Freezer Meal Weekend

Over the summer we bought an extra freezer from a friend's estate sale with the intention of making lots of food before baby arrives. It sat out on our back patio for months before Paul-John finally cleaned it, and then sat out on the patio a little longer before he managed to bring it into this basement earlier this week.

Friday my mom and I went to Costco, Saturday she made a quick stop at Stop&Shop to pick up a few more things and then came over and helped me get started, and today I did some more cooking. This is what we have so far:

I know the picture isn't really that exciting and I probably should have taken "in progress" photos, but it just seemed like too much of a hassle so this is what you get. I still want to make some soup for Paul-John for easy work lunches but I am really impressed with how much we were able to get done without actually spending too much time working. Saturday we probably got started around 11 or 11:30 in the morning and we were done by 4, and we that includes a lunch and quick shopping break. Today I got started only slightly before 11 and stopped for lunch at 2, which then led to also hanging out with Paul-John, going out for coffee and to look at cameras (more about that later this week). I spent about another half an hour working before dinner and maybe another hour and a half to two hours after dinner, and that's it. I'm sure if I had started early in the morning and didn't take such long breaks I maybe could have gotten it all done in one day.

What I really like about what we bought and made is that its a nice split of big meals we can either make for when we have guests (since I know we'll be having a lot of them!) and meals that are portioned for just me and Paul-John. For big meals, we have:

• 4 whole chickens
• 2 casseroles: one is a basic mac and cheese with chicken and spinach, and the other is chicken spaghetti but with onion, peas, carrots, and celery
• 1 meatloaf
• 1 pork roast with apples, sage and rosemary

For smaller portion meals we have:

• Enchiladas: 6 packages of 4 enchiladas each, plus one more with just 2.5
• Stuffed Peppers: 6 dinners (of two each) plus an extra one
• Pork Chops: 10 bags of 2 pork chops each. Two bags have a liquid sesame ginger marinade, four bags have a liquid balsamic herb marinade, and four bags have a dry garlic pepper rub. We also have a bag with three pork chops and the scraps from the end of the pork loin that we plan on using for pulled pork.
• 4 bags of already browned and seasoned ground beef for tacos
• 4 bags of 2 chicken breasts

We also have a bag of leftover ground beef that we haven't decided what to do with yet, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be adding in 8 (2c) containers of clam chowder.

Considering this was my first go at this, I think the way we went about it really helped with time management. Saturday I mostly just did prep - chopping the potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, peppers, etc. Mom started with prep - grating the cheese - but then did all the ground beef stuff. She browned some up for tacos, made the meatloaf and the stuffed peppers. We also boiled the chicken and shredded it. So today for the enchiladas and two casseroles all I really had to do was boil the pasta and everything else was ready (or could have been ready, I did end up needing to cook more chicken and grate more cheese, but luckily those were both easy). All the ingredients for tomorrow's soup are ready as well!

What else went really well is a lot of the ingredients are in multiple dishes but I think all the dishes are really different. There is cheddar and onion in pretty much everything. The two casseroles both have chicken but totally different veggies. There is apple in the meatloaf and the pork roast (and two jars of applesauce in the fridge). There is spinach in the enchiladas and a casserole, etc.

The only thing that I sort of didn't like about this whole process is I ended up getting a lot of other things at Costco that weren't for the freezer meals so it was a little hard to calculate the cost per meal. But it was all great stuff to get (with the exception of one "treat" item for Paul-John) like stocking up on toilet paper, or foods I'm not counting in the whole freezer thing like English muffins or butter. I spent about $100 on other stuff so when I first tried calculating the cost per meal I was nervous I spent too much. Luckily I saved the receipt so I was able to take a better look and I spent about $30 on freezer supplies - big boxes of the quart and gallon size freezer bags as well as a 30 pack of foil tins. Necessary but an expense we won't have the next several times we do this. I then spent about $105 on the food for the freezer meals. The next day my mom spent about another $50 at S&S but not all of this was for freezer stuff, but lets say about $45 was (I didn't save this receipt). And then today I had to pick up just a couple more things for another $10 So thats $160 on food and we have 8 big meals, 31 small meals, and (hopefully) 8 lunches, or 47 meals at $3.40 per meal. If you add in the cost of supplies, it is still only $3.83 per meal. Granted some of these will be complete meals with leftovers, and some are just parts of meals that will still need other sides, but I'm feeling a lot better about how much I spent!

I could probably write more but I think for one post this is enough. I'll be sure to write about each meal once we start eating them!

More photos!

I have been pretty inconsistent taking the profile bump photos but I finally got around to taking another one! This is one day shy of 36 weeks.

Another thing I am bad at doing is finishing knitting (or crochet) projects. I always get really excited about starting the next project. And I like the act of knitting and crocheting, while I do not like sewing buttons, tucking in yarn ends, or seaming. Once I get around to actually doing it its never as bad as I think its going to be, with the possible exception of seaming which at least is pretty easy to avoid. Anyways, this evening I finally got around to putting the finishing touches on two baby cardigans, which you can check out either on flickr or Ravelry. Tomorrow I am hoping to finish and photograph one more cardigan and maybe some mittens, so stay posted!

Cuddle Bump

Countdown

With less than six weeks to go, we've officially entered countdown mode. We've made a countdown checklist of all the projects and shopping we want to get done in the next few weeks and so far we're making pretty good progress. (I prefer "countdown mode" to "nesting" because it feels more accurate and less cheesy, not to mention that since I've made the checklist I've had The Final Countdown/visions of Arrested Development stuck in my head, which is fun.) I can't wait for everything to be ready. Only a week or two after we finally moved the hutch and the rocker out of the dining room and into the nursery, the dining room is once again filled up as our default storage space, now with all the items from the baby shower and a newly painted dresser.

Last week my main focus was washing all the clothes and linens we got at the baby shower. I've done most of it, but stopped when I ran out of room for all the clean items since the dresser wasn't finished yet. Paul-John painted the dresser yesterday, so now that its dry we should be able to get it upstairs fairly soon. Hopefully this weekend we can get all the furniture and everything else in place and we can put up all the wonderful decorations we got at our shower!

In other news, I am now going in for non-stress tests twice a week! It just started last week, and I'm lucky that my schedule is pretty flexible but it still is time consuming. At least I'm able to bring my knitting, there aren't any extra co-pays and it is always nice to know that everything is going well. This week I also have another ultrasound to check on baby's size. I had one just after I was diagnosed with gd and she was measuring fine. Now its been 5 weeks and since I've been managing my blood sugar levels, hopefully she should still be a normal size! Although I have heard from a lot of people that their weight guesses aren't very accurate, I'm still looking forward to checking in on her size.

Baby Shower!

Saturday we had our baby shower! It was really, really, really great. The only thing I would have changed would be to have someone taking more photos - below is one of the only photos of the guests! The rest are of me opening presents, and if I'm not holding something directly in front of my face then I either have red eye, a strange expression, or am super blurry - it is so hard to look good in action shots. We got a lot of baby clothes and linens, a lot of the decorations for the nursery, and almost all of the big items we registered for like the stroller and high chair. We also got some great handmade itms - a super adorable quilt from one grandmother and a knit blanket and crocheted hat and sweater from my other grandmother. Overall I don't think I was surprised by any one item, but I was certainly surprised at the volume of presents compared to how many people were there. We are so lucky to have such generous friends and family!

We didn't have any games but we did have a bunch of plain white onesies and bibs along with fabric markers for people to decorate and I think it was a big hit. At first I was just thinking that this was something that would be fun for the guests to do and practical for us since we'll get to keep them. It wasn't until we started looking through all of them after the shower that I realized how special it will be to put our baby in all these things made by the people closest to us.

Here we are with the cake. I didn't get to have any but I thought it looked great! It matched the decorations, which of course we don't have any photos of. I also got lots of compliments on the dress and I have to say I think I rocked it pretty well. It is one of the many clothes I have borrowed and I felt great in it.

As promised

As promised, here is a timely follow up to my last post.  In fact, I have two very exciting things to post about today!

The first is to share Threads of Compassion New Britain which is a local chapter of a charity that I have been working on opening for the last couple months.  Our website and facebook page just went public last week.  The staff at SACS were all very supportive of the idea when I proposed it, and since everything went public I have gotten even more positive feedback which is encouraging.  We already have a couple scarves (thanks mom!) and I am so excited to see how this goes.  I am hoping that by January we will have enough people interested to do a monthly knitting/scarf packing night.

The second is to share some photos of our nursery!  We've gotten a lot of the work done but we still have some finishing touches left - we have a dresser we want to paint, the hutch needs different knobs, we have some things to hang on the walls, some furniture still needs to be moved around - but it feels really good that we've gotten so much done already, and the room has a really good vibe so far.  Almost as good is the dining room and upstairs hallway are finally without lots of random furniture!

The crib we bought new, but on sale with reduced shipping and a free mattress.  So far we are really happy with it and there isn't too much else to say about it...  

The changing table/hutch we bought used on Craigslist and I absolutely love it.  A lot of people just put changing pads on top of dressers but we will be using a tall dresser so that wasn't the best option, and buying a new table seems silly when you'll only use it for two years.  What I love about the hutch is I think it'll still be a great piece of furniture even when we're no longer changing diapers.  I also like that the shelves on top will be easier to reach mid-changing than the shelves below the changing station on most changing tables, and there is a spot we can put a diaper pail so its not just out in the open.  Really, everything about this piece of furniture is perfect (or will be, once we buy new knobs).  Next to the hutch is a quilt rack we also bought used ($10!) with the first quilt my grandmother every made.  I think we may end up moving the hutch fully in the corner and putting the quilt rack on the other side.  

The dresser, once painted, will go where these two rockers are and the rockers will go on the wall with the windows, but there is still one last piece of craft room furniture there right now.  Paul-John's meme (whose middle name will be baby's middle name) made the mini rocker and it says "Paul" across the top.  The glider we bought with the hutch, we got both pieces for $125.  I kind of want to get a new slipcover for the glider, but I have no idea what brand it is.  Slipcovers are also much more expensive than I anticipated, so we'll probably keep the blue for now, I don't mind it.  The footstool does sag in the middle - it turns out it is cracked and so Paul-John just needs to get some wood glue and hopefully it will be as good as new.  The bookcase we had already but we painted, doesn't it look great?  

So I've gotten some flak for not updating this nearly as often as I should be, so get ready for a long post!

The biggest pregnancy-related news is that I have been diagnosed with gestational diabetes about three weeks ago.  I am now testing my blood sugar four times a day and I have to be very mindful of what I'm eating - in addition to being low in sugar, it is also low in carbs.  I also have to eat smaller meals with snacks in between, which also took some getting used to.  The first week was very challenging, but now I've mostly figured out what works and what doesn't, and so it is getting much easier to manage.  And there are two pieces of good news - at my last appointment we went over my numbers, and my doctor thinks I am doing a good job of managing my sugar levels.  Otherwise I would need to go on medicine and go in to see the doctor every week!  So I am really glad I don't have to do that.  I also had an ultrasound, and so far the baby is still measuring within a normal range, so as long as I continue to manage this well she shouldn't get too big.  I have another ultrasound coming up in a few more weeks to once again check on her size.

The only bad news, which really isn't bad, I guess, is that they now want me to deliver between 39 and 40 weeks and if I get to my due date then they will induce.  So we'll see what happens!

Lots of other baby stuff has been happening as well.  We have started on getting the nursery ready and over the next couple weeks we are hoping to get everything done in there.  We painted it this weekend, and all it needs is some touch-ups which hopefully Paul-John will finish tonight.  We also have to paint a couple pieces of furniture, and move a ton of stuff around.  Right now the glider and changing table/hutch we got off Craigslist are hanging out in our living room, and the crib should be arriving either at the end of this week or early next week.

We have already had our childbirth preparation class, which turned out to be a total letdown and as soon as I work up the courage I'm going to be calling to ask for our money back.  That's a long story that I've already told most people, but if you want to know, just ask.  This weekend we have a cloth diaper class and then on Monday we have our infant care class.  I'm really hoping these next two classes are a lot better, we are both really looking forward to both of them.  The diaper class was free to sign up for and we'll be leaving with a coupon, so even if its not informative at least it won't be a waste of money.  While there is a lot of information about cloth diapering online, there aren't any local stores to go and see anything in person, so I am really looking forward to this.

In non-pregnancy news, I got laid off from one of my three jobs.  It sucks to be making less money, but I think we can manage.  One job had just started to pick up around the time I got laid off (from 3hrs/wk - 6hrs/wk, but still) and now that school is back in session I should be seeing more hours doing prevention ed, so I'm staying optimistic.  I also cut off all my hair and am opening a local chapter of a charity, so I've managed to stay busy.  You'll be hearing more about that last one soon.