Easton James

Born 10/28/07 at 10:23 PM

7lb 15oz and 21.5 inches long

Mom and baby are both doing well and we are looking forward to bringing him home.

Jason

I just got home from the dr and he said everything looks good. I'm not dilating or anything so I'll be going back next week. (On Halloween at 11am) I asked how big the dr thought he might be and he felt around and said "My best guess is around upper 7 to lower 8 lbs. He's gonna be long and skinny." Yay! That's good! Long and skinny sounds good to me! :)

A couple of my friends are doing their Christmas wish lists on their blogs, so I thought I'd do mine too. Here it is in random order:

1. Perfume - My favorites are Very Sexy from Victoria's Secret, Pure Grace by Philosophy and Navy...an oldie and a cheap one but still one of my favorites.

2. A new bread machine. Don't know if I can actually wait until Christmas to get this one. I miss mine so much!

3. New baking/cookie sheets. Preferably a set of 2 or 3 of them. Mine are looking really awful these days.

4. A Border's gift card. They have a cute tote bag and about a million books I'd like to buy.

5. New knives. The ones we have are great but are getting very dull and some have broken.

6. A bar board. (Small cutting board) We have one but it is all scratched up and looking terrible. Plus, I warped it in the dishwasher so it's not flat anymore. Oops!

7. A vaccuum food sealer and bags.

8. Tupperware bowls. They have a set that's all different bright colors and has the lids like I like but the set costs like $70. YIKES! But they are just like the ones my grandma has and I think she's had them for a really long time so it might be a good investment. (Remember grandma? The little orange bowl w/the lid and I think there's a green one too if I remember right. Probably more but those are the only 2 I can think of. Love you!)

Notice how most of this stuff is for the kitchen? What I'd also really love is for some kitchen designer to come organize my kitchen...it's a disorganized mess!

Baby boy,
Last night I felt you have the hiccups for the first time. I was lying in bed about to go to sleep and I had just told your daddy goodnight when I felt you move in my tummy. Then it came again and again and so quickly that I knew it must be you with the hiccups. I rolled over and told daddy to feel my tummy and I put his hand where I had felt you move. We talked to you and told you that it wouldn't be much longer until we see you face to face and how excited we are to meet you.

I have a dr's appt today and hope they'll tell me about how big they think you might be. I can't wait to hear your heartbeat again today and ask them when you might be making your big debut. I wonder if you'll be early and come while your Pawpaw is here? Or late and come when your Nanny and Aunt Leslie and cousins are here? Or you might come right on time and that would be OK too. I wonder when your birthday will be.

The night before last we read you one of my favorite books from when I was little "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb." Your daddy had never heard it before but I remember my daddy reading it to me many, many nights when I was a little girl. I think tonight we'll read The Napping House and 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. If I share anything about my personality with you, I hope I give you my love of reading. Goodness knows we have enough books! Actually, I take that back...you can NEVER have too many books! :)

See you soon!
Love,
Mama

Oooh, today is my first day of being unemployed. My last day of work was Friday and it was bittersweet. It was really sad to have to say goodbye to the kids and their parents (not to mention my coworkers) but I am SO glad to have some time off! I have a list of things to do this week that's pretty long. Some cleaning and organizing (washing some baby clothes and bottles), some goofing off (watching several Netflix movies and baking bread). I'm really looking forward to it.

I've been feeling tremendously better lately. The baby has dropped and looks like he's getting ready to make his big debut. Now that he's down lower my back is back to normal. Thank you Lord! Man, that was a miserable 2 months or so of sciatic pain but it will all be worth it. Now I can actually ENJOY these last few weeks (or days?!). Less than 2 weeks until my due date! Jason and I are all ready. I've packed my bag, made a call list for the big day (and a text-list too because my sweet husband HATES talking on the phone) and Jason's even packed a bag for himself too. We are ready! Well, sorta. It will be nice to have some downtime before the big day.

Dad and Tina are coming this weekend and we are really looking forward to having them here. (Hi, Dad! Can't wait to see you!) Hopefully we can do a few fun things while they're here. My friends really want to meet them so we're hoping we can all go out to dinner one night. Now the trick is getting them all together in one place.

What's on my list of things to do today? Return some books to the library, exchange some duplicate baby gifts (books), organize our office, watch a movie and make taco soup for dinner. Souns like a fun day to me! Well, except for the whole organize the office thing. YUCK! But my reward will be watching the movie when I'm done. :)

Boy, see what happens when I don't blog for a week? I end up w/3-4 posts in one day. Just wanted to share some very cool news with you. Well, I think it's cool anyway. At work, we started working with the babies and teaching them baby signs. Most of them are WAY too little to understand what we're doing, much less actually use the signs themselves but it makes me feel good to try. Well, persistance paid off this week. One of the older girls (almost a year old) used the sign for "more" while she was eating. YAY! I've been watching her to see if she just did the sign randomly or if she was using it intentionally to get "more" of whatever. I haven't really been able to tell but I do make sure I give her more of whatever she's asking for and I do the sign and say "Oh, you want more?" I think if we continue this she will gradually (if she doesn't already) understand that using that sign = more. And the parents are VERY excited about the fact that we're using baby signs with their babies.

Note to anyone who works with babies:
Babies need sensory activities too and they are NOT too young to do art projects! Just because they can't hold a crayon or a paintbrush does not mean they are not capable of producing art. Let them fingerpaint with pudding or Cool Whip, take their handprints and footprints for their parents, anything!

One mom told me about a daycare where her daughter went. The little girl was too young to sit up so they laid her on the floor, taped a piece of paper to the wall and put paint on the baby's feet so that she could kick against the paper and paint. How cool is that?! See, totally do-able. Messy and requires a little (or a lot of) extra work, but SO worth it! That's the kind of thing I want to see in the infant room on a daily basis. Too bad I'm leaving! But you can bet my little munchkin will be taking lots of baths because his mama will have him kick-painting as soon as he's old enough. Kids are supposed to get messy! That's the fun part about being a kid!

Whew! I am worn out! We did a lot today. We took the recycling to the recycling center, the million or so plastic bags back to the grocery store (right around the corner from the recycling center) and then came home to eat a quick lunch. Then we headed to Martinsburg to return some things at Kmart, return something at Walmart, do some shopping, stop at the grocery store to get some cat litter that was buy one get one free and then FINALLY went to Lowe's to look for a tree. They didn't have any maple trees but we did find a nice "Cherokee Princess Dogwood" that will be a great year-round tree. It has white flowers in the spring and summer, colorful leaves in the fall and red berries in the winter. And we also bought a pink crepe myrtle, some topsoil and mulch. Oh yeah and to make things really great, I managed to save us about $75 by using coupons and checking the ads for sales. Nice! (That's for our entire shopping extravaganza, not just at Lowe's.)

I am so tired now though that I have ZERO energy to cook dinner. Think we'll have some cheese and crackers to tide us over and maybe by then I'll feel like cooking. I really want to make this unbelievably good salad, meat loaf and mashed potatoes for dinner. I've been craving about meat loaf all week! Recipes to follow. Try the salad. It is SO good! I know it sounds weird, but it is amazing, trust me! And a little side note about that yummy salad. We had one almost exactly like it at our fancy dinner at the Grandover resort 3 weeks ago and it was served in a parmesan crisp bowl. Jason told his boss "Hey, Amy makes these parmesan crisps. And she also makes the bruschetta we had earlier." That was pretty cool! My hubby was bragging about my cooking and the boss was impressed. Thanks, honey! Makes it sound like I'm some kind of gourmet chef or something. :)

Mom's Turkey Meatloaf
(Recipe by Ellie Krieger, Food Network)
3/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup skim milk
1 medium onion, peeled
2 pounds ground turkey breast
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl, stir together the oats and milk. Thinly slice 1/4 of the onion and set aside. Finely chop the remaining onion. In a large bowl combine the turkey, oat mixture, chopped onion, bell pepper, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, salt and a few grinds of pepper. Mix just until well combined. Transfer the mixture to a 9 by 13-inch baking dish and shape into a loaf about 5 inches wide and 2 1/2 inches high. Pour the tomato sauce over the meatloaf and sprinkle with the sliced onions. Bake for about 1 hour or until an instant-read thermometer registers 160 degrees.F. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes before slicing.


Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes
(Recipe by Alton Brown, Food Network)
3 1/2 pounds russet potatoes
16 fluid ounces (2 cups) half-and-half
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons kosher salt
6 ounces grated Parmesan
Peel and dice potatoes, making sure all are relatively the same size. Place in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then reduce heat to maintain a rolling boil. Cook until potatoes fall apart when poked with a fork. Heat the half-and-half and the garlic in a medium saucepan over medium heat until simmering. Remove from heat and set aside. Remove the potatoes from the heat and drain off the water. Mash and add the garlic-cream mixture, salt, and Parmesan; stir to combine. Let stand for 5 minutes so that mixture thickens and then serve.

Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing
(Recipe by Alton Brown, Food Network)
8 ounces baby spinach
2 large eggs
8 pieces thick-sliced bacon, chopped
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tbsp garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 large white mushrooms, sliced
3 ounces red onion (1 small), very thinly sliced
4 ounces mandarin oranges, drained
4-6 strawberries, sliced

Remove the stems from the spinach and wash, drain and pat dry thoroughly. Place into a large mixing bowl and set aside. Place the eggs into an electric kettle and cover with cold water by at least 1-inch. Turn the kettle on. Once the water comes to a boil, the kettle will turn itself off. Leave the eggs in the water for 15 minutes. Remove and peel off the shell. Slice each egg into 8 pieces and set aside. While the eggs are cooking, fry the bacon and remove to a paper towel to drain, reserving 3 tablespoons of the rendered fat. Crumble the bacon and set aside. Transfer the fat to a small saucepan set over low heat and whisk in the red wine vinegar, sugar and Dijon mustard. Season with a small pinch each of kosher salt and black pepper. Add the mushrooms, mandarin oranges, strawberries and the sliced onion to the spinach and toss. Add the dressing and bacon and toss to combine. Divide the spinach between 4 plates or bowls and evenly divide the egg among them. Season with pepper, as desired. Serve immediately.

2 more weeks of work...and counting! Boy it is sure getting hard to work 10 hour days. Well, technically I work 8 hours with a 2 hour lunch break. Most of you are probably thinking "Wow! I'd LOVE a 2 hour lunch break!" but trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be. If I could go home for lunch it would be great but with traffic there's just not much time left. Usually I either go upstairs to the high school sunday school room where they have couches set up and I can take a nap (NICE!) or if I have the energy I go run errands, which usually equals spending money so I try not to do this too often. By the end of the day it is all I can do to make dinner and collapse on the couch for an hour or so before I go to bed. I'm going to miss my job but it is going to be SOOO nice to sleep past 5:30 for the short time I have left. Mostly I am going to catch up on my sleep while I can, clean the house and make some meals to freeze so I won't have to worry about cooking for a while after the baby's born. I'm really looking forward to some time off! :)

Today we are going to Lowe's to pick out a tree for our front yard. I'd love to plant several but I think since we're trying to be on a budget we'll on ly stick to one...unless we find a deal that's just too good to pass up. We're thinking about some kind of a maple tree. I love the trees that have beautiful fall colors (although this one won't have much of that until next fall probably). We thought it would be a nice thing to do this weekend in honor of our new addition to the family. Now all we have to do is decide WHERE in the yard to plant it. I'll take pictures when we're done.

I had another dr's appt today and he said everything looks A-OK. I gained 3 lbs (in 2 weeks), my blood pressure was perfect, and he told me my ankles look great for a pregnant woman. I never thought that would be something I'd be proud of...someone complimenting my ankles! :)
I did talk to him about my back pain. I told him that I expected to have back pain. Maybe even a LOT of back pain. But I did not expect to not be able to put all of my weight on my left foot and severe shooting pain from my lower back all the way down to my feet every time I even think about moving. He said just what I feared he'd say "Well, unfortunately there's not much I can do for you." I knew this already but I cried anyway because I am just so miserable and have been for the last 3 weeks. This sucks! Somehow I know it will be worth it in the end but I am ready for the end!
Glad to have people coming to visit though. Dad and Tina, Mom (and Mike or Bonnie? I forgot to ask), and Teresa, Kyle, Leslie and the kids. I can't wait! Hopefully the baby will come when SOMEONE is here to see it! :) Love you all and can't wait to see you and show you around as much as I can or tell you how to get to all the cool things to see and do if I'm not up to it.
Anybody else want to come?