Freezer madness

So, I am gradually adapting to life with a tiny one in the house. She's a rock star - sleeps through the night as of 2 months, eats like a champ, and is so tall she's in 6 month clothes at age 3 months. If it weren't for the hours of 7-10 pm, aka the screaming time, things would be relatively unchanged around here.



One of the things I knew I had to figure out in order to restore some sort of normalcy to our day to day lives was a better process for handling dinners. We are on a strict budget at the moment, thanks to our moving expenses, a hospital bill, a flood in the living room, and a minor fire in the kitchen. Oh, and 2 separate car problems. So I knew I had to start buying meats in bulk.



The other requirement was that I needed to streamline the dinner process - my husband and I are both way too tired to slap together a decent dinner most nights. And no more fast food! It's a rule now. So I guess the third requirement is that it had to be healthier.



My solution so far has been the crock pot. I headed to Target to pick up a new 6 quart crock pot. The model I chose is this one, found on Amazon for $30. I think I paid $25 at Target.



Then I had to find the recipes - more on that later.



In the meantime, my freezer is starting to look like this:






It needs some serious organizing, and you actually can't see a lot of my freezer meals in this shot, but we're working on it. You can see a lot of my strawberry salsa, which will come in handy when we have visitors next week! The strawberry salsa recipe linked above is really tasty, and great for this time of year when strawberries are everywhere! I decided to make the salsa when I found the strawberries for $1.50/lb. True story.

Brunswick Farmer's Market

Last weekend, we headed out for little lady's first farmer's market, the Brunswick Winter Market located in Fort Andross in Brunswick, Maine.  We especially wanted to stop by the Winter Hill Farm table, because we love their stuff (full disclosure: the Winter Hill Farm folks are part of my extended family).

Sadly, I was not very mindful of the settings on my camera when I was taking the pictures - maybe something to do with also pushing a stroller around - but I'll share some of them.  Here are some of the vendors we visited:

Winter Hill Farm :

Delicious fresh eggs from pasture raised, organic fed chickens!

Raw milk!

Cheese chat

Garlic & herb fromage blanc - AMAZING.

The samples were pretty much gone before I could snap more photos!

Winter Hill Farm is extra special because of their work preserving Randall Linebacks - a heritage breed of cows that was long thought to have died out.  This breed was super popular during the colonial era, as they were a reliable all-purpose cow.  As large scale farms became more specialized, the all-purpose breeds gave way to cows that were specifically good milkers or great for meat.  As I mentioned, it was believed that Randalls had died out, but in fact they haven't; there are now a small handful of farms around the country, including Winter Hill, that are devoted to the continuation of this beautiful breed.



Spring Day Creamery:

Closeup of La Vie En Rose

Spring Day Creamery has some wonderful cheeses, particularly La Vie En Rose.  It's absolutely delicious!  We also picked up a glorious little camembert - sooooo good.


Blue Dragon Mussel Wagon:

Now, I myself have a seafood allergy, but my husband LOVES mussels, and he plowed through his pound of mussels, cooked according to the vendor's recipe, and said they were perfect and he wants more as soon as possible.



Smith's Smokehouse:

My husband picked up a mini kielbasa here to snack on and loved it.





Overall, this is a great market, and very family and stroller-friendly.  We initially went in with little lady in a carrier, but went back to the car and got the stroller when we realized that this was a place where we would not be in the way - in fact, we were in great company.  It was, however, pretty inconvenient that the bathrooms didn't have a changing table (perhaps there was one in the stall that was occupied when I went in?), so we had to change the baby in the car - NOT fun.  Also, they really ought to have an ATM, though at least some of the vendors accept cards.

The vendors were all incredibly warm and friendly, and they seem to enjoy each other as much as they enjoy their customers.  It was nice to be in such a neat space (a old industrial building converted to include office space, restaurants, a flea market, an antique shop, and now the winter market) with such a happy group of people.

The winter market only has 2 more Saturdays, including tomorrow, but hopefully we'll see some familiar vendors soon at the summer market!!

Date: Lunch picnic

Yesterday, little lady and I brought her daddy a picnic lunch.  When my husband and I were first dating, we were living in the DC area, where we took advantage of the warm (ok, nasty and humid) weather to go on tons of picnics.  Our standby was always some variation on the Caprese salad theme, often in sandwich format.  A baguette, some fresh mozzarella, a half a pound of salami, some tomatoes, some fresh basil, and if we were really ambitious, some balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and we were good to go.

So, yesterday I bundled baby up, and we went to the store.  We picked up the usual ingredients, subbing in pesto for the basil and the oil and vinegar.  Since my husband can't go far from the office at lunch due to time constraints, we headed to the courtyard behind his building, which was perfect as it is right next to the river - very picturesque.

And even though it's very different, years later, so many miles away and now with a baby daughter, it's such fun to have an old standby date that takes us back to a time when we were first falling in love.  A time before marriage, mortgage, and babies, when it was just the two of us and everything was so new and so simple.  It helps us revisit the excitement of that time as much as it helps us appreciate all the things we've built together, and all the many things we hope to build for the future, which we'll plan, as we so often have, over many wonderful picnics.

Little lady gets her picnic.  Fear not, I fixed her hat after taking this picture.

Delicious - and I'm about to go chow down on the leftovers!

Nursery DIYs

Just wanted to share the super-easy DIY bunting I made for little lady's nursery.  I also made some for our wedding, so I'll include pictures of both.

The blue and orange bunting was made by sewing together triangles of fabric.  I could have simply cut out triangles and used a plain single-ply triangle, but I didn't want them to fray, so I sewed them together: click HERE for an illustrated explanation of this technique - unfortunately, I did not photograph my process.

I made this orange and blue bunting for our wedding in July 2011.  My husband suggested putting it in the nursery back when the nursery looked like this.  It was a charming idea that I really loved, but when we repainted the nursery, it was time to make new bunting to match!

For the "new and improved" pale blue nursery, I used some teal fabric, burlap, mod podge, white double fold quilt binding, white thread, and some of the leftover paint from the walls.  I made two different strings of bunting:

For the first one - the one that reads "BABY" - I simply cut out my triangles, then painted the triangles with mod podge - this would ensure that they wouldn't simply fall apart over time.  Drying them was a pain; I had to keep flipping them over so they wouldn't dry all curled up.  Putting something heavy on top of them right away when they finish drying would also help.  Then, I freehanded my letters with a small paint brush, and sewed the triangles into the quilt binding.  With the second string of bunting, I added the teal triangles on top of the burlap ones.  To keep the teal triangles from fraying, I carefully dipped just the very the edges into a little puddle of mod podge I poured out on a plate.

The whole project took me just a couple of hours, and I think it turned out pretty cute.  I love triangle bunting to brighten things up, so it seemed like just the thing for a nursery.  Just have to get little lady into this room!  At nearly 4 weeks, she has yet to sleep in there - it just seems weird to have her all the way down the hall!  We'll tackle that once she's sleeping through the night and doesn't need to be fed and changed at 2 a.m.!

Don's Lunch

Yesterday was rough.  Little lady cried for what seemed like the entire day, and so my mood was less than charming as a result.  To cheer me up, my husband drove us over to Don's Lunch, a lunch truck in downtown Westbrook that we've been dying to try since moving to the area.  It's seriously a lunch truck that is open year-round, from 11 a.m. until midnight (2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights!).  They're closed on Sundays.  For extra convenience, they take credit cards, unlike most lunch trucks.

The menu is hamburger and hot dog heavy, with some other good stuff thrown in - including lobster rolls and clam cakes!  I got a cheeseburger and french fries, and for $4.50 it was a super tasty treat!  I am seriously thinking about weaseling over there for another cheeseburger today.  Yum!  Can't wait for my next Don's Lunch trip!  Since my husband is dying for anything with clams in it, I have a feeling it'll be soon!

For updates on Don's Lunch, you can find them on Facebook.

Outing: Portland Head Light

Last weekend, we needed to get out of the house together, so we decided to take little lady to the Portland Head Light, where she would see the ocean for the first time.  It's amazing how much more complicated leaving the house becomes with a tiny infant.  Little lady has so many accessories I need an enormous diaper bag to hold it all.  Not to mention the amount of time it takes to get her into the carseat.  And then take her out, change her, and put her back in again, because one of her favorite tricks involves waiting until we buckle her into her seat and then suddenly making a huge mess in her pants.  Delightful.

Hopefully, the next time we head to the Portland Head Light, it'll be warmer out, and we can explore the fort installations and the always-beautiful Goddard Mansion, which is falling down but incredibly picturesque.  In the meantime, here are my favorite pictures from our visit this weekend:

Stroller Reviews: Britax B-Agile and Marmet pram

Like many first time parents, I did a TON of research into what products we wanted for baby.  I consulted Baby Bargains endlessly, highlighting half the book and making notes in the margins.  (Note to authors: bigger margins, please!)  I absolutely loved that book and highly recommend it - it definitely saved us from wasting a crap ton of money and allowed us to put what we would have spent on things we didn't really want or need towards the Mamaroo, which for us has already been worth its weight in gold, and which I will review here soon!

After careful consideration and many trips to Babies R Us with my handy copy of Baby Bargains in tow (seriously, I looked insane), I ended up picking out the Britax B-Agile, plus the adapter to clip in our carseat.  It was between this and the Baby Jogger City Mini, which also seems like an awesome stroller.  We chose the Britax in the end because we liked the styling a little more, the fabric looked and felt just a little higher quality on the Britax, and I believe the Britax compared a little favorably on the price front.  I'm not sure if that's the case everywhere, but it was that day at BRU.  I also preferred the sun shade on the B-Agile; it seemed more generous and again, we liked the styling.  The we here is my mom and me; my husband couldn't care less about the styling.  :)

We're quite pleased with the B-Agile; it moves smoothly and easily, and the adapter keeps our peanut clipped in there safely.  Roads and sidewalks in Maine can be really bumpy; the winter freeze makes them very tough to maintain nicely, but the B-Agile takes them like a champ.  It folds and unfolds with relative ease; my only issue is that I haven't quite figured out how to do this without getting grit from the wheels all over me; perhaps it's that I'm trying to unfold it from the wrong position, as I'm lugging it out of the trunk of the car.

Most importantly, the little lady loves it.  Generally, if she's in her stroller, she's snoozing happily. 

The stroller in action:

Our second option for walks is the ancient pram by Marmet, a British company that made gorgeous, luxurious prams.  Ours is from the 70s, we think, so it's not as posh as their older prams.  My mom bought it second hand in the early 80s to push me in, and my little sister and cousins used it.  That's 4 kids in my family, not to mention whoever used it before us.  I figure it's at minimum 35 years old, probably 40 or more.

It's held up remarkably well.  A little squeaky here and there, and could use new tires, but other than that, it's in great shape.  The suspension is good, and the materials haven't deteriorated.  If you can find one on Ebay and have the spare hundreds to spring for it, this is a super fun pram.  We're so lucky to have this fun hand-me-down.  One of the few things that I have that makes me feel posh.  And again, little lady loves it.  It's one of her favorite snooze spots.  Oh, and you can flip it around so baby can face you or can face forward.

Some action shots:

Birth Roots: From Belly to Baby

When my husband and I relocated to Maine, one of the first places that was recommended to us - by at least 3 different people - was Birth Roots, located on State St. in Portland.  So, we took that recommendation and signed up for their breastfeeding class and their newborn care class - the "fourth trimester."  These ended up being not only wonderful classes but a window into a great organization.

First up, the breastfeeding class:

The best part of this class, hands down, is that it was taught from a very positive, encouraging perspective.  Unlike most breastfeeding-related avenues of information that I have explored, this class spared me the obnoxious, repetitive preaching about how formula is poison and breastmilk is "liquid gold."  Thank goodness.  I've heard the demonization of formula and mamas who give formula sooooo many times, and while I acknowledge that breastfeeding is at least marginally better, I don't buy into the exaggerated stuff there is out there, and I refuse to come down on mothers who formula feed.  While Birth Roots definitely encourages breast feeding, they seem to make a real point of emphasizing the positives of breastfeeding without dwelling on formula.  I would imagine a parent who had given formula in the past would feel perfectly comfortable and welcomed in this breastfeeding class.

Because we didn't have to dwell on breast vs formula, that freed up a lot of time for actual, helpful information.  For us, breastfeeding was something we felt we should try to do, but we didn't know anything about it, and it felt like kind of a personal thing to ask our families about in detail.  So this class was really helpful in demystifying breastfeeding and giving us concrete, helpful information like different holds, what a good latch looks like, what kinds of complications and issues are normal, troubleshooting, etc.  The lessons of this class have stuck with us, and we have frequently remarked that this was the smartest $30 we spent during the pregnancy.


The newborn care class:

Oh my goodness, I LOVED this class.  It really helped us feel less anxiety and more excitement about the arrival of our first baby.  It's scary for first timers.  There's nothing more intimidating than a tiny baby.

The newborn care gave us practical advice and encouragement on helping the baby transition from being on the inside to being on the outside.  We got super psyched about swaddling, got tons of tips on soothing baby, and stayed after to ask about baby-wearing; the instructor was kind enough to stay and show us the Boba wrap and talk about it quite a bit, which was very helpful.  The best part was that this was the clear moment, from my perspective, when the baby became a real thing for my husband rather than just an abstract concept.  He just lit up talking about all the newborn care topics.  Another $30 very wisely spent.


Apart from the classes, my conversations with Birth Roots staff and with people who have been to Birth Roots have been overwhelmingly positive.  The Birth Roots folks are incredibly supportive and and put a whole lot of love into what they do.  They're welcoming and warm, and in our situation, having just moved 700 miles and changed practitioners and hospitals and everything only 2 months before our due date, they were just what we needed to feel good about the huge changes we were weathering.  Now that we have our daughter, I plan to look into postnatal classes and groups with Birth Roots.

And now, I definitely have to go change and soothe my little peanut, who's got her grumpy, waking-up face on.

The Nursery

When we first moved into our new house, the nursery looked like this:

So, most of the walls were white, and then the one wall had these giant, bold stripes somewhat reminiscent of the Greek flag.  Very cute for the nautical nursery the previous owners had, but not quite my style.  Fortunately for me, my husband didn't have a lot of opinions about what he wanted the nursery to look like.  He was even kind enough to repaint it in the end, despite the intimidatingly bold stripes.

I worked hard to make the nursery work with the original paint job, but after weeks of planning on changing nothing, I suddenly lost it when I realized there was no rug in the world that would look good in this room, between the color on the walls and the weird color on the floor.  I finally broke down crying over it, which in retrospect was pretty stupid.  But by that point in my pregnancy, my hormones were telling me that this was a Big Deal and that nothing would be ok until I got the nursery looking nice.  Like somehow not only would my baby notice the color of the walls but would also care about it.

So, we revamped the whole nursery around a rug that we found on Overstock.com, the Alexa Chevron Wool Rug in Ivory and Blue.  Click HERE to check it out.  We really, really like this rug.  It's pretty true to color compared to what you see on the website, and the only annoying thing about it is that it does have a chemical-ish smell at first, but other than that, we really love it.  So does our cat, when he manages to bust into the nursery.

As a result of the rug choice, we clearly had to repaint the walls, so we picked out a light aqua color, and my very sweet husband went to work.  Meanwhile, I worked on a DIY triangle bunting project.

Here are the results:

Flag bunting: DIY, Shelving and lamp: IKEA, Crib and dressing table: Graco Lauren collection, swing: Mamaroo (we bought it from Amazon.com)

Trouble.

Similar mobile here

This rocking chair was a gift from my father to my mother for Christmas 30 years ago, when they were expecting me.  My mother did much of the re-caning herself, and gave the chair to me for Christmas this year.  Such a wonderful gift!  A quick google search isn't turning up a lot of new results like this chair, but Ebay has some similar ones.

I still need to make a new lamp shade, but other than that, it's done.  She won't be sleeping in there for a little while, anyway - for now, she's in a bassinet in our room.

The great thing about doing a nursery when we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl is that it freed us up to put together a room that we like, without feeling pressured to impose some kind of gender-specific nonsense on our kid.  And since the baby won't be old enough to have her own opinions about her room for a few years anyway, it seems entirely reasonable that we design the room the way we want it, because she sure as heck doesn't care.  Cute as a button, but not really into interior design yet.