Baby Sesame's Story!

So, I can't believe I haven't posted anything in about two months (Bad Karen!), but in my defense, I've been a little preoccupied. Brady and I have kept pretty busy with library classes, Gymboree, playgroups, Christmas shopping/decorating/baking, and lots of weekend trips. Oh, and doctor appointments for Baby boy #2!! I figured it was time to dedicate a post to the newest little man in our lives.

Long story short, we found out I was pregnant about 2 weeks after we moved to Pennsylvania. We jokingly call this baby our "Florida Souvenir." We really hadn't planned on trying for another baby for another 6-9 months or so, but God had other plans in mind for us. Basically that has been the theme for 2012. If you had asked me at the end of 2011 what I thought my life would be like a year from then, I would have never thought to say, "Probably being a stay at home mom, living in Pennsylvania, pregnant with my second little boy." It's been a year of me living that song, "Jesus, Take the Wheel." and as a crazy planner who usually likes to know exactly what comes next in life, it's been a crazy/scary/adventurous/freeing experience that I wouldn't trade for anything!

This picture of Chris cracks me up. We were in such shock at this moment. We went from, "whaaaat?" to "Yay!" to "Holy moly we have a ton of stuff to finish around the house." Basically as soon as the first test was positive, Chris turned into a maniac finding projects to do around the house. It was around 9 at night and he got on a ladder to finish painting our living room because he "had to get it done before the baby got here!" I love my husband. I'm not sure he even got off the ladder to look when I took the remaining 2 tests in the box (for extra confirmation!)

I immediately got online to try and figure out how far along I was and my potential due date. The internet said I was probably between 5-6 weeks pregnant and that our baby was the size of a Sesame seed. From that point on this baby was lovingly nicknamed, Baby Sesame. It was quite appropriate considering the amount of Sesame Street that we watch around here.

My first trimester was filled with lots of naps. Fatigue was definitely my biggest symptom this time around. This meant that I was pretty useless with the unpacking, painting and new house projects that had to be done. Again, I love my husband because he totally picked up the slack when I was being unproductive. Basically I took care of Brady and cooked and figured that was my contribution to the family.

11 weeks- popped much quicker this time around!

I'm trying to be good about taking weekly belly shots this time around, but to be honest, it's more like bi-weekly because we just seem to get busy and forget! My cravings are very similar to what they were with Brady- desserts! I might have eaten 2 cherry pies in one week (with the help of my family!) Christmastime seems like free reign to go nuts with baking and satisfy any cravings I have. My January weigh in might be a little scary!

This baby is just as active and crazy during ultrasounds as Brady was. He is constantly moving (which I kinda love!) and will no doubt be as rambunctious as his big brother.

13 wk ultrasound
 

 When it came time to finding out what we were having, Chris and I both said we didn't care what it was. Part of me always wanted a little boy, and I got him, so I was open to anything! But when the ultrasound tech said, BOY at our 20 week anatomy check, our true feelings must have come out because we, wait for it, hi-fived! Chris and I hardly ever do that, so it was so strange that we both went in for a hi-five, of all things! We were so excited about Brady growing up with a brother so close in age as him (they will be about 21 and a half months apart.) In a weird way, I feel like I was meant to be a "boy mom" so it just feels perfect. I picture our lives filled with baseball practice, football games, messy floors, grass stained jeans, and lots of mommy/son date nights!

22 and 1/2 weeks

 

Now that I am about half way through my second trimester, I am feeling great and starting to get the itch to work on the nursery. The nursery was almost Chris' office, but that quickly changed and we now have a guest room/office and an empty room just waiting to be filled for our new little boy. My due date is April 4, so we will soon see if this little one has to be kicked out like his brother or surprises us and comes early- he's been surprising us from the beginning, so that would make sense!

The Life and Times of Brady Smith...

One of the things I like best about this blog is that it's a great memory keeper for me. I'm not one to journal or even scrap book that often so by blogging about little moments in our family's life, I feel like I'm able to remember our stories.

For Brady's 1st birthday I had a poster made listing all of the things he loves and can do. He just passed the 15 month point, so I thought I'd make another list via my blog to document our little man's life.

B-man has been walking for a little over 2 months now. It's amazing how that changes everything! He can chase the cat, get into the dog's water bowl, climb the stairs, empty my Tupperware cabinet, unroll the toilet paper and dump an entire cup of milk just in the time it takes me to get a load of laundry out of the dryer.

He is talking more and more every day. Tonight he pointed to my eyes and said "eyes." It seems so simple, but it's so cool to know what a little sponge he is. It's also a little scary to know he is listening all the time. At his 15 month check up last week he said, "Oh my gah!" The doctor thought it was hilarious, and I did too, although slightly embarrassing! I really didn't think that was something Chris or I said that often, but I guess it's enough for him to pick up on it. His favorite words are daddy, Al (for Albert), ball, truck, cat, Gato, Brady and DUCK. Brady LOOOOOVES ducks! He loves rubber ducks, stuffed ducks, ducks in books, and ducks at the park. He says duck over and over and over again! This made deciding on his Halloween costume for this year a no brainer...



Duck! And I believe that is pumpkin muffin on his chin.

We couldn't get out of Home Goods without this thing. The cashier had to pry it out of his hands and it was all slobbery with kisses.

One of my favorite things about Brady is his love of dancing. The kid will stop in the middle of anything and start breaking it down if he hears a song. It could be a commercial, ice cream truck, radio, it doesn't matter. Usually it's a "drop it like it's hot" type of squatting dance. Lately he has added swaying back and forth and shaking his arms in the air. I like to think he got his moves from daddy.

I like to think he also got his quick temper from daddy. We can be all smiles one minute and then watch out world, the next! Perhaps this is just a glimpse of what the Terrible 2's will be like for Brady, but I think he's just a strong willed kid. For example, at story time at the library last week we played with a parachute. Brady was the first kid to run under the parachute when it was in the air (cool!). What a proud mommy moment! Buuuut, he was also the only kid to cry when the teacher put the parachute away. I got to have that awkward, "Haha, isn't he so precious?" mommy moment.

Recently Brady got to take a vacation to Florida. It feels weird to say that. Pennsylvania is really beautiful right now (highs in the 60's, leaves changing colors, pumpkin patches, all that good stuff) but I was in need of some beach, seafood, and family time so our trip was an awesome treat! We stayed the first three days in Jensen Beach with my dad and Pat. I wasn't sure how Brady would do on an extended trip because historically he has not been a fan of sleeping in strange places, but thankfully he did great. Maybe he was just so exhausted each day he didn't care what he was sleeping in or where. He swam in the pool and dug in the sand for a long time.

Sandy butt!

B-man and Grandpa!

King of the castle!

Passed out. Butt in the air, snuggling with his puppy. Love!

Chris flew back to PA after the first 3 days and Brady and I went to Palm Bay to visit with my mom, uncle, aunt and grandma. We had lots of family time and Brady got to play in the play area at the mall and go to the zoo. What's funny about Brady is he can be so cautious about new people and really has to warm up to you, unless it is a kid. He is fearless around other children and absolutely loves the play area in the mall. He always finds big kids to "play" with (or at least he thinks they're playing together.) He will climb anything and doesn't understand the concept of falling or getting hurt. It's quite nerve racking to watch him...

Going up the slide the wrong way...blocking all the other kids...thinking they are playing a game together.

Climbed the cow. Impressive, but scary!!

Diving off the cow head first. Thank God I got there in time!

Snuggling with Grandma after bath time.

 

 

 

In the Toddler swim area at the zoo. We didn't come prepared so we just borrowed a swim diaper from a stranger. Brady is absolutely fearless in water. So scary! He kept dunking his head under!!

 

The zoo was appropriate for Brady because the kid loves animals. He comes by that pretty honestly, I'm pretty crazy for animals too I suppose. He was so into the giraffe area at the zoo.We have also found a cute Amish petting zoo where we live that Brady loves as well. The goats were a big hit! And then when all else fails, there's a super friendly neighborhood cat that comes to our backyard all the time. For some reason this cat actually enjoys Brady hugging and kissing all over her. (Much different than our cat, Gato!)

The goat was not understanding why Brady wasn't feeding him, BUT when we tried that, Brady ate the goat food :(

While this age is a little exhausting, I just love how Brady is learning something new every day. He really loves life and my hope is that he remains fearless and always keeps his curiosity of the world!

Kids Cook Monday- Lasagna!

This Monday we were a little pressed for time to get dinner on the table because Chris had a plane to catch later in the evening. We could have had dinner after he left, but I wanted him to have a home cooked meal before he left town because when he's away for work he has to eat out for every meal. I decided to make a family favorite- cheese lasagna. This is really the only way I make lasagna because I'm not a big ground meat fan. Brady LOOOOOVES Italian food so I knew it would be easy to get him on board with this meal as well.

Basically this is a very, very simple way to make a "homemade lasagna." When I say "homemade lasagna" I'm referring to the fact that I'm assembling it myself and not just baking a frozen one (not that there's anything wrong with that either!) But, when I say "homemade lasagna" I'm not claiming to make my own sauce or take that much time doing it.

Here's the basic ingredients to this lasagna:

Lasagna noodles (the kind you don't have to boil ahead of assembly)
2 jars of your pasta sauce of choice
1 large container of cottage cheese
2 packages mozzarella cheese

That's all I used for this lasagna, but it would also be great with some spinach, chopped zucchini, fresh tomatoes, or ricotta cheese. That's the great thing about lasagna; you can layer in whatever you like and it still tastes delicious! (Anything would with tomato sauce and cheese!) I started with sauce on the bottom of my baking dish and then layered noodles, cottage cheese, sauce, cheese and then repeated until I started running out of ingredients! It's so easy! I baked it for 30 minutes on 350* with foil on top and then another 15 minutes uncovered.

I didn't get a picture of the lasagna right when it came out so the only picture I have is after we began to devour it. As you can see, it's half gone. Mind you, it was just Chris, Brady and me. We joked that Brady had a crazy look in his eyes between bites and it couldn't cool fast enough for him.

This makes the best leftovers too!

Crazy look. Give. Me. More!

A happy, satisfied, boy!

Brady is a little young to help in the kitchen, but I can't wait to make this meal when he's older. It's the perfect dinner for kids to help "cook." They can easily help with the assembly- there's really no way to mess this one up!

Kids Cook Monday- Chili Night!

Us Pennsylvania folks had our first little glimpse of Fall this past weekend. The lows were in the high 50's (this is totally unheard of where we came from in Florida!) This inspired me to break out the crock pot and try my mom's meatless chili recipe. It wasn't exactly cold outside today, but I will take any excuse to eat chili and it makes the house smell so yummy!

This recipe calls for 3 different types of beans. Basically, you can use whatever type of bean you have on hand or are in the mood for. I used kidney, pinto and black beans. You can change the amount of beans depending on how thick you like it. I actually never make meaty chili (I'm not a fan of ground beef) so this is my go-to chili recipe and it just sort of worked out for Meatless Monday. I let it all simmer in the crockpot on high for about 4 hours, but you could definitely do it on low for 8 hours. I normally do it the slower and lower method, but I didn't get a chance to get started until the afternoon.

Here's the recipe, but you don't have to follow it exactly. I like to wing it in the kitchen!

3 Bean Chili

15 oz. can tomato sauce
1 can tomato soup
2-14 oz. can diced tomatoes with green chilies
2- 15 oz. can chili beans
15 oz. can red beans
15 oz. can black beans
3 Tb. dried chopped onion
1 Tb. sugar
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

*cook with crock pot lid slightly propped, season to taste

Cooking with the lid propped is important in helping the chili thicken up. It smelled delicious in our house!

So here's a mistake I made with this chili. If you make this chili for your kids you can either learn from my mistake or try my trick for "fixing" it. I'm so used to making this for Chris and I and we like a little kick with our chili. I should have used a little less chili powder and regular tomatoes to make it more kid friendly. When I tested it, the chili tasted great to me, but I knew it would be too spicy for Brady, so I had to cool it down for him. Chris always likes plain Greek yogurt (instead of sour cream) on his chili so I decided to make Brady's version a more creamy chili. It really worked well to tone down the spice. I just used about half Greek yogurt and half chili and it was the perfect creamy chili sauce for a 14 month old!

I have always liked chili on pasta. We called it a 3-Way when I was growing up...chili, pasta and cheese. I mix it up on what kind of pasta I use just based on what I have on hand. Today I had a pasta called "Pipette" which was similar to a macaroni but a little thicker tube (just thick enough for chili beans to get inside- yum!!) Here's our 3 finished products.

Chris's, Brady's, and mine.

Brady testing out his creamy chili pasta.

All in all, this meal was a hit. And the best part is that we have TONS of leftovers. It's enough to have lunch tomorrow and freeze some for whenever we get another cool spell. Or, as Chris reminded me, we could also throw it in with some Velveeta cheese and have nachos for football this weekend!

Kids Cook Monday- Daddy's out of town!

My hubby Chris recently had to leave town for a week for work. It was sort of a long week considering we are in a new state where I don't really know anyone, but I had lots of bonding time with my B-man!

I don't know about you, but I'm not overly motivated to cook dinner when it's just myself. If it wasn't for Brady, I probably could have survived on popcorn or chips and salsa for dinner all week. But, Brady was definitely my motivating factor for getting something nutritious on the table.

One of Brady's go-to favorite meals is a cheese quesadilla. It's simple and easy. One of my favorite go-to easy meals for myself is a bean burrito. I almost always have these ingredients on hand to make it happen; tortillas, cheese, refried beans, lettuce, salsa, and plain Greek yogurt (my healthy swap for sour cream.) So this week I decided to make a simple meatless meal for me and my little man.

I bumped up my normal bean burrito with a little fresh tomato from our garden. We have a ton of them right now, so this was a good way to use some of them up! I also happened to have a really ripe avocado so we threw that in there as well. Brady LOVES avocado. I've been giving it to him since he was about 6 months old and he's always gobbled them up. Here's how our easy dinner shaped up...

Here's the inside of our meatless Mexican dish. Beans, Greek yogurt, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and avocado.

Here's the folded up finished product. It would have been great if I had heated it all up on the griddle too. But remember, I wasn't that ambitious with the hubby out of town!

Brady approved!

This is how Brady helps out in the kitchen. It's mostly just him underfoot, emptying my spice rack, but it's good company!

I will definitely keep this one in my repertoire. It is super easy and Brady liked it. Plus, there was enough of the ingredients left to have it again for lunch the next day!

Kids Cook Monday- Meatless Greek!

Us Smiths are trying desperately to keep up with the fabulous garden that our previous homeowners have left in our care. Squash, zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes are everywhere and I hate for any of it to go to waste. Soooo, I knew I had to be creative with my meal planning to use up what I had. I like cucumbers, but I maybe can eat one a week. Luckily Brady will snack on them, but that still does not take care of the 4 giant ones we picked last weekend. So, I came up with the idea to make a tzatziki sauce (that yummy greek yogurt sauce you get on gyros!) Normally I would put this sauce on a pita with chicken and tomatoes, but we have been trying really hard to stay meatless on Mondays so I had to think outside the box.

When I checked out in the garden I was greeted by lots of this---

 So, Brady and I got to picking! It was a "fun" game of me picking...and him throwing. He kept repeating, "ball." I guess I can kind of see where he was coming from.

With the produce ready to go I just had to somehow turn it all into a meal.  I was "pinspired" by something I saw on Pinterest and decided to just marinate my veggies in a little olive oil, salt, pepper and dried herbs and then sauteed them up and sprinkled a little parmesan cheese on top. I served it with pita bread and hummus and the delicious tzatziki sauce that helped me use up my abundance of cucumbers.

Here's a version of a tzatziki recipe similar to how I made mine: http://www.goodlifeeats.com/2011/06/visiting-crete-tzatziki-recipe-and-minoan-palace.html

This was a fun easy meal and the best part was that I didn't have to buy all that much because I either had the ingredients in my pantry or in my backyard! I wasn't sure how Brady would like this meal because it was a whole lot of textures going on. Basically I cut the veggies up pretty bite size for him and made little pita sandwiches with the tzatziki and hummus. It was a hit! Now I can officially say, "Yea, my kid eats Greek food." Afterwards I even thought of more ways I could improve on this meal- maybe some yummy black olives, feta cheese, or even marinate the veggies in Greek salad dressing and then grill them.

Hopefully you and your family can get in on the fun of gardening for your dinner. If not, hit up your produce stand and see what kind of new cuisine you can make with it!

Good bye FL, hello PA!

The last couple of weeks have been so busy and crazy! We officially said good bye to our townhome in Clearwater on July 13th and hit the road on Saturday the 14th. The last week in Clearwater was full of good byes with friends and family and definitely bittersweet. We had movers come to the house the Thursday before we left and it was so strange to see our home go from totally full to totally empty in a matter of two days. It was also challenging keeping Brady entertained as his whole world was being packed up. It didn't help that he was a little under the weather. But, we survived!

Brady loves his grandma so saying good bye was super hard.

We hit up one more Thirsty Thursday with our friends before we left. Here are the girls- considering the intense humidity, we look pretty good ladies!

I had to get Brady out of the house during the packing so we went to the mall and got to see the Chick-fila cow. Brady loved him!

Saying good bye to our first home as a family...

At breakfast the morning we left town.

Brady is going to miss his Auntie Jill!

 Day one of our journey was challenging. Brady had some stomach issues so we had to make multiple stops. We were lucky enough to make it safely to Savannah and stayed the night at my dad's house. They had their front bedroom set up for our cat, Gato to be able to get out of his crate and relax. They also had a kiddie pool for Brady in the backyard. He was so happy to be out of the car and was in such a cute mood! It was nice to have a home cooked meal that night and relax before hitting the road in the morning.

Relaxing in the pool at Grandpa and Nana's house on night #1 of our trip.

 On day two we were doing much better. We stopped in South Carolina for a while and had a picnic lunch. We couldn't really go into restaurants because we had Gato in the car and Albert with us, so we had to be quick and stay close to the car in case we needed to turn the AC on for the cat. My step mom Pat packed us up a yummy lunch that we enjoyed at a rest stop. Everyone enjoyed these little breaks away from the car!

Lunch break at a rest stop in South Carolina.

This picture is supposed to be ironic. People there were actually posing as if this was their family vacation. Weirdest rest area ever- only in South Carolina!

 By day 3 of our trip we were so anxious to get to our new home. We made a quick stop in Virginia and then had lunch in Baltimore, but still got to our house in Lititz, PA by 3. It was so strange walking into the house. I felt like I was walking into someone else's home since I had only been there once (over 2 months ago!)

Walking into our new home!

Brady in his new front yard!

 Brady is really loving the new place and is adjusting well. He loves having a yard and more space to play. We have set up his playroom so far and most of his bedroom.

Doing some yard work!



Our moving truck finally arrived!



Brady is loving the plums in our backyard!

 We are so blessed to have already met some amazing new neighbors. We were greeted by a case of beer that one neighbor left in our fridge, baked ziti, custom cupcakes, and homemade jam. Everyone here has been SO welcoming!

A custom cupcake one of our new neighbors brought over!



Here's the note the previous owners left for us. So sweet!

Our house is definitely a work in progress. Boxes are still everywhere and paint needs to go on the wall and wallpaper needs to come down. I will definitely post more pictures once our junk is cleaned up and you can actually see what the house looks like. That might be a little while as it is much harder to get things accomplished with a one year old getting into everything. Even now I am losing valuable unpacking time because I'm blogging during naptime!! :) So far we are loving the area and I only got lost once! Go figure, I ended up at an Amish farm. My favorite things about Pennsylvania so far are lightning bugs, cooler weather in the evenings, scenic farmland everywhere and the amazing selection of local cheeses at the grocery store! We will keep you posted on this new adventure. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive and sent so many positive thoughts and prayers our way!