perfect side

Since I am on a budget I often find myself bored with the same old vegetables out of a bag or can as a side dish to our meals. I like to make balanced meals, but does that mean you always have to have the same old frozen or canned vegetables? No! One of our favorite vegi dishes is great for you and doesn't break the bank at all. Here it is:

Roasted Vegi's

4 carrots- peeled and chopped into chunky pieces

2 medium sized red potatoes- chopped into chunks

1 large sweet potato- peeled and chopped

optional: 1 onion peeled and chopped into large chunks

4 cloves of garlic peeled and left whole

You want to make sure your vegi's are all chopped to about the same size so they cook evenly, Then simply toss your vegi's in enough oil to coat them so they don't stick to your pan and they get a nice golden color to them as they roast. The two must have spices for this dish are celery salt and pepper, but you can also doctor it up with whatever herbs and seasonings you like. Some extra add ins we have done are:

rotisserie chicken spice

seasoning salt

thyme

oregano

Roast on a cookie sheet, glass pan, or (my favorite) a cast iron skillet. Roast at 350 or 400 until soft and slightly golden. Stir after first 20-30 min to insure even cooking. Yum!

Ear Surgery

The surgery to remove the growth on Tristans ear went very well yesterday. We were originally scheduled to go in on the 31st but they moved us up to an earlier appointment which was fine, but it meant that I had to go to the hospital alone. I convinced myself it was okay and I could do it on my own just fine. However, by the time Jake got home from work yesterday I was a ball of nerves. Never again will I take my little one to have surgery without having Jake with me! Luckily Tristan had no problems with the anesthesia or pain meds, but it did take him a very long time to wake up from the anesthesia and now he has a hoarse throat and raspy cough from the tube they put down him. It makes me so nervous every time he touches his ear or rolls over onto it. It doesn't seem to bother him to touch it, but it makes me cringe so I broke out the little newborn mittens and put one on his hand because he kept grabbing his ear and stitches. The surgeon sewed a little roll of gauze onto Tristan's ear which they will remove tomorrow morning. I am hoping that the removal of the gauze doesn't cause him too much pain and that the stitches under it look okay!

Triple coupon week!

Thats right, Harris Teeter is doing triple coupons this week! Coupons with a face value up to 99 cents will triple at the register. A few good deals I found were:

McCormick spices- several of them are bogo this week and combined with a .75 coupon they are free! (luckily I had two of these saved from several weeks ago!)

Huggies and Pampers Wipes- huggies were 1.99 and pampers were 1.79 after coupon (not too bad)

Kikkoman soy sauce-1.15after coupon

planters nut snack bars-1.24 after coupon

Jello pudding, yoplait yogurt, frenchs mustard and Worcestershire, luigi frozen ices, texas toast, and duncan hines brownies are also all good deals if you have your coupons! Another good deal is crest prohealth rinse which is on sale this week so combined with the coupon you can save a good deal on this expensive product. Also, 12packs of soda are buy 2 get 3 free! I have five 12 packs in the car just waiting on jake to get home to help carry them up 3 flights of stairs :) All in all I spent $64.24 and saved 61.14! I did have some items in my cart that I had no coupons for (milk, produce, dishwasher detergent,tortilla chips) If I didn't have those items I would have spent less.

The Third Floor

On Saturday we moved into our new place! The new one bedroom is a big difference from the 2bed, 2bath town home we were in. However, I have not had one moment of sadness about moving into the smaller place. I am just so thankful to have a clean start where I am forced to get everything organized and clean! We have been blessed with so many things but still found a lot of things that we just dont need to get rid of at our family yard sale in a few weeks. I am hoping to get enough money for a bouncy seat for Tristan and maybe a night out for me and jake (they are re-releasing lord of the rings extended version in theaters and we really want to go see them!) The new place has a large living/dining area which is actually bigger than the living area in our old town home. We also have a covered deck, so we put our table and chairs outside and put Tristans changing table/dresser inside where the dining room normally would be. It may sound weird, but it actually looks pretty good and last night we ate dinner on the deck and Jake said it reminded him of the beach. Even though I really like our new place I am hoping that by the time Tristan starts running around we have a bigger place for him. We may be moving out of state but won't know for sure for awhile. If there is any news on that I will be sure to post it!

A long hospital day

Yesterday we had two appointments at unc hospital. The first appointment was with the pediatric plastic surgeon for Tristans ear. Tristan has a hemangioma on his ear that has to be removed because it is growing bigger and is growing into the ear tissue. The surgery is supposed to only take an hour and he can come home after they make sure he is okay. I am a little nervous about it just because it is my baby boy, but I am thankful that it is nothing serious. Our second appointment was several hours later in the childrens ultrasound department. At Tristans regular check up the doctor noticed a lump while inspecting his genital area and wanted it checked out. It turned out to just be a hydrocele which is very common in baby boys and the dr says it will resolve itself and cause no problems. Our day was a little nerve racking being with our little one at the hospital but he was a champ and our family is so very thankful that nothing serious is wrong! I am hoping that at his 6month check up Tristan has a totally clean bill of health and we won't have to make any more trips to the hospital!

first bites

Tristan had his first try at rice cereal today. He just turned four months on Sunday and today at his regular check up the doctor said to go ahead and feed him one bowl of rice cereal a day. For a first try I think the feeding today went well, although we had kind of a rocky start. A four month old eating out of a spoon is quite a learning experience for both the baby and parents! The first bowl of rice cereal we prepared ended up being flipped out of my hand by an excited Tristan and landed all over him and his seat(it was actually quite hilarious). After our little mishap Jake took Tristan and cleaned him off while I made a second bowl of cereal. I had to make the second bowl with formula because I didn't have any milk pumped or thawed so I was a little disappointed about that. The formula mixed with the rice cereal may also have contributed to the many sour faces that Tristan gave me during the first few spoon fulls. It took awhile for Tristan to get comfortable with the spoon in his mouth but near the end of his feeding he was doing a good job eating out of the side of the baby spoon and actually opened his mouth a few times for more bites. When we were almost to the end of the bowl the inevitable spit up occurred and Tristan got very mad because he had wet stuff on his skin since he was only wearing a diaper and bib after the first bowl spilled on him. He started fussing and wanted nothing to do with the leftover rice cereal (which was pretty cold by this point) so I went and gave him a nice warm bath which made him super happy! After his bath he didn't want anything other than to nurse and go to bed and after his experience tonight he seemed awfully happy to have his regular food source back.