Too lame for facebook

1. Connor calls mcdonalds "old mcdonalds" and i think that's hilarious.

2. I got my hair cut a couple weeks ago. it's really short - for me atleast. i think the curly in my hair likes it this length because it really behaves...

(yes, I took this photo in my car, but I was stopped so chill on the judgement :)

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Ready? It's photo dump time because these are all random. I have a couple things that I have lots of pics for and I'll try to get posts up for those here soon too :)

genius? yes.

I turned 30 at the end of January. I'm good with 30, regardless of the over the hill jokes and the 'haha you're so old' birthday cards that rolled in this year for the first time. I'm totally ok with 30, more than ok. I guess I'm just pleased with where I'm at when I'm hitting 30. There are things that I wish for...more money, more time, more calorie free cake but all in all I'm good. I'm in love with my family and enjoy all the things that we get to spend our time doing.

Jeff planned a little get together with friends for my bday and it was great. We went to Tilted Kilt in Tempe and sat on the patio and drank lots and lots of yummy beverages. There were about 30 of us there and it was just perfect. If you were there and you're reading this, thanks for coming. I wish I'd taken more pics but it escaped me. I took two. fail.

Jeff topped the night off with some amazing prezzies for me - he got me the most amazing laptop which I freakin love. It's huge, with a 17.3" screen. I had a tough time finding a bag that fit it! Love. He gave me a spa day certificate for a couple treatments from the boys. Can't wait to use that too!

Some of my amazing friends lavished me with owl awesomeness and told me that they are trying to turn me into the crazy owl lady. accomplished. Shelley got me a great owl keychain that is the size of my fist and three times as heavy, Jeri gave me the most amazing s&p shakers and a little owl frame. Anglea got me a gold owl necklace, with pearls, that I am obsessed with. I'm a lucky girl and I love my friends.

the hubs and I - both 30 :)

the bestie and I - also both 30 :)

ahhhhhh...so pretty. gift from my dad. i loves it so bad. i hooked it up that night after we got home from the bar. super excited.

Brielle, Carly and Bobby came over for the Superbowl. I had Carly pose so we could have photographic proof that she's pregnant :) I can't remember how far along she is here...18 weeks maybe? Just the start of the bump! More of these updates to come as I force her to pose for these.

We gave Connor a Toy Story 3 dominos game for Christmas and he loves it. We play about 3 games a night. Last night Jeff reminded us that I'd lost 8 games straight. Maybe I'm losing on purpose Jeffrey...maybe not.

Yeah, he's still really cute.

8 months old

Noah's 8 month owl picture

Wow, it's been a rough couple of months with health crap with bear. Seriously. I had a lengthy post about this, but I can't find it so forget it and here's the super short version.

Noah got a cold around Thanksgiving and it went into his lungs and caused bronchiolitis. That put him on steroids and breathing treatments in an effort (successful fortunately) to keep him out of the hospital. It also turned into an ear infection which they treated with antibiotics. I love antibiotics, especially since our ped doesn't give them out liberally. I understand it but sometimes you just want your kid to get a script so you feel like something is being done to make them better. I'd love a placebo Rx. Can I get that?

Anyway, he'd be in bad shape due to the breathing and wheezing and then the horrible side effects of the antibiotics - poor Noah. Those oral antibiotics really rip up their stomachs and cause ugly diaper issues so then there's another prescription to deal with that. I am not exaggerating at all when I saw we've filled about a dozen Rx and had about 10 doctor appointments in two months - not to mention the two specialists we've now been to in the last 3 weeks. sigh.

Remember how I said this was the short version? Sorry. Anyway, after a couple weeks he'd be better so we'd stop the treatments and let the antibiotics run out. Then we'd have a week of health and it would go to crap again in a few days. We'd start all over and they'd determine he had an ear infection...it's possible that it was just one ear infection which is not great. They gave him steroids to help with the respiratory issues and had us come in three days in a row for antibiotic injections to try and overcome the ear infection. When we went back the doctors were sure that the infections would be gone and they weren't which meant that his ear infections were really resistent to the meds. Super. They told us we really needed to go to an ENT to discuss tubes. I'd dreaded this but took an official, on facebook, poll of friends in similar situations and heard amazing, supportive, rave reviews of the procedure, results and our surgeon. We were also referred to a pulmonologist to have a chest xray done and discuss whether his persistent respiratory issues were a result of viruses or something chronic like asthma or allergies. I'm really hoping for the virus outcome...that really makes sense to me too. It started when it got cold and before that he'd never had any issues so that's what I'm hoping for. They had him get some blood drawn and we should have those results in the next few days. Fingers crossed that nothing points to asthma :(

So the main point of this story is that tomorrow morning, at 7am...in 8 hours from now...Noah will be having surgery to get tubes in his ears. Everything I've heard raves about the results and about how life changing it is for the child. I feel so horrible that he's been so sick for two months of his little life. As much as I hate the idea of him being put under, I am told that the entire procedure from start to finish is about 10 minutes long. Ugh I really hate that he'll be put under, boo.

Well in other news Noah seems to be following in Connor's footsteps with being really physical. He's started cruising, which means he'll stand up and hold onto furniture or something and walk around the furniture while holding on. He doesn't share the bit of fear that Connor had about getting back down once he's standing up...he just throws his body down and either laughs or cries.

He's still loving food but the sickness did slow him down a bit. I'd say he lost a pound or something. He's weighing in at about 19.5 lbs right now so he's not hurting for chubs :) His chunky legs barely fit into the little leg holes in the bumbo, lol - it's adorbs.

Well, since I have to be up redic early to take bear to the surgical center I'd better log off and get to bed. I don't know if I'll be able to get any sleep thinking about tomorrow but I'm going to do my best to try! Keep him in your thoughts please.

Thank you!! :)

Cousins!

Two of our nephews Kaden and Jacob had their birthday party at the end of January and all the family was there. My BIL's parents have this amazing yard and I really didn't take enough pics but I think everyone had fun, especially the birthday boys. It's so great that our boys have so many cousins close in age who live nearby. We get to see each other at their games, birthday parties, family dinners and all the time at random other stuff.

omg he looks like such a chubby bunny here :)

the only girl in the group - Madison :)

More soccer pics

Connor is almost done with his first soccer season and while it started out amazing with 11 goals in his first 3 games, we had a rough patch there for a bit. He got taken down by the neck by this weirdo kid and got really skittish. Totally stopped going after the ball and just ran along with the pack kinda. Well, finally this week he snapped out of it and scored three more goals! Yippee Connor :)

Here are a few pics from recent weeks. I swear the registration fee is worth it just in cute uniforms and priceless pics alone!!

Kaci and Connor - future soccer stars :)

I swear I feel like that Office Space song, Damn it feels good to be a gangsta should be playing to this picture. Kaci, Connor and Gus

So, after getting hurt a few time with some rough takedowns we started trying to talk to him about brushing it off and getting back into the game if he's really ok. We're not mean, I swear...but there's a difference between really getting hurt and just getting a little spooked. We told him that whenever he falls down if he's not hurt he can stand up, brush himself off and flex his muscles. Seriously, the next play we say him go down hard at the end of the field - even though his back was to us we could see him get up and flex his muscles. It was amazing. Sometimes kids really do listen.

love running through the parent tunnel at the end of the game. I swear those kids run though 8 times

Crockpot Friday

whoa blogger, it's been a while since i've posted a crockpot recipe on here. i'm home today with bear...another post for this part...so I figured I'd have the luxury of being able to start it mid-day instead of 6:30 in the morning. What, you aren't ready to eat dinner at 3pm? oh. my bad.

We buy basics like cream of whatever soup, frozen veggies, stuffing, etc when they are on sale. Jeff came home from the store this week with something loco like 8 boxes of stuffing. I saw a recipe long ago with stuffing and pork chops in the crock pot so I went in search of that. Couldn't find it so I am doing what I normally do and screwing around thinking I'm betty flippin crocker. I make no guarantees that this will turn out well, but I'm sure it will at the very least be edible. Pretty sure.

I didn't have pork chops. Didn't have any more chicken breasts. I dug around in our deep freeze and found only steaks, roasts and ribs. Then I remembered that we bought a bag of frozen chicken strips at costco this weekend and grabbed those. Here's what came of it:

Chicken strips - mine were frozen
1 can cream of something soup - mine was chicken
1 cup milk
a few slices of cheese - swiss here yo
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 box stuffing
1 cup chicken broth - I didn't have this so I used plain water and seasoned the chicken a bit more
s&p to taste

Cover the bottom of crockpot with chicken strips. Pour broth/water over chicken and then cover with the cheese slices. Mix up the milk and soup and pour over cheese. Dump the stuffing in there now and pour melted butter over stuffing. This is a crapshoot so use more or less depending on how it looks to you. Cook for 5 hours.

i love cheese

This turned out really yummy. I think that next time I'll add more water/broth so it's not so glue-like and gloppy. Tasted great, just looked gloppy.