9 Months Old!

Friday, April 30, 2010

Our little bug is 9 months! Right now she loves to wave at everyone and everything, especially Sadie. She isn't crawling yet but she can roll around a room like no ones business! We are still swaddling her at night! Its crazy! We plan to break her of it soon so that we aren't swaddling our kindergartner! She has gotten pretty consistent about sleeping through the night and now most mornings when I come in to get her, she is on her belly playing with all of her pacis. She takes a sippy cup now and loves to drink water! She loves Earths Best teething biscuits! She just tried cheese for the first time yesterday and loved it too! We had our first choking scare today with a piece of melon that she was sucking on... It scared us to death! Thankfully we got the piece out in time and everything was okay!

We went in for a weight check this afternoon and she weighed 13lbs 4.7 ounces. The doctor printed me off her growth percentage charts and they are pretty pitiful! She is 0% for weight 12% for height and 34% for head circ.

We went on a fun little picnic yesterday with Becky, Makayla, Carter, and Kaitlyn. Carter had fun trying to help her drink from her sippy cup. Kenley then tried to steal Carter's banana. Such a lady :)
She got to go on the swings for the first time! It is so much fun being her Mom! I love watching her experience each new thing and have fun doing such big kid stuff!

Sugar Stressed Thoughts

Today is my last day to eat sugar...

Its totally stressing me out! This shows me how addicted I am to it because the thought of going the whole month of May without sugar is making me crazy!

Why did I choose a month with 31 days! I should have chosen a shorter month!

What if everyone wants to go to Baker's Square? Will I be able to resist the syrup?? I only have a few more months to enjoy the buttery goodness....

I finished my last jar of Nutella on Tuesday and I am already craving more. Its going to be a long month without any Nutella!

I am still contemplating if I am going to allow myself Vanilla Greek Yogurt or not... It is sweetened but it is full of protein and I just cant make the move to plain yogurt...

Should I allow my vanilla yogurt or would that totally be cheating and defeat the purpose of no sugar?

Organic Coupons

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Just thought I would share this link with tons of links to organic coupons!

We have been eating more organic foods recently and yes, it is more expensive but there are tons of coupons online that really help make up the price difference!

Often times you can just google for coupons and find tons of them!

The Cardiologist

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Kenley's appointment on Thursday with the Cardiologist went great! They ran an EKG and and ECHO on her. She did surprisingly well and didn't cry through the whole appointment. Dr. Sang was awesome! I wish that he could be her doctor all of the time! He said that her heart is 100% fine and that he thinks that she is just little because Mommy and Daddy are little. Finally a positive doctor! The next step is an appointment on May 10th with a Gastroenterologist and an appointment on May 11th with the Hematologist for more blood work.

Brian with hair

Monday, April 26, 2010

It occurred to me after I read Sandy's comment that many of you have never seen Brian with hair! Here are some really old pictures for your viewing pleasure :)

9th grade
12th grade
My graduation party

House News And Other Random Tidbits

Sunday, April 25, 2010

{Totally random picture of us 5 years ago yesterday}

Recently we have been putting lots of work into our house in hopes that it would sell quickly once we put it on the real estate market. However, all of our house selling hopes came crashing down a week or so ago when we interviewed a few potential Realtors. The Realtors each informed us that the price that we needed to sell our house at to break even would be near impossible to get in this economy. BUMMER!!

So it looks like we will be putting our house up for rent. Which leads to the fact that we will not be able to buy a house in Washington. I was pretty disappointed at first because at the time I was DAILY looking at the bank owned properties lists that my Dad emails out to his clients. I had big hopes for what our next house would be like and what projects we would tackle to make it our own.

God has been far to gracious to me and has completely given me peace about the fact that we will be moving in with my parents for the time being. It is a great opportunity for us to finish paying off our debt and to help us save lots of money.

Brian and I have been talking recently about how we sometimes think that God has done something for such and such reason and then it turns out that God orchestrated it to be something completely different and MUCH better than we had even thought. God's Will is PERFECT! Mine is totally not!

At first when Brian got accepted to MECEP we thought that it was just so we could go back 'home', but now I definitely feel that HE is sending us back to witness to our families! Moving to North Carolina has definitely strengthened our faith and I feel that we are mature enough now to really reach our lost family members!

Pediatric Torture Devices

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Kenley had no idea what she was in for when we headed to the Hematologist/Oncologist yesterday.
At first she had the mild annoyance of having her blood pressure taken with the cutest little baby blood pressure cuff! Then her weight and height were checked. {13 pounds 7 ounces and almost 26 inches}
Then came another blood draw. Her 5th in 2 1/2 months. The tech smelled horribly of smoke but she was able to just stick the needle in Kenleys arm and get blood the first time so that was nice.

This is where the torture started to begin. We waited in to get into the ultrasound for almost 2 hours. UGH!! At this point it was around 1:00pm and Kenley had not taken a nap yet. The highlight was when another little baby came into the waiting room, Kenley and her talked back and forth for awhile, Kenley was so loud and excited! It was as if she had never seen another baby before!

Kenley did fairly well during the ultrasound but you can only poke around at a baby's stomach and hold her down for so long before she gets mad. Once the ultrasound was finished we headed down for an X-ray and were introduced to the torture device. It reminded us of a high school science experiment. They had to put Kenley in this clear plastic tube with her arms up so that they could get clear pictures of her spine. She was not happy. The good/bad news is that of all of the tests that they ran the only thing that they found to be abnormal was her platelet count. Its horrible to say but we almost wish that they would just find whatever it is so that we can deal with it and move on. We are just so tired of putting her through all of these tests. I think she is tired of it too!

God is teaching us through this. I know that He is using this to strengthen our faith. He has given me great peace that only He can bestow. I was also given the opportunity this week to speak with another failure to thrive Mommy. It is amazing to see how my conversation with her was divinely orchestrated!

If you think about it please pray for David, Michelle, and their tiny baby girl Phoebe. Phoebe is in a much more drastic failure to thrive situation that Kenley and I know that David and Michelle and their other three children would greatly appreciate your prayers!

Daddy, can I borrow the car?

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Daddy and his girl

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Laundry Room

Friday, April 16, 2010

Finally! Pictures of the laundry room! I am not quite done accessorizing the cabinets and I haven't executed a new storage system for my homemade laundry soap yet but I told you I would show you 2 days ago so I wont hold out on you any longer!

Before:

After:

The wall paint color is Oatbran by Valspar. We had a lot of paint leftover when we painted the main living area so we decided to use it up in here and in the Master Bathroom.

The cabinet paint color is Courtyard Tan by Valspar. We got the can as a $5 mistint and it turned out to be the perfect creamy white. I love it! So much better than the Ralph Lauren Almafi Navy color I had on the cabinets before!

In the back of the cabinets my wonderful mother-in-law helped me to put up beadboard wallpaper.

Here she is in measuring action:
Once the wallpaper was up and dry I gave it 2 coats of the Oatbran. Now that it is done I wish that I wouldn't have painted it because it is really hard to tell that it is beadboard. I was really pleased with how easy the beadboard wallpaper was to cut and put up. I cant wait to find another project to use it on!

I bought a new ironing board cover from Wally World. About time right! Sorry for the gross-ness of the one in the before picture!

I wrote the recipe for my homemade laundry soap on the electrical box. I don't know if you noticed when I first posted the project but I had spelled laundry wrong. I was looking at it yesterday and thought "hmmm...that looks odd".... duh I had written Laindry haha

Here is a shot of the tile work that my hunky husband did! We decided to go with the cheapest tile they had at Lowes so that we could spend a little bit more on the tile for the master bathroom. I wasn't so sure about the color when we bought it but now that it is in I actually really love it!
I love how the laundry room looks now! The colors are totally my style! I told Brian that I think these colors would look great for a kitchen... maybe next house??? :)

Sweet Tooth

Thursday, April 15, 2010


I am going to challenge myself in May. For the whole month of May I am not going to eat sugar.

Yikes!

This is totally out of character for me since I LOVE my sweets. Lately I feel like my body has become addicted to sugar. I am constantly hungry and my food cravings are never satisfied so I keep eating everything in sight. Its time to detoxify and cut the junk out of our diets! I am really going to focus on the nutrient density of the foods that we are putting into our bodies. Brian is up for the challenge! Except that he will still drink sweet tea since its his last month in the south to enjoy it.:)

I am going to challenge you! Do you think that you can make it the whole month without sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners? Join me! We can keep each other accountable and help each other find new healthy recipes!

So.... Are you up for it?

***Edited to add: I will still be able to use sweeteners like honey and pure maple syrup.*

Banister Before and After

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

With all these projects going on I think it is about time for some before and after pictures! I will show you the before and after of the laundry room tomorrow!

Inspired by the banisters at church we decided to add wood and moulding to our half wall/ bar area to give it a finished look. We are in love with the results!

Before:

After:
It also helps that the piano now resides at a storage facility down the street so we get to see the full impact of the moulding and enjoy more space!

What do you think??

Chocolate Sheet Cake with Burnt Peanut Butter Icing

Monday, April 12, 2010

This weeks Sunday Night Sweets is one of the best cakes I have ever eaten in my life. Seriously. EVERYONE at the Payne's last night loved it. Even Brian my cake hating husband liked it! I was even told by David that I should have a Food Network TV show. :)

This Sunday was Charles 25th birthday so we had a little fiesta for him. I was going to let him choose what dessert he wanted me to make but he kept changing his mind so I decided to make something new regardless of what he wanted! :) Don't worry about him though, Rosa made him Poppyseed Chicken and I also made him Bacon Wrapped Pineapple as well as this cake so he wasn't hurting for good food.

Chocolate Sheet Cake with Burnt Peanut Butter Icing
Sheet Cake via The Pioneer Woman
Frosting via Tasty Kitchen

I have never actually made a cake from scratch before. Can you believe that? Me never making a cake from scratch? I couldn't have that on my record so I used The Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake Recipe. I will just link over to her for the recipe so that you can see all of her wonderful pictures of how to make this cake. {Just make the cake part not the icing part.}

While you are letting your cake cool you can start on the icing. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together 1 cup Brown Sugar, 1/2 cup Milk, 1/2 cup Peanut Butter, and 1/2 cup Crisco. Let this mixture beat until smooth and fluffy around 5-10 minutes.

Once your cake is cool you can go ahead and frost your cake. Just before serving, pop the cake under the broiler. WATCH CAKE THE ENTIRE TIME!! The frosting can burn very quickly so be careful!

This cake is great on its own but if you think you can handle it, go ahead and serve it with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream!

So if you want people to think that you deserve a slot on The Food Network, make this cake!

Chalkboard Project #3

Saturday, April 10, 2010


I have don't-throw-that-away-it-could-be-repurposed-somehow syndrome. It is actually quite contagious so maybe you have caught it too? It is easily caught by reading blogs like In The Fun Lane and Better After.

A few weeks ago during the church work day. I was shampooing the carpet in the nursery and on one of my {many} trips to the kitchen to refill the tank with water I over heard Gary telling some people that he was going to throw away one of the high chairs because it was really rickety. That caused my syndrome to flare up and rather than let him put it in the dumpster I had Brian put it in the back of our jeep. :)

I had plans... big plans...

It all started when I was at the Steel's house, Christy and I went into her sewing room to get some fabric and I saw Lily's high chair sitting in there with some toys so that while Christy sews Lily can be contained and happily playing near her Momma. {Light bulb} Wouldn't it be cool if the tray was painted with chalkboard paint and it was not only a high chair but a play chair?

I didn't get a true before picture because Brian had already started priming but here is a mid prime picture

This picture of the tray shows the true color that the wood was and the condition that the wood was in.
I toyed with painting the main part of the chair a bright fun color like turquoise but my love of gray won and I used 2 1/2 cans of Krylon Smoke Gray to paint the chair.

By the time I started the tray I had almost run out of my chalkboard spray paint so we went to Lowes and I picked up a quart of Valspar Chalkboard paint. I used about 4 coats just to make sure it had a really thick layer of chalkboard. I then primed the whole surface of the tray with the side of a piece of chalk and it was ready to go.

Obviously Kenley is too young for this now but I know that the time for her to be able to use something like this is going to come so much sooner than we think!

For Fred and Terri

Friday, April 9, 2010

I took this picture yesterday for Fred and Terri. It took the poor workers like 2 hours and 2 times of leaving to empty their truck to vacuum up all of the leaves! This picture was taken after they had been here for about an hour.
Thank you so much for all your hard work while you were here!

Kenley and Emma

Thursday, April 8, 2010

The Wehrmans came to town for Easter! We had a great time hanging out with them even though they play a weird Michigan version of Pinochle!

Here is a sweet picture of Kenley and Emma. Hopefully Greg, Emma, and Hunter will be able to come back own here for Kenley's first birthday party!

Kenley's first Easter 2010

Wednesday, April 7, 2010





Chalkboard Project #2

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

I need to start out this post by saying that I have no idea if this breaks any city codes or is a big no-no or anything like that. So if you do this project and then you get in trouble please don't blame me :).

Our laundry room makeover is still scooting along, I think that it will be 100% finished by the end of this week! I already showed you my chalkboard containers that will be sitting in the cabinets. I felt like I needed something else chalkboard in the room to tie it all together. Then it hit me... Chalkboard Electrical Panel!
Once I removed the panel from the wall I gave it a good sand and then coated it with many coats of Chalkboard spray paint. Since this electrical panel had been painted many times the surface it still pretty uneven so I have found that the Chalk Ink pens work best! I bought mine at Michaels (In the scrap booking section) with a 50% off coupon!

I love this little addition to the blank wall in our laundry room!

Happy Easter!

 
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