Gluten Free Vegan Waffles

I love waffles. I stopped making them for a long time because Quin can't eat regular anything and in the past a lot of my gluten free vegan attempts have been horrible! But I decided to try again because did I mention I love waffles?

First off you should have a good gluten free flour mix you like. I make my own out of Cybele Pascal's book "The Allergen Free Baker's Handbook."

Gluten Free Vegan Waffles

1 1/3 Cup Gluten Free Flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 Ener-g eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 small banana mashed (optional)
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 Tbs agave
1/2 to 3/4 c rice milk
Dairy free chocolate chips (optional)
Walnuts (optional)

Mix dry ingredients together in a small bowl. Mix all wet ingredients together in a medium bowl. Add dry to wet and mix until well combined. Make waffles in preheated waffle iron.

The Beard

When Adam found out I was pregnant, he stopped shaving. Seriously. Apparently he figured if he was extra super manly we would have a boy. Let me tell you, this was NOT something I even remotely enjoyed for one second. I was so grossed out by his beard that by the time I was packing my hospital bag I wanted to put the beard trimmers in there. For some reason he absolutely loved it and even after I had Dean he didn't want to shave, even though that was our deal! Finally after more than a week after baby boy made his arrival, he let it go. I hope he never does that again!!!!!!

Bringing Home The Baby

The hospital MADE me stay.....I begged every nurse I saw to let me go home and they would not! So while we were stuck at the hospital, my parent's watched Ruby & Quin. They of course had a FANTASTIC time with Grandma and Grandpa. I on the other hand was laying in an uncomfortable hospital bed sleeplessly for two days and a night. All I wanted to do was go home to my own bed and get to be with the girls. Adam and I basically just watched HGTV while I ate my fill of rabbit pellet ice chips. It was so ridiculously boring and tiring all at the same time. When they FINALLY released us, we drove through in 'n out and then headed home. We decided to leave the girls one more night with my mom and dad and then picked them up on Saturday. Ruby could not wait to meet Dean! It was the sweetest thing ever watching her finally see his face. She keeps repeatedly telling me "we didn't know what he was going to look like, but now we DO!! He's SOOOOO cute!!!" She is beyond excited to have a baby brother. I was quite worried about Quin since she's been the baby, but she LOVES him beyond and has done great with him. She loves holding him and isn't jealous at all which is amazing. I was also worried his crying would wake her up, but so far so good! He is two weeks old as of yesterday, and although it's not "easy" we are adjusting. The little munchkin is waking up every couple of hours at night, but he's the sweetest little guy. The girls and I just take turns holding him, staring at him and giving him kisses. Adam only took the two days we were at the hospital off work, so I've been getting used to the daily routine with three. It's such a priveledge to be a mom and get to raise these amazing, beautiful kids. I wouldn't trade it.

Here is Ruby holding Dean for the first time!

Dean Andrew

Have I mentioned that Adam and I fought about a name for our baby boy my ENTIRE pregnancy? The very first name I liked was "Dean." Adam said "No." Then a week before I had him he said "let's go with Dean." After I had lamented over hundreds of names, he chose my original. Sigh. Go figure.

So here goes the story of Dean's birth. It seems a lot shorter and a lot less detailed than both the girls for some reason. I'm kind of hoping that's how he is in life. Simple.

I always seem to get really sick at the end of the pregnancy right before I go into labor. This time proved to be no different. It's like the beginning at the end. I was sick for about four days, and then on Wednesday February 20th I was really feeling awful and very off. It was one of the strangest days and I just wanted it to be over and to go to bed and make all the nasty nauseating feelings go away.

Kind of ironic, but one of the things that really bothered me was having someone available to leave the girls with when I went to the hospital. Especially since it always seems that babies are born in the middle of the night. Just so happens that evening my brother Jeremy called me and said "Hey I'm off the next three days...want me to come over tonight and stay?" I told him that wasn't necessary since you never really can tell when you're going to have a baby.....

I went to sleep feeing sicker than a dog and told Adam "I feel like my body is telling me it's had enough and that this little baby needs to get out now." Sure enough, 12:37am I woke up feeling less than normal. I still didn't really think I was in labor at the moment since I wasn't really having strong contractions, but something was going on. By 1am I was getting a little more certain I WAS in fact in labor, so I text my sister (who has to drive the furthest) to warn her. I didn't hear back from her, so I waited a little bit and then I called her. By the time I called her I DEFINITELY knew I was indeed in labor. I got the same reaction from all my family members. "Are you kidding me?" He wasn't due for another week, so I guess nobody was expecting it. Plus, midweek is always a bad time and he decided to show up on a Thursday of course. I woke Adam up at 1:30, had him call Jeremy who was at my house by 2. Guess I probably should have had him stay the night after all! He probably would have slept more! Oh well. I didn't want to go to the hospital and just sit there, but Adam told me he thought we should go anyway since it takes so long to get admitted to the hospital and all. I decided that was probably a good idea since I didn't want to be in transition while we drove. We got to the hospital around 2:45am and things really started picking up with my contractions. They put me in a triage room and told me I was dilated to 7cm. By the time they moved me into the room I would deliver in, I was going into transition and all I could think was "Oh my gosh he is coming so fast!!!" I was already feeling the urge to push, no doctor in sight, but the nurse was AMAZING! She told me "You do what you gotta to do. I'll catch the baby if I need to." What an awesome woman! I sincerely appreciated her overall attitude and confidence. Especially considering my experience with Ruby at the same hospital! 5 minutes later I was pushing him out! The nurse delivered the head, the dr. (not even my dr.) got there in time to catch the rest of him. All I could think through my whole experience was "This is going so fast! There's no way I'm already done and it's over!" And yet, it was! I was so relieved of course when he came out healthy and perfect. Dean Andrew born February 21st 2013 at 3:51am weighing in at 7lbs 12oz 19 inches long.

Yes, I know my hair looks absolutely horrendous in these pictures. I almost didn't post them, but hey, I had been up all night in labor and had just given birth, so I guess I'm entitled to some bad hair. When my sister showed me the pictures and I told her the same thing about my hair she said "Yeah, I know. I almost photoshopped it, but I figured that would probably only look worse." Gotta love a sisters honesty! 

The Perfect Shower

I love baby showers. Especially when I get to show up as the Guest of Honor and enjoy everyone and everything! My sister's (Ashley & Katie) and my best friend Amy threw the shower for me, and it was amazing. The food was fabulous and all my friends blessed me so much. My only disappointment is that there is never enough time to talk to anyone or hang out long enough! I could party for days! 

Here's What You Missed

The past four months nothing and everything happened all at the same time. I (of course) am a horrible blogger as always, but truly it will only take this one post to recap the events since my last post. I basically just went into baby mode, got really huge and lay around in my pj's being quite a lazy person in general. I mostly feel bad for the girls since they really ended up with the bad end of the deal on that one. Too much time indoors and not enough excitement. Aside from the Holiday's (which in book were generally depressing this year) we pretty much did a big lot of nothing. Once January hit I started being a shut in. Especially since it's the WORST flu season ever and I was trying to avoid us all getting deathly ill before I had the baby. I did make an appearance for my wonderful baby shower which I will post about too. My pop had major spine surgery the week before Christmas, so we had a very low key (but somehow overwhelmingly stressful) Christmas. I literally couldn't wait for all the event's of December to be done with and the New Year to come. Last year was just....Blah. Glad it's over! And what better way to start the New Year with a new little bundle of joy? Baby boy deserves a post all unto himself. So, I better get writing! 

 These are some of the only pictures I took of my stomach this whole pregnancy! It's just so much harder the third time around!