Asheville

This past weekend Jude and I rode up to Asheville, North Carolina to see my good friend Jessica and meet her newest baby, Wes.  It was the first time either of us had been there.  We chose to meet there because it was almost exactly halfway for both of us.  And what a great choice!  We had a really nice time.  It was not without its stressful moments, but we expected it to be somewhat challenging with the two babies :}  It wasn't without its fun times either.

I was so excited to see our baby boys together!  Wes was born 16 days after Jude...pretty awesome :} I wish we lived closer so that they could get to know each other the way Cam and Jessica's older son, Andrew, did.  But I know they'll love playing with each other when we do get to visit.

They were fast friends...and pretty cute!

We stayed in the carriage house at a bed & breakfast built in 1899 called The Wright Inn. 

The main house
www.bbonline.com

 

The carriage house
www.wrightinn.com

 

The room Jude and I stayed in
www.wrightinn.com

 

Asheville is such a cool city.  It's extremely artsy and focused around locally made and produced items.  Our first night there, we went downtown and stopped in a local Mexican restaurant called Chorizo (in honor of our El Paso days!).  The waitress informed us that the owner uses produce from his own farm in his 2 1/2 restaurants (not sure what she meant by 1/2).  And he was actually in the kitchen cooking our meals that night!  The food tasted super fresh and was delicious!  Not the typical heavy rice and beans covered with cheese dishes in most Mexican places (although that's good too, sometimes!).  We were very pleased with our choice.  On a side note, the Mojitos weren't bad either...

On Saturday we went to Biltmore Estate.  Cue the Downton Abbey theme song.  Wow!  It was huge and gorgeous!  We did a self-guided tour of the house mansion then went to the winery.  They offer tours of the winery, but we just did the tasting (which is included in the price of the admission ticket).  We spent pretty much all day long on the grounds, and still felt like we hadn't seen it all!  The tickets are good for 2 days; we didn't go back the next day, but I'd recommend it if you're thinking about visiting.  We were of course exhausted after our visit, but we enjoyed the beauty of the estate (despite hauling around our sweet babies!) and we met some really nice people there.

 

Umm, yeah. :}
www.thepinnaclelist.com

 

 Sunday morning we went back downtown to look around a bit more.  We found an awesome bookstore/Champagne bar (yep, you read that right!) called Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar.  It was too early for Champagne, but luckily they also had a coffee bar!  We got a white chocolate strawberry latte...delish!

 

www.foodandwine.com

 

 

When we walked out of the bookstore we saw that some local street vendors had set up shop.  I saw one called Monster Menagerie.  The super sweet lady was selling her adorable hand-made stuffed monster toys.  I had to get one for Cam and Jude.  Jude got one named Miles (who she said is named after her dog) and Cam got one made out of camouflage fabric called Tank.  Each monster is one-of-a-kind.  It was kind of funny...we were headed to a toy store I had spotted downtown when we saw this lady's booth.  I'm glad we saw her; it feels good to support local and independent artists :}

 

 

Our newest friends

 

Also while we were shopping downtown, we saw a shop called Bath Junkie.  It's a store where you can customize your bath and body products.  You can pick your formula (lotion, bath salt, shower gel, etc.), pick your scent, and decide what color you want.  All of the formulas are kid friendly, and I've been needing to get the boys some more bath soap, so I got some head-to-toe shampoo and body wash.  They have a "menu" of popular combinations of scents and I saw one in the kids section called Mud Pie...it's a mixture of Rain, Vanilla, and Dirt.  I smelled each scent individually and Dirt really did smell like dirt!  I got it tinted blue since it's for the boys.  I washed Cam's hair with it when I got home and it smells SO good!!  And the scent in his hair lasted for 2 days...it's pretty pricey, but it's quality stuff.  I'm thinking about getting myself something.  They have a limited number of actual stores, but they have a pretty good website if you want to check it out.

 

 

Anyway, it was such a nice getaway weekend with a dear friend who I miss living 3 streets away from!!  

Try It Tuesday

Peanut Butter Nutella Cookies!

I don't even know how long it's been since I've done a Try It Tuesday post...one, because I haven't had time, and two, because I haven't really "tried" anything from Pinterest lately.  But Sunday night I was trying to find something to make to eat during the Oscars; I came across this recipe and had all the ingredients, so I thought I'd give it a try :}

Ingredients

Sous Chef (not necessary, but kinda fun to have around)

Wet ingredients

 

After adding dry ingredients

 

 After "swirling" in the Nutella

 

Pre-baking (complete with standard peanut butter cookie crosshatches)

 Post-baking (Yum!)

They were pretty delicious!  A little on the crunchy/crispy side, so if you like moist, chewy cookies, you might want to find a different recipe.  They turned out pretty big...the recipe says to scoop out using 1/4 cup, but I only used a little over half of the 1/4 cup.  Would I make them smaller next time? Oh, no! When it comes to peanut butter and Nutella, go big, right?!

I got the recipe from this blog if you'd like to check it out, but here it is:

 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 unsalted butter, softened (I used salted)
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 & 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup Nutella

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer add both sugars, peanut butter, butter, vanilla and egg and mix until smooth and creamy. In a separate small bowl whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing until just combined. Add the Nutella and using a knife swirl it into the batter. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

While it's in the refrigerator, preheat your oven to 350 and spray 2 cookie sheets with cooking spray. When the dough is done chilling, scoop about a 1/4 cup of dough out and roll it into a ball and place on cookie sheet (no more than 12 on a cookie sheet). With a fork, press down gently on each cookie to flatten it a bit and to give it the cookies a nice pattern on top. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

P.S.  The batter is thicker than I expected it to be to "swirl" in the Nutella.  I did use a knife, but I just kind of stirred it around a little.  "Fold in without mixing completely" might be a better phrase.  Enjoy!

Hanging in There

Yep, I'm still alive and kicking, in case you were wondering.  I feel like I've been out of touch for a while.  Between doctor visits, hospital appointments, sickness, and just general upkeep, I've just been trying to make it through each day without someone throwing me in a padded cell.  I haven't really been able to communicate with the hubster in over a week I guess, and it's probably been the hardest week since he's been gone.  Sure there have been a couple of bad days here and there, but this has been the longest string of consecutive "hard days" yet.  And, of course, it has been the longest we've gone without talking.  Luckily, we got to Skype for a little while this morning, which was so nice, even though the quality was terrible.  So, just to update him and all of you, here's a summary of the last couple of weeks.

We'll start with a couple of fun ones.  First, I ordered some diapers from Cow Patties.  She hand makes cloth diapers and offers tons of different prints.  I got Star Wars and Hungry Caterpillar :}  Here's the Star Wars one:

 

 

Last weekend my mom and I went to a local winery, Three Sisters Vineyards, for a wine and chocolate tasting.  It was delish :}  Here's the plate of chocolates and souvenir wine glass we got:

 

Good times

 

That was on Saturday...Cameron got sick on Monday and is still sick :{  He caught the awful stomach bug that has been going around.  It hasn't been pretty, to say the least.  But worse than the "symptoms," shall we say, is that he just feels so bad.  He carries Wolfie around and sometimes he'll just lay down on the floor on top of him...it's so pitiful.  I admit that I have enjoyed him being so cuddly and STILL!  I never get to just sit with him and watch a tv show because he never sits!  But I do hate that he feels so bad and wish there was something I could do :{  Unfortunately, a stomach virus has to just run its course.  We missed another whole week of day care this week (two weeks ago we missed a week because he had strep throat, but even then, he didn't feel this bad).  On Tuesday he decided to borrow little brother's Nap Nanny (which used to be his, actually) and relax a while:

Like I said, pitiful :{

 

On Wednesday we had an appointment for Jude at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.  We have a history of a blood disorder called Hemophilia on my side of the family, and there is a possibility that I passed on the gene to him.  Hemophilia is caused by a deficiency of a certain factor in the blood, in my family's case, Factor 9.  The blood does not clot properly if a factor is missing, which makes bleeding hard to get under control...even a small bruise can be dangerous, so we definitely want to find out if he has it or not.  We met with a hematologist at the hospital for an evaluation.  Unfortunately, Jude's level of Factor 9 was low enough to be a concern, but not low enough to get a definite diagnosis.  Apparently, all babies are born with low a Factor 9 level...it doesn't peak until 6 months to a year old.  So, they want us to come back when he's at least 6 months to get his blood tested again.  While we were there we saw a room that was sponsored by the Ryan Seacrest Foundation.  Famous people periodically come to the hospital to meet patients and do a radio interview.  On that particular day Max Irons and Jake Able were the guests.  They are starring in The Host, which is based on a novel by Stephanie Meyer of Twilight fame.  Max has been in Red Riding Hood and Dorian Gray (and more importantly, he was a Burberry model :} ), and Jake has been in Percy Jackson: The Lightening Thief and I Am Number Four.  The Host comes out March 29th.  Here they are:  

 

And here's my sweet baby, who started smiling on February 17th :}

 

 

So, that about covers it.  I also did A LOT of lanudry for reasons I won't discuss here :/   

My Day in Review

What. A. Day.

It has been an I-don't-know-whether-to-laugh-or-cry type days.  And let me just say that it began at 5:00am when both boys woke up.  Yes, both.  They seem to tag team me.  When one is asleep the other is awake.  When I change one diaper, the other needs a change almost immediately.  How do they synchronize it like that?  Is it some kind of secret sibling mind trick?  I'm guessing it will be like this for the rest of our lives...although hopefully fewer diaper changes will be involved eventually.

Anyway, it started out innocently enough. Just the usual. But I had to go upstairs to put our dinner together in the crockpot. So both boys came with me, because I obviously can't leave them alone downstairs.  Well, Jude started crying and was inconsolable until I went and got the moby wrap. I prepared half of dinner while "wearing" him. He eventually fell asleep. Ok, good. I set him down and tried to finish up the crockpot meal (I was an hour late getting it ready...don't tell my mom) when I looked over and saw this:

 

That's a bag of flour. I thought, "Whew!  That could have been a disaster!  I've seen the pictures of kids covered in flour on Facebook! Poor moms...Haha!"  I was pretty proud of myself for catching him before I had to clean up a huge mess...smug even.  (What's that John Lennon song...Instant Karma's Gonna Get You...)  I then walked into the living room to turn on some cartoons for Cam to watch while I cleaned up the kitchen and saw this:

 

 

 

 

It took me forever to figure out what this was...yes, I tasted it.  It had no taste.  I finally figured out that it was Wondra, a thickening powder used for gravy and such.  There was an open container of it...wait for it...in the pantry!  He had taken it into the living room, shaken it out, and put it back!  Whaaat?!  Ok, so I got that swept up.  Now back into the kitchen to clean up.  Oh. My. Sweet. Goodness. Now this:

 

 

 

 

Jealous yet?  No?  Well, here's a little taste of what this afternoon was like:

 

 

 

Yeah, I had to call for backup.  Well, actually backup called me.  My grandma called to ask me a question, and she could hear in my voice that something was up...she said, "Need me to come get Cam?"  *sigh of relief*...Yes. Please.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm SO lucky to be here with my family!  I don't take them for granted for a second.  So, he's over at her house now...that's the only way I would be able to be blogging right now!  And meanwhile, there's this:

 

Sweet little guy :}  At least for now...

 

So, just another day in the life.  But there's no way I can stay too upset with my other sweet little guy!  Just look at him!*

 

 

 

*This picture is from yesterday ;}

3.5

Well, baby Jude is one week old today!  I thought I'd take the opportunity to write about his birth story while both boys (who I now affectionately refer to as the Stinky Bottom Boys) are napping.  Wow, no one told me what a sense of accomplishment you feel when you get both of your kids to sleep at the same time!  So here goes...I promise I won't go into graphic detail!

When Jude decided to make his entrance, he decided to make an entrance!  He had apparently had just about enough and said, "Let's get this show on the road!" and at 39 weeks and 2 days he was born! The whole labor, start to finish, was 3 1/2 hours!  Luckily, I live about 3 minutes from the hospital, so we didn't have to waste those precious minutes driving.

Spicy Chinese food.  I'm pretty sure that's what did the trick!  After a very eventful day (taking Cam to his first day of daycare and joining the ladies ministry group at church), my cousin and her daughter came over to play with Cam for a little while.  Then they invited us to go eat Chinese food with them.  We got home around 6:30, and I went to bed around 9:00.  About 9:30 I felt a little bit of pain with a contraction, but I didn't think anything of it because that had been happening for a few weeks.  Then at 10:00 my water broke!  I called my mom and told her we better get ready, so we called the midwife and headed to the hospital.  We had to go in through the ER entrance since it was so late...I wasn't having any real painful contractions yet, so we sat and chatted with the ER admittance lady while I got checked in and waited for them to bring a wheelchair to take me up to labor and delivery.  That took about 20 minutes.  So I got upstairs into the delivery room and the contractions, the real contractions started...about every 4-5 minutes :/  It took for. ev. er. for the nurse to do everything she was supposed to do (check my progress, put in an IV, call the anesthesiologist!!, etc.). I kept telling her my contractions were getting very close together, like 1 minute or less, and much stronger, but she didn't seem very concerned.  I was more than a little upset with her throughout this entire experience...outraged might be an appropriate word.  Anyway, the anesthesiologist finally got there around 1:00am and started prepping me for the epidural (by the way, no one has checked my progress since the nurse did at about 11:30, at which point I was 5cm.).  While he was giving me the epidural I told them the baby was coming, to which the nurse replied, "Oh, you're just feeling some pressure because you're sitting on the edge of the bed." Is that so, nurse?  Well, I laid back down, the midwife came in, and said, "Umm, you can start pushing any time you're ready." Mmm hmm...thought so.  Anyway, three good pushes and our little man was here!!  It was a little scary because the cord was wrapped around his neck about three times, but she quickly unwrapped it and we heard his first little cry :}

So, basically I went through the entire labor without meds...thank goodness it was short, because, sheesh! That sh...tuff hurts!!  But, as a friend of mine said the other day, babies have some kind of magical power that makes you forget the aches and discomfort of pregnancy and the horrible pain of labor the second they're born :} 

The awesome thing is that Josh got to see Jude being born on Skype!  How lucky are we?!  It really felt like he was there because I could hear his voice the whole time...and my mom was there for support too, which was great.  I really can't believe it worked out, but I'm so glad it did!

It' s still a little surreal that Jude is here!  He's looking more and more like Cam every day, which is also pretty weird!  But both he and I are doing great...Cam is having some adjustment issues, which is sad, but I know we'll get them worked out soon.  I'm so blessed and grateful to have two such beautiful sons!  Welcome to our family sweet boy!

Birthday Memories

Well, today is the hubby's birthday! I've been so ridiculously pregnant (i.e. tired, grumpy, weepy...all of the Seven Dwarves basically) that I haven't made it to the post office to mail his gift to him.  I didn't even leave him a message on Facebook at the right time.  Yep, epic wife fail.  But, I definitely didn't forget about it!  So, I just wanted to apologize to him for being so un-wifely...I promise to get my act together soon!

Anyway, I've been thinking about all of the ways we've celebrated his birthday since we've been together...we've had some pretty good times!  So, since we can't be together to celebrate this year, I'm hoping that the memories of past ones and the anticipation that we'll be together for the next one will help a little.  Here's a review:

2009

 

This was the first time we celebrated his birthday.  We had just started dating in August 2008.  We went to a natural history museum in Atlanta called Fernbank.  They had a special series of events going on called Martinis and IMAX.  We walked around the museum a while, listened to some live jazz music while we drank martinis (wish I could remember the name of the group), then had a wonderful dinner in the main entrance to the museum.  Then after dinner they showed a Cirque du Soleil film on the IMAX screen.  We felt extremely cultured after that night!   

 

This is kind of how it looked when we went

 

 

2010

 

This year we went to the Georgia Aquarium and then to dinner at the Melting Pot.  The aquarium is such a beautiful place...we really enjoyed our day there.  Then I surprised him with his first trip to the Melting Pot.  He was very skeptical of eating at a fondue restaurant, but I'm pretty sure he's a convert.  How can anyone not like the Melting Pot?!  Melted cheese, fried foods, melted chocolate?  Yes please!

 



 

 

 

 

2011

 

For this birthday, we were in El Paso.  We decided to go to the Sunland Park Racetrack and Casino to watch the horse races (I don't think we actually went to the casino part, which is kind of surprising...oh yeah, it's because they didn't have a Craps table :} ).  Anyway, that was a really fun day.  I can't remember if we ended up winning much money that time...but we still enjoyed it!

 

 

 

 

2012

 

This year was the first time our little munchkin got to celebrate with us...he was 3 months old at the time.  We had to keep the festivities pretty low key since he's kind of a handful :}  We went to our favorite El Paso restaurant, Landry's.  It's a really nice seafood place, and Josh fell in love with the sea bass dish there.  Cameron was very well behaved (if I remember correctly), and we had a very nice evening.

 

 

 

 

 

2013

 

We Skyped :}

 

 

I love you and can't wait to celebrate your birthday with you for many many more years! 

The Cloth Diaper Chronicles: Getting Out the Nasties

Cam's diapers got a bad case of the nasties!  Every time they got wet, they would smell terrible...it was gross.  I started doing some research and asked my cloth diapering friends for advice.  What I determined is that a) I wasn't using the best detergent to wash the diapers, b) I was using too much of it, and c) I'm using a front load high-efficiency washer that doesn't use enough water to fully rinse all of the detergent out.  I've been using All Free and Clear, but have since switched to Rockin Green which is specially formulated for use on cloth diapers, so I know I'm using the good stuff.  When I first started using cloth I read that you should use 1/4 the amount of recommended detergent per load of diapers.  Well, that's what I did...however, I realized that a normal "load" for a full-time cloth diaper-er is about 20 diapers, and I only have 10 or 11.  So, I'm pretty sure I had gotten a build up of detergent on my diapers that trapped smellies, and I found out that the only solution is to strip them.

How do you strip cloth diapers?  Well, I'm glad you asked :} First, you get on YouTube and you watch a bunch of how-to videos until you find one that seems reasonably do-able...I used this one, and I'm super sorry to the girl who made the other video I watched about boiling inserts, but I can't find it right now.  Then, well, you just follow the directions...

Anyway, there are so many different ways people strip their diapers, but I decided the method I would use for my diaper inserts was boiling.  I boiled them on the stove in batches (about 5 at a time for the size pot I had).  Fill the pot about half full and boil them for about 15 minutes, emptying and refilling the pot after each batch.  I read online that you shouldn't boil anything with waterproof lining or snaps because they could get damaged and shorten the life of your diapers, so I chose the soaking method for all my covers.  I filled the laundry sink with hot water and added probably about a teaspoon of blue Dawn and swished it around.  I let them soak for about 2 hours, then rang out everything and rinsed them in cold water and rang them out again.   Then I threw all of the boiled inserts and covers into the wash and put them through two cold rinse cycles.  And that's it.  The whole process took about 2 1/2 hours.  I didn't use detergent on them after they had boiled and soaked because they started out clean.  They're not quite dry yet, but when I took them out of the washing machine, they had no smell whatsoever!  So, now I feel like I'm getting a fresh start.  I hopefully won't have to strip them for a while (I've heard about every 3 months is common), and when I do, I will just soak everything (diapers and inserts) in some of the Rockin Green detergent for a couple of hours and that will be it. 



Boiling the inserts

Diaper covers soaking

So, now that I've probably bored you to tears, I will leave you with this...

  We're just lucky I guess ;}