Last night's dinner: Loaded baked potato soup

I'm not the cook in the Hannigan household; that's no secret. Lately, though, I've been itching to get in the kitchen, and not just to raid the pantry and eat peanut butter out of the jar. I don't know if it's my maternal instincts kicking in, but I've been pinning lots of dinner ideas on Pinterest.

At the top of my "to eat" list was this loaded baked potato soup made in the crockpot. With my Tuesday night classes, dinner is a bit of a balancing act. Sometimes Scott will eat then make something for me when I get home, sometimes he'll wait, and sometimes it's a "grab whatever you can out of the fridge and make due" kind of night. I decided that this soup would be a good Tuesday night dish because Scott could eat it when he got home, I could eat it later, and it would still be warm and ready either way. Plus we have leftovers for Wednesday night before church.

Plus it incorporated my favorite kitchen tool: the crockpot. I love the crockpot. You dump all the ingredients inside that morning, turn it on and go. It's like fairies are making your dinner while you're at work.

This soup is perfect for those who are fans of O'Charley's version. We topped ours with cheese, ham (we didn't have bacon bits), and sour cream. I ate two bowls without shame. I knew I'd done well when Scott said, "Wow, honey, this is really good." It's a keeper!

Here's the recipe if you're interested!

Ingredients:
1 30oz. bag of frozen, shredded hash browns (I used Ore Ida)
3 14oz. cans of chicken broth
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/4 tsp. ground pepper
1 pkg. cream cheese (This can't be fat free. It won't melt.)

Combine everything except the cream cheese in the pot. Cook for 6-8 hours on low heat (I did 10 because of timing, and it was just as good). An hour before you're ready to serve, add the cream cheese and maintain heat until completely melted. Serve with whatever baked potato fixings you'd like.

(Recipe source here.)

It's a ....

BOY!!

Here is our precious baby boy! Have you ever seen anything cuter in your life? I know I haven't.

We found out Monday that our sweet little one is a boy, and we're thrilled! Everyone in our families (except for Scott and his grandmother) thought it was going to be a girl. The only word I think accurately describes how I felt when the ultrasound nurse told us it was a boy is flabbergasted. I was completely shocked in the very best way. I would let out a crazy laugh every now and then. While I never had specific leaning one way or another, I always thought it would be a girl but was thinking boy closer to time. I'm just so eager to meet our son!

I was amazed at how much our little peanut had grown from the last time we saw him. He was only 2.5 centimeters total at nine weeks, and now his little calf bone is that long. He's got the cutest froggy legs. He's a whopping 6 ounces! During the ultrasound, he even waved at us with his little pointer finger, his fist up by his mouth. And look at that little foot! Even as tiny as he is, he's got toenails on that foot. Our God is amazing!

Now knowing that he is a he, I can't wait for him to get here. I find myself unable to go to sleep, just laying there thinking about once he's here, tickling that foot and kissing his cheeks. April needs to hurry up!

Now we get to start preparing for the dapper gentleman nursery!

Week 17 and the great gender debate

Today is the day — the day every woman counts down to after she finds out she's pregnant. This afternoon we find out if our little one is a he or a she, no longer relegated to the awful "it" pronoun. I'm so excited!

According to the poll, it's all tied up — 25 think it's a boy, while 25 think it's a girl. The Chinese gender calendar says girl, the unscientific picking of a color-coded Hershey's kiss at Bible study said girl, and the pencil test Scott and I partook in during Intersession 2006 says girl.

"What is the pencil test?" you might ask. Well, let me enlighten you. Take a good old pencil, not these fancy mechanical kinds, and stick a threaded needle into the eraser. Now you have a swinging pencil pendulum. When placed over the wrist of a man or woman, the pencil takes on a mind of its own and begins to move in a circular motion. Hang tight, because some fortune telling is about to commence. This first circle is baby number one. Then the pencil, on its own accord, breaks free from the circle, and makes one of two lines — an up and down (toward the person and over the hand) or a side-to-side (across the wrist). Up and down is boy; side to side, girl. The pencil will continue this pattern of circles and lines until the number and sex of each of your children is predicted. It will then eerily stop, completely still.

Scott and I, still a young dating couple at the time, each took this pencil test at a cookout during Intersession. We each got the same result: one girl. (It always bodes well when the object of your affection matches up in children number.) Since then, I've always kind of expected that to be the case.

So, at 3:30 p.m., we'll see if the pencil is right or not! Then the clothes shopping can commence!

Thankful Thursday

Tuesday nights, I usually get home around 7:15 because of my hour-and-a-half long school law class after work. I'm pretty worn out at the end of those days and definitely hungry for dinner (I'm an early bird 5:30 eater). When I walked in the house this past Tuesday, my sweet husband had dinner cooked and ready to go and had cleaned the bathtub, vacuumed the house, and washed and dried two loads of clothes — even though he had had a rough day at work. I am incredibly thankful to have such a caring man to make the night I dread the most that much easier. He definitely wins the award for best husband in my book.

In addition to Scott, I'm thankful that Thanksgiving is next week, and Scott and I are taking the week off. A week of no alarm clocks, no school (although I have a project I have to complete), no responsibilities other than wearing pjs all day and eating turkey sounds positively heavenly. The glass-half-full look at being pregnant during the holidays is that you can get seconds and thirds (maybe fourths), and no one will think ill of you. The half-empty approach, though, is that by the end of these nine months, I might look like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. I choose to be an optimist, though.

I always think of the song "Count Your Blessings" when I write these, and it's wonderful to be reminded that I have far too many blessing to count. And that is a blessing all by itself.

Marcel the Shell returns!

Usually people dread Mondays (OK, people and Garfield), but for me it's Tuesdays. In addition to work, I have two classes on Tuesdays, making for a non-stop day of blah. But today, on this rainy Tuesday, there's something sure to lift my spirits — the return of Marcel the Shell with shoes on!



(Click here to see the first Marcel.)

One last Razorback weekend

This weekend was our last Arkansas football game of the season. It was bittersweet for a number of reasons: one because it is also our last as season ticket holders (babies have to have tickets, too, and we think it's silly to pay for a seat for someone who won't even be able to sit up) and because Arkansas played my original home team, Tennessee.

Much like our baby's first piece of clothing was an Arkansas onesie, mine was a Tennessee shirt. Before I learned to talk and eventually shout "Go big orange," when asked "What's Tennessee?" I would hold up my chubby little pointer finger for "number one!" Needless to say, I got a couple of text messages from my family on Saturday asking who I was rooting for. I cheered for both, though, but I knew things weren't looking good for Tennessee.

Sunday before we left, we went and walked around campus to see the changing leaves and the University of Arkansas' major landmark, Old Main. It served as a hospital during the Civil War, but I like it because it's pretty.

The peaks of Old Main

Scott and I pose in front of Old Main.

Left: U of A chisels all of its grads names into the sidewalks around campus. These are the first years leading up to Old Main. Right: A breezeway leading up to the library's entrance.

We've had a great time each fall going to the Razorback games and enjoying Fayetteville, but we're looking forward to next year, curled up on the couch with our little one, trying to get his or her little fingers wiggling to call the hogs. Soon enough we'll be toting him or her up there to see it all firsthand. There's a lot to look forward to!

Thankful Thursday

Mackenzie, a student worker in my office, took this lovely picture on campus. Who doesn't love fall colors?

This week, I'm thankful for the changing leaves. I was driving last night under a canopy of color on the curvy road home, and I thought, "This looks like a car commercial," which is to say it was quite picturesque and could probably sell you a Lexus.

I'm also thankful for feeling the first little baby pops in my stomach last night. It felt like Pop Rocks or popcorn poking around in there. I like to think my little baby is trying to tell its first knock-knock joke, only it can't get past the knock-knocking on my stomach part. That's OK. There's plenty of time to learn the rest.

In our impatience, we've moved the ultrasound up one week so we can stop calling our baby "it." So I'm thankful that a week from Monday we'll know if our little one is a boy or a girl! (The votes in the right side bar are all tied up right now!)

Lastly, I'm thankful that I'm taking the day off tomorrow, making today my Friday! I hate for Scott to have those banking holidays off all by himself. We've got one last Fayetteville road trip this season, and we've decided to make the most of it!

What are you thankful for this week?

Fayetteville looks gorgeous during the fall as well. I love Old Main in the background. 

Week 15 and the cry baby

My red pre-pregnancy skirt's last hoorah. 

So, it's been a little while since I last did one of these. But now that I have a replacement camera charger, I hope there will be no more shenanigans from my camera for the duration of this pregnancy. Otherwise, it might meet its fate against a brick wall.

Anyway, between the last post and this one, I've entered the second trimester. I'm hoping there's less narcolepsy and nausea now. There's one thing that I know won't be going away soon, and that's my constant crying.

I've always been a crier. In happiness, sadness, tiredness, excitement, and sickness, weeping has always been what I lean on to convey my feelings. Needless to say, pregnancy has exponentially increased the number of my tears.

The best (and also most embarrassing) was in my Writing Non-Fiction class when I got choked up during a peer critiquing session. My classmate had written about the death of her uncle in such a moving way that it had caused me to cry while reading it, and then cry while talking about it in class. And then, to top it all off, I made her cry.

Add that to the growing list of other tear-jerking moments I've experienced, like "The X-Factor" auditions; an ESPN special on high school football in tornado ravaged Joplin, Mo.; the "Branden's Proposal" YouTube video (It's ridiculously sweet. Go watch it. Ignore the choreography at the end, though); Project Runway; anything and everything with a child on it; editing the deaths section for the magazine; a story about Kate Middleton visiting children with cancer; and the fervent, silent shaking of pompoms at the Ole Miss game. These are just some of the things that have me sniffling on the sofa. I think Scott has taken it as his personal mission to seek out things that will make me cry just to see what my limit is.

I'll take crying over heartburn any day, though.

Thankful Thursday

It's November, and before you know it Thanksgiving will be here, and we'll all be passed out in a turkey coma on our relatives couches. But before it's lights out and pass the gravy, I thought I'd record all the many blessings I have to be thankful for each Thursday leading up to Thanksgiving.

Today I'm thankful that God made Scott and I have different personalities, so that when he's fretting over something small, I can help him relax and see the big picture, and when I need a little motivational push, he's there to help me out.

I'm thankful for a healthy, growing baby as well as the fact there's a Taco Bell downstairs from my office for when burrito cravings strike — like today.

And I'm thankful for cold evenings with nothing to do other than curl up on the couch with Scott and some hot chocolate and watch TV.

What are you thankful for?

What's in a name?

I went to the doctor yesterday for a baby check up. Hearing my little one's heartbeat never gets old, but my main excitement in going to this appointment was getting to set the next one, which is our second ultrasound and gender reveal time!

My doctor asked if we were going to find out, and without hesitation I said yes. I mean, back in the day, Courtney and I would tell what Mom and Dad were getting the other for Christmas. We couldn't stand not knowing. (Incidentally, when Scott and I got married I was shocked that he wouldn't participate in this game and insisted on keeping gifts secret until Christmas day. Some people...) So of course, between my hatred of secrets and Scott's type A personality, we'll hopefully find out on Nov. 29.

Now that the day is set, though, I'm feeling the crunch of figuring out the name situation for boy and girl. How do you even go about giving a kid a name? I mean, so what if Scott and I like it; our child is the one who will have to answer to it, learn to spell it, bubble it in on a Scantron, and so much more. It's a daunting task.

While we have our front runners, there's still a little indecision lurking there. It's a pretty permanent thing.

For those who have named a child, how did you go about it? Did both of you love the name equally going about it, or was it ultimately decided in a grand rock/paper/scissors battle? Let me know in the comments!

P.S. You now have 27 days to cast your vote in the right sidebar as to what you think Baby Hannigan's gender is. Get to it!