany last month we picked up a healthy breakfast habit.  Of course I know that people do this in America so before you start thinking I think this is a Germany meal, slow your roll.  The difference is that when we were there we stayed in a different city practically every day which meant a new hotel breakfast each morning.  It didn't take long for us to start going towards the same thing.  Something that would gives us energy for the day and was filling, yet tasty.  Yogurt, granola, and fruit! So simple.

When we got back home we found ourselves missing the refreshing meal in the morning.  It wasn't long before we bought a big thing of plain yogurt, box of Kashi granola, and some strawberries & blueberries. That worked for a while, but having to make it each morning before work grew old.  Especially on the go.  Most mornings we don't eat at home for breakfast and by most I mean never.  We were putting it in Tupperware and taking it with us.  While at the grocery store last Friday I came up with an idea that was so obvious I can't believe it took me this long.  Buy indiviual plan yogurt cups instead of a big tub. Make baggies of pre-cut berries.  Keep a box of granola at work.  So all you have to do in the morning is just grab a cup of yogurt and a baggie and your off! Get to work and put it all in a bowl, tada!  So here is my prepping.  So proud of myself.

Strawberries and Blueberries

This cereal works great for granola in yogurt.
I love Oiko's brand, but any type would work of course. 

Chopped and ready to bag!

Stick it all in the fridge for easy Grab-n-Go for the morning!

When put all together, yummy!

I hope to start getting more into the Sunday food prep movement.  It seems so logical and easy, I just need to make the time.  Feels good to be finished and know that tomorrow morning I won't have to do anything.

Helllllllo!

Topics to cover in the least amount of space:

1. Germany
2. Move

1. June 13th - 22nd we went to Germany to visit family.  It hadn't been to Germany since 1998.  Sooo excited to get back.  Between the 2 of us we have 4 devices worth of pictures.  Hundreds of memories.  So far I've uploaded 2 of them.  I'm going to make a Shutterfly book the next time they have their 50% off photo books.  I just love those things!  Here are some highlights.

Whole family enjoying brats and beer! (they loved that I took a pic mid bite)

Sister's Family

Dachau

Wurzburg (our favorite city)

more Wurzburg

Brats and Potato Salad....classic

  2. As if I haven't blasted all over Facebook enough already, we moved.  After 12 years of living in the Up/Down/Deep Ellum Area we moved.  We didn't just move past Mockingbird or Walnut Hill....we moved past 635. ::insert blank face::  But we are very excited because we found a random little spot by the Addison Airport and are building a home.  Super excited! But have to live in an apartment until it's ready, which won't be until January of 2015.  Here are some pictures of that adventure:

Our Lot!

Some of our colors for the exterior.  We went with the dark brick, wood trim, and dark garage door.  Not pictured is the stone.

The inside of our temporary apartment. Not to bad, It will work for 8 months.

Our inside picks! Hardwoods, bathroom/kitchen counter, etc.  So much fun to pick everything out.

Kitchen cabinets!

Our empty town home. So strange. 

4th of July at our future home!

We can see Kaboom Town Addison from our front yard!

That's all the time I for now, time to make dinner! I have tons more to catch up on, so soon.