Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours: have a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Dresses

One reason I'm excited to have two little girls right now is because I love the tradition of having holiday dresses for church. Both of these dresses are courtesy of my mom. (And Azucena is a crazy wiggly girl. It's why she's often blurry in pictures.)

  

Meeting Santa (Dec 1)

Our ward hosted a Christmas party on Saturday, December 1st, and they had a special guest--Santa! Azucena had just learned who he was the week before (she calls him "TAY-tan, ho ho ho") and was so excited to see him. She kept trying to run over to him while he was with the other children. But then, of course, once it was her turn, well, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

          

 

(I'm holding her in the first picture because I didn't want her screaming and crying. She's on Santa's lap in the second one because Clark wanted a picture of her sitting on him. Classic!)

Favorite Soups

The one thing I would say I "craved" while I was pregnant was soup. It just sounded so fantastic--something I didn't have to chew too much, that would be warm and fill me up, something I could eat with a thick slice of bread. Every night I wanted to make (or buy) a soup. Luckily, I had Pinterest and some family recipes to help me. And since I loved them so much, I figured I'd share. The first two are finds on Pinterest, the last is my grandmother's potato soup recipe.

Creamy Tomato Tortellini Soup (click for original recipe)

• 2 whole large cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 T Olive Oil
• 2 10 3/4 oz cans of Condensed Tomato Soup
• ½ can of diced tomatoes
• 1-½ cup Milk
• 2 cups Half-and-half
• 2 cups Chicken Stock
• 1 t Onion Powder
• ½ t Salt
• ½ t Pepper
• 2 t Italian Seasoning
• 13 oz of Cheese-filled Tortellini
• ½ cups Shredded Parmesan Cheese

Saute garlic with the olive oil in a large stock pot over medium heat until golden brown.

When the garlic is done, add tomato soup, tomatoes, milk, half and half, chicken stock and spices. Bring to a simmer. Once simmering, drop noodles into the soup. Cook according to the package directions. (Anywhere between 4 - 20 minutes, so check those instructions!)

After pasta is cooked, ladle soup into bowls and top with parmesan cheese and serve with crusty bread.

Creamy Broccoli Cheddar Soup (click link for original recipe)

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup flour

2 1/2 cups half-and-half

4 cups chicken stock

1 lb. (16 oz.) fresh or frozen broccoli florets

1 cup grated carrot

Kosher salt and freshly grated pepper, to taste

1/4 t grated nutmeg

8 oz grated sharp cheddar cheese

Directions

Melt butter and flour, whisking for 3-5 minutes to create a roux. Whisk while adding the half-and-half and chicken stock. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Stir in the broccoli florets and grated carrot. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg. Simmer over low heat for 30-35 minutes.

Remove soup from heat and pulse with an immersion blender until smooth. (Or, puree the soup in batches in a food processor until smooth, adding mixture back to the pot.)

Return pot to low heat and stir in cheddar cheese. Simmer for 10 minutes, and serve.

Grandma's Potato and "Ham" Soup

3 1/2 C potatoes, diced

2 stalks of celery

1 onion, sliced

3/4 C ham (I use SPAM)

3 1/2 C water

5 chicken boullion

1/2 t salt

1/2 t pepper

roux:

5 T butter

5 T (1 1/4 C + 1 T) flour

2 C milk

1. Combine potatoes, celery, onion, meat, and water in a stock pot on medium high for 15 - 20 minutes.

2. Reduce to low. Add boullion, salt, and pepper.

3. In a separate pan, melt butter, whisk in flour, and stir constantly for one minute.

4. Slowly whisk in milk, stirring constantly. Continue cooking for 5 - 7 minutes.

5. Pour roux (milk mixture) into the stock pot and stir to combine. Turn up to medium; heat through.

I've made a few changes, but it's because of personal preference (I don't like onions or celery or ham, lol). 

**Instead of ham, I use SPAM. And to get more flavor, I heat the SPAM in a skillet for a few minutes on medium heat, just so get a little browning on the edges.

**Instead of onion, I add a little onion powder.

**Instead of celery, I add about one teaspoon of celery salt. I also back off of the regular salt to make up for it.

Here are a few pictures, in case you're wondering what the general look of the soup is during the process.

   Browning the SPAM

 Potatoes boiling in the stock pot.

   Potatoes, SPAM, and seasonings in the stock pot.

  

Making the roux.

After adding the roux to the stock pot.

Seriously my favorite soup. Also, my oldest daughter's first "solid" food. :D

Bath time!

 

Adelaide had her first bath with Azucena. She enjoyed it MUCH more than Azucena did! She didn't scream or cry, she just kept wriggling down and trying to stick her head into the water (I'm sure not on purpose, since she's only two weeks old!). Azucena loved having someone to play with her in the water and kept splashing water into Adelaide's face. And I love that that we have these matching towels for the girls: they were a gift and made by my old young women's leader.

Photos for a day

For those of you that want to see some pictures of Adelaide, go to bellababyphotography.com and enter 1203adelaideearley . They're only available through tomorrow (I purposely only want folks to have access for a short amount of time) so if you want to see them, head over quickly!

Lights at Temple Square

The Friday after Adelaide was born we took Mom to see the lights at Temple Square. Apparently the last time she'd been was when I was about eight months old and she and Dad took Grandma and Grandpa. The lights were beautiful (it felt like there were at least twice as many as last year!) and we swung into City Creek to see those lights as well. Clark ended up on the radio show "Nightside Project" which was pretty random and hilarious and Azucena loved seeing the lights (yites!) and the temple (demple!).

  

 

Sad Adelaide

Just a couple of pictures of Adelaide and her "sad face"--which is adorable and heart-breaking all at once!

 

The Birth (in pictures)

Here are a few pictures to elaborate on Adelaide's birth story:

Week 39 (November 29)

Just after getting checked into the hospital (can you tell that I haven't slept well the last two nights?)

  

Adelaide, just minutes after being born. Can you see her dimple? She has another one on the other side. :D

 

The three Earley girls                 I love the signs they make in the hospital!

Here's my daughter. You can definitely tell she and Azucena are related. She has Azucena's nose, but her hair is MUCH darker (ethnic hair, for my old roommates that read this), and her cheeks are a different shape (plus she has those dimples!). I'm pretty sure her eyes will go dark, too, because they're a darker baby-grey than Azucena's were. I love the little things I'm learning about Adelaide and the fact that she has a different personality from Azucena already.

Thanks for indulging in my photo dump!

More First Pictures

Adelaide's Birth Story

Our second daughter was born today. We love her so very much!

The medium-ish lengthed story:

I started having contractions Saturday night just before 11 p.m. (Why? Because my body hates sleep.)
They were about 8 minutes apart and lasted until about 8 in the morning

Then they quit. Sort of. I'd have two, up to four, contractions every hour throughout the rest of Sunday. This meant we went to church so I could have choir practice and so we could attend and participate in Sacrament meeting.

Afterward, we headed to Riverton so we could be closer to the hospital and so Azucena could be with her grandparents already should Clark and I need to hustle to get checked in.

But the contractions remained irregular.

We said good night a little after 8, packed up, and headed home for the night so Clark could rest up for work. We hit a really awesome rainstorm (that made us use back roads since the highway was freakin' scary) and started to settle in about nine in the evening.

Since Clark and I had spent most of Saturday night awake/packing the hospital bags that we'd been neglecting, we were pretty tired and were both very grateful that Azucena fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep when we got home. We discussed our options of when it would be good to go to the hospital. I reminded Clark that we had an appointment with my OB/GYN scheduled for the next morning, in about twelve hours. We agreed to do nothing until then. We went to bed and began to sleep.

Then the contractions got pretty icky.

Around one in the morning, I started to wake up every five minutes or so to painful contractions. Really, really painful. They weren't strong enough to take my breath away, but I couldn't move for a good 30 seconds each time they happened.

At 4:30, I gave up and woke Clark up, asking if it would be all right to drive down to the hospital to get their opinion on my condition instead of trying to hold out another five hours for my doctor appointment. Clark was a sweetheart and immediately sat up, got dressed, and packed stuff in the car.

We arrived at the hospital a little after 5:30 and were admitted to a triage room within 15 minutes. Just before 6, the nurse checked my progression, declared me dilated to a 6, with a bag about ready to burst, and told me we'd be having a baby very soon.

Immediately, the cell phone satellite over Utah got really busy. :D

Azucena left the hospital with her grandparents while we got put into a labor and delivery room. 

The nurses were sweet and helpful and one in particular made sure that she put us on the anesthesiologist's list so that we wouldn't have to wait too long for the epidural (there were several c-sections this morning). I'm just going to take a second here to plug for modern medicine: I am SO grateful that I could have that extra medicine to help me handle the last few hours of my pregnancy and the delivery of my baby girl. I have a decent tolerance for pain, but having had contractions for the past 30 hours and about 5 - 6 hours of sleep total the past two nights, I don't think I'd've had the strength to go natural. I'm not saying everyone should do it, but I am saying that I am happy it was an option for me.

8:00 - still a 6+ so my doctor asked that the on-call doctor break my bag. Done.
9:10 - 8 cm
10:15 - 10 cm, called the doctor to come in for the delivery
just past 10:25 - started pushing. During the first contraction, Adelaide lowered. During the second, she crowned. During the third, she came.

10:42 is her official time of birth.

We love her.

You can tell she's Azucena's sister.

She has lovely black hair.

She has the most gorgeous dimples in both cheeks. (The first thing the attending baby nurse said was, "does your other daughter have dimples? Because this one has dimples.")

She's wonderful and beautiful and precious.

We love her.

I can't wait to share a few pictures with you!

Hogle Zoo

We were able to take Azucena to the zoo for the first time! She loves animals so much and we thought it would be a good chance for her to enjoy a morning. We packed up, bundled up, and headed over to Hogle Zoo. She loved seeing the elephants and seals but especially enjoyed the giraffes. We were lucky enough to see lots of baby animals; there were four or five born in the last year.