Emma Joy

Emma Joy was born on Wednesday, November 19th a little after 2am. She was 7 lbs,  11oz and 20 inches.

Birth story:
I started having contractions on Tuesday evening around 8pm. They were regular but not "call the midwife" worthy. At 10:20 I started freaking out that my parents would not be able to be there because of the nightly ferry shut down, and Jon told me to go ahead and call them,  so I did and they got on the last ferry of the night to be sure to be here.
They arrived and we all stayed up a bit longer.
At about 1am we all settled dowm for the night. 5 minutes or so after I laid down,  I had a particularly long amd painful contraction and in the middle of it experienced a terribly painful popping feeling. My water had broken....so I called my midwife and she said to head her way (she has a birthing center at her home which is where I have my babies).
On the way there the contractions were getting closer together, longer and more painful.
We got there and went in and the contractions weren't stopping for long and all I could do was lean over the bed. The midwife convinced me to lay down so they could do some vitals checking and get me ready for the IV (I tested positive for GBS and was supposed to have antibiotics). I kept muttering "there's no time, there's no time." I heard someone ask what I was saying and managed to say I needed to push. My midwife said to go ahead and three pushes later, Emma was out!!!!
We had been at the birthing center only about 5 or 10 minutes and it had only been about an hour since my water had broken! It was such a crazy blur of a labor and delivery!

Because we didn't get the antibiotics,  we are having to keep an extra sharp eye on her for any indications of infection but so far she has been fine, thank the Lord. We all love her dearly. The kids are excited and all want to hold her all the time. I am so happy to have two boys and two girls and that Heidi has a sister!

Emma means "whole" and she truly has made our family feel whole! So glad God decided we needed her!

So close

This may be my last post before having this baby. I am due on Wednesday....

So here is a few pictures to enjoy before I bombard my blog with brand new baby cuteness.....

Let's All Be Brave

I was invited by my friend Pamela to join a book study for the past 6 weeks. I jumped in without really knowing what I was getting into. As it turns out, God has used it to speak into my life in this season I am in.

The book is called let's all be brave by Annie F downs. The title pretty much explains what the book is about... Bravery.

Bravery is something I've always struggled with. And this past year has been no exception. Just dealing with being pregnant again brings enough fear with it. Add to that normal fears of everyday life and then my husband's work getting super stressful and crazy and being brave doesn't seem too easy right now.

I decided to take the chapters slowly and journal along with them and really try to let God work in my heart through the book...and I am very grateful that He has done just that.

Grateful although it has been daunting as well. Just processing each chapter and what God has spoken to me in my reading and journaling has required bravery. There are things I feel I am being called into that takes more courage than I feel I have. Thankfully, I know I don't have to do any of this on my own.

In the book, Annie quotes Isaiah 40:10 and it's so perfect:

"Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." (New American Standard version)

So, in ending, I highly recommend reading the book yourself. If you want to borrow my copy, let me know...although you probably wouldn't regret buying it for yourself.

Cider time!

We went over to my parents house this weekend because my mom had called earlier in the week to tell me the apples were ready early (they are usually not ready until mid October) and were we free on the weekend to go over for Cider pressing? 

We were and we did and it was so much fun!

Cider pressing is one of my favorite activities in my favorite season!

We picked apples off the Liberty apple tree, washed them, ground them and pressed out the juice. Everyone gets into it and does a little bit of everything. The kids were really into it this year and it was so fun to watch them enjoy themselves.

This morning, I asked them what their favorite parts of Cider pressing were and here are their answers:

Liam's favorite part: "that's hard because I love drinking it and making it and everything about it!"

David's favorite part: "picking the apples and drinking the cider!"

Heidi's favorite part: "putting the apples in [the grinder]!"

30-ish weeks and nachos

My newest preggo picture:

Yep, the classy in the bathroom mirror picture. Ha ha. Anyway, thirty weeks. Third trimester and all it entails: feeling huge and uncomfortable on a fairly constant basis. Trouble sleeping at night, heartburn and crankiness.....probably from the trouble sleeping (seriously, how un-cool is it that we mamas have to start not sleeping even before we have a newborn?). Of course, there are also the fun parts....this early in the third trimester, Baby's quite active. Kicks and hiccups and what feels like TaeKwonDo inside me. It's fun. The kids have felt Baby move, Jonny has too (although he gets freaked out by it which makes me laugh. Silly man.).
At my last Midwife appointment, a fun thing happened. We were listening to Baby's heartbeat with the dopplar and Baby was having hiccups at the same time and the dopplar picked it up! It was so cute!

I only have 8-10 weeks left, and quite honestly, I am very ready to be done. I have had a lot of stomach issues with this one....starting out with the worst morning sickness I have ever had, and continued with this weird carb sensitivity. 

I have discovered that wheat, sugar, quinoa and more often than not, oats, make for a Jennifer who is very uncomfortable. But potatoes, corn and rice seem to be okay as long as I don't overdo it. Thankfully, most of my cravings include things that aren't carbs. Like cheese. I have eaten so much cheese lately.

Anyway, so, tonight we had nachos and boy were they good! I may have over-eaten just a little....

While tonight's nachos weren't the "super nachos" I usually make (they were missing the sharp cheddar and several toppings but were quite good anyway), I am going to tell you the recipe, because "Super Nachos" are amazing.

Super Nachos (I'm not going to give any quantities, that way you can use more or less of each item as your preferences go)

Corn Chips

Ground Beef 

Sharp Cheddar (grated)

Salsa Con Queso

Pre-brown the ground beef. On a baking sheet (one with sides), layer all ingredients. Put under broiler for 5-10 minutes (keep a good eye on them as they can burn ultra fast and burnt nachos are not super)

Once done, plate up each persons and let them choose what toppings they want. These can include but are not limited to:

Sour Cream

Salsa

Olives

Guacamole

Green Onions

Jalapenos

Regular Onion

Make sure you have napkins out and dig in! SO good!

Meatballs

I made some pretty fantastic meatballs and spaghetti tonight and thought I would share my recipe.

First of all, for some reason, my belly is not liking carbs. Especially the processed type like bread and noodles. It’s not an every single time thing, but enough that I am trying to avoid gluteny things and even other carbs in large quantities (quinoa is as bad as the processed stuff). This carb-loving girl is hoping it’s just an unfortunate side effect of this pregnancy. Only a couple more months until I know. November cannot come fast enough for so many reasons.

Anyway, I have that going for me and I also knew I had no breadcrumbs, so I scoured Pinterest for a good meatball recipe using oatmeal (carbs:yes, but I have been able to do them in small quantities and I have been pretty good this week about keeping my carbs on the low side. ). I found this recipe that sounded pretty good: turkey and oat meatballs. I figured I would just sub my yummy, grass-fed ground beef for the turkey and see what happens. What happened was pure deliciousness.

I didn’t want to spend too much time touching raw meat (I have issue with that, although beef is way better than chicken…I HATE touching raw chicken. Just the thought…..*shivers*), and I wanted the oats ground up a little, so I put everything in the food processor. Well, I started with just the oats to make sure they got ground up like I wanted. Then, I just added the beef, spices and eggs and gave it a whirl for a couple minutes until everything was incorporated. Then, I spooned it out like cookie dough, rolled them up and browned them in a big pan. Once the outsides were nice and brown, I popped them in the oven at 300 and used the pan to brown up the onions and then make the rest of the sauce. Once the sauce was nice and mixed together, I put the meatballs in and let it all simmer quietly while the water for the noodles heated and we waited for my hubby to get home from work.

Meatballs (in case your lazy and don’t want to follow the link above….also, I doubled the recipe so these amounts are what I did):

2 pounds ground meat (I used beef, you can do beef, pork, turkey for a mixture of your choice)

1 cup oats

2 eggs

4 cloves garlic (minced before adding to processor…I didn’t do this, but will when I make this again)

2 TBSP dried Basil

2 TBSP dried Oregano

2 tsp Salt

Put the oats in a food processor and whirl until the oats are ground to your preference. Add the rest of ingredients and whirl until well blended. Spoon out and roll into desired ball size and brown in 2-4 TBSP oil of your choice (I used bacon grease….yum). Put in a oven safe dish and continue cooking in the oven at 300 degrees. Using the same pan, cook the sauce:...

Sauce:

1 medium onion, diced

1 canned petite diced tomatoes

1 can tomato paste

1 jar spaghetti sauce (I used Pregresso’s garlic and herb blend)

Salt, Pepper, Italian seasoning to taste (I would have added more garlic but used all I had in the meatballs)

Brown onion in the remaining oil in meatball pan. Once soft, add tomatoes. Cook for a few minutes and then add the tomato paste, sauce and spices. Cook until meatballs are cooked through and then add the meatballs to the sauce. Let simmer lightly while you cook up noodles. Enjoy.

How To Train Your Dragon 2

David's long expected birthday present of going to the theater for the first time ever and getting to see the sequel to his favorite movie happened this morning. And while it was supposed to just be him and his brother who got to go (we were trying to make a tradition that the kids got to go to the theater for the first time when they were 6), I could not find anyone available to watch Heidi so she ended up coming too.....and was obviously not quite ready for the theater experience as she was super wiggly and did not want to stay in her seat.

And now, fair warning: spoiler alert!!!!! If you have not seen the movie yet and don't want to know details, just skip past this next part to see the cute picture.

So, it was a good movie. Very good. Met and even surpassed my expectations and anticipation.  They did a very good job making a sequel to what is one of my all time favorite animated movies.
Except for one tiny detail which I should have seen coming from the very beginning with all the talk of Hiccup taking over the Chiefhood of Burke.
Stoic dying. Dying saving Hiccup from Toothless.... (just to complete the spoiler: there is this Alpha dragon who can control all the others and he is controled by the bad guy and gets control of Toothless....making Toothless attack Hiccup but Stoic pushes him out of the way and gets hit instead).
I think it would have been less tragic and hard to handle if it had not been Toothless that killed him....even though I get the whole he was being controlled and would never have done it otherwise idea.

So, yeah. Liked the movie. A lot.  Except for that. And not to be wholly down on something I am saying I liked, there were tons of epic flying and battle scenes, Hiccup gets his mom back, and there are bunches of new dragons. All in all a really fun movie and a great sequel.

Cravings, aversions and sensitivities

This pregnancy has ---as usual--- been completely different than the previous three. For one, I had the worst morning sickness ever. For a couple of days all I could keep down were Pedialyte Popsicles (which are super gross by the way) and green apples. It was really no surprise I got dehydrated and had to have an IV to replace fluids in my body. That was a first for me. Over 30 years and I have never had an IV (that I know of)...it is a weird experience. Super cold starting where the IV is and slowly spreading through your whole body. I could not decide if it was pleasant or horrid.

Also, there's been a lot of general achiness. All over. The exhaustion is one of the few things that has been present for every pregnancy...but laying down has its own trials in that I get achy. And hip cramps. Oh the hips cramps. I often get lower leg cramps while pregnant but this is new.

But really....this post was supposed to be about food. Hence the title.

Eating has been......interesting to say the least. In the beginning it was all about survival...eating and drinking whatever would stay down. As time passed that got better....but now I have discovered that my body is super sensitive to grains. Regular bread/pasta gives me a weird empty tummy feeling and more nausea. And if I am not careful with other carby grains it happens with those too. It is a little frustrating.  Take this morning for instance: I really, really, REALLY want a fried egg sandwich. I am really hoping this sensitivity is only pregnancy related.
I am eating a lot of salads and cheese. I am not liking pickles (which is odd for me) but am LOVING peperoncinis. Here's a picture of one of my many salads....I don't remember all that was in this one, but tomatoes, peas, peperoncinis and cottage cheese for sure.

Lots of things sound good until I start eating them. It has all made for a very challenging few months! I will sign off this post with the most recent "belly" picture:

First post from my phone

Finally remembered to download the blogger app. Maybe you'll see a bit more posting from me.

This picture is from a few days ago when David got his first ride on the motorcycle. I tried hard to be the proud mommy while inside I was terrified. I don't remember feeling that scared when it was Liam's first ride. Could probably chalk it up to pregnancy hormones. Ha ha.

May?!?

Holy smokes, just saw the date on my last post. January 31st.
Whew, it's been awhile.
I received a smart phone for Christmas and my camera and computer have both been a bit neglected. And, I haven't thought to figure out how to blog from my phone.
I'm doing Instagram a bit and honestly, that's been good for me. A quick picture with a caption and done. But, I miss the blogging too.
Maybe I should see if I can blog from my phone. It will actually happen that way.

In the meantime, I have no pictures to share at the moment, but some pretty big news:

I am pregnant.

It was totally a surprise. And not the most wonderful. We were both rather content with the three crazy kids we already have. And I was so happy to be done with diapers.

But, we're adjusting to this new path and this new life and it'll be great. God has planned good things for us.

So, yeah. I'll try to blog more, but just know that it may not happen too often.

January Meal Challenge

Well, I admit it, I had slacked off in the meal prep area of life pretty badly. We were cycling through the same dinners over and over again and I knew it was time for a change. So, I gave myself a challenge for January: not to repeat a dinner meal. It meant lots of variety and a few new meals to try. It was a fun challenge and my family enjoyed it! (lots of "These meals are great!" comments)

Now that it's January 31st, I can safely say: I did it! It took some ingenuity at times, especially when I wanted to use left overs (we mostly ate them for lunches) and a few kind of cheats (for instance, it was okay to have hotdogs again because they weren't bacon wrapped chili dogs).

So, here's my list:

1st: Taco Salad
2nd: Lentil Chili Soup
3rd: Meatloag with Garlic Noodles
4th: Chicken Breasts with Baked Sweet Potato and Rice
5th: Super Nachos
6th: Asian Chicken Salad
7th: Bacon-wrapped Chili Dogs

8th: Fried Rice
9th: Mixed Up Soup (just a bunch of stuff thrown in chicken broth)
10th: Spaghetti with homemade Meatballs
11th: Plain old Hotdogs (Jon and I had a date night---went to see The Hobbit and had nachos, red vines and soda while there)
12th: Biscuit-topped Turkey Potpie
13th: Baked Tilapia with Broccoli and Cauliflower
14th: Pulled Pork Sandwiches
15th: Fish Tacos
16th: Pork Chops with Green Beans and Garlic Noodles
17th: Pot Roast with Potatoes & Carrots and Spinach Salad
18th: Chicken Noodle Vegetable Soup with Sourdough Bread
19th: Football Party at friends' house
20: Fried Egg Sandwiches
21st: Chicken Enchiladas
22nd: Beef Stir Fry
23rd: Omlet
24th: Stuffed Pork Chops
25th: Pizza
26th: Steak with Mashed Potatoes and Peas (had a little helper with the potatoes)

27th: Hamburgers with a Broccoli, Cabbage and Carrot Salad
28th: Mac & Cheese
29th: Spaghetti (I say this counts as not repeating because I didn't make meatballs. Wink wink.)
30th: Pancakes
31st: Shepherds Pie

winter---bah and humbug, but Christmas too!

Every winter seems to get harder for me. Grey skies and cold----I just don't handle it well anymore. I am really starting to understand why people winter in Arizona.
We've had some rough stuff this winter too, like our dog not recovering from his dew claw removal like we thought he would. Like: a normal two week recovery turned into 6 weeks of hellish recovery. Rusty proving that he is immune to sedatives and tearing his stitches. Twice. Me camping out in the living room for 6 weeks while doing everything possible to keep him quiet. Visiting the vet twice a week to have his wounds checked on. *shiver*.

I am so glad we're beyond that now and he's healed and cone-less and bandage-less and the nightmare is over.

Sadly, we didn't think and had this done the week before Thanksgiving and so spent the holidays dealing with our dog instead of really getting to enjoy ourselves.

But, I think we managed to give the kids a fairly good holiday anyway. We got a Christmas tree, went to Zoolights, made gingerbread cookie cut outs, and more.

I've been pretty terrible at taking pictures, or blogging, or really doing much of anything. I managed to read alot. 3 hours a day spent sitting on the floor with the dog because the vet wants him to have time without his bandages on and it's the only way to keep him still gives you ample time to do things like read. (the Nook my Grandma gave me could not have come at a more opportune time. I am so, so grateful!)

But, honestly, this post was NOT supposed to be all about the dog. I'm actually trying to suppress the memories. Really.

Christmas was good. Christmas morning we spent with the Butcher side and it was it's normal crazy, lovely time. Presents flying everywhere, big breakfast. Cousins. Family. Lots of fun.
Then we packed up the car and went to my parents. More fun and family and fondue and presents and good times. I love our families so much.
Jon and I's presents to each other were new phones. I HAVE A NEW PHONE. Like, brand new, not a hand me down and it's a smart phone and super cool and really fun! I got a Samsung Galaxy S4 (!!!!!!!!) and I'm really liking it and it's BLUE (because my husband knows me very, very well and knew I would hate the white one) and he also got me a super heavy duty case....also because he knows me very, very well.
So many good presents from everyone. Seriously.

And then, after Christmas came the Sickness. It deserves a capital letter. Heidi and Jonathan came down with it first and Jon lost an entire week of work to it. Thank God for paid time off and holidays or I don't know how bills would be paid this month. And then Davy-boy got it and scared us pretty bad because he's already so small and doesn't eat well anyway and probably because of that got it worse than Heidi who had it pretty bad. It's 4-5 days of fever and coughs and no fun at all. So far, Liam and I have not seemed to have it (unless we had a far more milder form) and I am hoping/praying that we do not succumb.

So, yeah. There you have it. The update of our rough--but Christmas was through in there to keep us sane-- last couple of months. I will leave you with one of the few pictures I took over Christmas (I had my camera in my pocket THE ENTIRE TIME, too. Bad-Jennifer)

Butcher Cousins (from left to right): Eckston, Liam, Heidi (who is actually throwing a fit, good timing on my camera's part), David and Pierce.