Rough Start

After a rough start Lauren and I are finally starting to get settled.

Right after Lauren was born she started grunting while trying to breath so they took her to the NICU for a little while. Luckily they didn't have to keep her for very long. The next morning around 4:30 she started to spit up and kind of choke. She kept doing it and once stuff started coming out of her nose we decided it would be best if they could take her and drain her stomach. Apparently the oxygen mask they put on her when she wasn't breathing perfectly caused a lot of the mucus to stay in her stomach instead of coming back out. They took her and got 3 cc's out of her which is pretty much the size that her stomach was.

The Sunday after she was born I started to have heart palpitations. I was pretty worried about them so when Wednesday night rolled around and I started to feel light headed I really got worried and made a trip into the ER. We found out the heart palpitations were PVC's which are when your heart throws an extra beat in and are harmless. Another more concerning problem was discovered when they hooked me up and I had a blood pressure of 198/104. They watched it for a little while and it came back down to 163/100. They sent me home because they knew I had a Dr. appt with my OB the next day. When I went to that appt. my pressure was still high, I was hyper-reflexive and I had a pain in my right side under my rib cage (I think kidney?). My OB said that I was one of the lucky few who get pre-eclamsia postpartum and said that I had to go back into the hospital. Their office is right next door so I went right over. Luckily they were able to get me back into the postpartum floor so Lauren could stay the night with me. Adam got to play single dad for a day because I was on bed rest and I had been told that I couldn't feed her (which I later found out that I could have). He was absolutely amazing the whole week. They hooked me up to magnesium sulfate which makes you feel like crap but protects the brain from stroke.

From my understanding postpartum pre-eclamsia can happen because for 6 weeks your body still kind of thinks it's pregnant after you give birth. It can be sort of an allergic reaction to the placenta. Adam's mom read that it can mean that the placenta wasn't attached 100% correct which would also explain why they thought she might be small all along.

After 24 hours, they sent me home with some blood pressure medication. The last few days have been all over the board for my blood pressure but for the most part it seems that the medicine just runs out too soon in the evenings. I went to the Dr. this morning and we are going to try to just take it sooner. I think this will work and we can finally get moving on to life without worrying about my health.

Adam seems to have picked up a cold though :( Hopefully it doesn't turn into much more.

Anyway, here's some cute pictures from the week!

1st Trip to the pediatrician. She was a little jaundiced but they took her levels and she is ok.


1st movie on the couch with daddy. The movie was My Best Friends Girl


5 days old




Cloth Diapers finally! We didn't start right away because being in and out of the hospital makes it kind of hard to do laundry. Plus we had some that we got as gifts! Very helpful!



9 days old!

Introducing: Lauren Olivia

Old English on my Cedar Chest

I have a cedar chest that was my grandma's. I took it to college with me so that combined with being moved so many times in the last 5 years, it's taken a beating. It's in the baby's room now and last week it occurred to me out of the blue to try Old English on it. I have no idea why I haven't thought of this before but it worked WONDERS. It's so fun to just see the scratches and dings disappear before your eyes. I also fixed a couple things inside that had come loose.

Here is the result


Some day I'll work on getting the paint off of it. The feet also need a little work. For now, I'm so happy the Old English made a world of difference.

Quick and Easy Runzas

Something that has always been a great thing for my family to have on hand has been Runzas. Runzas are something that will probably not be liked by all and a lot of people have probably never even heard of them.

Wikipedia on Runzas:
A runza (also called a bierock, fleischkuche or Kraut Pirok) is a yeast dough bread pocket with a filling consisting of beef, pork, cabbage or sauerkraut, onions, and seasonings. They are baked in various shapes such as a half-moon, rectangle, round (bun), square, or triangle. In Nebraska, the runza is usually baked in a rectangular shape. The bierocks of Kansas, on the other hand, are generally baked in the shape of a bun.

Both the bierock and the runza sandwich have German-Russian roots going back to the 18th century. The term bierock comes from the Russian word pirogi or pirozhki and is the name for any food consisting of a filling stuffed into dough. The recipe was passed down from one generation to the next, and was brought to the Americas, particularly to Argentina and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, the U.S. states of North and South Dakota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kansas and Nebraska by the Volga Germans.

There is a chain restaurant called Runza that is only in Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas. It's one of those places that you must visit if you come here and if you are from here and move away, you have to have when you come back.

So two weeks away from the arrival of our baby, of course I'd turn to Runzas as a freezer staple for quick and easy meals after the baby is here. Now, as I said - this is my quick and easy version. And of course this can mean that the taste can suffer slightly. They're still great but not quite as good as Grandma would have made them :)

Runzas
Package of Rhodes Dinner Rolls
4 lbs hamburger
27 oz can of kraut plus an extra regular sized can
2lbs cheddar cheese (you'll probably use a little less)
Minced Onion
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Seasoned Salt
Salt
Pepper

If you were going to make them the way grandma would have, you would use her Basic Roll Recipe and use American Cheese instead of cheddar. The Rhodes rolls are obviously much less time consuming. You will see I used white rolls here but they have a whole grain roll that is to die for and works great for this also (for some reason I just picked up white at the store this time). American cheese will melt better and be a better consistency for your rolls but most of us keep cheddar cheese on hand more often than American and it's also cheaper.

I also must say that I sell Pampered Chef and I use a lot of their products to make Runza's that I feel make things easier/faster.



I use the Pampered Chef Micro cooker to cook my hamburger. I have the small one so I do one lb at a time. I put it in the microwave for two minutes. Then put it into the micro cooker and cut it up a little. 2 more minutes in the microwave. Chop it up with the Mix n Chop. 2 more minutes in microwave. Chop.
It'll look like this at this point:

2 more minutes and your hamburger will be done.

After your hamburger is done, add the rest of the ingredients to taste.

Stir until the cheese is nice and melted.

For your rolls, you can either take them out of the freezer early and let them thaw until pliable or I have taken them straight from freezer and microwaved for 5 seconds on both sides to get them de-thawed to the pliable stage.

Put down on some flour so it doesn't stick to the counter.


Roll out. I use the Pampered Chef Bakers Roller. It's the perfect size. Make sure you roll it pretty thin. They tend to want to spring back and you won't fit much stuffing in.


Add your meat. I use the Pampered Chef Medium scoop and add two scoopfuls. Then begin to pull the sides up around the filling.


Pinch all the sides together.


Line 'em up...


...and stick them in the oven.


Cook at 350 until golden brown.


This can make 36 Runzas give or take depending on how much stuffing you put in each one.

Usually when making Runzas it's easy to make Pigs in a Blankets also. Use your rolls like you would for Runzas but put a hot dog in the roll and wrap it up. Bake. Super easy and great for the freezer also!

Nursery is almost finished!

Here's a peek!


There are still a few things I need to do like put trim up around the cork board, finalize what I want on the shelves, paint something inside the round frame, etc. But for the most part we are ready for a baby!

Once she's here and we name her I'm also going to put her name above the crib.











The quilt on the wall is one Adam's grandma made for her.

We really didn't have to buy much for the room. All of the furniture is hand me down or re-purposed.

I recovered the glider I got from my sister which I blogged about here.

The bedding is just a sheet and dust ruffle from Target w/ a breathable bumper from BRU. I found the cards that are above the changing table on Etsy from this seller and decided to build the "theme" of the room around that instead of buying themed bedding for $150 when you can't use the quilt anyway and I knew I wanted to use a breathable bumper.

The color is a Kilz color called Vintage Aqua.