Season Finales

Tis the season for the season finales of our favorite TV shows. An exciting time to see what happens with your shows, but depressing because you know that television in the next few weeks or months is going to stink!

My first big finale was The Amazing Race on Sunday night. The last 3 teams were the former cheerleaders (Cara and Jamie), the brother and sister who are lawyers (Victor and Tammy) and the mother who has a son who is deaf (Margie and Luke). This season, I really didn't LOVE any one team. Usually there's one I like from the get-go and am rooting for, but not this year. No one really impressed me that much. My only thing was that I did NOT want the cheerleaders to win. They drove me crazy. They were very rude to people (especially cab drivers) and just obnoxious. So I didn't want them to win. In the final episode, it looked like Luke and Margie had it in the bag....until they got to the roadblock where Luke had to remember every country/city they had been and what they did there. He got stuck, really stuck...and frustrated, which in the end, made them come in last place! The winners? Tammy and Victor. Go figure, the ones who roll in the dough with their jobs win the 1 million dollars! But, it wasn't the cheerleaders so I was happy!!

My other season finale for this week was The Biggest Loser that was on last night (for THREE hours! Unreal!). The three finalists were Helen, Tara, and Mike (Mike got voted in on the finale by America's votes). Out of the three, I was rooting for Mike. He's only 18 years old and lost a TON of weight and looked great. I wasn't a huge fan of Tara-yes, she had "girl power" and all that, but to be honest, I got sick of her winning stuff so I didn't really want her to win the big prize in the end either. I thought someone else should have the chance to win something. They brought back all of the players that were voted off for the at-home prize. The winner there was Jerry, the 64 year old guy. He lost 54% of his original weight! They all looked great though. So who ended up being the Biggest Loser? Helen! I was shocked-Mike lost by only 4lbs! I was a little bummed, but glad that Tara didn't "take it all".

Happy Mother's Day!

My Mom came in from Buffalo last night-we had my in-laws over for dinner and made some yummy steaks! Mom stayed overnight so we could all go to brunch today to celebrate Mother's Day.

Gabe's family typically does brunch every Mother's Day. The past few years we've gone to Shadow Lake which was nice. This year when his Dad called for reservations, they were all booked! So we ended up going to the Hyatt instead. And boy, was it nice!! I thought the selection of food and quality of food was much better than Shadow Lake.

This is how the room was set up (the tables all had pink napkins with a nice begonia in the center of the table):


This was an ice sculpture they had along the buffet:


They had so much food there! They had a really nice salad station with dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, candied walnuts, goat cheese, etc. along with a bunch of pasta salads. They had a decent display of fruits. For hot items they had scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, breakfast potatoes, cheese blintzes (SO GOOD!), cheese tortollini in pesto sauce, several seafood dishes and chicken in sherry sauce. They also had an omelet station which I didn't even go to. They had a waffle station with all sorts of toppings (maple syrup, strawberries, strawberry sauce, whipped cream, walnuts) and tons of pastries and bagels with flavored butters (chocolate, orange, etc.). They had a carving station with prime rib and turkey with all the fixins-stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn bread, gravy.

Then there was dessert-holy cow! I could have eaten just that and been full! They had all sorts of mini desserts like cannolis, cream puffs, profiterols, cookies, mini pies. I had something I wish I took a picture of. It was a cup made out of chocolate that was brown, pink and white. It was filled with chocolate mousse and shaved chocolate and had fruit on the plate around it. Very good and very pretty. I didn't think of taking a photo of it! The best part?! An ice cream buffet! Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry ice creams with tons of toppings-caramel or chocolate sauce, crushed oreos, heath bars, M&M's, butterfinger, sprinkles, whipped cream and warmed nuts....so yummy!

Needless to say, we were all sick by the time we left from eating so much! You just want to try everything but your stomach just can't hold all of that food (especially mine with a baby pushing on it!). I think the Hyatt was a winner and we'll definitely go back! I also should mention they had a children's room with kid friendly foods and a clown there making balloon animals and doing face painting. It was very cute! And each Mother got a pretty pink rose as well. I felt a little funny celebrating since baby's not in my arms yet, but everyone was wishing me a happy Mother's Day anyways!!

Here's my Mom and I:


Our niece Bianca (I have no clue why it turned out sideways-it's facing the right way on my computer, but uploaded it gets rotated? Odd):


Molly, Camille, and Gabe:


Happy Mother's Day to all of you Moms out there! Enjoy!

33 Weeks

Today I'm 33 weeks along-only 7 more to go! Overall I'm feeling pretty well. My back has started to bother me more recently. If I stand for 5-10 minutes it gets uncomfortable and I need to sit down. I'm also getting out of breath pretty easily-it's kind of humorous at times. Who would think one flight of stairs would make you winded?! I've been sleeping ok-have had a few nights here and there where I'm up for a few hours in the middle of the night and can't sleep. I've been getting hot while I sleep too-kicking covers off, ceiling fan on, etc. Comfortwise, I've been ok sleeping so that's good. I go to the doctors on Monday so we'll see how things go!

Childbirth Class #4

Tonight was our 4th and final childbirthing class. We started with a tour of the labor and delivery area of the hospital-we got to see the birthing rooms and the postpartum rooms. They are all a decent size and look the same really. The one really nice thing is that they are all private rooms! That makes me happy! I know some hospitals have some private rooms and some shared rooms, which, let's be honest, would not be fun. So I'm very happy that they are all private and we'll be all alone taking care of the baby.

After the tour, the last class focused on things after birth-the apgar score, what they do with the baby right after it's born, and what newborns look like the first few days. They went a little into after care-breastfeeding, how they sleep, how to soothe them, etc. It wasn't too bad.

So we are officially done with our classes now! Did we learn anything? I'd say for me it was a refresher-most of the stuff I had already known from reading some books and having friends go through all of this already. For Gabe, it might have been a little more eye opening since it's not them pushing the baby out and carrying it for 10 months! We'll see how helpful it is when it's show time!

Egg Salad Junkie

Lately, I've been really into egg salad. I don't know why, but whenever I think of it recently, it sounds SO yummy! Now as a kid, anything with mayo did NOT appeal to me-egg salad, chicken salad, etc. Luckily I grew out of that phase and can eat those things now. I usually prefer chicken salad over egg salad, but I think to make it yourself, egg salad is much easier. The past few weeks whenever I need a hard boiled egg for something, I make extras so I can make egg salad for my lunch. And it is very, very good! I don't have a set recipe per se-I have my standard things I put in, but I've never measured it out.

Here's what I use:

-hard boiled eggs (I usually do 3 of them or so-enough for 2 sandwiches or so I'm guessing)
-Mayo (not a lot-I don't like to be overwhelmed by the taste of mayo-I maybe put in 1-2 tablespoons-enough to coat the egg mixture)
-pickles cut into very small pieces-either dill or bread and butter ones
-salt and pepper to taste
-a small squirt of mustard (a condiment I can't stand on its own)
-a pinch of paprika

That's it-mix it all up and slap it on some bread-YUMMY!! Guess what I'm having for lunch tomorrow?!

Welcome Baby Noah!

Yesterday, my girlfriend Megan and her husband Todd welcomed their son, Noah Matthew! He was born at 5:55am and weighed in at 7lbs. 13oz and 21" long. The poor thing went through quite the process to have him. She was due April 25th and went in Thursday night to get induced. Friday around 5pm she was still only 1cm dilated so they gave her an option-go home and come back next week to try again, or go through the induction again Friday night. As she was deciding what to do, her water broke! So her decision was made for her. They gave her more inducing drugs Friday overnight and still being at only 1cm, they gave her an epidural. She finally was fully dilated and pushed for an hour only to have the baby get stuck on her pelvic bones! So she ended up having a c-section Saturday morning. So in 2 nights she had about 2 hours of sleep total. She had to be exhausted! Gabe and I stopped up to see them in the hospital and everyone was doing well! Little Noah is a cutie and we can't wait for our baby to meet him!!

This is me holding Noah:




Close up of Noah:




Megan, Todd and Noah:

Taylor's First Communion

Today my cousin Taylor made her First Communion. Gabe and I went to Buffalo Friday night and stayed over. The Communion was early Saturday morning at St. Christopher's Church with a brunch following at the Holiday Inn on Grand Island. The service was very nice and Taylor looked so cute! She wore the same dress that she wore in our wedding as our flower girl and it still fits her perfectly! The brunch was very good-it was a breakfast buffet, which is one of my favorites!

Here is her cake:


The cake table:


Taylor and her cake:




Rachel, Eddie, Taylor and Eddie: