Greek Quinoa Salad

We've had lots of visitors lately (thanks to Lincoln!) With visitors brings a reason for lots of good food. Between my mom and Joe's mom I've added a couple excellent recipes to my stash. One of the recipes we tried was found on the quinoa package and we thought it was worth a try. It was one of those recipes where you read through the list of ingredients and already know you'll love it. It's very different than most meals Joe and I make, but we both thought it was a keeper. This is the perfect meal to make and for each of us to bring for lunch during work. On a side note, quinoa is gluten and wheat free, plus is a good source of protein. Bonus!

Greek Quinoa Salad
Adapted from Vigo package (similar to this)

Ingredients
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 cup calamata olives
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Cook quinoa as directed on package. Set aside and let cool completely. Combine quinoa with all other ingredients. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Memorial Day Hunk

Every holiday this year is a first in our household. Today is this little hunk's first Memorial Day. This past weekend was his first time meeting a few uncles. It was an action packed weekend for our little warrior. Thank you to all that have and are serving our country. We appreciate you!

App Appreciation: MammaBaby

There are plenty of apps out there for use during pregnancy and such. I downloaded many during my pregnancy and stuck with just a couple. One was the very popular What To Expect When Expecting. Others were not as useful or helpful. All that I downloaded were free so I never had to worry about giving it a try and deleting it if I didn't like it. Now that my pregnancy is over I searched for a different type of app to use. The one I found and liked the most was MammaBaby. Indeed I liked it so much I ended up purchasing the full version (after my week trial was up) for $3.99. For me, that's saying something!

 

The app is very helpful for keeping track of Lincoln's feedings. Sometimes my memory is a bit short (does pregnancy brain carry over to having a newborn??) and I can't tell you when was the last time he ate. Sometime it's 2:00 AM and my brain was still sleeping. MammaBaby helps me with this! I love the fact that I can track how long he ate, when was the last time he did eat and which side he fed on.

Yes this app has many other features like keeping track of his sleep and dirty diapers, but I didn't find that worth my time of logging. It even has a feature to help log when he has his bottle feedings. We'll see if we use this app when he begins on solid food, but for now I've really enjoyed having this at my side.

Grandparents Are Great

Lincoln has gotten the opportunity to meet all of his grandparents now. He absolutely loved having them all around. That meant extra arms to hold him, extra lips to kiss him and extra hands for some dirty diaper changes. Lincoln is so lucky to have these amazing grandparents.

Funny enough he met them both in familiar fashion. Of course as soon as his grandmas came through the door they had to get him in their hands. After a few minutes of being in awe they all settled down and I snapped these similar pictures.

We made sure to take some good pictures of Lincoln with his grandparents while they're here in Charlotte.  There were lots of naps taken and walks around the neighborhood. Lincoln kept his grandparents busy while visiting and they all had a blast.

Our parents were promoted to grandparents. Again, grandparents are great!

Photo Friday #65

You didn't really think this blog would be ALL about Lincoln, now would you?? I will admit most of it has been and will be for a while, but who would complain about that anyways? Well this photo Friday is about my brother and sister-in-law. They completed their first marathon last weekend in Delaware and I was so excited for them accomplishing this task that I had to share. You can tell by their smiles that they're happy for achieving their goal... and probably for being done. Good work Scott and Amy!

Lincoln Is One Month!

Before Lincoln joined us I had been thinking and debating about how I wanted to capture his growth. Just like the pictures we took of my growing belly, I wanted a fun way to show his transformation too. I have seen many cool ideas online and couldn't quite come up with the perfect way. Instead of choosing just one I decided to go two different routes.

The first idea comes from Young House Love. They took pictures of their daughter weekly (instead of our monthly pictures). What can I say, I'm not going to be home with Lincoln forever and I know taking pictures weekly would get out of hand for our busy schedule. I'm perfectly fine with documenting this on a monthly basis. Here are the instructions I followed to get this look. Lucky for me I have Photoshop, unlucky for me I'm still a beginner. I worked pretty hard to get this picture the way I wanted it, but finally I think I achieved it... hopefully each month going forward will be much easier!

The other idea I got from Pinterest. It was a simple idea on this blog that I thought we could easily copy. I had registered for the bath letters and numbers and received them at the baby shower (which seems like forever ago!) Instead of just showing Lincoln's head I wanted to show his entire body. I think the most change we've seen on him is in his legs. Those rolls have popped up thanks to his eager appetite. How could I not show them in the picture?! He also was fresh off a bath so Joe and I decided to keep him in just the diaper. I haven't decided if we'll keep this uniform each month, but why not??

 

From here I plan taking Lincoln's picture each month to document his growth. It's fun for us to see the changes in this little guy, but I'm sure lots of you out there will enjoy it as well.

My First Mother's Day

Lincoln (and Joe) really know how to spoil this mom on her first Mother's Day. Truly it was such a great day because we spent it all together, but there were other reasons why it was so great. It started with Dunkin Donuts breakfast (in bed) and ended with sushi take out for dinner (haven't had sushi in over nine months and I think that was the one thing I truly missed eating while being pregnant... although I will say the urge to have a cold beer has hit now that the temps have risen). Here are a few pictures of our day...

After breakfast we started out with a family walk. We had to get it in during the morning hours, temps here in the south have been rising and we've had some warm days.

Then Lincoln got a bath. He's starting to actually like his baths! Well, maybe I should say he's beginning to not hate his baths. Maybe that's a better way to put it. This was the first one we've given him where he has screamed bloody murder. Either he's getting used to the idea or we're getting better at this bath thing. All parents have to learn, right?

We spent some time together on the floor. Lincoln has been working on his neck muscles and strengthening them. We like to do some tummy time with him when possible. He's going to be one strong boy!!

Those cheeks are plumping up nicely! Oh and those eyes... I'm so curious to know what eye color they will become and stay. Any guesses? Do you think this dark hazy blue color will stick? Or will he follow his mom and have hazel eyes. Maybe he'll take the more traditional route and have brown like his dad? So many people have told me he looks so much like Joe. Is it too much to ask that he has his mother's eye color??

Lincoln was fed for the first time via bottle. My lactation consultant told me to start pumping about a week ago and to start introducing a bottle to him this week. Slowly we've started to give him a bottle once a day. He took it down like a champ and daddy enjoyed being able to feed him for the first time too. Introducing the bottle now will help tremendously when he starts going to daycare. We have to make sure he can learn to survive without mommy (tear!)

And at the end of the day the little man was pooped. Actually he slept a lot of the day (of course after his bath and tummy time... I think we wore him out). He didn't end up sleeping like this, we did swaddle him. I just liked how he looked so small in his pack and play so I snapped the picture quick.

Joe and Lincoln made my first Mother's Day a very special one. Thank you to everyone else who was thinking of me and wished me a happy one. I'm one special lady!

Life Sized Birth Announcement

We sent out birth announcements about a week ago. I was so excited to pick out the card on Shutterfly, but of course I had to wait until little Lincoln got here. Since we didn't know if we were having a boy or girl I needed to know that tiny detail before picking out the card. We had a discount at Shutterfly so that was the easy reason we chose to purchase the cards from that site. Otherwise I have always liked the card selection on Shutterfly so I was not disappointed.

When we got the cards in the mail we immediately noticed one funny thing... Lincoln's picture on the card was basically life sized. To prove it, we took this picture comparing the card with the real deal. How funny is this?!

My Body Transformation

The body is an amazing thing. First of all to grow a human being inside of you is incredible, but to watch (and feel) this process first hand, it's hard to describe.

Joe and I had fun documenting my growing belly over the past nine months. I am so glad we did this, even if it wasn't professional by any means. The one thing I wish could have been different was the lighting. We don't have any fancy lighting equipment and our work schedule meant most of the time we were taking these pictures after the sun had gone down. Luckily Joe was all for the documentation and helped take my picture every week. Well, I think we missed one or two weeks in there (after we started at 12 weeks along) which I'd say is pretty good.

I was looking back at these pictures the other day and thought it would be fun to share the growth once again. Here are a few of the weekly pictures.

 

And a back to back full transformation...