Baby steals

So it's no surprise that this new little guy is making me be a bit creative on getting goodies to care for him. So I've been on the prowl for excellent deals. Nothing beats some that I recently came across.

First of all, I found an ad in a baby magazine that if you used a code at Kohls while signing up for a baby registry, they would send you a $25 certificate after at least one product was purchased from the list. I thought, hey, that's a decent deal. I can put some clothes on a registry and send Jake in to buy something from it with cash. Well, guess what?  I didn't even have to do that. I was the lucky recipient of a $25 gift card to Kohls from my work as part of a very nice drawing that they did for nurses day. So I've been paying attention to deals. I found one this weekend. I received an email that I printed off for $10 off of a $30 purchase. I figured I could pick $30 worth of product, use the coupon, use my gift card and come out with all the goodies for $0 out of pocket. Plus, if I got something from my registry, hopefully they do in fact follow through with the $25 certificate.

What did I buy? Oddly, I didn't get any baby clothes from my registry. Because I found cheaper ones on clearance that were just as cute.

What I did get from my registry was a pair of slippers I put on there. I love these kind of slippers for places like hospitals. Why? Because I can wear them there and then throw them in the washer. Hospital floors are gross. I don't want that in my house. Although I love the slipper socks that I have, I don't like wearing them on the hospital floor and then getting into bed. So the slippers work the best. And they were on sale. So I got all these goodies for free. In fact they gave me $2.35 back from the remainder of the gift card. I added up the "Kohls inflated price" and their regular price for all (which is astronomical) was $78. So I think I did well.

Target offers a bag of goodies if you register with them as well, so I signed up online and then went in to get my goodies. I got sample wipes, diapers, a pacifier and a bottle along with a bunch of coupons. While we were there I found this awesome deal. A cute little sleeper (which I love when they are little because comfort is super important to me) for, get this, $2.38. That's cheaper than Goodwill sometimes.

One more deal. I have been searching for the top rated products that make sense to buy. One thing that always irked me is how often baby socks were pointless. There was just some brands that were useless. Like, don't even bother putting the socks on...they will be off by the time you look at baby's feet again. Well, on Amazon, Robeez and Trumpette socks are rated really well for staying on. One problem. They are not cheap. The Trumpette socks are about $20 for 6 pairs. So imagine my excitement when on my thrift store run I found 4 pairs of Trumpette socks for just $2. Yeah. They are used. But they are in perfect shape. And I don't know if you can tell, but two of them are actually Trumpette DISNEY. Yep. those circles are Mickey Mouse heads. Super cool. You can bet I will definitely be on the search for more deals like this!

Evil dessert

For Father's Day I made Jake one of his favorite desserts. Thankfully, this time I did not have any mishaps with the food processor (I once dropped the blade on my toe while making it causes a trip to the ER for stitches). The funny thing is, when Jonah saw me putting it into the oven he started to freak out saying that it was an evil dessert. I was quite puzzled until he asked me why I would make something out of blood. I assured him that it was cherries but he would not believe me. Poor kid missed out on a yummy dessert...and a'la mode too! Just too funny.

So what's the recipe? Here ya go.

Pear (or apple or peach) and Cherry Crumble

Heat oven to 425 degrees

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

5 tbs butter cut in pieces

1 can cherry pie filling

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 tbs cornstarch

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 1/2 tsp lemon juice

3 medium pears, apples or peaches (or combination of fruit)

Crumble flour, sugar and first listing of spices in food processor. Pulse to blend. Add butter. Pulse until coarse crumbs form. Pour cherry pie filling into 2 qt greased baking dish. Mix sugar, cornstarch and spices in bowl until blended. Stir in lemon juice. Add sliced fruit. Spoon over cherries. Top with topping. Bake 45 min or until topping is golden brown and fruit is tender. Cool. Refrigerate at least 8 hours. Or be like us and eat it warm with vanilla ice cream.

Try it. You will like it.

Bake off

In my quest to stock up my freezer now that we are down to the last 3 months, I bought two bags of flour from Sam's (regular flour and bread flour) and made a few things. I get 25# bags and put them into smaller bags and freeze them to maintain freshness. But first I made four dozen cookies, two dozen freezer biscuits, 4 balls of pizza dough, scones (that I actually baked) and a scone mix for later.  It took me awhile and I think I got a bit dehydrated because I was so intently working. But it's done and now I'm putting my feet up and trying to guzzle some water. And now I'm a few steps closer to getting a full freezer to prepare for the baby.

I made these scones after making a yummy scone mix that I had gotten from Jake and made for a tea party this past Wednesday. They were so good that I wanted to make some more. I found this recipe http://challengedairy.com/recipes/breads/scottish-scones-with-honey-butter and altered it a bit. 

Scottish Scones

1. 1 ½ cupsall-purpose flour
2. ¼ cupsugar
3. 1 Tablespoonbaking powder
4. ½ teaspoonsalt
5. ½ cup (1 stick)Challenge Butter
6. ½ cupmilk

1. 
   
   Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or two knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
2. 
   
   Add milk, mixing just until moist.
3. On lightly floured surface, roll dough into a circle one-half inch thick. Cut into 10 wedges. Place on greased cookie sheet.
4. 
   
   Bake in a 425°F oven for 12-15 minutes. Serve with Honey butter or Strawberry butter.
   
   
   To make a mix for later I just put all of the dry ingredients in a mason jar and will add the butter and milk before baking. 

Freezer Meals

With a new baby coming and whizzing through all of my freezer meals during my super sick first trimester, it's time to start thinking about replenishing my stash. So I decided I should give myself some accountability and start documenting some of the meals that I make.

Since I am supposed to be resting for the next few days I used one of the very last meals in my stash before I start replenishing. It is Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole. This is a great meal to make after Christmas or Easter to use up some of that leftover ham. I got the recipe from Pinterest (of course). Here's the link http://www.madefrompinterest.net/chicken-cordon-bleu-casserole/ . I am copy and pasting the actual recipe just in case for some crazy reason the link is taken down and I lose the lovely recipe.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

recipe adapted from tastykitchen.com

Base:

1 large rotisserie chicken, meat removed and pulled (about 5-6 C) or 5-6 C of chicken breast meat cooked and shredded into large chunks

1/2 pound sliced deli-style black forest ham, chopped or some yummy leftover ham from Christmas/Easter cut into chunks.

1/2 pound sliced swiss cheese

Sauce:

4 Tb butter

4 Tb flour

3 C milk

2 Tb lemon juice

1 Tb dijion mustard

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp pepper

Topping:

4 Tb melted butter

1 1/4 C seasoned bread crumbs

1/4 C parmesan cheese

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9×13 casserole dish with nonstick spray.  Layer the chicken in the bottom of the dish followed by the ham and finally the swiss cheese.

2.  In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Whisk in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Slowly add the milk, whisking to keep clumps from forming.  Turn the heat to high and cook until the sauce thickens and boils completely, whisking often.  Remove from the heat and add the remaining sauce ingredients.  Pour the finished sauce over the base layer already in the dish.

3.  In a small bowl, mix together the topping ingredients until the butter is evenly distributed over the crumbs.  Sprinkle over the top of the dish and bake for 45 minutes.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving so the sauce will thicken just a bit. You may want to cover the casserole for the first 20 minutes or so just so the crumb topping doesn't become too brown. This is just my personal preference.

Now, whenever I make this I try to make two. One to serve and one to freeze. The one to freeze I do not bake and I do not put the bread crumb topping on. In order to serve, I defrost completely and then add the crumb topping and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. I also serve this with potatoes. You can make some freezer twice baked potatoes or use some potatoes that you have on hand (today I had red potatoes) and then just throw them in the microwave and smash them with some butter and salt and pepper. Yummy. I also added some frozen veggies...but that's just me. This recipe is super delicious and well worth it to double and freeze for a lazy day meal...or when you are supposed to be "resting" (have I mentioned that I don't do "resting" very well? But then again, what mom does?

Well this isn't fun

I hate being a complainer. I feel like I complain a lot. I am really trying to be one of those glass is half full, rose colored glasses kind of gals...but unfortunately, I am just not very successful at that. What is my problem now? Well, I was hoping to avoid the dreaded "ANGRY UTERUS" or uterine irritability that I had when I was pregnant with the twins. Let me tell you. My uterus must keep a grudge. I started noticing things may not be quite right on Saturday because I noticed a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions. But by the end of my shift at work I decided, gah, it's the dreaded angry uterus striking again, when for the millionth time I had to take a sharp breath in from the back pain that now accompanied my tightened midsection. I went home after work, drank a bunch of water...peed a lot...and then got put on call for the millionth time on Sunday night. I took the night to relax. We watched Romeo and Juliet (the modern Leo DiCaprio one) and I had my feet up drinking my loathed water (have I mentioned that I hate water on my blog before?) yet I still had my lovely uterus and back yelling at me. So on Monday I called my OB and the triage nurse told me to drink more water...somewhere between 3-4 LITERS. I wanted to scream in the phone "I HAVE  BEEN DRINKING WATER ALL MORNING AND MY BODY STILL HATES ME!" but I refrained and instead told her that it was now 1pm and I had already drank 4 20oz bottles of water. To which I was told that "A lot of people carry bottles of water around but that doesn't mean that they drink them". I can't argue this. It is true. I am one of those people. But not today. I just took a deep breath and asked what else she wanted me to do. So I got an appointment with my doctor today. My orders; 3 days worth of Motrin and rest. Then reevaluate. And I got a fetal fibrinectin test done. Which I am sure will be negative like it was all last pregnancy. So I guess that means that this girl will be stuck slowing down (GASP) until the end of September. The thing that really stinks is how early I am compared to LAST time this happened. I am only 23.6 weeks. Last time I was 29 weeks. Oh the joys of pregnancy. I sure hope this little boy knows how much I love him!