An Interesting Turn of Events

I have a job interview lined up for tomorrow morning.

I know, shocking, right? It's not really something I expected. Ever since I quit my job in June to stay home with Abigail, I've been casually searching job websites and those for local "big name" companies in my area simply to keep my options open. I've always maintained that if the right job comes along at the right salary, I'd go back to work.

Truth be told, I've had mixed emotions about working and being stay-at-home mom from the get go, although I'm sure you've caught on to that by now. Even though I greatly enjoy being home, I don't think those feelings have ever left me. I always feel so torn on what it is I truly want to do. There are days when I'm having so much fun with Abbey that I can't imagine working again for a very long time. Then there are those days where I've been up all night, she won't nap, and she's running me ragged. When those days strike, I find myself daydreaming about being back at work and catching somewhat of a breather from the tedium child rearing.

I know what you're thinking; I just need a break, not a complete lifestyle overhaul (again). I've made that proposition to myself several times only to continue feeling just as confused as ever. I'll admit that part of the issue is guilt. I feel guilty getting to stay home with Abbey while Mike is working ungodly hours seven days a week to provide for our family, even though he insists that he enjoys being the provider and doesn't mind it one bit. I feel guilty that we're paying on a student loan of mine for a degree that I'm not using. I feel exasperated to have worked full-time while going to school full-time for years only to decide later that, nah, I'm just going to be a mommy now and I'll go back to work "someday". I also feel more blessed than ever that I've even been given this opportunity to SAH when I never thought it would be an option for me. That just starts the cycle of guilt all over again since then I feel that I'm not truly appreciating that blessing to it's fullest at times.

All guilt aside, I'm actually really excited for the interview. It's for an administrative position in the executive offices of the best hospital in the area. In fact, I would report directly to the President of the hospital and would interact with the Board of Directors on a regular basis. The benefits are awesome and the position would pay about $6K more per year to start than my previous job. Since we're so used to living on one income now, we'd plan on continuing to do so while using my salary to become debt free (house and all) within the next few years and beefing up our bank accounts which have, admittedly, taken quite a hit this year between my unpaid maternity leave and overall loss of income. The negatives, however, would include putting off TTC #2 for the next year until I would be eligible for FMLA again and we'd obviously have to make the decision to put Abigail in daycare at least part-time (my retired MIL has offered to watch her full-time if I were to go back to work, but I'm not sure that will work for various reasons. I also don't really know how serious she was.)

I'm trying hard not to overthink this until I know the outcome of my interview, but it's proving to be somewhat difficult. I'm a chronic worrier; it's just who I am. I suppose all I can really do for now is to continue praying for guidance. God has never steered me wrong before and I have faith that he'll continue to lead me on the correct path in the future. So here I am, letting go of the wheel - and hoping I don't crash.

Happy Halloween!

For her very first Halloween, we dressed Abigail up as a monkey. Since day one, Mike and I have always referred to her as "our little monkey" for a handful of reasons so we felt that this costume was very fitting. Even better, we can eventually reuse it regardless of whether our future children are boys or girls - bonus points to us for being frugal!

Since she's really too young to Trick or Treat and she's typically bathed and asleep by 7:30 each night (Trick or Treating here lasts from 6-8 pm), we decided to take her around to visit our families instead.

Here she is before we got her dressed in her costume (LOL at her hair - she had just woken up from a nap in this picture):



Here we are before leaving the house:





Here she is at my parent's house:





And here is our worn out monkey once we got home:



I'm very much looking foward to next year when we can actually take her Trick or Treating. I'm sure she'll have a great time (as will we)!

Oh, and P.S., I was right. Abbey went back to waking up twice last night. CRAP!

It Has Finally Happened!

Abigail slept through the night last night!

I feel like screaming it from the rooftops - ha ha! My alarm went off this morning so that I could take my temperature for charting when I realized that I hadn't yet heard a peep from Abbey (it was 5 am by this point). She had rolled out of view on the monitor, so of course I panicked. I ran into her room, poked her, and breathed a huge sigh of relief when she wiggled (but didn't wake up). I crept back to our room with a huge smile on my face.

What I am feeling today can merely be described as a sense of euphoria after all of the sleep issues we've dealt with, and have been dealing with, for months. I'm sure she'll go back to her regular sleep pattern of waking at least twice tonight, but I'm just going to bask in the glory of this for the rest of the day.

On another note, we had her 9 month well-baby visit yesturday. Our peanut now weighs 18 lbs. 13 oz. (31st percentile) and is 27 inches long (17th percentile). I was slightly concerned that she is in the lower percentiles for size, but her pedi assured me that all of her measurements are in proportion and so there is nothing to worry about. She is meeting all of her milestones and is even hitting a few of them early. She had part one of her flu vaccine and will go back in 30 days for the second shot. She had her finger pricked to test her iron levels and is, thankfully, not anemic. Also, we'll have to take her to get her blood drawn between now and her next appointment to test for any lead in her system. It feels so weird to say that, aside from the second flu vaccine, she won't be back at the pediatrician's office until she's a year old.

Lastly, I'm not sure that I've mentioned this yet, but she has two teeth! The first one popped through last week (bottom front, right hand side) and the one next to it (bottom front, left hand side) popped through on Sunday. She's begun trying to chew on her crib so we need to now purchase a protective covering for it. There are already teeth marks everywhere on it....I'm just glad that since hers is a convertible crib, we don't plan on reusing it for a future child.

Well, my friends, I'm off to enjoy this truly wonderful day while it lasts!

Homemade Candy Apples

Last Saturday, Mike and I had a Halloween party to go to so we decided to make these to take along:



They're Granny Smith apples covered in caramel, chocolate, sliced almonds, and dried cherries. They were a hit (not to mention absolutely delicious)! I'm starting to think that my favorite part of Halloween really is all of the junk food.

Yum!

Can You Believe It?

We've started TTC #2 as of the start of my cycle yesterday! It feels very surreal and somewhat odd to be charting again.

In terms of charting, I'm not sure how reliable my data will be as Abigail doesn't always wake at the same time in the morning for a bottle. I guess we'll see. My cycles have been a bit screwy, although still fairly regular, since she was born so I'm curious to find out what's going on as well.

Wish us luck!

Fall Baking - Part #1

Fall is a great time for baking. I recently decided to bake some pumpkin bread to keep around the house. I ended up making 3 loaves of the bread (not noticing that the recipe I was using actually made 3 loaves when I was shopping for the ingredients - d'oh!) and plan on giving one to my IL's and another to my parents.

It was delicious! I also loved the smell of pumpkin wafting through the house while the bread was in the oven. Yum!



Ingredients:

3 cups canned pumpkin puree (or you can buy small pie pumpkins and puree them yourself)
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 cups white sugar
6 eggs
4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp. ground cloves

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour 3 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; stir into the pumpkin mixture until well blended. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. The top of the loaf should spring back when lightly pressed.

A Day at the Pumpkin Farm

This past Saturday, we decided to take Abigail to the Harvest Festival at one of our local pumpkin farms.

This is probably the largest pumpkin farm I've ever been to. They have a large variety of activities for kids of all ages, some of which include:

• Mind Bender Mazes
• Cattle Chute Maze
• Trike Trail
• Petting Zoo (goats)
• Corn Box
• Straw Fort
• Corn Walk
• Lil' Corn Maze
• Tunnel Slides
• Racing Slides
• Pumpkin Launch
• Tiny Town
• Rope Maze
• Hay Wagon Ride
• Pumpkin Decorating Stations

We also just happened to visit on a day where they were having a Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off. We all had a blast!



Playing in the sandbox full of corn kernels:





Pulling a husk off of one of the larger corn mazes:



Going down the slides with mommy:

And some other random shots:

We can't wait to go back next year!

Nine Months Old!

First, I'd like to apologize for my lack of posting over the past month. Abigail has been working like crazy these past few weeks to cut her first two teeth. She's been extremely fussy, has developed a pretty bad diaper rash from teething, and has started to wake up frequently again during the night. Needless to say, I've been exhausted and she hasn't let me out of her sight during the day to accomplish much around the house. Blogging has, unfortunately, taken a back seat for now. I promise to get back into the swing of things as soon as I can.

Here's what Abbey's been up to over the past month:

• I know I mentioned it before, but she's cruising! She's attempted to take some steps on her own without holding on to anything, but she fell down right away. I'm certain she'll be walking by Christmas.
• She wears anywhere from a size 6 month, to 9 month, to 6-12 month clothing depending on the brand. She also wears a size 3 in shoes and a size 4 in diapers.
• We've moved on from finger foods. While she still gets her bottles regularly and I still make her baby food, she now eats off of our plates as well. This is so much easier than making a seperate "meal" just for her. I'm very ready to do away with baby food altogether.
• She now crawls faster than I can run. She's also learned how to open all of our kitchen cabinets - yikes!
• She can point at things!
• She's so over her Jumperoo and Exersaucer. She'd much rather play freely on the floor.
• Her two front teeth (on the bottom) are just about to cut through her gums.
• She now rides in her Britax convertible carseat.
• She's contantly trying to talk. She's mastered saying "momma" and "dadda".
• We've had to drop her crib mattress to just about the lowest setting as she was attempting to climb out of the crib and pull the monitor off of it's shelf.
• She knows her name and will respond to it when called.

Getting Back Into the Kitchen

I've been seriously slacking in the home cooked meal department over the past year and a half. My baking has also been pretty scarce as well. It all started when I got pregnant last year and then we began the process purchasing our home three short weeks later. Although I felt fine for the first few months of my pregnancy, we were so focused on packing (not to mention that we then went without a fully functioning kitchen for several weeks during the move when we were between houses) there was very little time, let alone energy, left for cooking.

By the time we were settled in our new home, I was about halfway through the pregnancy. Mike had to take over all of the cooking at this point as the smell of food on the stove (especially meat of any kind) made me extremely nauseous. Afterwards, I admittedly got lazy and the last thing I wanted to do after coming home from work and feeling like a blimp was to cook dinner. Then Abigail was born. As anyone with a new baby will tell you, it's not easy to find the desire to cook with a newborn in the house. Baking was even farther off my radar.

Now that Abigail is older and I'm not working, I've actually started to miss my time in the kitchen. I'm also out of excuses. Over the past few weeks, I've been making a concerted effort to meal plan and start getting back into the swing of things. To my surprise, now that I'm not trying to whip together a meal after being at work all day, I've actually started to enjoy cooking more. It's a nice change to have all afternoon to pull something to together if needed. Our food budget is also thanking me for the change from poor planning to efficient grocery shopping. Additionally, I'm hoping my weight will continue to drop as a result.

With that said, here are some of my latest concoctions:

Eggplant Parmesean -

Ingredients:

3 eggplant, peeled and thinly sliced

4 eggs, beaten

3 cups Italian seasoned bread crumbs

6 cups spaghetti sauce

1 (16 oz.) package of shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Dip eggplant slices in egg, then in breadcrumbs. Place on a single layer on baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 5 minutes on each side.

3. In a 9 x 13" baking dish, spread some spaghetti sauce to cover bottom. Place a layer of eggplant slices in the sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. Repeat with remaining ingredients, ending with the cheeses. Sprinkle dried basil on top.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes or until golden brown.

Goat Cheese Tortelloni with Roasted Butternut Squash (adapted from Wegmans Menu Magazine)-

Ingredients:

20 oz. fresh butternut squash, cut in 1/2" cubes

2 tablespoons fresh sage

1 tablespoon basting oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, chopped

3 cups butternut squash soup (can be purchased at Wegmans)

2 packages Italian Classics Goat Cheese Tortelloni, cooked 4 minutes and drained (also purchased from Wegmans)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

2. Toss squash, 1 Tbsp sage, oil, salt, pepper, and butter in mixing bowl.

3. Spread mixture in even layer on baking sheet. Roast 15-18 minutes until golden brown.

4. Add squash, soup, and remaining Tbsp. sage to skillet on MEDIUM heat. Bring to a simmer. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add pasta, cook 1 minute.

And just for fun, I made some Halloween cupcakes!

She's Cruising!

Lord, help us all.

The other day while playing in the family room, I watched in amazement as Abigail pulled herself up to stand against the coffee table and proceeded to walk all the way around it while holding on. Holy crap! She's cruising already!

She just began attempting to stand without holding on to anything as well. She lasts a good 15 seconds or so before falling down. There is no doubt in my mind that she'll be walking in another month or so.

Time to go buy some more baby-proofing supplies! (And lots of baby gates...)