Getting Ready

There’s so much to be done and so much going on around our house right now! I feel like sleep is a waste of time and, although I know I need my rest, I feel like any moment resting is a moment that should be spent accomplishing something! I guess you could say ‘nesting’ is settling in at our house.

We have so much we’re trying to get ready for; the list seems to go on and on. First is Christmas. We’re hosting Neil’s family for Christmas this year which we’re very excited for, but the preparation is also overwhelming. We honestly started about eight months ago by taking the first steps to finish our lower levels. We knew there was no way everyone could comfortably come to our house without that extra space and it was a good excuse to get started. We’re now almost finished, almost, but not quite. Neil has been busy staining doors and I’ve been busy finding the little things we need that are easily overlooked. Thankfully, I have an amazing and handy father who is going to come down this weekend to install doors and lights, help move furniture, etc.  I’m excited for that all to be done, but then comes the top-to-bottom cleaning that our house desperately needs. The past couple months I have been excessively tired at all times which means the simple chores of vacuuming, dusting, organizing, and such have gone unfinished and now that I have some energy back that really needs to change. My husband is amazing and has done more than his share while I’ve been exhausted, but there was only so much I would let him do alone. Now I have only four weeks to get caught up and then some so that our house is ready for company!

The other thing we’re preparing for, of course, is Baby B’s arrival! Since we found out the gender and have had quite a few people asking what they can get Baby/us as Christmas gifts we decided to get a registry done at Target. We spent a few hours going up and down the four little aisles of baby items at Target on Saturday and hopefully have everything listed that we need. We decided we weren’t going to register for any clothes because people like to pick out cute baby clothes on their own anyway and I have no doubt we’ll get a lot! I tried to stay neutral with most items, just in case we have another child in the future and it’s not a girl, I don’t want to have to buy everything new. My husband was insistent that the bedding be pink and girly though, and yes it was honestly him, I really liked one of the neutral bedding sets but wasn’t going to fight with getting pink! Of course if Baby surprises us as a boy, this just means Neil will have a lot of returns to make and shopping to do in the few days Baby and I are still in the hospital, but don’t worry my mom has already volunteered to help with any shopping that would need to be done then!

I know the next four weeks are going to be a blur of cleaning, gift wrapping, meal planning, and grocery shopping and the next four months will rush by in a haze of pink; I simply cannot wait!

Halfway there!

It’s official, we’re having a baby girl! Neil and I are thrilled and so relieved to finally be able to tell anyone and everyone. We were very cautious telling people prior to 20 weeks because of my miscarriage, or I was very cautious and Neil understood and went along with it. He even jokingly said to me one night, “I bet if you had it your way we wouldn’t put anything on Facebook or Twitter until the baby is born.” I laughed, but in actuality he had a point. At 20 weeks though I figured I couldn’t wait any longer, I officially look pregnant. I’ve ran into a few people I know and have seen them glance at my belly and can just see the thoughts in their head ‘I think she’s pregnant, but I can’t ask because what if she’s not…’

My pregnancy has been going great. There were literally days where I would almost forget I was pregnant or worry that something was wrong because I had no symptoms. I haven’t had a single moment of morning sickness, I’ve gained maybe 2-3 pounds, and although I could tell my stomach was getting firmer it was hard for me to look in a mirror and say I looked pregnant. We had our 20 week ultrasound on Wednesday and since then I have felt pregnant. Seeing Baby B move, kick, and squirm around made everything so much more real. We’ve been able to listen to the heartbeat at prior appointments, but listening to it while you can see it beating on the screen is amazing. Right now baby is measuring right with my due date of March 29, 2012! She is in the 45% for size and weight and absolutely every measurement and image they looked at was normal! She is already a stubborn little girl, but if you know Neil and I that’s to be expected. She was curled up pretty well in there and the ultrasound tech had to try a few different techniques to get her to move enough to see boy or girl. We weren’t one bit surprised by this since at our last ultrasound she was all curled up and wouldn’t even roll over so they could get a measurement from a different angle; she just kept kicking and hitting at where the tech would push on my stomach. Hopefully that means she’ll be a snuggly baby!

My doctor is absolutely amazing! I always worried about choosing the right doctor because I was afraid I would never feel that comfortable with them, but she is perfect! She has a fun, goofy personality you would never associate with a doctor and always makes Neil and I feel like any question we have is a good question. To make it even better she’s actually expecting for the first time as well and at just six weeks ahead of me can fully understand everything I’m going through. She’s expecting twin boys so she hopes to be back in time for my delivery, but if not she is getting me in to see one of her partners that is the most like her.

So now comes the fun part: names, clothes, nursery things, and everything baby! I already went out Wednesday night and just had to buy a few little pink outfits, but I’m keeping all the receipts just in case our stubborn little girl turns out to be an even more stubborn little boy!

Birthday Weekend

Life has been so busy the last couple months I don’t even know where the time went! It seems like Neil and I rarely ever have a free night anymore to just sit at home doing nothing, there’s always something that needs to be done around the house to get ready for Christmas (already!) or some place we need to be.  A lot of the blame falls on our almost weekly trips back to Clark. My little brother is a senior this year and I am doing my absolute best not to miss anything, even if I am two hours away! Unfortunately, this has meant quite a few late nights in a car driving home from a football game or early Saturday mornings driving back to Sioux Falls. This is his last year of all that though so it’s all worth it, and thankfully I have a husband who enjoys going to Jeff’s activities as much as I do and doesn’t mind driving at night!

This past Saturday was my birthday! I absolutely love birthdays, and no, not just my own. My birthday started off very well because I’m willing to give my email and birth date to a few of my favorite places. I first received my free birthday drink coupon from Starbucks, followed shortly by a free dessert coupon from Granite City, and lastly a $10 gift card to Kohl’s just because it was my birthday! We had planned to spend the weekend in Spearfish, but last minute had to change our plans and were home most of the weekend. Friday night we headed up to Watertown for Jeff’s weekly football game. It was a gorgeous, fall evening for football. Jeff had the best game he’s ever had with a 70 yard touchdown run at the very beginning of the game and totaling 150 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns throughout the game. He even won Play of the Game and Player of the Game. The evening was made even better by getting to spend some time with my niece and nephews. My niece I am fortunate enough to see quite often but my nephews I don’t see nearly as often as I’d like to. Thankfully Kayla (19 months) and Westen (21 months) are getting to the age where they remember better and don’t go through that initial half hour or so of being shy and clinging to their moms before they’ll come to me. Westen was cuddly all evening and wanted to be held most of the time. He was giggling and talking and I’m positive I even heard him say “Sam” for the first time.  When it was time to go home I went to give him a hug after he was in his car seat and he just clung to me and wouldn’t let go. It was so sweet!

Saturday morning we drove back to Sioux Falls. It was a pretty lazy day for me, which I enjoyed very much! We went to Bracco’s for supper and of course had to stop at Coldstone for ice cream on our way home. Then we spent an amazingly, relaxing evening at home watching a movie. It could not have been a better birthday!

Senior Pictures

Last weekend Neil took Senior Pictures for Jeff. He hasn't worked on editing them or anything, but the raw pictures turned out great! Here's a sneak peek!

This is just such a Jeff picture! His favorite sarcastic look :)

I can't believe my little brother is a senior already!!!!!

Vacation!

One week, 2 countries, 3 states, and 1,550 miles.

Last week was our vacation! It was an amazingly busy week spent with my husband and family!

Monday officially started our first day of PTO from work. We slept in a little before hitting the road for our first of four destinations for the week. We made it to Clark just in time for me to pick my niece up from daycare and head to my Grandma’s to have lunch with her, my mom, my sister, Melissa, and her two boys. It was so nice to have lunch with my Grandma, it’s not too often that we are able to see her because when we go back to Clark it tends to be such quick trips and she is unable to drive down to Sioux Falls on her own. After lunch we headed to my parents’ house for the afternoon to spend some time watching our niece and nephews. We babysat until around 4 when my brother got home from Oklahoma where he had a basketball camp. He only had an hour to unpack, repack, and change before we jumped in a car again to drive to Minneapolis for the night. We met up with his girlfriend, Cassie, in Clark and made our way to the cities. We only made one stop along the way at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Hutchinson, MN for supper. Jeff had BWW for the first time the week prior and loved it so much he insisted we eat there. Unfortunately, his second visit at a BWW was a major disappointment. The food was good, but the service was horrible. The manager greeted us and took our order, which was messed up and had to be corrected. We were then ignored the entire time we ate and when we were finished eating she stopped by to grab my glass for a refill, but never returned with it. We finally had to flag down a server to get our bill and then learned that he was suppose to be our server, but his manager never told him that. Jeff and Neil both filled out detailed comment cards on the manager.

We spent most of Tuesday wandering the Mall of America. Neil introduced Jeff to another new restaurant, Bubba Gump Shrimp, where he had crab legs at a restaurant for the first time. Neil and I wandered around on our own most of the afternoon and gave Jeff and Cassie freedom to do their own shopping. They met us at the entrance at 4pm and we made our way down to the light rail to go to the Twins vs. Dodgers game. We had to walk all the way around the outside of the stadium to get to the right gate, but it was worth it for Neil because we ended up walking right past the Dodgers General Manager. We then had about a half hour wait outside Target field before we got to go in and find our seats. Our seats were just 14 rows above first base. Neil got to watch the Dodgers warm up from right behind the Twins dugout. It was a good game, even though the Dodgers lost 4-6.

Wednesday we spent pretty much all day in the car! We left Bloomington at 8:00am and met my parents, Steph, and Kayla in Fargo around noon before heading up to Winnipeg. We got to the border around 5pm and were amazed that there was no line at all. We were asked the simplest of questions and five minutes later were through to Canada! We spent that evening at my uncle’s house with the rest of the McGraw family.

Thursday was Ashley’s graduation. Neil, Jeff, Cassie, and I stayed at the hotel with Steph and Kayla because we didn’t want to deal with a 16 month old at a graduation of 300 people with standing room only! We found quickly it was a very good thing we didn’t go because after being stuck in a car the entire day before Kayla just wanted to run around. My parents even left the graduation right after Ashley’s name was called and were back about an hour after the graduation started. We waited a bit to go to my uncle’s house since they had to stay for the entire graduation. When we finally went over there they were just arriving back. We spent that day just visiting at my uncle’s house. Winnipeg doesn’t have graduation open houses like we do so there weren’t other people around at all or even the other side of her family so it was nice to just be able to sit and relax for a day.

Friday we headed back to Clark. We stopped at my aunt and uncle’s house to say good-bye quick and were on the road by 1:00pm. This time we had a bit longer wait at the border since it was Canada Day. We were able to get in a fairly quick line and only had about a half hour wait. Unfortunately, my parents made it in a much slower line and had an hour wait. Our only stop for the day was in Fargo to get gas and we made it home by 7:30pm. Cassie headed straight back to her house in Redfield and we thought we were going to get to go home and just sit for awhile, but Steph’s husband had a friend in town from Arizona and they wanted to go out so we got to babysit Kayla for the evening. Luckily after only an hour of being at Steph’s, Kayla went to sleep. We were planning to stay at Steph’s that night, but they ended up coming home around 3am and for some reason Neil and I were both still awake so we decided to go back to my parents’. When we went out to our car we found all four windows rolled down about three inches. We have power windows and although the car was unlocked, Neil had the only set of keys inside with us. We know we didn’t do it since I drove and I hate having windows down and would have remembered rolling all four down. We checked our wallets, the trunk, and under the car before we left, but nothing was missing or moved. I’ve never really believed in ghosts, but we have absolutely no idea how our windows got rolled down….

Saturday was our day to actually do nothing and we literally spent half of it catching up on sleep! We did meet up with Steph and James that evening for supper and Clark’s Street Dance, but were home fairly early.

Sunday we were debating whether we should just go home and have a day to unpack and catch up around our house or stay and celebrate the 4^th with my family. Jeff had a baseball game in Canova which is about halfway to Sioux Falls so we ended up going to that and then heading home. We even took Brownie to the game and he did amazing around all the people! We made it home around 8pm, got all our bags inside then just sat and caught up on our DVR shows.

Monday was the 4^th of July! We didn’t do too much to celebrate. We went out for lunch, went to Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, unpacked all our bags, grilled supper, and ended the evening by sitting at our living room window watching the fireworks at the Fairgrounds, and all over Sioux Falls. It was amazing to see the fireworks in every direction we looked!

It was great to spend so much time with my family, especially my little brother. He’s a teenage boy and always on the go so I don’t get to spend much time with him. I realized we are very much alike, in subtle ways. We kept saying the same thing at the same time and we both had to unpack our bags when we first arrived at the hotels, no matter how exhausted we were. I was also very excited to get to know his girlfriend better. I always wondered how overprotective I would be when Jeff started dating, but I’ve found that I’m really not. Cassie is a very sweet girl and, most importantly, Jeff’s himself around her.

Also, have to have my proud sister moment….a few weeks ago Jeff was voted athlete of the week at the Watertown Taco John’s and then when he went to his acceleration program yesterday morning he found out he won athlete of the week there for the previous week! He has farm boy strength and extreme motivation, he was bored Saturday so he just up and went for a 7 mile bike ride! I am so proud of all his accomplishments and can’t wait to watch him in his senior year of athletics!  

Favorite Recipes

I love cookbooks. At least a couple times a month I try to find a new recipe to try so we're not always having the same meals over and over. Today I tried two new recipes that were both absolutely amazing and simple. So I decided to share my recipes when I find any worth sharing because who doesn't need new meal ideas?!?!

Zoo Day and Catching Up

Wednesday I took the afternoon off to spend with my sisters, nephews, and niece! We had been planning on a Zoo Day for awhile and it finally worked out with my schedule and theirs to come down so that I would be able to go with them. It was an absolutely beautiful day for the zoo and Waylan was so excited to see all the animals!



Ready to go to the zoo!

Poor Waylan had a rough day at the zoo. Just shortly after we got there he was running to see the next animal and forgot to watch where he was walking. All of a sudden he slipped in a mud puddle the size of him and was covered in mud. Waylan is not a fan of being dirty, but luckily Melissa was prepared with extra clothes and got him all cleaned up pretty quick. Later he stumbled and scraped his knee on the sidewalk and a little bit later he scraped the same knee again! Then when we were seeing the last few animals he ended up with a blister on his foot and had to sit on the stroller the rest of the way so he didn't have to have shoes on. Thankfully, he still had a lot of fun and enjoyed the zoo!


We walked around the entire zoo and saw all the animals on display. The kids even got to feed ducks, swans, goats, and cows! Kayla and Westen were a little hesitant feeding the bigger animals, but loved watching Waylan and us feed them and were more than happy to throw food in the duck pond. I, of course, did my job as aunt and spoiled them with animal food, carried them when they wanted to be carried, took a lot of pictures, and bought them ice cream sandwiches to see how messy they could get (Melissa only gave me a B+ on getting her boys messy, I'll just have to try harder next time)! 

Kayla was fast asleep before we even got out of the zoo parking lot, Westen was asleep within blocks of leaving the zoo, and Waylan was asleep before we even got back to my house which is only 10 minutes from the zoo! I'm sure my sisters were able to enjoy a nice, quiet ride home.


Thursday I had plans to meet up with a friend, Paige, who I hadn't seen in literally over a year. I think the last time we saw each other was at my wedding and we have only talked a couple times in between. She met me at my office when I was getting off of work. We went out for supper and enjoyed a nice long walk around my neighborhood with some much needed catching up. I definitely realized how much I missed her! During my senior year at SDSU we saw each other once a week in the Greek Life Office between classes and would sit and talk until we had to head to our next class. Thankfully, we were able to chat and catch up as if we saw each other just yesterday and hopefully we'll see each other again soon since we're living in the same town for now! I love having friends that I don't need to talk to every day to stay friends, whenever we find the time to catch up it's as if no time has passed!