Never too Late for Easter

I know it is WAY past Easter, but I am so far behind on posting that here it is, Mother's Day, and I am finally blogging about Easter. We had a very nice day, Sydney loved the Easter baskets. Church is always so much fun on Easter with all the kiddos dressed up in their fancy Easter clothes. Sydney had on her pretty little Easter dress with lacy gloves, purse, and ruffle socks. We went the day before to my mom's work for the annual Easter egg hunt. It was freezing cold and pouring down rain, but Sydney still managed to clean up with tons of candy that we are still eating.

Nothing Much

My mom reminded me/pestered me today about the fact that I haven't updated this blog in 2 weeks. I'm sorry, but we really haven't been up to much of anything fun and I have no new pictures to share. Here's what we have been doing:
-I woke up last weekend with the sudden urge to re-arrange large pieces of heavy furniture. Actually, every piece of heavy furniture that we own. Poor Chris. He was such a great sport about moving the large dresser, the piano, the TV, Sydney's kitchen set, the piano again, the toy cupboard, a large table, and once again, the piano. All in all, our master room, Sydney's room, and the front room are now all completely different, and much more open and spacious. Thank you to my dad who came and helped!
-Nesting seems to be in full force as this evening I was gripped with a determination to clean the oven. And no self-cleaning cycle would do, I was half-way in there, scrubbing every nook and cranny. Then I did the same thing to the microwave. Then I swept and mopped and scrubbed the appliances and cleaned out the deep freezer in the garage. The only reason I didn't move on to organize the laundry area was because I needed to stop for some ice cream.
(Am I boring you yet? Aren't you glad I don't have pictures to post of these thrilling activities of mine?)
-I went on a trip to a spa last weekend with Melissa and some friends. Melissa treated us all to lunch, then a complete day at the spa with massages, facials, and mani-pedi's as a thank you for the last year of help with bedrest and twins. It was so much fun! I had never been to a spa before. While it was completely unnecessary because I love Melissa and her kids to bits and pieces, it was very much appreciated!
-Chris went down to Eugene to see some friends and played at a poker game. He came in second and bought Sydney and I Red Robin with the winnings.
-Savannah's room is still not cleaned out, but a lot of Sydney's old clothes that will be passed down to her are washed, sorted by size, and ready to be put away. We have 3 boxes of diapers and a box of wipes so far, with my goal being to buy something each paycheck to stock away.
(Have you fallen asleep yet? Except for the spa, nothing much fun here.)
-Sydney continues to be adorable. She is becoming a little tyrant at bedtime, though, which is a surprising and challenging struggle. We are trying to work through it without going completely crazy. She is becoming more of a girly-girl every day, and I couldn't be happier! With the exception of bedtime or when I am on the phone, she is sweet and loving and sings and dances her way through each day. We are blessed to have her!

I think that's about it. Hopefully we'll be doing some more things in the weeks to come with the warmer weather and I'll have some pictures to post. And because I feel so guilty about depriving you all of a picture of my adorable little miss, here is one from a few weeks ago when she was helping me with laundry. She took a pair of Chris' shorts from the dryer and put them on! You can see in the background all of the tubs of her old clothes before I sorted them for Savannah.

Sneaky Little Trickster

Sydney has this bad habit of going into my purse and getting out the things she is not supposed to play with, like my phone, or the IPOD. Sometimes she will even get out the camera, and somehow she can use it better than I can. When she does this, she will take like 50 pictures of random things, like her toys or the kitchen cabinets, and then turn off the camera and put it back. The next time I go to use it, the memory card is full of random things from around my house. A while ago I started leaving the camera on the counter and this is what I got...

...you can see the edge of the counter there, and little Miss Sydney, being naughty and taking pictures again. I can't get mad, though, because look how cute this is...

I think I've posted these before, but a few weeks ago I once again found some more random Sydney shots on my camera, and it made me think of these. This is my favorite one from the last batch:

That's my girl! She took a picture of my Gilmore Girls DVD collection! She loves that show, too, and it made me laugh to come across this! What a silly girl!

Tator Tots, Unplugged

Weeeelllll....tator tot casserole didn't go quite as planned. I didn't make the Duggar version because I didn't have evaporated milk. The one I threw together was really good...except for the tots. I accidentally bought onion seasoned tots, and oh man, they were like biting into an onion with every bite! It would have been great with regular ones, though. We helped calm the taste down by dousing it with cheddar cheese, but still! I already have pregnancy induced heartburn, and the onion tots didn't help it any! I'll make the regular version again, but I really don't think it would freeze well, which is kind of the point of this whole experiment. Any freezable ideas? Not just for tator tot casserole, but for other dishes? I am specifically in the market for things that freeze well, but would be great in summertime.

On a side note, this whole freezable dinners things makes me think of Steel Magnolias. Remember when Daryl Hanna's character, Annelle, makes the dinner of beans to take to the Eatenton's after the surgery? And she says she picked that recipe out of the "freezes beautifully" section in the cookbook, because she wanted to take them something that would freeze beautifully? Ah, great movie! I wonder if there even is a cookbook with a freezes beautifully section?

Toasted Ravioli

Ok, I made a "new" dinner tonight, in my quest to spice things up in the kitchen. I made Toasted Ravioli's from the Gooseberry Patch cookbook and website. It was good, but man it took forever. You take a bag of frozen ravioli's and cook according to the package directions. Then, dip in an egg/milk wash and then coat with a mixture of italian seasoned bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Then, coat a skillet with EVOO and toast the ravioli's to your heart's content. The plus side is that it was really tasty, and my house smells really good like home cooked italian dinner. The bad side is, it took FOREVER, and I do mean forever. A standard bag of frozen ravioli's is 25 oz, and it takes so long to coat them all and toast them in the skillet. I think next time I will coat and toast only half of them and then freeze the other half with some marinara sauce.
Next up for my "new" dinners is at Chris' request: Tator tot casserole. I know, this isn't really new, but I haven't made it before and he specifically requested it. I am going to try the Duggar's version since they rave about it all the time on their show. I'll let you know how it goes.

Easter Pictures

Easter is almost here and Sydney couldn't be more excited. We've been reading books about Jesus, talking about Easter eggs, and got a pretty little Easter dress. She even kind of remembers bits and pieces about Easter last year, which is exciting. Today she had her Easter portraits and oh my goodness, that girl is so stinkin' adorable it just takes my breath away (I know I'm a bit biased, but come on, look at those curls).

She kind of looks like a 50's housewife here, right? "Welcome home, dear, the pot roast is on the table."



So precious, this is how she looks when she's praying, except here she was peeking!

I also did some casual shots while we were in. She was hamming it up for the camera!

Our Little Princess

When we were at Disneyland a few months ago, Sydney's favorite part was meeting the princesses. You go into this courtyard-type place and meet each princess individually, and you get to spend 5 minutes with each princess. The down side is it's 3 random princesses at any given time, so she was disappointed when Cinderella wasn't there. While you're in there, they have a professional photographer there taking pictures, and you can order the photos or a CD. Being the blogger mom that I am, I of course got the CD so I could order my own prints and share these fun pictures with all of you.
Her favorite princess by far that day was Ariel, which is funny considering she's never even seen The Little Mermaid. The Ariel lady was awesome, she asked Sydney to help her practice dancing "on human legs." Sydney was truly in awe!





This is my favorite one, you can just see how excited she was!


Then it was on to meet Mulan and Snow White. You can probably tell by the fake, pasted on smile that she was not impressed with them!


That should have been it, but then they did a princess shift change, and Belle and Aurora came in, so Sydney got to meet 5 princesses instead of 3! Aurora let Sydney play with her hair, which is one of Sydney's favorite things to do!


Sydney still talks about meeting the princesses every day. She can't wait to go back to Disneyland again! It was well worth the price of admission and the 2 hours in line for her to have that experience! I LOVE having a daughter!

Creative Thinking

Melissa and I were talking a few weeks ago about a truly boring topic, but it got me thinking. We were discussing our lack of creativity lately with planning dinners for our families. Doesn't it just seem like it's the same ol' thing lately? At my house, the "same ol' thing" is tacos, pizza, or Wendy's. Not very fun, and not very healthy. Inspired by a few friends who have been posting recipes, I have decided to do something similar. My friend Annie takes pictures of the recipes she makes, and they are beautiful, but I won't do that because my camera is ghetto and it would show my messy kitchen in the background (Annie's kitchen, by the way, is always immaculate in her photos). Patti has been writing about healthy recipes, which is inspiring, but just be warned that my recipes won't always be healthy, per se. They will be healthier, however, than going to Taco Bell, simply because they are homemade. My goal is to find meals that are easier to prepare and will freeze well so I can freeze some dinners before baby Savannah makes her appearance.



My first "new" recipe is from Jessica Seinfeld's "Deceptively Delicious." I made the chicken salad. It has pureed cauliflower in it, which is actually a funny story in itself. I don't like most vegetables, and I bought cauliflower for the first time and didn't know what to do with it. Without laughing at me, Melissa talked me through the preparation and steaming of cauliflower. The only recemmondation I would have for it is to only use 2 stalks of celery and cut them, don't finely chop them. We are a cheesey family, so we put cheese on our sandwiches. They could also be put in pitas, which we would have done had our pitas not molded (grrr). We enjoyed it a lot, and best of all, I think it will freeze really well! The combination of spices on the chicken was really good, too. We'll definetely try it again!

Next up...semi-homemade ravioli.

February and March

The last two months have gone by so fast! Thank you to all who participated in our polls. Finally, here are some pictures of Sydney, it's been a while!

Here she is, all ready for church. Whenever she wears this outfit, our pastor calls her a Nordic Princess.


So random, I know, but our little miss Sydney has been, well, a three year old lately. She has been spending lots of time in time-out and one day I found her Snow White doll in a time-out!


Sydney with her Valentine's Day cookie from Grandma, which is a tradition in our family.


Being a nurse is always hard on my back and feet, but especially now being pregnant. Sometimes I come home from work just aching, and Chris usually rubs my feet. Sydney likes to get in on it, too, which is too cute!


In sorting through my parent's house lately, we have found all sorts of interesting things. My mom wore this clown's hat for Halloween when I was 4 or 5, and now Sydney has added it to her dress-up collection.


One of the best things about being pregnant is the food! I appreciate tastes and spices so much more now. I have been craving this really spicy salsa from a local restaurant a lot. I joke that I would put it on drywall if I had to! Here we are a few weeks ago at that restaurant. Sydney likes the salsa, too.


Chris and Sydney came with me to an appointment two weeks ago. Sydney likes to come along and one of the best things about her being so much older than the baby is that she is really able to get involved in the pregnancy. Everyday she pretents to check my blood pressure, and she loves to bake cookies and things to take in to my doctor. After the last visit, we went down and had some Gelato at a nearby restaurant, which of course was a huge hit with Sydney!


On a recent warm day, we took Sydney to the zoo and she went in the petting zoo for the first time. The goats were very gentle and Sydney liked them.


On our way to church in her new sunglasses!


We went to Matt and Melissa's last weekend for an Oscar party and Sydney wanted her hair curled. She is such a cutie! I love her hair this way.


Three years ago when we found out that Sydney was a girl, I was so anxious the day of my ultrasound that we just had to get out of the house because I was going crazy and just needed to leave! We randomly went to Round Table Pizza for lunch that day and it was a really fun lunch. We haven't back to Round Table since, it's not really super close to our house. This time, our ultrasound was in the morning, so we decided for tradition's sake we would go there the night before for dinner. Sydney had lots of fun and we told her the story of her ultrasound.


Painting Sydney's toenails. One of the best things about having a daughter!


We had a birthday dinner at my parent's house on Friday. I wanted one last birthday dinner there before the house sells. It was a really nice evening, and this is the cake Chris picked out for me! He knows I love Harry Potter!


And finally, the big news...we are having a baby GIRL!! We found out on Friday we will be welcoming a second daughter this August. This is Sydney getting ready to go into the ultrasound, and then us during the ultrasound.



We are thrilled beyond belief to have two girls! Daughters are an amazing blessing and we can't wait!

Gender Poll

This Friday, March 12, we go in for our ultrasound to determine the gender of the baby. Please vote in the poll to the left!

Disneyland

So sorry it's taken me so long to complete this post. Here, finally, are the pictures from Disneyland and our trip to the Rose Bowl.

First up, here's our little duckling at the Rose Bowl. Needless to say, we will never go back to that stadium again. Talk about ghetto. TINY seats, and the stairs have these huge steps and no hand rails, so you're like having a heart attack by the third stair. No leg room, hard cement seats, hardly any food vendors, and the bathrooms are pitiful. We're definetely spoiled by how nice Autzen is. And there was no parking, we literally parked on a green at a golf course! I'm really glad we went, though, one last vacation with my parents before their divorce.


Here we are at Disneyland. Sydney had SO MUCH FUN!! We all really enjoyed ourselves, but I was just in the beginning of my pregnancy and so tired after all the walking. Sydney had a blast, though. Here she is with a churro, which in my opinion is a necessity at Disneyland.


She didn't like very many of the rides, and she wasn't tall enough to go on a lot of them, but we did manage to fill 2 days with stuff that she could do.


We enjoyed the seasonal peppermint ice cream while watching the parade.


The longest we spent in a line was two hours, and that wasn't even for a ride, that was to meet the princesses! It was worth it, though, because you get to go in and meet 2-3 princesses and spend a few minutes with each one. They were doing shift change at our turn, however, so Sydney got to meet Ariel, Mulan, Snow White, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty! She was on cloud nine, for sure.


The Ariel was her favorite. Ariel told Sydney she needed to practice on her human legs, so would Sydney help her to dance? Sydney loved dancing with her, they twirled and spun around and had so much fun!

While waiting in the super long princess line, Sydney got her face painted!


In a car at Toon Town with Daddy.


Everything was all decorated for Christmas while we were there. It was so beautiful! We can't wait to go again.

Not Me Monday (on Tuesday)

Back by popular demand, and once again a day late:

-I am not one of those women who is miserable during pregnancy. I thrive on being pregnant and only think about the miracle inside me. I am never tired, never sore, and certainly never cranky!

-Since I am NOT miserable, I am prefectly able to keep up with the laundry and every day my husband comes home to a nice hot meal, not a wife passed out on the couch, too tired to move.

-My daughter did not sing and dance and shake her little booty in front of our new pastor. When asked if she was singing a song about Jesus, she absolutely did NOT tell our BRAND NEW PASTOR that she was dancing to Beyonce, then proceed to shake her booty some more, in front of his wife, our youth pastor, and his wife.

-Sydney and I are not going to do our Christmas gingerbread house this week. After all, it's February, and any mother worth her salt would have done that in December, not found it in her car 2 months later.

-And I certainly didn't miss the gingerbread house kit in the car because my car is messy. Oh no. It is perfectly clean, vacuumed, and dusted. The said gingerbread house kit was not found with a pair of Cinderella panties, an old coffee cup, and a bill that was due last month.

-The room for the baby is completely ready. It is not so full of junk and holiday crap that you can't even open the door without pushing really hard. Nope, the crib is put together, the dresser has fresh contact paper, and the room is stocked with cloth diapers that I have sewn up in preparation. I wouldn't even THINK about using dispoasble diapers.

Girl Bedding

I have finally picked a bedding set for if we have a girl. I had wanted to do a brown and pink theme, but everything was so dark, and I really wanted a light, happy room like Sydney's. So, I chose something different. Here it is, the Penelope set from Pottery Barn kids. Surprisingly affordable, too.

Baby Pictures

Today I had my first trimester screening. The ultrasound part looked good, and I'll get the results from the blood work later this week. Here are some ultrasound pictures. The baby is already so big! A few weeks ago it was just a bean, now you can clearly see the head, profile, spine, arms, legs, hands, and feet. The second one looks like the baby is waving, look at that little hand!