Glimpse-life

BETTER : My 2012 Word

2012-01-09T08:17:00.000-06:00

My goal this year is to be BETTER. Better about everything.

A BETTER wife.
A BETTER mom.
A BETTER person about completing my list of things and following through on things.
BETTER at eating healthy and exercising.
A BETTER photographer.
A BETTER blogger.
A BETTER scrapbooker.
A BETTER person all around.

I didn't write a New Year's resolution because I never follow through with them so I thought the word BETTER would kind of be a blanket effect on all that I want to accomplish this year. There is one thing that I want to do here on the blog to make myself more accountable and that is my Project Life posts. I did do Project Life last year but kind of fell off the wagon in September/October time frame. I am going to complete that project this week but with that being said, I do not want to fall behind with this years Project Life. So if I said that I'm going to post the weekly layouts here it might make me more accountable in doing them. I still really love that project and want to play with some different ideas that I have recently seen on other people's blogs and/or scrapbooks. So I think Tuesdays or Wednesday will be PL day. I'm excited because I think I'm going to print more pictures at home this year as Tim got me a new printer for Christmas. A printer specifically for photos. YEAH for pictures.

Okay, so with that being said, I'm going to download my cards and print my pictures for this past week's PL.

Here's to the New Year and to being BETTER!!

December Daily - Day 1 & 2

2011-12-02T21:23:00.000-06:00

Last year I did December Daily along with Ali Edwards and it is still my favorite scrapbook. The stuff that I forgot that happened last year is really cool to look back on. I have done all the foundation pages and although some of them I think are really awesome, there are others that I was more in the "let's just get this done and not freak out about this" because honestly, something in there is better than nothing right? I had all intentions on posting my foundation pages but atlas, blogger didn't want to cooperate with what I wanted to do and well I just got lazy and didn't care that much so I figured I would post them as I do them, the BEFORE and AFTER. So, without further a due...Day 1 and 2. I haven't printed the pictures yet but they are as done as I'm going to do them.

There will be a story that goes along with this on the front. I had the camera set up on interval timing to take pictures while I read Max a story. The thing was the camera light would come on to let you know that it was going to take a picture and Max looked at it every time. It is kinda funny. I'll be back tomorrow with Day 3 and hope to get these printed and put in my album. Yeah for the Christmas season.

Updated To Do List

2011-11-12T13:10:00.000-06:00

I have so many things to do and such a short amount of time to do them in. So with that being said, let the list begin.

Finish Theresa (Tim's sis) birthday present. It's next week and I haven't even started so I guess you would say, start Theresa's birthday present.
Finish blankets for Gabby and Noelle.
Figure out what I'm going to do for my sister's Xmas present since she has not given me the wedding pictures to do her scrapbook. (hint hint Bri if you are reading this).
~~Buy Xmas PJs for Max~~
Buy Max's tux t-shirt for his birthday.
Put the finishing touches on the deck so we can be done with that very large home improvement project once and for all.
~~Buy pumpkins to carve this weekend.~~
Finish Mom's Xmas present.
~~Get caught up on Project Life, I'm only a month behind now instead of 4 like I was before. Making progress on that front.~~
~~Order stuff for December Daily album.~~
Figure out what kind of family picture we are going to take for our Xmas card
Mail the 6 boxes of stuff that have been sitting there for months on end
Make new Christmas stockings for us, I have really cute Grinch fabric.

I think that is all for now, if that isn't enough. Need to get going so I can accomplish some of those things on my list today...I hope anyways.

My To Do List

2011-10-21T08:02:00.000-05:00

I have so many things to do and such a short amount of time to do them in. So with that being said, let the list begin.

Finish Theresa (Tim's sis) birthday present. It's next week and I haven't even started so I guess you would say, start Theresa's birthday present.
Finish blankets for Gabby and Noelle.
Figure out what I'm going to do for my sister's Xmas present since she has not given me the wedding pictures to do her scrapbook. (hint hint Bri if you are reading this).
Buy Xmas PJs for Max
Buy Max's tux t-shirt for his birthday.
Put the finishing touches on the deck so we can be done with that very large home improvement project once and for all.
Buy pumpkins to carve this weekend.
Finish Mom's Xmas present.
Get caught up on Project Life, I'm only a month behind now instead of 4 like I was before. Making progress on that front.
Order stuff for December Daily album.
Figure out what kind of family picture we are going to take for our Xmas card
Mail the 6 boxes of stuff that have been sitting there for months on end
Make new Christmas stockings for us, I have really cute Grinch fabric.

I think that is all for now, if that isn't enough. Need to get going so I can accomplish some of those things on my list today...I hope anyways.

A Little Bit of Baking

2011-09-29T07:32:00.000-05:00

Tim has had to work late pretty much ever day for the past 2 weeks and tonight and tomorrow night he will be working even later, like till about 11 p.m. and tomorrow till about 1 a.m. So his office has a party/dinner each year on these two days. Tim asked me to make dessert. He asked me to make the chocolate chip cookie dough truffles, which I still am, but I wanted to make something a little more over the top. I think I accomplished that.

It is called Reese Peanut Butter Cake and boy does it look awesome, I just wish I was going to be able to eat it. The cake is chocolate cake, made from scratch and it is egg less. It looked very moist. The filling of the cake is a layer of chocolate peanut butter fudge with chucks of Reese peanut butter cups. I had to dump the chocolate on top and let it harden before I could frost it with the peanut butter frosting. Oh, don't kid yourself, there is nothing healthy about this cake, I'm sure it is about 1000 calories a slice but damn does it look good. I have included the recipe below as it pulled it from several different sites.

Reese Peanut Butter Cake
Cake

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup sifted natural unsweetened cocoa powder (sifted, then measured)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups water
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 2-inch-high sides with nonstick spray. Line pan bottoms with parchment paper. Sift flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt into large bowl. Whisk 2 cups water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla in medium bowl to blend. Gradually add water mixture to dry ingredients, whisking until batter is smooth. Divide batter between prepared pans (scant 3 cups each).

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out with a few crumbs still attached, about 28 minutes. Cool cakes in pans 15 minutes. Cut around cakes and turn out onto racks. Peel off parchment and cool.

Filling

8oz semi-sweet chocolate, roughly chopped
8oz heavy cream
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup Reese's peanut butter cups, roughly chopped

Heat the cream until it just begins to boil. Pour it over the chocolate in a medium bowl. Whisk until the chocolate melts, then whisk in the peanut butter until it's all incorporated and smooth. Set aside 1/4 of the filling for the first layer of frosting. Cool the other 3/4 completely, then gently stir in the peanut butter cups.

Frosting

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar

Cream together the butter and peanut butter. Add the vanilla, then the sugar. I beat mine until it was pretty fluffy.

Assembly

Place one 9-inch round on a cake stand or plate. Cover the top in the peanut butter fudge filling. Place the second 9-inch round on top. Using the reserved filling, spread a thin layer on the outside of the cake. Refrigerate until the fudge is set and firm to the touch.
Slather the whole thing in the peanut butter frosting. Decorate with peanut butter cups.
**The only thing I would change about this recipe would be to make sure that your peanut butter frosting is smooth and creamy. My was a little clumpy but it still tasted good, just didn't look all that great and didn't spread very well on the cake.

I also saw a recipe for Sugar Cookie Truffles. They looked interesting and thought I would try them. They are okay, not my favorite and I would make them again, but not for myself. I'm sure everyone at Tim's work is going to love them but I have had better truffles. The recipe is below.

Sugar Cookie Truffles

Ingredients1 16 oz. package of sugar cookie dough
2 ounces of cream cheese, room temperature
4 oz white melting chocolate OR 1 cup white chips
1 Tablespoon shortening
sprinkles for garnish

Directions
1. Bake cookies according to package directions until CRISP and cool completely. (You will likely have to cook them a little longer than the package instructs.)

2. Add the cookies to a blender or food processor and process until the cookies are fine crumbs. Add cream cheese and process until they begin to hold together. (You can also do this part by hand, which is what I did. It was messy but it worked. The mixture is going to feel a little dry, which is OK.)

3. Line a cooled baking sheet with wax or parchment paper. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place on sheet. Freeze about 20 minutes.

4. Melt white chocolate and shortening according to package directions. Dip each ball into melted chocolate and add sprinkles while wet.

5. Allow to dry completely before storing, covered, in the refrigerator.

Link to webpage where I found the sugar cookie truffles
http://www.mrsbettierocker.com/2011/02/sugar-cookie-truffles.html

Hoping for a Little Light

2011-09-27T14:09:00.000-05:00

Today is a big day for Mom. Recently we found out that she has breast cancer. I huge shock to us all! We all thought that she was moving on to the next chapter but God decided that to insert this one chapter unexpectedly. As a family we are all dealing with it in our own ways. I am here in Oklahoma checking my phone for updated text via Manny, Mom's boyfriend, watching my FB to see if people have posted on her wall that I have forgotten to update on what was going on (sorry Shelly and Drew), and checking my email to see if anyone has written.

Today is Mom's surgery to remove the lump she found a few months back. We know nothing. Not the stage, not if it has spread, not how long she is going to have to do radiation & chemo. Not anything. I think it is just very frustrating. I'm a concrete person. I like to know the facts. For example, child labor will suck, being a parent is hard, marriage is work. I hate hearing, your mom is going to be okay. She will pull through. Everything is going to be fine. Does anyone really know the answers to these questions...no, not yet. Do I hope my mom will be okay, of course I do. Do I think she is going to pull through, absolutely. Is everything going to be fine...Define what "fine" really is to a person.

I'm not a glass half empty kind of person but I am a the glass is half full but it isn't all the way full, it could fall over and be almost empty but still have a little bit of milk left in it. So here I sit, waiting for the glass to fall over but also knowing that it might be just fine and someone is going to come around and fill it up. Hoping all is alright with my mother and that everything is fine and we can all move on to what is next for all of us.

**Edited**Mom is doing well. Surgery went okay, they took out the lump and it was a little bigger than expected and some of the surrounding lymph nodes. The lump as about the size of a baseball. We still won't really know anything until they do the biopsy on the lump and those results won't be for another week or so. She should go home sometime this evening. My father and Manny are both with her. I have spoken to them both. Hoping, wishing, praying for a speedy recovery for my Mom. Love you Mom!!

Week In the Life - Friday - Day 5

2011-07-30T09:45:00.000-05:00

First of all, all of these pictures are out of order and because right now I'm not really feeling posting these in the first place I'm not going to change them. They won't be like this in the book and posting them here is just the accountability of doing it. The last time that I did this project there was always one day that really just didn't get as much attention as it should have and I think that Friday this time was that day. I didn't really fill out my sheet. I was a little irritated because the DHS lady was "maybe" suppose to come, but honestly who are you kidding. I knew she wasn't coming but I was ready just in case and well I was a little pissed about that. So without further a due....Friday - Day 5

The Puppy always goes in and greets Max in the morning...every morning.

The puppies saying hi to Tim as he got home from work, late.

Max saying hi to Daddy when really he just wanted to be in there to play with all the stuff in the cabinets.

Maggie waiting for her turn for attention.

Tim playing with Max

Tim reading the mail. He got something from his fishing magazine people.

Max getting ready for bed. Tim is brushing his teeth.

We have 2 toothbrushes, Tim wanted to try out the electric one.

Tim brushing Max's teeth with the electric toothbrush. He liked it.

Putting Max to bed at 8:35 p.m.

Max when he woke up.

Maggie wasn't feeling well the night before, she was throwing up all day. We thought she might have bloat so I pulled out all of the books we have and did some research. Happy to say Maggie is fine, we think she just had some kind of stomach thing.

Max playing with his fire truck on the trash can.

Another car rolling on the trashcan.

Taking stuff to the compost bin. I really need to go out there and turn it.

Cleaning the kitchen for the DHS lady (who never came)

The mail. Got my new CK (scrapbooking) magazine. Something good happened, yeah!

Max running away with the dirty laundry.

Playing

Max tried and put Maggie's collar on Dakoda most of the morning. It was pretty cute.

The Day in Numbers

69 = # of pictures taken

Week In the Life - Thursday - Day 4

2011-07-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a pretty good day. We pretty much stayed home and I cleaned the house (sorta) for the DHS lady who maybe coming today (not counting on it). So here are my pictures from Thursday.

My brown back yard. The little patch of green in the corner is from me watering my tomato plants that are not growing. I'm losing 2-3 of them now due to heat.

A fairly cool morning. This was taken around 9 a.m.

My messy bed. Maybe one day we'll get a bedroom set that all matches with pretty pictures on the wall. I wish one of those designer shows would come in and redo my bedroom. Oh to dream.

Breakfast: maple and brown sugar oatmeal, a banana (not pictured because I ate already) and a cup of coffee (no creamer, ran out, need more)

Checking everything as I eat.

A common place to find the puppy, the laundry room floor.

Max running and playing. I wish I had his energy sometimes.

A common occurrence, almost daily. Max pulling the clothes out of his drawer and throwing them on the floor. This happens at least once a day.

Maggie in her normal place.

I vacuumed, it is pretty gross. The amount of dust and dirt on the floor.

I steamed cleaned Max's room. It wasn't really that bad, I was pretty impressed that the water was only light gray instead of black like I'm use to.

Max Lunch: PB & J with chocolate milk and an apple. He didn't really eat the apple, just chewed it up and spit everything out.

Laundry.

Max playing before nap.

Dakoda drinking. I think I filled the water bowl up 4 times yesterday.

Yup that say 110. This was taken at about 1 p.m.

Max LOVES his cars! Of course they are every where too. :-)

Tim talking on the phone with his Dad. I think he was happy that there was no flash with this picture. He is getting a bit annoyed with this project.

I went to Sonic and got dessert, strawberry milkshakes, but not before we realized that the battery in the Blazer was bad. It has been so bad that battery got puffy and went bad. Awesome...NOT!

My Vibram "shoes". Love these things.

Max and his dirty hands. He is just like his Daddy, greasy hands and dirt under his finger nails and he loves it. Like father, like son.

Max happy to be outside.

Helping Daddy pull weeds, which is pretty much our whole front yard.

Time to go inside and go to bed.

Max not wanting to do this.

Observations:

- I need to dress Max is some nicer clothes. Need money for that though.

- Max eating/chewing his apple and just spitting it out all over the place. Maybe he doesn't like this kind of apple (Fuji), or that it might not be sweet enough.

The Dog Treat "Schedule"

Our dogs are very spoiled. They get more treats that I know any other dog gets. When they go out in the morning and go pee while Tim is getting ready for work they get a treat when they come in. When they get up at 3 a.m. and we let them out to go pee (this is mostly Maggie who gets up), they get a treat when they come in. This same thing happens when it is time to go to bed and they go out one last time. Some where between 11 a.m. and about 12:30 p.m. the dog get their "big treat". This usually consists of a Jumbone or a Busy bone. According to the package it is suppose keep them busy for up to an hour. Dakoda is done in about 10 minutes and Maggie likes to hang on to hers and some days she eats it right away, other days it is several hours before she eats it, then there are some days we take it back from her because she hasn't eaten it at all. But between 11a and 1230p, the dogs start "dancing". It is like they have this internal clock that tells them it is time to get their big treat. Every time you get up to go anywhere they run right to the treat closet and stand there "dancing around". Our dogs do get fed twice a day. Dakoda usually eats, Maggie only takes the evening meal, most days. The funny thing is too is that the dogs bowls are on separate sides of the dinning room and they know which bowl is theirs, but for whatever reason when I put the 1/2 cup of dry food in each of their bowls, Dakoda always goes over to Maggie's bowl and eats her dry food, but won't eat his. In the evenings we mix the wet and dry food and right around diner time they both start doing the dance and whining to remind us to feed them. It is kind of funny how they know the time. After they get a quarter of a can of wet dog food mixed with a 1/2 cup of dry food, each, they get "dessert". Normally is it a pig ear, or something that they only get after dinner. Lately it has been a combination of several treats, usually 3 each, or smaller treats. Then at about 8 p.m. they get their breath bone for their teeth. And again, they know the time and start whining and annoying you until you give them what they want. They get a breath buster or a denta stick and they only get one of those a day. Never heard of such spoiled dogs. The average right now is about $50 a month in just dog treats and that is with coupons. We order their food, because it is organic/all natural and that runs about $100 every other month but that is for both wet and dry food.

The Day In Numbers

6 = # of drinks Max had today

16 = # of phone calls I received (2 wrong numbers)

17 = # of dogs treat I gave out (9 Dakoda, 8 Maggie - she wasn't feeling well, throwing up)

131 = # of pictures taken today

Week In the Life - Wednesday - Day 3

2011-07-28T08:10:00.000-05:00

Day 3 is done!!! Today there wasn't much counting. I wanted to write down the number of miles that I traveled but if I was going to do that I should have done that the day that I did errands. But whatever. I usually collect stuff like receipts and stuff but again, haven't really bought anything or done anything that would require me to get any of that stuff. But again, whatever! So here is Wednesday.

Coffee is a good thing.

The puppy under my desk while I upload my pictures.

We went to the Splash Pad with Laura and her day care kids. Max LOVED it!!! He was running around from water thing to water thing. Loved it!!!

Max in the mister. He would get in there and stand there with his mouth wide open and smile and then wipe his face while he is standing there with all the water still coming down on top of him.

Laura and Kennedy.

Max would run out of the water to touch the fence/bench/hug me then run back in there.

Lunch at the school. During the summer there are a few local schools that offer free lunch to kids between the ages of 0-18. Best part = no clean up + FREE!!

Max is finished with his juice cup and he is "putting it away".

Max's room. Still feel like I need to put something over his crib, it looks so bare.

My shoe, Max's sandal.

My messy living room.

Tim take a shower with the new shower head.

Tim and Max watching something RC on Tim's iPad.

Max eating some of Tim's fries. Dinner was tuna melts with fries. I traded my Stove Top for fries with Laura because she was having baked chicken. Stuffing goes better with chicken than sandwiches.

Tim picked up the camera and took a picture of Max and I.

Bath time for Max.

Reading Max a bedtime story, Sleep Baby Sleep, but he was more interested in watching the light on the self timer.

Observations

- I'm so sore from the past 2 days of working out. I hurt from the neck down. Ouch!

- No mail today???

- Max is climbing into his highchair by himself. Usually the TV is on and he watches TV. So I don't know if he is doing it because he likes watching TV or he gets in his chair because he is hungry. Oh yeah, and he can't get down by himself.

Favorite Moment: How much Max enjoyed the Splash Pad. I didn't think he was going to act that way he did by running around to all the different water features. He wasn't afraid of the water or the other little kids that were there either. He laughed and played the whole time.

Day in Numbers

221 = number of pictures taken

**Did really bad at keeping track of this and a schedule yesterday.**

Week In the Life - Tuesday - Day 2

2011-07-27T08:24:00.000-05:00

Tuesday was a pretty typical day as well. Nothing really major going on here. I went out and ran errands which was mostly dropping stuff off and returning other things. Here are a few of my favorite from yesterday. Love this project is coming out. I still feel like I'm going strong too.

My coffee in my favorite coffee cup.

Today was trash day and I forgot to put the can out so I went out running when I heard them only to realize that Tim had put the trash out for me. Trash is usually my job. Thanks Tim!

The reflection shot, I did one similar in 2008.

Half way through my P90X Plyometric workout. I'm dying here, it was very hard.

Max wakes up in a very good mood. Love these kind of days.

Whenever I got to get Max out of bed in the morning the first thing that Maggie does is jump in his rocking chair. She has been doing this since before he was born. She loves this chair.

Breakfast for me: 2 scrambled eggs with cheese and some applesauce.

The weather for today. Need to do a better shot of this today, still working on getting the lighting right.

In the car, love this picture too.

At Home Depot getting a new door knob after returning the one that didn't work.

On to Wal Mart to return cake pans from 4th of July and buy some fruit.

Lunch: leftover chili from the night before.

Max up from his nap.

Tim is home. He is already tired of the flash going off every few minutes.

Drinks for Laura and I. I went over to talk about daycare stuff and just catch up.

Brittany, Laura's daughter, trying out a new hair due. It's a little scary if you ask me (pun intended).

The new door knob going in. It doesn't totally match the other door knobs but at this point we don't really care.

The day in numbers

3 = outfit changes for Max

4 = the number of times Max was in and out of his car seat

10 = the number of times the dogs went out today

59 = the number of workout minutes for P90X Plyometric

115 = the number of pictures I took today

160 = the number of minutes I talked on the phone.

Observations: How well Max is eating with a fork and/or a spoon. He is getting much better.

Gratitude: For good friends like Laura who want to help me succeed by sending daycare kids my way.

Week In the Life - Monday - Day 1

2011-07-26T07:54:00.000-05:00

So here's the first day. We didn't go anywhere so it was very typical for us. Going to try and do more this week as the weather is cooperating. Today it is errands and tomorrow I think we are going to try and go to the Splash Pad with the neighbor. There will be a recap of the day at the bottom of this post and the "day in numbers".

It is NOT poop, it is ravioli.

Looking at all the pictures makes me think that my day is boring. There are a lot of little stories that I want to tell when I put this entire project together. One story is how Max is using the fork better when he is eating. He doesn't really care for eating with this hands but he is all about tipping the plate up to either lick it or just dump the food in his mouth. Another story is how much he enjoys pushing his trucks/cars around the house and he has to have one in each hand. I'm also going to do the day in numbers. Basically how many times I did something similar over and over again.

The day went well. It was pretty basic with getting up, feeding Max, playing with him, trying to clean up the chaos of toys in the living room, checking email/blog/FB, working out (this is new, just started P90X), making dinner, feeding dogs, taking more pic (Tim is already tired/blind from the flash), and just enjoying the simple things that make up my life. Looking forward to how this is all going to turn out.

Day in Numbers

1 change of clothes for Max

2 workouts (a.m. & p.m.)

4 phone calls (Mom, Beth, Tim, Beth)

5 diaper changes

8 glasses of water drank

156 push-up (P90X)

202 pictures taken

Getting Ready for Week In the Life

2011-07-22T12:27:00.000-05:00

I did this project in 2008 and I completed most of it. I was pretty good about uploading everyday and keeping up with my progress on my blog. You can see Week In the Life 2008 here. I really wanted to do this project the years that followed but in 2009 I was pregnant and totally miserable and was lucky if I even picked up my camera. I REALLY wanted to do it last year as it would have been very interesting since we had Max but when Ali was doing it we were getting ready for our international move and the timing was very wrong. So this is the year that I get to do it again. I think I'm ready.

I have been taking a break from my camera (and my Project Life is suffering from this) mostly because it is REALLY hot here in OKC (like we are on day 30 of over 100 degrees) and doing anything is a chore, or so it feels like it. So I'm ready.

I'm still debating whether or not I'm going to use Ali's templates that she has, I do have last year's already bought. I seem to be a year behind with her as in I buy the year before templates as she is using new ones. I'm still up in the air, but the first week is all about taking the pictures and writing the stories. It will come together on the computer the following week which means we get paid which = I may buy this year's templates instead of using last years.

I have come a long way from the first time that I have done this. I learned from my "mistakes" and know how to print things easier and how to use Photo Shop a little better. I also have decided to probably have these printed through a company as opposed to printing them at home. I did that last time and I wasnt' totally happy with the results, at least looking back at the pictures now I'm not overly happy about the pictures but I'm not changing it.

The first time this was done I was in England and I love the pictures now, looking back. I'm so glad that I did this and it brings back many happy memories of being over there and how different it is compared to being in the states. I miss England.

This year my goal is going to be capturing our routine or lack there of. Some of the things that I want to include are the current prices and number of things for example the cost of a gallon of milk, gas prices, how many diapers I change in a day, how hot is it outside, how many pictures I took, how many times we watch a kid's show vs. and adult show, how many times the dogs got let outside, etc. I'm still also going to keep track of the time as in what time Max got up, what time I got up, what time we ate our meals, what time Tim got home from work, etc.

So I'm going to be printing the free daily templates from Ali to help me out with all of my stuff. Trying to stay totally organized is going to be my challenge as my room is a mess, I mean a TOTAL mess but hey, who knows, that might be part of my week next week, cleaning my room. Probably not, I want to clean it up this weekend so when it is time to sit down, I'm not over whelmed by the mess. So join me if you like. It is a super cool project. Can't wait to see how this turns out but whatever it looks like or becomes it will be a glimpse in our life.

All you Need is Lettuce

2011-06-14T08:47:00.000-05:00

My good friend Beth said that she was speaking to her friend about the "regular" meals that they make for their family. Beth told this friend about my Big Salad meal which makes an appears usually once a week or whenever we have some lettuce.

What my breakfast looks like (minus the
Bailey's Bottle)

Big Salad is a name for a meal that I stole from Seinfeld many years ago. The episode I'm referring to is the one where Elaine asks George to buy her a Big Salad when he goes to Monk's (the cafe where they always eat). Well George has his girlfriend with her when he buys the salad. George pays for the salad and him and the gf go to Elaine's and the gf is the one that gives the salad to Elaine. Well Elaine thanks the gf not George even though she asked George and George pays for it. So the majority of the episode is how George is pissed at Elaine for not thanking him and he is pissed at his gf because she took his credit for getting and paying for the salad. Love this episode.

Pizza Twist from Pampered Chef

So my Big Salad is really any veggies with lettuce. I normally make it when I forget to take meat out of the freezer and I know that I have lettuce. Very often my Big Salad is whatever is left over in the frig that is getting ready to be thrown away. It is normally something like the chicken that has been in there for a few days from the BBQ that we had over the weekend, or the celery that is starting to go limp in the veggie drawer, or I see that spot on the pepper where it is going soft, I just cut it off and use the rest of it. Yup that's how we roll in this house. If it looks bad, cut it off, if you fall and hurt yourself, walk it off...

Coconut Chicken w/ Coconut Rice

The highlight of Big Salad if there is enough time to boil an egg in there. Love hard boiled eggs in my salad and of course I make my own Caesar salad dressing. As much as I would love the drown the whole thing in ranch; ranch isn't the healthiest dressing. But don't kid yourself, if there is none made I do go for the ranch.

Tim made me breakfast.

I'm thinking about starting a recipe link on the side bar or at least post the recipes here then link. Big Salad will probably not be one of them because honestly, it is only leftovers, veggies, and lettuce. And really, you only need the lettuce.

Around Here

2011-06-10T06:47:00.000-05:00

Around Here - We are doing a lot of looking out the windows. It is so hot here now, it has been in the upper 90s all week with the UV index at 11 on a few days. The UV index is a 10 point scale.

Around Here - My tomato plants are about 2+ feet tall and I already have some tomatoes growing. Looking forward to not buying tomatoes this summer and whatever I don't use I can can so I can use them this winter. Love the idea of fresh tomatoes in the winter and the best part, I grew them and they were FREE!!!

Around Here - This little boy is growing up so fast. From the looks of this picture we may have to lower the crib down to it's lowest level. It makes me sad, I wish he could stay this little forever. He's an awesome kid. Love you Max!!

Around Here - Max is into everything. He is now tall enough to reach in the drawers that he can open and he just starts rifling around to see what he can grab. He can also now reach stuff on the counter tops. We have to make sure that all items are pushed as far away as possible, if not Max comes steals it and runs in the other rooms with it.

Around Here - Max is into playing and laying in the light that is around the house. This strip of light comes in through the skylight at about 1 p.m. Max thinks it is funny to run in and out of it. He is also into laying around on the floor. Most times he is kicking and screaming because we are at that age where when he doesn't get his way he throws a little fit. Awesome....NOT!

Around Here - This is Max's new favorite spot since we finally cleaned out the front room to make it a daycare room for me. Hopefully all paper work will come through and I can up and running by August. I already have a kid waiting on me.

Around Here - Max thinks the dog are big pillows when they are laying around. He likes to run up to them and tackle them, except they aren't moving. Both dogs are really good about not getting mad but they are getting older, as is Max, so I don't want them to get hurt. Max is better but not great at being "nice to the puppies."

Around Here - He is really into his matchbox cars. Loves to run them over the window sile and put them between the blinds, or on top of the trash can, or any where there is a flat surface.

Around Here - Maggie is still playing with a broken ball. She has ripped a hole in it but refuses to stop playing with it even though it doesn't squeak.

Around Here - He is using his "Easter Basket" from Auntie Chris as a hat. The funny part is that he always seems to have trouble getting it off.

Yup, today I was that Mom

2011-06-08T12:21:00.000-05:00

Tim and I waited a long time to have a kid. We were married over 7 years by the time Max arrived into the world. Before having him I was a little (ok more than a little) judgemental on how everyone else raised/treated their kids. I would see a mom in a store and their kid is just screaming and kicking and throwing a fit and the mom just continues to shop.

I would look at Tim and say, "Who lets their kid act like that?"

Other times you would see the mom that would have an arm full of items to include but not limited to her purse, diaper bag, cell phone, while holding on to about 3-5 shopping bag with her keys in her mouth and holding her child's hand who is doing the "I don't want to walk so I'm going to let my legs go limp and let my mom drag me to the car by my arm as I scream" thing.

Today was that day for me. Max is at the age where he doesn't want to sit in the cart anymore. No matter what toys or type of entertainment I try and give him, he just doesn't want anything to do with it. What he wants is RUN (not walk) around the store and touch and put everything on the floor.

Today we had to go to Hobby Lobby to get some items for a Father's Day project. I knew exactly what I had to get and where it was located. I decided to just bring my wallet and coupon book instead of the whole diaper bag. I put Max in the big part of the shopping cart so he wouldn't feel so restricted.

We walked around for me to get my items. He was getting irritated because he wanted to run so I gave him my wallet and coupon book to play with and that entertained him for all of 5 seconds. He was standing up and getting frustrated, he hit his head, slammed his hand in the part of the cart that folds up all the while he was starting to throw his ~~little~~ fit.

I got all of my items in a record 10 minutes (could have stayed there for much longer looking at everything) and went to check out. I was lucky enough when I came in that there was a cart in the parking lot (rare for Hobby Lobby) and I did not want to push him out in that since I only had 1 bag, my wallet, and coupon book, so I put Max down to walk himself.

Again, he is a runner right now and doesn't want to hold my hand. So of course as soon as we get to the sidewalk to cross the street he does the "limp leg" thing while screaming as I'm crossing the street holding him up by his arm. Awesome!

All those memories and judgements came flooding back on what I use to think of "that mom" and her "terrible kids". I just want to say that I understand now and I'm sorry for all the judgements I use to make. I get it now. You learn to adapt and overcome and to pick your battles. Had this been a grocery store and we were going to be there a while, I would have taken him home. I'm not blind and know when enough is enough. Why do you think we bring an iPad loaded with movie and TV shows when we got out to dinner. We want to enjoy dinner just as everyone else does.

And just some FYI out there to all you non-moms, if you see a Mom or person with multiple things/children going on, help her. Offer to carry bags or take her shopping cart over the cart return place. Don't look at her and say, "Wow, you look like you have your hands full," (uh, DUH, OBVIOUSLY) or "Your kids must be tired." It isn't always the case. Just because they are crying does not always = tired. There are a million (well really only about 10) other things that could be going on.

So again, I'm sorry for my judgements and don't worry, if you give me a funny look when my child is screaming and I'm continuing to shop looking unbothered by it, I won't judge you. I was you once. But know this, you too will do the same thing when your day comes.

Memorial Day Weekend In Photos + Some Words

2011-05-29T23:05:00.001-05:00

And let it begin with the packing of the vechiles. Yes I said vechiles. We took both trucks as we have to much stuff to put in just the Blazer alone.

Max and the digital babysitter a.k.a. his DVD player with Elmo.

Tim fishing in his Indian Jones hat. Hate that hat!

Max taking his first of only 2 naps all weekend.

Dave

VERY hot + lots of water/juice = Lots of wet diapers

Liz doing a quickie cat nap

Maggie also doing a cat nap.

Alondra

Liz

Max with his ice cold towel to keep cool.

Tim giving me the "stupid look"

Dave giving me his version of the stupid look.

Max threw a fit on the ground, this was the result.

Tim teaching Dave how to tie a particular knot.

Dave happy once he did it by himself.

Our group shot. (not pictured Max due to nap
time & puppies, they were tied to a tree.)

The weekend was good for the most part. Max didn't really sleep the first day and night. He played in the water and had a good time there. Dave and Liz with all their kids have never really been camping before so this was an experience for them as well. They enjoyed themselves. It was a good weekend but as with everytime you leave your home, it is always a great feeling to return.

A Tribute to my Mom

2011-05-07T21:52:00.002-05:00

Happy Mother's Day Mom! I'm writing this as a tribute to my Mom just for being a great Mom. I'm going apologize to her now just because I know that she isn't going to like all the pictures I put up here but these were all I could find without having to scan more and we all know I'm lazy so here they are.

My Mom is a great lady. She works hard and puts up with way more than I ever would, but in all honesty, what woman doesn't. She has been working for as long as I can remember as an RN (Registered Nurse) and loves her job, but she also loves being a Mom. In junior high, high school, and college I was always playing something, soccer, softball, volleyball, and travel soccer. In all the years that I played, my Mom was there. She would sit in the rain, snow, heat, and cold usually in her scrubs on because she just came from work to watch me play. She would turn my dirty nasty sweaty socks inside out and hang them on a make shift clothesline in the van that she drove me many many weekends to soccer games all over the state. Then there were to countless times she would wash my clothes, have dinner ready for me when I wasn't home and gave me money even though I had a job. In college she hooked up my room with EVERYTHING!! I had curtains, a computer, an iron with mini ironing board, matching everything, and I was the only one on the hall with a vacuum cleaner (I became popular quickly because of it). Before my wedding she saved the day with the invitations and gave me an awesome shower with all the stuff that I didn't know I needed until I got it (a plunger for example).

Mom taught me how to cook...well when I was interested and now a days she is calling me for recipes. She took me shopping for clothes and put up with a lot of "I don't like that" and "I'm not wearing that." I know that I wasn't the easiest person to shop with or for, I'm still that way.

My Mom was always the person that came prepared for everything. There was always something that we might need in her large bag/suitcase that she called a purse, in the end we usually we would need that one odd thing. I think that is where I get my gut in stint from. I can hear her say, "See I had a feeling that we would need ___."

Mom was the one that taught me not to judge people, well most people, and to do my best to get along with everyone. "Be nice," she would say, "Not everyone thinks the way that you do."

She taught me how to be a good wife to make sure that I knew there were things that I am suppose to take care of as a wife. "You both have your roles." she says. She told me how to get stains out of stuff that I thought was totally ruined and how to be handy around the house with nothing more than a small tool set and some random screws. She said to me that things take time to change and that I have to be patient.

Mom has also helped me to become a good mom. I was scared and worried about all that I would have to do but she said that I was going to be great, and that I was very patient so being a mom would come very natural to me. She was right. It's not easy but I enjoy it. I'm glad that I'm able to stay home with Max and watch him grow and learn. It is my favorite part. Mom was right, it all did come natural.

Mom has taught me more than she will ever know. I could write a book about it all but at some point I have to end this. I found this poem that I thought would be fitting for all you(r) moms out there. It reminded me of my Mom.

My Mother

A pillar of strength, the pure meaning of Love

A Divine gift from our Lord up above

As gentle as rain on the petals of a rose

She'll kiss away fears and hug away woes

A doctor when tending a cold or scrap

A chef when making cookies or frosting a cake

A tailor, a chauffeur, a fairy god mother at times

But never to busy for a child's nursery rhymes

A source of wisdom that comes from inside

A manager, a bookkeeper and a private tour guide

The one that knows just what to say

When a child is having a difficult day

The maker of dreams and the setter of goals

As a pile of laundry she sits and folds

When strange noises go bump in the night

It's her loving hand that turns on the light

All things to family she feels she must be

Although her family may not see

In our Lord's kingdom the one that will fare

Is the one we call Mother. No others compare!

-Barbara K. Cox

So Mom, thanks for all that you do. Thanks for always being there for whatever I needed and whenever. I couldn't have asked for a greater mom than you. Never forget how great you are and don't let anyone else tell you any different. Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Right Now

2011-05-03T21:53:00.000-05:00

I should be showering and getting ready for bed but I'm here writing this blog post.

I'm tired from crazy Vicky at the YMCA Boot Camp class she gave tonight...but it does feel great to work out again.

I need a new pair of workout shoes.

I'm about a month behind in my Project Life album. I don't like this, trying to catch up.

My household has a case of the sniffles.

I have a pile of dirty dishes from last night that will probably sit there again tonight because I chose to do other things today.

I hope the grass seed works so my yard does not look like a blind person gave it a hair cut.

I'm thinking I really need to call and get my dress altered for my sister's wedding, it is only a few weeks away.

There is no Diet Coke in my house, both a good and a bad thing. I'm down to one a day (most days).
I need to figure out how to use my movie software so that I can make the video of all of all the video clips I took of Max his first year and start his second.

I'm a little worried about ~~hurricane~~ tornado season. Never had tornadoes before.

I'm going to bed.

Home vs. Away

2011-04-27T21:55:00.000-05:00

We have almost been home for about a year now. Home being the US and since then I knew it was going to be different but as we all know we grow as we get older and learn things about ourselves that we didn't really know before. So this is really a list of things that I have realized since I have been home. I mean no offense, just stuff that I took for granted I suppose or I was just too young to realize it as these things were happening.

-People drive like manics both here and in England, at least there I wasn't afraid someone was going to shoot me if I honked at them.

-Walmart is a great place but I think the people have gotten dumber over the years both the shoppers and the staff.

- There are more stupid people here and/or they are talked about more on the news.

- I hate the news in the US, for a 30 minute show you might have 2 minutes of something good and sometimes those are the commericals during the news.

- America has too many commericals. One of the reasons why we got rid of cable and only use Netflick and Hulu. I think everyone will be doing this in the next 5 years. There will be no such thing as cable.

- Our food is WAY better here, although I haven't had good chips since I got home.

- Cadbury chocolate is my friend...oh how I miss you so!

- I like that I can get anything at anytime and have a variety of stores to choose from when I do it...

- ...But I still find myself shopping online a lot. Old habits are hard to break I guess.

- I pay attention to who has the cheapest gas and I LOVE pay at the pump. Missed that!

- I miss my pub!! Where else could you take your kid to a bar and not get funny looks.

- Americans don't treat their animals as nice as the British. Had to report someone to the SPCA (Animal welfare) for neglect. Breaks my heart!

- I feel like people are trying to get more out of me here, like take advantage of/scam me for something.

- I miss Tesco, Sansbury's, and Waitrose. The flowers and produce were always AWESOME!

- The water is so much better now, my hair thanks you.

- Clothes are easier to find, no more trying to figure out what size I need to buy. Old Navy and Kohl's are my friends.

- Wish the states had COLA (Cost of Living Allowance)

- The food service here is so much faster, but sometimes I wish they weren't trying to push me out the door before I have finished my salad.

- Everyone is texting now, it is equally bad in both places.

I guess that's all for now. I'm not saying that I hate being here, each place has their pluses, I guess I just miss it there. I feel cheated that we had to leave 2 years earlier than we were suppose to but I guess we saw enough and did a lot. It saddens me to know that I know it will be a long time before we could go back again. The grass isn't always greener.

Please

2011-04-14T09:10:00.001-05:00

This was taken from another blog (like will be at the bottom of post). I really liked it and have decided to print it out and put it in Max's baby book. This is an awesome post.

Please

notes to my children:

Don’t forget to feel
and then move on
if things don’t go the way
you thought they should go.
Sometimes what you want isn’t even what you wanted
anyway.

Open doors for girls.
Or better yet,
open doors for anyone and everyone
coming through.
Please.

Your brother will be your best friend,
if you let him.

Don’t pass up chances to go to far-away places
even if it doesn’t seem like the right time.

Marry someone who likes
so many
of the very same things
that
you like.

Please.

You need to trust your heart-gut,
it speaks to you.
It is a true voice
that can keep you
safe from danger
and lead you to great things.

You were made for those great things,
like laughing or changing your corner of the world.

There are dreams in your heart
and you’ll surely forget them sometimes
so circle back
and uncover them
because they are only yours
and they never totally
leave you.

What is the one thing you can
know for sure?
You will always belong
with me, with us,
we’re a belonging family.

Some feelings
are really hard to feel.
Feel them anyway.

Eat things that don’t come from a box or a plastic bag
most of the time,
eat things that come from say…the earth or a tree.

Please.

Smoking really is as bad for you as they say it is
and even though you’ll think you’re invincible
for many
many years,
if you smoke, you will feel it and you will smell.

I want to say
everything in moderation now,
but you come from a long line of people
who don’t do moderation well at all.
So just,
be careful.

Please.

Gossiping is gross,
you’ll feel that in your heart-gut,
I guarantee it.
And anyway,
you can like just about anyone
as long as you lay your self-righteousness aside.

I don’t really care if you’re good at algebra
and that’s not just because
I’m not either,
but because I think your brain’s energy
is better spent elsewhere,
like on words of poems
or other things that have
more potential
to stay in your
heart.

But maybe that’s just me.
Lots of things are just me.
I love most the things that are just you.

Forgive me for all the times
I have and will fail you.

Please.

The truth is, I’m learning
as I go
but that never changes
how much I wish I could
always do right by you.

Grace is what keeps us all
and it’s free
which is the same for its source,
love.

The love of God.
The love from your fellows.
Give it freely and accept it freely
because you are what love is for,
to get it and to give it to others.

Speaking of others,
learn early that there are no “other” people.

We really are all the same.

So get to know people for all that they are,
not just in parts.
Not everyone will look like you
or act like you
or think like you
or believe like you
but it just isn’t your job
to judge all of that.
It’s your job to love.

Keep the best of friends
like a chain around your neck,
soft and light and connected.

Choose forgiveness.

Turn a whole lot of things over
with your sense of humor,
and then learn to be serious
when life or someone you love
asks you to be.

Please.

Wrap yourself up in the deepest thoughts
and feelings
and fears
and dreams
of someone else.
Listen to them.
Really listen.
You’ll find the best parts of yourself
in what you learn through
the stories of others.

What’s yours is his and his and hers and hers and his.
And anyway,
you can always
have too much stuff.
Give it away,
without much thought.

Please.

Be the one that says,
I’ll help!

You don’t have to DO faith perfectly,
but have as much as you can.
You see,
there is a great union at work
between you
and your Maker.
Should you seek it with an open heart,
you will find rest and freedom
from the parts of yourself
that scare you the most.

Do the next right thing. Don’t leap before grace. Let go. Surrender. Float.

Please.

Be kind and mean it.

Get your hands dirty.
Work so hard
that you are bone weary,
often.

Protect. Seek justice. Fiercely fight for the underdog.

Please.

Think about good things,
the good things about you
and the people you love
and your life.
Think more about these things
than you think of anything else.

The truth is always the best option.

You are like a treasure,
the kind a farmer
might find hidden in a field
after miles and miles of
dirt.

You are that priceless
and unexpected
gift
hidden among the weeds,
the thistles and the bugs.
A shocking piece of art,
sitting on an easel in the sun
amidst the corn.

Ignore all the rest
if you must,
it’s not everything anyway;there’s just so much to know.

But please know that last part
the very most.

Everything else follows
the knowledge
of your treasure-worth
anyway.

So know it. Please know it.

Please.

I love you.

Taken from http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2011/04/13/please/

St. Patrick's Day 2011

2011-03-21T14:56:00.000-05:00

I am part Irish and growing up we always took part in St. Patrick's Day. Mostly we we would just wear green and made sure that we ate New England Broiled Dinner (a.k.a. corn beef and cabbage with boiled carrots and potatoes). I'm trying very hard to take family pictures on special days like these. I bought matching St. Paddy's Day shirts for Tim and I (couldn't find one for Max) and I dressed Max in a solid green shirt. He isn't wearing it here because he threw up all over it after breakfast. This shirt he decided to spill pink lemonade on the white stripes but I didn't care he was taking a picture in this shirt.

Max in his green and white St. Patrick's Day shirt playing with a dog toy.

The family photo. I think I'm squinting alot but this was the only one that both dogs were pretty much looking so we are going with it.

Max and Tim playing on the rings on the swing set in our back yard.

I love the open mouth smile. Love that kid!

It is Mustache March so Tim is growing one. Here it is in the beginning stages.

The Writings (Pictures) on the Wall

2011-03-08T09:43:00.005-06:00

Okay, so we have this huge wall in our living room that has been blank pretty much since we moved in our house last June. Yes I know, but we wanted the wall to be just our family (Tim, Max, the puppies, and I). Tim finally got sick of looking at it and we went and bought two templates from Michael's to use as a guide. We had one photo (the one in the middle) that spells out Raponi using everyday objects. I bought this not made it but can find similar ideas here for this. So we had to do some adjusting to how we were going to lay our photos.
My big thing in doing this is that I didn't want to put any nails in the wall. There is a new way to hang pictures, even BIG pictures. You can use Velcro. We used the Command Velcro picture hanging stripes. I read about these on Becky's blog here. Tim and I know this is not the "forever house" but we are slowly updating it so when we go to sell it we don't have to do any major repairs, like fill holes and repaint the whole wall again. So before we could hang the pictures I wanted the wall painted. It is color call Bavarian Cream (Behr) from Home Depot. A nice neutral color and it looks 10x better than the peachy color that was there. So the wall was painted last weekend and you have to wait one week to hang the pictures up. Once we laid out how the pictures were going to look on the template on the floor we hung it on the wall. Now this template shows you exactly where to put the nails in the wall and then the hooks are already on the back of the frames. Very easy if you are using nails. But we didn't, so on the wall with the tape. I suggest using masking tape as it won't take the paint off the wall like scotch tape will.

Since we were using velcro we had to cut out all of the pictures because the velcro goes in the corners of the frames. So we got an xacto knife and some scissors and started cutting. I suggest using a cutting mat under the template so you don't scratch the wall.

After everything is cut out you are ready to hang your pictures, well sorta. You put the velcro on the frame and press the frame on the wall for 30 seconds to a minute. Then you take the frame off the wall and there should be 2 pieces of velcro in the corners. The velcro has to sit on the wall for 1 hour before you can actually hang your pictures up there. The velcro is made in different strengths for the different size and shapes of the frames. The large velcro can hold up to 16lbs or 24 x 36 frame. Pretty awesome huh?

After all the picture frames have been "hung" and taken down again, the waiting begins. There was one piece of paper left up there because we were one frame short in our layout. The final picture shows all the frames.

And there you have it, a pretty even photo collage of our family. There are still a few things left that I want to put up there, just some accessories and such but for the most part it will stay like this. And when it is time time to go, I just pull the velcro off, pull the tab, and not mark left on the wall and thus no filling holes or repainting/touching up the wall.

They makes these templates for going up stairs as well. We only have a one story house. But I am starting to slowly replace all the frames in the house with this kind of frame and with this kind of hanging. No more nail holes if I can help it. Of course for the really really heavy frames, we will still use nail but for the most part the extra money for the velcro is worth it when it is time to go. This would a be good thing to do if you are renting a house. Wish I knew about these when I was stationed over in England.

Just Another Sunday

2011-03-06T08:23:00.000-06:00

Max flying high!! The weekends around here have been very low key as it has been a little cool and we are trying to get the yard ready, since this year is the year of the yard. We are doing a few gardens, a new deck, and we would like to paint the outside of the house. But I just thought I would share our lazy Sunday afternoon as a family.

Nothing is more entertaining then a broom stick that is twice the size of you for you to swing around and try and hit stuff with.

The daffodils coming up. Love spring and all the pretty flowers that come with it. Wish it would stay this temperature all the time.

My boy playing in the yard. He is walking everywhere and wants to explore and shake everything. Love him!

14 Months (& 4 days)

2011-03-05T07:43:00.002-06:00

I can't believe how fast time is going. Max is all over the place. He is walking everywhere and when he sees an open area where he knows that he isn't suppose to be he walks even faster and even sometimes does a little run so he can get there.

Max is starting to talk. He can say Mama, Dada, Yes, and Yeah. He can wave and clap on command and is learning not to do something when we tell him No. He loves to play in the dogs bowls, eat their food and play in their water. It is one of my favorite things to clean up (she says sarcastically).

Max's favorite shows are anything Elmo, Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, Mickey's Playhouse, and Thomas the Train (Tank). Depending on the show he could sit there for an hour and watch whatever you put on. He is really into pushing his toys around on the floor. The fact that some toys do not have wheels on them doesn't matter to him. Max likes to put stuff in things and take them out. For example our recliner has a flip-up arm rest and Max likes to put his toys, juice cup, dog toys, pretty much anything in there. He does the same with the drawers in the kitchen. His favorite thing to take out of the drawer is the saran wrap.

Max is also a big fan of closing things. He likes to close the doors on almost anything, the top of the wipes container, the door to the bathroom, the lid to the diaper dispenser, the frig door, etc. Tim is like this, everything has to be closed, it is kinda funny. Max has about 12 teeth, he is still missing about 4 but I think they are coming in now. He is a good eater and has a banana just about every morning for breakfast. Lunch is more like a big snack, and dinner can be anything from pasta to chicken nuggets. He is a fan of applesauce and really is starting to like fruit.

Clothes wise he is pretty much out of 12 month pants and the 18 month pants fit him just right now. Glad we have lots of summer clothes already for him. He can wear a 2T top, depending on the brand but most of the stuff that is fitting him now is 18-24 months.

My boy is growing fast. I was looking at video of him from just this past summer and I can't believe how big he has gotten. Time flies when you're having fun.

Blanket for Brooke

2011-02-25T14:10:00.002-06:00

Christine, my best friend (one of them *smile*) has a daughter that just turned 6. I thought she was 5 but alas I am wrong. We skipped Christmas this year with them and decided to just do birthdays. I made this rag quilt for Brooke. The large print is Alexander Henry and the small print is Michael Miller. The back is lined with pink fleece which is very soft. It came out so nice that I almost didn't want to give it to her. But I put it in the mail yesterday so I'm hoping that she will get it sometime next week. Happy Birthday Brooke! Now on to Chris's birthday present. I have decided to change my mind on design and fabric. It is going to be so much cooler if I can pull it off. Fingers crossed!

My Finished Project Life 2010

2011-02-17T10:18:00.004-06:00

I finally finished it. I'm so proud. I know I haven't updated about my Project Life in a while but I just finished 2010 and have already started on 2011. I'm still working on my Intro page for that album but wanted to share just a few of the beginning pages and the ending pages. This is a very picture heavy post so you have been warned. *smile*
The Intro page. My original Project Life album got broken we moved from England so I have everything put into a We R Memory 3-ring album. I love it, but still wish I had the Project Life album that is suppose to be with the whole kit. Oh well, this works and I'm happy.

The first page is a 12 x 12 of Max the day he was born. He was born on January 1st so what an awesome date to start Project Life right? The right side of the page is all about the day Max was born. There are pictures with my parents, Tim and I, and Max's birth announcement.

A closer look at the right side of the page. We were in England so my parents flew in that day.

Skip ahead to October. There were so many pages that I just loved I just randomly opened the book and this is the page that I got.

Just wanted to show a close up that it was 60 degrees out in November. I thought it was a cool idea. Probably going to do it again randomly this year.

More pictures of Max. One of my favorites is the one in the upper right hand corner. It's his way of "kissing"/happy. I was taking pictures of him as he was coming towards me. Love it!

These are of Max's birthday. I did this project from his birthday to birthday and will do the same this year. In face in my 2011 book the first page is a 12 x 12 on Max's birthday eating his cake.

Here's the last page in the book. Max had a tuxedo oneie when he was born so we have decided to do that same thing each year. The outfit is from our neighbors in England, Drew, Shelley, and Lily.

And finally I wanted to write a little blurb about the whole Project Life for this year and how proud I was of myself for doing it. When we have our next child (whenever that is) I plan to do the same for them, do Project Life from birthday to birthday.

So now I've updated, I have a few other things that I'm working on, will try and post soon enough.

The Daily Stuff

2011-02-11T15:00:00.002-06:00

The daily stuff around here has been great, well at least most days. We have all been sick in one way or another the last 2-3 days. You would never know it by looking at Max who has had it coming out of both ends. But he continues to walk around the house like nothing is bothering him.
Max got his bath in the morning this morning as Tim and I were too sick yesterday to give it to him at night. But him playing and eating is telling me that he is getting better.

Tim is getting ready to take his test for Master which is next week (the 16th), fingers crossed that he makes it this year, I have a good feeling that he is going to.

I have started to look more in depth to teaching online and what all that in tales. Mostly right now I need to get a OK teaching certificate. I hope the tests aren't to hard but I have to take 3 in order to do what I want or what I would like to do.

My sister's wedding stuff is coming along. I have the "Save the Date" cards done or at least for the addresses that she has given me. I'm hoping to have the rest of the address by the end of the weekend so that I can get them all mailed on Monday. I wish she would be a little more organized when doing this whole thing but it is her day so I'm just going with the flow, or at least trying to.

We are probably going to make the 19 hour drive to NC for the wedding. We plan to make a trip out of it. We are going to take 2 days to get there. I know it is going to be challenging but well what in life isn't at this point. We are just going to take our time and we'll get there when we get there. If we have to stop 10 times along the way then that's is what we will do.

Okay, gotta run, Max is deciding not to take a nap today and is screaming....

Max @ 13 months (& 7 days)

2011-02-08T08:25:00.004-06:00

Dear Max,

I can't believe how fast you are growing up and how much you have matured over the last couple of months and really the last few days. You can now stand up on your own without holding on to anything and walk across the room. Your favorite things right now are taking your Mega Blocks and putting them in empty dog bowls and dumping them out. If you aren't putting blocks in the bowls, you are banging the blocks against the bowl(s) or just banging the something to make noise. You are "talking" more making all kinds of different sounds. We often have conversations during the day about nothing. Normally I'm just telling you what we are going to do for the day or who we are going to see.

One of your favorite activities is taking a bath. If I let you, you would play in the water for hours. It will be fun this summer to take you to the pool to play in the kiddie pool. When you are in the tub you like to take the cup that I use to dump water on you and try and drink out of it. You usually end up choking a bit because you took in to much water at one time. The bottles of soap always end up in the tub with you and you bit the tops telling me that you are still teething.

You usually sleep through the night except for last night/this morning where you got up at 4:30 a.m. and didn't want to go back to sleep. You went down for your first nap at 7:30 a.m., today should be interesting for us.

Your favorite shows are Mickey's Clubhouse, Bob the Builder, Sesame Street, Thomas the Train, and Elmo. Daddy is trying to get you into Voltron as it is on Hulu but I'm not sure you enjoy it like the others.

Most days you are a good eater. Breakfast and dinner are your best meals meaning that is when you eat the most. Lunch is sometimes a struggle but I think you are liking that we are giving your peanut butter. You still eat an entire banana for breakfast each day and you LOVE your juice.

You are growing up so fast. Slow down just a little, Mommy likes you little, but also likes to watch you learn.

Love you Big Boy!

Mom

Apple Bee's Food Going Down Hill

2011-02-05T21:57:00.003-06:00

So we have been going stir crazy in the house and today it was finally nice enough to go out and get some stuff done. We got most of our stuff this morning and then once we got home we realized we still needed one more thing to complete a project. We are giving up cable but we would still like to catch the local news so that we can see what idiots in Oklahoma are doing.

We had to go back and get an converter box so that we can use the antenna. Our TV was made one year before they came standard in the TVs. Yes we want a new TV too but that is another post. So anyways, by the time we get the converter box it is almost 6:30 p.m. and we are both hungry and so is Max, who didn't get a very good lunch or a nap all day. So we go to Buffalo Wild Wings (BWW). I happen to see another couple walking out as Tim is getting Max out of the car and ask how busy they were. They said there were about 25 people waiting to sit down. So BWW is out, we move on. Apple Bee's is the next closest thing.

I go in and ask how long the wait was, it was 10-15 minutes. It's doable so we decide to stay. We sit down, no problems. We get our drinks and order an appetizer, still no problems. Then we wait. There was another couple who sat down in the booth next to ours. I'm watching them and then I see out of the corner of my eye that they got their appetizer. I'm puzzled, we sat down before them and ordered before they even got to the table. Then about 3 minutes later they get their meal. Come on, we don't even have our appetizer yet.

We ordered some buffalo wings, just the regular ones. Well apparently I didn't read the menu because they are boneless now and they totally tasted like shit. I mean these things were awful. I had 2 and that was it. They tasted like they came out of a plastic bag, dropped on the floor, then thrown in the fryer and then served to us.

So then the meal comes. I had the chicken finger platter. So for the large size I thought it was a bit small, could have been a kid's portion with these 5 little tenders. I'm use the really big ones, like you get 5 but can only eat 3. The fries looked like they had been sitting under the light and tasted that way as well. Now mine was the good meal. You should have seen Tim's BBQ sandwich. The outside portion of the meat was hard and crusty, you couldn't eat it. The onion rings on top of it were like 3 weeks old, and the meat had no flavor. So it was suppose to be a BBQ sandwich and the there looked like there was about 1/2 tsp of BBQ sauce on it.

Okay so now to the point. I don't expect to much out of McDonald's and Burger King. I know what I'm buying when I go there. Something quick and easy. When I go to an Apple Bee's or Chili, or a place that is a little more expensive then Mickey D's and BK, expect a little bit more. I'm not looking for Gordan Ramsey's burger or chicken finger platter but I am looking for something better than Mickey D's or BK. Tonight, I would have eaten Mickey D's or BK over what we were served. We will not being going back. Yes I did pay, we did eat it, begrudgingly but that is mostly because we were hungry and didn't want to hear the boy scream because we were putting him back in car seat again to go to attempt to go to another place to eat. Lesson learned, NO MORE APPLE BEE'S!!!

Who's Jealous??

2011-02-05T21:39:00.002-06:00

It has finally arrived, the new frig. We bought it in Black Friday but since Home Depot sold so many of them we had to wait over 2 months for the deliver of the new refrigerator. There is the only one going Bye-Bye. And....wait for it.....(drum roll please)
The new frig. Can you hear the angels singing now. It's AWESOME!! And I'm not afraid to tell you how much we paid for it. It was about $1300 with a 3 year service plan. Yeah I know, that's all. How awesome are we?? I know you are jealous. Okay, enough of rubbing it in.

Why so cheap you ask? Well mainly because it doesn't have all the whistles. It has some bells but not all the whistles. For example, we have stationary shelves, the kick ass version has collapsible shelves. Our frig does not have an extra holder going around the ice maker on the inside of the door, it only has one below it. We do not have the extra frig drawer. Both bottom drawers are freezers. But for the price and how shiny it is, I think it was worth the price. Now to get the rest of the appliances. Next appliance, the dishwasher.

We have kept the old frig, we are going to sell it. It still works (well the ice machine doesn't but it still has water) and we are going to put the money towards the new deck (which will go on this summer) or just put it down to pay off the new frig. Just for some FYI, I believe that Home Depot is still running this deal or something similar. Ours is an LG. We get the Home Depot card with 18 months no interest on it so we just have to pay $75 a month to get it paid off by May 2012. Awesome!!!

Snow Days

2011-02-03T07:56:00.002-06:00

Tim went back to work on Monday only to work one day and then has been off the last 3 for the all the snow that Oklahoma has been having. It is has worked out in that he has had more time to study for Master (which he takes in about a week). Here is Tim taking Max "sledding".

Max fell in the snow face first so that is why there is snow a coldness all over him. I felt bad that he fell in the snow, but at the same time it was kinda funny.
Tim pushing Max down our street in the make shift sled. Max loved it, he laughed each and every time he went.

Max after one of his runs. We didn't stay outside very long as it was cold and the wind was blowing. You can see Max's rosy cheeks here a little. You could really see them when we brought him back in the house.

Tim is suppose to go back to work tomorrow. There is still a lot of very hard packed/ice snow. The funny part is that we are suppose to more snow on Friday and probably through the weekend. I think Monday has been predicted for snow too. Fun times...and it was 75 on Saturday last week.

I've been a bad blogger...sorry

2011-02-02T11:02:00.003-06:00

Once again I have been a bad blogger, going another 2 months (almost) before I posted a real post. I mean I wanted to but just never got around to it. I have busy doing many things which of course I'm behind on those too. I'm currently trying to catch up on all that stuff, mainly my Project Life from last year and getting this year's started. But before we get there, a few pic and an update.

Below is a pic of what Tim did to Max one night after he was pretty much done eating. See the things that happen when I'm not around, I love it! It makes for such great stories later. Which is my word this year, Story. I'm all about trying to tell our stories and the ones that have been placed on the back burner. I know these are not easy tasks but I feel that I need to tell them so that I can remember and so that Max can read about them later on.

My best friend Lisa got married in New Hampshire on January 16th, 2011. I was the maid of honor and this was only the 2nd time that three of us (me, Lisa, and Cheryl = my old roommate/best friend from college) have gotten together since my wedding. It was a great day and damn cold with lots of snow. Tim kept saying who comes to New Hampshire in January without ski equipment (*smile*). We all had a good time and agreed that we need together once a year for a long weekend to catch up. This will probably be easier now that we are home in the states.

Pic from the rehearsal dinner. I had to bust out the Chowan sweatshirt. It didn't say Chowan College but it will work. Tim got this for me as Christmas present along with a Chowan University onsie for Max. We match, I know it's gay but again, I love it!

Max got to see his first snow fall in NH as well. My mom's bf, Manny, bought him this awesome snowsuit equipped with booties and mittens (not the idiot kind that are attached to a string *smile*). We would stand him up in the snow and he would just fall to all fours. It was funny. He kept waving his hand back and forth. I really wanted to make a snowman but every where we went (NH, NY, RI) the snow was just powder. Of course the day we come back to OK my Mamma calls me and says the snow is perfect now for making a snowman. Go figure. Next time I suppose.

After the wedding we went to see Tim's family in Albany, NY. Outside of Tim's parents no one had met Max before this picture was taken. A "open house" was held so we didn't have to drive to see everyone. This is most of the family. We are still missing a few people here and there but all in all a picture to document that everyone was here had to be taken. It actually came out pretty well, I think. We got most of the kids to look at the camera at the same time. I think the blinking light on the camera helped.

Max also had his first birthday on January 1st. We made him an Elmo cake. We didn't do a party or anything as we only moved here about 6 months ago and don't have very many friends, that and it is New Year's Day. So we stayed home and just a quiet little thing just the 3 of us. My Mom (Nana to Max) gave him a bunch of clothes and more toys so we didn't feel that he needed any more so we didn't get him anything. He also got money from distant relative and friends. Thanks to all for the gifts. I think I remembered thank you cards. I'll feel really bad if I didn't. *blush*

Sorry this is going in no particular order, the pictures were being a pain so this is how they came up and I'm going with it. Also while on our trip to Lisa wedding NH, then after our visit to Tim's parents in NY, we headed to Rhode Island to see the rest of my family, those that were there anyways. We stayed the weekend, my father flew up to see the 3 of us. We went duck bowling. Basically you are bowling with smaller sized balls, like cannon balls. Mamma always seems to win when we play. Tim tries to hook it like a big ball and it doesn't work well. I think he was last in both games that we played. Here is the group picture of those that came to dinner the day before we left. It was nice to see everyone but is was also nice to be going home too. I missed my bed, my house, my dogs and my routine. But if you never leave your house you'll never know what you really love about it.

Other updates is that my sister has now set a date for her wedding. She had to wait until Josh, her fiance, got into his new unit to see if he was even going to be around for it. They are getting married on June 18th, 2011 in Fayetteville, NC. They are still deciding if they are going to do a church wedding or just get married where the reception is going to take place. Bri has already told me that they are not doing a Catholic mass, so if they do do a church wedding it will be the 20-30 minute deal. She is doing red and white for her colors. She already has her dress and I just ordered her Save the Date cards which I will be addressing and mailing out for her. Bri isn't much into planning her wedding. It stresses her out so she is letting everyone else, for the most part, plan/be involved in doing the wedding.

I know there are other things but well I will be here all day writing if I tell you everything. I'm going to go and try to finish Project Life 2010 and catch up on Project life 2011. I have decided to do this years by week. Let's see how this turns out. Will post pictures when I get farther along and will take pictures of last years so you can see the finished version. Until then...

Reverb 10 | Prompt 4 | Wonder

2010-12-07T21:08:00.004-06:00

Prompt 4

Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

Wonder...Well I'm trying not to bring everything back to being a mom but really this year was all about that. I have never been one before and I wondered whether I was going to be a good one or not. I still don't feel like it is all real to me yet but I try to encourage Max everyday to do and explore some new, to wonder about it later. I let him play with things that he is curious about like the Tupperware cabinet, it kept him busy for hours yesterday, and I myself have being trying new things throughout the year. This goes back to trying to finish all the projects that I have started. :-)

I wonder how things are going to turn out for us as a family. Will we stay here in OK? What is Max going to be when he grows up? When am I going back to work? How is everything to work out with my parents' divorce? Just some thoughts or my current wonderings...

Reverb 10 | Prompt 3 | Moment

2010-12-03T13:57:00.004-06:00

Prompt 3

Moment. Pick one moment which you felt the most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (textures, smells, voices, noises, colors).

My Moment was when everyone was gone from coming to see us and Max and it was just Tim, Max, me , and the puppies in the house for about a week before Tim went back to work. It was nice to be able to not have to go upstairs to feed Max that I could do it right there on the couch. It was so much more relaxing. Now don't get me wrong I enjoyed the family when they were there but it was nice to see them go. It was at that moment that we all became a family. It was a great feeling.

Reverb 10 | Prompt 2 | Writing

2010-12-03T06:53:00.003-06:00

Prompt 2
Writing. What do you do each day that does not contribute to your writing - can you eliminate it?

Each day I try and write for Max but sometimes he is the reason that I can't write. I use to blog more and do more stuff around the house but I'm home each day taking care of Max so it makes doing things for me a little harder. It is all a balancing act. There are some day that I don't come near a computer because I'm busy chasing an 11 month old around the house. He is getting so fast with crawling these days I can barely keep up.

But I look forward to the days where Tim can take the reins even for a few hours so I can steal some time in my studio to get caught up on whatever needs to get done creatively. I hope for more time in the future as Max gets older and a little more independent. Love you Big Boy and I wouldn't trade this time with you for anything in the world.

Reverb 10 | Prompt 1| One Word

2010-12-03T06:32:00.005-06:00

Here is what reverb is all about. Go and read and participate if you like. I'm playing catch up so I will have two posts on this today.

Prompt 1

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you are choosing that word. Now image that it is one year from today, what would you like your word to be that captures 2011 for you.

My word that I chose to try and do was determined. I was determined to do many things, such as lose weight (which I did, but need to lose more), keep up with scrapbooking, and just to finish all those projects that have been sitting around the house just screaming to be complete.

I wasn't great but I wasn't terrible either. It has taken me some time to get adjusted to all the change this year. Which really should have been my word for the year. My father said it best, it is the year of change. So far this year here are some of the changes.

I had Max January 1, 2010
My parents separated after being together 35 years
We did a huge international move from England to the US (Oklahoma specifically)
We bought our first house
We paid our first mortgage
My parents start dating other people
I'm still home with Max not working
Tim got a new job outside of the normal shop that he is use to
Max is growing and ever changing from day to day
My sister got in engaged
My parents divorce was final on Thanksgiving Day
My Mom is probably moving to Rhode Island to be with her boyfriend
This is our first holiday season in the states for 7 years now

A year of change....for next year I'm hoping for a calmer more laid back kind of year. Fingers crossed it comes true.

December Daily - Day 1

2010-12-02T13:18:00.004-06:00

So this is my first year doing December Daily with Ali Edwards. I have watched for years in aww and have wanted to do it and this year I got off my butt and put is all together. I think Max has something to do with it.

This was done before December but thought this would make a good first day. When I put the pictures in my album I'll take pictures of that but until then I at least have the photos and the journaling done. Super Excited for the month of December and Max's first Christmas. Yeah for December Daily.

I'm still deciding on what to do for Day 2.

Thanksgivnig Memories & Menu

2010-11-22T10:38:00.003-06:00

This year (so far) it is only going to be the 3 of us. Which I'm totally fine with, saves some money on that huge turkey. We may be having guests but only a few and I'm not buying a bigger bird so it is only going to be a few people.

I remember my very first Thanksgiving, or at least the one that I cooked myself. It was my first year married and I was working at Honey Baked Ham with my father and sister. So were were guaranteed a free ham, in our case 3 hams. I still bought a decent sized bird because there were going to be about 8 or 9 of us. I don't remember how big it actually was but it was over 10 lbs.

I had worked all day at Honey Baked and if you have ever been there during the holidays you know what it is like, constant chaos but more or less it was kinda fun, I thrive on that a bit. So I worked all day and had to go home and get some prep work done for the next day. The first thing I did was to make the pies. Now Tim and I are not fans of pumpkin pie so we just buy a store bought one but I like apple. So there I sat, peeling and cutting up about 20 apples for 2 hours. NEVER AGAIN! The following year I bought the apple-peeler-corer-slicer from Pampered Chef, cut my time by ALOT! But I made the pies and I was ready for the next day.

I slow cooked the turkey all night on low so I could sleep in in the morning. That was nice. But I finally got up and started to get everything ready. Tim helped by cleaning up the house and getting the table set. I stood in the kitchen most of the morning and early afternoon getting it all done.

Finally it as time to eat....25 minutes is all it took to eat all the food that I cooked all day and night. 25 minutes...sad really but what are you going to do. So then the clean up and the phone calls began. Tim called home and spoke with his family and they asked all the normal questions, but there was one that I was not expecting. "What kind of pasta dish did you have?" I asked him, who the hell has pasta on Thanksgiving! He said, "Italians." I said, "Oh, well next year if I cook I will be sure to make a pasta dish of some sort for your/our family tradition."

So each year that I cook, I always cook a pasta dish. It is usually lasagna because everyone loves it and this year will be no different. Lasagna it is. Speaking of which, I need to start making the sauce today or tomorrow so it will be ready for Turkey Day.

Now My Menu

Turkey (of course)
Ham (from Honey Baked Ham, first one in 7 years)
Lasagna (because we are Italian)
Green beans with shittake mushrooms
Cranberry sauce (the canned one, why mess with a good thing)
Mashed Potatoes
Corn
Sweet baby carrots
Stuffing (going to try homemade this year, I have Stove Top for a back up)
Crumble top apple pie
Chocolate Pudding pie
Taco dip (for an appetizer)
Stuffed mushrooms (another appetizer)

Yes it is a lot of food for just 3 people but I do not intend on cooking at all for at least 3 days or at least not cooking without the above ingredients for 3 days. Going to get the last minute/fresh vegetable items today so I don't have to fight crowds on Tuesday and Wednesday.

One more thing that I'm excited about, we get to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Super excited about that too. Yeah for Turkey Day!

Lately.

2010-11-19T15:04:00.002-06:00

Lately...
...I have been enjoying small things, like peppermint mocha coffee at Star Bucks.
...I have been trying to get some pictures of Max crawling by my point-and-shoot camera is to slow so I get pictures like this. It is one of my favorites right now.

....I have been watching Max get faster at crawling and quicker to stand up.

....I have been watching him learn and grow, it is my most favorite part about staying home.

Letters

2010-11-18T15:37:00.003-06:00

Dear Santa,
Please give me back my hips, the ones that Max gave me are too big, if you could find my old ones so that I can wear some different pants it would be greatly appreciated. Also if you could throw in a non flabby stomach and feet that are a size 7 and not 7.5 that would be great. I have to sell all my shoes because my feet are to big now.
Signed,
A new mom
......

Dear Max,
Please stop growing so fast. Today I found you standing in your crib and I didn't put you there like that. You are attempting to walk and while that is great for your development, it is sad because you are no longer a baby. Love/d you as a baby.
Signed,
Mom
.......

Dear mailman,
Could you please bring me my mail before 5 p.m. each day. I would like to read my mail before I eat dinner. Thanks.
Signed,
A resident of Moore (suburb to OKC)
........

Dear Honey Baked Ham,
I look forward to eating one of your hams on Thanksgiving, I just hope that it isn't to expensive when I finally go to pick it up. Thanks.
Signed,
A person who hasn't eaten a Honey Baked Ham in 7 years
.........

Dear Mother Nature,
Please be kind to New Hampshire in January or really the whole east side of the country, as my family and I will be traveling there for a friend's wedding. So please, no major snow storms or icy roads as we will be doing a lot of traveling up that way and would like to be safe.
Signed,
A concerned traveler

1st Halloween

2010-10-31T11:27:00.002-05:00

This was Max's first Halloween. He was Dumbo (thanks Auntie Chris). He was the cutest looking Dumbo you could ever see.
We thought that Max was a bit to young to go out and go trick-or-treating so we stayed home. Our city did trick-or-treating last night. Our good neighbor, Laura, had a Halloween party though with all of her day care kids so we went over there all dressed up.

Here are our pumpkins, that for the 2nd year in a row did not get carved this year. Tim said we are getting closer to do it, since we didn't decorate last year.

Our path walking up to the front door. I meant to put the cotton spider web stuff on the porch, but again, we'll just save it for next year.

Here is another one of Max in his Dumbo outfit. He didn't care for the ears but he would leave them up just long enough for us to get a few pictures of him. There are more pictures of him and Halloween on my Facebook page.

I'm currently looking for deals on Halloween costumes for next year. Maybe I'll find something really good and really cute for him to be next year. It is almost time to get out the Christmas stuff, I'm very excited for that this year. The matching PJs have already been bought, just waiting for Dec. 1 to come around to start wearing them. Yeah for the holiday season, it is my favorite time of year.

Playing with Photo Shop

2010-10-25T15:08:00.003-05:00

Playing with Photo Shop, trying to get better using it.

Before
After I played

After reading the book

Final picture after screwing up and Tim doing some coaching with me on Photo Shop. Still learning, I want to get better at this.

Racing for the Cure

2010-10-12T10:39:00.006-05:00

This year I walked/ran Race for the Cure here in Oklahoma City. It was held in Bricktown on October 9th, 2010. It was one of those days that just makes you feel good all over.
I ran with my neighbor, Laura and her daughter, Brittany. We had other friends, Danyln and Amber, that were also in the race, just a little behind us. The race started at 8:15 a.m. Here is Brittany, me, and Laura before the race started.

This was Laura's number. I was a big loser and didn't sign up in time but I wore my breast cancer sweatshirt. Love the pink!

This was my favorite shirt all day. I saw a few people with these and wish that I had one. Next year!

Here is Laura and Danyln just after the race had started. We were waiting for Amber and her daughter.

Here are some very festive survivors dressed up. If you were a survivor you got to wear the pink t-shirt.

A few other shirts that were just a little different from the rest. Love the green and pink!

Laura and Brittany just before we hit the 4K mark...almost done ladies!

The cheerleaders on the side of road cheering as everyone walked by, this was such a great experience. Love it, definitely going to do it again next year.

The down hill before we hit the finish line. It is the arch of pink and white balloons that is just visible in the back ground.

All done! We reached the 5K mark. (I don't know the woman holding the sign but she worked with the race people and I can only assume that she will be all over FB because there was a line to get pictures taken with her...well really the sign.)

We did the race in about 52 minutes doing the walk/run thing. Not bad, the goal for next year is to run the whole thing.

The finished front

2010-10-01T11:11:00.002-05:00

I have finally finished the quilt top with the border added. This is the front, I forgot to take a picture of the back but will do that for the next post. The only thing left now is to sew the border on and then quilt. Hope you like it Chris.

btw...Tim picked out the fabric for the border, it is AH too, I love that I have scraps leftover. Tim has good taste. Thanks baby!

Moving along, still slowly

2010-09-27T13:36:00.002-05:00

The top is finished and all put together. Now I just have to decide on what I want to do for a border. Do I use the same blue that is between the blocks? or Do I find something with a little more yellow in it since there isn't much of that in the quilt? I mean you can see it here and there but well not sure what to do. That's all, just wanted to update.

I need to go out and buy the batting to go between the top and to the bottom, but can't do that until I decide on the border. Going to start cutting another quilt. I'm going to make a blanket for Max out of Tim's old BDU and DCU uniforms. Might even sneak in on of the new ABU. We'll see how far I get.

Progress is a little slow

2010-09-22T11:08:00.003-05:00

I went out and bought the fabric to finish my friend's quilt and Chris if you are reading this please divert your eyes but I know you are busy so I'm hoping you aren't reading this and if you can't resist just act surprised at Christmas. Now that all the disclaimers are out of the way I bought the fabric to finish this quilt up. Below you will see the completed blocks along with some blue, red, and black fabric, next to that is the blue with white fabric, and lastly, Max's Xmas stocking fabric. It is Sesame Street with Elmo and Cookie Monster on it, who could resist.
Here is a closer look at the boy's stocking fabric...cute huh? I thought so.

I put the blue fabric under neath and laid the blocks on top just to see what it would look like. I think it looks okay, but normally looks better once you put it all together or at least what I have found.

Here is my sketch of how the blocks are going to be laid out. I did this to determine how many stripes I need to cut for the bottom of each square. When learning to sew the woman told me that I just need to sew on the bottom of each block for each room. It is a little bit more confusing with stripes. But I determined I need twelve 9" long x 2" wide stripes. So with the seam allowance the stripes will be 1 1/2 inches wide (1/4" seam allowance)

Here are all the stripes cut. Make sure you iron them before sewing them on the blocks.

This is where I stopped yesterday. My plan is to sew them on today and to cute the longer stripes to go between the joined rows. So until then.

Switching Gears

2010-09-19T10:48:00.002-05:00

I'm switching gears to start and do some sewing. I started a quilt about 2 years ago and it is bothering me that I haven't finished it yet. Going out today to go and purchase some fabric to finish this quilt for a friend of mine for Xmas since money is a little tight this year. I'm also going to make sure curtains for the boy's room. I have this nice brown wood grain fabric that I'm going to wash and iron today so that I can start cutting later to do this project. Still trying to stay focused on my word for this year which was determined. I am determined to finish my unfinished projects. The fact that I have kept up with my Project Life is amazing, again, determined to finish this one along with these other 2 projects. Lets see how it all goes. Will post pictures later of quilt and the fabric that goes with it.

Project Life: Mine and a Review

2010-09-17T10:53:00.010-05:00

I'm not really sure where I heard about this project first, but I knew as soon as I saw it I wanted to do it. It is called Project Life. I talked about it a little here and I'm so proud that I have kept up with it since the first of the year.

I was originally going to do it just for us (Tim and I) but as the time got close to the birth of Max I thought it would a cool idea to document his first year. In the beginning it was all about him, but as I read what other people were doing with theirs I thought I would change it up a little and make it more about what happened his first year.

This first page (below) is on Max's birthday which happened to fall on New Year's Day, January 1st, 2010. I love the feeling of a fresh start. The kit comes with everything and this first page isn't how I think it was designed to be, but I made it work for what I wanted and there was to much going on to just put one picture and write a small baseball card story about this. I mean it was the birth of my first child, right?!
This is more how it is suppose to look. One card and one picture for each day to make a total of a week, but I know your are saying, well there are 8 picture spots and 8 card slots and there are only 7 days in a week. If you look in the bottom right corner you will see a blueish-green piece of paper. On this piece you are suppose to stamp the dates there (stamp also included in kit) and the extra baseball card slot is suppose to be another card that is similar to the "date card". I only did this a few times. I took a lot of my cues from how Ali is doing her Project Life. Which I totally love! But I thought about using the extra baseball card slots for extra pictures. I thought it was a waste of space to put some random looking card in there. If I didn't have a picture to put there, I just put a piece of mail, a receipt, or something else that was relevant to Max like a tag that came off a new outfit he got.

I also had some extra page protectors that I wanted to use for other items that were bigger than a 4 x 6 photo and that I didn't want to fold up in the baseball card slots. Below you will see it was a card made for Max by Max's Godmother's son, Hayden. I wanted to keep that so I put it in a 8.5 x 11 page protector.

I also wasn't afraid to put the vertical pictures in there too. Just because the picture was vertical I wasn't not going to put it in there because it didn't go with how the book was laid out. The one thing that I did do was to make sure that all the vertical pictures are going in the same direction throughout the book.

Also in the kit you will find these tabbed 4 x 6 cards. Recently I learned that if you fold them in half they will fit in the smaller slots, not sure why I just figured that out but I did. But I use these to tell a longer story. The one you see below in the bottom right corner is about Max's first 4th of July. The funny part about that is I don't have a picture from that day. So I used the story to go where the picture would go. The other thing that I have learned doing this project is that if I don't take a picture that day then it's okay. I was really up tight about not having a picture for every day of his life but I got over that quickly as I realized that there are other things that are more important.

So what do you do if you have a whole lot of pictures from one day that you want to put in your Project life book. Well there are two things you can do 1.) You can make a 12 x 12 layout and put it in there. The kit comes with 12 x 12 paper, for what I assume, to do just this or you can do 2.) Put a 12 x 12 page protector in there with six 4 x 6 picture slots.

My mother recently came for a visit and there were so many pictures that I or she took that I couldn't pick just one so this is how I solved it. I numbered all the pictures on the page, then I took one of the 4 x 6 journaling cards and wrote my journaling for each picture next to the corresponding number. Simple, effective, and it still fits in with the idea of the whole project.

So that's it. I just wanted to share what I was doing and what I thought about Project Life. I think this is an awesome idea to do for the first year of anything (child, wedding, year before retirement). I plan to do this for our next child whenever we we get there. It will start the day they are born and go to their first birthday. It can be time consuming but when you look back you will be so proud. I know I am. I will keep you updated on how it is going. Remember there is no wrong way to record your memories.

A little bit of everything

2010-09-15T09:50:00.002-05:00

I'm back again trying to figure out what I'm going to write on here, there are a few things that come to mind but not sure I'm ready to share with everyone yet. Nothing bad but just not in the mood to spill my guts I guess. Let's start with the easy stuff...life.

Max is getting big, he is weighing in at 16 lbs. 4 oz. as of the 7 September. The doctors are happy that he gained so much weight considering last time he only gained 3 oz. in 2 months. He is eating some "people" food, mostly cut up chicken and crackers. He is kinda off his Cherrio kick for some reason. Now when you put them on his tray he takes his hand and wipes them all off. That kid! Max loves yogurt, can pretty much eat a whole thing all by himself, no joke. His stomach seems to do okay with all of this so I keep feeding it to him. He is also a big fan of deli meat. Eat that at most meals, I'm trying to introduce a few other foods to him but he loves his deli meat. He is also starting to pull himself up to his knees. Last night we had to drop the crib level down for the first time. I was slightly saddened by this. It shows that he is growing so fast. Where has the time gone? I miss the little little boy. I'm trying to savor every moment that I have with him and not take one minute of the day for granite because before you know it, he will be big and doing his own thing. But for now, he is still my little boy and I'm going to enjoy it.

My mom came to visit about 2 weeks ago for the long Labor Day weekend. It was a little akwards at first but I made my peace with her. For those that don't know my parents are getting a divorce after 30+ years, and while it isn't a messy divorce (just really confusing due to lack of communication sometimes) it had/has its issues with me. I'm not going to air my parents' business on here but like I said, I have made my peace with all that has happened. I'm tired of being mad and/or angry all the time about it. It is time to move foward. All in all her visit was a good one. She got see Max and take care of him which I know she really enjoyed. We had new or first family pictures done with her and our family that came out really nice. Max is into Elmo so she went out and bought him the Tickle Me Elmo and this other one called Shake Elmo or something. He loves them both. She also got him Rex from Toy Story which he also gets a big kick out of. It was nice to see her and sad to see her go. I wish we were closer sometimes, it would make seeing everyone a little simpler. We are still a plane ride away from everyone. A cheaper plane ride but a plane ride none the less.

Tim is getting knee surgery a week from today. He has been having knee problems for months now and finally they told him that he as a menicus (I hope I spelled that right, it would be a bit embarrassing considering I use to do sports medicine :-0) tear. The whole surgery takes about 45 minutes. He is looking forward to it so that he can start running and getting back into shape. He will be home for a couple of weeks so I'll let you know how that goes.

Still no job, I don't really want to work unless I can do it from home. I like staying home with Max, I can't see taking him to someone else to raise. And yes I know that people do it everyday and that their kids are fine but I really don't want to do it. I want to stay home at least a couple of years with him and the next one, whenever we have him/her.

That's about all. I need to go and check on my pictures from snapfish. I'm working on my book for Max, Project Life. It is bascially a picture a day for a year. It is a pretty awesome project and have been doing it since his birthday. I'm pretty proud that I have kept up with it. I plan on doing it for the next kid too. From their birth to their first birthday. I'll take some pictures and post what mine looks like. I have seen so many different versions and different stuff that people have put in theirs and I think mine is pretty cool, like I said, I'm very proud.

So that is about all, gotta run and get some housework done while Max is sleeping. Check back for pictures.

An Update..Finally!!

2010-08-29T15:27:00.003-05:00

So I recently got a message on Facebook from my good friend's mother about wanting to be my friend and how she enjoyed reading me on my blog. I of course felt really guilty because I haven't written in my blog in several months. I seem to go through these kind of spurts, but alas I'm back again. I'll try and run through quickly what has happened in the last few months

First and probably the biggest is that we have moved back to the USA. We knew it was coming but we still weren't ready to go. I miss all of my friends that we made there and maybe here soon, I'll write about that. Here are our bags at the airport in London. It was a very LONG and sad day. I think I cried for 3 days straight saying good-bye to everyone. We weren't ready to go but the military doesn't care if you are ready or not, you are just going. So here we are, in Oklahoma where Tim is stationed at Tinker AFB.
This was our hotel room/apartment for about a month. We wanted to kill each other on more than one occasion, it was just to small. Most days were spent in the bed room because it was the place where I could put Max down on his stomach, every where else he would have been stepped on by either me or the puppies.

My Dad came to visit while we were in the hotel. He gave us his old Ford Ranger so we didn't have to buy a 2nd car (thanks Dad!). I think Max has some of my Dad's features. Currently he has my father's blue eyes. (Tim has brown and I'm hazel).

We have also started Max on solid foods, here he is eating carrots. He is now starting to get picky about what he eats, it makes me want to scream. But we are working through it.

We are also new home owners. We bought this house at the end if June. It is a great house, one that can hold all of our stuff, well most of it. We have started selling some of our stuff because we have closets now. In England they don't have closets or at least not large ones if they do so we bought LOTS of dressers. We got rid of 2 of them and working getting rid of the TV stand. God love Craig's List.

Right now I'm working in getting the rest of the house unpacked. For the most part it is done, just some odd and end stuff left to do. More annoying than anything. I have also started working on Max's baby book. I didn't buy one because most of the ones that I looked at didn't have what I was looking for so I decided to make one. I have lost of scraps of paper and stories written down that I need to compile and put in one place. I'll take pictures once it looks a little more organized. That's about all for now, going to do my best to keep up with this again. I can tell I'm rusty, my typing in very slow ;-)

Good-bye Old Friend

2010-05-21T02:11:00.007-05:00

Well our time here is coming to a close rather quickly. I don't like it but I'm ready to leave and start the next chapter of this life journey. Before I go I have a few good-byes to say. The first one is to my car. Yes, that's right, you can't forget your car. The old girl has been good to us, so good that I would buy a Honda anytime day or night. They are good quality cars that you can beat the shit out of and they still work.

Our 1993 Honda Accord was bought from a guy that Tim worked with when we were at Lakenheath for $2000. We have more than gotten our money's worth out of her. She has been to so many place to include but not limited to Liverpool, Nottingham (Robin Hood country), London, London Gatwick airport, London Heathrow airport, London Standstead airport, Bristol, Bristol airport, Birmingham (several times), Norwich, Cambridge, Oxford, Wales (the country..several times), and well a few more places but I can't remember them all right now. We bought the car with 98K miles on it and it will be close to 180K when we give it away. Yes give it away. See, the old girl is on her last leg. She just needs to make it another 10 days before we have to go.

She has a few problems that aren't really worth fixing so we aren't sure what is going to happen to her. Currently she has an oil leak, the back quarter panel is being held down by duct tape, the passenger side window is off the track thus you can't put it down, the back passenger side window will go down but not up thus you can't put it down either, it needs 4 new tires, the driver's side mirror is being held in place by a 2p coin, there is a dent in the front quarter panel that every time you open the door the light pops out, the front speakers are blown, the breaks are squeaking, and the CV joints are leaking and loose, to name a few things. So needless to say there is to much wrong with it to save it. Poor girl....

But as with all things in life it must come to an end. Thanks for all the good times we've had over the 5 years that we had you. You were good to us and you will truly be missed. My first of many good-byes that I have say before I leave this country. It's almost time to cry.

St. Paddy's Day

2010-03-19T09:13:00.004-05:00

It was an exhausting day...can you tell by the look of Max. Just wanted to post a few pic of the boy. Enjoy!
This one is just to funny to not put up here. Sorry Mom, we had to do it.

Max @ 2 Months

2010-03-04T02:22:00.004-06:00

Here is Max at 2 months old next to his Panda. I'll post the other pictures of him from month 1 and at about 3 weeks old next to the Panda.
Currently he is waking up at least once a night to eat, sometime twice depending on how much he ate during the day. When he does sleep he sleeps for 3-5 hours and of course I love when it is the 5 hours. He is wearing 3-6 & some 6-9 month clothes but the 6 month pants don't fit. I have already put away most of his newborn clothes, there are a few things that he didn't get to wear. Oh well, maybe the next kid.

Rock on!! He has recently just started really sucking on his hands for some reason. He isn't really a binkie kind of kid. He'll take one at night before bed and sometimes I can get him to take one when I know he is hungry and I can't feed him right away but other than that he doesn't want it. He likes his swing. We call it the sleep machine. Most times when we put him in it he's asleep within a few minutes.

Here's Tim and Max all bundled up as we walk the puppies. Max has just started cooing and he is smiling a lot when you play with him. He has very good neck control and has started pushing with his legs. He likes to stand up and look around. He loves to "see" and I love to just watch him look around, it is so cute.

Tim and Max taking a little cat nap. See Max with his hand in his mouth. Too cute!! You can't see it in this picture but the dogs were up there too while they were sleeping. So that's about all for his first two months. Now I just need some time to scrapbook it all. Pipe dreams...pipe dreams!!

Homeward Bound!

2010-02-24T14:17:00.003-06:00

So we are coming home, for good. We aren't happy about it but that is another post all together. So we are going to Oklahoma....Tinker AFB to be exact. It is just on the border of Oklahoma City which is good. So here are my list of things that we are looking forward to even though we aren't totally excited that we are leaving.

Normal water that you can drink out of the tap, although, I'm not sure that I will since I have been drinking bottled water for 6+ years.
Water that doesn't turn my whites gray and destroys them so much faster than being at home due to the water being SUPER SUPER hard.
Water that doesn't destroy my hair and my dye job that I get done.
Hot and cold water that comes out of the same tap and not 2 different ones. (can you tell that I have a thing about the water here.)
Getting a cup of coffee @ 9 p.m or 10 p.m. or even 11 p.m.
Eating at a steak house and eating real quality beef (British beef sucks)
Grocery shopping at midnight, if I wanted to.
Normal size parking spots, they are very tiny here.
Normal size roads both in length and width.
Getting all of the TV shows when they are actually being played and not 6 months later like you get here.
Having more than just Chinese and fish n' chips when we want to eat out.
Target, Walmart, Michael's, Joann's, Food Lion, Hallmark store, Best Buy
All of my stuff in storage like my giant George Foreman grill, I miss that thing.
Being able to get a real job instead of just working at the commissary

There are more but those are the ones that I think of off the top of my head.

Max's Birth Story

2010-02-21T05:11:00.009-06:00

Okay, finally getting around to this almost 2 months later.
I was scheduled to go in for an induction on the 31st of January. I got a phone call to come in on the 3oth in the evening for my first round of "the gel". Basically it makes everything soft and is suppose to get things moving along. We got to the hospital around 4 p.m. I got my first gel around 7 or 8 p.m. I felt some slight movement but no labor pains. Tim stayed with me till around 2 a.m. then went home and they we were told that I was going to get another round of gel the next morning around 7 a.m.

The next morning we move rooms. I go downstairs to the delivery suite and get my second round of "the gel". (I got one of the 2 rooms that had a window which was kinda nice.) I was then told to walk around, sit on the exercise ball, walk some more....basically keep moving to get things moving. The second round of gel made some very mild contractions come along. I was on all the monitor and Max was fine.

Around 2:30 p.m. my doctor came in and checked me and basically I was a little softer but that was about it. She said that it was time to start the real drugs. I was then given the poticin (spelling) and then they broke my water. Let me just tell you that when they broke me my water is one of the most painful things I have had happen to me. Then I remember people telling me that when they break your water or when your water breaks it is just one big gush and it feels like you are peeing yourself. Well that is all true, but for me every time I moved more "water" came out. I was gushing water for hours. It was very annoying. The poticin was being doubled every hour starting at 4 mg. So the 2nd hour it went to 8 mg, then 16 mg, etc. At 6:30 p.m. I was checked to see if I was dilated at all. I was about 1 cm. It was slightly disappointing. I thought I would have been farther along with the amount of pain that I was in.

At this point when they checked me they thought that either cord was in the way or they didn't break all of my waters. The midwife (the 2nd one of the day) went and got the doctor that was on the floor and had him come in for a quick feel. The midwife thought it was just another water membrane and he thought otherwise. My doctor, Debbie, was called at home and came in to check for herself. Once she got there, she did an ultrasound and found that it was not cord just another member that needed to be broken. So that is what she did. It didn't hurt as bad as the last time cause the real contractions were going on, which are no joke.
The contractions were coming hard and strong, like about 45 seconds to a minute apart and they hurt REALLY BAD!! They offered to do my epidural but I said no, I wanted to wait until I was in active labor (which is 4+ cm). Debbie said that if I was in that much pain that I didn't need to be brave and just get the epidural. It would make me more comfortable. I agreed but they had the find the ansegiologist. At this point it was around 7 p.m. I was offered "the gas". It is a pain reliever as well as to help control your breathing. It worked great the first few times, it helped as a distraction from the contractions but again, only for a short while. It basically made you feel drunk, which was pretty nice. :-)

After a short while the contractions were getting stronger and I really wanted my epidural. The poitcin makes the contractions harder than normal labor, or as least that is what they told me. I had to wait a hour for my epidural but my midwife was great. She had everything all set up so when he got there all it had to do was put in the giant needle, which I didn't see (Tim told me), and give me my drugs. I had a boost button as well, so when I started to feel more than normal pain I just hit the boost button and 10 minutes later I didn't feel much. It was great. I could have kissed that man.

So now we wait and hope I progress. It was at this point that Tim told me that I could have my name of Maximus. I told Tim in the mist of labor that I was going to get it whether he liked it or not. But it was nice to know that he liked the name as well. I was slightly worried that the name wasn't going to fit him or he didn't look like a Maximus. I didn't share this with him at the time.

At 11:30 p.m. my doctor came back and checked me to see if there was any progression from the 1 cm that I was several hours ago. I was a huge 2 cm. It was at this point that Debbie said that it didn't look like I was going to make much more progress and that we could either wait a little longer to see if I was going to progress or we can just go ahead with the C-section. Tim and I talked about it briefly and opted for the C-section. I had had enough of this and was ready for it all to be over.

Shortly after I was wheeled down the theater (operating room). Tim came in shortly after and they started. About 10 minutes after they started Maximus Angelo was born. He was born at 1:13 a.m. I didn't do well with the ansestic but was okay enough to see Max and when I saw him he looked like a Max, no doubt about it. Tim was banking that Max was going to be over 9 lbs. Max was 8 lb. 15 1/2 oz. He was a half ounce off of 9 lb. Tim thinks that if Max didn't pee right after he came out that he would have broke the 9 lb marker.

Once Max was out then came the fun part for me. I was throwing up, shaking, and over all slipping in and out of consciousness. I wasn't great with the ansetic because I had so much over the last few hours. But after it was all said and done it was all great. I was then wheeled to recovery where I would stay for way longer than what I wanted to.

Tim went home around 4 a.m. and returned the next day with my parents who flew in that morning and were picked up by our very good friends Chris and Ed. Thanks guys!

Life has officially changed forever. Nothing is the same. Everything takes longer and more planning than I ever thought. But it is all for the good. Love you Max.

Long Time No See/Post

2010-01-26T03:25:00.004-06:00

Okay, so it has been a while since I have posted. There are a few "small" things that have happened since the last time we all spoke.

1. I quit my job (see #2 for reason)
2. I had a baby boy, Maximus....Max for short.

But since I quit my job there are a few things that I'm looking forward to doing. #1 Staying home with my son and #2 Taking more time to get caught up on the stuff that I have slacked on for the last year or 8 months or so. I have stayed up to date on reading everyone else's blog but have seriously slacked on mine. Everyone is doing all of these cool projects and I have done nothing for many many months. So in kicking off the new year I need to pick my work for the year. Last year I chose to Simplify my life. This year my word is Determined.

I am Determined to finish all those projects that I have half done. I am Determined to lose most if not all of this baby weight that I gained. I am Determined to save more money this year for both the family and for Max. I am Determined to make move in June as smooth as possible. I am Determined to keep up with my blog. I am Determined to keep up with all of my pictures on my blog, my Facebook, and my house. DETERMINED!!!

September begins

2009-09-02T01:35:00.003-05:00

So September begins and to me that means the holiday season is upon us which = NEW BABY! We are ahead of schedule when our stuff, at least I think so. We have the crib and the rocker and the car seats with the stroller accessories are on the way courtesy of Mom and Dad, thanks you guys. You're the BEST! So now I'm missing the stroller, which my FIL is buying, and the dressers for his clothes. They are on the way and fingers crossed that they get here soon. We are not setting up the nursery as we think we are going to be moving anyways right after I have my 6 week appointment. Where are we moving? Some where in Europe is all they have told us. But of course they want us to move right after I have the baby which I can't do because I need to go to a 6 week check-up and the baby is going to need a passport which can take up to month even if we do the really fast way. We'll see what happens.

If you also have noticed I'm still calling my son (it sounds so weird to be saying that) the baby. We still don't have a name yet. I'm hoping that Tim will give me my name. I have put a deadline on him of October 1st to chose a name. I hate calling him 'Him' all the time. Someone else also said that I should wait till he is born to name him cause he may not look like a (insert name). I guess we'll figure it out soon enough. We do have till December but that will be fast approaching as well.

I never thought I would say this but I'm happy for my new maternity clothes to be coming in. I don't have much in the way of summer wear but it is getting chiller here and the one pair of jeans isn't going to cut is for much longer and well I'm in need of some tops as well and a coat/jacket. I have it all coming but the mail is so SLOW right now. I'm waiting on a bunch of stuff now from like 5 different stores, it's crazy. Trying to get the Christmas shopping done now so I don't have to worry about it.

I have almost finished all of my unfinished projects. They are slowly coming along. I'm in the process of making a diaper bag for a friend who is having a baby any day now. She is due at the end of the month but probably not going to make it to her moved up scheduled induction. So I'm pressed for time.

That's about all for now, nothing else to really report. Sleeping is becoming a real challenge. I get up at least twice to pee and my stomach is starting to get in the way. Like I hit it with the frig door when I close it, or I can't put my water bottle between my legs because then I can't drive. Fun stuff like that. Sorry again, no belly shots. Tim is suppose to take pictures of me soon for his portfolio so I might post some of those. I feel as big as a house and I have the belly of fire from my stretch marks and yes I'm doing the lotion thing but I have a very strong feeling that this kid is going to be HUGE! They normally say your kid will be the average of what you and your husband were. Well I was 9 lb. 11 oz. and Tim was 9 lb. 2 oz. So that being said.....you do the math.

Okay, that's it, I'm out.

It's A Boy!!!

2009-08-16T04:26:00.004-05:00

So it is official, we are having a boy. Tim is very excited and hasn't stopped smiling since we came home from the doctor's yesterday. I was laying there on the table and the doctor said, "Do we want to know the sex?" Almost at the same time Tim and I said yes. He said well it looks like a boy. I thought Tim was going to start doing cartwheels around the room, even as small as it was, he was so excited.

This is the first grandchild on my side and it is the first boy on his side, the 5th grandchild there. So the family name is safe as far as last names are concerned. Now comes the fun part of the name debate. I really LOVE one name and there are a few that I just like. My name is Maddox, we could call him Max for short cause I know that is coming too. The middle name no matter what is going to be Angelo which is also Tim's middle name and his father's first name. Other names that I just like are Dereck and Alex, and that is pretty much it. Some of those baby name websites want you to commit suicide looking at all the 10,000 ways to spell a 3 letter name.

Anyways, that's about all. So start buying blue. I have a theme picked out and it is going to be puppies. JCPenny has a puppy nursery set that I think I'm going to get, I love it! We are going to get the crib next weekend along with the changing table and dresser to match, oh and the glider chair as well.

The baby is healthy with a big head but everything looks good. His heart rate is 130s-150s from what we hear. My blood pressure is normal as is my sugar so good news all around. Other than that nothing new to report.

Love This!

2009-08-11T01:37:00.002-05:00

I found this on Ali's page, thought it was too cute, so I had to post it here too. I should have done something like this at my wedding, though I don't think my mother would have enjoyed it much but how awsome. Enjoy!

So I forgot

2009-08-10T01:57:00.003-05:00

I know today is the first day of my "A Week in the Life" project but I forgot to get the camera ready this morning so I'm thinking about putting it off another week but now I'm trying to reconsider. I'm really behind on all of my other projects that I want to finish here soon and well I don't think I'm going to have time to do it this week. I am, however, going to have Tim bring the camera to the ultrasound so that we can have some pictures because I have a few layout ideas about how to document this.

I was actually thinking about starting the baby's book. Ya know, nothing to fancy cause well I'm not a fancy person. Just the pregnancy story, a layout of how I'm NOT doing belly shots (sorry everyone), and the one of the baby's sex and maybe one getting ready for their arrival. I'm thinking about doing one for the possible names that I have/had picked out. Maybe I'll do that today when I go to work seeing as I don't have any tests to give.

Anyways, things are starting to come together. My house is fairly clean, I have gone through a few things that I'm donating and throwing away. I just have to much stuff now a day. Still doing my best to sticking with my Word of the year, SIMPLIFY. I think I have been pretty true to it so far. Okay, gotta run, have to load the car up with recyclables cause our recycle guys don't take plastic....yeah I know, we said the same thing.

I think It's about time

2009-08-07T01:47:00.002-05:00

...to do the Week In the Life of Project again. I know that I said that I wasn't going to start any new projects until I finished the old ones but who are you kidding.

Last year I did it around the end of October till the beginning of November. I have all but finished 2 pages on that project so I think I will be doing that that weekend. The finishing touches are always what takes the longest. I think I'm going to use the same album as last year and just put year divider in it. I mean the album is no where near being full.

I also wanted to do this project next week because next Saturday we find out if we are having a boy or a girl. I have my guess but I think I'm wrong, I'm 0 for 2 on guessing this baby thing and the magic 8 ball has denied my question twice so now I just figured I would wait for the ultrasound.

Until then...

Random Thought #10 - Tim's Damn Alarm Clock

2009-07-30T02:25:00.003-05:00

Okay so I have been wanting to do this for a while now and I finally have the time and, this morning I got the reminder to do it when Tim's damn alarm clock went off.

So in college I had an alarm clock, in fact I still have the same one. It has a setting for 2 different alarms, very convenient when you want to take a nap in the afternoon. Anyways, I place my clock across the room so I could still see it if I woke up before my alarm but I would have to physically get out of bed to turn it off. It was my own way of "making myself get up". Mind you there were many times I laid back down and went back to sleep but in turn I only hit the 'Snooze' button on the clock and usually by the third time getting out of bed I would just wake up cause I was tired of getting out of bed.

Well Tim leaves for work between 6-630 a.m. every day. It takes him about 40 minutes to get out the door by the time he does his morning routine and it is about a 10-15 minute drive to base. So he usually gets up about 5-5:30 a.m. sometime earlier depending on what he has to do. Tim has 2 alarm clocks (he doesn't have a cool clock like mine) and currently I'm ready to beat him to death with both of them.

The first one goes off at 4:50 a.m. He rolls over and turns it off. The second one goes off at 4:55 a.m. Then the first ones goes off again at about 5:01. The second one goes off again at 5:07 and then the first one goes off again at 5:15. This pattern of randomness continues till about 5:30 when he finally rolls out of bed. What's the point!? I mean by this time you know you are awake, get your ass out of the bed and honestly by 5:07 I'm awake too cause I don't get up till 7 a.m.

So what is the point of have having your alarms go off for about 40 minutes if you are still going to get out of bed at the same time you did when you only had one alarm. I mean set it for 5:20 and if you hit the snooze button it should only go off twice, in theory. Sometimes I wish I could understand. I guess we all have our ways. Whatever.....

p.s. - I just want to let everyone know that I finally spelled convenient right without having to look it up in the dictionary. Yes this is a big deal because if you know me you know that I'm the worst speller and have a dictionary next to every computer that I work at. Because when spell check can't correct the word for you, you know you have a problem.

Hello.....anyone still out there??

2009-07-27T01:50:00.003-05:00

Okay so I had a month or more of house guests and other social obligations and as you can see my blog was the one that took the brunt of the neglect, my email has as well. So what's been going on. I'll try to recap...

On being pregnant.....I hate it! I'm only 4 1/2 months and I think I look like I'm about 8 months pregnant. I'm sure not everyone feels that way but that is the way I feel. Nothing fits, again, I'm hot all the time, and I currently have a cold that I can't just seem to kick the cough part, which is the worst part. I miss my drugs. My face continues to break out as do other parts of my body (sorry for the TMI) and recently Tim has told me that I have started to snore....BADLY! He said that I'm snoring so bad that I have to go and get the breath right strips so that it would reduce it. He also said that when he rolled me over that the snoring got worse. Also my boobs have gotten bigger, which if you have big boobs to begin with this is already a bad thing. So now they are pulling on my neck. I get lots of pain right between my shoulder blades. So I can only sit and/or stand for so long before my shoulders and my feet start to hurt. What is even sadder is that I'm only 4 1/2 months pregnant. I'm just barely half way there. This sucks....bring on Christmas.

On my many house guests.....We had friends that came down from Lakenheath for the 4th of July weekend. It was really nice to have them here, they will be moving here later this week....I'm so excited for that I can't wait. I'm hoping that they like the house that is just in the next village, only 5 minutes drive from here. Very exciting as well. My parents were here for about 2 weeks as well. Mom, Dad, and I went to Ireland for a few days, it was really nice. We went to Galway on the west cost of Ireland. It was really relaxing kind of break. We mostly shopped and walked along the beach. The weather was good as well. We came home and that then we had RIAT or Royal International Air Tattoo. It is the largest military air show in the world held at our tiny little base. Tim took lots of pictures and the weather even held out for us. My father cooked for everyone so the burgers weren't over done and the chicken wasn't under done. It was fun. Mom and I went out and did some baby shopping. Mostly got clothes for me because I don't have anything. The clothes are nice, to me most of them look like tents on me but again, I'm not liking being pregnant so whatever at this point. At least now I have different options to wear besides Tim's old black t-shirts. We more or less hung out the rest of the time they were here. Dad left earlier than Mom so it was sad to see him go. While Mom relaxing she registered me for baby stuff online. I'm registered at Babies-R-Us. I don't think I'm going to have a baby shower at least not one in person. No one is here for me. I don't have many friends here and the friends that I do have already have stuff picked out for me. I'll probably do a virtual shower or something. I'm not going to open much of anything once I get it anyways as we don't think we are going to be here for very much longer and if we are we won't be here long after the baby is born. Timing is everything isn't it and well ours isn't great. But I'm not upset anymore, just a little stressed, the unknown always does that to me. Back to my house guests. Mom left on Saturday, it was nice to have her here. I didn't have to do anything. If I wanted it she made it for me. All my laundry is washed and folded, now I just need to put it all away (still working on that Mom, haha). That's about it for that.

On reading....I finished the whole Twilight Saga and I totally loved it!! I'm not as excited for the movie(s) but we'll have to see. I have the first one and I was waiting until I finished all the books before I watched it. It is a blue-ray and well currently my PS3 is on it's way back from being fixed so when it gets here I'll finally watch it along with several others that we borrowed from someone that Tim works with. Not sure what I'm going to read next. I mean I read all 4 books in about 3 weeks. I'm sure I'll find something in my collection to pick up.

On all things crafty.....I have been seriously slacking in all things creative. I have been either to tired or to busy. Yesterday I finally sat down and did some stuff. I would like to have all of my unfinished project finished by the end of August and if you know me that's a pretty tall order. But I think I can do it if I just do a little at a time. I mean it isn't like there is anything on TV these days. Sometimes I wonder why we even have cable.

Well that is all for now. I'll update again here shortly with pictures from my parents' visit and air show pictures, etc. My next doctor's appointment is on 15 August and that is when we find out what we're having so I'll be sure to let you all know in a very timely manner. Until then....

I'm Hooked On....

2009-06-29T10:24:00.004-05:00

...the Twilight Saga. Never knew what all the rave was until now. I'm currently reading this book, New Moon, the second in the series of four.
I read the first one in about 2 days and as much as I hate paper back books I couldn't wait for amazon to ship me the whole set so I went downtown and paid in pounds for this one. This morning I ordered this and can't wait for it to get here. Now I just need to see the movie. Most people said that it was okay but the book is always better. Love my books, never use to. I hated reading as a kid. It's funny how things change when you get older.

**Disclaimer: If you know anything about the books please don't tell me, I hate people that spoil unless I ask them to. Thanks!**

Summer Love and Hate

2009-06-24T01:21:00.003-05:00

I love the summer. I love the fact that the wind blowing is a blessing to cool everything off as we do not have AC here in England. I love the fact that I don't have to wear 4 shirts when I need to take the trash out so I don't freeze. And I love the fact that the sun is out for a longer period of time throughout the day. But.....(you knew it was coming somewhere)

I hate what the summer brings....my allergies. I have had allergies (or hay fever as it is called here in England) since I could remember. I have been on every allergy medication that exists and honestly I don't think any of them really work, at all. I have tired the pill form (Claratin, Allegra, Zyrtec) and the nasal form (Flonase and something else that I took as a kid) and I have tried them together and still nothing. I have the eye drops that say on the side of the bottle, "Place 1 to 2 drops in the affected eye(s) up to 4 times a day." Right, 4 times a day, I have already gone through a bottle of the stuff. I have tried allergy shots, twice and they are just a pain to keep up with. The only thing that I have found that works is well nothing. The only thing I haven't tried yet is the honey thing. You get honey from the local area and take 1 tsp. a day and it should relieve your symptoms over time, I think?

So Andi, why not avoid things that you are allergic to? Well it is funny that you say that cause I'm allergic to everything. Grass, most trees, my own dogs, pollen, dust, certain dust mites, mold, and the list goes on. It wasn't so bad when I can just lock myself in the house with the AC blasting, but again, no AC here and unless I want to die of suffocation then well, the windows and doors stay open to get the air flowing throughout the house.

So as much as I LOVE the summer.....bring on the fall. I'm also hot all the time because I'm pregnant and want to walk around the house naked. Tim keeps saying to me at night, wow you are so hot, how can you stand it? Ahhh....the things women do??? If they only knew the half of it......

Weekend Visitors

2009-06-09T02:14:00.004-05:00

We had visitors this past weekend. Our old neighbors Drew, Shelley, and Lily came to visit for the weekend. We had a great time and wished they could have stayed longer. It is always nice to catch up. While they were here we did a mini photo shoot of the dog for Shelley to hang on the wall in her living room. Currently there is nothing on the wall and it is driving her crazy.

This first picture is a test shot. Yes that is suppose to be Scooby Doo but the dogs have made a retarded Scooby. they have ripped off his ears and tail. They have pulled out his tongue and several times they have cut him at the neck and pulled out his stuffing. So we have sewed him back up but sometimes we didn't always get the stuff back in there so his neck looks broken as well. Poor Scooby.
This Maggie and Martha in the chair. Tim was teaching Drew about lighting and such. Don't the two girls look cute together.
Here is Martha and Dakoda in the yard. They both have that same cocker face that you can't help but love even when they do something bad.

Finally, my FAVORITE picture of all...all three puppies sitting and looking at the camera. You couldn't have asked for a better shot. Tim has to do some back ground editing but for the most part it is almost perfect. This one might be a hanger.

Playing Catch-up

2009-06-01T01:36:00.004-05:00

Okay, so I'm a bit behind, but at the same time I didn't want all of my posts to be about my pregnancy, and well I have been really lazy and tired all at the same time. Here is the first picture of our baby. There is only one, secretly I was hoping for 2 so I could get just get this all over with, but anyways. As of now I'm in my 11th week. Tim and I were about right when we thought we conceived. That sounds like such a dirty word at times. Our due date moved from Dec. 28 to the 26th. This should be interesting I guess. Whatever, as long as baby is healthy. We go back for another scan on the 13th of June and see the Dr. (Mr.) on 16 June. The scan on 13 June is for abnormalities and I have to get blood drawn either this week or next week for the Down's testing.

As far as other things pregnancy related I feel very fat. Yes I know that everyone is different, but I'm hoping this will all kinda taper out here as far as weight gain is concerned. I'm hoping that I just gain it all in the beginning and then the baby will just take the rest of it, what do you think? I don't think I have gained any weight, I just feel like I have. Nothing fits, stuff is to tight, and I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. I have also decided to boycott underwear. You heard me, I'm boycotting. I hate them. Now here is where I think you are going to get some TMI so if you don't want it, skip down below to the next picture. I'm a thong wearer. I became one several years ago and I love them. I like the mostly because I'm a butt sweater and I hate when I sweat then sit down and feel like I'm sitting in a puddle. Well now my thongs don't fit me, well most don't. My friend Chris told me about pregnancy thongs but again I have been too lazy and tired to search for any. So I need to get off my ass and get some stuff before I drive everyone around me insane. Honestly, I would love just to walk around in my basketball shorts and an old T-shirt for the next 6 months or so but I'm not sure that is possible. I have to look presentable at some point don't I. Okay, enough pregnancy stuff.

Below is my first gift. It is a handmade from one of our British friend's moms. She is really nice. We brought her some bread back from Scotland when we went up there last month. She said that she made it in one night. Pretty good if you ask me. Oh yeah, it is a shawl, forgot to mention that. It's really pretty though.

Other happenings: We are going to have a very busy summer. I think I only have 1 free weekend until August. Here, I'll run through our summer, for the most part.

June 5-7: Old Neighbors (Drew, Shelley, Lily, and Martha) come for visit

June 13: Scan in Oxford = most of the day gone.

June 14: Pictures at a dog show, we're taking the pictures

June 20-21: Free weekend, spring/summer cleaning

June 27: Wales to Bookstore town, maybe

July 4: Someone will have a BBQ

July 11-25: Mom and Dad here

July 17-19: RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo)-largest military airshow in the world held at RAF Fairford.

July 25: Wedding, taking pictures again

August 1: Scan in Oxford, sex of the baby scan

So, there's my summer, for the most part. I might be helping a friend but I'm not going to say who or what we will be doing just in case it fall through but if it doesn't, life is going to get a lot nicer and I think some what easier. SUPER EXCITED, but not to excited, just in case.

We had a nice weekend as well. We had people over on Saturday for our Italian theme BBQ. There was really nothing to cook on the grill except hot dogs and some chicken. But I made lasagna, stuff shells, green beans with shittake mushrooms, regular salad, tiramusu, rice crispy treats, and peanut butter fingers. I was done but the day's end, which is why yesterday was so nice. The other major thing we did was walk the dogs for 2 hours. Puppy got to swim which was nice because it was hot here and he doesn't get his hair cut until Thursday of this week. Well hot for us, it was about 75 or so. We had to get the fan out last night and leave the windows open. It was really nice. I think we are going to get a summer this year. Super excited about that too.

Okay, that's enough of an update. Can't think of anything else. If something new arises then I'll post again. I think Transformers comes our 19 June but not sure. Will do a movie review on that when we go and see it.

Today is June 1st, I think summer has arrived....YEAH!!!!

The Summer of Movies

2009-05-25T03:34:00.002-05:00

Last weekend we went and saw Angels and Demons. My opinion, it is worth going to the theater to see. I found this movie a little easier to follow than the last one. And for those of you who don't know, this is the first movie, not DaVinci Code. DaVinci Code is second in the series. I'm curious to know what they are going to do with his new book, The Lost Symbol. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Last night we went and saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine. My sugguestion, I would wait for this to come out on DVD. It was a good movie but it isn't a theater movie. I think I would have gotten the same shock value if I had watched it from home. But I will buy this one on Blu-ray when the opportunity arises.

Now for the other two movies that are definietly movie theater movies.

And the other movie....after this, unless something else comes out, this will be it, SUPER EXCITED about both of these movies.

I Could Literally....

2009-05-18T01:56:00.005-05:00

...fall asleep at the drop of a hat and kill everyone that says "..when I was pregnant..". I'm not liking be pregnant, at least not at this moment. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE says

"...it's getting better, I loved being pregnant..."
or
"...it's NOT going to get any better and you are going to be tired for the next 5 years..." then laugh at me.

I hate you people that say that to me, a first time mom! Thanks!

I'm not looking for advice. I just want you to feel bad for me. Say, "oh Andi, I'm sorry, you should go and rest, take a nap, is there anything else that I can do to help you or make you feel better?"

I kinda feel like I'm planning a wedding. Go with me on this one. If you are already married and you have a friend that is getting married and is planning a big kinda wedding you feel the need to put in your two cents. (I have done this.) You hear a lot of "...when I got married we did...." or "...we didn't do that, we did this and it worked pretty well..." or "...no that's not going to work like that, you should do it like this..." or "...on your wedding day you are going to feel ___..."

When I realized I was doing this I stopped because I didn't want to be that person. I didn't really have anyone doing that to me because I was pretty much the first one to get married out of my friends. Looking back, I wish more of my friends had gotten married with me or before me so I could steal ideas from their wedding. But I enjoyed my wedding and whatever.

My point is, being pregnant is kinda the same thing, except this time I'm on the other end of it all. I'm one of the last ones to have a child so EVERYONE has advice for me.

"When I was pregnant.... and when I was pregnant....and when I was pregnant." or "...you should try this..." or "...you are going to fee like this..." and ..."when I was pregnant..." I'm sooooo over hearing phrases like those listed above. Let me have my own experience and stop telling me how is it is going to be because from what I hear, they are ALL different. If I want advice, believe me I'll ask then you can tell me "...when I was pregnant" and I probably won't get as annoyed with you because I asked for it.

This sucks, I'm tired, I'm REALLY cranky (if you couldn't tell), and I have to go to work and sit there and look like I'm doing something when really I have nothing to do.

Right now it is 8:05 a.m., I got up at 6:45 a.m., ate some breakfast, drank a small cup of coffee, and now I could go back to bed for a morning nap.

Okay, I have ranted on long enough, don't really want to piss anyone off, but at this point, I'm really too tired to care but sorry if I did and if you have done this to me please don't be mad at me, it is just that you and EVERYONE (mostly the women on base who don't read this blog) else has told me the same thing now for the last 3 weeks and I have just had it. I apologize in advance :-)

First Doctor's Appointment

2009-05-15T01:14:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was my first doctor's appointment for the baby. He really didn't do much with me besides talk. We talked about the different types of blood tests that they would be running and about how far along I am (I think about about 8 weeks???). He gave me all of his phone numbers so if I even have the stupidest of questions I can call and ask. He said there is no stupid question. My biggest concern is with my weight and my asthma, mostly the asthma during labor but that is a ways away so I guess we'll cross that bridge when the time comes. He told me that I can pretty much eat what I want, in moderation of course and stay away from raw foods such as meats, eggs, and fish. I can eat them all, they all just have to be cooked, which of course I knew.

He also said not to expect the baby too soon and don't have a "we have to have the baby on this day" kinda thing and I can understand that. He was more or less talking about being early, if anything, I want to be late. We would like this kid to be born as far after Christmas as possible. Of course if he/she comes early we will be okay with that but again, if we have a preference I'll take a later date. I say that now but I'm sure when I'm waddling with swollen feet and back pain I'll say differently, but for now, that is what I'm saying.

The doctor told me that my uterus is to small to hear the heart rate, he said maybe next time. Right now it is only the size of an orange and when I go next time it should be the size of a grapefruit. So no heart rate this time. My blood pressure was low, as usual, it was 100/50 or there abouts which is my normal. I then went and peed in a cup and went home.

A couple of things that I found different from what I'm use to in the states. First my doctor is a Mr. In England apparently doctors can be both Mr. and Dr. Mine is a Mr. I still call him Dr. but on his card and when we made the appointment he was a Mr. Second, I get to keep my medical records and have to bring them back each time. I found this weird as most doctor's offices make you leave them. Last, when I go back next time I'm going to get my own cup to pee in and I'm to bring this back every time I go. So basically, I'll pee in the cup, he'll look at and run whatever tests if there is one, he'll dump it out in the sink, rinse it out and hand it back to me to bring back next time. Strange I thought but that is what they do here.

Other than that nothing else to really report. We are both excited. I still don't feel pregnant, some people that I talk to say you'll blink and he/she will be here. I'm sure that is how it will go for me. I'm trying to write everything down as it happens so when it is time and the energy to scrapbook all of this I know what I was feeling at the time. Right now it is mostly being very tired, nauseous in the afternoon, excited, tired, scared, and having a few "oh shit, we are really doing this" days. Yes in the end I know it will all be worth it.

Tim and I were trying to work out the time line for the next one. Yes I know the first one isn't here yet but ideally we would like both kids (we always talked about having 2) in school by the time he retires at 20 years. I think if we do what we talked about that will just about happen, but it will be a lot of work, but what isn't these days.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about work, everyone keeps asking me and I don't really have a definite answer for them. I don't want to put them (baby) in the CDC (day care on base) because they suck and everyone said to stay home the first year but I'm going to need something maybe once a week to do on my own with no kids, no husband, just for me that requires me to leave the house. I would like to work from home but I have to find something. I guess it is time to start digging around. I'm pretty decent on the computer, might even consider going back to school, for free this time though. There is a new program out for spouses where I can get $6K and find a portable career. I need to do some more research on it though. In the meantime, my contract with the base is up on 1 October so I'll decide then I guess.

Okay, I think I poured my heart out enough or at least you know what is going on. I'll let you know when the next appointment is and will post pictures of the ultrasound if I get any. From what I have seen it is looks like a big gray spot on a lighter gray screen. Should be interesting...stay tuned.

Irritated with Hard Rock

2009-05-13T01:46:00.003-05:00

Tim and I are advent Hard Rock fans. When ever we travel on of the first things we do is figure out if there is a Hard Rock there. We are also Hard Rockers. A few years back when when were in NYC we got the All Access Card. A VERY cool thing, if you are a Hard Rock fan, I suggest you get this.

This past Saturday I was in London with my friend Chris. We both wanted to go to Hard Rock and the timing was perfect as we were both very hungry. I said well I have my All Access Card, lets see how it works. When we walked up we heard the hostess tell the people in front of us that the wait was for about an hour and a half. I shrugged and said, "Let's see how long we will wait?" We were seated immediately. HOW COOL!!

So we have our dinner and talk and Chris told me that Hard Rock give 15% off for military members. Sweet, then we can use my card, I can get the points and we still get our meal at a discount. We pay, we leave, we go to the store, buy our pins and other assorted items and head home.

Yesterday I figured I would put my points on my card. Points = FREE stuff. So I log-in and proceed. I messed up the first time, I figured out my mistake and then I got an error code. Basically it said that since I used the military discount for my meal that I can't claim the points on my card. WTF...how unfair is that? I still spent money in the restaurant and the store and I can't get credit for either. To make matters worse, Chris had gone to Amsterdam a few weeks before and saved her receipts but it was the same thing. So because the military discount was applied I missed out on putting like $120 worth of points on my card.

It's not fair....Damn Hard Rock....don't worry, we'll still go back, we like it that much.

A Mismash of stuff

2009-05-12T01:34:00.003-05:00

This is probably going to more of a random post about a little bit about everything kinda thing. As usual I have like 800 things to do and no desire/drive to do any of them right now, too tired. Anyways, just thought I would show you pictures of my messy room that is desperate for a clean up.

My computer desk with a freshly reloaded computer thanks to Tim. Thanks! I think it run faster now.
My mess of crap. This layout has been sitting here for the past 6 weeks. The sad part is that it only needs like 2 small things and it is finished. No desire.

Another shot of messy work area. I think there is every kind of craft on these tables.

This past weekend, I went to London with one of my best friends for her birthday. I took her to see her first London show. We went and saw Wicked. What an amazing show!!! You don't have to be a fan of the Wizard of Oz to love this show. It was great, loved it, I will go and see it again when family arrives.

My Wicked program, I always get a program.

While in London you know I had to get something for Tim. I was looking for something that I knew he would like but yet was unique and didn't cost to much. Then I came across these. Yes, that's right, they do say Pasta Boobs on the front. Chris was going to get him a Boobie neck pillow but it was really dirty so she opted out. They even had Boobie Soap-on-a-Rope.
I went up on Friday night to see Chris and her family. She made "the chicken" which is like when people come here they get "my lasagna". It was nice to be taken care of, not that Tim doesn't take care of me but I didn't have to cook, didn't have to clean up, and got to sleep as long as I wanted without having to be woken up by the dogs or any other thing around here. I got the nicest Mother's Day card from her too, Thanks Chris for a very special weekend, I had a good time.

After spending the couple of day with Chris I went up to see our old neighbors, Shelley, Drew and their daughter Lily. There house looks great and has come along way from when they first moved into it. They are still working on trying to make it "perfect" and I think they are going to get what they want in the end. I can't wait to see it when they finally do the kitchen but in the meantime, all their hard work looks GREAT!!

That's about all I guess. This weekend I'm staying in, except for Friday night, have to make our bi-weekly pub trip. We are suppose to be meeting friends so it should be a good night. Other than that, I'm going NO WHERE!!! I'm so tired and need to catch up on everything!! Berry picking season is just around the corner so I need to find my jars and get them ready for jam. Saves me time come Christmas when I don't have to make any extra cookies and well with the baby coming around that time, I'm not sure how much I'm going to be doing anyways.

Okay, that's it, maybe a post of more substance later.

We're Expecting

2009-05-06T01:32:00.004-05:00

Yup, we're expecting. Due December 28, as of now anyways. We went to the doctor on base and got our referral to Oxford. We will be having this baby there as it is easier than driving to Lakenheath for every appointment and we don't have to go up 2 weeks before the due date to have the baby up at their hospital, so that is nice.

Currently, food doesn't like me or I don't like it. I do okay for a few hours in the morning and then I just want to throw up, but don't. I think I would feel better if I could just get it out of my system but apparently my body as another agenda. I constantly feel nauseous and my stomach is flip flopping all the time. I know it is only temporary but it still doesn't feel good. I do better when I can just lay there like a lump. I'm doing the cracker thing with ginger ale and that seems to help. Not sure how much eating I'm going to be doing here in the near future.

The prenatal vitamins also don't agree with me. I have to take them as I'm going to sleep and it isn't like that is helping because I'm already waking up in the middle of the night for no reason. One top of that I'm waking up before my alarm. Yesterday at 5 a.m. it was like BING! wide awake.

That's all for now. First doctor's appointment with my OB is on May 14 and we'll see if the due date is correct. I'm about 6-7 weeks, not really sure, we'll find out soon enough I guess.

An Update...finally (very pic heavy)

2009-04-30T01:41:00.013-05:00

Sorry for the long hiatus from posting but we have been super busy and at the same time super lazy. Too tired to really do anything after all that we have had going on. Shortly after my sister and father left my SIL and BIL came into town for a week. We had a great time with them. Tim was their tour guide and took them all over the country. I will try and go and steal some of Tim's pictures from when they were here as I didn't have any one my computer.

Once SIL and BIL left we were on our way to Scotland for camping a.k.a. Operation Fluffy Bunny. What a gorgeous country!!!! We left Friday morning around 8 a.m. for our 8 hour drive. It was worth it though, even if we were only there for 2 days. We had friends with us. They are pictured bel0w, AJ (who is awesome), Dutchie, and Dalyah. They only got to stay 2 nights because the Air Force is stupid and we'll just leave it at that.

This was our camp site. We were right on the loch. We camped on Loch Linnhe. We were a short walking distance from the water.

It rained a little the first night and a lot of our stuff got wet. This was the clothes line that was in the site. Most camp sites don't have stuff like this, I thought it was pretty cool.
This was mine and Tim's tent, along with the puppies. It is huge but it was just the right size for all of us plus gear. We stayed pretty dry in there after we figured out where our tent was leaking from. Gotta fix that before our next camping trip.

This is Awesome AJ and Dutchie's tent. They had the "Wall of Gayness" in the middle of their tent or really the "Wall of Non-gayness" However you want to look at it. After this weekend Tim has decided to retire this tent as it got all of their stuff soaked all weekend. That tent has many many miles on it.
This is a view of our entire camp site. We had the tarp up there for keeping our stuff dry when it rained when we weren't there. It worked pretty well. As long as the wind wasn't blowing to hard.
This was our Loch. This picture was taken from our campsite. Image, we got to wake up to that for 3 days. How cool huh?

We didn't really have a third tree close enough to tie the other rope off to from the tarp so this is what was mustered up. Tim gets pretty creative on these trips.
Tim sporting his "camping gear". Sexy isn't he.
On Saturday we went to Loch Ness to find Nessie. We put the dog here so that we could go and look out into the water. they weren't really that happy about it.
We stopped on the way home at a different location on our loch. It was a little hazy out but I still felt I should post the picture.

Dakoda swimming and Tim trying to get him out. Dakoda would just swim up and down the loch till he was shaking he was so cold, but still wanted to continue to swim. Crazy dog!
Dalyah sitting.
Mountain, yes that is snow on the top.
AJ walking Maggie, or really Maggie walking AJ.
A rainbow with the boat and mountain. Very pretty. There was someone living/working on that boat. The tide came in a couple of days later and made it very easy for him to leave if he wanted to.
AJ fishing, really just casting, none of them caught anything. They all seemed to have fun regardless.
Tim walking on the bank of the loch drinking his scotch that he bought in town that day. He found better stuff on Sunday.
Tim was more or less walking up and down the bank with the dog who was swimming again. That dog loves to swim.
Sunset on Loch Linnhe

One of my favorites

On Sunday Awesome AJ, Dutchie, and Dalyah had to go home, so Tim and I were on our own with the puppies. We first walked around town. We went and saw the ruins of this castle (will try and post pic, Tim's camera again) and just when I thought I was going to be done, I decided that we should go to the Ben Nevis Falls that the lady at our camp site told us about. It was worth it.

Tim is at the stage where he will do just about anything for a good picture. Here he decided to go crawling around in the rocks to get pictures of the rushing water. The pictures came out good which is all that really matters in his eyes.
Can you still see him in there? He's there. The best part was that there was a Japanese tourist group behind us that we pasted earlier and they were all taking pictures of him down in the rocks. They saw me and gave me a puzzled look and I just pointed to the direction of Tim and they all started to take out their cameras. Too funny. Gotta love those Japanese people.
This is right by the Falls.
Taken from the ground. I just thought it looked cool.

The Ben Nevis Falls.

The last night in Scotland was pretty fun. We were left with some beer that we didn't really want to carry home and there was no way that we were both going to drink it all in one night either. So we decided to offer it to our Scottish neighbors Ronny and Rosey. What a fun couple! We went up there just to bring beer and ended up staying the entire night. We were suppose to go to bed at 8:30 so we would get lots of sleep for our long drive home but bedtime turned into 1 a.m. It was worth it though. Ronny even let Tim try and play the bagpipes. What a sight! I wish I had a camera with me. Ronny ended up giving us a Scottish flag to hang up and a bottle of ale that is only found in Scotland. Those Scots are pretty nice people.

That is all for now. I have other news to report as well but that will come at a later date, I'm to tired as it is a long story as well. Maybe this weekend. If you ever get the chance to go and travel do it, you won't regret it one bit!!

London Trip (pic heavy)

2009-04-10T02:12:00.004-05:00

These aren't in exact order and I'm to lazy to try and put them in order so I'm just going to post them. These are the pictures we took when we went to London last Friday.

Bri, Dad, and I on the London Eye
Bri, me, and Tim on the London Eye
Street entertainers. They were outside the London Eye and they are Bri's favorite. You drop money in their bucket and they start doing their thing, what ever it happens to be.

On the bridge
Bri's pic of tulips in one of the gardens
Bri on the Tube (a.k.a. subway)

Bri taking pictures on the London Eye
I think this one got taken on accident???
Tim taking a picture of Dad and Bri and Dad taking a picture of Tim taking a picture. Did you get all of that?? Confused me too.
My picture of the tulips.

Finished Another...

2009-04-09T01:52:00.004-05:00

Well I finally finished it. In the end it was a good book and of course you read the last 20 pages or so and you want to read the next one but I think I'm going to take a break from Jamie and Claire for a few books just because I want to still be able to love them like I do now and not get tired of them and just read the book to just read the books. The book was slow in the middle. Sometimes the history of the book takes over the plot but at the same time I know they kinda go hand in hand. I have the next book in this series already and will order the one following that once I start the next book which is titled Voyager.
In the meantime I have starts this book, A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz I know they say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover but the cover of this book is really cool and I did something based on a suggestion from my friend AJ (hi AJ if you're reading) and read the first line of th book. He said if the first line grabs you then you should get it. Well it did so I thought I should read this one next.

Currently my computer is being reloaded by Tim who has little time to do it with work, working out, school, EPRs, schedules, taxes, the house, dogs, and house guests, and being a tour guide so I am unsure when I'm going to be able to post the pictures of when we all went to London. I know that Tim has some but I don't know if he has downloaded them yet. I'm going to assume no since I haven't been told to come and look at them.

Bristol Rugby and 5K Easter Fun Run (pic heavy)

2009-04-01T12:10:00.006-05:00

Sunday we went to our first professional rugby game in Bristol. They were playing the Worester Warriors. You couldn't have asked for better weather, maybe the seats though. We were in row M. I thought, "that's good, right in the middle." Row M was the last row up in the covered seats. It was still good though, I figured we would sit in covered seats because the weather is so unpredictable here. Didn't want to get rained on.

Here is a picture of Dad eating his cheese and onion pastry. It is kinda smart of the stadium. This was the only food that they served. Everything else was beer, soda, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. The person sitting next to him is Bri, she was a bit cold if the hat, gloves, and heavy jacket weren't the give away. It was a bit breezy up that high though.

Sabrina still a bit cold, but look you can see the sun.

Us outside the stadium
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5K Easter Fun Run

Sabrina didn't really want to run but Dad talked her into it. He said that he would be cheering her on at the finish line. Dad didn't run.

Bri not wanting her picture takenMe and Bri.
Tim, me, and Bri. The before race pic
The starting line
More people showed up at the last minute
Sabrina after the race.
Tim ran with me, I'm slow. Bri came back to run the rest of the race with us.
Getting ready to cross the finish line.

I was 4th in my age group (there were only 4 in my age group for girls). ;-)

After the race, Tim and I.

After the race pic

Bri got third in my age group too and got a T-shirt as her prize.

Tomorrow we got horse back riding, Bri and I do. On Friday we are going to London to ride the London Eye (the big Ferris wheel) and probably going to watch the play Stomp. Should be fun...looking forward to it.

Family Visit

2009-03-29T03:33:00.005-05:00

My Dad and Sister have been here now for about 3 days. We have had a lot of fun so far. My birthday went well, still have to take pic of my presents. I got a Wii game from Tim and I got a lot of sewing stuff from my friend Chris. Thanks Tim and Chris, love them both.

The first day that my Dad was here we went out and walked the dogs. There is a small river that runs through the center of the village. Dakoda likes to swim in it but it is only about 2 feet deep so it isn't all the challenging for him. Anyways, there is a small bridge and I tried to get Dakoda out but my Dad was convinced that he would swim under neath it. He didn't and got stuck and scared so I had to go in and get him. Here is a picture of me afterwards, wet pants and all. Fun times.
On Friday we went out to our local pub for dinner and drinks. I told Tim that we would know half the village by the time we went home that night. My father is a bit of a social butterfly, which is always a good thing. Anyways, we did the self picture of Tim and I. The food was really good and there is nothing like a Strongbow from the tap. It tasted so much better than from a can or even a bottle.

Bri really didn't want to drink and we didn't make her but she met one of the guys in the pub who bought her a few friendly drinks. She ended up having more than she wanted and in the end didn't realize how strong Strongbow was. This is her early in the night.
And here she is the next morning in all her glory. She was suppose to go and cut down a tree with one of the couples in the village but that didn't happen either. We all have one really good night. She was fine by about noon anyways.

The dogs always take a particular liking to my father. Dakoda pretty much follows him around the house and wants to sit in his lap all the time. Most times he wants to put his face right on top of yours but Dad usually ends up throwing him off and this is where Dakoda ends up, I guess he looks at it as the next best thing.
The weather has been a bit chilly lately. My sister thinks it is freezing and burned through almost my entire bag of wood but she did just come from like 70 degree weather and my dad from about 80 degree weather so I guess I can't really blame them. We are going to Bristol today to go to a rugby game so my sister and Dad are out walking the dogs. In my opinion this is a bit extreme as far as bundling up but it is like Daddy always said, "You can take it off if you have it on, but you can't take off what you don't have." So here is Dad all ready to go out and walk the dogs.
Other than that there isn't much going on. We are probably going to London on Friday or Saturday. Both my father and sister leave on Sunday and then the following Saturday my SIL and BIL fly in for about 10 days. They leave the 19th and then the 24-27 we go to Scotland for a long weekend. The weekend after that we have our neighbors from Thetford come down for a long weekend. Then at the end of May we are going to Cheese Rolling. Busy Busy...gotta try and fit some crafty time in there as I have many projects that need to get finished like yesterday.

Okay, that's all for now. Will post pictures of the rugby game later. Until then...

The Never Ending Week

2009-03-20T03:09:00.002-05:00

Is it just me or is this week never ending. I mean I know today is Friday and all but damnit Jim, can't the time go just a little bit faster today. I'm tired and I really don't want to go to work. I have to go food shopping today. I sorted through all of my coupons yesterday while I was testing, I have a very large pool of pull from. I think I'm going to save a lot of money which is always a good thing and I feel like I'm going to get a lot of shit for nearly nothing. Last time I went food shopping I saved $15.45. Not bad if you ask me. I found a lot of $1.00 off coupons. Yes I know it is sad that I'm getting excited about these things but sometimes it makes all the difference to be just that much more organized. There is a slight advantage to shopping at the commissary over seas. They will take expired coupons for 6 months past their date. Yeah I know, kinda cool huh? There is no rush to go and buy 8 boxes of Coco Puffs just to get a $1.00, I can do that 6 months later. Alas, there is a disadvantage though. We don't' get all the stuff that we have coupons for. Like all those cool new products you get at home, we may not see, ever. It is always kinda exciting when we go home and just walk around the grocery store just to see what new shit they have. My MIL always finds this entertaining. She lets me walk and do whatever just so I can see. Either way, that is the highlight of the day, that and it is panni day at the CAC for lunch. Sad I know but it is the little things in life ya know.

Update on FSL and Daughter

2009-03-19T12:58:00.003-05:00

They have both been formally IDed. There is no determined cause of death, we are waiting to hear more from the news. When we did see them she did not seemed distressed at all. She was very upbeat and bubbly. Our questions are how did she get in the lake. Was she hit on the head and thrown in there? Was it suicide? Did she kill the daughter first because she wasn't able to walk so she had to be carried? Did she take a bunch of pills and then went into the lake with her daughter? All questions with no answers.

****Another recent update****Both people have drowned. This is the cause of death according to this source. The article says that the Police are treating these deaths as "unexplained."