Cooking with Little Guy- Veggie Dip

For Little Guy's birthday back in June, Grandpa and Grandma B. gave him a cookbook called Mom and Me Cookbook: Have fun in the kitchen! by Annabel Karmel.  In this cookbook are some really fun recipes.  We finally had a chance to try them out.

The first one we tried was called "Avocado Frog Dip."  We made a trip to the grocery store specifically to get the ingredients we needed, such as an avocado, lemon, chives, a cucumber, and olives.  While I helped with the hard parts (including chopping up the tomato), Little Guy put most of it together on his own.

Mashing the avocado.

Stirring in the tomato and other ingredients.

The finished dip!

I think it turned out really cute!  He put the face together himself! And the verdict?

First taste!

He liked it!  He even tried cucumber sticks dipped in it, as well as a sugar snap pea, two vegetables that I cannot normally get him to eat!  This is definitely a make again recipe!

What have you made with your little one lately?

My pregnancies (and losses)

Since Little Guy was an only child for almost four years, you may think that I was only pregnant twice.  Well, that's not the case.  It was not even the third time I've been pregnant.  No, this is the fourth time that I have been pregnant in the past four years.

This is one of those things that is really hard to talk about when you it is happening to you.  Back in September of 2012 we decided it was time to try expanding our family.  After  a few months, I got a  positive pregnancy test!  We were so excited.  It was early December so we decided to wait until Christmas to tell our parents.  My first prenatal appointment was scheduled for December 28 when I would be 8 weeks along.

At that appointment, the doctor did an ultrasound to date the pregnancy.  We saw a heartbeat, but the baby was only measuring 5 weeks 5 days.  The doctor ordered blood work and scheduled me to return in one week for another ultrasound to make sure the baby was growing.  The blood work came out fine.  The ultrasound, 8 days after the first, showed the baby measuring 6 weeks 1 day with no heartbeat.  I was so sad.  I opted to have a D&C the next day, which was one of the hardest days of my life.  That was my first angel baby.

Fast forward to the next December.  After months of trying, I got another positive pregnancy test. I was trying hard to be optimistic about this pregnancy. We were traveling home for December, so we wanted to tell our families in person.  On the drive (18 hours), I started spotting.  We arrived at our destination and held off sharing the news.  The day after Christmas, I started bleeding.  That was my second angel baby.

August 26.  That was the due date of both pregnancies that I lost.

When I found out I was pregnant with this little girl, I had such mixed emotions.  I was so glad to be pregnant after months of trying.  However, I was petrified that I would lose this pregnancy.  I think that I held my breath until my first ultrasound at 8 weeks.  I walked into the office, already crying because I had convinced myself that this was not a viable pregnancy.  However, the tears quickly turned to tears of joy as we saw a beautiful heartbeat!

I continued to exercise and was thankful (mostly) every day that I had morning sickness, as that meant that I still had pregnancy hormones going through my body.  As we approached our 19 week ultrasound, I was worried that something would be wrong with the baby.  But that ultrasound showed us a healthy baby girl!

I am so thankful and feel so blessed to now be able to hold our baby girl in my arms.  It was a long journey to get here.  I hope by sharing our struggles and finally our joy, others can have hope and realize they are not alone.

Little Sister's Birth Story

This story begins a few days before Little Sister arrived.  Being the planner that I am, I had planned for several things to get done about a week and a half before little sister was due (her due date was June 19).  Monday our dog got groomed.  Tuesday she had a teeth cleaning and house cleaners were supposed to come to clean the house.  Well, the house cleaners never showed, and after talking to their office, they were rescheduled to come the next day.  So Wednesday the house cleaners came.  I decided that Little Sister could come any time now, because I had everything done that I wanted completed before she arrived.  We were all ready for her, my parents were here, and Daddy was ready for the time off work.

Little Guy and I went to the zoo a week before Little Sister arrived.

Here I am at 37 weeks pregnant, 1 week before Little Sister was born. 

About 1:00am on Thursday morning I got up to pee.  As soon as I lay back down in bed, my water broke!  I woke Daddy up, who had only come to bed shortly before.  I wasn’t feeling any contractions, so I wasn’t sure if we needed to head to the hospital yet.  Daddy stripped the sheets off the bed (wish we had a waterproof cover!), and I called the maternity center at the hospital.  When I told them my water had broken, they said I needed to come right in.  I called Grandpa and Grandma B. first, as they were closest to us, and we needed someone to come stay with Little Guy.  Then I called Grandma and Granddaddy.  They said they would head over, too. 

My hospital bag was packed and so I got dressed.  Since we had to wait for someone to get to our house, Daddy took a quick shower.  Once Grandpa and Grandma B. arrived, Daddy and I left for the hospital, arriving there at about 2:00am. We were shown to a room, and I changed into the cute hospital gown Grandma had bought me.  Once they confirmed that my water had indeed broken, I was officially admitted to the hospital.  After hooking me up to the various machines, Daddy and I actually had time to rest.  My contractions were not very strong yet, so we napped off and on.  Around 7:00am my contractions started getting stronger.  We called the grandparents and told them to come to the hospital soon, as Baby Sister might be on her way. 

My contractions were now pretty intense and I was dilated to about 8 cm, so we decided to try sitting in the big tub to relax.  I made it through 1 or 2 contractions, but then decided it was time for an epidural.  Unfortunately, that meant that I had to stay in bed from then on.  The other bummer was that it slowed down my contractions.  My doctor had come to the hospital to check on me, and had called a few times to get updates.

About 11:00am I was ready to begin pushing.  My doctor had arrived, ready for the delivery.  Baby Sister’s heartbeat was remaining strong.  The epidural had worn off slightly (earlier I could not feel my legs at all), so I had some sensation and could feel what I was doing.  My contractions were about 10 minutes apart, so I was given Pictocin to help bring the contractions closer together.  After a little more than an hour of pushing, Little Sister was born at 12:17pm! 

They placed her right on my chest and I got to hold her, with Daddy right next to me.  It was love at first sight!  She was beautiful!  When we were ready, the nurse took her and cleaned her up, weighed her (7 pounds 1 ounce), and measured her length (19 inches, but Daddy says that was being generous).  Then Daddy went to get the rest of the family.

Little Guy waiting to meet his sister (I love this picture!)

The first meeting!

Little Guy and the grandparents came into the room.  Little Guy was so excited to meet his sister.  He came and sat on the bed with me and looked at her, already anxious to hold her. Snuggles were had all around, as everyone had a chance to hold the beautiful new addition to our family.

Hello again!

Hello!

Oh my, I  know its been a while, so we have a lot to catch up on!  I guess the biggest thing is that we are now a family of 4!

We welcomed Little Sister into our family on Thursday, June 11, 2015.  I will share her birth story soon!  Here is a picture from that wonderful day!

As you can imagine (or know), our lives have changed with this wonderful new addition.  I am learning to balance a 4 year old (yup, Little Guy turned 4!) and a newborn.  While it has amazing moments, it also has difficult ones.  I look forward to sharing more soon!