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Saturday, April 23, 2011

You mean donuts don't come from canned biscuts??

This was my 1st try at scratch yeast donuts (I normally cheat and do the can biscuit donuts lol) they were pretty easy to make and only took about 40 minutes (with 30 minutes of that to rise) I did 3 kinds a chocolate glaze, a regular glaze & cinnamon/sugar - Darin said they were really good but next time to maybe add a little more sugar to the dough as the dough wasn't very sweet. I used this recipe

http://www.food.com/recipe/incredible-easy-raised-donuts-203062

the glaze was a simple 1/4 cup water, 1 teaspoon vanilla & 2 cups powdered sugar

the chocolate glaze was 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips, 2 tablespoon corn syrup, 1 teaspoon vanilla, melt in microwave at 30 second intervals till smooth



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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Monkey is ONE!

Today Monkey turned ONE! We had his birthday party a few days ago (post to come) looking back on his birth I wanted to post his birth story that I copied from our private blog.

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 Wednesday morning started off pretty normal. I had woke up at 3:40am and couldn’t go back to sleep so decided to get ready for the drs since we had to leave around 8am. We head to the drs for my 8:30 am appointment, we get there and my bp is fine, I was feeling pretty good that morning and had been the last week except for I had been having steady but not painful contractions, back ache, insomnia and throwing up almost daily all lovely typical pregnancy pains. For the last 3 appointments we had been taking our bags & car seat since I had been having painful contractions only to be sent home so this time we didn’t take anything cause I was sure we would be sent home lol Well the dr checks me and I was 5 cm dilated and 75% effaced so he said well looks like it’s time to have this baby. So he sent us over to the hospital and at 9:30am we were admitted. It took us about an hour to get settled in (IV's and blood work) and than Darin left to take Walker to my parent’s house, pick up my mom and get our bags. While he was gone my bp went up to 180/98 so at 11:38am the nurse gave me a bp med through my IV that went into effect within 10 minutes and was down to 156/76, no side effects or anything. (The meds she gave me wasn't magnesium thankfully! I had been on magnesium with Walker's birth and it was HORRIBLE, had to have a catheter, made me feel like I was on fire and kind of loopy) at 11:48am they started my pitocin and informed me that when Darin got back the Dr would be in to break my water. The nurse said that once my water was broken things should move pretty fast since I came in at a 5 and the longest part of labor is getting from 1cm to 5cm and that she predicted Jordan would be here before dark. Walker told us he would be here at 4pm, guess we would see. Darin arrived with my mom just as the dr was coming into my room, he set everything up and broke my water at 12:30 and I was still at 5cm. The contractions started coming but were not bad, on a scale of 1 to 10 they were around a 3 or 4. Around 1:30 nurse Jennifer checked me and I was at 7cm dilated and my pain level had gone to about a 6. The contractions started picking up and getting faster and faster and when she checked me at 2:30 I was an 8-9, I had wanted to have a pain med free delivery and up until this point thought I was handling it pretty well but the contractions were coming so hard and so fast I didn’t get a break in between them and kind of think I lost it a little and wasn’t sure I could do it. Of course by the time you hit an 8 you can’t get pain meds so even if I had convinced Darin that I really wanted them (he knew I really wanted to do it pain med free) I wouldn’t have been able to get anything. I had heard that contractions with pitocin where stronger but I had NO idea how painful they would get. At 3pm the nurse started checking me about every 15-20 minutes and said my cervix still had a lip left and I had 1cm to go. About 30 minutes later I started feeling a lot of pressure and wanting to push but was told that I needed to wait for the dr as if I pushed with that little lip still there I could tear or cause my cervix to swell and cause things to stop progressing. At 4pm I was fully dilated and really really wanting to push but the Dr still wasn’t there yet, the nurse got the nursery nurse Kim in the room to get things ready for Jordan and nurse Jennifer started setting the room up, she said that since this was baby #2 that once Dr Doughitie got there he could probably move the lip out of the way and I’d be ready to deliver. The next 30 minutes of labor were the worst pain I’d ever felt, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it but my mom and Darin were such a HUGE support, Darin held my hand and kept telling me I could and mom kept saying that this was the worst pain I’d feel, that once Jordan was out I’d feel 100 % better. Dr Doughitie finally arrived and I kept telling the nurse I needed to push now and no one believed me, no one even checked until my mom looked down and said hey Darin want to see Jordan’s head? About the time she said that my body just took over and there was nothing I could do, I pushed one time and Jordan pretty much flew out on his own with the Dr just barely catching him in time. He didn’t have his scrubs all the way on or his gloves. Mom was right and I immediately felt better (didn’t even hurt when the placenta was delivered). No pain or anything, I didn't even tear or need stiches :). So after 7 hours of labor Jordan Ezra was born at 4:43pm, at 36 weeks 6 days, weighing 7 pounds and was 19 ½ inches long. He was perfect! He had some bruising on his face from coming out so fast and they had to suction him 3 times to get everything out since he didn’t have the help of slowly being pushed out to get everything out. But he had no breathing problems or anything. He was a little jaundice but the nursery nurse said that was completely normal for his age. They cleaned him up and handed him to me; it was amazing holding him for the first time. He looked just like his daddy & big brother. Once we had some time alone mom took Darin to the waiting room to get Walker and Darin brought him in so just the 4 of us could have some bonding time before the rest of the family came in. Walker was so excited to see HIS baby Jordan. He kissed him and just looked at him with a big smile on his face. After a little while alone Darin went back out and got the rest of the family. Jordan got to meet my dad, his aunt Kim, his cousins Aries & Oreha and of course Grandma again. After a little while Darin left to go get some dinner for us as neither of us had eaten and Papa took the kids out of the room and mom went to make phone calls leaving just Kim & I with Jordan so that I could try breastfeeding for the first time. He latched on like a champ and nursed for about 10 minutes each side. I wasn’t able to do that with Walker so it was amazing getting to do that with him. Around 6 it was time for Jordan to go to the nursery to get checked out so Darin, Walker and my parents went down there with him so that they could say goodbye before my parents & Walker took off. While they were gone it hit me all that had happened, how fast it went, the I got my pain med free birth while on pitocin, didn’t have to have a catheter or get an epi, was able to keep my bp in check and pretty much have as close to a natural birth I could. It was an amazing feeling and I had so much adrenaline and energy that even though I had been up since 3:30am I just couldn’t sleep. The nurse came in around 8:30 to bring him back to us and he had passed everything with flying colors. He was ready to eat and the whole night the nurses were shocked with how well and how much he was eating being borderline early. We were released Thursday around 6pm and he is doing amazing. I’m feeling surprisingly great. Having some cramping and after contractions but nothing compared to all the crap I went through with Walker. Darin is being amazing and taking care of everything, cooking, cleaning, Walker…. so I can just relax, bond with Jordan, concentrate on nursing (which he is making way easier than I ever thought) and get to feeling 100%. The last few days have been a whirlwind but I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m enjoying having Jordan here and being a mommy of 2 little boys. Can’t wait to see what is in store over the next few days, weeks, years.

** when we came home he weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces and preemie clothes fit him, his newborn stuff is too big. **







To see all 75 photos of little Jordan click HERE

To view his web365 first photos click HERE (and family if you want to order any feel free, we aren't ordering any to send out but I will be taking pics for his birth announcement and sending those out in a week or two) if it asks for a code or password it is 248533008

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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Let there be BREAD

A few months ago I head about this new bread cook book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, you can search for it on youtube and they give you the basic idea of what the book is about. Well a few weeks ago I bought both of thier books Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day -The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking and Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients Last night I made up one batch of the base dough and it literally took just a few minutes - yeast, flour warm water and kosher sea salt, mix it all up in one bowl, let rise for 2 hours than pop it in the fridge. Than this morning I pulled it out made 2 grapefruit size balls (you do NOT knead this dough) let them rest for a little while and then baked them for 35 mins this is what I got






they had crunchy crusts and were airy and soft on the inside, Walker & Jordan loved them and put away 90% of them before Darin got up lol. Luckily I had taken the rest of the dough (would have made about 4 loaves total) and rolled it into dinner roll size balls, let them rest and baked them for about 30 mins and got this




Darin really liked them and ate 3 right out of the oven with butter of course. I'm pretty excited that I got it right cause while I can bake cakes, cookies, bars and things like that breads are my handicap, I have a hard time doing bread, biscuits and rolls but this recipe seems to be fool proof even for me lol. I have another book that I got at the same time called The Amish Cook that has a simple biscuit recipe called Mystery Biscuits that have mayo in them to keep them moist that I'm going to try in the morning, if I can get biscuits to turn out good than Darin will be happy, mine normally are hard as rocks unless I cook them from a can lol.


For anyone interested here is the website for the books http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/


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Monday, April 18, 2011

How does your garden grow?

This year our garden has really taken off, we planted it way to late last year and only got a few head of lettuce and some radishes. We planted everything from seeds except the pepper plants and the bigger tomato plants (the smaller ones were started indoors as seeds than moved outside once they got to big for their little greenhouse).
 

 a whole row of Corn

radish on half and peppers on the other half  -4 bell pepper plants and 4 sweet banana pepper plants

 a row of green beans

half row of carrots and half row of leaf lettuce


 a row of sweet peas

a row of tomatoes - 4 different varieties

half row with squash & 2 kinds of cucumber

little watermelon area

our first little tomato



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