One crazy day at a time...my life!

Monday, March 26, 2012

Teas, teas, teas


Recently, I had the amazing opportunity to sample some great teas to review them! I got the teas right before Kaleb was born so it's taken me a little time to write about the yummy teas, but I'm finally doing it now.

Steeped Tea

Steeped Tea is a company that works by having consultants hold parties at your house. As the host, you get a percentage of the sales of the day. I was introduced to Steeped Tea when one of my friends decided to hold a Steeped Tea party and I got to sample some of their teas.

I have to say that I was pretty impressed when I looked at their catalogue. They have so many different kinds of teas that you can't find anywhere else. The teas are all loose leaf teas, but they do sell things like reusable tea bells or tea bags.

I tried the 5 different teas that Steeped Tea sent to me and I also wanted to tell you about the 2 teas that I bought at the party.




Let's start with "Toffee Crunch". This tea is phenomenal! Both Dre and I love this tea and are going to be life-long drinkers of this one. This tea smells amazing and what's even better is that it tastes exactly like it smells. I'm sure you know that often teas smell better than they taste. This is a rooibos tea so it happens to be naturally decaffeinated which is great for me since I'm breastfeeding Kaleb and I can't have too much caffeine. I give this tea 5 thumbs up. Go buy it...you'll love it!

Next up is "Lady Layla's Whole Fruit Tea". It's really good. This tea is caffeine free as it's fruit tea. It's taste reminds me of summer berries. You can make this tea as an ice tea and I imagine it's phenomenal when you drink it that way. Since it's still cold over here, I haven't tried it cold, but I really look forward to trying it this summer when it's nice and hot outside.

Then I tried "Peppy Peppermint". This tea is good. It's good peppermint tea. Drinking a cup of this tea makes me feel energized and fresh. Peppermint is one of those flavors that is great all the time and makes you feel refreshed when you drink it.

Next came a classic, "Earl Gray de la Creme". This tea is a very good earl gray. I really enjoyed this one. It's very good when you want that classical tea taste...especially on a cold day. I loved it! I can't wait to have it again.

Then we tried the "Breakfast Muffin". This tea smells so good before it's brewed and after it's brewed. I didn't think it tasted as good as it smelled though. It did taste good, but the smell was just better than the taste. I think I'll have to try this tea a few more times to really appreciate all the flavors that are in it.

Next is "Cherry Rose Sansha". This tea was real surprise. When I read the ingredients, I really didn't want to try this tea because I didn't think I'd like it. Well, surprise, surprise...I really liked this tea. It has nice light floral tones and is a perfect afternoon tea.

Last tea is "Caramel Comfort". I thought I would love this tea. Why not? It's made with caramel! Well, I really didn't like this one. I think it tastes like eating cigarettes or something like that. Dre thinks I'm crazy though and thought this tea was great so it's probably just me that didn't like this one.

I also got the opportunity to try their "Red Pepper Jelly". I have nothing to compare this jelly to though as I've never had Red Pepper Jelly. I was pleasantly surprised when I talked myself into trying it though. I tried it with some crackers, but I imagine that it would be amazing served on top of cheese like melted Brie.

Overall, I found the Steeped Tea teas to be phenomenal and of great quality. I can't wait to buy some more and try some of their other flavors!

Disclaimer: Steeped Tea provided me with 6 flavors of tea and the Red Pepper Jelly at no cost to me.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

41 Weeks

You thought I disappeared didn't you?

The truth is that between feeding Kaleb and trying to get simple stuff like emails answered I just don't have any time to sit down and take 30 minutes to hammer out a post.  So sad!

Anyways, here is my 41 week picture.  This was taken a couple of hours before we left for the hospital to have Kaleb and the day before he was born.  I was huge!  Whenever you see these pics, you realize how much weight gain was going on and it's kind of crazy to see how much I've lost now. 

Week 41
My doctor wanted to induce me when I hit 41 weeks, but Dre and I told her Biophysical Profile.  Fancy term for another NST test and an ultrasound.  Dre decided to come to the ultrasound with me since they might have kept me if the results showed that Kaleb was not doing well.

The last ultrasound I've had was at 18 weeks so I was looking forward to seeing how different this one would be.  It definitely was different.  For one, the baby is so big when he gets to full term that to see everything they have to look at him in sections.  The ultrasound person started the ultrasound after confirming that we were just there to check on the baby's progress and well-being.  Right away she told me I had tons of amniotic fluid.  She went on about this for a while so I guess I really did have lots.  She told me that usually by now she can't get good shots of things like his face because most of the amniotic fluid is gone, but because I had so much she was able to give us a picture of baby Kaleb's face.  Exciting!  She checked everything and measured things like his head and stomach.  Then at the end she tells us, "I estimate the baby's size to be 4.8 kg."  We were like oh that not too bad...then we made the conversion to lbs and I freaked the crap out.  That's 10.5 lbs people!  Dre and I then spent the next 2 days convincing ourselves that weight estimates on ultrasounds are very often wrong and that the baby would be a least 3 lbs less than that.

Well as it turns out that ultrasound was not too wrong!  I had a 10 lbs 2 oz baby!

On the day, that I went into labour I weighed 193.4 lbs.  That is a total pregnancy weight gain of 40 lbs.  Yes, that is right...I managed to gain massive amounts of weight in the last 1.5 weeks.  Every other day I would step on the scale and it would be up another couple of lbs.  It was craziness! 

That's what was going on while we were waiting for our little baby boy to make an appearance.  Up next...the birth story.  I'm still working on it, but I hope to post it in the next day or 2.  Then I'll post pictures of our little man because he's sooooo cute!