February 20, 2012

I am READY!!!

But apparently baby Jacob is not :0( As my online tracker indicates, Today is the Day!! Well, it's supposed to be anyways.  There seems to be no signs of him coming soon, which is a bummer.  However with Mike's team making the playoffs, with the first game being tomorrow, I do hope he will hold out until tomorrow night...say 930 pm.  Yeah I get that I have no control of this situation, but I really want the team to do well... gosh I am such a wonderful wife :0).  Well I think tomorrow I turn into a pumpkin, so at least the fruit will change...lol.  I guess it's about focusing on the little things right now while I am waiting. Anyways, just thought I would give the blogging world an update.

In the mean time I have also kept myself entertained by practicing my Moby Wrapping. Now for those of you who don't know what a Moby is, it is a long piece of cloth that when wrapped in a specific, semi-complicated manor, holds your baby.  Well I decided to practice on Baloo.  He actually really enjoyed it!!

Anyways, hopefully baby Jacob will be here soon, cause I am not sure Baloo can take much more of my nesting!! LOL

February 15, 2012

My Furry Chidren

Since Jacob should be here any day (fingers crossed), I thought I should blog a little bit about my furry children who are about to get a wake up call.  When we got our cats four years ago (I can't believe its been that long!) we never thought we were cat people.  They were strays and offered to us for free, so we took them in.  We had no idea how much our lives would change! So it has been four years, 3 moves, two kitty surgeries, multiple shoe laces, hairbands, and pant strings eaten, 2 almost escapes, and many hours of cuddling.  They have kept us laughing the whole time... here are some recent pictures as they have prepared for baby Jacob also.

So this is Bagheera post landing in Mike's hot chocolate.  Bags was trying to drink the hot chocolate, so Mike tapped him on his belly.  Well Bags got startled and went about one foot into the air and his back foot went fully into Mike's mug.  I think Bagheera ultimately won this battle because he got to lick the chocolate off his leg for a good 20 minutes.

My next story doesn't have a picture because I was a little nervous.  Baloo got into the garage and my waddling nine month pregnant butt could not catch him.  Well, I tried to bribe him in with treats which didn't work.  He found a sticky mouse trap which got stuck to his foot... needless to say he was panicked!! I finally got it off him, but the sticky stuff was still on his back foot.  He kept sticking to the ground or if he walked over papers they just came with him. It was pretty funny.
Here are just some funny photos of them...
Needless to say we are very glad to have gotten these creatures by accident.  We love them very much!


February 13, 2012

Cranberry Chuck Roast

Three recipes in one day...man the blogging world is getting a treat from the Wood Family Household!! This recipe is another on of my very spectacular crock pot concoctions.  It's a cranberry chuck roast...it's super good served over mashed potatoes!! And honestly the prep time could be less than five minutes!!

Cranberry Chuck Roast
- one package of dried onion soup
- two cans of cranberry sauce (pick your favorite)
- one chuck roast

Pour the dried onion soup on the bottom of the crock pot, place the chuck roast on top, then place the cranberry sauce on top of that.  Cook on low for 8 hours.  Yup that is it people!! And an added bonus is that your house smells like Thanksgiving when you come home!! Enjoy!!

Thank you Pinterest

As my technology knowledge grows, so does the distraction time I can spend doing pretty much nothing.  Pinterest is one of those things! For those of you who do not know what it is, it's a place where people can share ideas, recipes, and "How To's."  Well I have been looking for easy, yet yummy, recipes for when Jacob arrives.  You know something besides my crock pot specialties ;0) Anyways, Mike and I discovered two amazing recipes, so far! Since not everyone has Pinterest, I thought I would share them on here.... The first one we tried was a calzone (but as Debbi informed me it's actually called a Stromboli (yup just like Pinocchio)).

(First I wanna say I took this photo from Pinterest cause I forgot to take a photo when we actually made it twice)
It was super easy to make and actually really cheap, about seven dollars total! We put bell peppers, onions, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni in ours.  It was so good!!! Also the braiding may look complicated, but it isn't at all.  Let's face it, if I can do it anyone can! Here is the link for the full directions http://www.squidoo.com/homemade-calzone

The Second recipe was for Frozen Hot Chocolate!! Yup, you read that right! Ever since Mike and I visited Gabby and Jason in New York we have wanted to replicate our tasting of frozen hot chocolate. And low and behold Pinterest came through!! The above picture is us enjoying our first tasting of frozen hot chocolate in New York.
Anyways, we made this last night... a couple of things you should know before hand is that you will need a double boiler and you will most likely have to make a trip to the grocery store because it calls for some random ingredients. Here is the link to that recipe...
http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/drinks/frozen-hot-chocolate-2/

This is what our final product looked like.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!!

January 24, 2012

Baby Shower

This past weekend my amazing friends and family threw me a HUGE baby shower!! They worked so hard on everything that I really want to make sure that this blog post reflects how amazing it was.  I figured I should start with the decorations, since that's what everyone  spent the most time on (I'm guessing). The shower was a jungle theme, which I loved!! Mos of the signs read "Welcome to the Jungle Jacob!" little does Jacob know how true this statement is ;0)

The cake in the middle was the cake that Matt and Kimmy made to make the announcement on the gender of their baby (that will be a separate post, but I am way excited!!) Anyways all the little animals you see are edible!! And of course the diaper cake on the bottom left made my Tori... awesome!

Now let's get to the party part of it.  Of course all the ladies looked beautiful!! We played a couple of games, the clothes pin game which people couldn't say "baby," "boy," or "Jacob." If someone did they got to steal that persons. Surprise, surprise... Jaybee and Cindy won that game.  Both of whom are very competitive and have questionable rule following techniques...lol.  We also played bingo when opening gifts (which there was tons!!) and a memory game.  Which everyone wrote down a memory of either me and Mike and we will read it to Jacob at some point (obviously depending on the stories depends on what age if ever he gets to hear them.)
I was so excited that almost my entire family made it to the shower!! I love this picture!! Tutu with her grandchildren and first great grand child!!

Then of course Gabby, who looks amazing!! It was baby Sweet's 4 month birthday on that day! I can't believe it!!
Then of course the token picture of everyone's generosity... Jacob is one loved little boy!! Obviously!!
Thank you everyone for one of the best days ever!! I appreciate everyone's hard work and generosity! I love you all!!

January 23, 2012

No Knife required...

With the much anticipated arrival of Baby Jacob and my weeks of time off from work, I have decided to get into the kitchen a little more! (really at all). I have re-found my love for my crock pot!! I love that things come out yummy without even really trying.  For example this recipe... Prep time was about 10 minutes (but it all varies on how fast you can open a can)

South Western Style Chicken in a Crock Pot Recipe (I think I need better names)
2 cans sweet corn (drained)
1 can black beans
1 can hot chopped peppers (or whatever spice level you like)
4 skinless boneless chicken breasts
16 oz of salsa
Cheddar cheese
This is super easy... put the sweet corn, black beans, and some salsa into the crock pot and mix together.  Set the four chicken breasts on top.  Put more salsa and the peppers on top of the chicken and cook on low for 7.5 hours.  Honestly I didn't measure the salsa and just went by what I felt.  When you are about to serve it just throw some cheese on top and let it sit for about 5 minutes and the cheese will melt.

You can pretty much eat this with whatever... make it into a burrito. As for Mike and I, we forgot to buy tortilla's so we made some noodles and mixed everything together so it was like a casserole.  Turned out fantastic!! The chicken is so tender it just falls apart with a fork, no knife required!!

January 13, 2012

Car Seat/Stroller

Thanks to Chris and Sue our car seat and stroller combo arrived on our doorstep last weekend. It is extremely fancy, the Chicco Fit 30! Whoo hoo! Anyways, as most already parents know, some assembly is required on almost all baby stuff.  Mike is in his nesting mode and was very excited to put it together, which was comical to watch, to say the least. Some of the best quotes from Mike were as follows:

1. "I feel like everything is connected, so how is it supposed to come apart?!?" (this was after about 5 minutes struggling to unfold the stroller after getting it out of the box.)
2. After looking for the directions for  10 minutes..."Oh that's a great idea! What genius decided to put the directions in the middle of the stroller where its all folded up!!"
3. While putting on the wheels..." Wouldn't it look cool if there were spinners on these wheels?"
4. "I am gonna practice folding and unfolding it, so I look like a cool Dad."
Needless to say, it was a fun day to watch Mike put it together... and I tried to show off to everyone about how easy it is to put up and down and of course I had to ask Mike for help... go figure!

Baloo was of course helpful the whole time.  He really focused on the box to help out.
And here is the finished product!! (1.5 hours later) Good job Mikey!!