Five on Friday: Freezer Meals Part IV

I just realized that Lewis was born and I forgot to finish sharing our freezer meal recipes with you! So in honor of Five on Friday with A.Liz Adventures, here are five more recipes to add to your list!

one | Mexican Quinoa

The recipe can be found here.

We have yet to try this recipe...but Emma taste tested it when we were making it and she liked it. So we'll all have to trust her on this one.

two | Chicken Enchiladas

We also found the recipe here.

It's very similar to what we usually do for enchiladas. Also, haven't tried it yet. Hopefully they'll be good!

three | Breakfast Burritos

We were a little skeptical on how these would go. Let me just say...we LOVE them. And I'm pretty sure that we'll keep doing these even when we're not prepping for a baby. They're that good and that  easy in the mornings.

Kyle found the recipe on Reddit. This recipe made 36...next time we're just going to buy a lot of sausage and keep making them til everything is gone. And we'll hope for 50. Just for good measure.

four | Baked Oatmeal

Joy the Baker is awesome. And we shamelessly LOVE her baked oatmeal. We always double it because it's that good.

Here it is. The only change we make is to add more ingredients like: coconut, flax, chia, raisins, craisins, walnuts, etc

YUM!

five | Monkey Bread

Apparently this recipe came from one of my mom's professors in college...

Ingredients:

• 2 loaves frozen bread dough (cut into small pieces)
• 1 stick melted butter
• ½ c brown sugar
• 1 lg box vanilla pudding powder
  (cook & serve)
• ¼ c milk
• cinnamon as desired
• vanilla (opt)

Directions:

• Cut bread dough into small, bite-sized chunks.
• Distribute evenly in 9x13 pan.
• Mix butter, brown sugar, vanilla pudding mix, milk, cinnamon, & vanilla together. Make sure it’s thin enough to pour over the bread dough chunks.
• Refrigerate over night and let rest in warm oven (lowest heat 150-170 deg) for 30-60 min prior to baking.
• If using metal pan, bake at 350 for 20 min or 325 for 20 min for glass.
  (bake until done all the way through)

And it DOES work to freeze and bake! If you want to freeze this for a later date, just assemble and refreeze. Make sure to thaw fully & let rise before baking.

I hope you enjoy these and if you try them, let me know!

A Birth Story: Lewis Part II

We ended on Wednesday with me having a contraction monitor placed without an epidural...here's the second half.

My plan was to try to labor and deliver without pain medication, but being confined to the bed and with how intense everything had gotten, I told my nurse that I'd like to try the IV drugs. So at 8:00(ish) I was given a dose of fentanyl and was told that it took about 15 min to kick in. It. Did. Nothing.

Kyle asked me if I wanted him to start our diffuser with lavender. My response was, "None of that hippie stuff. I want the epidural." He thought that was hilarious, so a message was sent to the anesthetist and he was on his way up. I'm all for essential oils and I love them. At that point, I was just too focused on my pain.

Dave, the anesthetist, came and finished placing my epidural around 9:45 pm and it was magic. When he came back 30 min later to make sure it worked, I told him that he was magic. I was able to get some sleep after that. But, at 12:40 am (Tuesday), baby's heart rate dropped and I woke up to a nurse putting an oxygen mask on me and they turned the pitocin off. It was freaky to wake up and not know what was happening. The nurses had to monitor baby's heart rate for a while. They turned the pitocin back on at 1:30am and I got back to sleep.

At 4:54am, the same thing happened. Pitocin went off and the oxygen mask went on. I slept more.

Around 9 am, I realized that my epidural started wearing off. I asked for more juice from my epidural and Tuesday's anesthetist, Jamie, showed up. He gave me a little boost and said things would get moving quickly. I was at 6cm by this point.

I was still feeling a lot of pain during contractions. The nurses and Kyle kept rolling me from side to side to get the epidural to my right side.

Around 11, Jamie came back to check on my pain levels and the dr checked again. I was at an 8!! And then time seemed to stand still.

Around 1:30pm or 2, the boost Jamie had given me had worn off. My body felt like it was on fire. I remember looking down at my belly and thinking that baby had appeared to have moved down. 

Remember this for later...

Dr checked me and I was almost at a 10. So we did some practice pushes to see if she could stretch me. No luck. She said she'd be back at 4.

By 2:45/3pm I had some intense back labor and even Kyle's counter pressure didn't help. I told my nurse that I felt like I needed to push because otherwise my body would on its own.

The dr was back at 3/3:05 and she wanted to have me push anyway. After three contractions, baby's heart rate continued to drop. She said that while I was pushing well, we didn't have the time to keep pushing. So our best option was an emergency c-section. 

By 3:30/:40, I was on the operating table and they were starting. Baby Lewis was born at 3:53pm after lots of pulling and tugging. He was having some issues breathing and they put him on an oxygen mask and started treating him for an infection. So he stayed in the NICU for a week.

It was traumatic, but he's here and he's totally worth it!

Newborn pics by Erin Johnson Photography

Happy Friday!

 

A Birth Story: Lewis Part I

I suppose Lewis' birth story is better late than never. He's officially seven weeks old and I don't want to forget it. So...here it is...at least part of it.

On August 28, we had our 40 week appointment with my dr and we had an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay with baby. The best score you can get is an 8...well, we scored 8. So there was no way baby was coming that day. We went to see my dr and she did a membrane sweep and asked if I wanted to schedule an induction. I adamantly said, "YES!". So it was scheduled for Monday morning, space permitting. On Thursday I was at 3cm dilated.

I was officially 8 days late on Monday, August 1. After very little sleep Sunday night, we woke up at 5:45 am and called the hospital to see if they had room for our induction. They told us to come in at 7. They had room and we showered, had breakfast, and went in to the hospital. Unfortunately my dr was out of town for the day, so we had the dr on call.

Our good friend, was our nurse for the day and she got all of our admission stuff finished and started pitocin by 8:15am. Things were moving pretty slowly, so Kyle's sister stopped by to spend some time with us around 9:30/10am. Not much was happening. I was still at 3 cm and not in much pain yet. I finally was starting to feel the contractions around 10:30am. I had to start focusing through the contractions around 11 and the resident on call tried to break my water around 11:30. Unfortunately, he didn't succeed after 3 tries. So we needed to wait until the on call dr came back around noon.

Kyle's sister left around noon when the on call dr came in to check on progress. I was still at a 3 and she broke my water right away. Her comment to that was, "That's the difference between breaking 100 waters and 10,000 waters." My fluid was clear, so everything was okay with baby. We were hoping that things would pick up from there. We were too optimistic, apparently.

Throughout the afternoon my contractions continued to grow in intensity. At some point I was 4 cm and stayed there for hours. I spent some time on the birthing ball and about an hour in a warm bath. While in the bath, I was able to relax and take a short nap.

At the end of my bath, our nurse came in to tell us that the heart rate monitor wasn't tracking baby's heart rate very well. So they needed to start using a scalp monitor. Unfortunately, that meant I was confined to the bed or very close to it.

Around 8:00pm, the resident came back to let us know that they didn't think that my contractions were helping my body progress they way they should've. As a result, I needed to be hooked up to an internal contraction monitor. The resident took three tries to get it in place and it was worse pain than any of my contractions up to that point. My husband thought I was going to pass out. And afterward the resident says, "You did great for not having an epidural." Thanks for that, dude.

And you'll have to wait until Friday to hear the rest of Lewis' story.

Happy Wednesday!

One Month: Lewis

I feel like it's appropriate that I give you a one month update about Lewis. Especially since he's now six weeks old and it's been radio silence on this blog for weeks. Yikes!

Lewis loves to talk to everyone and is very liberal with his smiles. 

He's LONG and quickly outgrowing his newborn clothing and diapers. 

He eats like a champ, doesn't like being cold, and sleeps hard...like his parents. 

At his one month appointment, Lewis clocked in at 8lbs 8.6oz and 21.5 inches long! He's up more than a pound and 2.5 inches since birth. I guess all of that eating is doing him well!

I'll post his birth story soon. I'm still working on getting it written down. 

But for now,

Happy Saturday!