April Fools!

Today my sweet Gracen Marie turns five. I started this blog about 6 months after she was born, so today in honor of her special day I thought I would share her birth story. (Brace yourself - it's long!)

My official due date was April 15th. I had a very rough pregnancy with her, she was breech and I had low amniotic fluid. In the last trimester I had a doctor's appt every Friday for a sonogram and stress tests for the little miss (little ? at the time). I was incredibly anxious because I was desperate to find out if it was a boy or girl, but every single week at the sonogram the lil bambino was in such a tight ball they couldn't tell. I think total I had around 10-12 sonograms, it was like pure torture! The last 3-ish weeks I was ordered to bed rest. It was a long and boring 3 weeks. One can only watch so much day time television.

My surgery (c-section) due to her position and my low fluids was scheduled for April 10th, to avoid the possibility of me going in to labor first. Emergency c-sections are much harder on me and the papuschka to recover from than a scheduled one. I know that there are an over abundance of c-sections today that could have been avoided, but to be honest I was glad I needed one. I was terrified as it was of everything, and my total control freak nature was straight up relieved to have a plan in place and a specific date to anticipate. Little did we know Lil Miss had a plan of her own.

I had a lot of trouble sleeping towards the end, and was very uncomfortable pretty much all the time. So it was no surprise to me that in the middle of the night I was wide awake. I got up to pee (for the millionth time) but this time it was different, my water broke. Only I didn't know that's what it was. It was about 1:00am and I woke up the Mr. panicking. Something's wrong something's wrong is all I could get out. I was not prepared in the slightest for my water to break. Luckily the Mr. is a little better in these types of situations than I am, and after turning on the lights figured out there was no blood, our bambino just decided to make her debut early.

After I ultimately calmed down - I think I just went in to shock. The Mr. asked if he had time to brush his teeth/make some coffee to wake up before making the 45 minute drive to the hospital. I think at this point my adrenaline took over, because I remember being very calm. It's ok, it's ok, Women have babies everyday! (name that  movie). I was like normally the first baby takes 12 hours right? Go ahead take a shower! I'm good. So I patiently - seriously looking back there was divine intervention because that is SO not my personality - waited for him to get ready, threw together a bag (again totally unprepared) and headed to the hospital.

I don't remember any sort of contractions. All I remember is being VERY uncomfortable and not being able to sit down in the car. Finally we arrived at the hospital, and they found me a wheelchair (at this point it was difficult to walk) and brought me to the maternity wing. When they finally brought the on call doc in to check me, I was at a 9. A NINE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT MEANS? It means you're like 5 seconds away from having a baby. (or something like that). At this point everyone went in to rush mode. I kept telling them I needed to push. Due to my low fluids they wouldn't even attempt to manually flip her so I could deliver naturally. They kept telling me it was too bad she was breach, because this would be a quick delivery! Which is of course EXACTLY what every woman in my position wants to hear at that exact moment. The anesthesiologist took his sweet ass time, and since it looked like everyone else was panicking, I started to panick. Which was not good. For anyone.

I started screaming telling the Mr. to go find another damn drug doctor because this baby wasn't waiting on anyone. They put in my catheter which I was so distracted I couldn't even tell. They also put in my IV which again I could feel nothing - thank you adrenaline! Finally, FINALLY the anesthesiologist showed up. He explained what was going to happen and that the Mr. could not be in there with me when they gave me my spinal. I started to cry. I was exhausted, terrified, and about to be sliced open. When it was time for my spinal, I was so uncomfortable from the contractions (at least that's what they tell me they were), that I didn't even feel the needle. And people this isn't your average needle. It's like the size of a ruler. For reals. Once the Mr. was allowed back in, they asked if I wanted them to place a mirror on the ceiling so I could watch.

UM HELL NO. Ain't nobody want to see that. I would have straight up passed out. The actual surgery was so surreal. I could feel them moving me and pulling the baby out - but was totally numb. After I heard that first glorious cry and that it was a girl I started to cry. And even though the whole thing was over maybe 2.5 hours after my water broke, it seemed like eternity and 2 minutes all at the same time.

From here things get a little blurry. I don't even remember the discussion of naming her. I always liked Grayson for a boy, and Greenlee for a girl. At some point the Mr. suggested Gracen for a girl, and the rest is history.

Not a single person believed us when we started calling our families. She was born around 4am, and we waited until I think 7ish to start calling. It took a lot of self restraint to wait that long. And honestly we didn't even remember that it was technically April Fool's Day. They only started to believe us once we said it was a girl and her name was Gracen Marie. Weighing in at 9lbs. 2 oz. that turkey was donezo. I don't blame her!

It was one of the scariest/happiest days of my life all rolled into one. I don't think you can totally be able to grasp the concept of unconditional love until you see that little baby that you just brought into the world staring up at you, completely reliant on you. I have no idea how 5 years have gone by since that day.

Gracen Marie you turned my world upside down! I don't even remember what life was like without you in it. The world is your oyster my sweet princess, and I cannot wait to see what life has in store for you, or what you have in store for it!

Here Comes Peter Cottontail...

Last weekend we took the girls to go see the Easter Bunny, and I was pleasantly surprised at the success of the visit. Both girls have recently stopped taking naps - which may or may not be a good thing, and the bunny was at noon. So not only was it lunch time, but also potential meltdown time from being tired.

There was a basket of stickers next to the bunny for the kids after they got their picture taken. The Mr. had to take a walk with Had for misbehaving while we were in line, and while they were gone Gracen was asking about the stickers. At the same time there was a little girl bawling while her Mother was trying to get a photo with the bunny, and Gracen very seriously said 'You only get the stickers if you behave, crying does NOT get stickers!' I couldn't help but giggle.

This is actually the first year we've taken them to see the Easter bunny. I've never really made it a priority, because he doesn't talk... so I'm not entirely sure what the point is? Except to have a cute picture in Easter clothes. But of course one week prior to Easter in KS meant a 10 inch snow storm, so we have on boots and puffy vests :)

Although I am kind of sad to say I don't have any disasterous photos of them with the Easter bunny, some of the pics from when I was little are pretty humorous!

 

I mean who doesn't laugh when looking at that? ;) Happy Easter!!

Kaleidoscope

When I was little, one of my absolute favorite places to go to was Kaleidoscope. So it's been around for a while :) Hallmark created it as a way to engage kids imaginations, and so that all of their leftover materials for their creative department didn't go to waste. It's really quite amazing, and if you've never been I highly encourage you to go. I mean seriously, it's FREE! The inner cheap-o in you is dancing right now, ha!

During the week, they have "sessions" for kids, but they have to be 5 in order to participate, because parents don't go with them. I can very vividly remember the first time I ever went, when I was 4 years old. My Mom took us on a random weekday to get us out of the house, and when we stopped to get our tickets, the lady at the entrance asked me how old I was. I proudly announced FOUR!! Well unfortunately 4 year olds are not allowed in. I started to cry, and was so upset that my sisters/whoever else we were with got to go and I didn't. The  lady came up to me and let me know that sometimes almost 5 year olds got to go in too, and today was one of the days they did. I seriously think I was so overjoyed I almost couldn't calm down enough to go in. Hallmark had one heck of a lady working that day.

I think my girls share in my excitement - getting ready to head inside!

They now have Saturday open family sessions, so we decided to take the girls. It was kind of surreal to be back there with my own kids. They still have the big box full of pins that you stick your hand under and feel them and make shapes with - wow that was an awesome description, haha, sorry I don't have a reference photo we totally brought the camera, just to find out it was dead, wah wah.

And they still had my favorite part! Where you get to color a picture, and they turn it into a puzzle!

Gracen is very hard at work here. Her favorite part was, well, everything. It's like stimulation overload, so she didn't know which way was up. We got there a little late, so we only ended up spending about 40 minutes in there and trust me, we could have spent all day. We only got through about half of the place. Hadley's favorite part I think was the dark room that used black lamps. She painted a picture frame with glowing melted crayons, and she didn't want to leave. Neither of them did really! It was a pretty great way to burn some energy and get out of the house before we were snowed in... again!

The best chicken parm ever.

As you probably could have guessed, Valentine's Day was pretty low key at our house. We made a yummy dinner and just hung out with the girls, and may or may not have been "sharing" Gracen's candy from her Valentine's party at school. :) Dinner was low key, and turned out even better than I imagines. It's been so long since I've posted a recipe, and you won't want to miss this one I promise.

There are a million different versions of chicken parm out there on the interwebs, but I try to keep mine as simple and tasty as possible. When I found this recipe, it definitely piqued my interest in the simple factor. Seriously 3 ingredients, and about 2 minutes to prep and then put in the oven.

Ingredients (ok i lied, 4 ingredients including the chicken):

• chicken
• 1/4 C parm cheese
• 1/2 C sour cream
• italian bread crumbs

Directions:

Put the chicken in a baking dish. Mix the parm cheese and sour cream in a bowl, and then spread over the chicken. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes and you're donezo! The Mr. said this was the best chicken he ever had, and was actually serious. Gracen ate ALL of it, and asked for more. Girlfriend has never, and I'm serious when I say never, eaten all of her chicken unless it was chicken nuggets, and even then she does it hesitantly. So you could say I was very pleasantly surprised with this dish. We made roasted asparagus to go with it, that Gracen picked out at the grocery store. Put it in the oven at the same time as the chicken, and we had an amazing dinner in 25 minutes. Everyone ate it, and liked if not loved it. I'm still sort of in disbelief.

Seriously make it this week. You won't regret it I promise.

Due Date

Today is a very bittersweet Valentine's Day. Today would have been my due date. Is it weird to remember your due date? Sometimes I don't know if I remember it so clearly because it's a holiday, or because it was my due date. It's incredibly hard to think that right now, right this very second, we would have been a family of five. That's so crazy! It all feels like it happened an eternity ago, not just a few short months. Sometimes it hurts to remember, but I want to remember. I don't want to go on living our lives like nothing happened, like that sweet little miracle meant nothing. But on the other hand, it's hard to make sure I'm not dwelling on it. Not asking why. God has a plan for all of us, and it's just hard to keep that in the forefront of my mind. I still feel a little pierce in my heart every time I hear of some one new that's expecting, or see a newborn baby at Mass each week. But really now that the girls are a little older, I think I'd feel that way regardless. I get incredibly teary eyed every time Gracen or Hadley mentions wanting another baby brother or sister. Which oddly enough happens quite frequently. Maybe they subconsciously remember us telling them? Parenthood is one tough business. This falls into the category of one topic that no parenting book out there can or does prepare you for.

I'm actually kind of glad my due date was on Valentine's Day. A day that's totally devoted to love. Reminding me of the overabundance of love I have in my life, an incredible husband, and two little blue-eyed blonde miracles I have been blessed with already. Only seems kind of appropriate.

A holiday recap (part one)

While I know it's almost Valentine's day, 2013 has been jam packed for us. So I haven'e quite been able to update as much as I'd like. So I'm just now getting around to post about the holidays.  #blogfail.

Thanksgiving came and went, and not very many photos were taken. We headed North to Des Moines, and enjoyed great food, great family and of course great shopping. Black Friday shopping is a long standing tradition in my family, and this year was no different. Well not entirely different. We started Thanksgiving night this year! I know we're those cray-cray people. And while I DO NOT AGREE with stores making their employees work on the holiday, I hypocritically joined in on the festivities. At 10pm at least, that's after all the feasts. That's how I'm justifying it anyways.

Standing in line at Target, wrapped all the way around the bulding. It was quite the experience.

December was another full month for us, thank goodness for pictures to remember it all. The girls were thoroughly spoiled, and we had lots of fun with friends and family.

 

The girls were so excited to help put up the Christmas tree and decorations. We had a ball dancing to Christmas music and looking at all our favorite ornaments we've collected over the years. We have a purple and silver theme, but we have a few special ornaments we've gotten as gifts over the years with sentimental value that we add. Eventually we'll have 2 trees up, one classically decorated and one with all our special ornaments :)

Gracen's Christmas program is one of my favorite parts of going to a Catholic School. She was an angel this year, and she practiced every day, all day for a couple weeks. It was so precious! Unfortunately, all the pics are blurry/bad lighting. Inside the Church just does not make for a good photo op. We do have it all on video, but I'll spare you :) Aunt Jaime got to come and watch this year, and then we had cookies and punch afterwards! At 11:30am.... right before lunch.... awesome idea...





















After her program Aunt Jaime and I took the girls down to crown center to play at Crayola land and to see Santa! We were all so excited, and were going to stop at Fritz's, where they deliver your food on a train, for lunch first. Hadley woke up with a cold, so we made sure to pack up on kleenex. When we sat down for lunch Gracen kept complaining that her ear hurt. Well we didn't know if it really did, or if she was just trying to get in on the sympathy that Hadley was receiving. Lunch was rough. They didn't want to eat hardly anything, and it was inching in on nap time. So since no one was feeling well, we ate what we could and headed down to Santa. The beauty of going on a week day is no line! We walked right in and Gracen hopped on his lap. Hadley was still very hesitant. Which is funny, becuase since about Halloween time she'd been prepping herself for this visit. She would tell us how she was ready to go see Santa and sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas. It didn't really help that she wasn't feeling well, So this is the best shot we got.

This year the girls asked Santa for flashlights. You read that right, flashlights. It made me laugh, and Santa found it quite humorous as well. He kept saying are you sure that's all? Yup just a flashlight please! Thanks! and then they hopped right down. Last year they asked for toothbrushes (and Santa/Uncle Adam happily obliged) so this is a step up. But still incredibly humble for a 3 and almost 5 year old :)

After we got home from crown center (and dealt with a meltdown from Gracen and her ear hurting) we got the girls down for naps. When they both woke up, they still weren't feeling well so I begrudgingly headed to the doctor. Luckily our doctor is open late on Mondays. And I say begrudgingly because I really dread going to the doctor without an appt. Usually it goes one of two ways - they either tell you you're over reacting and send you home (and still charge you and outrageous amount) and make you feel bad for dragging them out for nothing, or they tell you oh yes this is really bad and make you feel bad for waiting so long. This was in the latter category. We really went for Hadley who started to run a fever, and just had the doctor look at Gracen too since we were already there. Turns out Hadley had the croup and needed a steroid. Seriously the croup still exists? I keep thinking where's Anne of Green Gables when I need her?? Luckily she started to feel better almost right away. When the doc looked in Gracen's ear, that's when she said oh yea this is bad, she's got double ear infections - here comes the guilt trip. But luckily we got our prescription and headed home two hours later. I was just glad this was all happening a week before Christmas, so that we could hopefully all be healthy for when we would be traveling. Two days later we ended up back at the doctor with Hadley, her croup was better, but now she had ear infections as well! Quite an eventful Monday I'd say.

Stay tuned for part 2! And I must say I'm impressed if you made it this far :)

The Day I met Ree

I don't have very many people that I would consider a true role model. Sure there are many many different people I look up to that have certain qualities that I admire, but nobody's perfect right? Well very high on my list is The Pioneer Woman. And a couple weeks (ok months) ago I got to meet her.

First I have to back pedal a little to last April. She was going on a book signing tour for her new cook book food from my frontier. So that quickly topped my birthday wishlist. Unfortunately her tour did not include a stop in KC. (Ree what's up with that?). The closest she came was Wichita, and again unfortunately for me it was on a Thursday morning and I couldn't miss work. As I was scanning the tour dates wallowing in self pity, I saw that she was doing a signing in Dallas. And I just so conveniently happen to have a sister residing in the great neighboring Fort Worth. So I politely requested a signed copy of the cookbook for my birthday from said sister.

So the wonderful sister that she is, drove her happy self to Dallas on a Saturday morning, cookbook in hand, only to be told at the Sam's Club (where the signing was) that only member's were allowed in. Say what?! Ree dear, why on earth would you be having signings in places that are not open to the public? (side note: through this process I learned that she doesn't choose the places where the signings occur - she's invited places, so it's really not her fault, it's Sam's Clubs!) So my lovely sister (seeing as how we are related) did not just hang her head and start for home. She immediately e-mailed PW regarding her dissapoinment, explaining the situation that this was a gift etc. And much to her and my surprise, she heard back almost instantly and Ree was going to send a new signed book to her (me) for free, and was very sorry for our troubles. I was tickled pink, and it was a great birthday!

Fast Forward to a couple weeks (ok months) ago and I found out she was having a book signing for her childrens Christmas book in KC. I was besides myself with excitement! So be this time my sister has since moved back to KC, and was going to accompany me to the KC signing. Ree did not dissapoint.

This was my first signing for anything (unless you count Stephanie Tanner at those festivals they use to have) so I didn't really know what to expect. She had a whole presentation regarding her and her family, and then signed Charlie books/cook books.

When it was FINALLY our turn (2 1/2 hours later - totes worth it) I of course being the cheesball person that i am took my first photo with her with my already signed birthday cookbook, and then another one without it. And she's every bit as lovely in person as she seems online. It definitely takes a special type of person to live out in the bfe, homeschool 4 kiddos, and create books and cookbooks all while running her own business on her website!


So if you're still reading this - thanks!

That's me holding the previously signed book - she got a kick out of the fact that I brought it. Also I took this one with my phone and of course it was blurry. But don't worry I brought my actual camera as backup!