Food & Family

Christmas Break started off early with a few snow days! I tried my hand at a few new dinners on those days. On Thursday, I made Taco Pie. The pie crust was taco meat mixed with crushed tortilla chips. The filling was spanish rice, corn, salsa, beans, and taco sauce. I didn't take a picture - and it's probably a good thing because it didn't look that spectacular. Brown and tan food doesn't photograph that well... BUT it did taste good!

Friday night I cooked up Chicken Caprese with Bacon.

Of course we had to add bacon because Zach loves anything with bacon.

I actually took pictures of this one as I went.

First, I thawed out 3 chicken breasts and put them on a piece of foil in a 9x13 pan. Then I brushed them with oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper.

Next, the recipe said to top with a slice of fresh tomato and a fresh basil leaf... well, I didn't have either of those so I had to improvise. I topped them with canned diced tomatoes (that I drained first) and then sprinkled about 3/4 tsp. dried basil on top. (*Tip: if you rub the dried spices between your hands before adding it to the dish, it brings out the flavor more!)

Then came the bacon. The recipe had me cook it in the oven for a few minutes so it was partially cooked but still flexible before criss-crossing it over the chicken.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until no longer pink. Top with a slice of mozzarella cheese and put back in the over for about 1 minute (until cheese melts).

I served these with a salad on the side. Delicious!

We celebrated Cook Christmas on Saturday the 22nd in Frankenmuth at Zehnder's. There was a little room reserved for us and they served us a delicious, family-style dinner. Unfortunately, I didn't get to eat very much of it because my stomach wasn't feeling very well. I think I ate something bad a lunch the day before and had an upset stomach for the rest of the day. It got worse when I was trying to sleep and woke up every hour until I threw up around 1AM. Ick. I hate throwing up. But I felt better. When I got up in the morning, there was a purplish-blotchy rash all over my chin and up around my mouth. It looked like a bad 5 o'clock shadow... I did my best to cover it with makeup but it didn't really help. I called a nurse friend and asked about it. Since I hadn't started any new lotions, shampoos, or medicines, she thought it could be broken blood vessels from the vomiting. That's what it probably was since there were broken blood vessels in my eyes too. If those are the after effects of one vomiting episode - I'm not thrilled about what might happen when I have to push out a baby in April... Anyways, it was great to see everyone and catch up with them. Aunt Linda & Uncle Wayne got us a cute box of baby socks, a baby outfit, and this adorable little lamb stuffed animal.

Here's a week 25 belly shot. I've been told that it looks bigger in person that in the photos - so it's getting bigger than it looks! :)

25 weeks

The day before Christmas we got a package from Candace with this adorable pink John Deere onesie and socks. This baby girl is loved. :)

Christmas Eve was spent with my parents and family. Here's a picture of Simba hanging out under their tree.

Christmas Cat

Christmas Day (morning) we spend with Zach's family. I got a few things I was really excited about! One was an iPad from Zach! It's great and I've been trying to find time to play on it and use it often. The second was the Pioneer Woman Cookbook!

I first started following her blog a year ago or so. I liked that she put pictures of each step of her recipes on the blog and she also included step by step pictures in the cookbook too. There is a breakfast, lunch, dinner, appetizers, beverages, and canning section.

Later on Christmas Day, we drove to Farmington Hills for Thorne Christmas. We headed back home that night because Zach had to work the next day. My parents stayed a few days and it was a good thing they did because my grandpa ended up going into the hospital. He coughed really bad all night, nobody slept, and my dad helped my grandma take him to the hospital in the morning. They admitted him and put him on a lot of antibiotics and did a few breathing treatments and he started to get better. Doctors think it was bad bronchitis. All his symptoms were almost identical to what happened to him the day after Katie's wedding in June. He spent a few days in the hospital before they discharged him on Sunday afternoon.

Zach and I went to Livonia on Saturday the 29 for O'Neill Christmas. My grandparents live about 10 miles from there so we went and spent the night with Grandma then went and visited Papa on Sunday.

We celebrated Tyler's birthday by eating dinner at Pizza Hut then going back to Zach's parents for dessert and presents. Instead of giving him a gift card or big bills in cash, we took 27 one-dollar bills and taped them together then rolled them up and put them in a box. So when he opened it he kept pulling out more money. It was hilarious! And much more fun than a gift card!

Happy 27th Birthday!

We spent New Year's Eve at the Morse's house with a bunch of family and friends. Katie & Kyle came up from Illinois again and Rachel & Jared were even there too! (The only one we were missing was Amy, who went to a college conference called "Urbana" for a week.) We had people sacked out all over our house so I got up and made a big breakfast New Years Day before we went out to my parents' house to watch bowl games and play some backyard football. Pregnancy has limited the contact sports for me for awhile so I stayed inside. It was either that or stand outside and freeze playing referee...

Well, that's all for now. Next post I'll add the mini pineapple upside down cakes I made as well as some nursery ideas I've got rolling around.

Love,

Sarah

Early December Update

Well, well, well. Another post! And so soon after the last!

Things have been moving right along around here. We finally got our first big snow of the year that stayed on the ground. We got a snow day out of it on Monday - it was debatable whether school should have been cancelled or not, but I'm not complaining!

June was hilarious in the snow for the first time! She just kept running around getting mouthfuls of snow and eating it! It didn't seem to bother her that it was cold or wet, she just wanted to eat it. But what doesn't that dog want to eat?! Then later that night when the snow was falling again, we walked her around and she kept jumping up in the air to try to catch the snowflakes in her mouth. It was quite the sight and I wish I had a picture or video of that.

June's first walk in the snow!

Trying to eat the snow 

Sunday afternoon we cut down our Christmas tree and put it up. We didn't get the chance to decorate it until Tuesday night... oh well. It's done now. I'm always so torn between wanting a pretty, matchy-match tree and wanting the nostalgia of a hodge-podge tree.

Hodge-podge.

You know. The tree covered with macaroni ornaments, clothespin reindeer, and puzzle piece wreaths with your school picture in the middle that you made in elementary school?!

Yeah, that one.

It's fun to get out each ornament and remember why you got it or who you got it from. They bring familiarity to the season. But the matching ones look so nice! Maybe next year I can talk Zach into having one of each...

Teaching has been going well. That's an understatement; teaching has been going VERY WELL compared to last year. It's amazing how different the groups of kids are each year. This class has been so much more easygoing, independent, and advanced than last year. It's been fun to do more things with this class because they can handle it and I'm not dealing with downright rude & naughty behaviors every two minutes. That's not saying this year has been an entire cupcake, easy, breezy class. I've got a few who are challenging enough to make up for the rest of the class when it comes to behavior.

The countdown to Christmas Break is on! Only 7 more school days! Our last day is Friday, December 21 and we've got a whole bunch of stuff packed in there: regular lessons, plus Christmas lessons, students making crafts for their family members, plus a fun sledding day and a Christmas party... whew! Somehow it will all get done!

Zach's been a busy beaver. He's still working at CPS. He was one of six people from the whole division who got asked to be on a new technology team. CPS bought their salesmen iPads and Zach's really good with that techy kind of stuff so they asked him to be on this team. They have to meet and put together a presentation about new apps and the best ways to maximize the use of the iPad on the job. They have to present for their big conference this winter which I think he's a little intimidated by but he'll do a great job. Especially since it involves technology and farming and teaching others how to use it to their best benefit.

He also got asked to go a weeklong event in February out in California where they will tour a bunch of farms... and something else that I can't remember... whoops. I need to listen better and ask more questions.... All I know is that not many guys get asked to go and they asked him, so that is pretty cool! I'm super proud of him! He works really hard and puts a lot of time and effort into doing his job right, solving tech issues, dealing with unmotivated co-workers, helping the guys in the shop, keeping schedules organized, and taking care of his customers. So it's great that others have been noticing - not just me! :) Had to brag him up a little bit!

Zach's also been going through Fire Department Training since September. He has class two nights a week and then one Saturday a month (which thankfully went down to one night a week starting this week!). He carries a pager/radio thing around with him now and has gone out on a few calls: one was a garage fire and another was a single-wide trailer fire. Since he's still in training he has to wear a bright orange vest that says CADET on it over the top of his fire gear - and he can't really do a whole lot at the scene besides stand around and ask questions. But he's getting his face around the guys which is good. The class goes all winter and into the spring when they test out in April... April 13 to be exact. Which is three days after our baby is due... Here's hoping she's three days late or that he can pick a different test date!

Baby's doing good. She's moving around lots in there! Being kicked and poked and prodded from the inside is a straaaaaaaange and very unique feeling... Here's a picture from this week:

23 weeks

There's no denying there's a bump! As you can see, I need to buy more maternity shirts since the ones I have stick out at the bottom because they're not long enough. It turns out that Big Rapids doesn't have maternity clothes at ANY of the few stores we have (Meijer, Wal-Mart, Peebles, JC Penney) so I'm going to need a shopping trip to Grand Rapids very soon. Plus, as you CAN'T see from this picture, none of my pants really button anymore and are being held up by a rubber band around the buttonhole. :)

Moral of the story: none of my clothes fit. And that's okay. Because I very happy there's a baby in there that we get to see and hold in April!

Love,

Sarah

It's a Girl!

This year my birthday fell on Thanksgiving week (which meant a short work week for me) AND the week we got to find out the gender of our baby! The much anticipated ultrasound was on Wednesday afternoon (Nov. 21). I was supposed to have a half-day of school... until I threw up in my car on the way there... so 7:30AM I had to call in for a last-minute sub and drive myself back home and crawl into bed. It was the 24-hr flu. Ugh. But I was bound and determined to get to that ultrasound by 2:00PM because it would be another month wait if we had to reschedule. So I slept all day and tried to keep down as much fluid as possible, which wasn't much. Zach came home around 1:30 and we decided to just go for it. I almost made it. Not really. I puked in a bucket as we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. But then I felt better so we went in anyway.... that was probably a huge no-no: going into a hospital while sick with the flu but, oh well. We did and its over. And we got to see the Little Cookie in there!!!

20 weeks

The ultrasound room was stinkin' HOT and we were in there for 45 minutes but we got to see the baby again! We asked the ultrasound tech not to drop any gender hints if she could tell what it was because we wanted her to write it down on a notecard we brought. She took a ton of pics and another tech came in and took more and they both agreed on the gender so they wrote it down and sealed the envelope. Baby didn't really cooperate until the very end -- all curled up and facing away from the camera then finally turned a little to let us see the profile a bit. But the chin was tucked down on it's belly so all we could see was the eyes and nose and barely the upper lip. Also, they both agreed NOT to change the due date based on the measurements and whatever else they look at. April 10th it is. They sent us home with a sealed envelope and a CD of pictures - that we couldn't look at until Sunday!!!

camera shy

All curled up with the chin on the belly

After my bout with the flu, the next day was Thanksgiving and we drove to Farmington Hills for Thorne Thanksgiving. Not much food cramming for this girl since my stomach was still recovering from the day before. The cool thing about Thanksgiving was that Zach got to feel the baby move for the first time! He's been wanting to feel it SO BAD and he finally got to! I still wasn't even feeling it much until that week. Anyway, one of those milestones that made me smile - just to see the look on his face!

 Zach went out at midnight on Black Friday with my brothers. They went to the Twelve Oaks Mall -- I think they're crazy!!! Then they got up early the following morning and went out again! I slept in. :) Later that morning we spent time with my grandparents in Westland.

On the way home, we took that sealed envelope with baby's gender written down and stopped at Babies R Us. We picked out a boy and girl outfit then we asked the cashier to open the envelope and wrap up the outfit that matched what the notecard said. We paid with cash and had him put the change and receipt back into the envelope then we went and walked around the store. After wandering through the super long aisles of strollers, car seats, and baby monitors we went back up to the register and took our wrapped up package home. So from Friday night until Sunday afternoon, we had a present all wrapped up waiting to be opened!!!

Somehow we waited until Sunday afternoon. With both our families standing around (and a few on Skype!), we opened it up with lots of screaming and saw the outfit was pink! There were a few tears shed all around. My mom just loves babies so she didn't care what it was. Zach's mom, the mom of two boys, was really hoping for a girl and she got her wish! The second wish to come true would be for her to be born on her birthday, April 6. We'll have to wait at and see! (You can check out the reveal video on Facebook.)

It's a girl!

I'm just glad I can stop calling the baby "it!" There's a "SHE" in there! :) And she's been quite active the past few weeks so I've felt her a lot and Zach has too. We're at 22 weeks this week: slightly over halfway there. 40 weeks is full term. Wow. My belly's got a lot of stretching to do before then! And we're got a lot of stuff to do & buy and books to read!

Love,

Sarah