This Stay At Home Momma

Less than THREE weeks until Christmas! How exciting! Along with the season comes decorating, gift buying, and my favourite - baking! We have some pretty long standing items that get made every Christmas. Without them I sort of feel like it wouldn't quite be Christmas time....so I've been on top of my game this year so I have things ready to go for when baby #2 decides to show up. My tree is decorated, all my Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers have been bought, and I'm half way through my baking. (Last week I could have said two-thirds done my baking buuuuut I ate a whole bunch so I have to make some more!) Yesterday Chad went to his Christmas party - I didn't go since we had to put our names onto the guest list quite early and I really, really hoping to have this baby in my arms already (oh well...) - so I kept myself occupied with cookie decorating. I love that ziploc bags double as piping bags so I decided to go a little fancier than a bowl of icing a...

Anyone else getting all geared up for Christmas?? I am! I have gifts for everyone but two people on my list. That makes me feel oh so good. We pulled out the Christmas tree and decorations this weekend, too, so now I get to spend the next month decorating and re-decorating each time my toddler decides to grab the pretty, shiny things. Lol!  We also pulled out Abby's nativity scene already in hopes of it being a distraction from everything else....but sparkling tree ornaments, stuffed snowmen, and lights are far more exciting for her. So this weekend I made a big roast beef dinner. I have had nothing but good things said about it so I wanted to share it with you all! I always go "all out" and prepare roast beef, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, gravy, and Yorkshire pudding. It's Chad's ultimate favorite meal. I'm getting more comfortable with the major multitasking that is required so it's quite satisfying to make! Don't mind the balle...

Ever wonder what to do with too many chili peppers? Not exactly a common problem I suppose, but I found myself in this situation a few days ago. I finally pulled my peppers off the plants on my patio and was wondering why the heck I thought buying three pepper plants was a good idea. I got the plants for 25 cents each and didn't have any clue how much they would produce so, heck, for 75 cents it was worth the experiment. Next time I may only buy two plants though! I used up what I could during my day to day cooking but when I'm feeding a toddler I can only add so many hot peppers! I decided to experiment a little and make some homemade chili oil. Basically you take your chili peppers and let them soak in olive oil. That's it! So easy. Some websites recommended using dried chilies instead of fresh, but I wasn't really in the mood to dehydrate them in my oven for many, many hours so I opted for fresh chilies instead. We had some friends over for dinner t...

I got lucky with a new recipe this past week. I took it out of an old Company's Coming cookbook that I was given at my wedding. It came from my Oma's collection of cookbooks. She passed away many years ago, but my Aunt passed along some of her cookbooks to me as a wedding gift. It's a vegetarian dish - which usually means that Chad endures the meal but doesn't thoroughly enjoy it. But this time he took seconds! AND commented that it was good. WIN! Other than chopping up the veggies it was so simple to prepare and had such simple ingredients. It was quite pretty with all the different colors of veggies mixed together and I'm sure the crushed crackers and baked cheese on top helped as well. Here's the recipe: Rice Veggie Casserole Company's Coming: Meatless Cooking 1 medium onion, chopped 1 cup sliced celery 19 oz. canned tomatoes, drained, chopped, drained again 2 tsp. chili powder 1 green pepper, seeded and chopped ...

Can you believe it's already November?? I feel like I say this every month lately. My days don't seem to go by all that quickly, but the months sure do (and please, tell me how this makes ANY sense?!). Thanksgiving and Halloween have come and gone and the only thing between us and Christmas is Remembrance Day. Oh. And the birth of my next child! I'm 34 weeks pregnant today and am getting super duper excited to meet this next little munchkin! That means only 40-ish days to go!! I can't wait to find out what she looks like and what her little personality is going to be. Will she look a lot like Abby or be a completely different combination of Wookey and VanRietschoten? Will she have blonde hair, brown hair, or red hair? It's so fun to imagine what she's like, but it will be even more fun to meet her for the first time! I have my next prenatal appointment tomorrow so as of right now I have no more news as to how baby is growing/progressing. I will give y...

This week has been a rainy one! I've spent a lot of time in the house which has been both good and bad. The best part about being home is that I finally feel like we're ready for this second little munchkin to show up! I got around to digging out Abby's old stuff and getting it clean and ready for baby girl #2. Our car seat is ready to be put into the Santa Fe, I have all the receiving blankets out, I have a few clothes ready to go (though this is where we lack to most at the moment due to not keeping the 0-3 month clothes we had for Abby), and we finally have a place for her to sleep. I was able to find this cute, gently used, bassinet/moses basket from another mom in the area. We didn't want to spend a ton of money on something but needed somewhere to put baby for the first little while. We still have Abby in the crib and would love to keep her there as long as possible. After tumbling head first out of the crib a month (or so) ago she hasn't tried to esca...

Hey everyone :) For some reason life has been full of excitement lately, yet I haven't felt the need to write about it...weird. I usually feel like telling my stories to the world but I've been wrapped up in the daily going-on's and haven't taken the time to sit and write. I apologize in advance if this post seems a little disjointed but here's what we've been up to: I had a doctor's appointment last Tuesday where I was told that I have nothing to be concerned about. This is a week after I was called in by a different doctor to go over my latest ultrasound results and she told me that there was concerning measurements taken and that they wanted to closely monitor me. What?! The same results were seen by two different doctors - one says to worry and one says there's nothing to be concerned about. That's a little disconcerting! I'm happy to say, however, that I'm taking the approach of doctor #2 and have decided that I am not going to worry...

I made a really yummy soup this weekend!  I have this great slow cooker cookbook that I received as a gift from my wedding - it has so many fantastic recipes in it. If you're able to get your hands on one I would highly suggest it. It's got everything from fondue and appetizer ideas to soups and stews and main meal ideas. I would be lost without it during the Fall and Winter season! So I decided to try out a recipe that I hadn't made before - pumpkin soup with shrimp and lime. It sounded exciting and a bit out of the ordinary and now is the perfect time to get pumpkin (not the canned stuff; a real, orange, round pie pumpkin). The main ingredients are pumpkin, leek, shrimp, lime zest, lime juice, and some heavy cream. I love crockpots as they are SO simple and make minimal dishes and clean-up. This recipe was no exception.  I really enjoyed the texture and flavour of the soup. It reminded me of a butternut squash soup in that it was thick and c...

Well here's my post on making turkey stock, just like I promised from a previous post I made. I hope you find it useful! So, I love when I roast a full chicken or turkey as I know that I'm going to get even more goodness from it than all the meat! The bones are also useful and it takes very little effort and investment to get a nice, flavourful, homemade broth. There's different options for what you can add into your stock - I take the most frugal approach (usually). All you need to do is take a stock pot (or in my case, I don't have a nice big stock pot so I used my two biggest pots) throw your turkey bones into it with some veggies, water, and a bay leaf or three and simmer it on the stove. When you carve your bird, make sure to keep any wings and skin you may pull off; it all helps flavour the broth. You can also throw in the neck, but don't add the giblets. When I make stock after roasting a whole chicken I usually only use one pot, but my turkey was t...

I want to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving! We have been busy, busy with family and a whole lot of eating! How about you? Are you feeling like you've hit your food limit yet? We had a delicious brunch at Mom and Dad Wookey's house on Saturday morning before heading down to the States for a little shopping. We drove around Bellingham for a little bit and checked out some of their cute little shops, then headed to Fred Meyer for a few items and some fuel. I LOVE the fact that we can go down the States for gas.....fuel prices here haven't been too bad lately - $1.29/L (yes, that's a good price for this area *sigh*) but even with the way our Canadian dollar has been lately, we were able to get our gas for about $0.96/L. That alone made me thankful this weekend since we were filling up our Dodge truck! Yesterday we went to church in the morning and then began our turkey preparations. I hosted supper at our place this year. I wish I had remembered to take a pi...

I had a little bit of fun on Friday after finding some really great deals at my local produce store. They have a discount bin that every so often has some real gems! I was doing my weekly shopping there and decided to check out the bin. They had bags of peppers there for $1.50 and some bags of apples for $1.99. The produce was in really decent condition (sometimes it's most definitely not worth paying even the discounted price....) with only a few bruises/blemishes and no mold or anything. I decided to pick up a bag of each and here's what I did: With my peppers I sliced them up with onion and roasted them in the oven. We have homemade pizzas every once in a while and it's awesome being able to pull a little baggie from the freezer and throw some roasted peppers and onions on top of whatever else I have for the pizzas. They're also great to add into pasta or fajitas. I toss them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast them at 425F until they so...

Happy October! So. I took on the task of meal planning again yesterday and decided to try doing it for the entire month of October; just like I did all of September last time. I am accustomed to doing two week planning but decided to buckle down and do the entire month again. It was a lot harder this time around! I think it was due to the fact that I just don't have the same volume of stuff in the freezer to use so I had to come up with meals that both used up things in the house AND required new items to be bought. Last month was strictly using up what I had in the house already (except dairy and veggies) so I knew exactly what I had to work with. This time was much more open-ended; I'm coming to learn that I do better when I have less options to choose from. I actually find it quite daunting to have limitless possibilities. I figured I would walk you guys through my meal planning process. I had a friend of mine do the same a while ago (check her out  here ) and i...