Shoes

My friend, Greta, brought Claire a whole bag of shoes that her girls have outgrown. As you can see from the pictures, Claire loved it! Thanks, girls!!!

Nesting, nesting, nesting

It's out of control.

And I have very little energy and need to rest.

This is not a good combination!

My sweet husband keeps asking what he can do to help.

But I'm learning that "nesting" is unique in that you really just want to do it all yourself. It's not enough for someone else to do it.

Oh, third trimester, you are not my friend these days.

On a good note, though, I haven't had contractions like I did last weekend and I'm feeling pretty good other than completely exhausted. My check-ups are good and Mary-Jane (and I) are growing!

6 whole years

Two of the funniest conversations I've had in awhile:

Texting between my BFF Cami and I on Tuesday:
Me: I just found out that Jeremy has never heard the song "You never even called me by my name" by David Allen Coe. I even sang part of it for him.
Cami: How did you marry him? Didn't he live in Georgia for a while?
Me: Yeah, I can't believe it. I think you have to know every word of it before you graduate from high school.
Cami: I'm pretty sure it's part of the driving test.

Talking to Jeremy last night. He mentioned "Voltron":
Me: What's Voltron?
Jeremy: You're kidding me. (I think his heart stopped for a minute)
Me: Um, no.
Jeremy: How did I marry you?!
And then he went into a lengthy description that included singing the the theme song, and I still had no recollection. There was also mention that my lack of knowledge was from not having a brother, therefore, Claire and MJ would need more siblings.

There are a million reasons why I'm thankful to be married to Jeremy, despite our differences in music and cartoons.

Happy 6 year Anniversary, husband! You're a great husband and dad, and I love you!
Here's to lots more years of laughing.

The Joy of Cooking

This weekend I made this recipe from allrecipes.com. The meatballs turned out great and I'll be adding it to my recipebook!

My pregnant-self did make a few unintentional changes: I totally forgot the onion and I didn't have Italian seasoning. And I realized I only had plain bread crumbs. I just threw in some basil thinking that might help. :)

I was cooking for a few kiddos so I didn't add as much of the red pepper flakes, either.

I baked them on a rack that I put inside of a jelly roll pan to drain the grease since I didn't use the leanest ground beef (90/10 just isn't as good in meatloaf or meatballs if you ask me). Worked out great. And I doubled the recipe. I think I would do that again even if I wasn't just cooking for my family; I bet they would freeze really well.

• 1 pound extra lean ground beef
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
• 3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 dash hot pepper sauce (such as Frank's RedHot®), or to taste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Place the beef into a mixing bowl, and season with salt, onion, garlic salt, Italian seasoning, oregano, red pepper flakes, hot pepper sauce, and Worcestershire sauce; mix well. Add the milk, Parmesan cheese, and bread crumbs. Mix until evenly blended, then form into 1 1/2-inch meatballs, and place onto a baking sheet.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until no longer pink in the center, 20 to 25 minutes.

Enjoy!

We made it 18 months!

My baby girl officially became a year and half old yesterday!

I know everyone says and thinks this- but time really is flying by.

Claire's talking more and more. Since my post on all of her words, I'm realizing she's saying much more. And she loves her play kitchen and to run her little cars around the house. Shoes also make Claire very happy. Although taking them on and off every 3 minutes is not making her mama very happy. :) Greta gave us a bag of shoes that her girls have outgrown; it was like Christmas for Claire. We gave all of the ones that were too small to Emma but Claire tried on every other pair within 5 minutes. I have some great pictures that I'll post when I figure out how to upload pictures to our desktop computer. (sidenote- my laptop may be resurrected!!!)

In other news, Mary-Jane is growing and growing. We're 28 weeks along and into the third trimester. Gotta love that ushering in at the doctors office: a flu shot, Rho-gam shot, and a glucose test. At least it's all over with at once, I suppose. This pregnancy has flown by- I'm really looking forward to meeting our new baby girl. (but not too soon!)

Still here...

So you know you've neglected your blog when you can't even remember the web address. I literally had to go to two other blogs until I found a link to my own. Oops.

The biggest news around our house (other than me being 27 weeks pregnant- YIKES) is that Claire has suddenly started talking. Yes, she's said a few words here and there but now it's more of mutual communication. It kind of freaks me out. The first time this happened was last week when Claire ask, "More?" at breakfast. I replied, "Would you like more fruit?" And she said, "More." Again. I was totally shocked. You can tell she's understood things for a while but it's fun to have her use words to communicate back. She repeats a lot of things but has a pretty solid list of words she frequently uses.

Here is a list of Claire's current vocabulary:
**"flop-flops"- flip flops (and you have to stick your tongue out as you say it)
**"mama", "mom", "mommy"- when she says "mom" it's about 15 times in a row and trying to get my attention
**"dada", "daddy", "papa"- and she asks for him a million times a day
**"water"- which actually really sounds like water
**"milk"- same thing
**"night night"- bedtime, naptime, or goodnight
**"no"- this is becoming her favorite response
**"appy"- apple or sometimes other various things
**"di"- Diane, our cat. she chases her around yelling "DI!" very funny
**"jack"- the dog, of course
**"more"- this is her asking for food
**"peas"- her favorite vegetable and the one or 2 times I've gotten her to say "please"
**"binkie"- the love of her life. she only gets a pacifier when she going to sleep. she knows where they are and will bang on the drawer when she's tired.

And her list of animal noises she can do:
cow, monkey, sheep, horse, pig, kitty

Long time, no blog

My laptop completely bit the dust this week. This explains the lack of posts. For some reason it's just not as convenient to post from our home computer. And I'm not sure how to transfer pictures from our camera to this computer. I'll try to put together a post tomorrow to commemorate my 30th birthday, though.