BABY!!!!

No...not mine. I keep telling you, I'm not pregnant and it's not going to happen any time soon. Or ever, if I have anything to say about it!

But my sister in law is!!!! But you already knew that. She's 29 1/2 weeks along and I am so incredibly excited to meet my little nephew in just about 10 weeks. Hear that sis?! TEN WEEKS!!!!

Last Saturday, we got to celebrate the soon-to-be new addition to the family (not to mention Momma) at a baby shower. After getting off of work on Friday night, I drove up to my mother in law's in Hillsboro and after some chit chatting, set to work on some decorations. I think I finally fell into bed around 1:30 am, with an alarm set for 8:30 am.

A few decoration adjustments, a shower, and a quick trip to the Party Store later, Mommy, Daddy, future Grandma (on Daddy's side), and one of Mommy's friends arrived...just in time for Mommy and Daddy to be whisked away by yours truly for a whirlwind maternity photo shoot. Have I mentioned lately how much I love maternity shoots? No? Well I do. They tickle me pink...or blue...depending on the gender of the baby. Ha ha. Anyway.

Here's my fave photo out of the whole shoot. It makes me miss being pregnant...NOT! HA HA HA! PSYCH! But seriously, I love capturing the beauty of an expecting mother. My sister in law makes such a beautiful soon-to-be-mommy.

Until I have her permission, that's all I'm going to share (especially since it's the only photo SHE has seen so far!) but here are some photos from the baby shower. It was a Woodland Critter theme, and too much fun to decorate for!

Pudding "dirt" dessert (complete with worms) and the cloth diaper cake I fashioned.

Ants on a log! Take you back to kindergarden, much?

Toadstools (made of hard boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes, and feta cheese).

I heart wooden blocks...bought these for the boys and couldn't resist using them as decor.

Using found objects for decor is way too much fun...found these in mom's garage.

All in all, I think it was a success...although I missed the last half since I had to jump into the car in order to be back for work at 5 pm. Quick trip! But it was worth it. And now a parting shot...of me...indulging in the decorate-your-own-cookie station. Don't judge, I worked hard, man!

Ok, Seriously

Here's the low-down on our family for the past week or so. The boys started with runny noses, which then progressed into coughs, prompting Nathan to take them into the doctor last Friday while I was working. Usually when they have coughs, it's the only symptom we're able to see of ear infections. Sure enough, another bout of double ear infections for the both of them.

Fast forward three days, to this Tuesday. I wake up with a ridiculously sore throat, so bad that I'm barely able to talk. Here's the funny thing about being a 911 dispatcher...without our voices and our hands, we're pretty much useless. So I called in to work and managed to croak to the supervisor that I wouldn't be into work. Nathan took the boys up to Hillsboro to his mom's so he could make a quick Costco run (we were pretty much out of diapers and wipes, both essential items in our household these days) so I was able to have the house to myself for a good six hours or so...bliss, I'm telling you, pure bliss. Unfortunately, Nathan called me before heading home to inform me that the boys both had pink eye. Wonderful. They most likely caught it from the neighbor's kids.

The next morning, my throat didn't feel any better...another day home from work. So Nathan and I both took the boys to the doctor, where they were issued a prescription for eye drops...at $75 for 3 ml of fluid! EEK!

Yesterday I was feeling better, so I left poor Nathan (who was also starting to feel under the weather) home with the boys and headed to work. The bright spot in this week of ickiness was that I found out that I'm to start shadow phase on Tuesday! This is the last phase of my training before I go solo. The training supervisor said I should only need 2-3 weeks of shadow phase, which means I should be solo by middle of April! Yay! Unfortunately, by the end of the night, I felt like a bus had hit me, put it in reverse, and repeated the job. Besides my throat hurting again, my left ear was completely plugged up and hurting. Great.

Then to top it off, I woke up this morning with (what else?) pink eye. While my left ear is no longer completely plugged up, both of my ears are slightly plugged. Unfortunately, Nathan and I aren't established with a doctor here in McMinnville, which means no available appointments for me. I'll probably end up going to Immediate Care this afternoon...I thought I'd wait to see how my ears do, but they're steadily getting worse. Lovely.

Because of how much I've been sleeping in an attempt to get well enough to work, I really haven't seen the boys since Wednesday, but I think they're starting to feel better. Nathan, on the other hand, is feeling like crud, although he has so far managed to avoid pink eye (knock on wood). I think I jinxed myself when I gloated over the fact that Nathan and the boys have required doctors visits and prescriptions, while I have not. Gosh darn it.

So seriously...enough already, ok?!

"Old" Shirt Redeux

I saw this tutorial on one of my craft blogs last night and I simply had to make it. It required finding an old jersey shirt that I wouldn't mind cutting up...not hard with all the shirts I've shrunk out of lately!


I bought this shirt about 30 lbs ago. I loved the cut of it, and the fabric is SO soft, but it's that kind of fabric that clings and shows EVERY bump. Then, once I could wear it without worrying as much about bumps, it basically hung off me. Sad day. :( Fortunately, it was perfect for this project!

All it took was cutting the shirt along the side seams, cutting the sleeves off along the seams, cutting out a bunch of 4" squares from the fabric, laying the squares overlapping, and sewing one seam down the center. SO easy! The most time consuming part was cutting them out and pinning them together.

Here's the result:



It's so much fun to wear, nice and light for spring, and oh-so soft.

And I just had to share these. $4 at Walmart, and they are by far my favorite earrings ever. Very light weight for how big they are, which makes them much more comfortable to wear than some large earrings I have. Oh, and did I mention that they remind me of spring? I'm kind of on a spring kick right now.


Sorry the photo is blurry, I took it with my phone.

A Little Action Happy

I admit it...I went a little Photoshop action happy tonight. I finally got a copy of the photos I took during the Women's Retreat from my mom, and decided to play with them a bit.

By the way...a 16 oz skinny kicker at 4:30 pm...on the night that Daylight Savings kicks in...not smart. Just sayin'.

Anyway, the lighting wasn't real great when I took these photos and I was using my parents' smaller camera rather than our fancy Nikon, so I wasn't super happy with how the photos turned out. To put it bluntly, they were very blah...grey...lifeless. So I kicked the actions into high gear and here's what I got!

Mom, don't you dare copy these photos from this blog! I put quality copies on your jump drive!

Today after the boys woke up from their VERY long naps (they both have double ear infections AGAIN), we headed to my parents' place, dropped off the boys, drove to Oregon City, and....

...gave Bandit to another home.

Please don't give us a hard time about this. It's a decision we have been working on since around November, and it wasn't an easy one to make. I think we feel guilty enough about it without anyone helping us along on that front. We finally decided that we simply aren't able to give him the kind of attention he needs and deserves, he doesn't really have anywhere to run and play, and his maintenance training was severely lacking. So after posting him on Craig's List, we got a reply from a wonderful woman with four children, who grew up raising Springer Spaniels, and was an absolute perfect fit. We spent about half an hour at her house this afternoon, just getting to know her and watching Bandit bond with her 11 year old son. Before leaving, we made her promise to call us if he doesn't work out for their family for any reason, and while we weren't happy about giving him away, we were confident that he is in a place where he will be loved and cared for.

Meanwhile, back at my parents', the boys were doing their darndest to tear the house apart.

Asher trying on Grammy's shoes.

Levi in the cupboard.

This is their favorite place to play at Grammy and Grandpa's.

Before we arrive, this cupboard is filled with tupperware and plastic bowls. By the time we are ready to leave, the entire contents of said cupboard is scattered throughout the kitchen, dining room, and living room. These boys don't do anything half way.

In closing, I would ask that you be praying for our little family. We are trying to re-evaluate our living situation in order to be better stewards of our money, and we have a lot of big decisions facing us. I'll give more details as things arise, but for now please keep us in your prayers.

And now, since the clock says 1:19 am but it's really 2:19 am, and since church starts at 9:45 am...I'm going to bed.

Night!

Victory Dress

I debated on posting this before reaching the magic number, but I just can't stand it anymore! One of the things I really wanted to reward myself with was a sexy little victory dress to wear when I 'force' Nathan to take me out on a fancy date when I reach my goal weight.

Mom and I went shopping after Christmas, and I found a little black dress (I've never had one before) that reminded me of the dresses that Helen and Tara wore for the Biggest Loser finale on season 7, which I absolutely loved!

Btw, I totally loved these two girls during season 7, which has definitely been my favorite season so far. As soon as I saw these dresses, I wanted one! So when I found the black one that reminded me of these dresses (and on sale no less!), I HAD to buy it!

It's a juniors size 9, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to fit in it even after reaching my goal weight. So imagine my surprise when I tried it on last month and it fit! A little snugly, but IT FIT!

Here it is! I'm a couple of pounds lighter now than I was in this photo, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm pretty happy with how I look in this dress.

Refreshed

It's Tuesday night, and I'm sitting in the living room with my hubby, watching American Idol (no, I'm not a regular watcher) and enjoying a Deschutes Brewery Inversion IPA. Mmmm. The boy-o's are sound asleep in their cribs after a trip to Grandma's up in Hillsboro, and I had the house all tidied up and the bathroom cleaned by the time they all got home. It feels good.

This last weekend, I spent three days at our church's Women's Retreat at Twin Rocks Camp on the coast. I was so nervous about going. You see, I have a very hard time connecting with other women. Having been brought up as 'one of the guys', I've always been more comfortable around guys and I feel so awkward around women, especially in large groups. I think a lot of that had to do with being overweight, but that's a whole other can of worms that I just won't go into. So I wasn't sure about going on a retreat with a bunch of ladies...I'll admit it, I was pretty skeptical about whether I'd enjoy myself.

But oh my, it was wonderful! Every single one of the 60 or so women were just amazing and beautiful. We laughed, we cried, we built relationships. While I was ready to go home by the end of the weekend (I missed my boys!), I was sad to see it end. The theme was "Loving Well", and we watched a conference by a Christian speaker named Beth Moore. I had heard of her before, but had never heard her speak...OH...MY...GOSH! She's amazing! One part HILARIOUS, one part spiritual wisdom. If you haven't heard her speak, look her up!

This particular conference basically explored the idea that in order to love other people (and ourselves) well, we first must be well loved; however, we need to not look for that love from other people, but rather from God. Only then can we free other people up to love us 'pretty well', and spill God's love for us out into other people. There was a lot more to it, and it made me take a real deep look at myself and my relationship with God, but that was the general gist of it. As I said, it was an amazing weekend, and I hope I can hold on to and apply the things I learned to my life.

The other bright spot in my life is that work is going better. I have to admit, I felt like I was constantly beating my head against the wall for the past couple of months, and I wanted nothing more than to toss in the towel...(un?)fortunately, I didn't have much of a choice in the matter since I am the only income for our family, and I had to just suck it up. In the past week, something seems to have clicked, and I'm not making as many mistakes. I'm also not butting heads with one of my coworkers anymore...the coworker who helped me lose almost 5 lbs in a week because I wasn't eating or sleeping. No bueno. But again, things are better, and I have hope.

As for the boys, they both have two of their upper molars. Not fun. They're now working two bottom molars, and they're pretty miserable. The good news is that spring is coming! Which means more outings to the park, where the boys LOOOOOVE to run...in opposite directions! Pretty funny. They've also adjusted their sleep schedules forward a couple of hours; they're now going to sleep around 8:30 and waking up around 8:00 am, which means their night-owl Daddy is also having to adjust. Thankfully, they still take a 2 hour nap each day, which means Daddy gets to take a nap. Still no true words yet, but that's pretty normal for twins; generally, twins start talking later than singleton kids, because they develop their own method of communicating with each other.

And now, the random cuteness of the day!



We went for a walk on Linfield's campus a couple of weeks ago, and then put the boys in the bed of the truck while we put away the diaper bag and stroller. They weren't sure what to do with it, which was pretty funny. Levi on the left, Asher on the right.

Enjoying some time in the park with Daddy during one of the first warm sunny days of spring. They like bouncing on this 4-seat teeter totter thingy. Levi left, Asher right.