Cupcakes and Commentary

Baby JAM is here! With those initials we just know it means he is going to be one hip and sweet baby. Before I put up all the pictures and let them speak for themselves of his arrival, I wanted to provide a few memory moments for my blog memories and our family and friends.

First, the name. I don’t post any of our names on the blog, but I wanted to provide the story behind the name and the initials because our close friends and family knew it took us a LONG time to come up with a name. We didn’t finalize a name until about one month before his arrival and it was after a lot of deliberation and back and forth.

His first name was picked by his daddy and Super A. Pretty much as soon as we knew as it was a boy J was the name my husband picked. However, I couldn’t decide and we had two or three first names that we went round and round with for months. Finally one night at dinner I said “okay I give in, J it is”. A turned to me and said “I like baby brother J, J is a good name”. Which pretty much solidified the choice because for months the only name A would say he liked was Pasta.

The A in his middle name is for my Dad’s brother. As with A I wanted to choose a special middle name from my family and the middle name of A is very special to my Dad and his family, so we settled on that easily once we had the first name.

And of course the M is my husband’s last name which makes it wonderful! We also liked the quirky factor of the initials because we are a bit quirky ourselves, HA! And A has a similar quirk in his initials that we find equally charming.

Second, the delivery and his arrival. I am not big on details when it comes to these sorts of stories, but let’s just say baby J established a personality before he even arrived. My doctor told me that every delivery is different and this definitely proved that point. If the delivery indeed depicts his personality it’s that he does things on his own time. The only thing that was similar from A’s arrival was start to finish it was 12 hours. Almost down to the minute! Despite the drama leading up to the actual delivery J arrived safely and healthy and we are so glad to have him here!

Third, how things are going since we have been home. Despite lack of sleep and A testing the waters a bit it really has been good so far. I have felt monumentally better this time around than I did with A, and it is a really nice feeling. We are adjusting to schedules and two kids, but I really just feel blessed and grateful to have these two healthy boys in our life.

And now on to pictures! These are in order from J’s arrival to us leaving the hospital.

Tags: Baby J, Super A

I can’t remember if I have posted these recipes before, but if you come over to my house for lunch sometime this is probably what we will have if I have all the ingredients (which I usually do!). I do not care for sandwiches, so I make a lot of wraps. I am constantly tweaking one basic recipe (the turkey wrap) with what I have in my fridge. Here is the base recipe (the turkey wrap) and one of new additions.

Turkey Wrap (inspired by my favorite at Amsterdam’s in Auburn)

Ingredients (I don’t have “amounts” listed, for each wrap you will need one flour tortilla, two slices of turkey, two slices of cheese and one romaine lettuce leaf)

- Flour tortillas (I like Aztec’s medium size tortillas)

-Light Cream Cheese

-Turkey (I get honey maple boar’s head)

-Sliced cheese (I like either white American cheese, provolone, or even pepper jack)

-Romaine lettuce

-Ken’s Steak house light honey mustard

Directions:

-Spread a thin layer of cream cheese on tortilla, place two slices of turkey, two slices of cheese, and one romaine lettuce leaf. Roll and slice diagonally. Dip in honey mustard.

Chicken Salad Wrap

Ingredients (For each wrap you will need one flour tortilla, one romaine lettuce leaf, two slices of cheese, and a few tbs of chicken salad)

-Chicken Salad

-Romaine Lettuce

-Provolone cheese

-Flour tortilla

- Light cream cheese

Directions

Spread thin layer of cream cheese on flour tortilla, then layer with two slices of cheese, one leaf of romaine lettuce, chicken salad in the middle, then roll and cut diagonally.

Chicken Salad Recipe (will fill about four wraps)

- 2 cups of cooked shredded chicken (I used left over chicken from making quesadillas that had been marinated in mesquite lime marinade…it was quite tasty)

- 1/3-1/2 cup of mayonnaise (this is a personal decision for how mayonaissey you like your chicken salad)

- 2 tbs of dijon mustard

- 1/4 tsp of salt and pepper

- 2 celery stalks finely minced

Directions

Mix all ingredients together! When making chicken salad it really is a personal choice of how dry or wet you want your chicken to be. I like mine somewhere in between.

For more information on my fine china please consult the Up and Up brand of paper plates at Target. HA!

Tags: chicken salad wrap, turkey wrap

I haven’t done any learning with Super A posts in a long time! Since A is in pre-school now, I work on more of reinforcing the ideas and concepts he is learning each week (he has a wonderful teacher who e-mails us what the letter, number, and bible phrase of the week is), and making sure I don’t push him into practicing ideas as he revolts from that quickly.

A has been working on counting to twenty at school. He does really well up until fifteen, but then he likes to skip 16, 17, and 18, so we have been working on it some at home. These days it is more difficult to do this sort of teaching with A, he likes to do things on his own, and he doesn’t like the idea of us telling him to do anything. So I have to be more strategic. So I have put twenty blueberries in his lunch and we count them. We set up blocks and then estimate how many there are and then we count them. Today we counted tools. We set up twenty of Super A’s tools and then counted them as you see here:

He thought this was very cool. He said “Wow I have twenty tools, that is so cool!”

I have found that working with a three year old you have to be very flexible in “teaching” them, so I try to sneak it into playtime, cooking with him (how much are we measuring? three cups? Can you count to three?), and reading (see how the bear hibernates like you discussed at school?) and I back off if he starts to notice. That way he is still learning, but you aren’t forcing the ideas.

Tags: counting to twenty

The inspiration for these ideas was mixing “old” with “new”. It’s not necessarily old, but I wanted to incorporate items I borrowed from family with items we had and a few new purchases. I started out with a theme for J’s room, but ended up being more inspired by colors and patterns and went away from being too themed. One of the best ideas I ever got while looking for design ideas for the nursery was from Dear Genevieve where she discussed how there will be plenty of time for all the themed things the kids will want later and it’s nice to start out a bit more adult, because you are the one who really enjoys it at first. So here are some pictures with that idea in mind:

The rocking nook. Something we did not have with A and I said I would definitely have with the next baby. The chair is borrowed from my sister, the ottoman was a 25 dollar find from Marshalls. The ottoman is actually a cream color, I found this fabric (it’s Pottery Barn cotton) at a local shop and my Mom slip covered the ottoman for me. The blanket I made with this guide from Pinterest, and the pillow I made with matching minky dot on one side and the matching fabric to the blanket on the other.

For some reason the shelf looks crooked in the picture, but I assure you it is not in real life! The shelf is borrowed from my parents. The little pink bunny and music boxes were mine from when I was a baby, the drum is from plan toy (I love the sound it makes!), letter J tree, mushroom, owl, baby book, and little wood frame are from Anthropologie, the bird is from Target, and the letter J plaque is from Hobby Lobby. And of course Sophie the Giraffe.

I made these from washcloths purchased on etsy from Little Things Boutique, with a quilting hoop, and ribbon. I am going to get a fancier hook for the top hook, but haven’t done so yet.

The shelf above the crib. I had to be very careful with my choices and to make sure everything was secure because my husband and I debated for a long time about the shelf being above the crib. I am still moving some things around on it, but this is what I have so far.

That’s all for this week! I will post a completed picture of the whole nursery soon!

From inspiration to creation.

The inspiration:

A canvas idea I found on Pinterest.

The creation:

The changes I made: I used buttons instead of decoupaged leaves and I kept the background white instead of antiquing it to match J’s room. I free form traced the tree with a pencil first, then painted it a deep brown. I then had my husband seal the canvas with a matte finish, and then I glued the buttons on with a clear finish sewing bonding glue.

I feel like a bit of a ticking time bomb these days. I remember this happening when I got down to the last few weeks with A, where they kept telling me it could be anytime (which you always think means that day) and then when it isn’t that day, I started to get a bit impatient with the whole process! This time I feel more calm about J’s arrival, I know he’ll arrive at his own pace and time. However, I am less calm about the unknown of A’s arrangements. We have made arrangements, of course, but the whole leaving in the middle of the night, etc. just makes me anxious.

I’m not quite done with J’s nursery, but I am very close (although my husband would probably tell you any decorating project I take on is always on going…I have a bit of Winchester Mystery House complex with decorating). So the next couple of days I wanted to share some of my favorite features of the room with you!

The one for today is his wall canvas. This was actually one of the last completed projects, but I love it and wanted to put it first to show! I had mentioned to my Mom that I had this one wall that had nothing on it and I just wanted a large canvas. I gave her the design idea, the color, and canvas size, and she asked her best friend (referred to at our house as Miss Paula ) to create it. Miss Paula is a wonderful artist and I am so pleased with how it turned out! Here is a collection of the process.

For some reason the wall looks gray in this picture and it is actually green…still working on figuring out my new camera lens and color adjustment! Thanks to Miss Paula and my Mom for creating it! I love it and it is so special!

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