Friday, March 8, 2013

40 weeks, 4 days

AhMahGah! I'm about to pull this baby out myself. My doctor said on Wednesday that I have no dilation and no fluid loss, so she didn't see a need to see me again until next week, when I'll be 41 weeks, 2 days. What?!?!?! Apparently it's really common for 1st pregnancies to be extra long.

All of this extra time has me nesting extra hard. I've been making freezer meals to have on hand.
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I made pizza bagels, chicken and biscuit casserole, chicken and broccoli casserole, ham, apricot and goat cheese paninis, beef & bean burritos, swedish meatballs with mushrooms (for the crock pot) and stuffed french toast!

Here is my method for freezer pizza bagels. You'd think it would be very straight forward. It's not. There was a lot of trial and error involved in getting pizza bagels that don't come out of the oven mushy with sauce soaked into the bagel, or over bubbly with the sauce and cheese everywhere but the bagel! Follow all the steps, trust me!

Ingredients:
- 5 bagels from the bakery, unsliced
- 20 oz pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce or plain tomato sauce
- 1/2 bag of pepperonis, or about 3 oz, if getting it from a deli
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella

- take the bagels home and slice them yourself. Don't be tempted to buy presliced bagels, because they are too smooth and don't have the nooks and crannies to hold any sauce.
- lay the bagels on cookie sheets, cut sides up and freeze. If you put sauce on them right away, the sauce soaks into the bagel and makes it soggy when you bake them.
- place 4 paper towels on a microwave safe plate. Scatter pepperonis all over the paper towels, and microwave for about 30 seconds. When you pull the plate out, the paper towels will have turned orange from all the grease they soaked up. The pepperonis will feel dried out, but they will be OK
- make little stacks of pepperoni and cut them into tiny dices, about the size of a pea.
- place pepperonis into a bowl and stir in sauce.
- once bagels are frozen, pull them out of the freezer and top each one with a few tablespoons of pepperoni sauce mixture.
- top with shredded cheese. Press the cheese on top of them a little to get as much as possible to stick to the sauce
- place all of the bagels, still on cookie sheets, back in freezer and freeze until sauce and bagels are frozen together
- remove from freezer and wrap individually in Saran wrap. If some of the cheese falls off, carefully lay it on top of the bagel before wrapping. To prevent freezer burn even longer, store in a plastic freezer bag.
- to bake, preheat oven to 350. Unwrap however many bagels you want to cook and place on cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes, rotate baking sheet, and bake 10-14 more minutes.




Friday, March 1, 2013

32-39 weeks

OK, here we are after a 7 week hiatus. Blogging is like exercise. It's a habit, and once you miss a day...you're done. The track pad on my lap top is messed up and I didn't have a mouse that was compatible. One day without fixing it went by, then another day...I have an iPad, so I didn't feel disconnected.

And here we are. No apologies, but thanks to Danielle for reaching out. It was nice to know that I was missed. I've still been keeping up with everyone else, though, so I haven't missed anything. I also never missed a week of belly photos. We had to move most of them inside though because NYC weather is THE WORST! Something no one ever mentions about it is that it rains here about 3 times a week. I don't know why, but we were un-prepared for that when we moved here. I digress. Onto the good stuff.

32 weeks
32 weeks

32 weeks

33 weeks
33 weeks

33 weeks

34 weeks
34 weeks

34 weeks

35 weeks
35 weeks
check out this awesome hospital gown my mom made for me! Not only will I not have to wear a gown that someone died in yesterday, but I won't blend into the walls! FYI, I totally picked the fabric out myself. People made fun of it on facebook.

36 weeks
36 weeks

36 weeks

37 weeks
37 weeks

37 weeks

38 weeks
38 weeks

38 weeks

39 weeks
39 weeks!

39 weeks!

I can't believe it's only T-minus 3 days until our due date (Monday, March 4th). It feels like it's flown by in some ways, but when I think back to when I found out that I was pregnant, around the 4th of July, that feels like FOREVER ago! I mean, the next 4th of July isn't that far away!

She's starting to suck all the fat from everywhere else on my body. Ha! Including my face. Fine with me. I can't wait to get back to weight watchers, mostly because I miss everyone. I feel good about this pregnancy though. I feel tired, and the most mundane things wear me out (took an hour long nap after emptying the dishwasher yesterday. Seriously. I'd liken it to having Mononucleosis, if you've ever experienced that.) but otherwise, I'm still cheerful and not to the point where I scream, "get it out of me!!!" We had a doctor's appointment yesterday and the doctor doesn't think she'll come by Monday. She didn't check my dilation, and said that since I haven't lost my plug or had any contractions, she's pretty comfy in there. We'll see how I feel next week!

In my next post, I'm going to show off all of the beautiful homemade things people have made us. People have been so generous. I can't get over it.

Happy Friday to everyone!