Family Fun and A Not-So-Productive Monday

So you all have seen my "productive" side and witnessed some of my "nesting" projects...well let me show you the other side of this Mama! I had a great day planned out, you know go to the gym, then Lowes, fix a nice dinner...blah, blah, blah. I accomplished absolutely ZERO today. In fact, I showered and brushed my teeth at 8:30PM tonight (GROSS...I know...we spent the night at my Mom's and I forgot my toothbrush)! While Saturday proved to be a very productive day and Sunday was filled with fun family time, today...ZIP! I was so drained from the weekend, I could only motivate myself to make the beds (that were left unmade yesterday) and get the children and myself dressed to venture back home (and that part was done with Kevin's help). In fact, you will not even believe what my kids ate for dinner...



GASP!!!!!!! I know, this is TERRIBLE! In fact, I can't believe that God is about to make me a mother of THREE, when I feed my kids Cheetos, Goldfish and Diet Coke for dinner! Let me start by saying that my intentions were NOT to feed them junk food for dinner, but they wanted a "snack" at 5:30 and I was too lazy to get up and fix dinner. So they had goldfish, and lets just say it was downhill from there. I did make them both peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which were quickly tossed to the floor (by Ellie) and whined about (by Drew). So needless to say, my kids did not recieve the nutritious meal that a mother (who did nothing else all day) should prepare for them. Maybe tomorrow will be better :( Since Kevin will be home with them, I can count on them getting at least a can of veggies with dinner (I am being dead serious too, he is really good about feeding them).

Anyway, yesterday we were at my Mom and Dad's house to celebrate my grandmother's birthday. With the exception of Jessica (my cousin Doug's wife), ALL of the family was present! It was so much fun, even if we didn't eat lunch until 3:00PM. We had two rounds of appetizers, lunch (chili, salad, corn bread), dessert, an egg hunt, and the opening of lots of birthday presents!

Here is my grandma opening her presents with her 4 children (Ellie, Mary, Sam, and my Mom) and Chloe (her great grandchild).


My cousins Jesse and Lee and my brother...


Me and Ellie...

The "group" after Grandma blew out her candles on the DELICIOUS homemade fresh strawberry cake (Ann can always put everyone else to shame with her baking abilities)!

Great-Gran and three of her great grandkids (can you tell we picked the perfect place for the picture, with the sun straight in their face)...

The two little ones, in deep conversation over oyster crackers...

The three older ones playing with the army sandbox...

The Egg Hunt, fabulously organized by Kevin. With separated areas (one for the little ones and one for the older ones), prize eggs (one for each kid), Pop Rocks and all! He is such a good Daddy!

Ellie finds an egg...

The five great-grand children (this was the closest I could get to all 5 smiling)!

I love my sister's comment..."We all get together and think we are some kind of celebrities!" This was in response to the 15 cameras going off all day!

So my final thought to leave you with is on what I love most...FOOD! I made this dip for the family get together yesterday and everyone really liked it, so I thought I would pass it on.

CHICKEN JALEPENO DIP

1 lb chicken (boiled and shredded)

1 lb bacon (fried and broken into pieces)

1 block cream cheese

1 can cream of chicken soup

diced jalepenos (you can use as few or a many as you want)

1 1/2 c. shredded cheddar

Salt and Pepper

Mix it all together, top with shredded cheddar and bake at 350 until it starts bubbling around the edges (about 30 minutes). Serve with tostitos!

Here is a picture of my dip (about 5 minutes after putting it out) half eaten! It didn't take long to disappear.

So today was my only day to be productive (and I failed miserably)! I have to work tomorrow and Wednesday, but hopefully Thursday and Friday will be better and I will have more to share and hopefully I will have been more productive! Until then...

Love to everyone!

Bedrooms, Bathroom and Belly Pics

Our family has had a VERY busy Saturday! There are just not enough hours in the day to get it all done! Today started off VERY interesting. I should start by telling everyone that we have a new pet in our house!!! Drew and Kevin were so excited to introduce me to our new family member when I got home from work last weekend.


Meet Cooper!



Cooper has been a very good fish and Drew LOVES feeding him and making sure that he is ok each morning. Ellie enjoys watching him swim around while she is eating too! And you will never guess what she calls him.... DaDa! Like everything else. Kevin is literally EVERYTHING to the child right now. But anyway, Cooper is a good house pet for our family now because he is pretty low maintenance! He does however, get very dirty water, very quickly. So this morning Kevin decided to change the water. We were all in the kitchen and Kevin goes to move Cooper from the colander (which he used to catch him with because we don't have a fish net) to the water and Cooper jumped right out of the colander into the sink and straight down the garbage disposal!!! I just about died! And the look on Kevin's face was that of complete and total panic as Drew stands there asking, "What happened?" I could hardly contain my laughter and Drew just knew something was up. Kevin had his hand stuck down the garbage disposal before I could even get up to examine the situation and he was frantically trying to retrieve Cooper. All the while, all I could think is we really do have to get this fish out because the house will smell HORRIBLE if we can't get him out and he gets ground up. So Kevin dug around for a few minutes while I explained what had happened to Drew. After about 2 minutes, I decided that it may be a good idea to prepare Drew for the fact that Cooper was probably not going to be alive when Daddy got him out, but Kevin continued to dig around for him. Drew was very sad and asked several questions (which of course I had NO CLUE how to answer) and was finally beginning to understand, when FINALLY out came Cooper! I KNOW, without a doubt, that he had been out of the water and in the drain for 5 minutes -SERIOUSLY! But when Kevin put him in the water, he started swimming around! We both could NOT believe it!

Drew was very happy that Cooper did not have to go to "Animal Heaven" (which we had already started talking with him about - that's how long it was!!!).



Ellie was happy too!



We are trying VERY hard to have the kids rooms completed BEFORE the baby arrives, but it has been a daunting task. We did tackle the painting last weekend, but that was the easy part. The decorating has proven a more difficult to agree upon project. I was so excited to have Drew in a nautical room accented in reds and navy and decorated with ropes, anchors, and boats! I thought it would be so cute!!! Well, I was quickly put in my place... outvoted by the boys who thought a SPORTS room was the only way to go! Ugggghhh! I am just not too much on all kinds of balls and posters and tons of colors with no real "theme." So after much negotiating, we have decided on a "Vintage Baseball" theme room. I finally had to give in and figured if it had to be a sports room and it had to have balls in it, then we could at least pick one and go with a theme. So we went to the craft store and got a few fabrics to start working with. I am working on the window treatments and we will begin to work on the decor very soon! I will post pictures as soon as it is done.



Now the girls room, on the other hand, has been all me! Since Ellie can't talk yet, and Kevin and Drew could care less if the room is painted Lime Granita or Cucumber, I have gotten to make all of the decisions on the girls room. And it has been so much FUN!!! I am having the crib bedding made and hope to have it by the end of the week. But for now, here is a picture of the pillow sham for Ellie's twin bed. So this is kind of what we are basing the room off of. Kevin has been diligently sanding and painting furniture to try and get everything ready! Can't wait to post pictures of a finished room!

So my bathroom is FINALLY complete! Kevin and I painted it about a month ago and it has been upside down since then! First, I couldn't find window treatments. Then I didn't know what kind of mirror to get. Next was finding a rug. And the project just drug on and on and on.... So with the window treatments complete (thanks to Heat-N-Bond) the mirrors finally hung (we only had to drill 6 holes in the wall for 1 of the mirrors to get them even), and a few nick nacks in place, we now have our bathroom back!!! One final touch I made was this picture below! I got the idea from http://thehappyhomebody.blogspot.com/ and thought I would give it a shot! So I took an old frame, spray painted it brown, wrapped some left over curtain fabric around cardboard with good old duck tape, and put and H on it (spray painted in the same brown)! What do you think?

And here are my most recent "Belly Pics" and as you can see this baby is growing! According to the doctor, she is measuring right on target. So I tried to get the doctor to promise me that women who have their first two babies 3 weeks early would have their 3rd three weeks early for SURE; her only response was that "Those 3rd babies like to do their own thing!" So no luck in guaranteeing a May baby! Oh well, can't blame a girl for trying. I am down to the every two week check-ups with the doctor, so we are getting closer and closer to meeting baby Herman #3! Will keep you posted!

Hope all is well with everyone! Love to all!

Picture Day, Blue M&M's and a little Spring Decorating

Yesterday Drew had pictures at his preschool...and boy was it an interesting morning (the children just decided to be a little difficult)! The challenge of getting both children dressed, fed, and out the door by 8:30 never ceases to amaze me. Seems simple right? That's what I think, when I am relaxing with my coffee at 7:45 and thinking to myself "Oh, I have plenty of time this morning." But no matter how early I get started or how much help Kevin gives me, we are ALWAYS late!!! In fact, I questioned why in the world I decided to put Drew in preschool four days a week next year! Have I lost my mind? How in the world will I get THREE children dressed, fed and out the door? I guess I will figure it out!

This is how Drew said he was going to smile...

But we hope he chose this smile instead!

Ellie had a smile on for her picture too!

So we will post pictures from school and see how he did as soon as we get them!

On to another topic - why I choose to try and shop with an almost four year old and a 17 month old is beyond me! So the quest today was for a mattress. We need a bed for Ellie since the girls will be sharing a room when the baby is born. The baby will get the crib and Ellie will move up to a big girls bed! Since the room is so small we are searching for a twin mattress for her. So I think to myself, "The kids will love a matress store, right?" Well, boy was I right. It was like a playground running up and down the little "tunnels" created by the mattresses! I must say they did very good and I took them around to three different mattress stores (still no mattress though)! The only eventful happenings were having to stop to use the bathroom in the woods (Drew) and having to stop back by the house for a diaper (Ellie) because I forgot one :( Not too bad though! I did have to stop by the mall to pick up some bags that I had ordered and by that point had to resort to bribery to keep the kids under control - so what does Drew choose - blue M&M's!

Ellie liked them...

Drew did too!

Finally, I wanted to share a few of my "nesting" projects with you! Yes, I am "nesting!" I don't feel like I really experienced this with either of my first two pregnancies, but I guess third time is a charm. My house looks like Michael's, TJ Maxx and Home Goods have exploded!!! And I am obsessed with decorating blogs! So here are a few things I have done!

Decorate the mantle

So another project I took on was making a floral arrangement! I know, right! I am no florist and have never really been very good with arranging flowers, but I thought I would give it a shot in my "nesting" phase. So here is the arrangement I made for my front door. I got the planter at Home Goods on clearence for $10 and the ribbon and flowers at Michaels. I got the Welcome sign from http://www.scribbleit.com/ which has adorable stuff for the walls.

My third and final project was for the bathroom windows. I had searched high and low for curtains and could not find ANY that I liked. So I figured I would try and make them. I found fabric that I liked at the $7.99 per yard outlet and got some Heat N Bond from Walmart and started my project. They didn't turn out too bad - and there is not 1 stitch in them!

This past weekend Kevin and I painted the girls' room and Drew's room. Two rooms in 1 day was a major accomplishment for us! So we are in the process of decorating, painting furniture, cleaning closets, and all that fun stuff! I will post pictures as soon as they are done!

My belly is certainly growing and I will be 30 weeks on Friday! Can NOT say it has "flown" by but I can't believe that I am almost at the end! I have a doctors appointment on Friday and will keep everyone posted!

Hope all is well!

I have tried to resist BUT...

I have officially joined the "blogging" world. After months of reading others and not being able to "follow" because I do not have a blog of my own, I have caved. And here I am "blogging" and questioning my decisions. Not a great writer, pretty boring (but blessed) life, so what do I write about? I guess I will figure it out as I go. So to all of you fellow "bloggers" any suggestions would be great!