This Stay At Home Momma

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...