Sunday, October 25, 2009

Gracie- the past 7 weeks...

I can't believe that I haven't posted on here since September 7th! Gracie was only 3 days old at the time and on Friday she just turned 7 weeks old! The past 7 weeks have literally flown by as we are getting to know our little girl and how to better care for her. She is such a joy. (I say this as she is screaming at her dad! ) Real fast I'll just try and share some of the "highlights"...
She is getting so much more social. A couple weeks ago she started smiling a whole lot and making all sorts of adorable sounds and "coos". I love how she will just stare right into our eyes.
She is literally growing like a weed. Her birth weight was 8'4.5 and when we took her to the doctor for her appointment this past Wednesday she was 10'10! She really likes to eat!
She had to get some shots at her last appointment and lets just say I think she took it better than I did:)
She still isn't sleeping through the night. She'll only go 3-4 hours before she wakes and wants to eat but then she'll go right back to sleep which is nice.
We took our first big road trip this month. We went to Wichita for the week and then on to Arkansas for a meeting w/ a church who is wanting to partner w/ us. She did so good and slept practically the whole time.
She LOVES to listen to her daddy play guitar. She will just lay and kick forever while the music plays:)
Her and Aldo (our dog) have become fast friends:) Aldo adores her and spends a lot of time by her side.
I could go on ( and on and on) about her but I suppose that's enough for now.. and more importantly here are a few pictures... they are all at least a couple weeks old.. I have newer ones that I still need to upload!





Monday, September 7, 2009

Gracie Irene

I'll post more pictures and details later.. but Gracie Irene was born September 4th at 6:45 AM. She weighed 8 lbs 4.5 ounces and was 20 1/4 inches long.
We couldn't be more excited!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

A few recipes...

This month I have also been trying to keep preoccupied by doing some baking. I tried a few new recipes and so far everything has turned out great!

I don't have any pics of the first couple.. but if you are looking to make some great strawberry scones you should definitely check out Katie's recipe on Good Things Catered. I made them to have for breakfast this week and they were very tasty!

I also tried a new homemade pizza dough recipe. We used it to make cal zones. We even made our own pizza sauce w/ homegrown tomatoes we had been given. Everything was soooo good!

The recipe for the pizza dough was from a great blog Annie's Eats, go here to see recipe.

Yesterday I also made very my very first pie from scratch! It really wasn't all that difficult. The crust came together so easily, I don't know why I always thought making my own pie crust would be so difficult! Here's the recipe that I used for the pie and crust, I went w/ peach.. Matt's request:)

Both recipes are from Katie's Blog at Good Things Catered.

Summer Sweet Peach Pie

Ingredients:
1 recipe basic pie dough
8 large, fresh ripe peaches
1/2 c. brown sugar
juice of 1/2 small lemon
1 tsp cornstarch
1 pinch ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 egg white
granulated sugar for sprinkling

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 425 degrees and prepare pie dish.
-Roll 1/2 recipe of pie dough out and line bottom of pie dish.
-Place in refrigerator.
-Using a pairing knife, slice peaches into 8 pieces, peel skins, and slice into thin slices.
-Place peach slices into large bowl, add brown sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg and stir well to combine.
-Remove pie plate from fridge, brush bottom with egg white, and transfer peach mixture to pie.
-Roll out remaining dough and top as desired (lattice or traditional).
-Brush top with egg white, sprinkle with sugar for a crunch and place into oven.
-Bake for 20 minutes, then tent top with foil and reduce heat to 375 degrees.
-Continue baking until golden and juices are bubbling, about 30 more minutes (50-60 minutes total)
-Remove from oven and let pie cool completely on wire rack before serving.

Basic Pie Dough
America’s Test Kitchen

Ingredients:
2 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 c. vegetable shortening, chilled
12 Tbsp (1 1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, cu into ¼ in pieces
6-8 Tbsp ice water

Directions:
-Process the flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor until combined.
-Add the shortening and process until the mixture has the texture of coarse sand, about 10 secs.
-Scatter the butter into the flour and cut the butter into the flour until the mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse crumbs, with butter bits no larger than small peas, about ten 1-sec pulses.
-Turn the mixture into a medium bowl.
-Sprinkle 6 Tbsp of the ice water over the mixture.
-With a rubber spatula, use a folding motion to mix.
-Press down on the dough sticks together, adding up to 2 Tbsp more ice water if the dough will not come together.
-Divide the dough into 2 balls and flatten each into 4 in disks.
-Wrap each in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to two days before rolling.

Well.. I guess that is all for now. I've made a few other things that I'll try and post recipes for later and currently I'm making homemade hamburger buns! We'll see how these turn out:) Matt and I are off to take a walk.. got to get this baby out!

Random pics

Just for fun...
This picture is from the end of May...

And this is me just yesterday (same shirt), about 3 days before my due date on Tuesday...

Crazy how HUGE I felt back in May!

I also wanted to say a late Happy Birthday to my husband on my blog. He turned 28 August 19th! He was very happy our little girl decided not to come that day. He's not quite ready to share:) He was also very excited about his ice cream cake:)

Thursday, August 27, 2009

5 days til Due Date!

Well, we have pretty much come to the end of the pregnancy.. My due date is this coming Tuesday and we are "ready" for our little girl to be here.. as ready as we can be anyways! I still can't believe that Matt and I are about to be parents. Even typing that just now still seems so crazy and hard to believe..

Pregnancy hasn't really been all that bad. I've been blessed w/ being healthy minus some aches and some very swollen feet! The time truly does seem to have flown by. I can't believe it was all the way back in January that we found out we were expecting!

Matt has truly been wonderful this whole time, so encouraging, so supportive. I was blessed w/ him being able to attend all of my doctor appointments.. it has been a lot of fun growing together as our little one has been growing inside. I am so thankful for the last (almost!) 5 years that we have spent together as just husband and wife. I wouldn't trade that time for anything. I admit at times I am a little sad to see this part of our life end but I know that we are gaining so much more.

So, hopefully I will have pictures of our little girl to post here soon:) I hope that everyone is having a wonderful week!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Maternity Pics!


Last week we had some maternity pictures done. It was a lot of fun and we really love how they came out! If you want to see some of them you can go here to look at our photographers blog where she put some up! I am 35 weeks in the pictures and as of tomorrow I'll be 36 weeks! CRAZY!

Hope everyones Monday is off to a great start!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

A little laugh and an update on Baby Girl Maestas:)

Well I've been having kind of a blah day and then my husband forwarded this to me.. and I must say I do feel a little better:)

So if you are a fan of the Office you should definitely give this a watch!

I don't know about you but I'm excited for September for some new TV:)

And I guess while I'm here I'll give a quick update on whats going on w/ us and our little one who is on her way:)

I'm 35 weeks pregnant.. I can't believe how fast time is going! I started my weekly doctors appointments this week. Currently, our baby girl is being a little stubborn and is still transverse (side-ways)which is not the position we would like her to be in! Our doctor is thinking that this might be the way she chooses to stay, especially since she has been in this position for so long. She thinks that there is maybe a reason the baby is staying there. We are praying that she moves but if not we are most likely headed towards a C-section. I go in to the doctor again on Monday and then we will schedule an ultra-sound for next week to get a look at what exactly is going on inside. Following that appointment we will probably schedule a tentative C-section for at least a week earlier than my due date. So.. that is what I know as of right now.. other than our baby's position she seems to be healthy and moves Constantly.. especially right up into my ribs! I'm still feeling well also, aside from being a little overwhelmed w/ everything that is going on!

So I guess that's all for now:) I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday!