Sisters

Me, Traci, Jodi, 

Christi, Kari, and Lori

My sisters, at our best.

At our worst we still love each other 

and now more than ever will be there for each other.

Love them:)

The morning GRIND

For the past 10 weeks or so, I've been dealing with Gestational Diabetes.  It really stinks to wake up every day and think/obsess about what I HAVE to eat for the next 15 hours.  

Is this enough protein? 

 How many carbs are in that?  

Do I have a snack to take with me? 

Etc. . . 

So, in July when we were visiting family in Washington, my great friend Yvonne gave me something to add to my mornings.  Choffy.  

It's an amazing drink that consists of ground cocoa beans.  That's it.  Cocoa!!  And who doesn't love chocolate in the morning?  Especially chocolate that's FREE from sugar and only has 3 carbs/serving!  

It's not like throwing baking cocoa in hot water, it tastes fantastic!  It's brewed in a coffee/french press for 4-5 minutes and then drink it up.

I like to add a few dashes of cinnamon while it's brewing and then a teaspoon of splenda and some milk to cool it down and make it creamy in my cup.  

It's been such a wonderful treat to have and I honestly think anyone who tries it will agree.

If you'd like to try it, or learn more about it, go to: 

http://www.drinkchoffy.com/ 

I'll gladly brew you a cup anytime too:)

1st day of SCHOOL!!

Well, we did it!  We started Kindergarten.  I say we, because it really was a collaborative event.  Dustin had to convince me to let him go, and Damen of course is the one that actually goes.   

Don't you love the posing?  He's so cute, who would want to send him away every single day??  Ok, enough of that.  

He was very excited, grabbed his back pack first thing in the morning and was ready to go (even in his jammies!)

He showed us around his class room, played with the little people castle, listened to the teacher when it was time to sit on the carpet.  And never even looked up when we left.

After school was when he told me he had cried, he wanted me.  Really, those were his exact words, who would have thought from MR. Independent?  

It's nice to be needed, but I also realize that we need this, school, kindergarten, growing up.    

Rainbows

Driving down the road today

Damen said he saw a rainbow.

It's 100 degrees out.

Clear skies. 

But he saw a rainbow.

It was right there, outside the window.

It had two humps, like in his name (the letter M).

Mom, do you see it?

I missed it, but I'm so glad he saw the rainbow, I think it made his day:)

Pregnant me!

I know, you all LIVE for these kinds of pictures, the infamous belly pictures!  Until last week I hadn't had any taken, just by coincidence I'm sure.  

The first one is from a kaleidoscope room at a museum we went to last week, it gives a GREAT 360 view!  

The second one is from Monday and the last one is from the beach yesterday. 

So, they're all from 30-31 weeks, enjoy!

 Ok, this one does not really include my belly, and it's not a great picture of either of us, but it's included anyway. . . 

Toy box for Damen

In preparation for the new baby, we've been moving Damen from the bedroom closest to us, to the bedroom at the end of the house.  It's a bigger room, but it also has a queen size bed in it so we had to change some things.

We decided to get rid of these shelve/storage bins that housed his toys and get him a small toy box.

I found this box at the Goodwill for $14.99 a few months back, it's hideous, but I knew it could look better!

I pulled off all of the green pleather, gag, the contact paper and black cardboard, took off the lid and removed the buttons and batting from it.  

The bottom was moldy and cracked so Dustin replaced that for me. 

I got new foam for the lid and material to recover it at Joanne's, and with my 40% off coupons the total was around $7!!  

I gathered my supplies and got started! 

 I forgot to take pictures of the lid process, but basically I placed the foam down on my material, sprayed the foam with adhesive and pressed the lid onto it, then started pulling and stapling the material to the lid.  I kept the black cardboard from the lid and restapled it to cover the raw edges of the material. 

Next came the bottom of the box.  I thought I had measured SO carefully!!  I had to cut an extra piece and sew it to make one long piece that would wrap around the entire thing.  I planned on having two seams, one where I sewed and one where the ends would meet up.  I started stapling along the bottom, and halfway through decided to make sure the piece was long enough, well it wasn't.  Somehow I was short by 10 inches! I had to cut another piece of material and sew that on, so now there are three seams in the fabric. 

Moving on, I got the bottom all stapled on, turned it over and started with the top of the box, pulling and stapling all the way around,  Dustin didn't like the unfinished edges on the inside, so I hot glued those down too.   

 I screwed the lid back on and DONE!!  Well mostly, we decided it needs little feet and some sort of handle and maybe safety hinges so it can't slam down.  For today though, it's done.  It looked so cute I almost wanted to take it for my bedroom, you know end of the bed little bench with storage?  But Damen's need was greater. . .

We sold the shelves for $60, so minus the cost of this toy box -$22, we actually made money on the project!


I'm linking up to  Transformation Thursday  at  http://www.theshabbycreekcottage.com/

Oh this baby:)

A lot of people have asked me how this baby came to be, was it the same process as Damen, was it drugs and in-vitro, a happy surprise, something new, what was it??  So read on if you're interested, it gets a little personal.

This is the story of miracle baby number two. 

Two years ago we were plugging away with the same drugs/Dr/ultrasounds/tests that we had been doing off and on since Damen was a year old.  It was our standard go to system to try and get pregnant. 

           At this time my primary care Dr. quit the practice we were going to and I needed to find a new one.  Dustin insisted, as he had been for some time, that I go to a Dr. who specialized in getting women like me, with my problems, pregnant.  So I did.  She is not a gyno/womens Dr. but she has a lot of interest in helping women overcome common problems.  My first couple of visits consisted of a lot of tests and blood work.  She came to the conclusion that inflammation was causing most of my problems and we could remedy that by cutting dairy and gluten(wheat, rye, barley and malt) out of my diet for a few months and see if that changed things.  I was also supposed to start taking a bunch of supplements that I could only buy at her office and were NOT cheap.  I passed on those, but started the diet.  It was not easy, but I did it.  Then in November after a lot of prayer and frustration we decided that the fertility treatments we were doing with my gyno Dr. had to stop, permanently and forever, there was just nothing good coming from it.  It was a very hard decision, but it was the right one for our family.

         Over the next six months of continuing to eat gluten free (I got dairy back after just three months), my periods became nonexistent.  I also had some unbearable pain in my lower left side and had to go back to my gyno Dr. for some tests.  The results were devastating, there were multiple(too many to count) cysts around my ovaries, probably blocking any ovulation.  Since the cysts weren't large enough to operate on, it would literally take a miracle for me to get pregnant again.   

            I decided I was done torturing myself and at my appointment in August 2010 I told my Dr. I was done eating gluten free, it wasn't helping.  She solemnly looked me in the eyes and said she'd been thinking about me all week and how to help me, she suggested again some supplements, and asked me to hang in there for a little while longer.  I figured there wasn't anything to lose and started the supplements.  They were anti-inflammatory, detox, and anti-oxidents that I took in double the normal dose.  Within a few weeks my body responded positively by ovulating and then 14 days later I had a period, seriously these two things alone were pretty impressive!  I kept a Basal Body Temp. chart that I made for myself to track every day of my cycles, I figured if these things weren't working I'd have proof for my Dr, but they were working.  I took the supplements along with a high dose of metformin and stayed on the diet for five more months.  Over those five months I had four cycles and on the last one, at the end of January, we got pregnant!  I was so surprised that it actually worked, that it seemed so simple, it was too good to be true!  But it did work and that's the story, here I am, 29 weeks pregnant, expecting a healthy little boy, a miracle baby for us.

It took us six years to conceive with Damen and four years this time so maybe, hopefully the next one will not take so long!