Taco Pie

I love Taco pizza. Sadly, Joel does not. I should mention that he has never actually tried it, but he has an uncanny way of despising things that contain an ingredient he is unfamiliar with or he's decided sound weird.

Ok, my 25 year old husband eats like a toddler.

So tonight for supper, I told him I was making taco pie. He was concerned about ingredients that might sneak in there, like :::: gasp:::::: beans or sour cream or lettuce. I made this taco pie using:

1 can of Crescent Rolls
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 8 oz. container of sour cream
1 8 oz. package of finely shredded mild Cheddar cheese
1 package taco seasoning (dry)
1/2 package water (use taco seasoning package)
1/2 bag crushed tortilla chips---we used Doritos.

All you do is line a pan with the crescent rolls, cook the meat then add the taco seasoning, water, and sour cream to the meat. Mix it, then  layer the pan like this: chips, meat, cheese, and another layer of chips. Bake it at 350 for 20-25 minutes. I added lettuce and salsa to the top of mine after baking, Joel just opted for taco sauce. It was good and easy (that's what she said. Sorry, had to sneak that in there)

And the best part? I have opened the door of opportunity for Taco pizza since I convinced him there wasn't much difference. I'll just have to sneak the refried beans in somehow. 

P.S. I cooked this in an 8x8 pan, but my recipe calls for a 9x13. I like it thicker.

That's what she said.

Shout to to the DSM

Here's a sweet article about cloth diapering and other frugal things that Des Moines is growing in.


Frugal Des Moines

Ouch!

Warning: boobs and breastfeeding mentioned here.

I am exclusively nursing Tessa and so far it is going great. She is a great eater and I am providing plenty for her. However, there's a lot of things I've learned that most people fail to mention about breastfeeding.

1) Sometimes it hurts. When she goes through a growth spurt, she wants to eat every hour or two, and all that sucking starts to hurt.

2) Your supply might be uneven. In fact, it's pretty common. However, they didn't tell me how uneven. I have developed a superboob, one that is mass producing milk and has astronomically grown in size. Seriously, we're talking a B to H ratio here. When I pump, I pump 5-6 ounces of the superboob and .5-1.5 ounces out of the other. See what I mean? The term superboob has become a common term around our house, so much so that it has gone from an adjective to a noun and now a verb. The other day this conversation occured:

Joel: How long will it take her to eat so we can leave?
Me: It depends on which side I feed her from.
Joel: Well, superboob her so we can leave sooner.

She eats quickly when she gets superboobed because it comes out so fast and there's plenty there.

3) Pumping sucks! I know it's a necessary part of life and in order to continue to feed her breastmilk, I need to pump when I'm away. But I hate it! I hate being hooked up to the machine with the constant noise of whoosh-whoosh, whoosh-whoosh, whoosh-whoosh. I hate that it causes me extra dishes everyday. I hate that I have stop, hook up, and sit there for 20 minutes while a machine sucks at my teet. It's weird. But, it's worth it to give her breastmilk.

4) When you wake up in the morning, you will be engorged and probably in some pain. I've had 3 clogged ducts so far, but luckily, no mastitis yet. Since Tessa is sleeping through the night, I go 8-10 hours without nursing or pumping. I feed her at 8:30 at night and then she goes down for the night. On the days I'm off, I don't wake up until she does, which is usually between 7 & 8. That's 11 hours. When I do work, I get up at 5 so that's about 8 hours. But holy cow, I'm engorged, they are huge, and usually I wake up to find I've leaked through the breast pads and onto my shirt.

But, for all the little negatives that exist, there are many more positives, and that's why I'm going to try to make it a year. I don't want to buy formula, so I am dedicated to nursing, the stupid breast pump, and all that comes with it.

How are you doing?

Things have been relatively slow around this household recently. I've been working full time hours even though I'm only a part-time employee now. While the money is great, I miss my baby girl and my hubs. I get off at 5:30, home by 6, and Joel has to start getting ready to leave at 7.

So, yeah, we've got an hour a day as a family. Joel really enjoys being home with her, but he misses his sleep. Since he doesn't get off until 4 and wakes up whenever she does, he's running on little sleep. He catches up when I have days off because I'll get up with her. Funny thing is, when I don't have days off, he doesn't catch up on sleep. Whoops!

Tessa's still doing really well! We haven't had any alarms on the apnea monitor since December 21st. When we went for her 2 month appointment on December 22nd, the doctor said if she went 2-3 weeks without an alarm she could come off of it. But of course, being the stinker she is, she had an alarm the night before that.

Well, it's been a solid month now, but strangely, I'm not ready to give it back. I like the peace of mind knowing that nothing will happen to her because it will alarm me if she stops breathing for 20 seconds. I know that no matter what, that thing will beep louder than the fire alarms and let me know something's wrong. I've grown accustomed to this, and I fear that once she's off of it, I will spend my nights worrying and listening for the slightest sound she might make.

Eh, all good things must come to an end, and since it is costing us $400 a month, it'll be nice to get that $400 added to something else, like our school debt (Thank you Dave Ramsey, again!). She's growing like a weed, and does something new everyday it seems like. Ugh, so cliche. I've become that lady. The "my kid is so advanced and awesome and does new stuff and check her out... blah blah blah" lady. She is figuring out how to play with her toys and loves her play mat (homemade play mat that is, Dave Ramsey wouldn't approve of a separate, unnecessary toy system so we used the play gym bars that came with the pack and play and clipped a bunch of stuff to it). 

A little creativity goes a long way! I've also noticed how fast Tessa is taking over this blog. So, I'll talk write about some other things too.

my little sleeper

So as it turns out, the peanut is quite the little sleeper. Not wanting to jinx anything, I've kept my mouth shut up until this point about her sleeping through the night, but she's been doing it consistently since about 5 weeks. Seriously, this girl is like her mommy. Once it's bed time, she's out like a light until morning, then she likes to go, go, go until she crashes again at bedtime.

It all started one night when she usually wakes up at 3:30 to eat. I woke up at 4:30 very confused and a little worried. When I checked on her, she was snoozing away. Ever since that night, she's slept at least 8 hours straight. We've got her bedtime routine down really well now. She eats at 8:30, swaddle, bedtime story, then I usually rock her to sleep, although the last few nights she's gone down semi-awake and is starting to be able to get herself to sleep. She's out by 9.

On the mornings I leave for work at 6:15, I wake her up at 5:30 and feed her so Joel can get some more sleep. She eats and is right back down until about 10. On my days off or when I go in at 9, I let her sleep until she wakes up, which is usually around 7:30-8. Yeah, she's sleeping 10-11 hours a night, be jealous. And that means I am sleeping 10-11 hours a night. Be Jealous again. It's pretty awesome. Sometimes I hear her making noises in her sleep, but if she's waking up in the middle of the night, she's very quiet about it and puts herself back to sleep because I never hear her.

In other news:

Coming home to this face makes it really hard to want to get up and leave for work the next day.

Defiance

My 10 week old is starting to develop quite the personality. Some of these traits are great, some of them, well, I wish she'd take after her daddy more. She already has my defiance. Seriously. Open, obvious defiance. For example:

This was naptime. She sleeps on her stomach. Not only did she defy me by being awake, but she decided that rolling over and scooting herself to the end of the crib to check out her mobile was a better idea.

This was supposed to be tummy time.

Happy picture time

She was supposed to be using her neck strength to sit up in the bumbo. She thought this was a better plan.

She was supposed to be awake and alert for pictures

Again, awake, alert and happy for pictures

Bedtime. This was at 4am and she was supposed to be sleeping.

She was supposed to be practicing tummy time.

Apparently posing for pictures was too exhausting, because she punked out halfway through.

This one just cracks me up. Power to the people yo.

Back to work

Well, I've officially been back to work for 2 weeks. Technically, I'm part time, but since I can't say no and there's always hours available, I somehow am working full time again. But, the bank account is digging it, especially since I am keeping motivated on this whole Dave Ramsey thing, it's a nice feeling knowing that every day I work is a couple hundred dollars closer to being debt free. Gosh, I'm a weirdo.  I just reread that, and I kind of want to punch myself in the face for being a nerd.

I do like being back around people and I love the hustle and bustle of the hospital, but I hate going out in the random blizzards that pop up because there are zero hills or trees to block the wind. My 26 mile drive to work each morning sucks, but I got some sweet new country CD's for Christmas so it makes the time fly by. Side note: get the Zac Brown Band CD, the old one and the new one. You won't be disappointed. And Taylor Swift. She's my guilty pleasure. Anyways, back on subject. Work is ok, it's work. If I could, I'd stay home, but I can't so I don't. Oh well. It's not so bad.

Sometimes it's a nice feeling to shower, do my hair and makeup, get dressed, and leave the house. I didn't do much to get myself primped and pretty during maternity leave. Oh, who am I kidding. I don't do primping and pampering. Hello?! I'm a bare minimum kind of gal. You'll be lucky if I shave my legs in the winter. Needless to say, I think Joel's happy I'm back to work because now I actually get out of my sweatpants and make a feeble attempt at looking "pretty". Although, I get hit on by random dudes with no insurance in the ER, that counts right?

2 Months!

Tessa is 2 months old already!
I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by. I recently went back to work, but only part time. That was hard, but luckily she is left in the trusting hands of her daddy so my mind was at ease. Since he works nights, he gets up with her during the day while I'm working. I'm only working 3 days a week now, which is working so far.

Every day I swear she learns something new. She smiles all the time, and definitely knows the sound of our voices. She loves watching the television, and will cock her head to try to see it no matter where she is in the room. She loves her bouncy seat until she gets tired, then she realizes she has to do the work and gets annoyed. She loves her swing when she's in the right mood, but usually doesn't sleep in it. She is most entertained by the pole of her swing swinging back and forth. The swing has a dancing mobile and sings songs, but she is most entertained by the pole. She's so goofy.

She is a great sleeper, which is such a blessing to us. She goes down at 10pm and wakes up between 7 and 8 to eat, then back to bed until about 10.

Photo shoot lasted about 30 seconds longer than she wanted it to, but for some reason, the crying pictures crack me up!

Christmas #4

Since my brother and his wifey were visiting from Denver, we crammed in multiple Christmases in a short amount of time. Whenever they are in town, it's 4-5 days full of laughing, playing cards, drinking, and eating everything in sight. We play at least 100 games of pinochle, with a few other games mixed in. Last year, my mom found this new card game and wanted to teach it to us. It's called back alley bridge. I have no idea where she learned it, but I do know how quickly we perverted the name of it. Since last Christmas, we have come up with the following names for this game, all of which have to do with the... ahem... back door.
Back Door Bridge
Back Vag Bridge
2 in the stink Bridge
2 in the dirty bridge
Stink Finger Bridge
Starfruit Bridge

What can I say, we're weird! So anyways, we play a lot of games, and had Christmas too. My nephew Jaxon is such a ham so he had us rolling in laughter on many occasions. Plus, with 2 new babies, it was quite an adventurous few days. We got spoiled, as usual. Tessa got an adorable play kitchen, a puppy that sings songs, and some clothes, books, and Baby Einstein DVD's. So far, she loves the DVD's and loves watching them in her monkey bouncer chair. 

 Here is Tessa and Noah, who is 12 days older doing tummy time. This lasted about 30 seconds and then Tessa laid her head down and tried to go to sleep and Noah got very angry.

 My nephew Jaxon, who is 2 1/2.

My super weird brother, who I get most of my weirdness from. He brings out the silly in me, more than anyone else I know.  From the minute he walks in the door when they visit, it is nonstop laughter. His wife, Jen, is just goofy, but Luke and I have this weird unspoken thing where we can just bust out laughing over absolutely nothing.

Tessa likes when her great aunt Jan comes to visit! She's pretty entertaining!