7 QT-not-quite-Friday: Bro visit and baby

I uploaded pictures here Thursday evening with the intent to post a 7 Quicktakes Friday post yesterday,  but yesterday didn't go as I planned.

So that can be the quick #1...

1. Surprise! 

 Our first little BOY, Kolbe Christopher Bissonnette, was born Friday August 26 and was two weeks early.  Wow!  I did not see that coming.  But no complaints here.  

2. S'mores with the Uncles

IIt's pretty self explanatory.  We roasted mallows when Chris's brothers were visiting.  

3. Date nights

Chris and I went out on a couple dates while his brothers were in town.  Nicholas watched the girls so Chris and I could grab a quick bite of yummy Greek cuisine before picking up his twin brothers at the airport one night.  And after Nick departed, Ethan and Evan watched the girls another night so that Chris and I could have a full evening all to ourselves.  We went to a local brewery/restaurant for dinner (SO yummy!) and then walked around a little quirky and fun downtown and found an ice creamery.  And then we went and checked out the hospital that my OB said we'd need to go to instead.  We weren't thrilled.  It's further and the entrance/parking situation is more difficult to navigate.  But our date was wonderful!  Thanks, Nick, Ethan, and Evan!

It was a neat atmosphere.  You could play bocce ball and cornhole out back or just chill and enjoy lovely views

4. Denver Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception

We took the twins (Nicholas had to get back home to work) to the Denver Cathedral one morning.  

 

It was gorgeous. 

 

5. Washington Park

And we went to a park afterwards with a large playground, some nice walking trails, and geese everywhere!  

6. Ice Cream!

And then we stopped at an ice cream place for a treat!  I scream, you scream, we all scream for delicious ice cream. 

And last of all...

7. We arrived home...

From the hospital.  Kolbe and I are both doing great and happy to be home where we can make ourselves comfy and cozy.  

7QT- Starring my 33-34 Wk Pregnancy Nesting

It has certainly been a fun and crazy week! As is the case with most families, we've had fighting and laughing and everything in between.  

But did your family have this this week?

1. Dress-up and tea parties

So posh.  

2. Book of the Week

This was such a sweet little find at the library this week.  ALL the girls loved the love and sweetness in this lovely picture book. 

3. Baby Names

In case you missed it from an earlier post, we did a baby name consultation with Kate at Sanctanomina.com for fun this time around.  Definitely check it out and tell us your thoughts!  So far, I believe the top suggestions from people center around Zoe, Zelie, and Tessa for girls and Blaise and Jude for boys, but there are seriously a TON of great suggestions both on her list and in the comments section too.  

4.  Family walks

We took one every night this week (and planning on a nice one tonight).  One evenings walk was to a concert at a nearby park.  2-4 miles every night and the kids slept great. 

 

And we all enjoy the beauty of God's creation all around us.  So beautiful. 

5. Craving?

I don't know if I'd call it a craving yet, though it probably will be as soon as this bag runs out...

These Boulder Canyon sea salt and cracked pepper chips are my new favorite thing.  I ate 3/4 of a bag of them yesterday...

6. Freezer meals

In this post last Sunday, I mentioned a few freezer meals I'd made.  Well, I had a whole list and had found some great deals at the store, so this week I made a bunch more....

Savory Chicken and Sausage & Peppers from this website (I just did one bag of each for now)

Beef Roast with Carrots from here and a slightly different version of Cilantro-Lime Chicken found here (minus the corn).  I actually made two recipes of that and threw one in the crock pot for dinner that day.  It was really good.  I made rice to put it over, but you could obviously make it into burritos/tacos too, and I had a bunch of salad greens, so I made my meal into a big salad (just add tomatoes and avocados and it gets even better). 

Sweet Balsamic Pork roast

2 bags of meatballs (I used a similar recipe, but I'm gluten-free, so used almond flour instead of bread crumbs and there was no ketchup in the version I used)

I made like 4 lbs worth of meatballs, and used some of them to make this Meatball Soup as well.  Additionally I froze 4 cups of homemade chicken stock to add to it when it's time to cook and eat. 

Teriyaki Chicken  (though Kayla isn't a huge fan of pineapple, so I omitted that and added a cup of water and a little ground ginger and a heaping tablespoon of honey)

&

this Cranberry Pork Roast

So far, I've got 16 meals all ready and I think I'll make a few more as well since we have the freezer space (a nice benefit to having a fridge of our own and renting a place that came with one). 

7. Smoothies

I'm also freezing up bags of fruit mixtures to make into smoothies for an easy and healthy breakfast/snack after baby comes.  Thanks to some awesome fresh and frozen fruit sales at Sprouts this week, I have well over a dozen baggies already and tons more fresh fruit cut up in the fridge for some healthy goodness now.  

Join the link-up for 7 quicktakes 

with This Ain't the Lyceum and share yours. 

Name Consultation for Baby #5

I may have mentioned that we are doing something out of the ordinary (for us, I mean) for Baby #5.  Chris and I still have been going over our own "baby name list" for months, but we decided to do a Catholic baby name consulting session with Kate of SanctaNomina to get some fun, new name ideas as well!

Kate has a full calendar of name consults, so I know it's just random that today is the day she chose to post our name consultation on her blog, but it's the feast of St. Christopher today as well, which I thought was just perfect.  

Lovely art from portraitsofsaints.com

I LOVE her stuff, and want a picture of each of the girls' patron saints from her shop. 

Anyway, just a little random fun fact about names, since we're all about names here today.  Christopher means "Christ-bearer" which I've known for a long time, but it struck me in a whole new way when I began dating Christopher.  This is because at the time, we were in school at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, and I was in the women's household (can be likened to a spiritual sorority) of "Theotokos", which is translated to "Mother of God" or "God-bearer".  It was not lost on me at all that the household I had chosen had a deep devotion to Mary as the "God-bearer", she who BORE CHRIST, and that I was dating a guy whose name meant ultimately the same thing since Jesus is God.  So, on this feast of St. Christopher, I think it's just perfect that we are discussing names for our newest little one.  

In case you haven't already clicked on the links above to the baby name consult, click

 here to find it on Kate's website, Sancta Nomina.

You can comment on her post or on this one with your thoughts and ideas.  We'd love to hear from you about what you think of her fun name ideas or if you have some others that you think we should add to the list.  I love that she added the fun nickname ideas at the end of the post too.  

What are your thoughts?  

I want to hear it all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!