Little Bit of This, Little Bit of That

I don't have a theme with this post, other than some every-day-life happenings in our house.  Sometimes, these are the best moments :)

First off, I feel very ready for Baby Prentice to come.  Of course, I don't want him/her to come for a few more weeks, but I feel ready in the sense of having the house ready.  Really, there's not a lot that the baby needs.  Don't get me wrong - I still have my to-do lists going strong and stuck on the refrigerator.  I don't know what I would do without a to-do list, baby or no baby.  Overall, we have the playpen (bassinet) set-up in our room, the breast pump and a few bottles have been sterilized, and the hospital bags (for mommy and baby) have been packed with the exception of a few toiletries that are used daily right now.  Now, are we mentally prepared to have another child in the house?  Well, it feels like the answer is "no" right now to that question.  I just can't imagine having two instead of just one. 

One thing we still need to do before the baby arrives is to get Meredith a little gift.  It's a way of saying congrats on being a big sister!  Well, we have spent way too much time looking for Little Einsteins products and have realized that it's almost a black market to find a toy for under $50.  Yes, that's right, $50!!!  We were thinking a $10 gift or so.  Meredith is so obsessed with the Little Einsteins show right now, that we can't say "Little" or "Einsteins" or "Little Einsteins" without her doing her "pat, pat" signals, which is a key part of the show.  We have her in such a routine right now, that when breakfast is done, she goes over to her chair and plops down like this and waits for us to turn on the TV for Little Einsteins:

Anyhow, back to the Little Einsteins toy dilemma.  Apparently, our research showed us that when Disney released the products they only chose Target to carry them.  This is why we can't find anything at Toys R Us (other than DVDs) and eBay is selling items for way above a reasonable price.  So, I think at this point we are going to get her a Mr. Potato Head.  She enjoyed playing with it at Great-Grandma Prentice's house last year and after all, it's a classic toy that both Chad and I had at one point growing up.

Well, our little Meredith is growing into quite the toddler.  Aside from the fact that I packed up several of her 18-month clothes this morning (she is getting tall!), she is really beginning to play independently and has made great leaps with her vocabulary.  Here's some new words:

• Plane.  We have the airport literally right in our backyard.  We can see planes take off all the time.  I didn't realize how much Meredith paid attention to the noise (which isn't too noticeable; probably because I have gotten used to it over time), until recently when she says "play" for the word "plane" when she hears them taking off.
• Penguin.  She has a toy penguin.  She pronounces it like "peng", but we know what she's saying.
• Doggy.  She had already been saying dog here and there, but says "doggy" now really clearly.
• King/Queen.  She learned these words from one of her ABC books.  She apparently thinks our Mona Lisa magnet we got in Italy that's hanging on the refrigerator is a queen, because she calls her that all the time :)
• Daddy's a Bubble.  Yes, this was her first ever full sentence.  She has only said it twice, but it's pretty funny.  Daddy and Mommy are her go-to words and bubble is becoming a common word for her as well.  Makes sense that this would be her first sentence, right?
• Achoo.  Not really sure how to spell this word myself, but after Meredith sneezes, she says "achoo".  It's quite funny, because she thinks that's what she is supposed to say after a sneeze, rather than it being more the sound a sneeze makes :)
• Boy/Girl.  When we ask her what Mommy is having, she usually says "grl", but occasionally will say "boy".
• To add to the last bullet point, we told her what our boy and girl names are, respectively.  She now says our girl name really clearly.  Ooops!  I thought we wouldn't have to worry about telling our toddler the name and possibly spilling the beans.  She won't say the boy name at all :)
• Grandma/Grandpa.  Yeah, she still won't say either of these.  I guess with time it will happen.

Meredith really likes her playroom so far:

Silly girl...trying to put the bat in the ball chute.

Classic Meredith.  I've been trying to prop my feet up as much as possible lately (which must be working because I haven't had ANY swelling thus far in the pregnancy), which makes the couch in the playroom extremely convenient!  Well, Meredith loves to bring me all of her stuffed animals, puzzles, and any toy she can reach.  So, I eventually look like ET when he was in hiding surrounded by all the other dolls.

She has really progressed with her Lego-making abilities.  She builds towers like this one, all by herself.

She also loves to just sit with Daddy and watch football:

I don't always think this...but, they really look alike in this picture!

** Notice how in the first and last picture of this blog post she is sucking her index finger on her left-hand?  Well, that occurs about a million times a day.  I'm thinking we may have to rid her of this habit, but not sure how to make that happen.

One Month and Counting

One month from today, we will meet our new little prince or princess!  I confirmed with my doctor's office this morning that the c-section date is scheduled for Monday, February 18th at 7:15 a.m.  That means Chad and I will have to check-in at the hospital at 5:15 a.m.!!  It seems like a ridiculously early arrival time, but I'm all for it (which I hope will also mean an early release date), since I will only have to fast after midnight and hopefully will be able to eat within a few hours after surgery.  Already having a child has made me a morning person, anyway.  Honestly, I can't even remember how it worked with Meredith.  Other than I remember going in pretty early (I think it was around 6:00 a.m.) for the induction, then not being able to eat for most of the day, since she wasn't born until a little after 5:00 p.m.  At the time, though, food was the last thing on my mind.  I just remember being very, very thirsty!

I can't believe this journey is almost coming to an end.  I think having several holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years) in the mix have allowed this pregnancy to fly by.  Plus, chasing around after a toddler all day helps the days move along pretty fast.

I keep having this feeling I won't make it to February 18th and the baby will come sooner.  I've already noticed in the past week that the baby isn't moving nearly as much as previously, because it's running out of space.  Also, I can tell the baby has dropped and the baby's head is right on my bladder, making bathroom trips an every 20-minute occurrence.  The doctor thinks the baby will be big, which isn't surprising since I was 9 lb., 3 oz. myself at birth.  Oh well, it's anyone's guess when the baby will arrive!

To Baby Prentice:

We are all anxiously awaiting your arrival.  Most of all, I can't wait to find out whether you are a boy or a girl!  When we ask Meredith if we are having a boy or a girl, she says "girl" most of the time :)  Please come soon, but not too soon!  ~ Love, Mommy

Adventures in Freezer Cooking

Nesting has officially begun!   Chad took off the week of Christmas and boy did I take advantage of it.  On Christmas Day, we began converting our guestroom over to a playroom.  Then, later in the week, we (okay, Chad) moved a shelving unit from our garage to the basement so that we can store our new grill in the garage.  Oh, then we took a ton of clothes to Goodwill and also recycled some old computers.  Plus, we rearranged our bedroom to accommodate the nightstands from the guestroom and the playpen for the new baby.  So, the house feels much cleaner and more manageable to me :)  I have also started a hospital bag for the baby, which involved washing some newborn outfits.  I will say it would be much easier at this moment to know what the gender is for clothing purposes, but the surprise will be worth it!

Okay, so my biggest adventure regarding nesting happened this past weekend.  I did my first marathon session of freezer cooking.  In about 2.5 hours, I made about 20 freezer meals.  Of course, some of this is just taco meat three times over or BBQ pork five times over, but we will put these staple items to good use in the Prentice household.  They also will make great leftovers for Chad's lunch.  I have only done freezer cooking once before with some friends a few years back and I made a few meals and absolutely loved it.  I just somehow never kept up with it.  I was thinking how nice it would have been to have had some meals on hand for when Meredith was born, so that was my motivation for getting it done this go around.

So, I started with pulling some recipes from the Internet specific to meals that would freeze well.  Then, wouldn't you know it, I got caught on Pinterest.  I've never really been on there before, but man can I see why it is an addiction.  Just type in "freezer cooking" and you will see what I mean.  So, once I had my recipes pulled together, it was a 2 hour trip to the grocery stores to get what I didn't already have in my pantry (it wouldn't have taken that long if I didn't compare prices and use coupons).  My word of advice is not to go either shopping or cook with a toddler underfoot.  Thankfully, I was able to do the shopping on my own (my time of relaxation...how sad is that?), but I started cooking while she was still awake.  BIG mistake!

Anyhow, here are some pictures of my adventure.  I would love to do this again sometime, though I may just do a meal here and there until baby arrives, rather than undergoing a marathon session. 

These are just the ingredients I started with for this session of freezer cooking.  I have several other meats in the fridge I need to assemble into freezer meals later this week.

This is a new recipe for me, but sounded really good.  Salsa chicken: chicken breasts, corn, salsa, black beans, taco seasoning, and tomato sauce.  I made enough for a double-batch.  It is cooked in the crockpot and can be served over rice or with tortillas.  Yum!

This recipe was easy to put together (all raw ingredients; no cooking involved) and I hope it tastes good, as it's a new recipe for me.  It's chicken broccoli alfredo and was super simple - chicken breasts, broccoli, and alfredo sauce.  It just has to be cooked in the crockpot.

We are taco/burrito lovers here in the Prentice house.  This one was a no-brainer to have on hand.  I cooked three pounds of ground turkey with taco seasoning and converted them into three meals.  We just have to freeze and then reheat!

Chad mixed these up for me while I was busy prepping some of the other meals.  He just followed the recipe and mixed the frozen hashbrowns, butter, sour cream, etc. together and we were able to freeze two of these containers.  This will make a nice side dish!

These are two meatloaves I put together for individual pans.  I didn't pre-cook anything, but wrote instructions on the outside to remind me of the temp and length of time to cook, and froze as is. 

I have fallen in love with soups recently and have gotten Chad to join me, with eating ingredients such as black beans and tomatoes.  It really is a miracle :)  Since I have already cooked the ground beef in this recipe, it's just a matter of heating it up on the stovetop or in the crockpot when we are ready to eat.  This was another double-batch.

** It was around this point in the cooking process that I realized I had been putting 2012 on everything.  Oops!  I redeemed myself with the pork, though.  **

There was a really good sale on pork loins at Meijer this week.  I bought two large ones and used one to just cook BBQ pork.  It cooks in the crockpot all day long, then I shred it and bag it for individual meals.  We use this for BBQ pork sandwiches, on top of nachos, in tacos, and over baked potatoes.  I will probably cut up the other pork loin this week and bag it as pork chops marinated in various sauces.

I am so grateful we have two refrigerators.  This one is in our basement and we cleared it out specifically for my freezer cooking meals.  I can't wait to fill it up even more!

Guestroom to Playroom

Well, we did it.  I have made my life as a stay-at-home mom much more manageable.  Plus, I think that Meredith would agree she likes it as well.  We have given her a playroom!  This means we had to give up our nice guestroom in order to make this happen.  We have debated for a while how to best use the space we have in the house.  Our basement is unfinished, but still a nice basement and is not cold or damp by any means.  It just doesn't have carpet or drywall, etc.  We have considered finishing our basement (or putting a playroom down there) and while that is still up in the air (since we don't know how long we may be living here), we decided to move the guest bed downstairs and fix it up a bit so guests can stay down there.  I'm sure it's not the most convenient option for them, but for the other 350+ days a year we don't have guests, it works amazing for me.  It means, I now have a room on the main level (just off our living room and kitchen) that our kids can play in.  I now have my living room back!!!!  No more clutter (except in the playroom, that is)!! :)  Plus, since I have a phobia of cooking with Meredith underfoot and her getting burned in the process, I can now have her go to her playroom with the baby gate up and cook in solitude.  Yay!!

I'm so mad at myself for not getting any before pictures of the guest room, but it had a queen bed, two nightstands, two lamps, a table, and our computer desk in it.  We are so grateful to our friends Nate and Theresa for coming over to help us move furniture.  I have a nice excuse now that I'm 8 months pregnant to not lift :)  The couch was a hassle to carry up from the basement, but it's nothing some spackling, paint, and a new door frame won't fix :/  Here are the after pictures:

Now Mommy and Baby will have a place to sit while Meredith plays with her toys.

Now, if I can only figure out how on Earth we got so many toys in the short 20 months Meredith has been with us.  Oh yeah, two Christmases, a birthday party, donations from family members, and ah....the fact that she is the only grandchild on both sides :)

Catch-up for Christmas

I'm finally getting around to posting some (okay, tons) of pictures from Christmas 2012.  We had five Christmas get-togethers this year...whew!  We alternate when we go to each of our families each year, with Thanksgiving.  So, we visit our respective hometowns for Christmas every other year and go to the Thanksgiving get-togethers the years we don't make it to Christmas.  Make sense?  Yeah, it's a little confusing, but it allows our own little family to be in our own home to open gifts on Christmas morning, which is important to us.

Anyhow, here are tons of pictures from the various events:

Christmas in Flora:

We took Meredith to our local park for a "Christmas in the Park" train ride, complete with lights and decorations.  She very much enjoyed playing at the train table while waiting to board the real train.  Since this visit, she now says "choo-choo" when she sees a train.

Pre-train ride.  It was cold and she was scared from just seeing Santa.  That's the reason for her face here.

Post-train ride.  She enjoyed the ride with Grandma and Grandpa very much.

Opening her gift from Jeff, JoLynne, and Quenton.

She hasn't seen Quenton too much, but they became fast buddies.

Christmas Eve morning, just before opening her gifts.  Our little poser :)

Opening her gifts from Uncle Derek.  She loves the "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" book he got her.

Helping Grandma open her Willow Tree Angel gift.

Christmas in Bloomington:

Christmas Eve night, after going to church service.

Decorations....we even put up a stocking for Baby Prentice.

Christmas Tree.

Decorations...

Christmas morning.  Reading the Christmas story from her kid's Bible before Daddy read from Luke 2.  We made sure to read first, before opening gifts, so we remember the true reason for our celebrations.  I have a feeling she won't always be this patient when we read :)

Helping Daddy open his devotional calendar.

Opening up yet another book from Mommy and Daddy.

We got her a doll with a stroller (and pacifier and bottle), in hopes that she would use it to grow more accustomed to having a baby in the house in a few short weeks.

Christmas with the Prentice Family (celebrated the weekend before New Years):

It's feeling more real now.  Meredith is going to be a big sister!

Helping Grandpa open his new coffee pot.

Reading a new book with Grandma.

Grandpa, Meredith, and Grandma Prentice.

Hello 2013!

I can't believe today is the start of another new year.  As I reflect on 2012, I realize how blessed my family has been.  Here are some of our highlights:

• Took our first family vacation (to the Wisconsin Dells and Mall of America) in May.
• Purchased a minivan (still can't believe we are owners of a van) in February.
• Celebrated Meredith's 1st birthday in May...where has the time gone?
• Found out we are expecting Baby Prentice #2 in June.
• We lost Chad's Grandpa Prentice in July.  Of course, not a highlight of the year in a positive sense, but nonetheless something to reflect on.
• Meredith went from a crawler at the beginning of the year to a runner by years end!
• Meredith went from having zero teeth last January 1st to now having 12!

 Chad and I have each set a few resolutions, if you will, for this upcoming year:

• I want to eliminate soda completely from my diet (now I just drink a half to one can a day).  I usually try to eliminate caffeine as a resolution and it never, ever works.  It's too aggressive of a goal, since caffeine-induced headaches overwhelm me.  I plan to replace the soda with unsweetened tea, so I still get the caffeine, but lose the calories/sugars.  
• This may sound silly, but I want to make the bed everyday.  When the bedroom is clean and organized, I feel like I am organized as well :)
• Chad wants to read more and run more.  He also said he wants to be a better Daddy.  I think he said this because we watched "Courageous" last night, but I'm really stumped at how he can improve in this category.  I caught a good one (husband and daddy for my kids)!

Of course, our biggest excitement for 2013 is the arrival of Baby Prentice.  I am at 32 weeks now and at my doctor's appointment yesterday, we scheduled the c-section for February 18th.  There are many days I wonder if I will make it a full 39 weeks (mainly due to the size of the baby and the increased number of contractions I have been having recently), so we at least now know it will be the 18th or sooner.  We are so excited and can't wait to find out if we are going to have another little girl or a little boy.