Blogger Casserole

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I’ve actually been feeling a whole lot better these past few days, as far as my stomach is concerned. Thank heavens because the nausea was way more than I could handle, especially not expecting it based on my 2 previous pregnancies. Felling better has afforded me the opportunity to eat chicken again, so on Monday night I made one of our favorite casseroles for Hub to throw in the oven before I got home from work yesterday. It turned out very well, and even ED ate it. Here is the recipe which is based very loosely on a recipe in my Betty Crocker Cook Book.

o 2 cups of cooked chicken, cubed (I usually cook up 3-4 large boneless breasts seasoned with butter, salt and pepper beforehand, but you could use pre-packaged chicken)
o 1 ½ cups white rice, cooked
o ¼ cup butter
o 1/3 cup flour
o 1 cup chicken stock
o 1 ½ cups milk
o Salt and pepper to taste
o 1 can of peas
o 1 can of corn
o Breadcrumbs or crushed cornflake crumbs

1. preheat oven to 350
2. Prepare rice and set aside.
3. Melt butter in large sauce pan
4. add flour salt and pepper and cook until bubbly
5. add chicken stock and milk and whisk constantly until boiling. Let boil for one minute for sauce to thicken.
6. combine chicken, rice veggies and sauce in greased 9×13 pan.
7. Top with crumbs if desired
8. bake 30-45 minutes until bubbly

I kid you not when I say it is delicious. I like to serve it with some fresh yeast rolls and whipped butter for the true “home-style” feel. This also freezes really well if you say, wanted to make it and drop it off for a friend in need, or make a double batch to have again another time.

Tonight I’m making another one of my favorites that takes about 20 minutes and is so simple you would die.

The ingredients are 1lb of ground beef or ground turkey and one family sized box of beef flavored rice-a-roni. I buy the low sodium version, and call it “casseroni” which is what my mom always called it.

1. Brown the beef or turkey drain and set aside.
2. In the same pan, begin browning the rice-a-roni per package instructions.
3. Once the rice is browned, add the beef and then add the seasoning packet and water per the package instructions and combine.
4. Finish cooking per package instructions

This we serve with packaged buttermilk biscuits, or even just white bread and butter. It’s a cheap and easy delicious meal!!! I do double the recipe for our family.

I love casseroles; this is the time of year for them and also, I am really in the mood for them, so here is a call for all of your recipes. If you’ve previously posted them, link me baby! If you haven’t and don’t want to do a recipe post, drop me an email. incubationnation at gmail dot com.

Go! Go! Now!

Negativity

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1. The baby portion of my belly is pushing up the flabby belly left over from previous pregnancies, creating this obscene ridge. It is horrific.
2. Also, my boobs no longer fit in my bras.
3. The breakfast nook I ordered arrived today, more than 3 weeks before our kitchen will even be started. That was fast! And now we have to store it!
4. Hub went to Target to pay on our charge yesterday, and I had him walk over to the baby section. He found a bedding set (Classic Pooh) with the comforter, sheet, bumper and dust ruffle marked down from $89.99 to $19.98, and bought it. At full price, I probably wouldn’t have picked Classic Pooh, but it is adorable. And I like the idea that this baby will have something that only belonged to her/him out there in the sea of hand-me-downs it will encounter.
5. I had a really bad night with the kids last night and did a lot of yelling, which caused me to do a lot of crying after they had gone to bed. They deserved to be in trouble, but I felt horrible about the way I went about things.
6. ED told me yesterday that he was calling an 18-wheeler to come and get me and he was going to pack me up in the back and send me away for ever. I told him to enjoy life with no Mommy which caused him to burst in to tears. Sigh.
7. He also told me that he wants to learn to swing on those rings like the American Gladiators do. Double Sigh.
8. I have gone to the bathroom 4 times during this post due to drinking a large Dr. Pepper. Annoying. Even more annoying—of the 7 sinks in the work bathroom, one does not shut off automatically. Every time I go in to the bathroom, someone has left it on. WTF people?
9. I am really tired of my job and the assholes that come along with it. Really tired.
10. One of my best associates was feeling really sick today and was shaking and white and pasty and thought she was going to pass out. Her mother came to take her to the hospital to save her the embarrassment of being carted out in an ambulance. I walked her out to the front to make sure she got in the car ok. Apparently, rumor has it that I fired her and escorted her out of the building. Again, assholes.
11. I hate it when people pronounce “escalated” Esc-YA-lated.
12. We just got a “Melting Pot” restaurant here. A bunch of us have reservations for 2/16. Exciting, right?
13. There, now I’ve ended on a positive. I feel a little bit better.

Baby Names, OB Visits and Such

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I was agreeing with Devan last week that naming the third baby is excruciatingly hard. I’ll admit I haven’t put a whole lot of time and effort in to it; it’s been more of rolling things off of my tongue and filing them away. For me, and probably everyone else, deciding what a child will be known as for their entire life is a hefty decision. I want to feel passion and wild excitement for the name that we choose.

We were kicking around two girl’s names, which I believe that I have shared before, Abby and Olivia. I like both of those names just fine, save for the possible ramifications of Olivia being paired with my last name, but when I think about living with them, I’m just not wild with glee. CA’s name (to be deleted later which is yousnoozeyoulose) still gives me “the feeling” today. I am in love with her name, perhaps more so because I am in love with her, but you get the picture.

It was different with ED (whose name is yousnoozeyoulose, the same as Hub), because I did not necessarily care for the name, however, Hub felt the wild excitement over it because it was his given name, and he was named after each of his grandfathers. It is an important family name, and being important to him made it a necessity when it came time to naming our 1st born son, and honestly, he is nothing but an ED.

While I still have no feelings or prospects on a possible boy’s name, I came upon a girl’s name recently that I am in love with. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I think that it is “The Name”. (For this reason, of course, we will have another boy, and I will be screwed….) I hesitated to mention it to Hub thinking he would say no faster than I could get it out of my mouth, but he didn’t. He was actually ok with it. He figures I’ll change my mind 100 times between now and August, but I don’t think so. I can not picture our baby girl (who may not be a girl) with any other name.

So do you want to know what it is? I don’t know if I want to tell you. I was afraid that speaking it out loud to Hub would somehow change my opinion, or he would tell me something horrifically associated with the name, but he didn’t. I trust that you won’t either. You won’t will you?

I had my 12 week appointment today, and everything went well. The heartbeat was strong at 156 and my blood pressure was low, per usual. My next OB visit is 2/26 and then my anomaly screening and ultrasound is 3/6, which means 6 weeks before we can find out what we’re having. 6 weeks, GAH. Best of all, I can start taking pepcid again, and when I mentioned the migraines I’ve been getting she suggested Tylenol Sinus rather than plain Tylenol since they all start off as sinus headaches. It was a productive and quick visit……YAY!

Oh were you waiting to hear about that baby name? Here it is. The middle name is not set in stone. Tell me what you think, but only if it’s good. And hey, if anyone wants to help me with some boy’s names, just in case, have at it!

H A N N A H – G R A C E

Yoo Hoo!

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Ok, it’s true, I’ve been miserable, but I’ve had a really hard time putting it in to words. This is by far the worst 1st trimester I have ever had, and I feel like it’s got to get better sometime soon. I am now in my 13th week. For the love of corn dogs! Please STOP!

As I was shoving my face full of a McDonalds Hot Fudge Sundae last night (but only the parts with hot fudge, the rest, was chucked in the garbage), standing over the counter shoveling it in like a wino over a garbage can as the kids sat and stared at me over their chicken and apples (and fries), and then again this morning as I stuffed my purse full of frozen Jimmy Dean Sausage Breakfast Sandwiches on my way out the door to work (since clearly, they are the only acceptable form of MEAT in the world), I was reminded of Catherine Newman—specifically her white trash pregnancy diet. When I re-read this post this morning, I really felt validated. This is what I’ve been going through! Someone understands me! And I know that all of you gals out there get it too, but to read this again, I don’t know, it just helped me out a lot this morning.

In other pregnancy news, I am losing my mind! I actually left the house with only one sock on today. Only. One. Sock. The reason? One of my socks was upstairs and I knew that I saw the match in the basement. I put the lone sock on, figuring I would grab the other on my way out, and put my boots on as well. Kissed the kids goodbye, and out to the car I went. At least I hadn’t made it out of the driveway before I remembered. Both of my feet are now safely “socked.”

I’ve heard speculation that after your first pregnancy, you can feel the baby moving sooner. I’m reasonably sure that I can feel this baby moving around down there, tiny flutters abound, however my brain is saying “um, you are 12 weeks and one day pregnant, idiot. You don’t feel the baby.”

But I think I do. And although it is the 3rd time around, it sure is grand.

By the way….

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This is how my little diva went to the mall with me on Saturday. I love that she is such an individual. I love that she is a self-proclaimed princess. I love that she wants her own way (except for when it is inconvenient). I love that she has the makings to be a very strong woman some day. And most of all, I love that she is mine

My Weekend, By: Saly

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We have decided to completely re-do our kitchen. The financing came through on Friday, and we are just going for it. It is desperately needed anyhow as our current set-up is so ass-backwards and 1945 it is ridiculous. The catch is that Hub will be doing it all himself, but I think he has it in him. And also that we will be closing up FIL’s door and relocating it to the other side of the kitchen. Hope he doesn’t mind! We’re hoping that this will help us to increase our equity enough to get the upstairs done by a pro. That project needs to be completed no later than this time next year, when the baby will be ready to move out of our room.

We had something of a busy weekend. On Saturday, Hub and my brother took ED to Toronto for the monster truck show. Apparently, he loved it. He was still wide awake when they got home at 2:00 AM. Yes, he kept my (4-year-old) baby out until 2:00 AM. While they did that, CA and I shopped clearance at Kohls, Old Navy and JC Penny. I picked up some PJ sets at Kohls, the $8.00 maternity jeans I couldn’t get online at ON and struck gold at JCP, scoring 15 shirts, 3 skirts and 2 pair of pants for CA for $1.18 each, and three 3-piece outfits for ED for $10 each. I spent $55 on all of it. I then got 4 maternity tops for under $30. It was great! CA and I also stopped at IHOP for dinner. It was nice spending time with just her.

Sunday, my cousin’s baby was christened, and they had a luncheon afterward. I was very surprised at how well ED behaved considering his lack of sleep. It’s nice that my cousins and I all have kids who are the same age. They had a great time together.

Yesterday, I took the kids to daycare, and then I came home and slept until 1:00 PM. It was amazing. Hub and I grabbed some Chinese food and spent some time at home depot looking at kitchen stuff. It wasn’t a productive day off, but it worked for me.

I only wish I was home sleeping now.

I sure do wish I had more interesting things to say. My brain doesn’t seem to be functioning normally these days. I will be 12 weeks along tomorrow, so I am hoping that all of the crap will subside soon, and maybe my creativity will get turned back on. This is starting to remind me of my fourth grade diary, in which most pages read “Today I went to school. Then I came home. It was good.” I’m tired of the daily narrative.

I actually had a dream last night where I was writing a post about which parts of my day I would pause and which parts I would fast forward if life had TiVo. When I tried to type it out this morning though, it was tres lame. The one moment sticking out though, the one that I would pause, or keep forever, occurred yesterday morning while I sat on the couch with ED, snuggled under a blanket before the rest of the house was awake. “I love snuggling with you in the morning”, I said. He snuggled deeper in, my 4-year-old boy “Me too Mommy, me too.” He makes my heart melt.

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I’m coming to terms with the fact that this may very well be my last pregnancy. As much as I’ve always said that I wanted to have 4 kids, thinking about having another one when I am over 30—-it just doesn’t seem possible.

It may be premature to have these kinds of thoughts; I get that. The baby isn’t even here yet; I know. Still, I’m operating on the assumption that this is my last, and I’m taking advice from Misty, who said in one of my comments that she’s pretty sure her next pregnancy will be her last, and that she is going to spoil herself.

That being said, I am going for it and I am spending the $30 on this cute skirt from Old Navy (ok, it is not on their website anymore, but I I find it again, I will show you), even though I wouldn’t spend $30 on a non-maternity skirt. I’m spending all of my Christmas gift cards on cute maternity clothes despite the fact that I already have a shit-load from the last two times. And I am buying the things I want for this baby, which will include a fancy sling and a bumbo.

Anyhoo—

In other baby news, I am feeling really strong girl vibes. This is kind of hard, because with CA, I really wanted a girl, since we already had a boy. Now, as we have one of each, I don’t have any preferences, per se, but I have been weighing the pros and cons of each. I’m not really sure how I feel about myself doing that, like in some aspects it would be better to have a boy (I love that CA is our little princess, boys seem to be easier) but in others it seems like having a girl (ED is such a mama’s boy, I have SO MANY girl’s clothes) would be better. Is this normal? I think generally, I don’t care. But if you ask me what I want on any given day, my response will change. It should be just over a month before we find out for sure anyway. (YAY!)

Tomorrow is official Mommy and CA day since Hub and ED are going to the monster truck rally (yawn). As long as I can borrow FIL’s car, we will shop and go have something for dinner and have a fun girl’s day. I’m excited; it’s nice to get to spend solid one-on-one time with each of them once in a while. Sunday, my cousin’s baby is being baptized, so we’ll be doing that. This will be the first time we’ve seen anyone from my dad’s family since our pregnancy announcement, so let’s see how this all goes. All of my cousins have stopped with 2 kids.

And now, I’ve ordered some manicotti for lunch, so I am off. Happy weekend to you all!

Handling

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About 30 minutes after I had put the kids to bed last night (and I was half way through my second bowl of ice cream) ED came out in the living room.

“I keep forgetting to ask you 2 questions!” he says

“Ok”, I say, and notice how well spoken he is for a 4-year-old. He really is a boy now.

“I need to know how the baby got in there Mommy. And how are you going to get it out.”

Ice cream falls from my spoon back in to the bowl and my mind starts racing. What am I going to say? He is rather grown up, as far as four-year-olds go…should I give him some details? Should I make up some crap about the stork? He already mentioned that he knows that doctors deliver a baby (but then asked where exactly, they deliver them to? To their mommies at the “hostable”?) I really don’t want to use the word vagina. Am I sweating? Oh my GOD!

I told him that I need to think about it since it’s been a long time since I had a baby, and I really don’t remember. This satisfied him (for now) and he went back to bed.

I don’t know why Hub and I have not discussed, what, or how much, if anything we are telling him. I also don’t know what we were thinking getting pregnant with a very inquisitive 4-year-old around. This was a lot easier when he was just a year old and I was pregnant with CA.

I’d be curious to know what information you all gave your older children in this situation. Or what did your parents tell you about babies.

My mother was pregnant with my youngest brother when I was 10. She answered my questions by giving me a book, and sending me to my room to read it myself while she and my father watched the football game. Seriously. When she was pregnant with my 1st brother, she gave me the cock and bull “mommy has a seed and daddy waters it” which I repeated to ever last person I came in to contact with, since I was, you know, 2. This is the kind of situation I don’t want to get myself in to; ED blurting out something completely embarrassing in public. (more embarrassing than asking me loudly in a public restroom why grownups are “a little bit hairy”. Yeah.)

On a complete side note, CA was up at about 11:30 last night and couldn’t go back to sleep so I brought her in with me. She slept with her head propped on my belly (until I started choking on stomach acid) and later rolled next to me. I woke up at 2:30 AM finding her curled completely in to my side, with ED sleeping in between my legs and the cat sleeping in between his legs. Apparently, my bed is the community bed when Hub works overnight. I think I’d be better off on the couch.

Train of Thought

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1. Hub had a quick job yesterday morning, so FIL watched the kids for a few hours in the morning. I talked to Hub when he was on his way home and he said that FIL had left him a message to say that he was taking the kids to McDonalds, around 9:00 AM. I was confused, because when I left they were happily sipping hot cocoa and eating pop tarts. Hubs got home to find that the reason they went to McDonalds was because they begged FIL for french fries to dip in their hot chocolate. I have 3 problems with this situation:

1. It’s disgusting.
2. It was 9:00 AM—you can not get french fries at 9:00 AM
3. FIL is the adult and he allowed a 4 and 2-year-old to con him in to going for french fries in the morning to DIP IN HOT COCOA. I mean, seriously, WTF.

As anticipated, there were no fries so they ended up at Tim Horton’s for doughnuts anyway. I’m still really annoyed.

2. I passed out on the couch last night and decided not to go in to bed when Hub came home because I had some wicked heart burn. When I woke up around 1:30, I was totally going to bed, but he was snoring so loud, I chose to stay on the couch. I could still hear him from the living room, along with FIL hacking up a lung from his room. But don’t worry; he was still outside smoking this morning. Let me tell you, it was a great night.

3. I’m pretty sure that Hub is getting sick of me wanting cereal for dinner. I feel like he should be putting out a cereal buffet for me each night. He seems to think that I should cook or something. I think he’s lucky that I don’t just come home and go to bed every night.

4. Hub also (finally) emptied the bathroom garbage the other night. And I gloated. Like that annoying girl in the litter box commercial who has that extra annoying way of saying “I’m cleaning the litter box….” I hate that commercial. HATE IT. Anyway, I did a little dance and started screaming “I WIN!!!” in the kitchen. I’m sure he will never empty it again.

5. Two people at work, upon hearing “my news” have said “better you than me……”. What does that even mean? Apparently it is better for me. Your poor children, you assholes.

6. I’m on a tic tac kick. The new cherry passion ones are DELICIOUS.

7. I am so looking forward to Monday, since I am off of work. The kids are going to school. I am sleeping all day. Oh happy day.

8. I am missing a whole box of maternity shirts….the long sleeved ones. I have no idea where they could possibly be, and I need them. I found all of the short sleeved ones, and I’m wondering why I even kept them since I continued to wear them after Cait was born, while nursing and etc. They are pretty much ruined. My Old Navy (Oh Maybe’s if you are ED) order should arrive today, and that is exciting.

9. I watched the second half of American Idol last night. Does anyone think that the weirdo crap isn’t a gimmick? It’s really just annoying and old at this point. I usually don’t watch until they get down to 20 anyway, but there was NOTHING on TV. I’m actually pretty tired of there being nothing on TV, by the way.

10. When I went through everything I bought at Target last night, along with the box that came from TCP, CA wanted to try it all on. She loved the pink puffy dress. She also asked whether the new blankies were her new blankies. When I told her that they were for the baby, she disappeared in to the other room and came back with her twin babies and laid each of them on one of the blankets. She is so cute that it kills me!

Target Clearance Shopping, Onion Soup, and Apparently, I Look Like Crap

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Well. I’ve just finished my lunch, which means I am nauseous. That’s the way it goes around here lately. I planned on getting something small for lunch, but I was on such a high from clearance shopping at Target that I needed immediate sustenance. Panera happened to be on the way, and though they forgot the cheese in my french onion soup, it was very delicious.

Oh, you want to know what I got at Target? LET ME TELL YOU!!!

I will start by saying that I spent $17.99 on new sneakers for ED because his feet will not stop growing. Everything else I got was less than $4 and I bought in bigger sizes for next year. 2 pair of tights, a red knitted sweater (she has the same one for this year and I spent $15 on it then), a fancy dress with a velour top and puffy pink plaid skirt for CA, 2 pair of pants, 2 shirts, and a hoodie for ED, and 2 blankets for the baby (one is purple, so if it is a boy it will go to my friend Kel who is having a girl—the other is green). All of the Circo brand fleecy blankets were on clearance for $2.74. I would have bought one in every color and style (there were about 10) if Hub wouldn’t have killed me for it. In all, I spent $56 and $30 of it was on a gift card. $26 out of pocket, not bad.

I also bought a lot on clearance last week with ED’s 20% off birthday coupon at TCP. It came today, so I can’t wait to get home.

My mother called me last night to say that she changed her mind; she thinks I’m having a girl. Why? Because girls drain all of the beauty from your face. Not to say that I’m ugly, but that I have big black circles under my eyes. So it must be a girl.

WTF.