Baby BOY!

That's right....it's a boy! One of each sounds great to me! We already have our nursery stuff picked out how we want to decorate it. It is the Pro Flyer set from Babies R' Us. It is so cute! I will work on getting the ultrasound photos scanned in and on the computer ASAP! Adam is so excited to have a boy. Of course he needed one to carry on the "Gorman" name.

I have enrolled Mikayla is swimming lessons for the month of July. She will go twice a week for 4 weeks to start out. I am hoping she will become a wonderful swimmer....unlike her mommy! I haven't told her I did that yet, but she starts next week!

My real dad and his wife are coming in to town August 7th and will be staying with us for a night. Then we are headed up to Grand Rapids on Friday to spend the weekend up there. I am excited to take a mini vaca! I really need one right now. It will also be nice to spend time with the other family I don't see very often. August is the hottest month, so hopefully grandma will have the air conditioning on!

Cooking

As you all know...I absoulutely love to cook! I am always on the hunt for a new recipe that I can try once and tweak to my own liking. Yesterday I had to go to the store after work to get stuff for breakfast and lunches during the week. I started just kind of browsing around until I noticed...and completely forgot...that some products have recipes on the labels or the back of the box. My hunt began through the noodle isle. They had a lot of recipes and each different noodle box has a different recipe. Of course the Lasagna noodle box will have a recipe for...can you guess? That's right...lasagna. But some of the other noodles have different ones. I had never boughten Mostacolli before. There was an awesome recipe on the back and seemed really easy and quick. I bought up the ingredients and headed home. I made the new meal and it was really good. A couple of changes though..... First off I love cheese on things, but this was really really cheesy! Almost too much cheese and not enough sauce. I would add more sauce and cut down on the cheese. The recipe called for Ricotta which is a really thick cheese. That was fine, but then you add an entire bag of Mozarella and Parmesan to that and you are overloaded. Also, Ricotta straight from the refrigerator is not easy to spread like it asks you to do!

I typically don't like to add anything like onions or mushrooms since I don't like them, but I don't think it would have been bad. The spaghetti sauce I used was traditional flavor, so maybe something with a kick would have been better. The only other thing that might have been good to add would be some ground hamburger or ground turkey (browned). Adam liked it and he said to me "even though it is a little over cheesy, don't stop making it". He really liked it and knew if he told me that, I would make it a mission to improve the recipe.

I am an avid watcher of Rachael Ray. I love the "30 minute meal" concept. Honestly though, do you really find that those meals only take you 30 minutes like her? Not really. She is a professional chef. Of course she can peel and cut potatoes in under 5 minutes. For someone who has kids and animals at their feet and begging for attention every night, it doesn't happen that way. I also don't have time to "pre-prep" food when I get home. Maybe once in a great while I will wash up the fruit, but that is about as far as it goes. So, I look for meals that are simple and a lot of the time are mostly cooked in the oven and require little attention. This way it doesn't feel like I am cooking for an hour because the oven is doing all the work. Casseroles are awesome! They are packed with different things and usually only require one ingredient to be cooked on the stove before being thrown together in a casserole baking dish. I really need to write a book!

Another Monday

At least it isn't a "manic Monday". HA! We had a pretty eventful weekend. Saturday we spent most of the day putting stuff in storage and clearing out some more boxes. Keith and his gf Jolene came over and installed a new car stereo for Adam. He was so excited! Then they stayed for a BBQ and bonfire. We also had Jimmy and his fiance Kelley, my uncle Danny, and our neighbors Jim and Dee. It was a lot of fun. The young ones left and us old folks stayed up until 12:30! I couldn't believe it. We went to Madeline's baptism on Sunday. We got some really good pictures...

It was fun to see everyone and visit. Madeline is so cute and getting bigger every time I see her. We are still counting the days until Friday. I hope the U/S can show the gender and the baby doesn't hide it. We are excited to know!

I am sitting here at work listening to my slacker of a co-worker carry on about some stuff that doesn't even pertain to work. I wish I could get away with that sort of effort. The funny thing is he gets away with this every day and claims to be working on "diversity" stuff, which Wells highly supports. Ok, just needed to vent for a second.

I suppose I shouldn't really talk since I am sitting here blogging at work. :) Well, back to the grind.

Recovered

We recovered finally from our busy weekend. Erica's dance recital was fun. My camera broke after two pictures. It started showing white lines through the screen :( So Saturday morning we had to get up early to go buy a new one since I couldn't be without a camera for Mikayla's first dance recital. She was so cute! She did a great job! Father's day was really fun too. We ended up having Adam's whole family over after breakfast for a fun afternoon at our house. Then we went and got some patio furniture and then my Dad and Rhonda came over for dinner.It was a lot of fun. I have a picture of Mikayla in her dance recital...


This is pretty funny...a gas station in Mpls about a week ago:

Busy weekend ahead

This weekend is going to fly by like last weekend. We are going to be so busy. We have Erica's (Adam's little sis) dance recital on Friday night. Then we have Mikayla's dance recital on Saturday and finishing up with Father's Day on Sunday. The puppy is getting bigger and bigger everyday and is looking less like a puppy. She has a lot of energy and thinks she is a lap dog :)

Here is a picture of Shadow at 10 weeks:

Two weeks from tomorrow we find out the gender of Baby "G". I can't wait! I know it will be here quickly. I will then be half way through my pregnancy :) YAY! My tummy is getting bigger and will have to take some belly shots soon. I didn't do that with Mikayla and I kind of wish I had. For sure on the days of the ultrasounds. I heard from my grandma yesterday. She is going ok. She can't walk without a walker anymore and definitely can't drive anymore. She can't even get into a car. I am happy that she got out when she could...even the days she didn't really want to. She even told me that she was happy she did. It took a lot of convincing but it was worth it.

Adam, Mikayla, and I went out to dinner last night to Rudy's Red Eye Grill in Lakeville. Normally I wouldn't write about a dining out experience, however this one is well worth talking about. Our server's name is Kevin. I haven't had this great of a server in a long, long time! I really felt like I couldn't leave him enough for a tip. I don't usually feel like that. I typically leave 10-15% (more like 15%) as long as the server isn't horrible. I left this one more than that. He was friendly, knowledgeable about the menu and had a great personality. Aside from the server, the food was great! I ordered the steak with smashed cheesy potatoes and green beans. It was so good! I always say the way to tell a great steak is you can eat it without steak sauce and it has lots of flavor. That was this one for sure! I had the server bring it just in case, but never touched it! The atmosphere was nice. A little dark, but very neat. They had chandeliers that had little red lamps on the top and booths with high backs for privacy. The food was a little on the pricey side. I would say more expensive than Timberlodge, but the food was better! It was definitely worth the extra money! I am planning on calling the manager today to give my rave review and make sure the waiter is recognized!

Settling In

It has been two weeks since my last blog! No WAY! Well, I guess that what happens when moving comes around. You get so busy! The house is great! No more stinky apartment living for us! Mikayla is playing outside every second she gets. Our neighbors are awesome! We live in a cul-de-sac and have met 3 of the 6 neighbors so far. The house to the right is an older couple with two grandkids around Mikayla's age. They are two girls ages 5 and 7. Mikayla plays with them during the week after pre-school when we get home. The girls are at the grandparents house during the week as they are their daycare/after school care. The house to the left is a couple that is probably late 30's to early 40's. They are hip and fun. They bought us a flower pot for the house as a "welcome" to the neighborhood. We say "hi" just about every day. The house on the other side of them is another older couple, grandparents, and have a 1 year old grandkid. The wife does alterations out of her home...good to know! They have a bonfire pit and some chairs in the middle of the circle where the men get together to talk about "manly" stuff. Adam was invited there the next time the men are "out".

We are still unpacking but it is coming along. Most of Mikayla's stuff is unpacked and she can enjoy her toys again. The puppy is getting bigger each day. Her potty training is coming along nicely. You have to watch the signs though with her! She will go hide and poop some where if you miss that warning bark.

We had Mikayla's dance dress rehearsal last night. It was so cute to see all the 3 and 4 year olds do all the different dances and all the different costumes! They were so adorable and some of them were really good. I have this cough that I just can't shake. I ended up having a coughing fit in the middle of the auditorium...how embarrassing! Then afterwards we stopped at MCD for some dinner for Mikayla. They were screwing up orders left and right! There were three guys in 5 minutes with three separate orders that went off on the guy handing out the orders. Luckily the happy meal was a simple order and made it out correctly! Then we were off to SuperTarget.

I am always on the look out for an easy main dish to make during the week that is good, yet somewhat healthy. I like to have a meat as the main dish and it is hard to find a quick and easy meat. Well, I think I have found one. Hormel makes these (see picture above), but they are in a black plastic container that you can pop into the microwave. I got the BBQ Beef Brisquit last night and it was really good. I made it along with some pasta roni and it was a great meal! It only took my about 10 minutes for the whole thing! Now that is a fast meal! They also have Beef Stroganoff and Meatloaf. They are so tasty! It still costs less than a meal at MCD for two people. It makes me want to pick up some more! I got some chicken breasts last night and am going to marinate them when I get home to slap on the grill tonight. This will be my first attempt at grilling. I am a little nervous, but I think I can handle it :)

Oh and can you believe gas it at $4.09~~~AUGH! At leas the temp is going to be 75 today and not above 80, so the windows are open! Well, back to work. We have a super busy weekend ahead with Erica's dance recital on Friday night, Mikayla's on Saturday afternoon, and Father's Day on Sunday. Whew!