Love: Our New Addition

Labor and Delivery: On the way to the hospital we stopped by Walgreens to get a couple of RedBox movies for JD to watch, thinking it would be a long night and day. At 9 p.m. on the 7^th we were admitted to the hospital to begin Cervidil at 11 p.m. Hoping the Cervidil would finish thinning my cervix, but it could take up to 12 hours, then start Pitocin to start contractions. By 4:30 a.m. I was having contractions on my own. I don’t remember much from here out. I woke up with cramp like contractions that gradually got worse. At 6 a.m. I was 4 cm dilated, and ready for the epidural, which I got at 7 a.m. Originally I was terrified of getting the epidural, but afterwards I was new person, even holding conversation with my parents. At 8:30 a.m. the nurse checked me again, she told us I was 9 cm so that I could get a power nap before pushing, but she later told us I was really 10 cm. Then at 9 a.m. the doctor came in to break my water and start pushing. By 10:06 my little boy made his way into the world. He spent the first hour on my chest, it was perfect.

Following Delivery: Due to the high blood pressure I put on a magnesium drip for about 16 hours. Because of the magnesium I was completely out of it all day, I hardly even held my baby boy, and couldn’t breastfeed on my own. I literally slept, and JD woke me up to feed Connor.

Thoughts and Feelings: I feel truly blessed to have had such a wonderful pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Even with the blood sugar problem after delivery, I say the overall experience was still good. And the end result of finally having my baby boy makes everything worth it.

Live: Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day was especially special for my husband and I. We celebrated it with our new little Valentine. We also tried to keep it low key between the two of us. After all we do show each other our love every day, and in the scheme of things we have never big on teddy bears, flowers, and chocolates, and trust me I have all the jewelry I could want. This year my Valentine's ideas came completely though Pinterest.

This blogger showed how to create a traditional pound cake with a pumpkin shaped pumpkin cake inside.
http://www.sheknows.com/food-and-recipes/articles/975551/pumpkin-pound-cake

I used Pinsiration to make a Valentine's cake.

Ingredients:
Strawberry Cake mix and all ingredients to make
Chocolate Cake mix and all ingredients to make

Mix Strawberry Cake as directed. Pour into loaf pan. I used a 10" loaf pan, and my cake ended up not getting tall enough, so I would use a smaller one.  In the 10" pan it took 40 minutes to cook.

 You can see here that my Strawberry Cake wasn't long enough. I had to cut off the top and bottom then use a cookie cutter to cut the hearts flat instead of on each slice. Then I just placed them in the middle of the pan.

 Mix the Chocolate Cake mix as directed.Pour over the hearts in the loaf pan and bake. I baked mine for 30 minutes.

The finished cake, overall I'd say it came out pretty good.














I used just a tub of Betty Crocker Vanilla icing to finish off the cake.










For the rest of my husband's Valentine's present I used tags from this website:
http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/01/14-days-of-valentines-with-free.html
Giving him a bag full of goodies and special messages to go with each.

Finally, he surprised me with a beautiful flower arrangement and Chocolate Dipped Strawberries and Raspberries (no, they didn't come in the mail, he took the time to do them himself!).

Love: The End of Pregnancy

How far along? 39 and 40 Weeks, and Delivery

Weight Gain: 32 pounds and swollen

Stretch Marks: None.

Sleep: Really pretty good, waking up to go to the bathroom, but going right back to sleep.

Wedding Rings On or Off? The weekend before delivery I did have to take my wedding rings off. My fingers swelled while walking, and never went down enough to wear again.

Labor Signs: The Tuesday before my 39 week appointment I woke up about midnight not feeling well. When JD got home he took my temperature, 100.4, I also had bad body aches and freezing cold. In the morning my fever had gone down, but I was not feeling Connor move as much. We ended up at the hospital for monitoring. He was fine, and we found out I was having contractions, I just wasn’t feeling them. At my 39 weeks appointment on Thursday I was nearly 90% effaced and 1 ½ cm dilated, still not feeling contractions. Monday morning I went to work, by 8 a.m. I was exhausted and my feet were swollen. My co-workers encouraged me to go to the doctor after school, so I did. My blood pressure was elevated for me, and with the swelling the doctor gave me off until delivery. After 3 days of rest, I went back to the doctor on Thursday. My blood pressure was up a little more. It was decided I would be induced that night.

 

Live: Be Mine Banner

In the spirit of Valentine's Day I wanted to add a little something to my entertainment center, since I don't have a mantle.

 

I made this cute little "Be Mine" banner. It was very easy, and I only needed a few things.

 

Scrapbook paper is obviously the easiest, but I found this paper as a blank card, and then cut it to size (4x4 inch).

I then used my Cricut to cut out the little heart in each corner.

I also used my Cricut to cut out the "Be Mine" and the heart on a pearly pink.

 

 I used a thick twine as my ribbon, then tied some velvet ribbon I had between each card.

I hung it from the tiny clear 3M hooks, that way I can easily change it out for each season.

I did matte the heart on a red paper, and used foam dots to make it stick up a little.

 

All in all I was done in about 15 minutes. 

Teach: Idioms

Idioms

I try my best to not reinvent the wheel when I am planning lessons, because after all there are so many resources available on the Internet now. However, for this lesson I had this idea in my head about what I wanted to do.

 

Common Core Standards simply says "recognize and explain common idioms." I also decided that because this was only one standard and it was tied in with proverbs and adages I should not spend a lot of time on it. Due to my short class periods I did spend 4 days.

Day 1: Define an idiom and discuss the difference between the literal and figurative meaning. In groups of 3-4 students begin the matching activity.

Day 2: Continue matching activity. I had 7 different sets of cards, most groups were able to complete 6 or 7 of the sets. (Could combine day 1 and 2 if your class time is longer, or if you are fine with students not viewing all sets. My class period is only about 45 minutes.)

Day 3: Explain and begin working on idiom illustrations. Complete for homework.

Day 4: Students present idiom illustrations to class. (Could skip this day if students wrote a description of their illustrations.)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Idioms-Literal-and-Figurative

Live: Caramel Apple Dip

Oh, how I wish I could truely photograph food...

 

Ingredients:

16 ounce container caramel 

8 ounce softened cream cheese

1/2 bag Heath pieces, chocolate and toffee

 

Directions:

1. Mix caramel and cream cheese together until smooth. (This is much easier if you use a stand mixer or a hand mixer.

2. Stir in Heath pieces.

3. Slice apples. I also put my apples in a ziploc bag with about a tablespoon of lemon juice to help the apples from turning brown. 

This is a half portion of the recipe, served with 3 sliced apples. I would rather have to cute more apples later than have apples that turn brown.



Live: Gulit Free Grape Salad

I have absolutely fallen in love with this easy to make, healthy to eat dessert-snack-whenever treat.

 

Ingredients:

2 pounds seedless red or green grapes (washed)

4 ounce  fat free cream cheese (softened)

½ cup fat free sour cream

¼ cup splenda

½ tsp. vanilla

½ cup chopped pecans

1 Tblsp. brown sugar (not pictured)

Directions:

1. Mix together cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, vanilla and brown sugar.

2. Fold in grapes and pecans.

3. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Will keep up to 3 to 5 days in the refridge.

 

(This is a half portion, in a 1 quart bowl, so you can imagine a full portion.)