The mommy life...

First Firetruck experience!

The Best Taco Soup EVER!

This recipe is one I have been making for the last few months and we love it in my house. It's a very simple "dump" meal where most of the ingredients are not needing to be measured and you just dump them into the pot. This provides that as you make this yummy meal it will probably develop into a unique meal for your family. Hope you enjoy!   

Taco Soup

Ingredients needed:

1 can sweet corn        ​1 can cream corn

1 can black beans        ​1 can pinto beans

2 sm cans Rotel​1 lb cooked chicken or ground beef

1 packet taco seasoning              1 packet powdered ranch mix

​(also needed but not to be added during cooking: Sour cream, shredded cheese, and corn chips)

Cook:
         ~ Combine all ingredients into a large stock pot on stove

~ Cook on medium-high heat for 1 hour

~ Serve in bowls

~ Top with shredded cheese, sour cream and corn-chips

~ ENJOY!

This meal can also be accomplished by cooking in Crockpot on low all day (at least 2 hours) to be ready for dinner after a full day of work.

​

He's here! Welcome Baby Ayden!

Photo Credit: Jess Pentecost

Well He is finally here! My little man, my whole world....my son. I could not be a more proud and in love momma. As hard as parts of the past few weeks have been, it's a blessing in disguise. A good friend, who also just had a baby back in May, told me that we make it through these first few weeks, the hardest ones, by the grace of God and nothing else. And it has only been by His grace that I have made it through some of these long nights where we struggled with breastfeeding, sleeplessness (on Ayden's part), or any number of other newborn daily struggles. This is one of the hardest and most rewarding things I have ever done.

Here is a little recap on how this little peanut came into this world:
There we were at 40 weeks, 2 days and he had still refused to turn. My parents had arrived in town the day before and were anxiously waiting to meet their first grandchild. So Ken and I gathered our things and headed to the hospital that morning, June 26th, 2014 for our scheduled c-section. So many emotions, fear and excitement, running through my mind. This is not at all how I planned my sons birth to occur. I had researched, I had prepared, my birth plan was typed! I felt defeated and in some way responsible, AS IF I could have in anyway changed that my son was stuck and too big to turn. And for the record, we tried!

 "Leave it to a little boy, to 

ruin mom's best laid plans."

 We met my friend Trisha on the way up to Labor and Delivery. "let's have a baby!" I said to her as we made our way to check in. She was going to be with me through my labor and delivery but since plans had changed, she would be with us in the room before and after the c-section instead. 

Photo Credit: Jess Pentecost

My great friend Jess had been entrusted with photographing this event and arrived just in the nick of time to shoot a few pictures right before they whisked me away to the OR (Operating Room). Ken was handed a pair of scrubs, a hat, and a mask. He would get to sit by my side during it all, but had to be in hospital garb. 

Once that had me all hooked up and my spinal block had been done, Ken was allowed to come assume his place in a little chair right next to my head. An OR is not a very warm and fuzzy place to be, let alone be relaxed when you're awake while in one. I could not have done this, bringing my little man into the world, if Ken had not been there to hold my hand and talk me through it all. I was numb from the chest down but I could feel pressure and tugging as they made their way in to getting Ayden out and into the world. 

Then, I heard that first cry. It was all over then. I was in love. Hadn't even seen him yet and I was in love. Then they held his little body up over the curtain in-between me and the doctor and I saw his wrinkly little body. The cutest baby you'd ever seen. That moment is forever etched in my mind. I was really a mom now. That screaming baby getting checked over by the NICU nurse, was mine. And you better believe he came out kicking and screaming. I have never heard a baby scream so loud, but he was mad and he was going to be heard. :)

Ken had the camera with him and was taking pictures the moment Ayden landed under the warmer. Once he had been checked once over and cleared by the NICU nurse, they wrapped him and gave him to Ken until Dr. L. was finished closing me up. When all was said and done we were in the OR for less than 30 minutes total. 

I could not stop crying when I first held him in that OR. All my anxiety and fear of having surgery had fallen away and I could not contain the smile on my face from seeing this little tiny human that I had created. 

We made it back to the recovery room where Trisha and Jess were waiting and Jess jumped on taking pictures of everything, which I am so grateful I had her there to do that. I then had a 2 hour window to start breastfeeding if he would latch and to be monitored before we were taken to our postpartum room. 

Photo credit: Jess Pentecost

A special thanks to go out to my nurse Debbie who was absolutely AMAZING throughout the entire prep, c-section and recovery. She helped and made me feel safe, encouraged, understood, and relaxed. The PERFECT Labor and Delivery nurse you could ever have. And that meant so much.    

There could not be any greater privilege or responsibility than being blessed with a child and I could not fathom trading it for anything in the world. I pray everyday that God is giving me the strength and wisdom to raise this little guy into a man of God.

Keep watch as I'll start posting about my breastfeeding journey and my new adventures into motherhood! :) 

Week 39 update

Seven days! Seven days and I could be a mommy? I can’t believe we are already that close! Well the saga continues as he is still breech and I have not dilated at all. No progress. My little man is apparently not interested in joining us out here in the real world quite yet. But boy he is definitely interested in stretching and wiggling and kicking when he wants to. My belly feels very tight and I am getting more and more contractions but then…nothing.Everyone who sees me at work is surprised every day I come in, thinking I must have gone into labor by now. It’s quite comical.However, while I await the arrival of my son I am in the ever sowarm company of lower back pain, hot flashes and (huge) swollen feet.  And they never seem to completely go down. I wake up in the morning and they are still swollen enough I can noticeably tell. Not fun I tell you. However I feel like I have been productive this past week. I started hardcore meal planning. I even busted out Microsoft Excel and made a spreadsheet for this. I feel pretty proud of myself and what’s nice is the effort in one afternoon has allowed us to not eat out once during the week. We haven’t said, “What are we going to eat tonight?”  Which was usually followed by, “___________ sounds good.” And we would go out and eat whatever it was.Yesterday I busted out a meal plan for the next 2 weeks that included freezer meals for the first week I am home with Ayden. While I will NOT refuse food brought to us by friends and family, (hint hint) it’s nice to know I have a plan and won’t have to think about it. J

On the note of friends and family, Ken and I have been so blessed these past nine months with amazing support, encouragement and donations of baby things. We want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been there for us. I have sent out a lot of thank you cards but I just wanted to say it again. THANK YOU!

As this week seems to crawl by we are making huge progress in finishing up the Nursery. We have a dresser now and are quickly filling it up with cute little onsies and such. All my cloth diapers are washed, folded, and ready for use in their baskets on the book shelf. All of his little elephants are in a basket by the crib. It’s really starting to look like a nursery and not a spare room that happens to contain a crib. What a miracle that is. We also finally have a bigger bed for ourselves. We had been talking about getting a queen sized mattress for a while and the more pregnant I got the more we said it would be nice but we will just wait. Well the wait is over. Neither of us was getting any sleep for nights and off we went to the store. Well home we came with an affordable memory foam mattress and we love it!

Something that keeps me sane every morning is my hot cup of peppermint tea. Since I am attempting to drink as little caffeine as possible, I have been getting in the habit of drinking hot tea in the mornings before work. Hot tea is good for you in general and mine is caffeine free but somehow it make me feel like I can conquer my day and I feel relaxed and at peace. This is not a common feeling at 39 weeks pregnant and I cherish it every time I can.

Well that’s about it for this week. Cannot wait to be typing up the post that says, “I am officially a mom, Welcome Little Ayden!”  We will chat again next week!      

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