Monday, August 27, 2012

Menu Plan Monday!

Hello Monday!

Last week went fairly well, we actually have an extra meal to work in some where since we took our family to the fair one evening last week & ate junk there.  Pretty much breakfast & lunch weren't really followed, but I did refer back to my own post a few times over the week when I thought "what's for lunch?" which was helpful.

Here's what's up in this weeks menu & again, I'm linking up with Org Junkie's Menu Plan Monday.  Do you visit her site?  I like to click on a few of the other participants links and find new recipes to try.  :)

{Linking up to Org Junkie's Menu Plan Monday}
Monday, August 27th:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: Hot Dogs with cottage cheese & fruit
Dinner: Rigatoni Bake with green beans

Tuesday, August 28th:
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Egg Salad Sammies, steamed veggie & a fruit
Dinner: Pulled Chicken Sammies with corn & baked beans

Wednesday, August 29th:
Breakfast: Toast & yogurt
Lunch: Quesadillas, cottage cheese & fruit
Dinner: Meatloaf with baked potatoes & green beans (I am wishing for fall...)

Thursday, August 30th:
Breakfast: scrambled eggs & toast
Lunch: meatloaf sammies, fruit
Dinner: DIY pizza & fruit salad

Friday, August 31st:
Breakfast: French Toast
Lunch: PB&J sammies, cottage cheese & fruit
Dinner: Pasta Alfredo with steamed broccoli & french bread

Saturday, September 1st:
Breakfast: pancakes
Lunch: Lunchable (either home made or store bought), fruit
Dinner: Burgers with mac & cheese and steamed carrots

Sunday, September 2nd:
Breakfast: english muffins
Lunch: Sandwiches, cottage cheese and fruit
Dinner: Fried Rice with steamed veggies


Monday, August 20, 2012

Shhhh....

I used to fill my days with noise.

Always music and often TV (but never at the same time).

Then I had a kiddo.  And I cherished my quiet time during naps.

Ben's doorknob (I had no idea how bunged up our door frames were til I uploaded this pic...).  I dare not enter his room and risk waking him with the click and/or flash of the camera - he looks adorable, you'll have to take my word for it.
 Then I had another kiddo.

...and doing chores are noisy.  And while a babe is peacefully sleeping in a blissfully silent house... he shall startle quite easily at a sudden loud noise.

...and cry.

...for a long time.

...and so, we're rocking the New Age music channel on DirecTV this afternoon.


Menu Plan Monday.

This week I'm back to planning full days of meals - breakfast, lunch & dinner. Not necessarily because I need a plan, but I often forget to buy stuff for lunch and this forces me to pay attention to what's in our cupboards so we aren't eating PB&J's every day.  I've also menu planned for two weeks rather than one but I'll share next week's menu next Monday.  I'm trying to save some money on our grocery bill and I'm hoping that more than a week at a time planning will help trim that bill a bit.

{Linking up to Org Junkie's Menu Plan Monday}

August 20th:
Breakfast - Oatmeal
Lunch - Grilled Cheese Sammies, Cottage Cheese & Fruit
Dinner - Brats with home made potato salad & green peas

August 21st:
Breakfast - Cold Cereal
Lunch - Frozen Nuggets, Cottage Cheese & Fruit
Dinner - Santa Fe Crock Pot Chicken with Steamed White Rice

August 22nd:
Breakfast - Toast & Yogurt
Lunch - Leftovers
Dinner - Spaghetti with garlic toast & green beans

August 23rd:
Breakfast - Scrambled Eggs
Lunch - Banana Dog Bites, Cottage Cheese & Fruit
Dinner - Red Beans & Rice

August 24th:
Breakfast - French Toast
Lunch - Leftovers
Dinner - Pineapple Chicken Bites, Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Rolls

August 25th:
Breakfast - Pancakes
Lunch - Ham & Pineapple Skewers, Cottage Cheese & Fruit
Dinner - Taco Soup, Corn

August 26th:
Breakfast - Bagels & Cream Cheese
Lunch - Mac & Cheese, Cottage Cheese & Fruit
Dinner - Egg & Sausage Scramble with Toast

Monday, August 13, 2012

One Month.

Matthew,

You celebrated your one month birthday on August 1st!  I intend to do some monthly photos of you each month with the same props.  I took some at the beginning of the month in brother's wagon but I don't like the way they turned out.  I have another, simpler idea that I think I'll use starting in September.


You sleep a lot, but that's normal for your age!  During the day, you can be found swaddled and in your swing.  You love your swing.  We had one for Ben and Ben hated it so we sold it.  I had a hunch you'd love a swing and I found one for a rockin' deal on Craigslist and got it.  You do love it and I'm glad we got it!  You also love to be swaddled but you're a houdini & would bust out of any blanket, no matter how snug we got you. We ended up buying some of those swaddling blankets for you which have been amazing.  Night time you sleep in your crib.  Some times you sleep up to 5 hours between feedings.  During the day you go about 2 - 3 hours between feedings and eat for a minimum of 15 minutes, but mostly it's about 20 minutes to a half hour. 

Daddy used the tape measure on you the other day and we're thinking you're right about 22 inches.  Since you've burst out of your newborn sized clothes already, I think the hospital must have gotten your length wrong when they measured you at birth (since you measured 22" at the hospital and I know you've grown since then).  We have no way of knowing for sure, though...  we did a estimate weight on you (I weighed myself and then myself holding you) and you're right about 12 pounds, according to mommy's bathroom scale.  You love to eat!  :)

You love taking baths.  I'll admit that we don't give them to you as often as we did Ben,  but when we get you in the tub, you're quite happy to hang out and enjoy the sensation.  It took your brother a long time to warm up to the idea so it's fun watching you enjoy it!


You're starting to be awake longer periods during the day, which is lots of fun.  You've given us a few beautiful smiles (I haven't been able to capture one on camera yet, though!) and you're starting to gurgle & coo more.  Just like your brother, you seem to love sneezing and coo after each one.  Unless you're already tucked up in your crib or in your swing, every time brother goes to sleep, you & he have special brother cuddles before he goes to bed.  It's very sweet and Ben loves it.  I think you must, too!


According to Babycenter.com, these are the skills to be on the look out for this month in development:
Most babies can:
  • lift head when lying on tummy - check
  • respond to sounds - check
  • stare at faces - check
Some babies can:
  • follow objects briefly with eyes - check
  • vocalize with oohs & ahhs - check
  • can see black & white patterns - I think so.  You go super cross eyed at high contrast items
Few babies can:
  • smile/laugh - partial check.  you have smiled a few times.  no laughing yet, though
  • hold your head at a 45 degree angle - I don't think so
Love,
Mommy

Monday, August 6, 2012

Humor.

LOL moment of the day: Ben asks to watch the Happiest Baby on the Block DVD this morning so we popped it in (I think he only asked because there's a baby on the cover of the DVD).  If you know anything about this method, you can imagine there's lots of footage of crying babies who need soothed.  Lately, Ben has been pointing out things he has the same of: (seeing a steam roller at a construction site) "I have that same steam roller!" or (after seeing a toy of his on TV) "I have that same car!".

Today during the movie and a crying session, Ben says "I have that same baby!"

Love that kid.


Photo: I just love these boys! http://instagr.am/p/N_3yoREnC6/

Friday, August 3, 2012

Today.

(Warning - this is pretty much a bitch fest post.  A lot of "woe is me" and "poor me" and well, a spectacular pity party.  I'm feeling pretty pitiful.)

Today, life as a mom of two was fairly awful.

There were way too many tears and nearly all of them were mine.

The morning started out okay-ish.  Matthew has pretty much stopped the 5 hours at a time thing at night (that seriously blows) and seems to eat at about 1, again at 4 and then again at 6.  Nick has been doing the first feeding and then I'd do the rest... lemme tell ya, waking up after 2 hours of sleep is not fun.  I think tonight I'll do the 1st and then let Nick take the 4 am feed (you just watch, this will be the night that Matthew goes from 1 to 6).

We finally got every one assembled and out the door to take Nick to work (lemme tell ya, this one car thing also seriously blows) only to discover as Nick was about the exit the car that he'd left his work bag at home.  So back home we trotted and dropped him off to work there for the the morning, while the two littles & I headed down town to the library for the monthly puppet show.  Maybe next month we'll make it before it starts...

After we got home, I immediately sat down to nurse Matthew & Nick does the lunch for Ben.  Mid way through my feed, Nick comes in to tell me his meeting got moved to right that moment, so I'm on my own for putting Ben to bed.  Which is fine.  I handled it.  No sooner than I got Ben all tucked in and Matthew wants to eat again.  So I'm nursing Matthew, Nick gets done with his meeting and leaves for work.  No lunch break for him, I guess.

Matthew was a pill today.  I could not put him down for longer than 15 minutes at the most.  He wanted to eat nonstop (I nursed him every 40 minutes from noon to about 5 and even gave him a bottle of formula in the middle, hoping that would help... nope).

Ben was also a pill.  He didn't fall asleep for his nap til nearly 3 hours after I put him down.  Slight scare... I guess I bumped the volume dial on his monitor down to off while I was in Matthew's room nursing.  I got him laid down and was walking down the hall when I heard Ben calling for me through his door.  He'd thrown up.  I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure he tried to eat the band aid that was on his arm and he choked on it.  I'm so glad the worst thing to happen was vomiting on his clothes & sheets (I'm deducing this is what happened because #1 - he was not at all devastated to have thrown up, like he is when he's actually ill and #2 - I found the soggy band aid in the middle of the vomit mess.  awesome).  In the middle of cleaning that up, Matthew woke up.

Sigh.

And so went my afternoon.

And then it got worse when Nick came home and informed me he is required to be in San Jose on Monday.

To say I'm devastated and panicked is an understatement.  I am terrified to be by myself for 3 days with absolutely no help or support.  I'm sure we'll make it out alive and I know I'm not the only parent to ever deal with a toddler and a newborn at the same time, flying solo but....  I'm not at all sure how I'm going to pull this off.  Especially in the evenings, which is Matthew's witching hour.  I don't want to deal with this and I want Nick to find a new job.  Traveling, in my opinion, is now completely out of the question.  If his work can't deal with that, then he needs to find other work.

Then I bashed my toe.  This wouldn't be a big deal, but lemme tell ya a little story 'bout this toe.  About 2 weeks ago, I was hauling our patio set around the yard to clean off and list on Craiglist and I set one of the chairs down on my toe SUPER hard (it didn't break but it sure felt like it did - not bad enough that I wouldn't have been able to climb up to see Anne Frank's house, but that's another story...).  Since that day, I have smacked it on something or dropped something on it almost every day.  This poor toe...

Today wasn't all bad though:
  • the puppet show was fun and it was nice to see other mommy's
  • Nick got a bonus with pay day, so that was a nice (and very much needed) surprise
  • we got a delicious meal delivery from another mommy friend and rice crispie treats with it (so yummy, or as Ben said "these are a-licious!")
  • on the way home from the library, Matthew started to throw a fit.  Ben said "calm down, brudder, calm down" and I told Ben Matthew was just hungry, to which Ben informed Matthew that he'd just have to wait.  Then I asked what did Matthew eat and Ben said "chickens!" and I said "noooo" and Ben said "milk!" and I said, "that's right!" and Ben said "from your boo boos!"  ha ha that kid cracks me up
  • park play this evening, where Ben got to talk to a policeman and SIT IN a police car - so cool!
Wish me luck next week....