"Cooking" with Echo

Seasoning her creation

I've found the best way to get things done in the kitchen lately, it is basically an advanced version of the coffee play I mentioned before. I am so tired and uncomfortable from pregnancy that any little thing that can help me entertain Echo without too much fuss is a life saver! She always wants to help me cook and wants to be involved in everything i do in the kitchen but she is too young to do much since she can't chop and is still not great about understanding that hot things will burn. I usually let her put seasonings in but she always wants to add way too much so that can be a problem too.

What I've been doing lately has been working really well though and I thought those of you with toddlers might want to try it. I set up a little station for her at the kitchen counter and put out a number of small bowls and plates. I pull up our Ikea stool so she can stand at counter height and then I fill the little bowls with dried lentils, flour, dried beans, loose tea and seasonings. Then I give her a spoon and let her go to town mixing and combining ingredients. I probably only use about a tablespoon of each so there really isn't that much wasted and while it does require some clean up after (lots of spilled materials end up on the floor) it is totally worth it!

She loves working alongside me and she takes it so seriously, it's pretty adorable! It will keep her occupied for as long as 45 minutes which is a life saver when I am trying to make dinner. She gets to feel included in the cooking process and has fun and I get to have her close by and entertained. It's a win win and so easy to set up. I'll be adding this to my file of easy, cheap and effective toddler activities!

Prepping for Baby Number 2

This is where Clover will sleep for the first month or so, Note the cuter than cute new sheets I sewed for the moses basket!

I'm finally finishing up some of my baby related projects and really getting down to business preparing for our new addition. I felt like everything was on hold until after our trip to Asheville last month but now that all my travel is behind me I can settle down and finish up some last minute things before baby Clover arrives.

It's so weird the difference between a first and second pregnancy, for me at least. Last time I quit work about a month ahead of time so I could have plenty of time to relax and prepare for the new baby. This time around I my job is taking care of a toddler so there is no "taking time off". Life goes on just as it always has and I try to squeeze in some of the things I want to get done before we have this baby in between naps, play dates, snacks, laundry, making dinner and cleaning.  In a way I feel much less prepared this time around but I also know that there really isn't that much that has to get done before we bring a new baby home. Babies really don't need anything except breast milk and cuddle time with mommy and daddy so there really isn't much that has to be prepped. Still there are things that I know will make my life easier, so here is my list of stuff that we've done to prepare for our new baby and a list of things that still need to be done. Hopefully this will help me be organized and get through some of the items that are still hanging over my head!


Done

Assemble crib and set up nursery.
We had to move out our guest mattress, straighten things up and put the crib back together. I also pulled out a bunch of younger baby toys that echo had outgrown so that Clover can use them when the time comes.

Bake and freeze breads to have on hand for after we come home from the hospital.
I love having fresh baked English muffins and bagels around for snacks and breakfast but I know I won't be up for baking for a while. Thanks to our new freezer space I now have a decent stash of baked goods to see me through the first few weeks or months.

Sew new bedding for our moses basket.
Echo slept in the moses basket for about the first month of her life and we loved it! It has so many advantages, it's small enough to be cozy, it's easy to pick up and carry around so we can move her from room to room with us and not wake her up, plus it's adorable! I bought the basket at a consignment store but was never crazy about the bedding that came with it, it was a floral blue pattern with lace trim that felt really dated and overly girly to me. Last time I didn't know how to sew well enough to make some new sheets for the thing but this time I realized just how easy it would be to give it an update. I sewed three new sheets for the basket in bright and modern prints that are so much cuter than the set of sheets that came with the thing. Now I can rest easy knowing that Clover will have a place to sleep when she comes home with us.

Unpack newborn and 0-3 month clothes.
I did this first thing after I found out we were having another girl. It's fun to see some of my favorite outfits that Echo wore again and I like to show Echo the tiny clothes and tell her that Clover will wear them some day. Echo will then hold the clothes up to my belly in an attempt to give them to Clover, it's adorable. We have all the teeny tiny baby clothes put away in the dresser in Clover's room now, awaiting her arrival.

Buy the basic new things we needed for a second baby.
We didn't need much this time around because we are having another girl and pretty much everything can be reused. There were a few items I picked up new for this baby just because I am hoping they will make my life easier. The biggest item was the double stroller ( a gift from my parents) which has already been amazing and awesome. It's a sit and stand so Echo can either stand or sit on the back and there will be room for another baby in the front. I also picked up a new baby carrier for wearing Clover which I'm hoping will be more comfortable than carriers I've tried in the past and (thanks to a an amazon gift card for my aunt) an extra wet bag, a white noise machine (to help baby sleep), gel nipple pads (for that potentially painful first week of breast feeding) and new nursing tanks and bras.

Buy a big sister present for Echo.
I knew I wanted to get Echo a little something to make her feel special for after the new baby arrives. I know it might be hard for her since she is the apple of our eye and not used to sharing the spotlight. I couldn't think of any one big thing she would want or need so I opted for a little goody bag of activities and books that she can have with her at the hospital to play with. I got her a farm play set with nice all wooden pieces, a book about dogs, a book about cats, and a paint with water activity book. Hopefully it will help keep her entertained and let her know how special she is to us ( I suspect she will be even more excited about having a new baby around but just in case).

Get a bigger car with more room for 2.
This wasn't originally on my list but when more and more problems kept coming up with my old car we decided to go ahead and get me the station wagon I'd been wanting for a long time. It's definitely not as peppy as my old car but it's nice and roomy and good for a family of 4. We still to get the tags and insurance squared away so I get to enjoy my sweet little car a while longer but should hopefully have all that taken care of before we bring Clover home.


Still To Do

Install the car seats in the new car.
We can't do this until the new car is legal to drive, honestly it doesn't take that long anyway so I'm not too worried.

Pack the hospital bag.
I've started this but haven't finished. I have a list on the fridge of all the things that still need to go in the bag but many of the items are still being used like my camera and cell phone charger. If my labor goes the way it did last time I will have plenty of time to pack last minute items before we head to the hospital ( I want to labor at home as long as possible).

Sew more cloth baby wipes.
Thanks to the generosity of a dear friend we have a huge and gorgeous stash of cloth diapers for newborns, I'm so excited to use them! We also have the diapers we used last time with Echo so we should be covered for diapers for a while. One of my goals this time around is to use more cloth wipes and less disposable but my cloth wipe stash is a little low. This is easy to fix since it's incredibly easy to sew cloth wipes though, I just have to find the time and energy to do it. There are a million other sewing projects I'd love to get done before having a second baby but realistically this is probably the only one that will happen.

Clean and organize as much as possible before going in to labor.
Last time I had lots of time to clean all the often neglected areas like the fridge and shower. This time I have so much less energy and time for cleaning. I would love to get some thorough cleaning done before bringing  anew baby home but I won't stress out about anything that doesn't happen. I know from experience that the baby won't care ;-)


Only 4 weeks to go! Can't wait to meet this little lady!

June Photos

I have been really lazy about taking my camera with me lately, honestly I have enough extra weight to carry without worrying about my camera ;-) Still, here are some shots from last month. We had an awesome long weekend in Asheville for our last trip as a family of 3 ( a babymoon if you will) and most of the photos are from that trip.

But first a few shots of the cuties from our play group

And above is a shot of me chowing down on a pint of locally made ice cream at the first Friday art walk in Marietta. We have an awesome store on the square now that sells all locally produced goods. Also I should note that I didn't really eat the whole pint by myself, it was shared between 5 people.

The rest are all pictures from Asheville. We had such a great time and it is such an awesome place to go with kids. I can't wait to take both girls back at some point.

Walking around the UNC Asheville campus

Checking out the down town area before it got hot

Otters at the wildlife center

The fox was Echo's favorite

the wildlife center had great activities for little ones, including an awesome set of natural blocks

Reading at the hotel with daddy

 There was a lot well still didn't get to do in Asheville and it is such a short drive I'm sure we'll be back. June was a little hot for us though so next time we will try to make it a fall or winter trip :-)

Sewing Yet Another Bag

I have been really so bad about posting on here. I'm at that point in my pregnancy where I am just really uncomfortable all the time and now I am even having  a hard time sleeping. Lack of sleep combined with hauling around and extra 15 lbs (plus just generally feeling bad) has made me pretty exhausted. Making a whole new person is a ton of work guys ;-) It's hard to believe I have 5 weeks to go until my due date. Strangers have started telling me there's no way I'll make it 5 more weeks, that's how huge and miserable I look, lol!

Besides pregnancy I have been busy with other things including buying a new car! But more about that later. Right now I just wanted to quick post to show off my latest sewing project. This time it's a new bag that I made custom for my mom. It was really fun to have her go with me and pick out the fabrics and I'm starting to learn that bags are some of my favorite things to sew. They are so fun and rewarding! I was very happy with how this one came out but it just made me want to sew even more bags, Eric thinks I should start a business. You can find the tutorial I used here, it's a great easy bag to make that looks awesome. It's on the smaller side so if you want a giant bag it's not for you but it was quick and easy to make and it feels very sturdy.

Chest Freezer

So I have joined the realm of people who use chest freezers. It's weird, we never used our freezer much growing up and I have never been in to frozen food per se so I never would have pictured myself having one of these. I always thought they were for suburban moms with huge families (ok so I guess I am a suburban mom, but I don't have a have 6 kids or anything). What brought me around to the idea of the chest freezer was the fact that our old freezer (the one attached to our fridge) is teeny tiny and we were always running out of space for stuff. As part of my baby preparations I really wanted to make a bunch of bagels and English muffins to freeze so that I would have easy breakfast foods on hand for me and Echo after baby Clover arrives. It just wasn't going to happen with our current freezer so Eric cleaned out a corner of the basement and went shopping for the freezer this week.

We got a good deal because it was a scratch and dent price. This freezer has a pretty sizable dent in the back of it but it lives in our basement so we could care less what it looks like. Now that it's here I am actually pretty excited about the freezer. Honestly it is a great tool to have when you are trying to be frugal, enabling you to stock up on meat, veggies and other items when they are on sale. This is why Eric wanted the freezer but for me it was all about the bread :-) I pretty much make all our bread from scratch now which is wonderful but since it doesn't have the preservatives of store bought bread it goes bad very quickly. Once I discovered how easy it is to freeze bread and that it doesn't adversely affect the taste I was all about making larger batches of bread and freezing it.

I made my first batch of English muffins yesterday and stored them in our shiny new chest freezer.

Here is an inside view, this freezer is massive! I'm sure we will have no trouble filling this baby up however. I'm already keeping my eye out for good deals on meat so we can stock up. For some reason it always makes me feel good to know we have lots of food on hand, you know just so we are ready for when society collapses (haha, kidding!). It's seriously going to be so great though to enjoy home baked goodies for breakfast any time I feel like it! I have a feeling that the chest freezer will really pay off in the long run.

Banana Bread Granola

I apologize again for my lack of posting lately, this pregnancy is kind of kicking my butt and I have been really tired and just struggling to get basic things done around the house. I do miss my blog though and I was realizing the other day how I haven't done a recipe post in forever so I thought I'd share my latest obsession. Seriously you guys, this granola is so good! It's so good in fact that I have abandoned my trusty peanut butter and chocolate chip granola in favor of it. Whenever I have granola out at a restaurant I always think, "well it's not as good as that banana bread granola".

You can find the recipe here at Minimalist Baker. It is so easy to make incredibly delicious! I make mine with just pecans and no walnuts and I use maple syrup for my sweetener which I find gives it a great flavor and the smell that perfumes the house while cooking this stuff is just divine.

 Echo love this recipe too and enjoys eating it with fresh fruit. I like mine with fruit and home made yogurt plus a drizzle of honey. Try this recipe and you will never buy granola again!

Making My Life in the Kitchen Easier

We've discovered a few odds and ends around the kitchen lately that have really made things easier for me and Eric when we cook! When you have such a small space to work in even little changes can make a big difference. 

The biggest and best new thing in the kitchen is the new under cabinet shelf that Eric put in this past weekend (seen in the photo above, please excuse the messy countertop!). I'm kind of ridiculously excited about it. We desperately needed a spot to stash our cutting boards and shallow dishes and this gets them out of the way while still leaving them really accessible. This shelf is by far the best thing that has happened to our kitchen in recent months. 

We also got some awesome new cutting mats that we love but I forgot to take photos of them. You can kind of see them on the right hand side in the photo of the shelf. They are great because they are so thin and take up so little space. They are also flexible and durable and they come as a set of 4, each a different color so we can have designated cutting mats for different types of meat and veggies. We got ours at the Buford Highway Farmers Market but you can fins similar sets almost anywhere that sells kitchen goods. 

Recipe card on display

 The other things I'm posting about are just little tips that have made our life easier. First of all Eric had the idea to hang a chip clip from our kitchen shelves to use for clipping recipes up while we cook. A lot of our recipes are copied on to recipe cards and stored in a box or binder so this is a nice way to have them at eye level while you work.

My last two tips are for freezing. We are in the market for a chest freezer which I am really excited about! Our current freezer is teeny tiny and it makes it hard to stock on meats and veggies when they go on sale because we have no space to store them. I also like to bake all of our bread but it goes bad so fast without all the preservatives that are in store bought breads that freezing it is the only way to keep a supply on hand. so yeah, I am looking forward to having more freezer space in the near future.

Frozen chicken in teriyaki marinade

That being said, I have some issues with freezing things, especially meat. I know it is a really economical thing to do when we can stock up on sale meat and freeze the extra for later but in my opinion freezing meat can change it's texture and flavor and I hate that! Eric recently came across a tip on one of the frugal boards he reads that has really helped with this problem though. When we freeze chicken breasts we now add a hearty splash marinade. That way when it can marinate while it thaws and we have found that this really helps combat the dryness that usually comes with freezing chicken.

Frozen fresh ginger

 Lastly, I came across this tip for cooking with fresh ginger on one of the blogs I read. I love cooking with fresh ginger, you can't beat the flavor. However it is always really hard for us to use it all up before it goes bad. I recently started peeling the whole ginger root when I buy it and cutting it in to chunks. I stick it in the freezer and then when it's time to use it in a recipe I take out just what I need and and grate it directly in to my dish. This way I don't have to waste any ginger and it's easier to grate when it's frozen.

These are just some things I've been thinking about lately and was hoping they would maybe benefit someone else's kitchen life. Hope you all are having a lovely week!