I've "Popped"!

Here is a recent belly pic, just taken tonight. I was going to wait until another month passed, but in the last couple days, I've considered myself to have "popped". Literally, overnight a couple nights ago, I think my belly pushed out considerably. Nathan says to me the night before last "you look pregnant now". That usually tells me that it's happened, I've popped :) Below are tonights pic taken at the end of my 31st week (Sunday I'll be starting week 32), just a mere 2-1/2 weeks after the last belly picture (17 days to be exact!) Even though people still say "you're so tiny!", I'm definitely starting to feel NOT so tiny anymore!......Can you see a difference?

The end of 31 weeks

End of 31 weeks.........................................................................................29-1/2 weeks (just 17 days earlier!)

Wordless Wednesday

On the Mend

Our Sunday was going as usual....got up, went to church, ate at Qdoba, grabbed some diapers at Walmart, came home, put the kids down for a nap, etc until I was loading the dishwasher and Tiernan came to me with his lip turned down and in a sad voice said "You know what just happened?....I just went like this" at this time he opened his mouth wide and kind of flicked his head forward. I thought for a second and then said "Where?!?" So he lead me into our bedroom where I opened the door to find an extremely large area of carpet covered with vomit. Ugh...and that was the beginning of our difficult evening and even more difficult night.

Tiernan continued to be sick the rest of the evening but (Praise God!) stopped at around 8pm and asked to go to bed. We didn't hear anything from him until morning!

After getting him and the floor all cleaned up, etc I noticed I wasn't feeling the greatest, but b/c I was around so many smells I thought it maybe was just to do with that. So after we put the kids to bed, we went to bed also. I couldn't fall asleep because my stomach would not stop turning. At about 11:30 we heard Caedmon crying. Nathan went into his room and says "Yep, now it's his turn!" All I could think was 'I do NOT need this right now!' But I guess it didn't really matter what I thought! After getting Caedmon changed and all his blankets and bedding switched, we tucked him back in HOPING that was the end of it. Nope! He was up 3 more times, giving us blankets and bedding to change, along with new pjs each time!

To make matters worse, I was up about every 15 minutes in the bathroom throwing up as well. I thank God that Nathan was there and wasn't in as bad of shape as I was so he could help with Caedmon b/c there was NO way that I could have done that by myself in that condition! I finally was able to fall asleep around 5am (without sleeping a wink before that!) only to wake up again about 6am when Nathan left for work. Boy, was I tired yesterday!!

The real kicker was that Brayan chose that night to cry straight for about 2 hours with nothing apparently wrong since he would lay back down and stop crying as soon as we walked into his room. We think it was because the lights kept coming on and going off and he could see it underneath his door and he was frustrated as to why he wasn't a part of whatever was going on!

Nathan did not get as sick as I did but he didn't feel very good Monday and had a queeziness to him for most of the day and night.

Why did we all (except Brayan!) get sick at the same time?? Well, we think it was from Qdobda where we had lunch. It's the only thing we can think of. We haven't been to church for a couple weeks because of the weather and I don't go anywhere with the kids so they haven't been exposed to anything besides our apt. We all ordered the exact same thing at Qdoba and the ONLY person who didn't get sick was Brayan and Brayan was the ONLY one who didn't eat anything from there! Coincidence? I think not....

So Monday the kids were back to their normal selves, thank the Lord!, but I still didn't feel well at all! We watched a lot of movies yesterday and I didn't do one thing around here. I saw Nathan's eyes scan this place as he walked in from work. (obviously in a little disgust :) And his first words to me were "you look about as bad as I do" haha :) So I was very thankful this morning when I woke up feeling 90% better than I did yesterday. I was able to clean, do all our laundry and actually make supper! My sister was up with puking kids the same night we were too, which I thought was kind of ironic....we could have taken turns taking naps!....too bad she lives hundreds and hundreds of miles away.....

Poor Jaguar...

We had a beautiful day here yesterday! It was sunny, NO wind, and close to 40 degrees!! I took the kids for a walk for about an hour and Tiernan didn't want to go home! The only bummer was that the sidewalks were all snowy and slushy still, which makes pushing a doubler stroller in, really hard! Better workout for me though!

After the nice weather, it was hard to accept today....freezing! Nathan was home today because of the wind and we are positive he won't be working again tomorrow because we are in a wind chill warning which is supposed to be -25 tomorrow. We were hoping for a full week for him since he didn't work all last week, but maybe next week!

We are STILL getting Christmas cards and letters in the mail!! How fun is that!? Yesterday we got one and today we got TWO! :) And yes, I am still hanging them on our kitchen cupboards! (Nevermind the stuff above the cupboards and the stuff on the countertops....when you have limited space, you just hafta make do!)

Our kitchen filled with love from family and friends!

Brayan's new favorite place! Yes, that is our 16, no wait, he's 17 months today! So as I was saying....yes, this is our 17 month old up on our kitchen counters where he climbs to all by himself! Ugh, we need a jungle gym!

And what does he like playing with up on the counter? Yep, our cell phones!

Notice anything WRONG with this picture?!? (Besides the fact that our toaster needs a good scrub!) Can you see what's in it? Let me help you....it's a little plastic jaguar...well, it used to be a little plastic jaguar, before I 'toasted' it along with our breakfast :)

I wonder who put it in there? Lemme guess...I'm sure their name starts with either a T, C, or B! Or maybe all three!

***FYI: Another item added at True Delights! :)

New Website!!!

Don't worry, this one isn't going anywhere, but I thought I would tell you about my new website that I started!

It's called True Delights and you can see it at http://www.truedelights.blogspot.com/. What is it, you ask? Well, it just happens to be a site where I will post stuff for you to order (such as food, crafts, etc) and where I can share a little bit of my "life" with you!

For now it just has one thing on it to order (since I just started it today!) but I hope to add to it fairly often with not only things to order or purchase, but neat ideas, etc! And ya never know, I may just have random items for sale on it!

Since I've had a lot of people asking me about my granola that I made that I told you about, I thought that should be the first thing on the site!! So, go check out True Delights and tell your friends about it too!! :)

Not-So Wordless Wednesday

Now, if you were from Luverne, you'd know where this was and there'd be no explaination...hence the "wordless wednesday" but since all but 1 of you that check this AREN'T from Luverne, let me explain! :)

There's the guy that has an autobody shop on Main Street. His name is Clyde. He just ran for mayor in Nov but was beat by the incumbant (which is too bad cuz he would have been good for this town!) Anyway, he always has clever sayings on his board or some sort of "thing" out by the curb with a sign on it. We wish now that we would have taken pictures of all the funny things that he's had out there, but I guess a describtion of them will just have to do!

This picture is what he had on there yesterday, inauguration day :) Last week (remember it was like -20 to -30 all week?) it said "Warning! Global warming in effect Jan 12th -Jan 17th!"

A few "things" he's had out there were a bale of hay and the sign on the bale read "This is my government bale out." Another time he had a hot water heater sitting by the curb and the sign on it read "Clyde's in hot water with the city again". And the funniest one that I can remember was an old antique manure spreader was sitting by the road and the sign read "Automatic Political Promise Dispencer" (get it? it spreads a lot of crap...anyway... :) I guess I should have taken some pictures :)

Found Some!

I looked on our other computer and was able to find some wedding and engagment pics that we on here, so I thought I would post them since they are better clarity, etc. Enjoy! :)

During the ceremony

The Happy Couple!

SO excited!

The Proposal

Lighting the Unity Candle

Anniversary & The Zoo!

5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

The 17th was our 5 year wedding anniversary! WOW! 5 years! Where does the time go? We just can't help but think where we will be in another 5 years! We have been so blessed with each other and I can't wait for that number to be 50 that we are celebrating! Nathan is such a good father and husband, I cannot ask for more! I thank the good Lord all the time for bringing us together. I remember Nathan telling me before we were married that "it's going to be an exciting ride so come with me and hang on, or get out now!" Well, I obviously didn't 'get out' but I can tell you that I'm still 'hanging on!" It's definitely been exciting thus far!! Here are some pics to reminisce..... :) (sorry they are blurry, etc...I had to take pics of the pics since I don't have them on my computer...)

At our reception

Jan 17, 2004

Kissin' :)

On the dance floor

An engagement picture

After the proposal

The proposal! He surprised me with a walk in the dark out onto the pond in the back yard. When I opened my eyes, this is what I saw! He cut all the letters out with a chainsaw and lit them with Christmas lights! The letters were about 3 feet high and 2 feet wide! Aw, isn't he sweet??

The engagement pic that went in the paper. (engaged 12/22/02)



COLD!

Well, as most of you know, it's been a COLD (and I mean COLD!) week! Nathan started off the week working just a half a day on Monday and then the wind picked up and they stopped working. The rest of the week was extremely cold and therefore, Nathan got every day off! We thought for sure that he would work on Saturday since the temperatures were supposed to climb into the 30s, which they did, but it snowed and we had up to 50mph winds! Soooo, they were sent home again!!

THE ZOO

Since we were all home and there's not too much to do inside, we thought about where we could go. How about the ZOO?!?! I thought that maybe that it would be closed b/c of the cold, but when I called, they said they were open and most of the animals were still 'on display'. Well, I neglected to ask them if it was a mostly INSIDE zoo where you just walk down a nice aisle and see animals through a glass window, or if the animals were mostly OUTSIDE. Well, we got to the zoo, paid and went in.

There was a nice large area inside with a whole bunch of animals, but they were stuffed....yeah, the dead ones. It was still fun to look at but we wanted to see the REAL animals. So we walked around and thought 'which door leads us into the nice warm area to look at the animals?' HA! We learned REAL quick why we were the ONLY ones at the zoo that day! ALL the animals were OUTSIDE!!

We bundled the kids up and looked at our map and thought we'll just walk really fast to the next little shed with some animals in it. Well, seeing how there wasn't anyone else at the zoo, they were taking their time with plowing the sidewalks..... We plowed through the snow with the stroller as fast as we could while looking for any animal that was outside of his little lean-two thing...there weren't any. Oh, by the way, it was -33 that day. Yes, 33 degrees BELOW zero! and we were OUTSIDE at the zoo! Are we NUTS?!?!?

So after a (brisk!) walk to the next available shelter, we were plesantly surprised that we made our way to the monkeys! We stayed in there for a while watching the monkeys (it was mostly just to warm up and to be able to feel our faces again!) My favorite was watching this Momma monkey carry around her BRAND new monkey on her tummy! The baby monkey was so new that it didn't even have any hair on it! It was the cutest ugliest thing ever! :)

After we left the monkey shed, we looped around and tried to go into a couple more places that ended up being locked. By that time our cheeks were numb again so we walked quickly passed the lady in the skid steer plowing the sidewalks and back inside. Whew! Lesson learned: DON'T go to the zoo when it's cold out...especially -33!

Momma monkey with her baby wrapped around her belly!

Again....

Who are YOU lookin' at?

Monkies

"Stuffed" animals

Wordless Wednesday

By Request

Since I got a request to do another belly picture, I thought I would oblige :) Today my husband was home b/c of the extremely cold weather, but since I wanted to be able to fully compare to a month ago, I thought I would wear the same outfit and take the picture the same way! (Minus the fact that I was almost ready for bed tonight, hence the un-done hair and no make-up and the camera to block some of the view of my face, hehe :)

29 1/2 weeks (7 months)

And for those of you who are trying to scroll through my blog and find the previous belly picture post, I will save you the work........ :)

25 weeks 29 1/2 weeks



Ok, so our baby is growing a bit!! That's a good thing, right??!!

I'm feeling great, even though the baby has been moving/pushing itself super hard against my lower abdomen, that doesn't feel the best! But at least I know it's strong!

Remember to cast your vote soon if you haven't on what you think baby #4 is! Time is running out! :)

Random

Tiernan with his Remedy Drive poster that has his name on it and was signed by all the band members. He was so excited!

Thank heaven for little boys (and computers that play DVDs!) who sit still for a whole 10 minutes while watching a video on the computer.

They were all standing at the couch reading different books.

I wanted to get an up-close picture of each of the kids smiling and/or saying "cheese". Here is what I got...............:)

Tiernan was complient......



Brayan was a little bit complient but he kept getting all excited.....



And don't ask me what Caedmon was doing! After I told him to say "cheese", this is what he did......hehe :)

I've been in the "bake something I haven't baked before" mood lately. Yesterday I tried my hand at making granola. Yummy! I included oats, coconut, honey, walnuts, and dried cranberries. It turned out really good! The kids couldn't keep their little paws out of it, and I had it for breakfast this morning with some milk! This will definitely be something I'll keep making!

Then after granola, I found a recipe for butterscotch chip cookies so I made those! They turned out good as well! The recipe I found was actually a "cookie in a jar" recipe that you can give as a gift, so that gave me an idea. With each thing that I make from now on that has several dry ingredients (and I know I'm going to make it again soon), I'm going to measure out two of each ingredient (one to use and the other to put in a jar) so then I will have all my dry ingredients ready to go when I make it next! I've done this already with homemade muffin mix and it works out nice. For stuff that I won't use in the next couple days, I'll put it in a plastic bag and stick it in the freezer so my flour stays fresh, etc.

Then today I started out by making breakfast energy bars! It has yummy stuff in it like oats, honey, peanut butter, flour, coconut, butter, raisins, cranberries, choco chips, etc. I think they turned out nice as well since the kids each scarfed one down after lunch :)

After the bars I decided to take on the huge, messy, seemingly never-ending pretty simple task of making bagels. There's about a gazillion steps but once I started, there was no stopping me!...even while trying to keep 3 busy boys occupied! I chose to make them of the whole wheat apple cinnamon variety!

Bagel anyone??

What a way to end vacation!

Hopefully most of you have recovered from the craziness of Christmas and New Years and are back into a routine! Nathan went back to work yesterday after a two week vacation! It was so nice to have him with us everyday but he was looking forward to getting back to work and starting a new year!

Our last day of Christmas vacation (Sunday) was filled with fun stuff and it was a great way to end the two weeks! We were finally able to go back to our church after 5 weeks of not going!! It was either because of runny noses or icy roads (and being gone) that we didn't go, so just going back was a treat! But then to top it off, the nationally known Christian singer Geoff Moore was a guest at church! He came to our church back in 2007 and that is how we started going to Crosswalk in the first place. When we first moved here, Nathan heard on the radio that he would be performing at this church, so we went and have been going there ever since! It was wonderful to hear Geoff perform again as we really enjoy his music. He sang the song that Nathan and I danced to at our wedding (If You Could See What I See) and he sang it on Sunday, so that was special too!

After church, Nathan unexpectedly took me to Applebees to eat, and even though we had the kids with, it's always fun to eat at a sit down restaurant! :)

Geoff Moore and his guitarist at church

THEN......the most exciting thing of the day happened when later that night Jen came to babysit and we were able to walk (yes, WALK!) 2 blocks (yes, TWO blocks!) to the Palace Theater and go to a Remedy Drive concert!!! They are a nationally known Christian band from Lincoln NE and we first heard their song on Air 1 (89.5 in st cloud). Then when we bought the 2009 wow christian music videos DVD, one of their videos were on there and Nathan totally fell in love with this band! (ok, maybe not LOVE, but he REALLY liked their music :) So one day a few months ago, I was looking thru the free local paper we get at the apts and in one small section of it, I saw the words "Remedy Drive" and "performing at the Palace." I was a little confused at first b/c there would be NO way that a nationally known band would be HERE, in THIS tiny town....so I asked Nathan, just to be sure... "Hey, Nathan?...What's the name of that band that sings that song Daylight that you like so much?" "Remedy Drive" I quickly flipped the paper around and showed him what I was looking at. We couldn't believe it!! So I immediately called Jen and asked her to babysit a few months in advance for that evening :) Needless to say, it was a great concert and we were able to chat with all the guys after the show! We told them how much Tiernan likes to sing and play 'drums' along with their video so the lead singer gave Tiernan a message that we recorded on video on Nathan's cell phone. Tiernan was SO excited to see it the next morning...that the 'Daylight' singer said his name and was talking to HIM!! :)

We sat in the 5th row..but considering the Palace only HAS 10 rows....it was still great seats :) It was funny b/c once we sat down Nathan says to me "maybe we should go up to the balcony to get a better view" I said "Better view?!?! We are in the 5th row, we can practically spit on the guys!" He says "Yeah, I guess you're right!" :) Remedy Drive consists of 4 brothers, so that was also something interesting we talked to them about. Very cool guys....

So basically we ended the vacation with a big concert day! :) Oh, and speaking of concerts, we made a last minute decision to go see Tonic Solfa when we were in St Cloud. Thanks to my parents for watching the kids, we were able to get away for a few hours while we went to the Paramount and were entertained by the amazing sounding a capella band!

Hope you all had a wonderful vacation as well!

Outside the Palace Theater

During the concert

Nathan with David, the lead singer

Me with Dan, the drummer

Nathan with Phillip, vocals and guitar


(We didn't get a picture of Paul, the other vocals and guitarist...sorry!..but you can check out their website at www.remedydrive.com if you are interested :)