Mexican Lasagna

SO I made Mexican Lasagna for dinner and it was A-mazing!! So I thought I'd share:

Sauce: 2 cloves garlic, minced
            1 onion, diced
            1 red bell pepper, diced
            -Simmer these in a sauce pan with a TBsp olive oil until soft
            Add 2 cans diced tomatoes
            1 can diced green chiles
            A handful of cilantro, chopped
            If you like meat you could add probably 1 lb of hamburger or ground turkey then I would add a   Tbsp ketchup

Layer: Black beans
            Corn
            Colby Jack cheese
            -I had these ready and added as much as I wanted. Michael and I love beans and corn so we did quite a bit of each and a thin layer of cheese.

I put a bit of sauce on the bottom, covered it with tortillas, more sauce on top, then black beans and corn and colby jack cheese and more sauce. Then cover with tortillas, more sauce, black beans, corn, and cheese. Then tortillas and sauce and I would recommend cheese on the very top if you like more cheese.

Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes and enjoy!

PS The tortillas absorb some water and get sort of noodley soft. So if textures creep you out, use lasagna noodles instead :)

Lorelai's Room

One awesome thing about having an early baby shower is that you can decorate the room much earlier!! So we did. Here's some pics of the room...so far.

 The full shot.

 The crib.

 The toys. Tippy likes the room too!

 The "dresser." We didn't want to get a real dresser. 

 A chair, a bouncer, some decor and other things.

The wall hangings that go with the crib set. Cute huh?!

Baby stuff

SO....I haven't updated my blog. Sorry!

In vitro worked! We are pregnant with a girl and due July 5th. We are excited! To those who are curious: in vitro was not horrible. The shots were really easy to give myself and didn't hurt. I never got emotional over stupid things and never really felt any different. But I am weirder than most people, so it may have been worse than I could feel. I have a high tolerance for pain.

We are naming our daughter Lorelai May. May is a mixture of the grandma's names: Darby and Margaret. It is extremely hard to use a lot of letters from Darby :)

I went to Vegas and had a baby shower there. It was tons of fun! I got into town late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning. Woke up. Went to Big 5 to get new sunglasses. Went to Home Goods and TJ Max to try and find a pot for the centerpiece I wanted to make. Then we went to eat at Grand Lux with my dad. Then we went to the chiropractor. Then we went to get my mom's sewing machine fixed. Then we went to Michaels. Left Michaels because they had nothing cool. Went to Hobby Lobby where we wanted to buy the whole store! Bought the stuff I needed for decorations. Went home. Started working on the decorations. Was too tired so went to bed.

Woke up at 6 am. That's right. 6 am! I was irate. Dad was off this day so we went to the bank and then we went to Costco. Got lots of goodies. Went to In N Out. Oh yeah. I've been missing it! Went home and started making food and decorations for the shower. Got to see Amy and Jeremy. Got to see my brother Jeremy and Rachel and Isis and Elise. Yay! Rachel helped me finish the decorations. Then went to The Orleans to eat at the buffet with cousin Heidi and her mom. Pretty sure my belly grew that night. It seemed enormous on Saturday!

The centerpiece I made from a picture on Pinterest. It turned out cute, I think!

 The Martha Stewart pom-pom flowers I made out of tissue paper. Super easy and cute!

 The bag game. You get to open more presents. Who wouldn't like that??

 The food!

 Some guests! Serious contemplation is needed for the bag game.

Belly shot! Ask and you shall receive. 

Woke up at 6:30 am. Really?! Did my hair, finished the food, hung up the decorations, said hi to the family. Then crazy time started. I haven't seen the people who came to my shower for a year. I had to personally talk to each one for at least 3 minutes. I never really got to sit down or eat but it was fun to see everyone, fun to open presents, and fun to pack it all up! Then Heidi and I went to some stores, went to DI, went to Walmart. Got home at 11:30 pm and went to bed at 12 ish.

Woke up at 6:45 am. Went to church at 8:30 am. Said hi to my peeps. Went to Capriotti's and got the Capistrami (oh man it was delicious)! Got Heidi ready to leave. Said bye. Took a 2 hour nap. Got up. Had family dinner with my brother Chris and Sarah's family and Jeremy and Rachel's family. Rachel is due with girl/baby #3 on July 7! Fun huh? Picture was taken with my crappy phone camera. Sorry. But it shows sister and sister-in-law due 2 days apart! Went to bed earlier.

Woke up at 6:45 am. Went to the Green Valley Ranch breakfast buffet. It was only $4.99 a person! Then my mom and I went maternity clothes shopping. Got me some cute stuff. Went and said hi to my old work. Went home. My friend Lindsay came over and said hi. Then I went to Michael's mom and sister's house. We ate and talked. Fun times. Then I went home. Went to bed.

Woke up at 7 am! Packed up all my stuff. Went to the temple to see Sarah get her endowments! I'm glad I was able to be there! Went to some stores to return things that wouldn't fit in my suitcases. Went to Poppy's Frozen Yogurt with Eve and her kids. My mom kicked us out the door so I wouldn't be late to the airport. Now I see where I get it from. My flight was delayed due to the wind. Could have stayed with Eve longer. Finally went to the airport 2 hours later than planned. Got home at 2 am. Michael came in and helped me with my 3 bags of presents! Got home and quickly looked through everything then went to bed at 4 am.

Fun. Busy. Good times.

Our 1st Real Trip to Chicago

Yes we have lived in the Chicagoland area for a year now. Since then we have been to Chicago twice for touristy type things: we went to Navy Pier and we went to the Field Museum. Other than that Michael drives through Chicago sometimes for work but we've never really took the time to be a tourist. So on Saturday that's what we decided to do!!

We started out by taking the train into the city. It took 1 hour and 20 minutes. Not too shabby. Then we walked a mile or so and went shopping. If any of you know me, you know I hate shopping, but we were with Kristin who loves to shop so she wanted to look for some stuff.

We went in to Macy's and they had a beautiful store inside! There were decorated trees everywhere (there had to be at least 100), they had huge ornaments that hung from the ceiling, and they had their windows decorated with ornaments designers made and other fun Christmasy stuff.

We then decided we were hungry and Michael and I went to P.F. Changs to visit my friend from Vegas Briana! She is one of the managers at the downtown P.F. Changs. This was the 1st time we'd ever been to eat there. The food was delicious! The service was great! And the restaurant was pretty cool looking. We had a blast hanging out with Briana. Our friends and I got done eating at different places at the same time! Weird.

So we headed off to Navy Pier to look at their Christmas lights. We walked for a while and then got there. They had a winter wonderland with an amazingly enormous tree! It was pretty cool looking! They also had a plethora of smaller trees that were decorated by different professions. Example: The landscaping company had huge flowers in their tree with different colored hoses acting as garland. It was pretty cool!

Once we were done it was time to head back to the train station. It was only 2.3 miles away! We got there at about 6:15 pm and our train was to leave at 6:40. So we had enough time to stand in the long bathroom lines and then hop on the train. I was pooped when I got home! 

It's In Vitro time!

Michael and I found out that his work is getting rid of our insurance plan and starting January 1st we'll have just a PPO. This plan doesn't cover all infertility processes. So we are speeding up our infertility by starting in vitro. We just had a visit to the doctor today and learned about the medicine process for the next few weeks. Oh my is all I have to say! Here's a picture of all the stuff I will need:

AAAAAAhhhhhhh!!!!

As my Dr. says, it's time to Hans and Frans you up. Lol! So here's an outline of what I need to do:

*I started birth control 2 weeks ago to ready my follicles for mass egg production.
*Monday Michael and I start an antibiotic so we don't get me sick. I also start Lupron - an injectable hormone. This will be once a day.
*In about 2 weeks I start another injectable that I will give myself 2 times a day. I will still be taking the Lupron so I will have 3 shots a day.
*I will be monitored 3 times a week at this point to check which day will be best for egg retrieval. Once things look good I will take a shot of Ovidrel to help make sure the ovulation process will happen. This helps loosen the eggs so that they can retrieve them.
*The next day I will start the progesterone pill 2 times a day.
*The next day they will retrieve my eggs. I will start Medrol (2 tabs twice a day for 4 days). I will also take a few antibiotics to make sure I don't get an infection.
*A few days after this I will get my embryos transferred into my uterus. Sometime around this day I will take another shot. The day after the transfer I will use Crinone which is a vaginal progesterone liquid.

After all this, hopefully I will be pregnant!! Our fingers are crossed!

Infertility Update

I think it is amazing that anyone actually even gets pregnant. It seems like one thing after the other doesn't work out for us. We have tried insemination 4 times now, all without any luck. We met with our doctor and he said the medicine I'm on, Clomid, is an estrogen blocker. This means it is helping me produce FSH so I can have eggs, but is blocking my estrogen production so my tubes may not be picking up my eggs. Now I will trying a new medicine which is the natural form of FSH. So hopefully this will kick my estrogen into gear.

I have to skip this month of trying because one of my eggs did not drop and grew a little too large for my body to absorb it as quickly as normal. Apparently I can't start the medicine unless my eggs are perfect.

If this doesn't work then I may have endometriosis, which is a form of scar tissue on productive organs that makes it hard to get pregnant. So they might have to do exploratory surgery and if they find any endometriosis then they will laser it out of me and then I should get pregnant easier.

We've waited 4 1/2 years to get pregnant, we can wait a little longer right? 

Cheapskate

I went to get my hair cut the other night, and somehow we got on the subject of being cheap. Tammi, my hairstylist, said she was the Queen of bargain shopping. I told her I was cheaper because I only cut my hair once a year. Then she laughed at me. But then I started thinking about it and these are reasons why I think I am a cheapskate:

1. I cut my hair once, maybe twice, a year. Usually when I have an under $5 Great Clips coupon.
2. We don't want to pay for trash tickets so Michael takes our trash to his work dumpster.
3. It takes me 6 months to buy a pair of pants when I actually need a pair because $20 just isn't cheap enough. Question: why is it a pair of pants? It's only one.
4. We don't turn the a/c on unless it's going to be more than 95 outside.
5. We almost never use the a/c in our car to save gas.
6. We use grocery bags for Tippy's poo bags.

That's all I can think of for now. We're cool, but we're crazy...