My version of Deviled Eggs (SPICY!)

So around Christmas time, I was trying to figure out what to make that would be different for Christmas. So this year, I decided to "invent" my own style of Deviled Eggs. I don't really have accurate measurements, everything is to taste. I can try and probably guess the amounts.

1 - dozen eggs
Cupid Mayo brand - It's Japanese. Otherwise regular mayo can work as well.
1/2 cup of diced pickled Jalapenos. Reserve the juice.
Salt and Pepper to taste (optional)
2 tablespoons of Sriracha hot sauce in a squeezable bottle. The jar kind has seeds and is more spicier.

Boil eggs for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Peel and cut in half, removing the yolks into another bowl. Add diced jalapenos, 2 tablespoons of pickled jalapeno juice, 2 tablespoons of sriracha and as much Cupid Mayo (maybe 3/4 cup - 1 cup?) you need to make it soft. Add the salt and pepper to the mix. Spoon (because the jalapenos will be too big and clog up any type of piping you have) into the egg white halves. Sprinkle with Paprika. Refrigerate for at least an hour before hand to let the spices soak in.

 My family likes spicy food and this was a huge success.

Taco Stew

So one day I had an idea for a stew that was different. When I was pregnant, it was the cold months so I ate a lot of beef stew and grew very tired of it. So about two weeks ago I decided to invent a stew. I'm sure there are already Taco Stew out there for the crockpot but I thought I was being cool and inventive.

So I just blindly went to the grocery store and bought items I thought would be good in my Taco Stew. I like my food spicy, so you may want to turn down the Jalapeno flavor a bit.

1 - 14oz can of chicken broth
1 - (15oz) can of Hominy, drained (I chose yellow just on a whim)
1 - (15oz) can of Pinto beans, drained
1 - packet of Taco seasoning (I had chosen Ortega Garlic and Jalapeno flavored)
1 - (10oz) can of Ro-Tel hot (habanero)
2 - small tomatoes, diced
1-1.25 lbs of ground turkey meat
1 - Avocado
Shredded cheese (optional)
White corn tortilla chips

Add the tomatoes, ro-tel, hominy, beans, chicken broth and taco seasoning in a crock pot. Mix to dissolve the seasoning and then add in the ground turkey. Break up the ground turkey and set it on low for 6-8 hours.

Serve with tortilla chips on the bottom to soften them up, topped with shredded cheese and diced avocado. Enjoy!

Bitter Melon

Growing up, my mom use to make bitter melon. My siblings and I would never eat it, it was so bitter and overpowered whatever dish it was put into. But as I grew older, I somehow liked it's distinct bitterness, especially when it is fried with eggs.

Very quick and easy to make. I don't like onions but my recipe calls for it, I only use it to cook and get the flavor from it but I don't like to eat it. Anyways, below is the recipe I used.

5 large eggs
4 tablespoons of fish sauce
2 small bitter melons, cleaned and sliced thin
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 tsp of pepper
1 tsp of salt
1/4 cup of sliced white onions
1 tablespoon of oil

Add eggs, fish sauce and pepper in a bowl and beat the eggs to mix all of it together. Add half of the sliced onions to the egg mixture and set aside. In a skillet/wok, heat up the oil. Add the garlic and the rest of the onions and cook it up until it has a nice fragrant smell, then add the bitter melon. Stir fry the bitter melon, sprinkling it with salt while cooking until the bitter melon is slightly soft. Add the egg mixture to it and start folding the eggs and bitter melon together until eggs are done. You don't want to overly stir because the eggs will break to small pieces and just "vanish."

Enjoy, should take less than 10 minutes to cook.

Mara's Birthday part 2

We went to the Dallas zoo the next day since my in-laws were in town. I have never been and people kept telling me it was ok, but Ft. Worth zoo is better. Setting my expectations low, I was surprised. They had a great display for the elephants and lions.

It started out nice, but started to get hot, our pretty Fall weather was already gone in a week. :( Silly Texas weather.

Mara seemed to enjoy herself. All the animals were out and we were able to get good views on them.

Daddy was propping her up to see the Baboons in their habitat.

There are various bronze statues around the zoo, we saw this before the Giants of Africa exhibit and thought it would be cute to get a picture of her riding one.

The elephants were in a huge area and Mara loved to watch them eat and pull hay down from above. She kept pointing at them,I couldn't get a good picture of her pointing but close enough. :)

There is a small restaurant in the African Safari part of the zoo called Serengeti grill. It was so cool, you could eat and enjoy the view of the lions in AC! The lions were lazy and all gathered near the glass to nap. It was one of the coolest exhibits I saw.

We also did the monorail which was neat, seems like you can really see the animals up close. Overall it was a good experience and we couldn't finish it all because Mara got tired so we had to go home and let her sleep it off. We probably will come back again to try and finish the other half of the zoo.

Mara's Birthday Part 1.5

So the Thursday before Mara's birthday, I wanted to surprise her when I took her home from daycare by stringing up decorations. It was worth it too, her eyes grew big when we walked in the door together.

I bought a balloon pump, balloons and spool of colorful string. Blew up all the balloons and stringed them together to make a garland.

Her daddy then surprised her Friday with white roses and I had bought some flowers too the same day to decorate the center of the table not knowing of the sweet surprise.

Planning and Implementing Mara's First Birthday. Part 1

It is the Monday after a busy weekend. I feel like I got tread on by 100 horses and I am so exhausted. So let's start from the beginning...

I had probably started planning Mara's birthday party a month in advance to make sure it would be enjoyable. I spent weeks figuring out if I wanted a theme and selected fairies. Decent theme I thought, wasn't overly pink and I could dress her up in tutus and wings. So my first project was finding a cute costume. Luckily I found a cute Halloween costume as a Gerber Daisy. I just added wings and a bow in her hair and walaa! Cuteness!

Next was the food. My baby shower was sandwiches and I'm really tired of sandwiches, so I decided to plan out the food. Took me about 4 drafts in Word to finally have it finalized...boy did I overplan on the food. We have probably enough to last us more than a week if we decide to freeze some. You can see the spread behind me and also here:

Not pictured is the huge crockpot of beer cheese I melted for Fondue.

Then I got a few ideas from various parenting websites for Rice Krispie treats shaped like balloons...

So the list of food was quesadillas, stuffed jalapenos, Russian and French bread cubes for fondu, cocktail dogs, beer cheese fondu pot, tortilla chips, mini corndogs, rice krispie treas, zucchini muffins, sausage cheese muffins, vegetable platter(carrots, celery, locally grown variety cherry tomatoes) for fondue, fruit platter(strawberries, blueberries, Jazz apple slices and grapes), and birthday cake. The birthday cake was special, I sampled probably 4 different birthday cakes from various Asian bakeries to make sure I found the right one.

Mara seemed pretty happy with my choice on cake, and I'm glad that is over with. Now I have too much cake in the fridge. (Chinese style birthday cake is vanilla sponge cake with fruit in the middle and on top , iced with whip cream.)

She seemed to enjoy herself and the small kids that were also there seemed to have fun. So overall, I'm glad it went out stress free and full of fun. The ball pit I had bought for her birthday was a huge hit with all the small kids, everyone kept asking me where I got it so they could get it for their kid.

Mara's baby book

So I am glad that I was dedicated enough to try and take a picture of Mara every month and put it in a book for her to enjoy when she is older. As I was putting it together, I thought maybe it would be nice to do little notes to her. So I got my husband involved and he and I wrote a short story of the importance of her name. I then put under each month her milestones that she hit. Now I am waiting for just one more day til she hits the 12 month mark. Once that day comes, I'll take a picture and rush order the book to arrive in time for her birthday party to have people sign it.

I'm really excited and cannot wait for it in print form, I have been looking through it over and over on Kodak gallery in edit mode to make sure it is perfect.

It's a very special gift for Mara and I want Mara to know how much her parents love her, even though she sometimes torture us with projectile vomit, diaper blowouts and headbutts.

Cuddling with the Oberitto

It's been awhile since I could cuddle with the dogs ever since I had Mara. Yesterday, Wedge took care of Mara while I pitter-pattered aboot. Anyways, I finally got to cuddle with Obi one on one, something that I use to do all the time pre-Mara. It was nice, since it was still cool in the house, his little body warmed me up nicely. And he had a nice smell about him, not too clean and not too dirty. I missed cuddling with little Obi, and he did too, I kept moving around and probably squished him a few times but he didn't mind. He was pretty stubborn with staying next to me. Usually, I can tell when he's pleased with me because at bed time he would always sleep on my side of the bed, at the floor. When I woke up in the middle of the night , he was sleeping right under me where I would stepped on his little paw when I got out of bed, but he didn't move until I went out to the living room (cause Mara was fussy and woke up and had to be rocked back to bed). I just ended up sleeping on the couch in the living room with Mara and Obi stayed with us at the foot of the couch.

My breastpump experience

I had bought the Ameda Purely Yours breastpump because it was slightly less than Medela's Pump in Style. My sister had the Medela's Pump in Style, however I can never trust what my sister says because she tends to just buy whatever she touches and raves its the best thing on earth without giving something else a chance.

Anyways, after using it for 6 months exclusive, it gets the job done, of course. My main concern was comfort and after pumping, you get use to it just like breastfeeding. Its hard to figure out what is good and comfortable when all breastpumps cost so much money. After talking with another person that shares the pump room with me at work, she told me her experience with Medela since she had both the Ameda and her friend lent her the Medela. She had the same complaints I did about Ameda and raved about the Medela. So I decided to ask my sister to borrow her pump to compare. My sister is also incredibly dirty...so I only took the motor part of the Medela and bought all new parts for it.

Ameda Purely Your's
What comes with the breastpump:
Breastpump
Tubes
Cooler with 3 ice packs
4 - 4oz bottles
Tote style bag
25MM Flanges
Link to Ameda Purely Your's Breastpump

Pros:
Milk never gets in the tube
Pumps directly to standard size bottles
Had 2 knobs to help you control the suction and pump cycle(to mimic baby's eating habits)
The breastpump piece has 2 standard size bottle holders for when you need to place it down without spilling it. (I've spilled a few times when I didn't use the placeholder)
Easy to clean

Cons:
Makes a weird beep with each pump cycle - noisy
Takes a little longer to express as much milk as the Medela's pump in style (Takes me 10 minutes more to express as much milk with the Medela)
More parts to put together
One side would be stronger in suction that the other

Medela Pump In Style
What comes with the breastpump:
Breastpump
Backpack
Tubes
4 - 5oz bottles
Cooler with ice packs
24MM Flanges
Link to Medela's Pump in Style

Pros:
Quiet
Pumps to bottles
Pumps really fast with letdown option

Cons:
Flanges are harder to clean
Seems like Milk/Water can get in tubes and hard to get out.
Smaller breastpump, so you can remove from pack and put it in another bag if you want to. (I had to with my sister's...she had milk all over her bag so I just took out the motor and put it in a prettier bag.)

My baby bottle reviews

The only time I started using baby bottles was when I was putting Mara in daycare. I had started her on a bottle here and there with her daddy, Wedge, so that she wouldn't be resistant to bottles. The bottles I got from my baby shower were Dr. Browns, Avent wide mouth bottles, and The First Years Breastflow bottles. I later bought some Playtex Drop In System bottles with liners because they have a pumping system I tried out which I ended up not liking at all. All my milk would leak when I stored it in the fridge and I hate wasting anything I pumped.

Dr. Browns - Reduce colic/gas was their main marketing strategy. I didn't like them. Mara did end up getting real gassy, but I don't think it was primarily because of bottle feeding. I had to switch strategies feeding her and that helped a lot with her gas. (I did the 10 mins on one side, 10 on the other and that seemed to be giving her a lot of gas because she seemed to be getting a lot of the foremilk which I later found out is more gassier. Since I produced so much I just let her feed on one side until she was done and that eliminated most of her gas problems.) The Dr. Brown bottles had too many pieces to put together and was a pain to clean everyday. Also, they always leaked for me, and some eventually just cracked and leaked all over our bottle warmer. We were not happy with these bottles and it was the reason why I didn't really pump into bottles. These are standard size bottles and fit my Ameda Purely Your's breastpump, but with all the leaking and cracking I gave up on them.

Avent - I liked these bottles but was disappointed they didn't fit directly with my breastpump. They warmed up nicely, held up to heat and no leaks. Mara seemed to like to feed from these as well.

The First Years Breastflow - I never used this but my husband did and he didn't like it. Most of milk would go into a 2nd "staging" area of the nipple (to simulate breastfeeding) or whatever and so we couldn't really gauge how much she was drinking. Mara also didn't like feeding from it.

Playtex Drop In systems - I had major problems with these just leaking at the screw part. No matter what I did, it just leaked if it was slightly tipped, maybe it is better for formula, maybe breastmilk is thinner and I just had issues with it. I bought it because I was thinking I could pump into these, store and drop in a bottle and not clean so much bottles after work. Well...I ended up cleaning my clothes, the bags I transported the milk in, my car, as well as the coolers I stored the milk in.
Now that I am considering supplementing with formula, I may give these Playtex another go and see if I like it.
**Update - These work well with formula, I never had any leaks but you can't really fill up more than 8 ozs on the large size.

The adventures of breastfeeding and returning to work.

This isn't how to maintain your breastmilk supply, there are a ton of articles on baby sites that will help tell you how you can maintain it. This is more of the experiments I did while trying to keep Mara on exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months.

I so far am at the 5 months, 4 weeks mark and felt that should share what I found really convenient after returning to work.

I was one of the mothers that had an abundant milk supply, Mara was feeding off 4 oz for a long time while I was pumping 6 oz each breast. Mara's pediatrician was impressed that I could pump 14oz in one session. I had to start freezing some of my milk and hope that if my milk does wane, then I have a frozen supply to sustain for at least month after returning to work.

My breastpump is the Ameda Purely Yours. I chose this because it wasn't as expensive as the Medela and was marketed where you can pump directly in the bottles. Also a perk was that the pump didn't have milk going through tubes to the bottle, so less time washing parts. I bought mine from Amazon.com $100 less than retail too. I also found out that Ameda and Lanisoh parts are interchangeable, I haven't had a problem with not replacing parts yet. This breastpump has held up for me pretty well seeing that I dropped it a couple of times.

So my first adventure was unfreezing my milk and putting it in bottles while pumping into bottles at to pour into Lanisoh Milk bags to freeze since I had so much and didn't want the ones in the freezer going bad. What a pain I thought, too much bottle washing and less time to spend with Mara and Wedge after returning home from work.

So I researched pumping into bags directly. I found that Medela has bags you can attach to your pump. When I found this out, I already had 150 bags of the Lanisoh, so I didn't want to toss those out, I read that all the Medela ones do is have a velcro strap that attaches to the bag and pump. So I decided to rig my Lanisoh bags with tape and pump into them. Was nice but very unsturdy. I had spilled 2 bags and was frustrated (6oz each). So then I found that Ameda has this pump into bag system. You buy an extra package that contains 20 Ameda milk storage bags, 2 attachment that you screw onto your flanges. Well, I thought this was pretty dang awesome, and it was, except that the Ameda bags were this crunchy hard plastic that didn't really expand well while pumping. I had to get enough weight in milk and kind of hold the bag open so it would shoot right back up and out. So I improvised again, the Lanisoh bags so far are my favorite because of the volume they can hold. Again, I pump 6 or more per breast, so this was why I preferred them. They are a softer plastic so expanding wasn't a problem like the Ameda ones, and the Ameda ones are 5 oz with an easy pour spout. If only Ameda were a little bigger and softer plastic, I would continue using them. The only problem I found with the Lanisoh is that after freezing, somehow they would puncture and I wouldn't know until I thawed out the milk. So what I did was used a letter opener or knife or sharp pen to puncture a hole where the attachments of the Ameda bag pump system held in place and pumped directly in the bags. That part never comes in contact with the milk so I didn't worry about getting ink punching holes with a pen. It was awesome and so I would pump into these bags and take it home to freeze and thaw out the older milk.

Then I got even lazier. I was tired of making sure I had to have certain bags thawed the night before, as well as throw away any extra bottles Mara didn't drink at daycare. (Breastmilk is good for only 24 hours after thawing)I was mad at the waste, so then I decided to give Mara my fresh supply and just keep the frozen stuff for weening. I decided this when Mara was 4 months, so my milk supply in the freezer would be 2 months old when she hit 6 months. (Frozen milk is good 3-4 months after freezing). So then I started to pump into bottles again and feed her directly from that, if there were any extra bottles at daycare, I told them to keep it for the next day. Convenient for me! Eventually my milk supply went down to something a little more normal where I am still an extra bottle ahead of Mara.

Diaper Reviews

Just a brief overview of my thoughts on diapers.

Pampers Swaddlers - Hospital sent us 2 packs of these when we left for home and I got a coupon for 1 jumbo pack for free from Diapers.com. Well being these were the first ones I tried out, I wasn't sure what to expect. They did their job and didn't give my baby a diaper rash. All the mothers I have spoken to had told me Pampers gives their babies horrible rashes. Luckily, Mara had no issues with them and I ended up liking these the best. Pampers tend to have Sesame Street characters on it, except for the sensitive brand. I only preferred the sensitive brand because of the cute, non-bright colors of the characters/artwork on it. It's more pastel. Also Swaddlers Sensitive has this yellow line that turns blue when the baby pees, so you can measure if she's in a really soaked diaper. Overall, I preferred these diapers out of all that we have tried because of no issues with leaks, diaper rash and has contained Poomageddons well.

Huggies Snugglers - When I held her to nurse her, I kept getting wet. Thinking it was me, I set her down and there was a wet puddle under her booty, so these diapers leaked on me bad. I had to return whatever was given to me to get more Pampers. And I"m not a big Winnie the Pooh fan, and these diapers are all about Winnie the Pooh

Pampers Baby Dry - These diapers look just like diapers with sesame street. The difference with Swaddlers and these is that Swaddlers are more soft, and in my opinion a little more roomier. These did the job well too, I just prefer the softer Swaddlers over these cause I felt I didn't have to upgrade diaper size as fast.

Up&Up (Target Brand) - The crotch area is too narrow, and the diapers have blue and green dots (size 2 ) all over it. I don't mind the designs on it, I think its kind of cute but I didn't like the narrow crotch. Just made me think of the impending Poomageddon that would leak through.

Luvs - They aren't bad, they are more plastic and crinkly sounding that most the diapers I tried but I felt they held up as well as Pampers Baby Dry. And the design is Blues Clues, which I like. Fits also like Pampers Baby Dry, so if you tried those out, then you aren't getting much of a difference but price on fit here.

Parent's Choice (Walmart brand) - I think these also do the job well, they are designed like Pampers Baby Dry, and by design, I mean not leak protection or whatever, but the fit.

Babies R Us Supreme - I just tried out Babies R Us Supreme diapers because I had a coupon for it. Wow, these are so awesome for the price. It's soft and not diaper sounding, no scent (though I don't mind scented diapers) and the elastic tabs work well too. Overall, I think I found a new favorite.