Lots of iPhone Pictures!

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

I love this sweet girl! 

I want to make the girls duvet covers. I just can't decide what I want them to look like! I made these super awesome high quality mock ups of the 2 options that I like best :) 

Option #1

Sort of this style but in a light aqua: 
 {I kind of want something similar to this for our bedding though and I don't know if it would be too weird for our bedding to be so similar to the girls} 

Option #2

Like this: 
  
I find it oddly relaxing to organize the girls toys. I think it makes me feel like my life is organized... it isn't.... but at least I can feel like it is for the 5 minutes before they start playing with it all again! 




The play kitchen/ market area is at my Mom's. Also at my Mom's these baby announcements on her fridge.. Where did those babies go and why aren't there any announcements for their siblings? :) Poor second borns! 

CLo is still dealing with the eye stye thing. Her eyes are looking pretty wonky lately. We went to the Doctor for some eye drops and cream to hopefully take the stye's away...

She was NOT happy that I took her coat off so that the Corpsman could take her weight. 

Coat back on and happy again! She REALLY likes her coat! 

She weighed in at a whopping 21.12 pounds! Kenley's weight trend was to weigh the same as her age in months and it looks like Claire is following in her sister's footsteps.


Friday, our friends the Peters came over to paint pumpkins! 



This is how Claire says "Shhhh"

James and Nater came over for a sleepover on Friday! It was honestly the best babysitting experience ever. We fed them dinner and then headed down to watch Tarzan with popcorn! The kiddos loved it! I love that the girls are so close with their cousins! I made a double batch of pancakes the next morning and their wasn't a pancake leftover! Amy is going to have to quadruple every recipe she makes when those boys are teenagers! 


Sweet Cousins! It is so fun to see Nate and Claire interact more!

Claire is definitely our musical child. She loves singing and will belt it out! She has been loving playing the piano and singing twinkle twinkle little star while Daddy plays. 

Her face here cracks me up. She really gets into it! 



I get asked all the time if the girls are twins. Maybe I should stop dressing them alike? :) 

For Christmas, I want new towels and bedding! Amy and I have talked about how once you get to the 5 or 6 year mark it seems like all of the wedding presents begin to wear out and it's time to buy more. I want these white towels from Costco. Bob and Brenda have them and they are great quality and pretty inexpensive too!  

Auntie Kimbe came home for the weekend! She had to come teach me how to do my own make-up for the Marine Corps Ball this weekend. I wish she could just be here to do my hair and make-up! 

Shopping at the outlet mall. I can not believe I worked there.... It totally stresses me out to even go there now... I am a grumpy old lady :) 

Everyone says that she looks "just like" me. 

Do you see that time??? We had a crazy night Monday night! I don't know what was with the girls but they were both up constantly. CRAZY!! 


Okay! Now it's your turn to weigh in! Which do you like better? Girls bedding options #1 or #2???

239


There are 239 new pictures waiting to be uploaded from my iPhone. Alas, I am having internet drama and iPhoto drama. So instead of the showing you the multitude of cute pictures and sharing a yummy recipe, I will share our weekly meal plan. Sorry if that is boring to you but it does really help me stick with cooking healthy dinners!

Weekly Meal Plan

Monday- Taco Pizza (Leftover PW pizza dough and leftover taco ingredients. Great clean out the fridge dinner!)

Tuesday- Homemade PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps

Wednesday- Dinner @ our Friend's (I'm bringing a salad and rolls)

Thursday- Lasagna Soup

Friday- Marine Corps Ball!

Hopefully I will be back soon with that iPhone picture post!

What are you making this week for dinner? Anything super yummy that we need to try?

Save your pictures!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012


Have you been watching Revolution on NBC (or Hulu)? We are hooked! The premise of the show is that all the power all over the world has gone out and now the story picks up 16 years later. Part of the show that I love is that it really gets you thinking about what you would do in that situation. One of the things that the show has got me thinking about is saving our pictures. It is rare that I print out pictures and since all of our pictures are pretty much only on my computer, if anything were to happen to my computer so many pictures of the girls would be lost.


In addition to getting more pictures printed, I also have been on the search for an easy way to back-up our pictures on the Internet. This morning Emily over at Imperfect posted about how ThisLife had saved lots of pictures for them that would have been lost when her computer crashed. I clicked over to the site and so far it seems really great, I really like how easy it is to send pictures from iPhoto to ThisLife and how they detect duplicate pictures and automatically keep the highest resolution of the image. If you click over through my referral link, you and I will both get an additional 500 pictures of storage! Pretty Great!

Weekly Meal Plan

Monday, October 22, 2012

I am feeling pretty good! The only time my tonsil spots bother me now is when I yawn. Yawning really hurts but thankfully I don't need to yawn constantly :)

Feeling better means I am back to cooking! Yay! Having meals brought to us was such a blessing but we also ate more than our fair share of fast food and boxed macaroni and cheese. Time to get back to normal!

Weekly Meal Plan 10/22 - 10/26

Monday- French Dips w/ Steamed Broccoli
Tuesday- Salmon w/ Carrots and Baked Potatoes
Wednesday- BBQ Chicken Pizza w/ Caesar Salads (Using PW's Pizza Crust)
Thursday- Nate's Birthday Party
Friday- Macaroni and Cheese w/ Bacon Green Beans (I'm using my new favorite Mac and Cheese recipe! I'll post it after I make it!)

{I am going to try to hold off on using freezer meals for a while so that they can be saved for after my surgery!}

A Few Projects

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Since we have been home a lot recently I have been on a bit of a crafting kick. I haven't really done many projects since Claire has been born so it has been fun to be back to crafting!  

My Sister's birthday was last week so I made her a glittered Starbucks cup! I used Krylon Glitter Blast Spray Paint which is a total pain, because of the glitter the cans get clogged almost immediately. I had to make 2 trips to Michael's to return the faulty cans before I got 1 good can to finish the project. A total pain, but I really love the finished cup! 

I am in love with all of the printables from ForChicSake.com! I printed some iPhone Charger wraps for myself and for my sister. Since I can't use my beloved purple iPhone charger, I love that I can now have a fun non-knock-off charger! 

I just love monograms and want to monogram everything, It is good I don't have an embroidery machine because I would honestly monogram everything. I REALLY want monogrammed bedding for Christmas. 

I have been using my Silhouette machine a lot lately for our little preschool and my cutting mats had lost their stickiness. I saw an idea on pinterest of spraying the mats with Krylon Easy-Tack to make them sticky again. This is a great idea... UNLESS you lack common sense like I do. 

I carefully taped off the edges of my mats with painters tape and then I took the mats outside, sprayed them, and left them to dry. The leaving them outside to dry part was my mistake! My mats were COVERED in little tiny aphids. It was so annoying... I spent an entire afternoon naptime picking bugs off of my cutting mats with tweezers. DUMB! If you do this, bring them inside to dry!!! 


I can't take any credit for this next project but I am so excited that it is finally finished! I have been looking forward to the girls room looking like this since we brought Claire home from the hospital and moved Kenley into her big girl bed! 

Claire's big girl bed is finished! Super special thanks to our Dad's and Brian for making this happen! The beds are based on this tutorial but we added the headboard and changed the dimensions a bit! We made them so that I can easily store stuff under their beds too which is awesome! Now that Claire's bed is in the room I have double the storage space! 

I have also been busy making some presents for Kenley's best friend Gracen. Her birthday is in November so they are top secret until then! 

D is for Donuts!

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Each week at Pre-Pre School all of us Mommies chip in to bring foods that start with the letter of the week for lunch. This week was D so of course, I had to bring donuts! 


Kenley helped me make this pumpkin spice donut recipe last night and they turned out absolutely delicious! I highly recommend that you make them! 

Now I need to think up something creative for E... Any ideas? 

When it's not good news from the doctor....

Monday, October 15, 2012

I keep trying to start this blog post in my head and I get two sentences in and give up. I think it is because in addition to the information that I want to share there are a lot of emotions and feelings that I am still working through. Part of me just wants to say "Hey, I need another surgery" and not talk about anything about the situation but the other part of me feels like I have all of this stuff that I need to get off of my chest. I'll try not to be over dramatic but you have been warned!

The rambling begins now...

I try to be pretty transparent here on the blog because that is just how I am in real life. When you have gone through multiple bowel obstructions and surgeries you sort of lose your filter on what is appropriate to talk about :).

A little backstory.... I haven't really brought this up to many people, but we have been trying to have another baby since around December. We didn't have to try at all to get pregnant with Kenley or Claire so this (almost) year of trying has been really challenging for us. I can totally see where God has used it to draw out so much sin in my life for me to deal with. It has been and is a sanctifying process.

We knew that with my complications during Claire's pregnancy that there could be problems with conceiving in the future but typically to be seen by a fertility specialist you have to be trying for a year. Thankfully because of my history, I was allowed to be seen a little sooner since who knows what kind of weird things could be going on in my insides at any given time. A little over a month ago I had my first appointment with my fertility specialist who did an ultrasound and found 3 large cysts on my right ovary. My doctor prescribed me birth control because sometimes the hormones from the birth control can shrink cysts. I was shocked when I left the appointment. Who goes to a fertility doctor and gets prescribed birth control? This girl of course! 

This past Friday,  I had my follow-up appointment to check on the cysts. Unfortunately the news I received was that my cysts have grown considerably and have taken over and completely damaged my right ovary and my right fallopian tube. Almost immediately when the ultrasound started,  my doctor said "you need to have surgery". In my mind I was thinking.... I *just* had tonsil surgery! I still feel like crap! I don't want to have to recover from another surgery! 

I will get a phone call this week to schedule the surgery. It seemed to me like they wanted it to be soon. It will be done through my Kenley c-section scar so I am basically looking at a c-section recovery minus the baby. They will also do a biopsy on everything that they remove to hopefully rule out cancer and other scary stuff. Though it is most likely just due to my crazy scar tissue forming body.

The good news is that my left ovary and left fallopian tube look good right now. The hope is that once all of the damaged stuff is gone then my left side will work like a champ and our chances of pregnancy will be increased because the left side will be the one that ovulates every time. I know that I have had crazy pregnancy medical stuff and people have voiced their opinion to me that we should just be done because my body can't take it. I really feel like God has another biological child for us. A future pregnancy will probably not be easy on me, I understand that. My pregnancy with Claire certainly wasn't easy but she was worth it! We have wanted a big family for so long and I don't feel like God gave us that desire in vain. {We are also still very much planning to pursue adoption as soon as we can as well.}

So that is about it for the update on my life :) I will update with the surgery date and more details as soon as I know more!


Yesterday & Today

Friday, October 12, 2012

Yesterday, the girls let me sleep in! It was awesome! When I checked the cam to see what they were up to, I saw Kenley in Claire's bed and they were giving each other sweet hugs. What a perfect wake-up for a Mama! 


This tonsil thing has really been kicking my butt. I have been pretty miserable the last few days, swallowing is awful and I am so hungry for real food! 

I knew that we would have a whole day at home yesterday so I had a few tricks planned up my sleeve to occupy the girls. They have been watching way way way way too many movies lately and I really want to break out of that habit!

Occupy Girls Idea #1... Threading cereal on pipe cleaners. I thought that Kenley would spend more time on this one but she wasn't that into it, probably because Claire just kept eating the cereal so then Kenley wanted to eat the cereal so that Claire wouldn't get it all. 


Hoping homemade hot cocoa would soothe the throat. It didn't, I barely made it through a sip.


Occupy Girls Idea #2... "Hey! Lets color this box so it can be a zoo for all of your animals!" 

This one actually lasted a while. I may never throw a box away before it has been colored on again! 

Occupy Girls Idea #3... A princess movie with homemade popcorn. It was only 11 and I was already so desperate for some chill time... 

Do this: Throw some popcorn kernels in a paper bag, drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil, shake, fold up open end of bag, microwave for 1 minute 25 seconds. Add butter and parmesan cheese. Serve to your people. 


When CLo went down for her nap, Kenley was able to do Occupy Girls Idea #4... A little halloween princess paint kit from The Dollar Tree. 


She loved it!

I really needed to catch up on some very neglected laundry so while our sheets were in the wash, I let Kenley have some jumping on the bed time in hopes of wearing her out a bit. 


So that was yesterday. 

Today was a bit better! I didn't feel the need to take any of my oxycodone and I was able to eat semi-solid foods! Yay me! We got out of the house for a bit to the library for toddler time and to run errands since I was able to drive and I think that really helped with my spirits!  

{I was able to eat some soft scrambled eggs with velvetta and some Taco Bell pintos and cheese! My eating habits have looked horrible since my tonsils have been removed... My former healthy self is really disappointed in the amount of junk that is getting into my body! I would estimate that I have eaten more processed foods (probably all I have eaten has been processed foods) in this past week than in almost the entire time we have lived in Washington. Yikes. Oh well! One day I will feel good enough for healthy food again! I just know it!} 

When we got home from our errands, Kenley and I did a little craft while Claire napped. I halved this homemade puffy paint recipe and let Kenley go to town with it! 


Concentration.... 

I really love that Kenley is getting old enough to do crafts and artsy stuff now! 

So that is what we have been up too! I also did a few Pinterest crafts tonight while Brian and I watched The Avengers. I can't share the pictures yet though since they are birthday gifts! 

Also, I am kind of bored. I would appreciate it if everyone would start blogging and pinning things like crazy so that I have lots to look at on the internets. Thanks! :) 

Here's hoping tomorrow is another almost good day! 

Funny Shots from the SpyCam

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

We have an awesome baby monitor system called Fos Cam that enables us to watch live video of the girls room from our iPhones and computers. I absolutely love it. Here are some of the funny things we have been able to witness because of the cam! 

Kenley can almost always be found in hilarious sleeping positions...

This was the same night, 20 minutes later...

A few weeks ago we moved Claire out of the crib and into her big girl bed. For the most part she has done really well at staying in bed, but then there are the other times....

One night we were able to watch them both climbing over the edge of the rail and throwing themselves onto the bed. It was hilarious! We almost didn't want to go in and make them go to bed. 

CLo trying to make an escape... 

Fun times for the Ronk's! 
 
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