Dutch Meets His Oma-rillo

First, let me explain the title.  Since my family is from Holland, we call grandparents "Oma" and "Opa."  Even though my husband's family isn't from Holland, it turns out that his mom and dad asked their grand kids to use those names as well, just because they liked the way they sounded.  As you can surmise, that means that my son, Dutch, will be using the same names for both my parents and Meezy's parents.  We'll figure out if that becomes confusing for him when he gets a bit older, but for now it's fine.  Meezy's parents live in Amarillo, so my dad made the joke that my husband's mom should be called "Oma-rillo."  Cheesy, but also kinda clever!  Lol.  Anyways, last week my mother-in-law and sister-in-law came down to stay with us and meet the newest family member.  They were so sweet to help me out for a few days, and loved spending time with Dutch.  Oma definitely enjoyed her time with her grandson, as evidenced by the fact that he was asleep on her chest more times than not!

  
Oma cried when she left to go back to Amarillo, and it nearly broke my heart!  I feel so bad that we're hundreds of miles away, but hopefully we'll get the chance to visit each other often.  Meezy's mom and I already have a pretty close relationship since I work for her and we talk on a weekly basis, but now that Dutch is around, I feel like we've gotten even closer.  This first month of his life, she has texted me every few nights to see how we're both doing, and to tell me she misses him and to give him a kiss for her.  It's so sweet, and a nice reminder that my son is joining an amazing family.  We skyped with her today so she could get her Dutch fix, and I hope we get to do that a lot in the future so she won't feel so far away from us.  The last time we were texting back and forth, she told me, "I think you are an awesome mom! I love the way you love my son and Dutch."  I immediately got choked up when I read that.  It's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, and it made me so proud that she felt that way.  Not everyone is fortunate enough to even get along with their mother-in-law, let alone be as close as we are.  I'm very lucky, and I know Dutch is too!    

My Love and Admiration

It's no secret I'm madly in love with my hubby and consider myself very lucky to have found a guy like him to share my life with.  I've had people tell me in the past that having a baby will make me fall even more in love with my husband.  I figured that was possible, but it ended up happening for different reasons than I expected.  I thought seeing our creation together would be what prompted even stronger feelings for my husband, but it wasn't just that.  Yes, this little guy does make me very thankful for Meezy because he helped give me this gift,

 
but, I think my love and admiration for Meezy has grown because of the way he has acted towards me since the birth of our son.  From the first moment Dutch entered our lives, I haven't had to ask my husband for help. He's been so proactive and has anticipated my needs.  He has picked up the slack in every way possible and tells me he wishes he could do more.  I knew my husband was a good guy, but I honestly didn't expect him to be THIS amazing.  When he looks at me and sees the exhaustion in my eyes, he orders me to take a nap and tries his best to keep Dutch occupied and happy (which is hard when you don't have breast milk!).  When he is trying to get a few hours of sleep because he has to go in to work the next day, he still offers to help me overnight if he hears crying.  When he gets home from a stressful day at the office, and still faces a few more hours of work from home, he still asks to take Dutch off my hands so I can eat dinner or just spend a few minutes doing anything else that I've put off during the day.  When Dutch and I fell asleep on the couch side by side, I woke up to find pillows on the ground next to us that Meezy had put there just in case he rolled.  I could go on and on about the truly thoughtful and generous things he has done over the past two weeks.  He makes me so proud to call him my husband and the father of our child.  Dutch already has his daddy's looks, and I hope he grows up to have his character and heart as well.    

Itzbeen

Whew!  It's been about a week since I've felt like I had a free minute to blog.  There's not much sleep happening at our house, but that doesn't mean we don't love our new addition to pieces!  Here's a few pics from the past week so you can get your cute baby fix before I move on to the real reason for this post!

As I mentioned before, sleep is sparse with a newborn.  That leads to memory loss and confusion on a daily basis!  I heard about the itzbeen timer from my friend, Kari, and I knew I had to have it before Dutch arrived. 

When you're in the hospital, nurses come in and ask you constantly how many diapers the baby has had, how long ago you started nursing and how long it lasted, and how often you're going to the bathroom yourself.  It's so hard to remember the answer to those questions because you can't even keep the days and nights straight, or have any concept of the passage of time.  This timer is a lifesaver for so many reasons!  The buttons on the side represent diaper changes, feedings, sleep, and then an extra one for whatever you choose to use it for.  The slider on the bottom helps you remember which side you last nursed on, and then it also comes with a nightlight.  Whenever you change a diaper, you hit the diaper button and it restarts the timer.  That way you can glance over at any time and see how long it's been since the last changing.  Same with the other buttons.  It's very helpful to know how long the baby fed, and also how long it's been since you last fed him.  For the extra button, I used it in the hospital to help remind myself to get up and use the bathroom (you tend to forget to take care of yourself when a new baby enters the equation!), and at home I used it to keep track of how long it had been since I last took a pain pill.  You don't want to mess up when it comes to taking medication, so it's very useful!  Once I get past the first couple of weeks, I know the timer will become less useful, but I also feel like if I only end up using it for 2 weeks, it will still have been worth it!     

40 Weeks

LAST pregnancy photo!  Looking forward to meeting my son for the first time tomorrow.  :)

Sunday Baking Funday

If you hadn't noticed, I haven't given birth yet, so I decided to spend all day Sunday baking up some fun stuff to pass the time and provide us some sustenance for a couple days.

1. Red Velvet Cream Cheese Ball
Meezy loves red velvet anything, so he jumped at the chance to try this recipe.  It tastes pretty good, and the prep is easy.  The hard part is just the waiting while it chills in the refrigerator!  The chocolate chips overpowered the red velvet taste just a little bit on the initial bites, but once you got past the top layer, it was red velvety awesomeness.  We used Nilla wafers as our dipper of choice, and they were perfect for the job.  (Forgive my crappy pictures - I didn't feel like getting the good camera out of the hospital bag)  

 

2. Pepperoni Rolls
I saw a picture of these and definitely wanted to try them.  We couldn't find the frozen dough necessary at Walmart, and we luckily got the last package that Kroger had.  They had to sit out to defrost and rise for about 6 hours before they were ready for use, so you have to make sure to start that step early in the day.  We rolled the loaves out as instructed, but I think we should've rolled them even thinner because after cooking, the bread in the very middle wasn't as cooked as the dough on the outside.  We ended up cutting each pepperoni roll into slices and then putting them back in the oven for more cooking.  That worked!  I recommend a dipping sauce to go along with them, like marina or garlic butter.  Here are pictures of the process:

   
3. Garlic Parmesan Knots
I know I've mentioned this recipe before, but I just can't resist it.  It's super easy, and it's great with a lot of different meals.

And, the piece de resistance:

4. Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls
These take quite a while to make, and require a lot of ingredients, but sweet mother - they are worth it!  I got the idea from my friend, Kari, who brought a batch over to us a couple months ago.  They are addictive, and probably the best kind of cinnamon rolls you'll ever taste!  This particular recipe makes a ton of rolls, so the idea is that you share them with friends and family.  You can freeze them and then once delivered, the recipient just bakes them for 20-30 minutes in the oven before eating.  They taste just as good as when originally made!  Here are pictures of the process:  (doesn't the last one make your mouth water?!?)

Tuesday Dinner

I know yesterday was Valentine's Day, but really it was just another Tuesday in my household!  Meezy and I aren't big on celebrating this "holiday" because it doesn't mean anything special to our relationship or to our personal lives.  I think we do a pretty good job of showing how much we love each other on a daily basis, so there's no special incentive to do it up big on this one day.  So, with that said, for Tuesday dinner I made us some yummy healthy-ish taco salads, followed by some very not healthy chocolate chip lava cookies.  I got the cookie recipe from here.

Observations/Results:

I opted to use store-bought chocolate chip cookie dough instead of making it from scratch, and I really underestimated how much I should get.  I mean, the amount was fine for 2 people, but if you're planning on making it for a group or having leftovers, get a large roll/tub of cookie dough.  I started putting out the first layer of dough into the muffin pan, and I only made it to about 6 before realizing I had already used half the roll.  I melted the chocolate chips (and also melted some white chocolate chips to see how that would taste) and poured a layer of the chocolate over my cookies in the pan.  Then I went through to put the second layer of cookie dough on.  I think you need to put more cookie dough on the top than you did on the bottom, because mine came out sunken in, more so than the pictures on the recipe.  If you use white chocolate too, like I did, you'll notice that it thickens up a lot quicker than the milk chocolate, so you've got to make sure not to microwave it for too long, and then you'll need to use it quickly in the preparation.  The white chocolate is going to come out a little harder and less lava-like after the baking, but it's still going to taste pretty darn good.  I put vanilla bean ice cream on top of mine, and Meezy ate his plain.  We both agreed they were quite delicious!

Replacement Purse

I mentioned previously that my dog, Riley, destroyed my beloved green Michael Kors purse a couple weeks ago.  He's lucky he's so darn cute because that's a pretty serious offense.  That purse was my favorite for pairing with brown-themed outfits, and there was definitely a void left after I could no longer use it.  I've searched around for a replacement and haven't been able to find the exact one in stores anymore, or even another green purse that suited my fancy.  While I was watch-shopping yesterday at Saks Off Fifth (they're having an awesome sale through Tuesday, btw), I wandered over to the purse section and came across this Kate Spade beauty:

 
It's the shade of green I like, and it makes me yearn for the spring and summer weather!  It was an amazingly good deal, so I snatched it up.  It's not as fancy as the one it's replacing, but it'll definitely work.  I couldn't resist taking a picture of it with the storage bag it came with because when I brought it home, Meezy said, "It comes with a bag to store your bag???"  Haha, boys.