Monday, July 30, 2007

Two pregnancy tests today confirmed that I am longer pregnant. Since yesterday I hadn't been feeling pregnant (hard to explain what that feeling is, but I had it) and so I was kinda prepared.

We're disappointed... its strange how we were not all that happy to find out we were pregnant, yet are quite sad that we aren't any longer. I guess we came around to the idea pretty quick. I feel rather betrayed by my own body and embarrassed that I announced being pregnant and started miscarrying immediately. Not like we could have known that, but still. We'll likely try again in Dec/Jan, like we had originally discussed.

If there is a bright spot in all this, its that I'm now motivated to get into the shape I want to be before I get pregnant again. That means working out every day and eating better.

What a stressful, bumpy week this has been. Thank you for all your kind thoughts, prayers and emails. They've been a great comfort to us.
I've been trying to use the Simpsonize Me generator at http://simpsonizeme.com for a few days now but its been slammed. Finally, using IE, I was able to get it to work. You upload your pic and it fits your features into a Simpsons-like character.

Based off this pic



They returned this image



Its quite finicky... it wants a large picture of just your face. No black and white, no shadows, looking directly at the camera. It was hard to find one that met all the criteria.

Overall though, not a terrible reproduction!

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Today we had a great visit from Christie, David and Tyler. The kids, despite some scuffles here and there, got along fabulously and I don't know about Tyler, but our kids were drop dead tired by the end of the day.

Yesterday I went to Ace hardware and got some replacement bolts for our deck chairs and was wooed by a lovely cobalt blue huge ceramic planter. I stuffed it full of lemon thyme and peppermint and put it on our porch. Smells DIVINE. I encourage those who come to my house to bend down, rub your hand in it and smell. If it doesn't put you in better mood, nothing will :) I was also seduced by a park bench on sale, and that too is now sitting on my porch.

After I brought home the bench, I was in the garage assembling it when I heard a voice behind me. Caught by the Mormons. Drat. Despite my insistence that I did not need their help to assemble my bench or clean my garage and was quite happy with my faith, thank you very much, they were quite persistent and made me listen to a long rambling speech about Joseph Smith and what not.

Because I'm such a darn people pleaser, I listened and answered their questions with half-untruths like, "I've looked into Mormonism before" (i.e., I looked up some stuff on the Internet to win an argument about polygamy) and felt guilty that I wasn't more interested. How whacked is that? I felt guilty that they were being so earnest and I couldn't have cared less. Ugh. Well, lets just say that I let them make an appointment to visit us next Sunday. I will be canceling. Jason says I have no backbone and he is SO right.

Jason just brought me a treat from DQ so I'm gonna sit down and enjoy. I'm shamelessly stress eating right now, until this pregnancy thing is resolved. I offer no excuses for it except that I want to do it and so I will.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Could I ask for your thoughts and prayers please?

As each hour and day goes by and the bleeding continues (not heavy, but still there) I am getting more and more stressed and depressed. Hopefully I should have some answers by the beginning of next week but even that seems so far away. Oddly, its not the results that I'm anxious to get, but just an answer... whatever that is. The suspense that we're in is really hard to deal with.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, I am pregnant :)

Its quite a surprise, but not quite the surprise that having two kids 13 months apart was, so we feel a bit more prepared and not AS frightened as we have in the past.

There are some complications however. I've been bleeding for 2 days now with mild cramps. This could either be fine or it could be a miscarriage. Its really too early to tell. Next week I'll be getting an ultrasound and we should be able to find out for sure what the status is. Its rather stressful to be in uncertain.

Based on my calculations, the due date is March 26, 2008... Just four days after Ethan's birthday. Funny how my kids are all grouped within a month of each other.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Cute pic I took of the kids a few days ago...

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

I was looking at my brother Michael's MySpace and found this pic of him and I. Cool. I don't think we've ever had a pic of just us.

Below I've included a slideshow of pictures from our gathering to spread ashes at Lake Chelan. If you click on the slideshow you will be taken to the album and can look more closely at the picture.

This event was far more emotional than I thought it would be. It was painful for me to see Grandpa scattered into the creek, though I know he would be happy that it was done. I saved a small portion of his ashes and will treasure them. It was just another reminder that he is not vacation. He is not coming back. You'd think that I'd have that part down, but its amazing how you can just avoid thinking about the reality of it.

I enjoyed spending time with my cousins and family, especially the camping we did on Saturday night (we spread ashes on Sunday and drove home same day). It really wet my appetite for camping!

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

We just had a yummy dinner... Italian Sausage and Bell Pepper Paella. Jason and the kids (and I) really liked it and it was easy. My review is at the bottom.

ingredients

2 links hot and/or sweet Italian sausage (about 6 ounces total)
1/2 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips
1/2 green bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips
1 small onion, cut into 1/2-inch wedges
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cup Arborio or other medium-grain rice or converted rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup drained canned tomatoes, chopped coarse
1 1/2 cups water

preparation

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Squeeze sausage meat from casings into a 10-inch heavy ovenproof skillet and add bell peppers, onion, and oil. Cook mixture over moderately high heat, breaking up sausage with a fork and stirring occasionally, 5 minutes, or until vegetables begin to brown. Add rice and sauté, stirring, 1 minute. Stir in wine, tomatoes, and water and bring to a boil, stirring to loosen brown bits. Transfer skillet to oven and bake, uncovered, 25 minutes, or until most liquid is absorbed. Season with salt and pepper.

Gourmet, December 1996

reviews

see all > 07/17/07
Kristi from Seattle
Yum. I doubled the recipe. If you do this I wouldn't suggest going over 2 1/4 cups of liquid. I used just over 2 cups and it was a little bit dry. I had to add in a bit more at the end, cover, and pop back in the oven for 5 minutes. I added garlic, used Italian seasoned tomatoes and threw in some red pepper flakes for good measure. We topped with fresh parm and there was nothing left at the end of the meal
When we were at the cabin, my sister and I were overjoyed to finally be there when the apricots were ripe! We have many memories of eating endless apricots under that tree, but our trips over the past years happened too late during the year and we missed their goodness. I do think they smelled even better than they tasted.

Apricots don't keep, so I had to make quick work of this box. I loosely followed a recipe, but made adjustments (like only using half the sugar since I ran out!). It tastes great.

Our box of gold


Did you know that if you crack open apricot pits there are little almonds inside? They are very similar to the bitter almonds that are banned in the US. If you eat something like 50 or 60 they can kill you. The recipe called for 18 for flavor, but not having a nutcracker on hand and after nearly killing myself with flying pits, I decided to leave them out.


There were only two ingredients. Apricots and sugar. I did add in a pinch of salt, some cloves and ginger at the end though. It cooked for a very long time. At least an hour. You knew it was done when it would set immediately on a cold plate.


The finished product! 12 half-pint jars of apricot-y goodness.


This is what an unattended Gwennie can get into

Better late than never

Here are some pictures we took on Easter Sunday. I'm fairly sure I've not posted these already and just found them today as I was cleaning out my massively bloated picture folder. Poor Ethan. This was the high point of his Easter. He basically slept the rest of the day and the day after this picture we found out he had pneumonia.

 
 
 
Posted by Picasa

Monday, July 16, 2007

We are still alive... we are still here!

What a whirlwind of activity since July 4th. Phew.

After our July 4th activities, we went to Spokane for the weekend and had a good visit with family there. The following week I was busy just about every day, then left Saturday to go spread my Grandpa's ashes at Lake Chelan. I got a bunch of good photos from that trip, but the camera is still in the car and Jason took it to work.

However, I do have pics from July 4th (technically 3rd I guess) and the day after, which we spent at my Mom's, as well as Spokane pics. Enjoy.

(you can click on any of the photos to open them up. Also, if you put your cursor on the slideshow you can skip forward, backward, or pause)

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

We've been incredibly busy. Last week we only spent 2 nights at home.

Heat makes me bitchy and unwilling to blog.

Lots of pictures and info coming soon, as soon as its not like 80 degrees in my house.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

I know I haven't been blogging much... I apologize. There are times when I feel I could blog 100 times in one day, and other times where I just can't be bothered.

We've been busy busy this week. Friday we visited Grammy, ate yummy snacks and lunch, played at the park and worked on some computer stuff. Had a blast! Here are some pics from that day.














Along with our social activities I turned out three sewing projects that I'm fairly proud of. A skirt, a dress for Gwen and some bloomers. Yep, bloomers :)

Today we went to church, then to a baptisim at one of the church goers pool, followed by a BBQ. We had a scare pretty much as soon as we arrived at the house for the festivities. I coated the kids with sunblock. It wasn't our regular kind because I couldn't find it, so I used some really old stuff that I found tucked in the back of a drawer.

I put it on their faces and immediately Ethan started to rub his eyes. Now this isn't so unusual. Poor boy has been having allergies for awhile now. But he kept rubbing and started crying about how badly his eyes hurt and then, oh, it was so scary, his eyes swelled up enormously (the eyeballs looked they would pop) and almost closed. He got hives all over his cheeks and forehead. Luckily, he didn't seem to have a problem breathing, but as it got worse and worse we decided to take him to the ER. We left Gwen with the Pastor's wife and took off... right before we had left I'd had a wash cloth and basically drenched his face with it. This seemed to help a lot and by the time we got to the parking lot of the hospital his face was a bit better. He still had his appetite too. He was eating chips on the way there :)

We decided to go to RiteAid and get him some children's Benadryl and wait and see. We saw a significant improvement right away and he started asking if we could back to the party now and see Gwennie. So we did. He was still enormously swollen under the eyes, but was able to play and eat and was just fine the rest of the day.

That, other than when he had pneumonia, was the scariest thing I've ever seen happen to him. He looked horrible.

Here's a pic of when we finally left the BBQ, at about 4pm. As you can see he's pretty swollen but this is NOTHING compared to how he looked just a few hours earlier.



The kids are currently asleep on the couch and we'll have to get them up soon so they'll go to bed at their regular time. What an exhausting day!

This upcoming week is jam-packed too. Monday has a couple possible plans, still waiting to see what firms up. Tuesday its out to my Mom's for a 3rd of July celebration. We're spending the night there, so most of the 4th will probably be hanging out with the fam too. Then Thursday either Grammy or my Mom will be babysitting while I shop and prepare for... our departure to Spokane on Friday! Oh, how I dread the drive to come. All 250 cruel miles of it. There are good things at the end of the drive at least! Here on out we are very busy through the summer, which is both good and bad :)