Meet Chester

Speaking of new additions to our family, I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our household. You can call him... "Chester."

I've wanted "Chester" the chest freezer for a really long time, and when the reality of adding a new person to our household began to set in, I think Dave began to realize the need for a chest freezer too! In our kitchen, we only have a side-by-side fridge/freezer...which means our freezer space is pretty limited...tall and narrow. While we've always managed to fit everything in there, I dreaded coming home from the grocery with bags full of frozen foods and trying to make space for it all...I felt like I was playing Tetris!

The most frustrating part of having only a side-by-side was that I couldn't take advantage of sales at the grocery store. I'm not a huge bargain shopper, but I do get a small thrill when I save money. It would physically pain me to pass up the "buy one, get one free" sales on bags of frozen staples like chicken or tilapia, simply because we didn't have freezer space for it. I even bought "Chester" himself for a bargain! We paid for about half of it using our debit reward points, so we got it for almost nothing. (Cha-ching!!) Chester's photo is a little old...he's already filling up with the bounty of my bargain shopping!

I'm also ambitiously planning on (deep breath) making all of our own baby food for the little guy. The Gerber stuff is just way too expensive, and I have no excuse NOT to make our own, because one of my best friends and I went in together and bought this fancy schmancy Baby Beaba
(http://www.beabausa.com/product-babycook.cfm) baby food maker that does all the hard work for you (steamer, blender, warmer and defroster all in one!). It was a bit of investmnent, but I know it will save us money in the long run. So I need a place to freeze and store all that baby food!

Ok, I've talked way too long about my new chest freezer.

I've been a bit sluggish in my blogging lately...it's just so beautiful outside that we're always playing in the fresh air or running off to the playground, so here's a couple small updates.

Here's Andra getting her first haircut! Don't worry, you can hardly tell. It was getting a little straggly in back, so she needed a trim. I must've scared the hairdresser with my emotional pleas of "don't take too much off," because you can't even tell she got a cut. :) (I'm sure it's coincidence, but doesn't the stylist's face look like "oh my gosh, this crazy mom is gonna go psycho on me if i cut off too much!")

We also spent one lovely spring morning at a baseball game. Andra had a blast and lasted WAY longer than last season, when she got bored and wanted to go home after about 20 minutes (immediately after polishing off her chocolate malt). We made it all the way to the 5th innning, and left only because I still wanted her to catch her afternoon nap. We had a picnic, ice cream and lots of giggles. It was a great mommy & me outing.

The Mini is this weekend...Dave's running and going for his best time ever. I'll be going for by best time ever too...because I'm only walking the 5K (being pregnant is the best excuse ever not to run the 13 miles)! My dad's also walking/running it too. It's his second year, so he's apparently been bitten by the bug as well. The Mini's addictive. Photos to come, no doubt!