Favorite Comfort Food - Part 1

Well hello there! Long time, no see! My apologies for my long absence, once again. Chasing a toddler and getting through the first trimester of pregnancy at the same time eventually takes a toll on a girl! :) 
We are into the second trimester now though, and everything is going great so far! We found out that we're having another BOY and couldn't be more thrilled! Chet James Hatcher will hopefully be making his grand entrance around July 6th!

This pregnancy I have been craving CARBS, CARBS, and more CARBS! Which is wonderful since I'm a pre-diabetic and was told by my doctor that I should only gain 10-15 pounds this pregnancy…. But hopefully now that I'm feeling better, healthier foods will taste better. For now, I thought I'd share some of my favorite "comfort foods" that have been my taste buds' best friend for the past few months. I've been loving starch, cheese, and spice, and these 3 dishes I'm going to share have hit the spot every time! 

Cheesy Potato and Sausage Bake

I know it doesn't LOOK the most appetizing, but trust me when I say that it is wonderful! (Although the last time it looks like I may have gone a little overboard with the cheese… Whoops). And I've made this a LOT because it's incredibly easy.

You'll just need a package of smoked sausage, potatoes, olive oil, thyme, paprika, salt, pepper, and shredded cheese. You can probably guess, but all you do is chop up your potatoes (however many your heart desires. I usually do around 4-5 medium potatoes), slice the sausage into rounds, and drizzle all with olive oil. Put on a greased, foil-lined cookie sheet and sprinkle with seasonings. Bake at 400 for 45 minutes to an hour, turning every 15 minutes or so. Sprinkle with cheese and then put back in the oven until cheese is melted. Soooo YUM!

The Best Chili Ever

For years I've been missing the perfect chili recipe in my life. But I finally found it when I found this incredible recipe on Pinterest from Jaclyn at Cooking Classy! I've made it for chili dogs, I've put it on a baked potato, and I've just eaten it in a bowl with some Saltines. It is SO good! The only thing I changed in the recipe is I omited the ground coriander (only because I forget to get it every time I go to the grocery store) and I discovered that I love the tomatoes with JALAPENOS instead of green chiles, just to give it a little more kick! (I did this by accident the first time, fixed it the second time, and went back to the jalapenos the third time). 

My Mom's Taco Soup

I don't have a picture of this one, but I'm sure I'll be making it again soon, so I'll add one then. I love this stuff because it's easy, great, and brings back childhood memories. You'll need:

1 pound ground beef
2 cans white shoepeg corn
1 can black beans
1 can dark red kidney beans
1 can pinto beans
1 can Rotel
1 package dry Ranch seasoning mix
1 package taco seasoning
2 cups water
Toppings: shredded cheese, sour cream, and corn chips or tortilla chips

Really, all you do is brown some beef and open a few cans. Mix all together and simmer on the stove for a couple of hours, and voila! You have an easy meal for your family. (It also freezes well so you can save the leftovers for later!)



And there you have it! A few comfort meals for your family for these cold winter nights! Enjoy, and just don't turn me in to the Diet Police!! ;-)

Our Fall so far...

Hello, friends! It's been a while! (Okay, literally a month. I'm sorry!) Hope you all are enjoying this lovely season! As much as I LOVE September, October, and November, I'm already ready to put up our Christmas tree. No judging! :)

But I wanted to share some of the fun things we've been doing this Fall! This year is special, in particular, because it's Hank's first Fall out of the NICU! We've definitely been trying to take advantage of that. I made a "Fall To Do List" last month, and we've conquered quite a bit! But perhaps the most exciting thing that's happened this Fall is this…….

Hank is going to be a big brother!!! We're still very early and not due until July, but we can use all the prayers we can get this time for a LONG, healthy pregnancy. We love our NICU friends but we'd rather not see them in that setting again! ;)

We also had Hank's 1 Year photos made. Here are a couple of my favorites:

…and we went to Huber's Pumpkin Patch…

…and trick-or-treating at Louisville Slugger Field…

…and to Boo at the Zoo…

…and trick-or-treating with friends on Halloween!

If I had known how many festivities we'd be participating in, I would've gotten Hank more than one costume! :D (I found the pony outfit for $3 at a consignment sale, by the way!) 

Only one more month of Fall, and then on to CHRISTMAS!!!! 

Friday Favorites!! 10/2/15

Happy Friday!!! It's a beautiful Fall day here in Louisville, Kentucky! And I'm linking up with Mix & Match Family today for another week of Friday Favorites!

One. 

FALL! It's here!!! Officially! My FAVORITE time of year! I love everything about it -- scarves, boots, jackets, cool weather, football, pumpkins, pumpkin spice lattes, hay rides, festivals, Halloween -- everything!! And October is my favorite month of the year. I have already hung my "Fall To Do List" on the fridge so my husband doesn't forget what he's in for this month! ;)

Two. 

Fall baby toddler clothes. It's still hard for me to say that I don't *really* have a baby anymore! I guess they're technically not toddlers until they're walking, so we're in this weird in-between stage. Whatever he is, he's got some cute clothes! :D I finally got in some Fall pre-orders that I ordered from The Smocking Bug - my FAVORITE clothing site! I can't wait for him to wear these on Thanksgiving and to the pumpkin patch! I also found a sweet Halloween smock at a local consignment sale! And I ordered the cutest little Stride Rite booties with some of Hank's birthday money! (Side note: I have already returned two pairs because my child apparently has a much bigger foot than I thought! Third time's the charm!)

Three. 

Fall magazines!! I already mentioned this in my What's Up Wednesday post, but it's worth mentioning again. :) 

Four. 

Hank's first Bible! I got a call from Lifeway this past week saying that I had a Bible ready for pickup that I had ordered IN MAY. Oops. This is Hank's Bible that he received at his baby dedication. We had it engraved with his name to make it extra special! :) 

Happy Friday!!!!!

What's Up Wednesday - September 2015

I'm linking up with Shay for another What's Up Wednesday!

What We're Eating This Week…

The past couple of weeks I've really been a slacker in the kitchen. There's been too much going on! I tried to make up for it this week, though, and made Chicken Cordon Bleu with baked potatoes and asparagus "fries." CCB is always a hit in our house!

What I'm Reminiscing About…

Now that Hank is 1, so many memories and milestones from the NICU are popping up on my Timehop app and "On This Day" on Facebook. It's so emotional to re-live those days, but I'm so thankful for how far we've come!

What I'm Loving…

My Fall magazines!!!

What We've Been Up To…

Our sweet boy turned ONE on the 17th!!! You can read all about the fun festivities here. :)

AND Jacob, my husband, has started a new job! He's been working for Kroger for 15 years and was hand-picked to move to the corporate office in Louisville to help train employees! This is a well-deserved honor, if I do say so myself!

I made him take a "First Day" picture. Hee-hee. :)

What I'm Dreading…

Nothing in particular comes to mind!

What I'm Working On…

Finding some cool local postcards. If you haven't heard of Postcrossing.com, you should look it up! You can send and receive postcards from pen pals all over the world! I'm signing us up as soon as I find Louisville postcards! :)

What I'm Excited About…

Even though my husband works for Kroger, I still HAD to sign up for the free Sam's Club initiative for moms! I don't know how much I'll use it, but I'm excited to try to get some good deals on diapers and wipes! (Ha, the things that excite you when you're a mom!!!)

What I'm Watching/Reading…

I've started BSF (Bible Study Fellowship), and we're doing a new study on Revelation! I'm enjoying it so far! 

What I'm Listening To…

Nothing new

What I'm Wearing…

I'm looking forward to wearing SCARVES!!! My favorite! <3

What I'm Doing This Weekend…

The hubs is working late this weekend, but Sunday we're having Hank's 1 year pictures made and I can't wait! We're going to try the smash cake again since he was uninterested at his birthday party. ;)

What I'm Looking Forward to Next Month…

It's OCTOBER!!! October is my favorite month of the year! I'm so excited to be able to do fun "Fall things" with Hank this year! Pumpkin patches, trick-or-treating, hay rides… So fun! 

What Else Is New…

Hank is FINALLY getting his first tooth in! Which is great, but it has made for some not-so-fun days. He was having a particularly rough day, so we had to walk to the neighborhood park to make it better. :)

Hank's 1st Birthday!

Wow, it's been a crazy week!! Birthdays, sickness, car being towed, husband starting new job… I'm finally able to post about our sweet boy's 1st birthday party last Saturday! When you're named Hank, obviously everything has to be cowboy themed, so we did it up cowboy style for Hank's 1st birthday! You won't notice many smiles in these pictures, though, because we later found out that our little cowboy was sick with an upper respiratory infection and the Roseola virus! Poor guy. :( We still had a great time, though, and are so thankful for our friends and family who joined us to celebrate!


I have to start with this cake. I mean, come on now. Is this not the cutest cake you've ever seen!? The baker came highly recommended from the wife of one of Jacob's professors, and I literally cried when she brought it in the door. (I was emotional the whole weekend anyway, but this cake was so beautiful! Haha. And side note: those boots are made out of Rice Krispies Treats!)

Here is our tablescape! I wish I had gotten some better photos, but I was so stressed about the weather forecast that I was running around like a crazy person! Ha!

Here was our menu…. :)

Menu

"Cow Patties" - Chocolate peanut butter oatmeal no-bake cookies

"Haystacks" - Butterscotch haystack cookies

"Cowboy Caviar" - a homemade salsa-type dip, served with tortilla chips! Here is the recipe I used.

"Cowboy chow" - a chili-type dish, made with stuff like beans, corn, smoked sausage, BBQ sauce… sounds weird but it's delish! I'll post the recipe sometime! 

"Cow Tails" - Cow Tales candy

We also had a "Waterin' Hole" (sweet tea and lemonade), served food with "pitchforks" (forks), and of course had birthday cake, which was DELICIOUS!

We had red and cow print balloons, and I tied them with long strings of twine for a backdrop! (You can't see it here because it's so bright!)

My mother-in-law found me a vintage Jenny Lind highchair, and I made a highchair banner and birthday hat for Hank to go with it! My MIL also made the super cute bunting that we hung on the fence outside! 

I was praying all morning that it wouldn't rain! 1) Because there was no way that everyone we invited would fit in the house. Lol! And 2) Because I worked really hard on these yard games! In case you didn't know, corn hole boards are VERY expensive… so I decided to do some handmade entertainment!  We had a farm animal Bean Bag Toss, Lasso the Pony, "There's a Snake In My Boot," and a head-in-the-hole sign! Hank also got a slide from his grandparents, so that brought lots of entertainment, too!

Hank with 3 of his cousins who came all the way from Wisconsin and Virginia to celebrate with us! 

(Hank would normally be smiling with the rest of them! Ha!)

Our sweet cowboy!

A Recap of September 15, 2014

One year ago today, our lives were about to change completely and drastically. My heart is racing now and I'm getting a little bit of anxiety just thinking about it! I don't remember anything in particular about the day time, except that I got a call from my OB-GYN saying that I hadn't passed my first glucose test. It was so high that they wanted to do the second test immediately, so they scheduled me to come back in at 8:00 the very next morning. I remember feeling very sad about failing the test and not looking forward to doing a 3 hour fasting test. 

Jacob came home after work, and he realized he had forgotten a notebook he needed at the store. We decided to go back together after dinner to Valley Station to get it, then came back home to watch our Downton Abbey DVDs and eat burnt popcorn. :) Not long into that, I started to feel very strange. I thought I was having "stomach pains," and they HURT. We decided to go to bed early to see if that would help. NOPE. It didn't at all. It got worse, and I tried anything and everything to get relief, all while just trying to hang on until my 8:00 appointment, where I could ask my doctor what was wrong with me. But at 3:00 in the morning, after no sleep, I could no longer bear it. I finally called the on-call doctor and told her my symptoms.  She told me to get to the hospital immediately and she would meet us there...because it sounded like I was having contractions. "Contractions" was not even a word in my vocabulary yet because I wasn't even in my third trimester. I was 26 weeks and 5 days. I'm not really sure what I was thinking at that point, but we left the apartment in our pajamas (and left all of our necessities at home) and headed to the hospital. I called my parents on the way and left a message to let them know what was going on. They called back and expected that everything was fine and maybe I was just exaggerating. :)

When we got to the hospital, we walked in from the parking garage with another couple that was pregnant. They had bags with them and looked excited, so I asked them if they were about to have a baby. They replied, "We hope so!" with an excited laugh. They asked if we were. I said "I hope not!" with an anxious one. It seemed like it took forever to get signed in, but finally the doctor came to see me. She talked to me for a few minutes and then checked to see what was going on. Her face dropped and she looked very concerned. I knew it wasn't good news. She then said, "You are 6 centimeters dilated. I'm so sorry. There's nothing we can do now." Reality hadn't really hit me yet, and I asked if we would be able to go home and get some things. She said something like, "Oh, you're not leaving the hospital. Whether he comes in an hour or waits until full-term, this is your new home." At that moment, I really struggled to figure out what emotion I was feeling. I was absolutely TERRIFIED, but I couldn't help but be excited that we were soon going to meet our son, all while being completely flabbergasted that I was stupid enough to have labored up to 6cm without knowing what was happening. I had only really known one person who had had a preemie, so I texted my friend Hillary and asked her to please be praying. I had seen her son Tobin come home successfully, and thank God for that and for me being naive, or I would have had a breakdown over what was about to happen. 

And then, it was just a waiting game…..

Friday Favorites - IT'S SEPTEMBER!!!

It's time for….. 

As usual, I'm linking up with Mix & Match Family for Fridayyyyy Favorites!

YALL IT'S SEPTEMBER. That is the unofficial start of Fall in my book, which is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE season. There are so many wonderful things about Fall! Now if the Louisville weather would get out of the 90's, that would be fabulous. 

I'll get us started with one of my Fall favorites! :)

One. 

MUMS!!! I got rid of my dead porch plants this morning and planted some bright yellow mums! Hopefully I'll eventually add some hay and pumpkins, but for now I will love seeing these fall favorites when I pull in the driveway. :)

They have some blooming left to do, so hopefully they'll last longer! 

Two.

FOOTBALL!!! We are ready to cheer on our FAVORITE football team tomorrow -- Alabama!!! (Is this not the cutest Alabama fan you've ever seen?? We are working on making "Roll Tide!" his first sentence. ;)) 

Three. 

My new $300 $6 Ralph Lauren lamp! I'm part of a Facebook yard sale page called Mama Swap, and yesterday someone was advertising this little baby for $6!!! I LOVE blue and white porcelain, and I thought it would look great in our living room with some of our other blue and white pieces! It looked like a really nice lamp, so I did some googling and found out that the average resale price right now for this exact same lamp is about $250-$300. SIX DOLLARS, people!! I bought this for $6!!! I call that a steal. ;)

Right now it's right beside our floor lamp (ha ha) but one day I'll do some rearranging. 

Four. 

The best roast you will ever put in your mouth. I'm saving the pictures for when I post the recipe (which will hopefully be soon!), but yall have got to try this. It's literally the easiest thing on the planet to make, and I'm making it this weekend for my parents who are coming into town! Recipe coming soon! 

Five.

Lastly, I cannot believe that this little boy is turning one in less than two weeks!!! We sure had a rough start with him coming 3 months early, but he is reaching milestones like a super hero! He has recently learned how to crawl "for real," and the other day he decided he was ready to walk. Ha! He hasn't actually walked yet, but I did look over the other day and he had pulled up on Jacob's desk and was just standing up hanging out! This has to be my *favorite* milestone so far. 

Have a great weekend, friends!!!

Jaime