Yorno Dean

I always knew that McYorno was quite the gourmet chef; you know, like Paula Dean. She always made the best plain boiled spaghetti noodles for dinner in college. So it was no surprise when so many of you asked for her Spinach Tortellini soup recipe. haha.  In all seriousness, this soup is quite delicious. Jason and I eat it all the time; I make it at least once a month from October to February and it lasts us a good week.  I have even brought it to church potlucks a few times and it always gets eaten up. It's just that it's SO easy... not really much cooking to it - just dumping.

Who is Yorno, you ask? Well, she's one of my very best friends from college, Elizabeth Yorn McDonald. We lived together for 3 years... but let's be honest, Liz. You pretty much lived in our room freshman year too. Why I do I call her McYorno, you ask?  Well, one time freshman year when we were hanging out with Bo Rhinehart (yes, that would be Bo Rhinehart of NeedToBreathe... we used to hang out back in the day... before he became all famous and everything), Bo said "Hey. What if instead of of Liz, your name was Diz, and instead of Yorn, your last name was Yorno. Then you'd be Diz Yorno." (get it... like DiGiorno)  Bo also got REALLY mad when he found out Liz wasn't ACTUALLY related to Pete Yorn like she had led him to believe, but that's another story.  Anyway... later on Liz got married and became Liz McDonald, but Yorno had become such a part of her that all we can do now is call her McYorno.

 And because no blog post in complete without pictures, here are all my BEST* pictures of Yorno :-)

And here is the woman who made her Yorno, and the man who made her MCyorno.

And because she only USUALLY has crimped hair and makes goofy faces, but not always, here is a picture of Yorno smiling normally and looking quite beautiful :-)

Anyway, I just figured I couldn't give you the Spinach Tortellini soup recipe without paying tribute to the one who gave it to me. So without further ado, here is the recipe with Yorno's original directions and then what I actually do in case you are interested. enjoy!

*I did, in fact, get permission to post embarrassing pictures of my good friend before I did it :-)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 bunch fresh spinach (washed, drained & chopped) or 1 box frozen spinach *I use frozen and just drop the whole thing in and let it thaw in the broth as it's all heating up
• 1 bag frozen cheese tortellini
• 2 large cans chicken broth *I use bullion cubes and I don't know how much is in 2 large cans so I just do 4-6 cups of broth (I think I used to just do 4 cups but I noticed when I reheated it there didn't seem to be enough broth so now I add more)
• 3 cans diced/stewed tomatoes
• 1 lb mushrooms (cleaned and cut) *I don't like mushrooms so I leave this part out
• Ground pepper, basil, oregano or italian season to taste
• Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS

• Mix broth, tomatoes, spinach & seasonings - bring to a boil
• Simmer with lid ajar for aprox 1.5hr *I am lazy and never think about making dinner that far in advance. I usually let it simmer for like 20 min and it still tastes delish.
• Add tortellini & mushrooms, bring to boil, and let simmer for 15 min.
• Top with parmesan cheese! *this is a must! it's oh-so-good with the cheese on top!

Such a pretty 4 month old

Here's what we found out at Adelaide's appointment today:

Height - 23.25 in long (40th percentile)
Weight - 11 lbs 11 oz (10th percentile... I was REALLY hoping she would be at least 12lbs today. oh well)
I think her head was like 16 cm. I don't know what percentile. I never pay attention to that (to Hunter's dismay... sorry Hunter. You can just count on her being a genius no matter how big her head is).

Otherwise, nothing really to report! The doctor is not really worried about her weight anymore b/c at least she is gaining, and neither Jason nor I are on the particularly big side (understatement of the year?). She is right on track developmentally - in fact they asked me if she was rolling over at least one way and I proudly told them that she could roll over BOTH ways :-) oooh, the things that excite me these days. My sister told me today that I better get all that rolling on video and post it on the blog because when she's walking, no one's gonna care about her rolling over. So I will work on that.  As far as naps, the dr. said to just go in and comfort her at 20 minute intervals, which is pretty much what I was doing anyway. He said he wouldn't really worry about her totally sleeping through the night or going down without crying until she is 6 months old.

After her appointment, Adelaide and I went out on errands together. She smiled at me A LOT and people told me how cute she is everywhere I went. In fact, I was ordering something at Bed Beth and Beyond and I assumed that since they didn't have what I wanted in their store they would ship it to me for free. When I found out there wasn't free shipping I told them to cancel my order and that I would just go to another BBB (which is over an hour away from where I was). So the lady told me to hold on a second and then came back and said "I didn't want you to have to drive all that way with your little one, so my manager approved me to wave your shipping fees." So I owe Adelaide a big thank you for being so cute and getting my shipping fees waved for me today :-)

Here are a few pictures from AFTER her bath the other night.

It is also Valentines Day. I got Jason a guitar stand and he got me a pair of boots that I brought home from DSW a couple weeks ago :-) Tonight we're eating spinach tortellini soup (thanks McYorno, for the recipe... it's a staple) and grilled cheese sandwiches. We are quite romantic, as you can tell. 

Relocated and napping advice

Hello friends! I don't even know when I posted last or what I talked about. So here is a quick update and there will be more to come soon.

First of all... WE MOVED! We only moved like 1.5 miles down the road. But we have bought are buying a house and we moved into it two weeks ago.  This has been a loooong time coming. Jason was literally on the phone with the realtor negotiating prices while I was in labor on October 12 (hey, we're all just waiting around... I figured why not?). They accepted our offer and the realtor came over with the contract for us to sign THE DAY I came home from the hospital.  So we have been under contract since Oct. 15 or so and it has taken forever to get it finalized. The seller is a gov't employee who has gone through the HAP (Housing Assistance Program), which basically means that the sale functions like a short sale, but it's through the gov't instead of the bank. That also means that 1.) it takes AGES to get anything to go through and approved and 2.) we got an AMAZING deal on this house.  We paid $130,000 LESS than the seller paid for it. So we got a seriously great deal.  Anyway, we were supposed to close on Jan. 1... then Jan 20... then Jan 28... then Feb 10. Well, by the time they moved it to Feb. 10, we had already told our landlord at our old place that we would be out by Jan. 31 and she had someone moving in at the beginning of Feb!  SO, they let us sign a pre-occupancy agreement. We moved in 2 weekends ago and we are FINALLY closing this Wed (Feb. 16 for those of you keeping track).

without further ado... here she is!

More pictures to come later!

And now for the one that everyone is really interested in... Adelaide is doing great. She can now roll over in BOTH directions (stomach to back and back to stomach) so the last two days she has kept me on my toes more than usual! She no longer stays in one place when I lay her on the floor. She is pretty much all grown out of her 0-3 month clothes, which is crazy to me! Her 4 month appt is on Monday so I will have more stats and info then! Here are some pictures from bath time tonight...

Okay, so, I have been having quite the difficult time with her naps lately. I used to get at least 1 but usually 2 GOOD naps out of her every day. Like 2 hours or so. Lately she only seems to be napping for like 30 minutes at a time, which is definitely definitely not enough. She wakes up and thinks she's slept for like 2 hours and is happy for about 20 minutes before she gets cranky again.  I've tried to just roll her back over and get her to go back to sleep. I've tried to let her cry til she falls asleep and she has cried for 45 minutes and not fallen asleep. I really really want her to learn to soothe herself, but she does not seem to get it.  I don't want to go pick her up every time she cries, but I also don't know if she's too young to let her cry for an hour. It could have something to do with moving and putting her in her own room in a crib - lots of adjustment. But now it's been 2 weeks and it hasn't really gotten better.  She still sleeps well at night, but nap times have just been painful. Any advice??

okay, more posts this week - about house and baby! stay tuned :-)