10 Months, Whaaat up

I know I say this all of the time, but how is Ben already 10 months old? He is too cute right now. First of all, he's hilarious. I know every mom says this about their kid, but seriously, he's really funny. He gets this look in his eye like he's getting ready to do something crazy/bad/dangerous and then will turn and grin as if to say "you know you can't get mad at me, I'm too damn cute". Of course he would never say damn, because he's too damn cute for that. 

 

Everyday I feel like he's about a second away from just standing up and walking around by himself. He's cruising everywhere. For those of you who don't know, (I, for one, had to google "cruising") cruising apparently means pulling up and walking around by holding on to furniture. He can stand alone for brief seconds at a time, but (is it OK that I am kind of excited this happened??) there was a major set back about 3 weeks ago. He got a little too ambitious in his skills, and let go of his trusty table, and fell straight sideways directly onto his shoulder. That threw him for a quite a loop. He screamed for about (what seemed like) 20 minutes- it was probably like all of 90 seconds. I honestly thought he had hurt himself, but after a little bit he was back to playing. Since then he's been a little more careful and cautious about letting go of things. To tell the truth, I am pretty excited about this little accident, because, quite frankly, I am not at all ready for him to start walking. I am still getting used to the fact that he can crawl around our house in a matter of 15 seconds, so I can't even imagine what it's going to be when he's walking all over the place. Going by the speed that he crawls, there probably won't be much walking anyway, it will more than likely be running, meaning I am going to be even more tired than I already am...But, whatever, I'm excited either way! I think it will be great AND hilarious when he starts running/walking all over the place. New adventures everyday, I'm sure! 

Speaking of tired (I did mention that earlier, right?) Ben doesn't sleep. Ever. For almost 6 weeks he's been a teeerrrrible sleeper. It's insanity. Like, literally, I think I'm going insane sometimes. He's been better the last week or so, so I finally feel like a human being again, but up until then it was really hard. He was waking up every 2 hours, wanting to eat, and screaming. At first I thought it was his teeth, or a growth spurt, or something short-term, but when it continued for over a month I started to get a little bit concerned  (Evan and I need to sleep!!!!) Not to mention that Ben needed his sleep too! At Ben's 9 month check-up, which was in early October, my doctor recommended we give him Tylenol + Ibuprofen one time, right before bed, for a week. He felt like his teeth were hurting him and the medicine would get him back into a rhythm of sleeping longer than 15 minutes at a time. Of course medicine wasn't his first option, but we had done the whole "cry-it-out" Ferber thing for THREE weeks, by the book, and it wasn't working at ALL. So, our doc knew we needed sleep, and knew Ben needed sleep too. He assured me this would work. The doses were pretty high, so for a 20 lb baby this should knock him right out..right?? .... WRONG. Ben is apparently some kind of super baby with the ability to tolerate doses of medicine that would normally knock out a 30lb baby. Ben was still waking up 2 hours after we put him in his crib, and then every 1-2 hours after that. After doing this for 3 days I stopped giving him the meds, because they obviously weren't working, and I didn't want to give him medicine for no reason. We were back to square one. So the following week I contacted the dr's office again. About 24 hours later I finally convinced the nurse that I needed the dr to call me back directly.  After a 45-minute heart to heart with Dr. K that night (yes, he called me directly, which was awesome!) we decided that maybe some of the food he was eating is hurting his stomach. So we cut out all solid foods for a week, to see if that made a difference. After the first 24 hours of no solids Ben slept from 11-6!!!!!!!!!! OMG. Waking up after more than 2 hours of consecutive sleep made me feel like I could run a marathon. A-mazing. The last week or so have been a little easier. Last night he slept from 8p to 1, then from 1:30 to 7a. I'll take it! We are slowly starting to reintroduce solids back into his diet, to see if there's something we're feeding him that's making his belly hurt. It's frustrating at times because it's so much trial and error. But, listen, when it comes to sleep I'll try about anything. Sleep deprivation is a total b-word, which, in turn, makes me a total b-word ;)

Regardless of our sleeping "issues" Ben is an absolute joy. He is learning new things every single day. Now he can point, hug, laugh, babble (on and on and on..) wave bye-bye, cruise, stand for brief seconds at a time, entertain himself while I'm cooking dinner or cleaning.. and the list goes on. What is cracking me up the most right now is his ability to laugh hysterically when he gets excited. This isn't the laugh he had when he was 3 months old, this is the mama-im-so-excited-right-now laugh that comes deep from his belly. He will start doing this when we are playing or I chase him around the house while he's crawling. He thinks it's so funny when I crawl around with him. I'll have to get a video and post it on here, because it's hilarious.

Another thing he does now is crawl into his room and sit right by the door and say "bye-bye" and close the door (like he needs some alone time). Meanwhile, I'm outside of his room, I'll knock, and say "Ben, can I come in?" and then I open the door ever so slightly. He will then peak his little head around the smile real big and then scream "BYE-BYE" and close the door again. This is so funny to him. When he closes the door I can hear him laughing on the other side, and when I knock he breaks out in hysterics. We do this for about 10-15 every.single.day. I LOVE it. I guess it's his version of hide-and-seek.

He still loves pretty much any food, and now when we go to restaurants we can order him noodles with olive oil and he can eat that! He seems to really enjoy them. The more texture the better! Avocados, bananas, carrots, sweet potatoes, anything green, and yogurt top his list of fave foods. And when I feed him, he likes to hold his own spoon, and "feed" me while I feed him with a separate spoon. It's pretty darn cute!

That's my ten month update! If I think of anything else, I'll post!

Monday Night Victory

So... Yay! 1 of 6 recipes completed. Tonight I made my version of chicken tostadas. PS, I did not go by the recipe I posted at all. Here's my version:

Ingredients:

6 chicken breasts 

1 red onion

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

1 or 2 tomatoes (I just had one, so I just used one)

2 small cans of green chiles

3/4 cup cream cheese

1 packet of Old El Paso original taco seasoning 

10 Mission white corn tortillas (cut into quarters)

1 cup Smart Balance veggie oil

1 cup of water

Sour Cream and Mexican cheese for topping 

**optional: Black beans or refried beans for sides (I used both and mixed them together)

Prep Work:
Dice 1 red pepper + 1 green pepper + 1 red onion + 1 tomato
Cut Mission white corn tortillas into quarters (I used about 10, which yielded 40 chips and we have leftovers).  
Start cooking your side dish over low/med heat and set aside while doing everything else 
...prep work complete ;)

Instructions:

1. 6 small chicken breasts + 1/2 coarsely chopped red onion dumped into a pot of boiling water for about 20 minutes (or until chicken is cooked through) set aside to cool

2. Sweat out peppers, tomato and 1/2 red onion in a saute pan for about 10 minutes

3. While veggies are cooking, chop up your chicken 

4. Heat 1/2 veggie oil in separate frying pan (I started on high heat, then backed off to med-high)

5. Add shredded chicken to veggie mix

6. Add green chiles to chicken/veggie mix

7. Let cook for about 5 minutes over med heat

8. Add 1 cup of water to chicken/veggie mix

9. Add packet of taco season to chicken/veggie mix. 

10.  Add cream cheese, stir well, and let simmer for about 20 minutes over low/med heat

Now.. start making your tortillas

1. Add corn tortilla triangles to the veggie oil you had heating up 

2. Once golden brown transfer them to a paper towel lined baking sheet (be sure to keep an eye on these, otherwise they will burn!)

3. Repeat these steps until all pieces are cooked, then sprinkle with a touch of kosher salt! Enjoy!! 

I served this with the chicken mixture as the main dish, and beans and chips as the side- adding a healthy dollop of sour cream and cheese after plating. Here is the finished product:

It was delish- I will admit, not the healthiest meals I've ever made, but I felt better frying the chips using the Smart Balance (that evened things out, right??) 

Pinterest Goal: 5 Days 5 Recipes

It's obviously old news that Pinterest is the new.. well, "thing" right now. I have to admit, I absolutely Love it. I'm obsessed with pinning recipes/outfits/home decor/books/ideas for Ben's 1st bday.. and the list goes on. I have really made an effort to cook more during the week so it's nice to have one place with all of my recipes. It's also a great place to go to find new ideas (that, and foodgawker - which is another obsession of mine.. another day, another post).

I'm trying to put my new Pinterest obsession to good use, so my goal next week is to cook something new every day. It can be a dinner, dessert, anything...a way to justify my minutes (hours) spent on Pinterest each week. I'm also going to try my hand at a little baking over the weekend. Evan's parents are visiting Saturday, and I think I want to try my hand at these homemade oreos.

They look delish, and fun too. When I make sweets like this I have to make sure there is someone around to eat them up so I won't gorge myself all weekend- cue Evan's parents + little (bigger) brother Luke, who, I am sure, will enjoy them.

So, here is my master plan for dinners next week:

Monday: Spicy Chicken Tostadas 

Tuesday: Stuffed Zucchini

Wednesday: Breakfast Pasta 

Thursday: Date night, and I ain't cookin' ;)

Friday: White Bean Chicken Chili for Friday and through the weekend

+

Almond Joy Dessert

I'll update throughout the week with how everything turns out. If I was really fancy I'd whip up some of the these bad boys... look how pretty:

1, 2, 3, MOVE

Evan and I put our townhouse on the market this summer in hopes of selling and moving to a one-story ranch style home with a yard that Ben could grow up in. But... that didn't exactly happen. Literally the day we put the for sale sign in front of our house, the bottom fell out in our neighborhood. We found out that the most recent sale was WAY lower than what we were expecting, and because of that, others in the neighborhood with homes on the market ended up lowering their asking prices. Love this economy... not. We decided to rethink our strategy for the future. Because the rental market is (fortunately) very strong in our neighborhood, we decided we will rent for a year, to see if the market will even out a little bit. Renting would give us the freedom to move somewhere fun for a year. We didn't want to buy anything without selling our home first, so we set our sights on renting a fun condo or house in downtown Raleigh. If we don't do it now, we will never do it. And how fun will it be to be downtown? Walking distance from the Y, great restaurants, parks, museums, trails, the list goes on.

Fast forward a few weeks and we are now all moved in to our downtown condo! We love it. Renters are moved into our townhouse, and, luckily, so far so good! After just being in our new place for a little over a week, we already feel at home. Although the new place is much smaller than our old house, all of the space is actually used on a daily basis. In our townhouse because of the multiple levels, Ben never really played in his room, and the stairs.. well don't even get me started. Reminder to myself for the future- never, I repeat,  never buy a 3-story home- especially one that you have to walk up stairs to get into the front door.

Things I LOVE about our new place:
It's cozy
It's sooo quiet
The location: We can walk everywhere. Saturday morning Evan walked Ben to breakfast while I slept in... heaven.
It's brand new. No one has lived there before. So I can feel good knowing Ben is crawling all over clean, fresh carpet and floors.
The bathrooms..  one word: awesome
We use ALL of the space.
Ben actually plays in his room, and LOVES it.
We are saving $$$$

Things I could live without:
Parking is not so great
The dryer takes FOREVER
The washer/dryer are much smaller than our old ones

Overall we are so happy with our decision. We're having a little downtown adventure before Ben gets old enough to go to school, and before we decide to have a second child. This also gives us time to really think about what we want when we do decide to buy a house.