My Husband's Favorite Dinner

Before I get to my recipe, I have to freak out for a minute. Bryan informed me this evening that over the course of the past three-ish days, he has found a total of five-ish (I think he is underestimating a bit) ticks on HIM and a few on our dogs. No sooner did he say this, that I demanded that he check Josie where he found three just tonight! Then he found one crawling on my wall!

This is by far one of my worst nightmares. I feel the need to sanitize my entire house somehow.

The current view of half of our backyard and the wooded area beyond the yard. 

The ticks are totally coming from the wooded area that lies right behind our lot line. When we bought this lot, the wooded area behind our lot was a huge selling point. (Especially because the chances of it being developed while we are living in this house are slim to none.) Now, I am rethinking it's appeal.

Josie hanging out on top of the dirt pile while Bryan works outside.

I guess the sudden increase in temps (finally) combined with Bryan working outside as much as possible to get our deck built (so we can then level our yard and put our fence in!), has brought this tick epidemic to light. Josie, being a beagle, loves to be outside, so Bryan has been taking her outside with him as much as possible.

Bleh. Meh.

On a happier note, I am happy to share with you my husband's favorite recipe. Every time I ask him what should be on the menu for the week, he immediately says "Dorito Chicken". As the name suggests, it's not the healthiest of meals, but it's quick, easy, has protein in it and tastes great. Serve it with a couple sides of vegetables and you're good to go.

(I didn't take a picture of it, so you'll have to use your imagination on it's looks.)

• 4 boneless chicken breasts (I pound mine out with a meat tenderizer to get them to cook faster)
• 2c crushed Doritos
• 1 can Rotel
• 1 can Cream of Chicken soup
• 1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
• 1 c. grated cheese(we use taco flavored cheese)

Line casserole dish with Doritos. Mix Rotel and soups. Layer chicken then mixture. Top with grated cheese and bake at 375 degrees until cheese is melted approximately 30 minutes. You can serve it on top of rice or by itself. I usually serve it with a huge side of broccoli and mix it in with the extra sauce. 

BumpDate: 26 Weeks

The past week has actually been pretty eventful for Little Man and myself. Shortly after my last BumpDate, I started noticing this weird pain near my ribs, right under my bra line on the right side. I wasn't really worried about it but it HURT! Nothing I did seemed to help, except for laying flat on my back, which all pregnant women know, you're not supposed to lay flat on your back. Sitting seemed to make it worse, which was awesome because I sit for a majority of my day. I turned to Dr. Google and found an article that described the exact pain I was having - it was like a burning mixed with a dull ache mixed with a stabbing pain. Turns out (according to Parent's magazine), that as my uterus pushes up, my lungs have less room and the expanding of the diaphragm irritates the cartilage on my ribs. Well, I was happy it wasn't serious and didn't warrant a call to my doctor, but the article also said I could be dealing with it until the baby drops - which is a ways a way! Ug.

Let's be clear, I am not complaining. I am SO beyond happy to be pregnant and to feel his every kick and movement. But man, that hurt.

Luckily, I think the baby switched positions a few days later, because the pain has subsided. Whew.

Which brings me to Saturday. Long story short, I was walking quickly for about 3.5 blocks to get out of the rain. Got into my car, drove 30 minutes home, got out of my car and could not believe how badly my back hurt. Well, me, being the smart one that I am, didn't take it easy on Sunday. Sunday night/Monday morning around 3 am I woke up and oh, man. I had a hard time even getting out of bed to go to the bathroom. I moved myself out to the couch so I could lay on my side and press ice up against it at the same time, but I had a hard time even standing to get the ice pack out.

Needless to say, I didn't make it to work Monday. Let's just say, I would be the world's worst bed-rest patient. I spent the whole day staring at my sewing machine thinking to myself "I could sit with ice on it and work on my sewing project..." Knowing full well that sitting is the worst thing for my injury. (I've been through this a time or two before.) Luckily by the end of the day, I could at least get up to move around. I made it back to work today, but my back is still pretty far from 100%.

Finally, our last event came to a head today. I'll try to avoid TMI here, but I do need to be little descriptive. The past couple of days I have noticed some clear, very watery discharge. Well, I Dr. Googled it again and every site said to call your provider if you have clear, watery discharge. So, called my doctor, got in for an appointment at 1:45 today. Turned out, everything was fine, but they did want to check me just to be sure I wasn't leaking amniotic fluid - especially because what I was experiencing had a sweet smell to it (apparently a sign) - or have an infection. Thankfully, it was no to all of the above, but not going to lie, the possibility of leaking amniotic fluid had both Bryan and I more than a little freaked out.

They say things come in threes, so hopefully the next week will be a little quieter. In other news, I am pretty sure Baby Ripke is going to be a Kung-Fu fighter based on how much he kicks anymore. He definitely is a strong little boy!

Another exciting milestone - I scheduled our maternity pictures today! I was on the fence about doing them, I have very strong opinions about poses I will NOT be doing, including no kissing of belly, no ribbons tied around belly, no bare belly and no hands forming hearts over my belly. (No offense to anyone who likes such poses, they're just not my cup of tea.) I found a reasonably priced photographer in Vinton we are going to use and her maternity pictures she has posted on her website are very tasteful and not too cliche. I figure I'll be glad I took them some day.

Finally, here is this week's belly picture!

Weekend Rewind

One thing that I love about weekends now that I did not anticipate loving, is the inability to sleep late anymore. I think if I could stay up past 10:30, I might be able to sleep a little later than 6:45/7, but why bother? I have found that it has been helping Mondays as well as I am not as tired as I used to be sine my sleep schedule it not all thrown off.

That being said, I have found myself with some extra time on Saturdays and Sundays. This Saturday morning started off a little on the weird side. Bryan called me Friday night when I was on my way home to let me know that Josie (the beagle) was peeing blood. Let me clarify - there was not just a little blood in her pee, she was straight up peeing blood. Having already put one animal down this year, my mind immediately jumped to the worst. He had already called the vet's emergency line and they said it sounded like a urinary tract infection. Now, I have had a UTI or two in my life, and I have never peed blood,so I did not think this was a good diagnosis, but whatever. They told us to bring a urine sample in the next morning. After three potty trips, we managed to extract maybe 3/4 of a tablespoon of pee/blood from her and I dropped it off on my way to garage sales with my mom. The vet called Bryan back a couple of hours later to let him know that they think it's kidney stones. So we have to bring her in Monday and they'll sedate her and take some X-rays to determine the next course of action. On the bright side, I think she may have passed them because she is no longer peeing blood and she doesn't have to go outside every five minutes. Guess we'll find out tomorrow!

My sick puppy

On to brighter points of the weekend. As I mentioned above, my mom and I hit up garage sales this weekend. Oh lord - I am SO thankful our baby is being born at the end of garage sale season - we are scoring some awesome deals! No big purchases this week, but we did spend $140 between the two of us on clothes, toys and a Tigger Halloween costume. I am talking name-brand, BARELY worn clothes.  I sorted out all of his clothes when I got home and I am feeling pretty good about his newborn and three month stash - we might need a few more fall-ish outfits for three months, but other than that, I feel good about the amount of sleepers and summery outfits. We have a good jump on six months and a small start on nine months. I am going to focus on six to 12 months for the rest of this garage sale season.

Garage sale loot this week

Saturday afternoon I met up with a friend from my fertility support group. She and her husband and have been through far more than we have been through and I admire her strength. Following coffee with her, I met up with the girls from Iowa City Moms Blog - where I am a contributor. (I can't remember if I mentioned that before or not...)  Following THAT meeting, I made my first trip to Molly's Cupcakes. All I can say is AMAZING! (I should have taken pictures of them, but they got a little jostled on the trip back when I got caught in a downpour. They still tasted amazing!)

Remnants of Molly's Cupcakes...

By the time I got home, my back was KILLING me. I have had sciatica problems since I was 14 and man oh man, Baby Ripke is making them worse. I woke up Sunday and it wasn't much better, but it was a beautiful day and I didn't want to spend it inside. I put some ice on it, popped some Tylenol (what I would give for some Advil right now) and made my way into Cedar Rapids. I added a few things to my registries, got a pedicure, picked up a paint sample for Little Man's room, picked up some sewing supplies for a project I am working on and made my way home. And then I put a lot of ice on my back. I am probably going to pay for this tomorrow, I am still in A LOT of pain. I'm not complaining, just stating a painful fact.

Sewing supplies!

Pink tooties - hello spring!

It's been a great weekend - I think the cold weather is finally behind us, Bryan is making progress on our house projects and I am in the double digits (out of the triples!) for days till due date. :) I am going to try to post more often on here, so look for a BumpDate tomorrow or Tuesday and maybe a sewing tutorial.

BumpDate 25-ish Weeks

How has it been three weeks since my last update? As of today, I am 25 weeks, four days. I’m still feeling great, but still get tired pretty easily. For instance, on Sunday, I got up around 7:30, showered, ate a couple of doughnuts (don’t judge) and then laid down for a nap around 9:30. Slept until about 11 am, unpacked some boxes, made lunch and laid back down at 3 for another two hour nap. And I was still asleep by 10:30 that night. It was kind of a disappointment after I had an incredibly productive Saturday.

Speaking of Saturday, I hit up my first garage sales of the season. The first few I went to were meh, OK. The last one – I hit the jackpot! I got a Baby Einstein bouncy thing (think excer-saucer minus the saucer), a motion detector/alarm for the crib and a TON of name brand baby boy sleepers and rompers. Pretty much cleaned them out of 0-3 month and most of their 6 month clothing.

After the garage sales, I was so pumped, I went and got groceries, came home and cleaned/unpacked and we made it into town for a movie. (We saw “42” the movie about Jackie Robinson. We went with my parents because my dad is a HUGE baseball fanatic. Great movie that isn’t really about baseball even though it is a central theme.) While that doesn’t sound like a ton, it must have been since I was so wiped on Sunday.

Aside from my busy weekend, I have noticed a few unwelcome pregnancy related things.

First – spider veins. I think I am prone to these as I had some pre-pregnancy, but I’ve noticed more of them on my ankles and calves. Not cool.

Second – that god-awful line down the middle of the belly. I refuse to post any bare belly shots on social media, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it’s there and darkening by the day. (Admittedly, it’s still pretty light. But I know it’s there.)

Third – swollen fingers and ankles. Again, admittedly, it’s not that bad yet. I can still wear my wedding ring and most of my shoes, but with the warmer weather we’ve had recently, I think my days of both are limited. Thankfully, it’s almost sandal season so that will help with the ankle/feet swelling situation. I am also ordering a new fake ring for my ring finger as it will drive me bonkers to not have anything on that finger for three more months.

My swollen, spidery-veiny ankles

Oh jeeze – how could I forget my ultrasound last Friday?! We went in for a follow up ultrasound and long story short, Baby Ripke is doing great! He’s measuring a week early and is in the 79^th percentile for his weight. I Googled “baby birth weight 79^thpercentile” and from what I found, that would put him at around 9-ish pounds if he’s full term. Bryan was around 9 and I was 8 lbs, 14 oz, so I figured he’d be about that size. I am mentally prepared for anything in the 9’s, anything above that I may reconsider things. (Like I have a choice at this point).

Man, I really shouldn’t wait three weeks to update this. There is more to tell – we had our Birthplace Tour, bought some baby furniture and put paint samples on the wall. I am sure there is more than that, but that will be another post.

I hope you are all tolerating this change in weather (at least in the midwest) better than I am, because I am really upset by it. 

BumpDate: 23 Weeks

This week has been a good week for Little Man and myself. I am still pretty tired in the evenings after work, but I've started allowing myself more caffeine than I had previously been consuming around 2:30 every afternoon, and it seems to be helping. (Don't worry, it's still far, far below the recommended daily amount.) Other than that, Little Man has been very, very active, letting me know he is growing healthy and strong.

Starting about a week and a half ago, I started having some weird pains on (in?) my cervix. It wasn't the normal round-ligament pain that I am very familiar with, it was more of a throbbing, aching type pain. I made the mistake of Googling it Tuesday night and started to get scared that perhaps my cervix was shortening or maybe I was even experiencing pre-term labor. (I know, I know, Google is the devil when it comes to medical problems!) So I called my OB Wednesday morning. The on-call doctor thought it was probably normal cervical growing pains, but had me come in for an ultrasound just to be sure. Sure enough, the ultrasound revealed no problems - everything looked perfect! On the plus side, we got a few more 4D pictures of Little Man and you can already tell he's going to be a heartbreaker! ;)

My belly is definitely growing at a rapid pace. I reached a new milestone this week: balancing food on it. Very exciting to have a portable table for the next four months.

My belly and some delicious peanut butter pretzels from Trader Joe's.

Another milestone this week was hot flashes. When I was on Clomid, I was very familiar with hot flashes, I thought maybe I got lucky and wouldn't experience them during pregnancy. Not so much. I'll take them though as my pregnancy has been pretty easy since the first trimester concluded. 

This week I also registered! Registering for baby was so much different than registering for our wedding two years ago. With the wedding, it took hours and I analyzed every item I put on the registry. This time, I took my experienced-mama friend Cassidy with me and scanned every item she pointed at. I think we were done with Target and Babies R Us within an hour and a half this morning. I will of course probably tweak it in the weeks leading up to my shower and due date, but I definitely got a good start. 

Here's your 23 week belly picture! Still on the crappy cell-phone pictures as I haven't located my nice camera yet. (I suppose it would help if I looked for it?)

The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies on the Face of the Earth

The title does not lie.

I was at work last Friday and my co-worker said to me "There are cookies in the break room - you should go get one before they're gone." It was 8:30 in the morning, I nodded and went back to my email and decaf coffee. 20 minutes later I went down to the break room to fill my water bottle and saw said cookies sitting on the table and I have to admit they did look good. So I took one... And then another for the baby.

I brought them both back to my office, thinking I'd save them until lunch. However, they proved to be too tempting and I sunk my teeth into one minutes later.

Oh.
My.
God.

They were amazing. I immediately emailed one of our admins to see if she knew who brought them. After asking around, she let me know the wife of another co-worker made them. I immediately emailed said co-worker and begged him to get the recipe from his wife for me. I thought the chances of that happening were slim to none - if a woman asked my husband for a recipe at his place of employment, I would not get the message for weeks, if ever. However, my co-worker proved to be a model co-worker (or maybe scared of the wrath of a hungry pregnant woman?) and minutes later I got an email from his wife with the recipe.

I told Bryan about them over the weekend and Monday night after work, he begged me to make them for him. I did and they are just as amazing out of my over.

I have to admit - one thing that is not so fun about baking when pregnant is not being able to eat the raw dough. Cookie dough is my kryptonite. Seriously. I buy the cookie dough at Papa Murphys and sit in front of my TV and eat it like ice cream. I haven't had raw cookie dough in over five months. Four more to go.

Because I believe in spreading good things in the world, here is the recipe:

The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies on the Face of the Earth

1 cup butter flavored Crisco

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 ½ cups flour
Chocolate chips... The person I got the recipe from sprinkled them on the top. For this batch, I mixed in a bag of mini-chocolate chips, but I think it may have been too much. I think next time I will try the sprinkling trick. 

Mix in that order, scoop onto cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 -10 minutes.

BumpDate: 22 Weeks

Holy cow - it's been four weeks since I last updated the blog! It's been a crazy-busy four weeks as well - two weeks ago in particular was quite possibly the busiest and best week of my life. Not only did I reach the half way mark, but we found out the gender of Baby Ripke AND moved into our new house - within two days of each other. This mama was exhausted by the end of it all, but man, what awesome milestones.

First, an updated belly picture for you. I didn't do my fancy photoshopping to this picture like I had been doing - I had to take it on my cellphone as my nice dSLR is MIA since the move. (I also absolutely hate the look of my face in this picture, but by the third take, Bryan was tired of taking my picture.)

I took this picture on Saturday (and today is Monday) and I swear to God, my belly is bigger already - is that even possible?? The last four weeks have been good - Baby Ripke is moving around a ton and I love every minute of it. I still get tired pretty easily, but I can at least get through the work day now without feeling like I am going to pass out. 

On to the news you've been waiting for (if you don't follow me on Facebook) - our gender reveal! We found out the gender of Baby Ripke four days before Easter, so I went to Target and found a couple of cheap Easter baskets and filled them with that fake grass and plastic eggs. In each egg, I put a mini-snickers and after the ultrasound, I put one ultrasound picture in each egg - including the one that revealed the gender. 

We went over to each set of our parents house and told them they would have to open the eggs to figure out the gender. I was counting on two things:

1. I carefully thought out which color of egg to put it in and chose orange. I am fairly stereotypical when it comes to genders and both sets of our parents immediately went for the pink thinking if it was a girl, I'd put it in the pink. When that didn't work, they went straight for the blue. For both sets of parents, orange was one of the last eggs, drawing out the game. 
2. Even when they came across the gender picture, neither sets are experienced with genders and would not even know what they were looking at or for (even though the tech labeled the gender on the picture.) When this happened, our plan was to make them go back through the pictures until they figured it out. 

My plan worked on Bryan's parents, but Bryan blew the surprise on my parents. Well...

That's right - Baby Ripke is a HE! We are both so excited (as we would have been with a girl as well). I already have his nursery all planned out - all I need to do now is shop! 

Well, for nursery stuff anyway, I found some pretty cute hats at Von Maur this weekend I couldn't pass up...

Bryan loves super-heros, Star Wars and video games. He is so excited to pass these interests onto our son, so I got a jump-start for him with these - which is LOVES by the way. 

Hopefully now that I have located my computer cord, I can get back to posting regular updates for you all. Hope your week is off to a great start!

20 Down, 20 to Go!

Ah! As of Sunday, I was 20 weeks! That means as of today (Monday) I am officially  past the halfway mark. 20 weeks also means the anatomy scan, which means - that's right - we find out if we're have a boy or a girl! (Can you tell I am a TAD bit excited?) Our anatomy scan is scheduled for 8:30 am on Wednesday, March 27th. Fingers crossed the little one cooperates and spreads their legs for us that day. (I'm pretty sure this will be the only time I want my child to spread their legs).

I won't be posting the gender on here right away, but I will as soon, I promise. (Seriously, I can't wait to shout it from the roof tops!)

Since we have a few days, I thought it would be fun to take a look at my "gender symptoms" and you all can take a guess at what it can be. Bryan and I seriously do not have a clue. To answer the next question "What are you hoping for?" My answer is healthy, for sure. I am so excited for either gender. After everything we've been through, I am just so excited to finally be at this point.

Gender Symptoms

I highlighted these in pink or blue, in case you are not sure what that particular symptom means. If it's just in black, it means I think it's a wash. 

Carrying High or Low: I'm not really sure, I think low, but I'm also almost 5'10", so I think it would be hard to be carrying high. 

Heart rate above or below 140: Our baby has consistently been between 150 and 170 since day one.

Craving Sweet or Salty: At first, sweets were a food aversion. Once morning sickness passed, it's a good mixture of both.

Chinese birth chart: Based on my age and the month we conceived (29 & November), it's a girl.

The ring on a string over your belly trick: went back and forth.

Presence of acne: Skin is clear!

Morning sickness: I definitely did not feel good from weeks 6 to 10, but I never threw up.

Left breast bigger than right breast: Yep!

More leg hair than normal: Oddly enough, my leg hair seems to have stopped growing...

Sleep on left or right side: Right.

More headaches than normal: Haven't had a lot of headaches.

Dreams of Girl or Boy: I've had two dreams - both times it was a girl!

Do you guys have any more wives tales? Based on the above, it looks like a girl, but I would not bet my life on it. When I initially found out I was pregnant, I was convinced it was a boy - so we'll see!

The Nest is Almost Done!

I've been promising it for awhile, but here are some pictures of our house that is ALMOST done. It's so close, I can taste it. It's so close that I am going to start PACKING this weekend! Ah!

For those of you who don't know, we dug the hole for our house in July. Yes, that's right, nine months ago. The original plan was to be in our house by Christmas, but we had a lot of set-backs along the way. For anyone who is thinking about building the house, patience, patience, patience. I have never talked to someone who built a house and they moved in by their original deadline. Granted, ours took a little longer than normal because B did a lot of the work himself, but it was worth it because it allowed us some upgrades that we otherwise would not have been able to afford.

For your viewing pleasure, here are some updated pictures of the new place:

Installed today - carpet! It feels so homey having carpet finally in the bedrooms finally!

We went with hardwood floors throughout. It took Bryan awhile to convince me to do this because I thought it might be difficult for a baby to learn to walk on hardwood, but then I talked to several people who have hardwood and little kids and none of them had any trouble. I'm glad we went with hardwood, it looks amazing!

The entry way - I love our front door!

My fabulous kitchen with tons of cupboard and counter space! I can't wait!

The master shower - I am pretty proud of B for this. He's never tiled before and I think he did a pretty good job for his first time!

Vanity in master bath (bad cell phone picture)

My extra-large mudroom! In our last house, we didn't have a laundry room, we had a laundry closet. I am so excited to have a dedicated room. Eventually there will be a counter with some drawers and a custom, built-in kennel for Josie. 

That's it for now! Hopefully we don't have any more set-backs and we can start moving in within a couple of weeks and be completely out of our condo by the end of the month!

BumpDate: 18 Weeks

Well, here we are - week 18! Two more weeks and we're half way through. You may have noticed I skipped week 17, and I have good reasons. Week 17 was (hopefully) the worst week of my pregnancy as I came down with the stomach flu. I have not been sick with the flu since I was in grade school and it was HORRID! So horrible in fact, I ended up in the Emergency Room Wednesday night due to severe dehydration and needed an IV and some drugs to make it so I could eat again. Bleh.

As you can probably guess, taking a picture was probably the last thing to do on my list. Along with showering or getting off the couch.

Luckily, by Saturday I was feeling better! I was so hungry by that point that all I wanted to do was down a giant plate of spaghetti. So B and I made the trek into Cedar Rapids to a place called Zepplins where I gorged myself with parmesan french fries and a big plate of spaghetti. Later that night, I had my first experience with heartburn. At first I chalked it up to the fact that I hadn't really eaten anything aside from rice and toast since Tuesday and my stomach was just not used to actual food.

Then Sunday I had a sandwich from Subway and it was back with a vengeance. Dinner that night was pancakes and the heartburn was even worse. I am hoping the wives tale that says if you have a lot of heartburn, it means your child has a lot of hair is true. (I am not holding my breath though as my mom had a lot of heartburn and I was bald until I was 2).

Luckily today was a regularly scheduled appointment with my OB. After he heard that pancakes were causing my esophagus to burn, he told me to go get some Prevacid. Hoping this takes the edge off as I am not sure how I will be able to tolerate this for five more months.

Other than that, things are going great! Baby is squirming around in there and I know I can definitely feel it now. As you can see from the picture below, it's also growing at a respectable rate as well!

Hope your week is off to a great start!