The Arrival

The next nine days were no picnic, and I met women on the antepartum floor who had been there for months. God Bless them. My days started around 6 AM with one of two awesome residents coming in to see how my night was, and if I was contracting, having headaches (hello I am the headache queen), bleeding or leaking fluid. I later joked with one of my nurses that if I was having any of those symptoms wouldn’t I call someone?! She told me I would be surprised how many don’t say anything. I would try to go back to sleep and next thing I’d know it would be 8 AM and here came breakfast. I quickly learned later not even to attempt to go back to sleep after 8 AM because soon after that I’d have my day nurse come in and do vitals and listen to the baby, then my doctor would come in and check on me, and then sometime between 9 and 11 AM I would be put on the monitor. The monitor likes to beep when it’s not plugged in and so when they move it from room to room, it beeps LOUDLY. And if the lady next door to me got put on the monitor before me then it would be a good hour before it would be my turn because her little one did not like to cooperate. The monitor is looking for contractions and if the baby is in distress, and the doctors wanted to see two accelerations of the baby’s heartbeat on the monitor in a 20 minute time period. In the mornings, Lil Bit would snooze and so I’d have to wake her up by eating or drinking something, but in the evenings when it was time to monitor again, she was wide awake. Depending on the day, I’d also have an ultrasound. After 12 PM vitals and lunch, the afternoons were pretty quiet and so I’d try to rest or cross stitch. The techs and nurses were great the whole time as they’d quietly sneak in and see if I needed anything as I wasn’t allowed to walk down to the family room to get ice or even walk around the floor. Late afternoon vitals would come and go, dinner, then shift change at 8 PM, as well as getting put on the monitor. One of my gripes the was my room was small, while the L&D and postpartum rooms were three times the size of where I was, and if someone is stuck on the antepartum floor for weeks on end why would they have such small rooms? The other gripe was the TV channels weren’t the greatest. I would of killed for Food Network as an option to watch. It didn’t help that I was in the hospital in September when no new episodes of TV shows were on. I did have my laptop, but the internet didn’t have the greatest speed, so if I tried to watch something on Netflix the picture was choppy.

Time in the hospital went about as fast as it could, and I asked each of my nurses what exactly was I going to expect when it was time to deliver. The whole process of getting induced, having the epidural, delivering, scared me to death. If I had a choice, I would of opted for a c-section because I wasn’t afraid of having surgery. Go figure. Anyway, I had one nurse who was a doula, and she was great in explaining to me exactly what to expect. That was the day before I delivered and she was also sweet to come in and tell me around 7 PM Thursday night that L&D was full and they may take me take me down later than 7 AM the next morning. She knew I was nervous, and didn’t want my nerves to go into overdrive when they didn’t come to get me when they said they would. Like I said, every nurse I had and the residents were great. The only bozo I encountered was a dietician who came to talk to me Thursday afternoon about how I lost weight in the week I had been there and wanted to talk to me about my lack of eating. She absolutely infuriated me and I asked her if she looked at my chart, and it was obvious she hadn’t. I also asked her if she would have an appetite if one day she had gone for a routine checkup, and was told she would be induced because her daughter had possible IUGR and could end up in the NICU. I don’t think she would of felt like eating much either. By the time I got done reading her the riot act, she couldn’t get out my room fast enough.

Finally Friday morning arrived, and shortly after 7 AM one of my nurses came in with a look on her face. I knew what she was going to say: L&D was still full and they had no idea when or if I would be taken down. I had made it this far what was a few more hours or a day?! About an hour later my nurse came back in clapping like a cheerleader and said they had a room ready for me. Hallelujah!

The induction started around 10:30 AM and I was already dilated to a 4. No wonder why they didn’t want me walking around! I was told I would experience cramping at first and they would up the pitocin every 30 minutes until my contractions became more regular. All I felt was some bad back pain that would tighten up and then subside every 5 minutes, and honestly I thought I was suppose to be feeling cramping in my stomach. I remember around 11:30 I was getting uncomfortable laying on my back so I moved to my side and watched Robert play some game on his iPad. I did have one pretty intense contraction that waved around to my stomach that got my attention, but I kept telling myself I can handle this, that I didn’t need the epidural yet. At Noon my doctor came in to check and see how far I had progressed and she looked at me and asked me if I wanted to have a natural childbirth (very sarcastically because I told her to write it in my chart in big black sharpie pen that I didn’t want to be in pain or throwing up my toenails) because I was at a 6. Well no wonder why I wasn’t having any fun. They paged the anesthesiologist, but unfortunately I had to wait 20 minutes for 2 bags of fluid to go in. That was the longest 20 minutes of my life. And then when Dr. Feel Good came in, he tells me I have to sit up on the edge of the bed. This was one of my fears of the labor and delivery process. I didn’t want to be sitting on the edge of the bed wailing in pain like you see on TV, and then passing out, dying and throwing up—yes in that order. Of course I was having a contraction when he came in, and I had to wait for it to pass, and of course I was contracting once I got to the edge of the bed. I told Robert to leave the room because not only am I afraid of passing out, dying and throwing up, I’m afraid he’s going to pass out. But he stayed and I remember thinking I was positive I was cutting off the circulation in his arm because I was holding his hand so tightly. Dr. Feel Good explained every little thing he was doing, and that man was fast! In no time at all I was all warm and fuzzy without a care in the world.

Now this is where I’m told I should not brag about my labor and delivery experience. When anyone would come into my room, I would ask about labor and delivery. One of those questions would be how long would it take, and they all would say I would definitely have the baby by Friday night. That was not the answer I was hoping for because they were basically telling me I would be in labor for 8-12 hours. This is all I’ll say. The induction started at 10:30 AM and Morgan was born at 2:03 PM. I really don’t remember much after I got the epidural in because I did become very shaky, which I was prepared for. My blood pressure dropped and they made me lay on my side until it was time to push. All the anxiety and fear went away except for when a hand full of people came in and my nurse asked someone to “get a table open.” I thought I was about to have an emergency c-section, and Robert actually thought the same thing. Turns out all that meant was it was time for another nurse to open up the tray for all the instruments. Before I knew it, they were placing the baby on my stomach and everyone was rejoicing. She let out one small cry and opened her eyes. She was pink. Beautiful. Perfect. I was holding a part of my soul.

Morgan Rebecca Estes Bonner was born on September 17th, 2010 at 2:03 PM weighing in at 4 pounds 8 ounces and 16 ½ inches long. It was important for me for her to have a family name. I was named after my grandfather, Harry Estes. His middle name was his grandmother’s maiden name, Rebecca Estes. While Morgan favors her father, I will sometimes see a look in her that makes me think of her great-grandfather. I suspect it is a similar look I gave my Mom which made her ask Papa if she could name me after him. And now whenever she makes a certain look, like when she’s sleeping seriously and looking exactly like Robert, or biting her bottom lip and looking like me, I try to imprint those images onto my brain.

I am so incredibly grateful that she’s a part of my life.



My Rock Star of a Doctor who cut her hair off the week before I delivered and streaked her hair blue:



And here we are 7 weeks later:

The Waiting Game

I have writing this post in my head for the last month at least, but when you have a baby everything changes. But, she is down for a nap, sleeping peacefully thankfully, and while I could watch her sleep, I should write about my experience before I forget about it. The mind truly does let you forget about the hardships of being pregnant and giving birth.

I won’t say my pregnancy was the easiest thing I have ever endured. I think it was harder on me mentally than it was physically-- thanks Dr. Google! I was pretty sick the first trimester and lost 15 pounds. The second trimester I was feeling more human, but around 20 weeks I started weekly iron infusions because I was battling some pretty serious anemia issues. During my entire pregnancy I was having monthly growth scans of the baby, and everything was right on track. I got to the third trimester and I finished my iron infusions, my iron levels improved, however, looking back, things started to go down hill once I finished those infusions.

In early August I got a letter from my OB telling me she had been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. Breast Cancer. I was so angry, I wanted to scream, in fact, I think I did. Not at her, but at the disease, that once again someone I knew personally had been diagnosed with this awful disease. And my selfish thought was, great. This doctor who I have given my trust to is going to be yanked away from me and I will have to see a new doctor. I should back up a bit. The doctor I wanted to deliver this baby had retired a couple of years ago. He delivered my sisters, his first set of twins, me, and my nephews. He was ready to go fishing full time. He recommended my current doctor and I knew he wouldn’t bring anyone into his practice he didn’t have complete confidence in, someone he would send his mother, wife or daughter to. Up until last year we had only met for one appointment, and while I liked her, I didn’t know her, not like my old doctor. I got to know her very fast though and what I learned was her work ethic was unbelievable, that she gives 150% to every patient and I knew she would fight the cancer with everything she has.

Anyway, I had seen her for a routine check up a couple of days before I got the letter and she told me she was just having a “little surgery.” Her words. That “little surgery” was a mastectomy. She also told me she would be gone only for a couple of weeks, so here I am thinking she’s having her gallbladder removed or some other pointless organ. Her colleague told me a couple of weeks later of the biopsy, the surgery, and the chemo she would be having as a precaution. Right on schedule she was back in the office seeing patients. That same day she told me my blood pressure was a bit elevated, and I blamed it on talking to my Mom was the nurse was taking my blood pressure, but there was also some protein in my urine, but not enough for her to be overly concerned. They re-checked my blood pressure before I left and it was still high. At that point I got to go over to labor and delivery to be monitored and get labs done. My blood pressure went down, the labs were normal, and the baby wasn’t in distress. I got sent home on modified bed rest and would return next week for an ultrasound and check up.

The next week, my blood pressure was OK, not great, and I headed to the high risk OB, who did many of the growth scans, for another ultrasound. She told me the baby was still measuring small for her gestational age, and wanted to call my OB and talk to her. I looked at my Mom and told her I had a feeling I was going to be induced because something is not measuring right. My Mom said I was worrying too much, but my hunch was right. She came back and told me it was time to have a baby. I was 36 weeks, 6 days, and about 8 hours away from being considered “full term.” I wasn’t ready to have the baby, and I didn’t feel like the baby was ready. My Mom had to call Robert, Robert thought she was joking, I was crying because I was freaking out, but I took a deep breath and headed to the hospital to be checked in.

I got put on the monitor, Robert gets to the hospital, and I’m told we’re in a holding pattern until my OB can get over to L&D. What I later would find out was she was calling America to get various doctor’s opinions on my and the baby’s condition. One scan said the baby had IUGR (intra-uterine growth restriction), the other didn’t. The blood flow, the placenta, which plays a factor into if IUGR is present, was normal. The only problem they saw was she was measuring small. She spoke to the high risk OB and while she wanted the baby delivered that day, she couldn’t argue with my OB that just because a baby looks small on an ultrasound and not in any distress didn’t mean she should be delivered. It was also a good possibility that if I had delivered that day that the baby would have to spend some time in the NICU and may or may not go home with me on the day I would be discharged. I should also mention that while this was all going on, we were having really bad storms, and the hospital was put on a Code Black because the tornado sirens were going off outside and we could of all been blown away to Kansas. Anyway, after listening to everyone’s opinion, I, along with Robert decided that we should wait on delivery. I immediately assumed I could go home, and my doctor said I wasn’t going anywhere. The baby would have to be put on a monitor twice a day, and I was to have several more ultrasounds. I finally got moved upstairs around Midnight, and tried to sleep. I didn’t sleep at all that night.

The next day my OB came to check in on me after her first chemo treatment. See what I mean about giving 150% to her patients? She said it wasn’t so bad, and I decided I needed to suck it up because I realized while I wanted to be anywhere but in the hospital, I was where I needed to be. I needed to get focused and find my inner strength for this baby I was about to meet. If something happened to the baby, because I would of rather been at home, I would of never been able to live with myself. It was truly no longer about my comfort anymore. It was also confirmed that day I had developed mild preeclampsia, but thankfully I didn’t have to be put on any medication. I was due to have another ultrasound the next day and we talked about having the baby early that next week. I was officially full term now, but if I and the baby could hold out a few days, the studies showed babies do so much better when they’re delivered 38 weeks. The goal was to wait nine days as long as we were both stable.

BFFs In The Making

When I was little, we had a Siamese cat named Peanuts. He was named Peanuts because my Mom loves the Peanuts comic strip.



That's me, the wee lil one, on some Saturday morning. I’m taking a wild guess it was a Saturday morning. I believe that is Melinda sitting with me and we’re having some sort of conversation. I'm sure if I'm wrong as to which sister that is, Michelle will call me to tell me. Oh and there's Peanuts behind me.


I loved that cat. I don’t have many memories of him. I do remember carrying him around like a baby though, and he let me do what I wanted to do. He never hissed, or swatted at me, and he wasn’t declawed. According to my Mom, I use to dress him in my doll clothes. I also use to love playing with her pots and pans, and one afternoon Peanuts was in the kitchen, and I put a pot over him, banged the pot with a spoon and said, “Nighty night!” He never flinched.

And then one day, Peanuts went to Heaven.

I was so mad my BFF left me that I stormed to my room and slammed the door. I was two when he died.

Fast forward 35 years later, and I believe I've been witnessing a couple of BFFs in the making. Neither Emma or Elliot like to be by themselves. They are always with one of us when we’re home. As we have been working on the nursery, Elliot is never far away and is in the room with me if I’m in there.

A couple of weeks ago, I was hanging up some clothes, and I had my back to the crib. When I turned around, this is what I found:



Now I could of screamed and yelled and had a fit that the cat finally found his way into the baby’s crib. It was only a matter of time. But with Elliot, he’s a Maine Coon, and they tend to be sensitive. If I had screamed “NO!” and/or popped him on the nose, I wouldn’t of seen him for days. So I picked him up, and told him gently that that was the baby’s bed, and he couldn’t jump in there. He could, however, go under the crib, or lay on the floor, or sit on the bottom shelf of the book case we have as that's where he goes when I'm in there now. I’d like to think he understood what I was saying. He hasn’t attempted to jump into the crib since.

I think he and the baby are destined to be BFFs. When I go into the room, Elliot still follows me, ready to help out, but mostly just curious about what I'm doing. When I ask him if he’s ready to meet the baby, he meows and does his rolley poley moves. I don’t think it’ll matter how much she terrorizes him, and I’m sure she will, he will love her all the same. After all, they’ll be BFFs.

Recipe: Orange Rolls

I love heading over to the The Tasty Kitchen via P Dub's Website from time to time. I stumbled across this recipe for Orange Rolls a couple of months ago, and have been meaning to make them. But with just Robert and I at home, for the time being, I decided to wait until I headed home to the 'Ville to bake these up.

I will never buy another frozen sweet roll again.

If you have the patience to make any of kind of bread (if you don't go out and get some!) these are so worth it. I actually started the process Thursday night. I followed the directions up until it said put the rolls in the refrigerator overnight. I decided to wait until Saturday morning to bake them. That didn't seem to be a problem at all. I also think if you want to follow the recipe up until the second rise, you could put how ever many rolls away to freeze, let them thaw overnight and they'd be ready to bake when you get up in the morning. Any way you try it, try this recipe!

Thanks to barefootbelle for posting a great recipe!

Orange Rolls

FOR THE ROLLS:
•½ cups Water
•½ cups Milk
•⅓ cups Sugar
•2-¼ teaspoons Active Dry Yeast (.25 Oz Package)
•1 whole Egg
•⅓ cups Butter, Softened
•1 teaspoon Salt
•3-¾ cups Bread Flour

•FOR THE FILLING:
•1 cup Brown Sugar
•⅓ cups Butter, Softened
•2 whole Oranges (just The Zest; Reserve The Juice)

•FOR THE GLAZE:
•3 ounces, weight Cream Cheese, softened
•¼ cups Butter, Softened
•1-½ cup Powdered Sugar
•½ teaspoons Almond Extract
•⅛ teaspoons Salt
•½ whole Orange, Just The Juice

Preparation Instructions
*Prep time includes the first rise, but does not include the second overnight rise.

In a small saucepan, heat the milk and water until the mixture reaches 120 degrees. Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the sugar and yeast, stir once, and let sit until the mixture bubbles (around 10 minutes).

With the mixer on medium low speed, add the egg, butter, salt and flour. Increase the speed to medium for 8 minutes. The dough will be slightly sticky.

Grease a medium-sized metal bowl. Add the dough, and turn to coat the top and bottom of the dough. Cover with a towel and let the dough rise in a warm place for one hour. After the first rise, punch to deflate the dough, and cover again with the towel while you mix together the brown sugar, butter, and orange zest for the filling.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a 25 x 6 inch rectangle (you may want to split this into two 13 x 6 inch rectangles). Spread the dough with the filling mixture. Roll up the dough and pinch together the seam. Slice into 24 one inch slices and place on a baking sheet. Cover with Saran Wrap and refrigerate overnight. Alternately, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

Let the refrigerated rolls sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes prior to baking.

Preheat the oven to 350°. Uncover and bake the rolls in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until the tops of the rolls begin to brown. While the rolls bake, whisk together the icing ingredients until smooth. Remove the rolls from the oven and top with the icing.

Camp Maryellen

About a month or so ago, my Mom and I were out and about. I think she went to with me to a doctor’s appointment I had (I have “pregnancy brain”) and then we headed over to The Bubble. It was at that point that we decided to drop in on my God-Mother Jamie. Mom has known Jamie since she was 11 years old. That’s when she started babysitting for her, when the girls were just 18 months old. Jamie now has 5 wonderful kids of her own. I haven’t seen Jamie in forever, but it was high time I got over there to see her and ohh tell her I was a lil bit pregnant. Mom started talking about the quilt she was going to do for Lil Bit and Jamie told Mom that her youngest daughter has been wanting to learn about sewing and quilting and was going to look into a class for her. I could see the churns in my Mom’s head begin to turn. That’s when she decided to invite 11 year old Anna to her house for a week in June and they could do a quilt together. I think she made the child’s summer.

This past week, Anna came over and I came home to the ‘Ville to help where I could. I can’t sew at all, but I can cook, and could keep the quilters fed. Anna was so excited about going to Camp Maryellen for the week she told a friend (who happened to be named Anna too) from school about her plans, and turns out the friend is into all sorts of crafts and projects. She wanted to know if she could come learn too. Hey! The more the merrier my Mom said.

Mom cut out all the fabric blocks and the girls took the pattern and decided how they wanted their own quilt to look. They did this on the floor because it was the only place where they could lay the fabric blocks out and see their pattern. Apparently, Elliot got so excited about something being on the floor, he decided to attack the blocks, and mess up their patterns. I didn’t get a picture of this, thank goodness I wasn’t here when it happened.

While Mom put the rows of blocks together, the girls worked on two different coloring books. They watched Hannah Montana, they listened to Disney Radio, and would tell me who was singing. They swam like fish.



Thursday came and it was time for them to tie off their quilts. Their Moms came to help out.






And here they are, with one of the finished quilts. I love the colors. So bright, and fun, and girly.



I think this is a week they’ll both remember for a long time.

Conversations with Elliot

We recently got a Flip to save and perserve all of our craziness on CD. And since Lil Bit isn't here yet, Elliot has been our guinea pig. Emma doesn't like to be on camera so much.

Elliot and Robert have this nightly ritual. He jumps in bed hoping to get a bite or two of whatever Robert is eating. Usually it's yogurt. And they talk to each other. Except Elliot doesn't really talk back. But the looks on the cat's face are pretty priceless, and you have to wonder what he's thinking. I know what he's thinking. It has be to along the lines of "Dude, you are crazy with a capital C."

So last night, here comes Elliot, and Robert managed to get a conversation with him on tape. Some things I noticed while watching the clip:

1. I thought the clutter was much better around our TV. It's not, and the dresser needs to be completely cleaned off again.

2. We really need to paint our bedroom. And we need new interior doors that are painted white. But the fumes would make me throw up. Robert are you reading this?

3. We need some wall art in here. The walls look sad.

4. I apologize for my hackling in the background. I hate my voice, and my laugh. I have no idea how people on the news listen to themselves back.

A Wednesday Back In January

Two days prior to THAT Wednesday, I was not feeling good. I had the headache from Hell I could not get rid of. Mind you, headaches are not uncommon for me, but I couldn’t really blame this particular headache on one thing or another. I went on about my day, I really was tired of laying around begging the pain to just let me be. That night I made dinner, and I remember just as I was finishing putting everything together, I looked at it, and thought, “I cannot eat this.” Straight to the bath-tub, pajamas and bed I went. Wednesday morning, I got up, still not feeling right. Now I think I have the flu. After all, it’s January. But I wasn’t running a fever. I woke Robert up early that morning, and told him I didn’t feel “right.” Like something was off. He said it was probably because I’ve had a bad headache for two days. After he left for work, I decided to go shopping at Wal-Greens.

What I came home with were three different types of home pregnancy tests, all with two or three testers. First one, negative. Second one, different brand, negative. Third one, different brand:



OH. MY. GOSH.


So now on top of my feeling like I have the flu, now I felt like I was going to pass out. I decided I couldn’t rely on a home pregnancy test, after all, two were saying NO WAY, and one was saying, YEAH BABY! I called my doctor and they said I should go get a blood test, because there would be no denying that result. So I go get a blood test and beg for a stat result, and they laugh and tell me they’ll know the following day. For the next 24 hours, I tee’d on four more sticks, and none of them could make up their minds if I was with child or not.

So I wait, and wait and wait. I don’t do waiting very well. Finally at 3PM, I found out, we’re going to have a baby. Robert was over the moon. I was in shock, pure shock. I was told a long time ago that it wouldn’t be easy for me to have a child and if I did conceive, the chance of miscarriage was quite high. I slowly made the phone calls to our immediate family, but I decided the rest of the world would just have to wait a while. For the next couple of days, I worried, I panicked, I cried. A lot. I didn’t want to get attached, but who was I kidding? I was already attached before I even got the phone call telling me the what the blood work showed, because you just know. Finally during one of my meltdowns, Robert sweetly looked at me and said: “If you want to go by what doctors have told you your entire life, then you need to accept that according to them, you should of never gotten pregnant. Sometimes, doctors are wrong.” I wiped the tears off my face, and said OK, and that was the end of the panic.

Three weeks later we went to my first OB appointment, and I couldn’t even look at the screen while my doctor was doing the ultrasound. But I heard clicking, and I thought to myself, “OK she found something.” And then she says this:

“Well, we have a bit of a surprise. Take a look at the screen.” I didn’t have to look at the screen. I so knew what that meant. Hello, I have twin sisters. So I say to her, “TWINS?!” And when I looked at the screen I see two sacs, one that has a tiny lil peanut, and the other one, I didn’t a peanut. Now I’m confused. She explained to Robert and I we had one sac that had a baby growing right on schedule, and while I had a second sac, she didn’t detect a fetal pole, and called this a vanishing twin. She told us this wouldn’t interfere with the pregnancy, and that we should expect a singleton pregnancy. She proceeded with the scan and we saw this tiny flicker and heard a beautiful strong heartbeat.

Lil Bit at 6 weeks 6 days:


Lil Bit at 11 weeks 6 days:


Lil Bit at 13 weeks 1 day:


So here we are 16 weeks later, and everything is going just as it should. I’ve been amazed how fast Lil Bit is growing. I’ve been told “uneventful” and “boring” are words you want to hear from these baby doctors. So when people ask how I’ve been doing so far, my answers are just that: I’m fine and things are uneventful and boring, just the way I like it.

Recipe: Hearty Beef Chili

In Texas, we do not put beans in our chili. Period. The end. I stumbled across this recipe a few years back, and it is deliss. You can make it chunky as directed with the chuck roast, you can use chili meat found at the grocery store, or ground meat. It makes a big ole' pot, and it freezes great! Make some corn bread-- in a cast iron skillet-- to go with this and you're set!

Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour(s) 45 minutes
Yield: Makes 9 cups

Ingredients
4 pounds boneless chuck roast, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 (6-ounce) cans tomato paste
1 (32-ounce) container beef broth
2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce
2 teaspoons granulated garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

Toppings: crushed tortilla chips, sour cream, shredded cheese, chopped onion


Brown meat, in batches, in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Remove meat, reserving drippings in Dutch oven. Add chili powder to Dutch oven; cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Stir in tomato paste; cook 5 minutes.

Return beef to Dutch oven. Stir in beef broth and next 9 ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 1 1/2 hours or until beef is tender. Serve with cornbread sticks, if desired, and desired toppings.

Recipe: Loaded Baked Potato Soup

It has been unseasonably cool this week in Dallas. Here is a great recipe to make. Have a bowl by a fire, with a book, a movie, or a football game.


Loaded Baked Potato Soup
Serves 8

If you prefer, replace the thyme sprig with 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme. Reserving some of the potatoes in step 3 results in a chunkier soup. For a smooth soup, puree all the potatoes.

8 ounces bacon , chopped
3 pounds russet potatoes , scrubbed
1 large onion , chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 sprig fresh thyme
4 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese , plus additional for garnish
1 cup sour cream , plus additional for garnish
ground black pepper
3 scallions , sliced thin

1. Cook bacon in Dutch oven over medium heat until crisp, about 8 minutes. While bacon is cooking, use vegetable peeler to remove wide strips of potato peel; reserve peels. Cut peeled potatoes into 3/4-inch pieces. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to plate lined with paper towels. Add reserved potato skins to bacon fat in pot and cook until crisp, about 8 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer potato skins to plate with bacon.

2. Add onion to fat remaining in pot and cook over medium heat until golden, about 6 minutes. Stir in garlic and flour and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in broth and cream, stir in thyme and potatoes, and bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover pot, and cook until potatoes are tender, about 7 minutes.

3. Discard thyme and transfer 2 cups cooked potatoes to bowl. Puree remaining soup in batches in blender until smooth. Return to pot and warm over medium-high heat. Off heat, stir in cheese until melted, then whisk in sour cream. Return reserved potatoes to pot and season soup with pepper. Ladle soup into bowls, garnishing with bacon, fried potato skins, scallions, cheese, and sour cream.

Reheating Leftovers: To reheat leftover portions of our Loaded Baked Potato Soup, gently warm the soup in a saucepan over medium heat until steaming. Do not let the soup boil, which will cause the sour cream to separate.

Cary's Variations: I usually just make the potato soup leaving out the cheese and sour cream. I top the soup with the cheese, sour cream and bacon. Try it both ways and see which way you prefer.

2010 Off and Running, But First...

There are several blogs I visit daily. I see people put up their pictures, and then I saw more and more people putting up video collages set to music, and I thought to myself: Self.. there has to be an easy way to do this! And then my dear friend Emily sends a notice out that she has posted a video on her blog. How strange I was thinking about doing this a few days ago, and she does the same thing? Must be ESP, EMFs, EVPs, ohh wait that is from all those paranormal shows.

I know so many people who were looking forward to 2010, even way back on January 2, 2009 they were ready to embrace 2010. It was a hard year for so many, including many ups and downs even in our home. But, the week before Christmas, the original five Fenders, along with their kids, and husbands, and a couple of cats gathered in the ‘Ville for Christmas festivities. Before 2010 gets too far gone, here is a look back at that week.

Christmas 2009 from Cary Bonner on Vimeo.