The Bug

I caught a little bug a few days back that has morphed into a big bug. So big that it sent me to the hospital. We first went to the ER, but they tend to freak out when pregnant girls come to their neck of the woods, so they whisked me off to maternity. I got to spend almost the entire day of Tuesday in the maternity section of Saint Al's under the awesome care of Sara, the nurse who also helped deliver Carter! What a fun reunion. She hooked up my IV, took my blood, hooked me up to the baby machine, and gave me a flu test. The reason I had to go to the hospital is because I am pregnant and this big bug gave me fevers, got me dehydrated and was causing me to cramp and my doctor was worried it might send me into pre term labor. So, Tyler came home to stay with the boys and I called my mom to drive me to the hospital. She stayed with me the whole day while I was there which was wonderful of her as I hate to be alone in hospital rooms! I was given a lot of fluids which helped with my dehydration and some other medicine to help with tackling the bug! After the 3 bags of fluids were sucked back up into my body, my blood work came back and the baby checked out okay, I was headed for home. I still don't really feel very good at all but I am getting better, slowly, with daily check-ins with my doctor. I felt so lucky to have been sick this week because Tyler was able to be home with me for a bit during the day which has helped so much! Trying to keep up with a 19 month old and a 3 1/2 year old while running a fever and having a few other irritating symptoms is fairly difficult! At least we all love a good viewing of the movie Shrek!

I had mom take a picture of me! I must be on the phone with Tyler giving him an update! He took Tanner to preschool that morning too and Tanner told him he was nervous that Daddy was taking him instead of Mommy because Daddy doesn't know. I thought that was pretty funny! Well, it turns out, Daddy does know. Daddy knows a lot! Daddy did a great job of drop off and pick up so there was no need to be nervous at all! Tanner was also in charge of the snack bucket this week too and Daddy got some great snacks for that! Carter and Daddy had to run a few errands for Mommy too so I know they enjoyed their time at Target and Albertson's!

The IV fluids go in at room temperature. However, the body's temperature is well above that, compound that with a body that is running a fever and it feels freezing! I was so cold in there! So, I got warm blankies to cuddle up. It helped!

Carter

I haven't really said much on here about Carter! Sometimes his personality and little idiosyncrasy's are hidden in the shadows of his bigger and much louder older brother! But Carter is such a little man and he never ceases to amaze me everyday! He is so much fun and such a great kid! He makes us laugh everyday! Lately he has been really into saying "Bless You" after he or anyone else in the house sneezes or even coughs. Then he laughs because he thinks he is hilarious! He says please and thank you for everything! This morning when I was getting his eggs ready for his breakfast he was saying (yelling) "Please eat eggs!" over and over again! I was cooking them as fast as I could but an egg only cooks as quickly as it can! He loves to play toys. He runs around the house saying "me play toys, me play toys!" it cracks me up! When he does something he shouldn't do and I correct him, he looks at me and says "Oooohhh", with a really concerned look on his face. Like, he didn't know because no one had ever told him that before! Yeah right, he gets told things a lot and he acts like it's the first time he's heard it! It's funny, but I really haven't outgrown that either! I make the same mistakes over and over again too! Luckily, everyone is patient and loving with me!

He is growing up so fast and turning into his own little person. He is very much still a little baby and I am worried that when the next little baby comes he will be in for quite a shock! I hope it goes smoothly and he doesn't have his feelings hurt. Tanner's transition into the big brother role was so smooth and easy when Carter was born I am hoping for the same when this little one is born too!

Today was a very rainy dreary day and so we grabbed a few friends and headed over to have lunch at Burger King so the kids could play and we could visit. I LOVE these food joints with play equipment in them! Before I was a mom, and even when Tanner was younger, I swore I would never let my kids play in places like this, and now places like this, along with my friends, save my life! We seek out the clean and less crowded ones! Today though, no one knew it, but Meridian School District didn't have school so it was a bit crowded, but I think the kids have more fun then! Above is a video of Carter and Mason being silly! Mason is 10 months old and Carter is 19 months old, they are so funny together!

Update on my 2010 Goals

After posting my goals or what I also like to refer to as my attempts to live a better life, I received so many emails from friends and family. The support was incredible, the suggestions were wonderful, and the love I felt was so strong. So I wanted to elaborate as best I can on what I am going to try to tackle this year, apply some of the suggestions, and also clarify a bit!

I did not include my goals on motherhood and on being a wife. My motherhood goals sort of fall in line with my emotional goals. I feel like I am a good mom and I am doing all that I can to provide for our kids. It is here that I can begin working on my fears, and also feelings of discontentment that sometimes come over me. It is also with this gift of a 3rd child that I am not going to fall victim to the mommy wars! I said that the last time, and fell right back into it. Well this time, no mommy wars for me! Not this time! I will need some help with this one though......!

As for my wife status, I happen to think I am a great wife and I have a great husband. We work on our marriage every minute we are together, the time we spend together is precious and I love being with Tyler! Yes, we do have goals together but they are private. As much as I have been trying to work on being more of an open book, some things just need to remain private. Not much these days is, especially with a blabby 3 year old, but we try!

But back to my emotional goals. When I quit my job a little over a year ago, I went through a phase where I felt emotions that were unknown to me and lead me to have a lot of fear, self-doubt, anxiety, and discontentment in myself and the life I live. I did not feel good enough, worthy enough, and I felt like a very imperfect person who was surrounded by perfect people. Was I the only one who was a mess? I couldn't be the only person who felt this way, could I? Well, for a long time, I felt like I was the only person. What was I doing wrong? With a little help, I finally figured out I am not alone. That's a relief! But, I still do struggle a lot with my fears and anxiety and so this is the year I plan on conquering all that. No More!!

This is where my spiritual goals will help me as well. The 3 Bible studies I am involved in are all different and they are all so great. One is a Beth Moore, the other is an Elizabeth George, and finally the third one is just focusing on the book of Ruth. All 3 have found very significant places in my heart and are helping me learn more about myself.

Money Money Money. What a subject this is, isn't it? When we're up, it's great and so fun to talk about and when we're down, it is something that makes me sick to my stomach and I tend to pretend it doesn't exist! This was a turning point for us when I quit my job as well. I didn't have my money anymore. It was a very odd feeling that I was able to overcome quickly, but sometimes I still resort back to it. We do have less income, but in the end, we have so much more so the choice was a good one. I couldn't imagine missing out on any of the growing up these boys do everyday! I am also so thankful for the people that watch the boys when I have my occasional meltdowns and need some alone time!

And last we are at the family goals. I meant family as a whole family, not just the 4 or soon to be 5 of us. We are always together! I meant everyone, both of our families. We don't see each other as much as we should. I know that. Life gets crazy. But, I want to try to make more of an effort to have larger family get together's. Every person in both Tyler's family and my family are so different from one another. The variety of everyone is refreshing and fun! I do enjoy family time.

So that is a little more, a little deeper, and hopefully a little more insight into what I hope to accomplish this year!

2010 Goals

My cousin Lindsay recently sent out an email with her goals for 2010. I thought it was awesome and felt special to be included in her "village"! It's really fun when your family marry people who are just so cool! I thought I needed to do something similar for myself. I liked how she called them goals instead of resolutions. I have never been able to keep a resolution, but I might be able to tackle a goal! I need some goals for the upcoming year. Not difficult ones, but realistic ones and ones that will help make me a better person. I agree with Lindsay that it takes a village to help ourselves be the best people we can be. So, I am asking you to be my village and help me in obtaining my goals for the next year. Help me be accountable for myself! So, here is the shortened version of my goals. I could go much more in depth with each of them, but you'll get the gist. If you want to know more, please ask!

Emotional: To break free of my fears, anxiety, self doubt and sometimes low confidence in myself. I know this is a big one. But, a lot of times I have a lot of these emotions running through me all at once! I hope I hide it well, but at the same time, I hope it shows so I can have help conquering it!

Spiritual: I am currently in 3 different Bible studies and I love them all! I am hoping to have a deeper knowledge and understanding with all we are studying.

Physical: Toning my legs and arms and losing the baby weight after this little munchkin is born. Luckily I will have all summer to go on long walks so if anyone wants to join me, let me know!
Financial: No retail therapy-save the money! I think we have enough. Plus, then we can take a long vacation with all the money we save up!
Family: Spend more time with all of our families!


It might be a little silly to include you in my accountability, but just knowing that I've told people about my goals will help me be accountable for them. I appreciate the chance to share my thoughts and feelings too! I hope everyone has a wonderful 2010!

Tanner sleeps with quite a few stuffed bears each night, along with a few books and sometimes trucks. Saturday night after we put him to bed he started yelling for Daddy to come up to his room. So, Daddy went up to see what the issue was and came back down with 2 teddy bears. One was for Mommy and one was for Daddy. What a thoughtful little guy! Well, we forgot to take them to bed with us and the next morning when he woke up, he saw them on the couch in the family room. Ooops! He was so confused as to why we did not want to sleep with the bears. We explained to him that we forgot to take them to bed with us. His face was priceless-part disbelief and part he might think we aren't very smart! So, he took it upon himself to place them in our bed for us so we wouldn't do that again! I had to take a picture because it was the cutest and funniest thing I had seen in a long time. When he came down the next morning, he made sure to ask me if we slept with our teddy bears that he had left in our bed for us. Yes, I told him, we sure did!

Haircuts!

The boys needed haircuts. Bad. They were shaggy and frankly, Tanner was starting to look a lot like a Chia Pet. Carter had a mini mullet and what almost looked like "bangs" on the back of his neck. It was beyond time to have had them in for a cut.

The newest Chia Pet member......Tanner!

Carter after his haircut all trimmed and looking nice!

Tanner after his haircut, no more Chia Pet!

Before we left to go get their haircuts, there was a beautiful full rainbow out in front of the house! It was amazing looking. Tanner asked if we were in Maui. Sadly, no, we were not in Maui, but it was super nice of Maui to let us borrow a full rainbow to look at last night!

Who is Diane and what has she done with my steak??

With all this talk about Barbacoa burning down, it has just made me crave a Hot Rock Steak more than ever. I knew that the basic idea behind the Hot Rock was the Steak Diane, they just dressed it up a bit by putting it on the 700 degree granite slab. I could recreate this steak, minus the granite slab, and be totally happy! So, I grabbed all the needed ingredients for my Diane Sauce and hoped for the best!

Here's what you need:

New York Steaks or Filet Mignon. I used New Yorks.

Fresh Ground Black Pepper

2 tblsp butter

3 tblsp finely chopped minced scallops

6 tblsp Cognac, divided

2 tblsp dry Vermouth

2 tsp Dijon Mustard

2 tblsp Worcestershire Sauce

1/2 cup Beef Broth

2 tblsp Heavy Cream

2 tblsp finely snipped chives

The recipe says to pan cook the steaks, but I cheated and had Tyler BBQ them after I seasoned them with the black pepper while I made the sauce, and then put them into the sauce at the end. The end result may have been even better because we had the smokey flavor from the BBQ.

Here is the sauce. I had to work kind of quickly and so I couldn't take pictures during the process! What I did was added the 2 tblsp of butter to my pan and cooked the shallots for a few minutes on med high heat. I increased the heat to high and added 3 tblsp on Cognac. Here is where you can Flambe if you want to. I was too scared to burn my kitchen down so I opted not to. Maybe next time! Then, add the Vermouth, stir, then add the mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Cook all this for about 1 minute still on fairly high heat. Add the Beef Broth and continue to boil for another minute or so letting the sauce reduce a bit. Add the Heavy Cream, stir well. Add the remaining 3 tblsp of Cognac to the pan, ignite if you so desire. Place the cooked steaks in the pan with the sauce and let them simmer in the sauce for a few minutes.

BBQ'd steak simmering in sauce.

Finished sauce with added snipped chives.




Steak and potatoes Barbacoa style at home! No need to go back there! This meal was a total success!

2010 Bring it on!

We started off planning the New Years weekend by deciding that a bunch of us would go to Barbacoa for dinner and then the next day, our little clan would head up and spend the remainder of the weekend in Cascade at Tyler's parents cabin. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, Alicia called me a few days before New Years Eve and said we had a slight problem. Barbacoa was doing a set dinner that was going to be $75 a person. No thanks. We were not going to be a part of that nonsense! So, we put our heads together and I think I actually persuaded everyone to go to Tepanyaki for dinner! I LOVE Japanese steak houses where they cook in front of you! So, that was set and then we would be off to the cabin.......or would we? An hour before we were going to leave for dinner, Tyler's dad called and said they had just arrived at the cabin and to not bother coming up the next day. What?? Why?? Are we really that annoying?? No, well, maybe, but the actual reason was the cabin had flooded! Crazy! Here are a few pictures!

Brent actually came and picked up Chris and Tyler on Saturday and they headed up there to meet Disaster Clean Up. This picture shows the ceiling that was torn down.



This is the basement after the carpet was taken out! Wow!

But more on all that later.......back to celebrating the end of 2009 and welcoming in 2010!

And on a side note.......a few days after New Years, Barbacoa burned down. I am actually beginning to feel like it might be me that is the source of all the problems........




My mom and Chris and Cam watched the boys for us so we could go out! My mom brought over all sorts of New Years stuff so they could have a little party too! Tanner and Carter just eat stuff like that up! Here is King Tanner with his New Year's crown on!





Adrienne and Corey watching our chef at Tepanyaki cook for us!






Kate and Reggie with AJ, Teddy, Adrienne and Corey!

Way in the back is Justin, Lisa, Chad, Alicia and Tyler!

The infamous onion volcano!

Dinner would not be complete without our cook tossing shrimp into peoples mouths! Chad caught it too!

Kate, Lisa, Ashley, Alicia and Reggie too! After dinner the night was still way to young, we checked back in on our kids, and all of our kids were sleeping soundly, so we decided to take advantage and go out some more! We headed back to Meridian to the Bulls Head Pub for some drinks and good times! What night owls we were too! The last time I was up that late was probably with Carter when he wasn't sleeping through the night! Does that count??

Chad, Reggie, Tyler, and Justin

Lisa, Ashley, Alicia and Kate. No, I did not drink, there is a drink in front of me, but it does not contain alcohol! Next year....maybe!

Tyler drank enough for the both of us taking full advantage of my sober sister position that night and bought a round or 5 of shots for everyone! I have some HILARIOUS video of that night too but I just don't know if I feel comfortable publishing it so I will send it to everyone and if they'd like to publish it, they can Facebook it!

Welcome to 2010! I must say, there have been more times in the past year where I have said enough is just enough! Life is full of ups and downs. Thank God for awesome family and friends! There's a saying that I just love, it goes "We may not have it all together, but together we have it all!" How true is that? I should just be honest and say that instead of saying "might not have it all together" it should actually read "Does not have it all together"! Because seriously, have you hung out with me lately? I am really looking forward to 2010 and the many surprises it brings our way! I hope this year is filled with all things good for everyone!

She's baaaaaack!

When I first got my Pioneer Woman Cookbook, I was so excited! I read the entire thing that night! Then, when my friend Katie in Texas said to send it on over so she could take hers and mine to Houston to have P-dub herself sign them for us, I was even more elated! So, I sent it off to Texas!

Here's Katie with her husband Benjamin and their 2 precious kiddos Ande and Gideon! Can you also believe their last name is Swan? How Twilight is that??! She kind of resembles Bella too! Katie is awesome and I feel so blessed to have her as one of my friends that has spanned from childhood to adulthood. Pretty hard to do! She is also so creative and crafty, her ideas have even been published on the Tip Junkie blog! Hopefully, with some convincing, we can get the Swan Clan over here to Idaho!

Here she is! Back and even better than before! Why you ask?? Here's why;

Wow! Thanks PW! I will enjoy!

Christmas Festivities

We kicked off Christmas with a night at church for the kids Christmas Eve service. It's always a lot of fun, the kids especially love it because they get to participate!

Tanner and his cookies for Santa!

Tanner and Tyler opening a few presents on Christmas Eve!
Mimi, Carter, Tanner, and Grandma on Christmas Eve


Aunt Molly helping Carter at church

Tanner!

After that, we came home and had dinner with my mom and Grandma and did a few presents with them! Then it was off to bed to get ready for Santa to come! The boys and I baked cookies for Santa earlier in the day and so they left a plate out with cookies and a glass of milk for Santa. I took video of Christmas morning, which was hilarious, but have lost the cord to the video camera so as soon as I find it, I will post the video of Christmas morning. Tanner really got into things this year so it was a lot of fun! Carter was just having a great time as usual but he really had no idea what was going on at all! We called my mom when the boys got up and she got over to the house just as they were coming down the stairs so she got to see and hear everything they said! It was great! A little while later in the morning Grandma, Grandpa, Great Grandma, Nana, and Aunt Molly came over and we did presents, coffee, and enjoyed visiting with them for a bit!

Grandma helping the kids open presents!

Tanner and Nana

We went over to Grandma and Grandpa's that night for Christmas dinner too! It was a very enjoyable day! On the way home from that, we drove around looking at all the Christmas lights on the houses! It was very relaxing and especially nice knowing that it was only Friday night and the weekend had just begun!

We took a few days to recover and to wait for Chris and Cam to make the long drive from SoCal up to Idaho! We celebrated Christmas with them at my moms house for a wonderful dinner and a few more presents! I'm beginning to wonder if my boys realize that Christmas is actually just one day out of the whole year instead of a 3 week span of celebrations? We have officially decided that Christmas is just the entire month of December and are going to leave it at that!

Grandma and Carter having pie!

Mom with the robe we all got for her

Chris and Cam

Grandma and Carter with his flashlight!

Uncle Chris, Tanner, and Grandma

Auntie Cam and Carter!

Mimi with the boys!