Cupcakes and Commentary

and not a picture to show for it! I was going to take a picture, but that would involve me getting up from the couch during A’s nap and right now I am relishing this sitting down time.

It’s exciting to reach what they consider “full term”, but I also feel like I am behind in getting things prepared for baby J’s arrival. With A I was more than ready for him to get here, but this time I am not minding him taking his time. So for an update:

On my list for things to prepare:

- Getting our hospital bag packed (working on it)

- Swing put together (check)

- Pack and play put together for our room (check)

- Getting A’s bag packed (working on it)…probably my biggest hurdle because I have to do it when he is not around, but it is also difficult to “pack” a lot of things in advance for him.

- Finish the nursery (I’d be doing a lot better on this if I stopped taking on new projects). I can’t wait to post pictures of it when it is finished, it is really looking great!

What Baby J is up to:

-Gaining weight, I hope! HA! Hopefully this weight isn’t all me.

- Kicking me in the ribs.

How A is doing:

- A has become a bit clingy to me in the past week and a half…it’s funny this whole time he hasn’t really seemed affected by the pregnancy, but now it’s like he gets something is up.

- A is also not sleeping well, which I don’t know is if in connection to the clingyness, or another developing ear infection. I am hoping it is not another ear infection.

-A picked out a peep for baby brother J (as he calls him)…a doggy similar to the bunny A loves so much. It was so funny when we were picking out the doggy, they had some of the bunnies there that we got for A. I don’t think A even recognized them as they were very fluffy and white, while A’s very loved bunny has lost most of its fluff and has taken a bit of a “greenish” tinge.

How I am doing:

- Besides it being progressively harder to move and quite a bit of back pain at night, I’m doing pretty good.

- I never had cravings with A but my husband pointed out to me the excessive amount of oranges I have been eating lately and the amount of milk I have been drinking (and I RARELY drink milk).

I found this recipe on Pinterest. I was particularly excited about this recipe because it comes with a recipe for homemade au jus sauce. I stopped getting the canned au jus when I read on the package that it has MSG in it. We have had just beef broth with our french dip sandwiches in the past, but this was much tastier.

French Dip Croissants with Homemade Au Jus

It makes me laugh that somehow whenever I take food pictures I am still using the dishes my sister gave me from college. And the reflection of the light in the sauce is so lovely! We’ve had a lot of spinach salad this past week, obviously. The only thing I would do a little differently was the croissants were not quite cooked enough. Next time I am going to try lowering the temperature twenty five degrees and cooking an extra five minutes.

I found this super cute Valentine’s Day craft idea on Pinterest. We didn’t have the exact materials for the craft, so as usual we improvised. Here is how we created our heart!

Materials:

Pink construction paper

White cardstock

Red paint

Glitter

Glue

Safety scissors

Details:

I traced hearts out of the card stock and A helped me cut them with safety scissors. Then we dipped his hands in paint and pressed them on the card stock. We let the paint dry and the next day we glued the hearts to the pink paper, traced the hearts with glue and sprinkled glitter all over the tracing. Craft complete.

Ah…to be three. Sometimes I get a good picture. And sometimes I do not.

Hints and Tips:

While I was tracing the hearts I had A color the pink construction paper so he was not just sitting there watching me. You could do the tracing in advance, but I rarely think of things like this in advance.

I also use a foil wrapped higher sided cookie tray when we use glitter, glue, etc. Easy mess clean-up.

You can use doilies like the linked example I have and you also can cut a larger heart around the white card stock heart with zig zag scissors which would be really cute.

We have been busy getting things prepped around here for Baby J. My parents took the mattresses out of the nursery for us, I am beginning to complete the process of decorating the room, and my husband has been busy getting things out of the attic (trying to muddle through my confusing labeling system…I really don’t know what I was thinking when I labeled half the stuff in the attic), and he has been putting together all the many items that we had forgotten a newborn needs. We have been really lucky to be able to borrow from my family a lot of the big items this time. However, one of the items we purchased was a new swing. Somehow when taking our last swing apart after A, it broke.

After the crazy process of putting the new swing together, I can understand why the old swing broke when we tried to take it apart. I told my husband that we are going to just leave it up forever. HA!

A prepping his drill…he takes putting together baby items VERY seriously.

A helping screw in a piece together. He does amazingly well at this…good hand eye coordination.

Testing out the buttons.

Testing the crawl through capabilities of the swing. Yup. You can crawl through it.

I didn’t take a picture of the finished product, but it looks great! I choose the swing because you can easily remove the seat to use as a bouncer, however, I am a bit bummed that the bouncer does not lay back unless it is in the swing. Which means the bouncer part is not really useful until Baby J gets older. Which means I will be calling my sister to see if we can borrow their bouncer again!

Tags: Baby J, Super A

There is not much more that all the boys love than a birthday right now. A birthday means presents, cake, ice cream, balloons, and being able to get together and play! We had a great time celebrating my Dad’s birthday!

First present opening…also titled “there’s something about Granna” because this time the boys were incredibly well behaved, even sitting for pictures and waiting patiently as each present was opened. If you don’t know the history of that title check the earlier posts from my Mom’s birthday party in October!

After my Dad opened this card (which was from his Mom) M exclaimed “you got three dollars, look there are three bills there! Man! I wish I could get three dollars on my birthday!” So hilarious!

Our group family gifts (from my sister’s family and mine) was a picture calendar and a tap and die set…apparently the only tool set my Dad does not own. Although he brought up another set at the party that I bet we are all wishing we wrote down. It’s hard to find a tool or tool set my Dad does not already own!

Waiting on cake.

The cake! Chocolate with my Mom’s white frosting. So tasty!

Blowing out the candles. We managed with three boys to light the cake, blow out the candles without anyone touching the flames. An accomplishment in my opinion. Happy birthday again Dad!

Tags: family, Handy M, Little J, Super A

I found this recipe while cleaning out our junk drawer, it came with my dutch oven I got for Christmas last year. What I really like about it is that you slide the chicken breasts in and essentially poach them in the stew for most of the cooking time. Doing this really kept the chicken moist and tender (something that I often find is lacking in soups and stews with cut up chicken).

The chicken stew is a Giada DeLaurentiis recipe and you can find it here. I paired it with a spinach salad (baby spinach, croutons, mandarin oranges, and honey mustard dressing), and Sister Shubert rolls per my husband’s request!

Tags: chicken stew

From all of us! And from A who loves his Papa because he:

flies helicopters with him in the house…

plays outside…

and is why A calls himself a fixer guy, thinks a power washer is awesome, and wants a mustang and a jeep just like Papa.

So for New Year’s Eve I made this tasty meal:

It’s two recipes: baked salmon in foil and sweet pea risotto.

What makes this meal really work well is when you put the salmon in the oven it takes about 25 minutes (because it is wrapped in foil). That is about the same time it takes to make the risotto. Therefore both parts of the meal are completed at the same time! And they are delicious! The links to both recipes are above. Enjoy!

My picture New Year’s Resolution was to capture a picture a day, especially since our year is going to be filled with exciting new additions and family trips! So if you would like to follow our picture a day adventures such as this:

You can! Just follow us @cupcakesandcommentary on Instagram.

Thank goodness for warm days in January! A loved being able to use his new power washer!