Outside vs Inside

Even though today is cloudy, rainy, cold, and stormy, it's a great day here at the Casa de Coghill. Why you may ask? Well, I'll tell you...

First of all, Jillian and I had a great time at the mall with Miss Addi Claire and her mama Ashley yesterday! I didn't get any pictures of Jillian's first mall excursion, but we walked around and even found an Easter dress for Jillian. Despite a poop explosion at the end which caused a huge mess in the back of the Jeep, (thank goodness for non-cloth seats!), we had lots of fun.

Second, Phil got his full time offer for a job! I won't get into any big details, but it's a local start-up company and we're very excited for this opportunity! It does mean we're staying in town for several more years which is not what we original planned to do when we were first married. However, I think it suits us for now and we just need to focus on getting Phil done with grad school. His defense date is set for April 2nd, so it'll be here before we know it.

Third, Jillian's pregnancy book came in yesterday! What is that? Well, it's a little thing I've been working on since the beginning of January on Shutterfly. I had two different coupon codes for Shutterfly and I've heard great things about it before. I decided to put all my belly pictures to use and made this for Jillian. I spent hours on this and I'm SO thrilled with how it turned out! I really hope Jillian loves this. I hope to make one for any future children we may be blessed with. Here are some highlights!

{The Front Cover} 

{First Trimester} 

{Second Trimester} 

{Belly Pictures} 

{Third Trimester} 

{Her Birthday/Hospital Stay} 

{The Back Cover}

Fourth, I have picture to share of Jillian as always :)

{Holding her bottle like a big girl}

{Laying on her daddy's baby quilt that her great-grandma Eleanor made for Phil} 

{What a proud grandma! This is before we left Tulsa to come home} 

{Hanging out with mama this morning} 

{Love this sweet face}

I hope y'all are having a great Thursday no matter what it looks like outside :)

Moroccan Chicken with Couscous

{Moroccan Chicken with Couscous}

During my first trimester with Jillian, I was sick as a dog. No food tasted, sounded, or even smelled good. From that point on, I was completely disinterested in cooking. This was hard for me because I used to love to cook. In fact, for Valentine's Day of 2011, Phil and I made a special dinner together. That was one of the best dates we've ever had.

Once Jillian came, I was too tired to cook. I really didn't care what I ate as long as someone stuck something in front of my face.

I'm happy to say that I'm finally back to enjoying cooking again! It certainly helps that I'm finally getting in the swing of things as a SAHM. I have several recipes that I get from magazines and TV shows. Around the middle of February, we had a little mini-magazine in our Sunday paper that contained a few slow cooker recipes. One in particular sounded really good! I made it on Tuesday night and we'll be having the leftovers tonight. If I altered anything in the recipe, I make note of it using italics. It's really not that spicy either. If you like that, great! If not, I'm sure you'll be able to figure out how to spice it up a bit :) I hope you enjoy it too!

Moroccan Chicken with Couscous


Prep Time: 20 minutes (35 if you have to skin the chicken thighs yourself like I did)
Total Time: 4 hrs 20 minutes (8 hrs 35 minutes because I cooked it on Low instead of High)
Serves: 6 (4 because we had less chicken to start with)


Ingredients
1 (12 oz) bag frozen butternut squash cubes (I couldn't find this so I used 1 16 oz bag of frozen yellow squash)
2 tomatoes, chopped (I used 1 tomato because Phil is not a huge tomato fan)
1 onion, chopped (I used 1/2 of a white onion)
2 tsp minced garlic (per Coghill family tradition, I used about 1 1/2 Tbsp of minced garlic - we love garlic)
1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup raisins (I omitted this)
2 tsp coriander
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
3 lb bone-in, skinless chicken thighs (I couldn't find 3 lbs exactly. I used 2 1/4 lb of bone-in and skinned the thighs myself. It's messy but doable)
1 (10 oz) box couscous (I only made 2 servings instead of the whole box)
1/2 cup pitted black olives, halved (We love kalamata olives so I used 1/3 cup of pitted and halved kalamata olives)

Directions
1. In a large slow cooker, combine squash, tomatoes, onion, garlic, chickpeas, both, and raisins. In a small bowl, stir together coriander, cumin, cinnamon, salt, and cayenne. Rub spice mixture into chicken.
2. Arrange chicken in a single layer atop vegetables in slow cooker. Cover and cook for 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low.
3. Prepare couscous according to package directions. Fluff with a fork. Stir olives into slow cooker. Serve chicken and vegetables with couscous.

Per serving: 710 cal, 89g carbs, 60g protein, 13g fat, 190mg chol, 760mg sodium, 11g fiber

{Mmmmm}

Happy cooking!

Wordless Wednesday

{This may not count, but I don't care. This NEEDS to be shared. It is 30 minutes long, but it is worth it}

Simple Day

First of all, I want to send some love to Jessica at you are my color! She had her sweet baby girl on Feb. 28th, but baby has been in NICU since because she swallowed some meconium. However, she is going home today!! I know it's a huge relief that she's going home and I know Jessica and Ronnie are ready to start their new lives as a family of 3 :) Congratulations and I hope things continue to go well for you guys!

Today we ran some errands early on and now I'm finishing up the laundry my chores. I'm almost done and I'm pretty happy with how the place is looking for now. Even though we were gone for about 24 hours, I felt so behind when we got home. We're also trying a new recipe in the Crockpot tonight. It smells good already so I hope it tastes good too! I honestly think that's the best part of Crockpot meals... how it makes the place smell.

{Jillian "hiding" in her swaddle sack this morning. Don't worry, she was smiling underneath :)} 

{We went to Barnes & Noble for the first time today and daddy got to come too! I didn't find exactly what I was looking for, but Jillian got some new books}

Jillian and I are pretty excited because we have a play date at the mall tomorrow! I know that'll be fun for sure. Plus, it's Jillian's first time at the mall. We've been to Target several times, the grocery store, and church, but the mall is a whole new ballgame. Put us in coach, we're ready to play!

Hope y'all are having a great day!

Catching Up

Happy Monday y'all!

Today was slightly busy, but that was mostly trying to catch up after our weekend. Our first trip to Tulsa went well! We discovered that Jillian must get lonely and that's why she fusses in her car seat. I sat in the back with her both ways and she slept almost the whole time. The few times she was awake? She was calm and smiled at me :) She met lots of people and got lots of love! I'm sad I didn't really take any pictures. Sometimes I beat myself up for it, but then again I'm thankful for living in the moment and soaking it in. Mental pictures are just as important right? Well, that's my excuse at least ;)

I'm almost done with our laundry and I went grocery shopping this evening. We have the money to shop for almost 2 weeks worth of food so that's what I did. Even if I know we have the money, it's always hard spending so much at once. Luckily I got some yummy stuff and I'm excited about some of the new recipes we'll be trying. I'll post them on here if they are successful! Also, I bough some Dannon Oikos yogurt so I could try it. It is a lot thicker than I'm used to, but it was pretty tasty! I tried the Honey flavor this time, but I also have Vanilla and Strawberry. Hopefully they're just as good.

I can't believe she's going to be 3 months in a week! Where is my newborn baby?! She's growing up, but luckily not too terribly fast.

{I tried introducing some of her toys to her, but Miss Jillian was much more interested in the wall HAHA} 

{Someone found their thumb today. And so it begins...}

Facebook and Metformin

I'm a little ticked at Facebook today. It kept telling me I had a new message yesterday, but only showed a message I read at the beginning of February. Today I got on my account and finally saw not one, but two messages. One is from a sweet lady that Jillian and I had a play date with. She wanted to know if we could hang out today... and it's 4:30 p.m. Dang it! So I messaged her back and hope she and her precious girl can hang out next week. The other message was from some creep who called me "angel" and wanted to exchange yahoo messenger names because he is looking for a relationship. I pretty sure that 1) my profile states clearly that I'm married and 2) it's most likely spam. The fact that I've been on Facebook since the week it launched in 2004, I'm a little surprised that I'm getting spam for the first time. I guess it was bound to happen right?

Little Miss has been sleeping the day away. She slept for about 8 hours last night, but she can't seem to stay awake for more than 2. This is actually a bit of a blessing for me because I finally got back to my Metformin 3x a day regimen and it's killing me. I forgot how sick it makes me when I've been off it for a little while. I actually felt the sickest last night and today has just been occasional nausea. Thankfully Phil was able to work from home after lunch time so I was able to get a nap in.

Tomorrow we're headed up the turnpike for Jillian's first overnight stay at her grandparents house! I'm confident that she'll do fairly well with the traveling part. Hopefully the sleep today doesn't mess with her too much.

My cats do not get much love from me lately, and they've really been neglected on this blog. I caught a sweet photo of my oldest cat, Cleo, this morning. She was sleeping in the patch of sun underneath Jillian's swing. It's rare that she's not hiding somewhere. I sometimes forget about my first baby, but I do love her :)

{Little ball of fur}

And because I can't resist, here's my sweetheart :)

{She fell asleep with her pacifier, spit it out, then stuck out her bottom lip}

Happy Friday y'all!

Finally March

Words cannot express just how happy I am that we're finally in the month of March. Not only was February pretty crappy, (quite literally for my folks), but March is a pretty awesome. Between St. Patrick's Day and my birthday, it's a good 31 days for me :)

I may have had some crap to deal with last month, but my parents had their sewage line back up into their basement right before their visit down here. Not only did it smell awful then, but my mom was saying the disinfectant the clean up crew used smelled just as awful. They finally have all their stuff sorted out and will be replacing the carpet with tile just in case it happens again.

Jillian did want to celebrate Leap Day yesterday, so we dressed her up in a frog romper from Target.

{What a cutie!}

{She's already acting like her mama LOL}

{According to my dad, I used to toss my skirt over my head during his children sermon's. I guess I was destined ;)}

Today, I had a lunch date with my brother! I mostly wanted to do a quick trip on the turnpike to see how Jillian would do. She did great on the way there, but was pretty upset on the way back. Luckily, it has taught me the difference between her "I'm hurting/in pain" cries and her "I'm fussy/not happy about this" cries. This way I'll be able to decipher if I should pull over or not based on her cry.

{All dressed up and ready to go!}

{My view for most of the day} 

{Uncle Mike and Jillian before we headed home}

Now why did I mention St. Patrick's Day? I know my birthday needs no explanation, but I've always been a fan of St. Patrick's Day. This is partially due to the fact that I'm Irish. However, I also like that it doesn't single out singles like Valentine's Day, you have your outfit picked for you unless you want to be pinched, and we usually attempt to eat homemade corned beef and potatoes. It's one of my three favorite holidays, though Thanksgiving will always be my overall favorite. What's my other favorite holiday? New Years Eve. The funny thing is, I don't like to do a huge celebration for New Years. That may be what makes it fun; it can be anything you want :)

I hope you're having a great start to the month!