And What a Week it Was (Week 12)

I know I'm behind on a couple of post, but I promise to go back and catch up. Hopefully, those will be my last marathon weekly blogs since I've started blogging more often during the week. Today is Week 12 of Turtle's life. I simultaneously can't believe it's been 12 weeks and at the same time, I can't seem to remember a time when she wasn't a part of our family. Her 3 month birthday is this Saturday and that just seems unfathomable.

I've started taking her weekly pictures a little differently, and hopefully it'll be easier to get more consistent pictures. I really like this new set up and wish I'd been doing it the whole time. To be fair though, I didn't finish crocheting the blanket I'm using as the back drop until about 4 weeks into my maternity leave. And when I started taking the pictures she was just 2 weeks old and I was very sleep deprived! Hehe. Anyway, I'm really happy with the way this week's picture came out so expect to see more like this.

This past week was crazy! With Jay being out of town and the fridge being on the fritz, we were kind of in survival mode. But at the same time, I got the house picked up and some laundry done. I think it was the feeling of being so out of control that prompted the house cleaning. Since I couldn't control any of the other stressers in my life, I could at least get my house under control.

We are trying to save as much money as possible since we blew through most of our savings while I was on unpaid maternity leave. So, we are eating at home as much as possible. This is usually pretty easy, but when you don't have access to any ingredients that need refrigeration, it becomes challenging. (Note: we'll hopefully be getting the fridge fixed this week but until then...) Additionally, you can't just pop left overs in the fridge and stretch something out over multiple nights. So, I went through the things I know how to make that would do well frozen and which used limited amounts of refrigerated ingredients. I decided on spaghetti with meat sauce, vegetable soup, and chili. So, I bought 3 lbs of meat at the grocery store planning to freeze it and thaw it out each night. But then I realized that I could go ahead and cook some of those things to make it easier during the week.

So, I browned up all three lbs of meat. I used one lb of it in the vegetable soup since that takes a while to simmer (and therefore can be a challenge to make in the evenings after work), and once it had cooled off I froze it in two batches. Then I added pasta sauce to another lb and froze that in two batches as well so all we'll have to do is cook up some fresh pasta and thaw out the sauce. The third lb I froze as it was (browned but not incorporated into anything) and will make chili one night since that's pretty easy to throw together.

So, we have 5 nights of meals ready to go which will make eating in this week much easier! AND... because I don't have a fridge at the moment I spent a lot less money at the store because I had to be more conscientious of what I bought. So, not only are we surviving under the no fridge situation, but we are truly thriving! Even after we get the fridge fixed, I think I'll probably keep making and freezing some stuff on the weekends to make life easier during  the week.

Saturday, we spent the day at our friends Lauren and Dave's house. We got to hang out with them, their three week old daughter, Zoe, and Dave's mom who is here from the UK for the week. We had such a great time and we decided that anytime we go over there we just need to plan on being there all day because that's always what happens. We got there for lunch around 12:30 and ended up not leaving until about 11pm. Oops. :-) The really nice thing about going over to their house is they have plenty of baby gear so we don't have to bring a bunch of ours. We can use their play mat to keep Turtle entertained, and they have the same high chair we have so baby girl can sit in their while we all eat. We had so much fun and Zoe is growing so much. As much as I loved Lily at that stage (about 3 weeks old), Jay and I decided that we don't envy Dave and Lauren. Even though I didn't want her to grow up when she was that old, the newborn stage is very challenging and we are loving this infant stage that she's in now. Hopefully we'll continue to feel this way instead of lamenting the speed with which she grows up.

Happy Monday everyone! Have a great week!