What I've Been Up To The Last 5+ Weeks

Hello Everyone!

I know I deserted the blog for quite a long time. Too long.

I won't say that I'm back entirely, because I know that I'm destined to take another unexpected leave, but I'm at least here to update you on what I've been up to.

This my friends has been my life for the last 5 weeks and 2 days.

This is Isaac James. He was born May 22nd at 7:54am. He weighed a whopping 8 lb. even and was 19.5 in. long.

Needless to say this has been quite a busy time around our house. A time full of adjustments for everyone. Things have not necessarily been easy on all fronts, but we're hanging in there.

There are days where I find myself wishing for time to go faster, but I'm really trying to enjoy this time of Isaac being little. I know that I spent a lot of Evelyn's baby months wishing for her to move on to the next stage so that things would get easier which just left me sorely missing the baby stage far too soon.

Sometime in the near future, before I forget it all, I'd like to share Isaac's birth story with you guys. Also I'd like to share some more recent pictures since he's now a lot bigger than he was in all of these pictures.

For now I'll leave you with a couple more pictures of our family's new addition.

My 2 little cuties!

All of the people dearest to me.

*Sigh*

Well friends we have made it. Today is Friday and tomorrow is officially the weekend. I do not think I could express the immense happiness I feel that it is indeed the weekend, well almost the weekend. Only a couple more hours till Nick gets home and that's when I consider it officially the weekend.

I don't tend to use this space as a place to air my complaints, but sometimes I just have to vent. This past week (more like weeks) has been vent worthy.

This past weekend was Nick's Guard Drill weekend. Which basically means it's not actually a weekend, because our days stick to pretty much the same schedule as the work week. All in all that's not really a bad thing, but this past weekend Evelyn was getting over a cold. She seemed to be on the mend Saturday though which was good, because I was getting my hair done on Sunday by my sister.

Well I woke up Sunday morning feeling miserable. What I had thought had just been allergies was in actuality me catching the same cold that Evelyn was getting over. Being 7.5 months pregnant and getting a cold while trying to care for an 18 month old is pretty much the most exhausting thing ever.

Thankfully Nick decided that if I still felt miserable on Monday he would stay home and get some things done for me.

Unfortunately when Nick got home from drill on Sunday night he could barely walk. He managed to do something to his back and it was causing him a lot of discomfort. He said he'd done this before and that a good night's sleep should help.

He woke up Monday morning still in a lot of pain and not being able to get around very well. So the day of him staying home to help me out turned into a day of me dropping him at the doctor's office and then mustering up the energy to run to the grocery store, because we were out of food.

The doctor said he was having back spasms and had some muscle strain. He gave him a couple of prescriptions. We're still not sure what actually caused it, but thankfully he seems to be getting better slowly.

Tuesday Nick managed to make it back to work and I had to rally the energy to get myself and Evelyn out the door and over to my mom's. She was going to watch Evelyn for me while I went to the 1st of my weekly non-stress tests at my OB's office. Somehow I made it through that day, but I'm pretty sure I was asleep by 9:30 that night.

The rest of the week was spent getting the most minimal things done around the house with my completely lack of energy. Thankfully I'm not starting to feel better and slowly my energy level is improving. This weekend is going to spent trying to get back on track as far as chores go. I won't even begin to admit how long it's been since I've worn a clean pair of pants, thankfully I've had plenty of underwear!

This next week will be a busy one, but it's all good things. Nick's birthday is on Thursday and then on Saturday we're headed up to Omaha for the night so that we can go to the zoo up there on Sunday. So there are lots of errands to be done next week.

Hopefully you all have had a better week than I have! Have a good weekend friend!

Just Some Random Happenings

So it's been 3 weeks since I've made and appearance on this little blog here. I don't know what it is, but ever since Evelyn turned 1 life has been crazy busy. Yet if you asked me what I've been up to I'd find it hard to pinpoint what has really kept my schedule so hectic. Everyday has just been filled with everyday happenings that leave little time to really sit down and collect my thoughts.

Since I don't really have anything profound to write about or any delicious recipes to share or even any baby updates I thought I'd just do a post filled with the randomness that I've been up to/floats around in my head.

Here it goes!

- We might actually be done with the snow. It's been quite nice around here the last couple of days and the snow from last Sunday's storm is almost all melted. The forecast even looks promising with no snow in the immediate future. Then again this is Nebraska and it always seems to be just when you think spring is coming we get hit with one last April snow storm. Hopefully that is not the case this year, I'll have my fingers crossed just in case.

- Today I get to babysit these cuties!

Disregard that this picture is over a year old.

- This past week we booked our hotel for our mini family vacation we're taking next month. We're going to spend the night an hour away in Omaha so we can go the the Henry Doorly Zoo the next day. I'm pretty excited even though it's still about a month away. It will be nice to do one last fun thing before we're a family of 4.

- I'm excited for St. Patrick's Day, but only because I'm excited to eat some corned beef. I have a fabulous corned beef recipe that my mom used to always make (I shared it last year, here) and I try to make it every year either on St. Patrick's Day or sometime around then. This year I was smart and bought too corned beef briskets so that sometime later this year I can make it again.

- Nick and I have been making a point of spending time alone every week lately. I'm very thankful for having family in town to watch Evelyn, because it makes finding time to go out a lot easier.

- I get to eat some leftover Indian food for lunch. I can't even describe how excited I am.

Well I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Hopefully it's going to be nice weather wherever you are. Here it's suppose to be only ok, but no snow so that's a huge plus!

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Delicious M&M Cookies

So yesterday was a snow day and as I've said before I love to bake while its snowing outside.

Yesterday was no exception.

We had some dark chocolate m&m's on hand so I set out to find a good m&m cookie recipe.

I don't know about you, but when I try out a new recipe I'm always a little leery. I'm always worried that it won't turn out like I expect and it will be a waste of ingredients. That's why I'm pretty vigilant about reading recipe reviews when I find a new recipe online. This recipe had great reviews and seemed promising, with a few tweaks. Thankfully they turned out wonderfully so I thought I'd share the recipe with all of you.

Soft & Chewy M&M Cookies

Original Recipe {HERE}

Ingredients:

1 C. Brown Sugar (packed)

1/2 C. White Sugar

1 C. Butter (Softened)

2 Eggs

1 1/2 t. Vanilla Extract

2 1/2 C. Flour

1 t. Baking Soda

1 t. Salt

1 C. M&M's*

2 T. (heaping) Sprinkles (optional)**

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together butter and both sugars until fluffy & creamy. A mixer works best for this.

Beat in eggs and vanilla until completely combined.

Add flour, baking soda and salt and mix well.

Stir in M&M's and sprinkles (optional) by hand.

Let dough chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Drop dough by rounded teaspoon fulls onto cookie sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees for 8-12 minutes. Make sure not to over bake them. Just bake until they start to turn golden.

Allow to cool slightly before removing the cookies from the cookie sheets and letting them cool on some waxed paper or cooling racks.

This recipe should make 5-6 dozen cookies mattering on how large you make them.

*I had the dark chocolate ones on hand so that's what I used. Plus everything is better with dark chocolate right?!

**You definitely don't need to add sprinkles, but since I had some left over from Valentine's Day I thought I should try to use some up.

I only made half the recipe, because we don't need to have 5 dozen cookies sitting around. Hopefully half of a batch gets us through the weekend!

If you try these cookies out let me know how they work for you!

Hope all of you have a great weekend!

Our Valentine's Day

It's been forever since I've posted...again. I don't know if it's just from lack of inspiration to post or just the business of the ever day. Either way I'm finding it hard to take the time to sit down and concentrate long enough to write a post. So forgive my sporadicness.

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Our Valentine's Day was a fairly quiet one. It's never been a big ordeal for Nick and I, so I figured we can just make it a family centered holiday and just have fun with it. Since Evelyn is still so young we didn't do any fun Valentine's themed crafts, but we did manage to buy some valentines at the store and send them off to a few people. Evelyn's contribution was allowing me to trace her hand inside and I'm lucky I got that out of her.

As for our actual plans for the day we decided to just have a fun family dinner and make that a tradition. We had a free pizza from Papa John's so we decided to order that and have some salads. Nothing too spectacular, but I did set the table festively.

For dessert we made ice cream sundaes with some red velvet ice cream I had found at the grocery store. Evelyn had her's right after dinner, while Nick and I waited till after we had put her to bed. Poor Evelyn has either a cold or just a runny nose from teething so she's been going down for bed early lately and last night was no exception.

As far as gifts Nick and I had already exchanged gifts this past weekend. I needed him to come with while I bought his gift, because it was a new wedding ring. He's lost so much weight since we were married that his old one falls right off his finger. (Lucky him!) I had guessed what he was getting me so he just took me along to get it. It was a Keurig! I'm pretty excited, because it means more easlily making coffee once I have two little ones.

Evelyn got her little gifts on Valentine's Day though. She just got a card and some candy. Also I bought her a monkey sippy cup from Target's Valentine's Day selection. It was so adorable she kept kissing it after she took a drink, so I'd say she loved it.

All in all it was pretty nice Valentine's Day, even despite my sick little one. I'm excited to grow our family tradition more next year when Evelyn's a little older. I must say making new family traditions is one of my favorite things about having little ones. Holidays are much more fun when you're sharing it with your kiddos.

How was your Valentine's Day? Do you have any fun traditions for your family? I love to hear about it!

Snow Days

So adult snow days aren't nearly as fun as snow days when you're a kid.

Honestly I've only had one real snow day as a kid and it was actually a whole week off due to a massive snow storm in late October that left a lot of people without power for that whole week. (This was during my brief public school stint in 4th grade.) Being home schooled I didn't really get snow days, but my mom would at least let me take a break from school work so that I could play with my neighborhood friends.

One thing we always did on snowy days was bake. Sometimes it would be something sweet and tasty or it would just be a loaf of homemade bread. Regardless I now associate snow days with baking. So having to cut back on baking due to my gestational diabetes has not been fun this winter.

I gave in today and made some pumpkin cookies. (I'll try to share the recipe sometime soon) They are so delicious and fluffy. Now I just have to keep myself from overindulging. Which isn't easy, because this recipe makes about 6 dozen cookies! So if anyone would like any tasty pumpkin cookies come on over! I've got plenty to share!

What are some of they things you ladies like to do on snowy cold days when you're stuck indoors?

Now I've babbled on quite long enough without really saying anything. Hope you all are doing well!

The Big News!

I had every intention of writing this post this past Friday, obviously that didn't happen. Then I thought I'd get it done yesterday. I had forgotten that Nick got the day off. So here I am a whole week after our ultrasound telling you all the big news.

We're having a BOY!

Apparently Nick thought it was going to be a boy the whole time, but since I wanted another girl he just wasn't tell me. I'm excited for having a boy even though I feel way more scared about raising a boy then I do a girl.

Everything else with the ultrasound looked pretty good. They did find that Isaac has a two vessel umbilical cord. Usually an umbilical cord has one vein and two arteries. A two vessel cord has only one artery. They assured me that since everything else looked perfect there is no need to worry about the two vessel cord. It just means they want to be doing non-stress tests and ultrasounds to check amniotic fluid levels weekly for the last 2 months of my pregnancy. Apparently at the end with the two vessel cord there is some concern about the baby having a lack of nutrients and not growing as it should. We're just putting it in God's hands and not worrying about it.

This weekend we went to a baby consignment store that was having clearance sales and picked up a bunch of clothes for the first couple of months. All the clothes I got from the impromptu baby shower that Nick's aunts had for me will come in handy! We're holding off on buying anymore of the things we'll need until we get our tax return back. At least I'm going to try and hold off buying anymore!

Evelyn really doesn't like when she doesn't get included in pictures.

Halfway Done!

As of this past Friday I'm officially 20 weeks pregnant. That's approximately half way done. Due to my gestational diabetes I'm probably a little over half done, because they won't let me go all the way to my due date.

Overall I've been feeling pretty good, that is once we got over the stomach flu that came and went for about three weeks around here. I feel as though in the last week my belly has really pooped out, but I've been showing for quite a long time now so maybe that's just me. (That's what getting pregnant a year after giving birth will do. I felt like I was showing for day one!) I've been feeling the baby move around for weeks now,  but it's starting to be strong enough that you can actually see my stomach moving.

Pregnancy for the second time around is much different than the first time. I'm constantly forgetting I'm pregnant or forgetting how far along I am or even what my due date is. I don't know if it's just the fact that I'm chasing after a one year old all day which is making my brain fried or if pregnancy brain is just worse this time than it was last time.

One thing I really didn't miss from being pregnant is the acne. Man my back and chest have not been this broken out since I was in high school. Oh well, it's a small price to pay.

Tomorrow we go in for our 2nd trimester ultrasound. Which means tomorrow we find out if we're having a boy or a girl! I'm excited to find out, but that just means we'll actually start having to make decisions on names. When we went in for Evelyn's gender ultrasound we already had a girls name and boys name picked out. This time we have a few first names we kind of like, but no middle names to go with them.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. This was our first weekend with absolutely no plans since well before Christmas! We just hung out at home all day Saturday and then went to church and ran some errands on Sunday. It was pretty wonderful!

Christmas 2012

Now that we finally had our last Christmas get-together yesterday I figured it was about time to post about how we spent the holiday.

The first of our family Christmases (I had to look up how to pluralize Christmas. Don't judge me!) was on Saturday the 22nd. This is was our Christmas with my sisters and my parents. Unfortunately two of my sisters and their families couldn't be there so it was only my sister Tasha, Jeremy her husband, her two daughters Drew and London, my parents and then our little family. I managed to forget my camera at home, so I didn't end up with any pictures from the day, I'll have to steal them from my mom sometime.

With my sisters instead of exchanging gifts we do a gag gift exchange. This year's gifts were pretty over the top and ridiculous. For instance I came home with a huge blanket with a very goofy/close-up picture of my father on it (this is probably be going back to the gift exchange next year) and Nick came home with a farting alarm clock. It was a fun day though, we ate brunch and just hung out. I got to hold my month old niece London for a long time which is always nice.

On Christmas Eve we went to church and then headed over to Nick's parent's for dinner and presents. Evelyn got her first baby-doll and she loved it. We ate turkey and other tasty holiday food and just spent the evening relaxing and talking.

When we came home on Christmas Eve we opened our new pajamas, which is a tradition of ours. We put on our pj's and then all headed to bed, because Christmas was going to be a crazy day.

Christmas morning we woke up (At 6am! I was paying for that the rest of the day!) and opened up presents just our little family of 3. For once I had no idea what Nick was getting me for Christmas. It was nice to be surprised. He got me a beautiful watch and the the large skillet and griddle pan I had been wanting. I surprised Nick with and Ipad 2 and a few accessories for it. (I had been saving my "fun money" for a few months so that I could get that for him.) We ate breakfast as a family and then got ready to head over to my Aunt's for lunch.

My 2 sister's and their families, us and my parents.

My family has gone over to my Aunt's for Christmas lunch every Christmas for long before I was ever born. It's always fun to see family and spend time together. We even managed to get a family picture, we're just missing my sister Jenn and her kids who couldn't make it back this year.

Yesterday we had our 4th and final family Christmas with Nick's mom's side of the family. (While I managed to bring my camera I didn't manage to actually take any pictures, oh well.) We ate lunch then had our gift exchange. I got an awesome 2.5qt CorningWare casserole dish and Nick got some tools and candy. Well Nick's aunt's surprised his cousin who's expecting a baby boy in February and I with an impromptu baby shower. Since we don't know if we're having a boy or girl yet they stocked us up with a lot of yellow things. Much of it has little ducks on it, which I have always thought are the cutest baby things. It's always nice to get to see that side of Nick's family, because we only usually see them once a year.

It was a crazy couple of weeks, especially when you add in that Nick, Evelyn and I were all sick twice during that time. Thankfully we seem to have beaten the illnesses so far and we're hoping not to get anymore for awhile. Now for the rest of January our weekends are laid back, which is just what we need after December's craziness.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your families. I pray that the new year is treating you well so far!