An Overdue Christmas Oberview

The Christmas season is a busy time for everyone and we are no exception.  Between Thanksgiving and Christmas is when I do "the baking."  It's a stressful time for me - but I love doing it and I cannot imagine not doing it every year.

This year I tried a new chocolate crinkle recipe and it did not disappoint.  You can find the recipe here.  I quadrupled the amount as I like to have a good amount of every type of cookie that I make.  I could have probably tripled the amount and been fine.  In fact, these cookies are the only ones that we still have left.  :)

For our Christmas day meal, I always make the same meal.  It's one of my favorites to prepare and is quite nice to make a lot of the dishes ahead of time.
Menu:
Spiral cut ham with cloves and pineapple
Creamy Potluck Potatoes
Smashed Sweet potatoes
Rosemary and Sea Salt Rolls
Corn
Peas
COOKIES for Dessert

Since I am baking cookies for a month prior to Christmas, I don't see a point in making another extravagant dessert for Christmas Day.  Instead I just put out a big plate of every kind of cookie and let my family graze on them.

I assemble both types of potatoes the day prior to Christmas or Christmas Eve so all I have to do on Christmas day is bake the ham (so simple), warm/bake the potatoes and rolls and cook the corn and peas.

I don't change much from year to year for the dinner menu because it works and it's SO good.  With the leftover ham this year, I diced it up and stuck it in the freezer and now any time I'm making an omelette or frittata (which happens quite frequently), I grab a handful of ham to throw in.  LOVE IT!

R-ster had a fabulous time opening gifts.  The fact that he is the only nephew/grandchild in the family makes him QUITE spoiled, but hopefully we are doing an OK job of keeping him at bay in the spoiled brat category.  He asked for a Spider-man Toy "like Joshua's" and a piggy bank this year.  Santa did bring him the Spider-man Toy and thankfully it was JUST like Joshua's.

My youngest sister L made Reed this amazing piggy bank!  (My middle sister J and I are insanely jealous of L's craftiness.)

R-ster insisted on wearing his new tie all day from Grandpa G and this Spider-man mask from Grammy made an appearance throughout the day - on numerous people naturally.

And lastly, my favorite picture from Christmas Day.  :)

Happy New Year!  I hope 2012 is a great year for everyone!

Yet another example of how having kids changes you

I ran across this article the other morning which made me kind of happy.

I'm a fan of Jay-Z.  Not in the I have all of his albums kind of way (I don't think I have any), but in the "if I hear him on the radio I turn it way up" kind of way and I kind of appreciate the fact that he's going to stop using the B-word.  Baby steps, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

Since having R-ster, EMX and I definitely had to edit our musical choices at home.  When R-ster was first born, we listened to A LOT of Radiohead and Coldplay.  Nice, easy, softer tunes with no real threat of bad words.  Now, everytime I hear either band, particularly Radiohead, I think of the early days of babydom.

I like to "get my groove" on to all kinds of music.  One of my favorite things to do is to put some music on and just dance around the house with R-ster.  Thankfully, he usually likes to do the same, so he obliges.

"Kid B"

So here we are.  Week 25!  HOLY COW this pregnancy is going fast.  I'm definitely not complaining about it.  I'm not the "Oh I LOVE being pregnant type."  Don't get me wrong, I don't despise it, but I like NOT being pregnant more.  :)

Seeing as I haven't written much about the pregnancy at all, I figured I would give a little update - don't worry.  It won't be TMI.  :)

So according to this pregnancy website, the baby is now the size of an eggplant.  Yea!  It's now weighing between 1.5 - 2.5 lbs.

As you may notice, I am calling Kid B "it."  I know this may annoy some people, but I have no problem calling Kid B "it" until "it's" born, since we don't know if "it" is a boy or a girl.  In daily conversation, sometimes I call Kid B, "he" and sometimes I call Kid B, "she."  I have no idea one way or the other and the words I use change daily - or sometimes several times through the day.  And I'm OK with that - so you better be too!

I'm feeling great so far.  In the first trimester, I thankfully didn't get much of the dreaded morning sickness.  I had moments of queasiness and certain foods totally grossed me out, but thankfully, I felt overall OK. In the second trimester, I'm continuing to work out as much as possible, to try to keep my weight gain down since I gained "a little" too much weight with R-ster.  I've had a couple of cravings that were non healthy (the day I HAD to have a Tom Wahl's cheeseburger and fries instead of the veggie burger and roasted vegetable meal I had originally planned for that night, and the pizza and wings that we had last night), but overall, I've been wanting to eat a whole lot of baby spinach, both steamed and raw, with a little splash of dressing or lime juice, and blueberry stuff (yogurt, blueberries in my morning oatmeal, etc.).  So that has definitely helped me so far in my weight gain situation.

I'm continuing to track my food intake vs exercise.  I'm definitely more sporadic with it since I'm supposed to be gaining weight.  But it helps to make sure I'm not overindulging too much.

As a family, we are keeping SUPER busy.  It seems that we have at least one activity planned each weekend, or even multiple activities.  Maybe that is what is making this time go by so quickly.  :)

I went there. And it was glorious.

Here is an early Christmas or Hanukkah gift for all you ladies born in the 80s.  

Jon isn't there... which makes me sad, as he was my favorite.

If you want to just listen to the song, You can do so here.  :)

You're welcome.  :)

And the pickles.....

I'm on my 2nd 80 oz jar/container of Kosher pickles.  I'm not proud, but they are just SO good!  Kid B loves them - those and clementines.  I seriously cannot get enough!

We had our ultrasound today.  Kid B looked great.  I picked R up early from school.  His teacher had to wake him up early so he could "go to the doctor's apartment to see Kid B on the TV."  His words.  So awesome.  :)  Then he kept commenting on the fact that I picked him up in the dark.  (Because the lights are off during nap time.)  I thought R would be really into seeing the baby, but he was more into his snack than anything.  What can I say?  Kid A loves to eat - just like his mom.  

The newest Ober - it's not what you think!

OK, so yes, we actually have 2 new Obers to talk about.  We are expecting our second child!  But, there isn't much news to report on that and this post isn't about Kid B.  We haven't had an ultrasound yet and I'm feeling normal, albeit a little puffier than normal.  So there will be more to report on that later I'm sure.

This post is about the newest addition (since Kid B was actually added last summer), Allen.  

If you know me well, you know that I like to name our cars.  

It started with IGY.  My first car.  Good ol' IGY.  A hand me down car from my mom when she broke her hip my Senior year of High School.  The car with the horn that sounded like death, or a really really bad frog.  I did love that car.  The Jetta and the A4 didn't get names....  

Then came Pilot Pete - which is still in the family.  A big work horse.  He can take whatever we give him.  Pull a trailer?  Sure!  Deal with R puke?  OF COURSE!  

Then there are the cars that EMX has had.  The J33P.  The car that EMX bought to "save money."  Even though his Accord was paid off and he would have a car payment with the Jeep.  I blame that purchase on the fact that I was in London that summer.  

Then came the Red Rocket.  The car that I refused to ride in because it was so obnoxiously loud.  

Then came Patina.  OH sweet Patina.  Our not-so-kid-friendly purchase in 2007 - just 2 days prior to finding out I was pregnant with R.  The Honda S2000.  Probably the 2nd car that I LOVED.  When we got Patina, we needed to get rid of Red Rocket and get another sensible family car.  

So EMX found Bernadette.  

When we decided to build our house, Patina had to go.  It was a very sad day in our household, but having a car payment on a car that just sits in the garage most of the time isn't smart - especially when you can use that money toward a better house.  Poor sweet Patina.  We had you for 1.5 years and only put 3,000 miles on you.  :(

When we first moved, EMX got into an "accident" with Bernadette (and that is in quotes, because there were no other cars involved, only a guard rail - and it was around that time that EMX started to get sick of sweet Bernadette).  So came Si - or the Civic Si.  Another family vehicle - but alas, that only lasted for a few months, when EMX was laid off from work and sold it to save money while he was looking for a new job.  (Funny - I actually typed car instead of job.... subconscious?  yes?  no?)  Then came the Pink Integra.    It used to be red at some point in its existence, but now most of it has faded into pink.  EMX and R's project car if you will.

So, with Kid B on the way, we had Pilot Pete and Pink Integra only.  Pilot Pete is an awesome family car.  Pink Integra - not so much.  So comes, Allen.  Our new (to us) Toyota Prius.  The only NON HONDA.  When EMX decided to buy Allen, I thought for sure that I saw a pink pig fly past our house.  

We really like Allen so far.  I NEVER thought I'd see the day that EMX preferred MPG over MPH.  :)

Further proof that kids change EVERYTHING...

Here he is. Mr anti outside Christmas lights. Putting up the lights because R was so excited to see the neighbor's decorations. :)

And to top it all off, R just looked out the window and said, "That's my dad! He is a nice guy!"