Happy Independence Day

We had a wonderful day today with our family! After sleeping a bit today from working all night, I got up and spent some time with my boys. Then we met my dad and brother in Newcastle to get dinner. We were supposed to have Mexican, but the restaurant was closed! We resolved to eating at Wendys where my little boy had his first ever happy meal!

Don't worry--I didn't get him fries and pop! He got a hamburger, mandarin oranges, and a chocolate milk. The milk he loved, even though it was cold! As for the burger, I just ripped it into chunks and he probably ate 75% of it. He did keep trying to steal grandpa's fries though.

After that we battled the crowds at a big fireworks warehouse in Mustang and got our yearly bounty of ammo. Then we headed back to my dad's house in Tuttle where my sister-in-law Teri met us for the festivities!

It has been raining off and on for the last couple of days, and it poured like crazy right before we left our house. Thankfully God saw fit to clear it up just in time to celebrate! While we were waiting for it to get dark, my brother Eric got out some guns to pass the time...

Why question them? As long as they are having a good time I guess....anywho! Here is our table of fun :)

As it got darker we all rotated popping our fireworks and sometimes coordinated it and all 3 fired our big ones at the same time.

We did have a minor mishap where a Roman candle may or may not have tipped over in it's holder and shot a rocket right towards Brad's stroller and the table of fireworks....but not to worry! Nick was holding Brad and dove out of the way in time :)

I usually get a bag or 2 of smoke bombs every year just to light them and watch the colorful fog fill the yard....

There were a lot of skeeters out tonight so I doused Brad and I in OFF.

Towards the end of it, Brad was getting very sleepy so he took a little nap in my arms!

One last thing: today while Brad squeezed in a nap before we left, I whipped out a new craft I've been wanting to do! This is just the prototype, but it is a reusable and washable snack pack! I have seen things like this for sale but they are so expensive. It is waterproof material on the inside and cute fabric on the outside with velcro closure.

Foray Into Carpentry

I don't recall if I have talked about wanting to build something...but I've been wanting to! We really needed shelves in our garage, and even small simple plastic ones are expensive at the store. I've been looking online for ideas/pictures and never really saw a plan that I felt was right. What did I do? Drew up my own! Here is one of the finished shelves:

I basically worked the dimensions around the size of the plywood because it was the biggest and I had the store cut that. So it is 4ft wide, 1ft deep, and 5 ft tall with four shelves. There is a support in the middle so I don't have to worry about the plywood sagging at all.

Now keep in mind this is my FIRST raw constructed item. Like, I bought a jigsaw, gloves, safety goggles, and a level and went to it! I didn't really see any instructions that applied to how I put it together so I just had to wing it. I am happy with how the shelf part turned out, but it was verrrry hard to get them level when nailing on the 4 corner support beams. So with the second shelf I'm finishing up tomorrow, I am going to try it a little differently. Same end result, just different path.

Oh and another realization learned? Nailing is HARD. I thought it would be the easy part! Nope. Sawing things is easy. Too easy. Nailing? BAD. For most of it I used 3 1/4" long nails. I can't tell you how many of those God-forsaken things I had to have Nick help me get out b/c they bent halfway through. Ugh. So my first nail=bent and pulled it out. Second nail=slammed the hammer down on my left pointer finger:

OUCH. Yeah. I think it is going to look a lot worse tomorrow b/c it has swollen more and the bruise is pretty big. So on the third nail, I thought to try to predrill a hole THEN drive the nail in. And that worked out pretty well! Didn't start having trouble again until I got to the 4 corner beams. All in all, not bad for a first-timer doing it blind! Not including the investment of power tools and nails, the wood only cost about $23/shelf. Yay me! Next project: Sofa table.

My New Toy

I finally got my home gym in the mail! I mentioned before about ordering it with my points I earned at work for doing extra shifts. Well we got it in on Friday but with our busy weekend, Nick couldn't put it together until today.

It looks neat and we are pretty excited about using it and getting fit together! It came with several big cards (they are on the stand on the top of the machine) that each have a group of exercises for different parts of the body. Each exercise has a visual, and there are resistance bands that go from 5lbs up to 37lbs.

In other news, today was Brad's one year checkup at the pediatrician. Everything went well and the doctor is very happy with his growth. He was glad to hear that Brad is off of the bottle already, and said we should get rid of the paci next. I split his shots up again so he had 3 today and will get 2 or 3 more in a few months. They didn't draw blood today thankfully--they said they can do it next time. He weighs 23lbs 4oz, and is 30in long. He cried for just a few minutes after the shots, then he got some Tylenol and some cuddling and was all better. He hung out with me at my mom's house this evening while I did laundry and chatted.

That's it for now! Tomorrow evening is our big Twilight trilogy night at the theater downtown with my friends Sara and Meredith. The first one starts at 7pm and the last one starts at midnight. It is going to be a long night, but lots of fun!

My Little Boy Turned 1!

I hope my baby had the best first birthday ever! I worked very hard to plan and coordinate everything, plus hand make his outfit and all of the food. We had a great time today, and all together including kids there was about 30 people at the party! And now that he is one year old, I am going to start doing the "stats" every 6 months instead of every month.


At one year old you:

• are drinking plain whole milk now, but still demand it be warm!
• are done with bottles and only have sippy cups now
• still have 8 teeth but seem to be getting more soon
• went through a cranky/picky stage recently but are getting over it
• sleep 12-13 hours at night
• are back to taking two 2hr naps a day
• are in a big-boy carseat now and facing forward!
• still crawl and cruise everywhere, no walking/standing on your own yet
• are very good at eating chunky solids and finger foods
• absolutely love strawberries and bananas. Seriously.
• say "mama", "dada", and "baba"
• are in size 4 diaper
• are in 12 month clothes
• love to be in the pool, but usually like to be held and not in the floatie
• love to crawl up to the kitties and pat them
• give big open mouth kisses

^The big cake was a homemade carrot cake. See the "B"?

^I reserved some of the carrot cake and made Brad his own little star-shaped cake to eat!

^The menu was carrot cake, lemon cream cheese cupcakes, hummus and wheat crackers, veggie tray, fruit tray, pinwheels, BBQ smokies, chips, and M&M cookies. We had orange punch with red star-shaped ice cubes to drink, and there were apple juice boxes for the kiddoes.

^Sister-in-law Teri, my dad and my mom

^Sara holding a friend's baby, and my mom

^Mother-in-law Penny and sister-in-law Sarah

^Coworker Tammi and family

^Coworker Adriene and family

^Meredith and family

^My brother Shane and my hubby

^Chowing down on his cake! He took a bit to check it out, then figure out how to pick it up, then he slowly chewed on one of the edges. He eventually finished the whole thing!

^After the cake and presents, most of us changed into swimsuits and went outside to beat the heat!

I hope everyone had a good time--I've never planned a child's birthday party before! Now for thank you cards....

Reminiscing...

One year ago today was the day that I had waited to come for so long. When I finally did get pregnant, June 22 was the magical day that I dreamed about for the entire 9 months. I couldn't wait to see little baby's face and be able to start a life as a mother.

When June 22, 2009 got here, I had his whole nursery ready and waiting for him to come home to it. Most of the things in it where hand made or designed by me. I was very excited, but his daddy was very nervous and scared because he didn't know what to expect!

But June 22 was also a day of exasperation because it was my due date, yet I was NOT going into labor yet!!! It felt like it was never going to happen, and I was disappointed because I ended up getting induced. But the little guy was almost 9lbs when he came out, so I wonder how big he would have gotten it went naturally? Scary...

Yes I'm not gonna lie, I miss being pregnant. Always having him with me, feeling him kick and move around. Being able to show off to everyone that I am FINALLY going to be a momma. Letting strangers do favors for me....people at work not asking me to help bathe their patient....HA!

But I am so thankful that he is here and healthy, and we are a very happy family that has been blessed by God for all that we have. We have struggled through the hard times, and are on our way up the hill towards the good times. Nick and I have trouble with friends but we always have each other and our little boy. I can't wait to see him grow!

Big Plans and Purchases!

Here I am at work, like a good little nurse....shopping! Don't worry--my patients are pleasantly sedated and breathing adequately :) But I digress. The big plans I am referring to is a)a home gym, and b)new flooring!

As for the home gym, this is the story behind that. My work recently started a reward program as a sort of incentive to work extra shifts. With each extra shift we work, we earn points that we can "buy" things with. They have all different sorts of things for all different point values, everything from jewelry, golf clubs, vacuums, furniture, and appliances to plane tickets, exercise equipment, generators, and hotel vouchers. So after much deliberation, Nick and I decided that we (I) wanted to get something that could BOTH use and that would not just get put away and forgotten about. I had two different types of home gyms to choose from, one was simpler and easier to store. The other was larger, more advanced, and more points. I decided to go with the simpler one because we don't need 214lbs of resistance to build muscles! Here is a pic of the one we are going to get within a week:

I am pretty excited about it! The 25lb dumbells that Nick was borrowing had to be returned, so now we will have something we can both use to get into better shape! We have plenty of room in our bedroom to set it up and then we can just fold it up and put it away when we are done.

The next big plan/purchase is new flooring for our living room. Some crazy person (probably a man!) put WHITE carpet throughout my house. Well the upstairs carpet is not so bad because not everybody walks around up there. But downstairs...that's another story. We have dirt tracks in front of the doors, spill stains, and chunks of carpet cut out. Yeah. So I informed Nick that we are going to replace it this year, and it will NOT be with more carpet. Wood laminate is the best option for us in the long run so that we do not have to worry about keeping it spotless before we sell the house in a couple of years.

Our downstairs area that will need laminate is just under 600ft, the rest is either tile or hardwood. And it is basically just a big L so it should be pretty easy--right?? I'm just going to jump right into it head first like I like to do, and won't look back until it's done. Now my ingenious way to pay for it--cashing in my PTO!

Since returning from maternity leave in September, I have earned over 100 hours of PTO (vacation time). I don't plan on taking any of it in the near future because I am only required to work 24hrs/week and can make my schedule around whatever plans I have. Soooo I added it up and if I cash in 100hrs of PTO I would get 90% of my hourly pay for it. And that right there will be enough to buy all of the flooring, with possibly some left over! Perfect, I know. I faxed the needed paperwork to my HR so I (in theory) should be seeing the money within a few weeks. Yay!