Pictures Of Our Beautiful Girl

Life in a hotel with a baby

We are still in Utah and not sure when we will be heading home, but we are hoping by Thursday or Friday. We are all doing well, but Rich and I are missing our bed. Ava can sleep in our arms, (borrowed) bassinet, or car seat with no problem. She is also eating well and enjoying her food much more than us. We are eating microwave food and sandwiches. We definitely can't wait to get home, but it is all worth it to be with our beautiful baby girl.Oh, did I mention it is FREEZING COLD here?...Check out the icicles...BURRRRR!!!We are washing the bottles in the sink and then sterilizing them with boiling water from the microwave...dishwashers are great inventions.This is just Ava's stuff. We have a suitcase and laptop bag of our own. It should be fun trying to carry all this stuff with a baby through the airport...can you say "Curbside baggage check".I forgot how much formula stains and how much babies spit-up. We have been soaking her clothes, burp rags, and bibs in oxy clean to remove the formula. Fortunately our hotel has a washer and dryer which we will be using later tonight.

MEET AVA

BIRTHDAY: JANUARY 15, 2009

TIME: 12:25 AM

WEIGHT: 6 LBS. 4 OZ.

HEIGHT: 17 IN.

WE'RE HEADED TO UTAH

Kim had her doctors appointment today and called us immediately following it. She is at the hospital and they are going to induced her. We are packed and ready to go, so we are heading out on the 4:10pm flight.

More info to follow in the next few days.

Fluffernutter

On Friday we watched our niece and nephew. While they were with us we played Trivial Pursuit Jr. and came across an interesting question.

To find the answer click here to go to our recipe blog.

Happy (early) Birthday

On Sunday we headed to Gridley to celebrate Rich and his brother, Dave's, birthday. Dave turned 31 on January 10th and Rich will be 34 on January 15th. We had a great time eating and playing games. Rich's mom made the traditional Bowling cake and I made a chocolate cake with almond filling and apricot preserves.

It's the Final Countdown

We can't even begin to describe all the emotions we are experiencing right now as we wait for Ava's arrival. There is just under 3 weeks until her due date and everything is going well. Kim just let us know she is dilated to a 1 and has begun to efface. Ava has also dropped into position and the doctor says everything is on schedule. The due date is January 26th, but we have to admit we wouldn't mind if she came a little early. We are so excited to meet our beautiful baby girl and hold her in our arms.

We are now taking guesses for Ava's arrival. Leave a comment and guess what day and time you think she will arrive. We aren't giving out prizes for the best guess, but you will have bragging rights.

Lisa's guess: Saturday, January 24th @ 1:13am; weight- 8lbs. 3oz.; height- 22 1/4 in.
Rich's guess: Wednesday, January 28th @ 3:05am; weight- 7lbs. 12oz.; height- 21 in.

HELP US RENAME OUR BLOG

When Ava arrives we will need to change the title of our blog to something that includes the whole family...and who are we kidding the blog will turn into the Ava Show. So far we have come up with a couple ideas for a new title and we thought we would ask for your input. Leave comments stating what title you like the best or maybe you can think of something better. This is an invitation to be creative and use your imagination. So far we've come up with...

Dreams Do Come True

A pinch of Rich, A dash of Lisa, and A whole lot of Ava

Nevermind Rich & Lisa...Here Comes Ava

Just Like Heaven

You Think You're Tired Now...Well Wait Until 3am

It's A Beautiful Day

*Guess which 2 are inspired by Rich's favorite band, The Cure?

Baby Registries

As it gets closer to the arrival of Ava we are making sure we are ready and prepared. Last weekend we went to Babies R Us and purchased the items we would need to take with us to Utah and to have when we get home. We also updated our baby registry and then started a registry at Target. If you want to check them out go to:
http://www.toysrus.com/ControllerServlet?target=viewDetails&operation=authenticate_user&registryNumber=49970909&from=registrySearch

http://www.target.com/registry/baby/61VG5QK1VHRR

HAPPY NEW YEAR

On New Year's Eve we hung out with our friends the Norman family. We had some yummy burritos and lots of candy to keep us going until midnight. Rich and the boys played some video games while the girls played card games. Later in the evening the boys joined us for a game of phase 10. At midnight we went outside and shot off poppers to celebrate the New Year.

Holiday Treats

This year I made three different desserts to share with family. To check out any of these recipes go to my recipe blog... http://foodinspirations.blogspot.com/.

APPLE COFFEE CAKE

This cake is nice for breakfast or dessert. It has a layer of cooked cinnamon apples in the middle of the cake. Rich says it is better a day or two after it is made because the apple juices seeped into the cake and made it more moist.

APRICOT TART

I found the recipe for this apricot tart after a long search. A couple years ago I asked Rich what he missed about food in Italy and he told me about the delicious apricot tarts they had over there. I searched and searched until I came across the right recipe and now it is a family favorite (my mom and Rich love it).

Real TAPIOCA PUDDING (not instant)

After watching an episode of "Good Eats" with Alton Brown I decided to make this tapioca pudding. My grandma used to make instant tapioca pudding and it disappeared quickly. I thought it would be neat to make real old fashioned pudding using the tapioca pearls. It was easy to make, but was not as well received as my grandma's instant pudding. The tapioca pearls looked like caviar (fish eggs) and my family said it had an interesting texture. Rich enjoyed it. He said it had a good flavor because I used vanilla beans and he actually liked the fish egg/eyeball texture. I thought I would have to get rid of it, but to my surprise Rich ate it all.

Christmas in Livermore

On Saturday we celebrated Christmas again with my family. We went to my parents and met up with my brother, grandma, aunt, uncle, cousin and his family. We exchanged gifts, played Guitar Hero, and ate great food. My mom cooked prime rib, chicken, spaghetti w/ meatballs, yams, mashed potatoes, and stuffing...HMMM!! We also had pie and cookies for dessert.

Everyone else had to leave in the early afternoon, but Rich and I ended up staying late into the evening because we played some trivia games. Rich got an electronic trivial pursuit and we gave my mom a food lover's trivia game. Both games were fun, but the food trivia was a lot harder than we were expecting.

We had a great time visiting with family and appreciate all the wonderful gifts that were given to us. We (mainly me) are excited because we were given some money to buy a Dyson Animal vacuum cleaner. We also got a lot of great gifts to help us in the kitchen and two cookbooks. One is for homemade baby food and the other is for doggie treats...Ava and Luca will be eating good.

Eric and Allyson playing Guitar Hero.

Luca with a spaghetti sauce mustache after licking a bowl.

My mom resting with Jake after cooking and baking all day.

Christmas in Gridley

After enjoying Christmas morning at home we packed up the car and dog and headed to Gridley. We spent the day there with Rich's family. Three of his siblings and there families were there, so it was a full house. We had a nice traditional Christmas meal with Turkey and all the fixings. We also had lots of pie and goodies for dessert.

After stuffing ourselves, the gifts were passed out and grandpa counted down to start the unwrapping madness. Rich and I watched and videoed the chaos. It was fun to see the excitement on the kids' faces.

Each year the siblings rotate which family we by for. This year Dave and Jessica had us. They are very generous and gave us many nice things. We got a puzzle, board game, popcorn tin and hot chocolate kit with electric frother. They also gave us some things for Ava. My favorite things were the cute baby shoes.

Rich frothing our yummy hot chocolate...Thanks Dave, Jessica, Kobie, Bella, and Lily.

Rich's parents sent our gift in the mail, but they didn't forget Ava. They had a nice wrapped gift under the tree for her. Since it will be a month or so before she makes an appearance we opened the gift for her. They gave her some clothes and toys. She is going to be a cute and well entertained baby...Thanks Papa Bruce and Nona Alicia.

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas. We started with a quiet Christmas Eve at our house. Rich worked a half day and then we relaxed at home. We had a mini Monk (my favorite t.v. show) marathon and played some Wii. We also did some baking and continued our tradition of Round Table Pizza for dinner. Before bed we read the story of Jesus' birth from the New Testament and sang Silent Night. Doing this helped remind us of the importance and reason for celebrating Christmas. It is a tradition we started when we were first married and will continue with our family.

Christmas morning we woke up to find Santa had filled our stockings. We enjoyed opening our stockings and then had pancakes for breakfast. After changing out of our pajamas we opened our gifts to each other.

Every year Santa fills our stockings with wonderful goodies. We get assorted candy, a family puzzle, a book, See's candy, and other fun things. This year Santa brought a Wii magazine for Rich's book and he gave me Baking Illustrated (cookbook). I found out I was a really good girl this year because Santa spoiled me. He gave me a watch, gloves, and DVDs. Rich was also good, but Santa didn't spoil him as much. He got a travel game, toothpick holder, chapstick, and some argyle socks.

Santa put some special Taro Root Chips in my stocking that came all the way from Hawaii. Santa wasn't able to pick them up himself, so he had a helper get them for him...thanks Dominic! I love Taro Chips!!

Luca got a couple of chew toys in his stocking. One was to destroy right away the other one is tough and should last at least 6 months.This year we bought our first camcorder. We decided with our new arrival in January we would need a camcorder to record all of her firsts.

I gave Rich the gift of The Cure. Rich's favorite music group is The Cure, so I gave him their newest album along with the four singles.

The onesie is from Ava not you...Silly Rich!

I also gave Rich and Ava a special gift. I found a cute onesie that says, "I heart the Cure just like my daddy" and a baby lullaby CD of Cure music. Now Rich can train Ava to love the Cure from the get go.
To my surprise Rich gave me a new cell phone...YEAH! I hate my other cell phone and have been contemplating getting a new one, but too cheap to do it. I didn't want anything fancy, I just wanted it to work and hold a charge. We got new cell phones a year ago and I have hated it ever since. I even went back to my four year old phone, but it broke and I was stuck with my stinky phone once again. I am so happy with my new cell phone because it works and doesn't cause great stress or frustration. Rich is the best!! I didn't expect it and he did a great job keeping it a secret.

We gave Luca a pop-up tunnel. He loves to play chase and hide from us, so we thought this tunnel would be entertaining. Luca was a little afraid of it at first, but now he will go in it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I love the word Roux

One of my favorite cooking terms is ROUX (ROO). I just love the way is sounds and I have watched many cooks on Food Network start sauces and soups with this technique. I decided it was time to tackle making a sauce starting with a roux. I saw Rachael Ray make Mac and Cheese with Chicken and Broccoli and thought it looked like a good place to start. Last night I made my first roux and it was really easy and the Mac and Cheese was super delicious.

If you like Mac and Cheese as much as I do then I would recommend this recipe. Mac and Cheese is definitely one of my comfort foods, especially on a cold winter day. I usually make box Mac and Cheese because it is quick and easy, but this recipe was definitely better. I was surprised at how quick and easy it was. The only problem was it generated a lot of dirty dishes, but that's what kids and husbands are for...Right??

Click here to check out this recipe on my recipe blog.

Christmas Cookies

This cookbook is a reproduction of the one my mom used to make my favorite Christmas Cookies.

I love cookies!! I remember as a child my mom always making a variety of cookies during the holiday season. I had my favorites and now I make them in my home. Tonight I started the holiday cookie bonanza. Each year I make 3-4 different kinds of cookies, but every year I have to make chocolate crinkles...it is tradition.

The first cookie of the season: Cranberry, Walnut, Chip Cookies (CLICK for recipe).

My two favorite childhood Christmas cookies were chocolate crinkles and spritz cookies. My mom still makes me spritz cookies and they are so addicting.

Weekend with the Boys

This past weekend we had a sleepover with our two nephews, Nathan and Kobie. They had been wanting to have a sleepover for a while, so we thought we better do it now before January rolls around. The boys came to our house on Saturday and we took them home on Sunday. We played Wii, Legos, and watched Scooby Doo (original cartoon movie with Batman).

Rich called his brother, Doug, in Oregon, so they could play Wii Mario Kart online. Rich and Nathan played from California, while Doug and his two kids, Ian and Marlee, played from Oregon. Rich put them on speaker phone so they could talk during the racing.

During the Wii racing Kobie and I made an Apple-Pear Pie. This was Kobie's first time making a pie. He helped me with the dough and peeling the apples/pears. His favorite thing was using my apple peeler/slicer.