Immunizations: A love/hate relationship

M had her 4 month immunizations today. I always hate these! She screamed and cried and made me tear-up, of course. But, she did well and was smiling before I even got her in her carseat. But, you can definitely tell she's not herself. She is so lethargic and after being rocked for only a few minutes, lunges as if to say "please put me down" so I can sleep. And, that is exactly what she has done. From 3:00 until 10:45 tonight, I think she has only been awake for an hour, and that was just to eat, etc. I actually had to wake her up a few minutes ago to feed her so that she'd sleep through the night, but she only took 2 of her normal 6 oz....so sad!

Although it is so sad to see her so lethargic, etc., I will say that immunization days allow me to get so much done! Tonight while M slept and Josh went to the Thunder game with my dad, I was able to take down all of my Xmas decor, rearrange the living room furniture, dust, clean bathrooms, do dishes, laundry, and vacuum half of the house. This was a MUCH needed quiet evening.

M should be back to herself tomorrow. Thankfully she's still smiling through it all! Today her stats were all pretty much on the 50th percentile, except for weight, which was between 25 and 50! She weighed 12lbs 9.9oz and was 24 1/4 inches long. At her 2 month appt she weighed 9lbs 13oz and was 22 inches long. Now we get to start rice cereal! She's growing too fast!!!!

Four Christmases...our version

Our Christmas dinner on Monday night: pan-seared steaks, mashed potatoes, green beans and crescent rolls
dessert: triple chocolate bundt cakes with whipped cream and mixed berry sauce
Christmas at Pa Pa Stanz and Nan Nan's
Christmas at Poppi and Ya-Ya's
Lights in Wichita Falls, TX. We took our pic in front of this when I went home with Josh for the first time, 7 years ago. I'll have to find that pic later. We bundled M up with a hat and mittens, so she enjoyed looking at all of the light displays!


We had 4 wonderful Christmas celebrations this year! Josh and I enjoyed our Christmas on Monday night with a yummy dinner, gifts, dessert and then drove around with peppermint mochas while we looked at Christmas lights and listened to our new CDs! Our Christmas celebrations were all wonderful with great family, food and thoughtful gifts! We enjoyed introducing M to some of our family and M enjoyed getting spoiled rotten by her grandparents and many others!!! I need to work on getting more pics of M that I can actually post. We have so many wonderful pics, but these are the only ones I can post. Hope you had a very merry Christmas!!

A NEW Post...finally!

Christmas Tree....I purchased a small one on clearance at Hobby Lobby before we got married, since I knew we'd be apartment dwellers. I'm glad to have such a small one! It fits almost anywhere! I made garland last year after Christmas out of ribbon to make a chain link type of thing. I stored it to use for the first time this year.


M's little Christmas tree covered in ladybugs
M LOVES stuffed animals!
M's precious little feet

One of our attempts to get a pic of M in her hilarious "Santa" hat from Ya-Ya
Blurry pic of Christmas tree in kitchen, covered with cookie cutters
Mantle with THREE stockings this year!!! Truly a blessing!!! We LOVE having M with us this Christmas!
Dining Room Mirror
Dining Room

Pa Pa Stanz reading a Thanksgiving story



Apparently a few of you are getting sick of seeing the same post for nearly a month! SURPRISE!! I'm back! I am going to TRY to be better!

When it's been a whole month, where do you begin? I'm thinking I'll just do a re-cap over the next week or two and *hopefully* catch back up!

Since my "thankful" post, we have had a great Thanksgiving at my mom and dad's and decorated for Christmas, to name just a few things. I have few pics of M that I can actually post. So, I've posted the ones that don't actually show her face.

In case I can't hop on tomorrow, have a VERY Merry Christmas!!


Coming Up:
-Home office makeover for about $15
-Christmas celebrations
-Cheap and easy meal ideas
-Handmade Christmas gifts
-M's 4 months old
-Christmas dinner
-Recipes

Truly Thankful

I feel so incredibly thankful to have so many wonderful blessings! Last year I did a list of 100 things I was thankful for, but, I'm going to have to go to bed in just a few. So, here are a few of the wonderful blessings that I thank God for:

-Husband
-Baby M
-Family
-Foster Parenting
-Friends
-New Jobs (me and Josh both) this year
-Staying in Oklahoma
-Staying in our house
-Church family
-Food
-Cars
-Health
-Clothes
-Overcoming challenges
-Seeing God's plan revealed


Happy Thanksgiving! May we all be reminded of the tremendous blessings we have in our lives.

Birthday Boy

Last weekend we headed down to Texas for Josh's b-day to kick off a week of birthday celebrations. We spent Friday and Saturday night with his parents in Wichita Falls and Saturday his parents kept M so we could drive down to Dallas for the day and celebrate by ourselves! It was our first time to spend an entire day by ourselves since we've had little girl! We had breakfast at Atlanta Bread, went to a huge book store, went to the Dallas Museum of Art, shopped at a mall and ate some yummy food (all day!!). Even though we missed M a lot, it was so nice to have time to ourselves and talk about other things than feedings, naps and poop!

Monday M gave her present to Daddy. It was a Bob Dylan book for children and she even begged me to let her sign it with her footprint:) Tuesday I gave Josh his presents when I got home from book club. Wednesday was the big day! We had a breakfast of chocolate sprinkled donuts...yum! Then, we went and had our traditional Mexican birthday lunch with the other 2 b-day girls! We went out for a family (the 3 of us) birthday lunch on Friday to Qdoba...one of our new favorites! I don't know about Josh, but I sure had fun celebrating his birthday!!

Tonight

Tonight was my first night to be at home without some activity, etc. since Tuesday night at last week! It has been a busy time the past week with girls nights, church, a trip to Texas (post to come soon), etc! So I tackled a few projects that have been on my list! One project will be blogged about after Christmas. The picture above is of my first attempt to make a Christmas stocking. This one is for M! Josh and I have black Target stockings, so this will be a little different and add some pattern, plus it only cost about $3 max. to make! This is no where near perfect, but does the job! Sadly, the trim is a little uneven, but oh well! I wanted to get this done so that I can start decorating for Christmas after Thanksgiving, which is next week!!!! Crazy!!

The other pic is of M sitting in her new Bumbo (thanks Gene and Pam!) and watching her daddy play guitar! She LOVES watching Josh play! She pretty much does that every night!

Happy Birthday to a few of my favorite people!!!

Three of my favorite people share the same birthday today!!!

Happy Birthday, Joshy!!! You are an amazing husband, father, friend and companion! I am so blessed to have you in my life! Thank you for making life fun!!!! I thank God for you every day!!! I know your 26th year of life was full of lots of ups and downs and quite a few challenges, but I am amazed to see how you've trusted in God and continued to persevere through all of the unknowns we've faced this past year! I love you, babe!! Happy 27th!!!

Happy Birthday, Mom! Thank you for being such a fun and supportive mother and friend! I am so blessed to have such a wonderful mom! You are such a beautiful and talented woman! Thank you for always taking time to invest in our relationship, from pulling me out of school for fun lunch and shopping trips to our current regular lunch dates. You are so fun to be around!! Happy ____Birthday:) I love you!

Happy Birthday, Viv! I can't believe a year has already past!! I can't remember our family without you in it! You are a precious niece! You light up the room with your beautiful big blue eyes, wonderful smile and your new little princess wave!! We love you so much and are so happy you are in our family! We are excited to watch you grow up! We love you!! Happy 1st Birthday!!

Blown Away!!!

I just got home from what I thought was our church class' girls night out. Which it was (and, it was very fun, btw), BUT, it was also a surprise baby shower for me, M, and our future foster babies! I am completely blown away!! I was completely surprised!!! When they yelled "surprise" as I walked through the door, it didn't even cross my mind that it was anything for me! In fact, I thought they were being sarcastic, since I was actually fairly late (thanks, Erin:)). So, they totally pulled it off!!!

It never crossed my mind to have a baby shower, much less from people that I have only been at church with for 5 1/2 months! It makes me teary at the thought of how wonderful these girls are and how close I have grown to so many of them over the past few months! They have been such a support to us as we transitioned into new jobs, a new church and parenthood, since June! I am so grateful for the friendship and support they have given us! You know who you are!! Thank you SOOO much!!!

When M wakes up, I'll be excited to show her all of her wonderful new things!!! She got cute clothes, TONS of diapers/wipes, toys, baby gear, accessories, diaper genie, gift cards and MORE!!! I know she'll love every bit of it!

Thank you all so much!!!!

Quick and Easy

I've been pulling out the easy recipes in my repertoire lately! So, I thought I'd share. The first one is "white trash". This isn't necessarily and original recipe, but one that I love and it is the easiest ever!! I've been trying to name it more thematically lately. So, you have "Skeleton Crunch" or "Snow Crunch", etc.

White Trash

Melt Almond Bark and stir in Crispix or Chex cereal and broken pretzels until lightly coated. Add as much as needed to lightly coat. Stir in M&Ms until coated. Spread onto waxed paper. Allow to cool and then break in to smaller pieces. Put in a canister with a scoop and it's ready to serve!

The recipe below is what we're having for dinner tonight. I'm serving it with roasted vegetables and salad.


Tomato Chicken
1 can diced tomatoes (regular or seasoned...if cooking more than 4 chicken breasts, use 2 cans)
Frozen chicken breasts (2 to 4)
1/2 can water
salt
pepper
minced garlic
onion powder

Put chicken breasts in crockpot. Pour tomatoes and water over chicken. Season with salt, pepper, minced garlic and onion powder. Cook on low for approximately 4 hours, or until done. Serve with veggies and a salad and/or over rice or noodles.

2 Month Ponytail!

Here is M's first ponytail at 2 months old! She's our little Yankee Doodle gal! She's had this cute little "rat tail" since she was born (or at least since she was 3 weeks old) and during tummy time last night I thought it was about time we tried a little ponytail with a bow! Haha!

By the way, I'd love to have her muscle tone!

2 month stats

Little M had her 2 month check up today. She weighed 9.6 lbs (25th percentile) and was 22 inches long (also 25th percentile). She is a petite little one, but still growing and healthy! We go back next week or the week after for shots:(

The extent of fall decorating.....

This is pretty much all I did this year for fall decor: the 2 pumpkins I painted for Girls Night Out. I finally sprayed them with acrylic sealant today so they'll last a long time! Well, there you have it! Happy Fall, Y'all!! Oh, and happy 2 month b-day, M!!!!!

Spilled Milk

I'm trying to figure out what the deal is with milk today! At lunch, one of the little girls in my class at Sonshine School unscrewed the lid to her cup and dumped the whole thing on the floor. After school, M's bottles leaked all inside her diaper bag and got on everything!!! Then, when we got home from Walmart a few minutes ago, I took the milk out of the bag and it had leaked everywhere! What's up with that???

Other than that, everything is going great! M had her first school pictures today and did great. She has been growing so fast! She is sleeping a lot still and even slept through the night 2 nights in a row and slept through class and worship service on Sunday! She is starting to smile a lot more now, too. So, that is lots of fun!!! She loves books and loves being talked to. We're having a great time having her around!

Paw Paw Fenter

Josh's sweet grandfather passed away on Friday night after a long battle with cancer. He was such a kind man who truly loved his family. Josh and I have enjoyed many visits down to Texas to see his grandparents over the past 7 years. I will always remember Paw Paw as a man who loved to play with his grand kids and great grands and always remembered details of your life, even if you were an in-law. We feel very fortunate that we were able to see him on Friday afternoon and say our final goodbyes on our way to Dallas, although we didn't expect him to pass quite so soon. He will be greatly missed.

Randomness

-We sold my car yesterday (finally!!)!! Now we have to look for a small SUV or a minivan! I want something family friendly and that won't hurt my back as much to get a carseat in and out of.

-M slept 5 hours straight last night!

-Josh and I got to clean house yesterday (we did the tag-team approach during M's 45 minute nap)!! It was getting so gross (Erin can vouch for me on this one!)!

-M is now 5 weeks old, 8 lbs 8oz and 191/2 in.

-We are going to Freshman Fanfare tonight! Josh and I try to make it each year whenever possible, because it brings back fond memories of September 2001, when we met during the show! Here we are 7 years later! My aunt, uncle and cousin are coming up, too, which should be fun!

-I feel like I'm finally beginning to get this "mom" thing down! I'm having so much fun and feel so blessed and content! I'm really starting to see how God's hand has guided our lives thus far. To think that 5 or 6 months ago we had our house on the market and were ready to move to TX is so crazy!! I thank God every day for guiding us to stay here in Edmond, blessing us both with great jobs and allowing us to help precious babies, like M. While the journey to where we are now hasn't been easy at all, I can truly see that God really does know what's best for us. While things like infertility have been so devastating the past 2 1/2 years, at this very moment, I can finally consider it a blessing, because now I get to love a baby, like M, who otherwise, I would have never known.

Have a blessed weekend!