Hello everyone and Happy New Year!!  I am ready to be back and sharing all the good stuff from life happenings to yummy recipes and coming soon fitness.

Who is ready to take on the New Year?  I know I am and I have all the steps ready to really enjoy this year and to make sure I do all the things I want to do and accomplish.  I will share those later.

Now that the holidays are over we have been hit with the flu.  Thankfully it has only hit one person thus far which sadly was Dominic and he had it from Friday night tell Sunday night.  He didn’t go to school on Monday and had another day of rest which is what he really needed.  I think he played a little too hard Sunday morning and then crushed that night with tiredness and puking.  This morning he was feeling way better but was sooo upset he had to get up early at 6:00 am and quickly hit to get on the bus at 6:45 am poor guy.

Robbie is doing great, still a sassy little guy who loves to play with Dinosaurs and make Jurassic Park with Dominic.  Last night while I was tucking him in, I asked him if he is ready and excited for his baby sister to come.  He didn’t respond at first so I asked again, he started to answer me in a crying voice and said “I don’t like babies and when baby comes I’m going to run far away.”  He said it in a such a serious voice and then continued to cry.  That had broken my heart and I reassured him that I’ll love him just the same as I love baby and that I love everyone (I named everyone off)  the same amount and very much.  That didn’t seem to set it so I changed the subject.  This is the first time he has every said this and if I would have known sooner that he felt this way I would have been proactive about it.  Now we only have a short time tell she arrives but I have faith that it will all work out and I plan on making sure I make separate time for both boys after baby comes.  It might not be going out somewhere but it will be doing something they love.

Here’s a little update about baby.  You may be wondering if she has arrived yet and the answer is no.  I am currently 38 weeks and 1 day and baby girl is still cooking.  I see my doctor tomorrow and I am so curious to know if my body has progressed since last weeks appointment.  Last week I was 3 center meters dilated and 50% effaced.  That is the most I have ever been in all my pregnancies so I’m pretty excited.  I am really hoping she will arrive on her own still but she only have 6 more days before she is being evicted on Monday at 6am.  During my pregnancy I found out that three ladies that I know who were pregnant while I was and due around the same time.  That was wonderful because we all shared stuff about our pregnancy that we were going through.  Well, all three ladies have had their babies within the last 2 weeks.  Two ladies had girls and one had a boy and man it makes me want this little girl to arrive NOW  lol.  I know she will come when she is ready but its been hard waiting.

The hubs and I are doing good getting ready for baby and finalizing some stuff around the house that needed to be taken care of before baby comes and of course catching up on some adult nonsense like bills.  He has started a podcast with two buddies and its about board games its called Dual Win Games you should check them out.  They have an Instagram account and Facebook page too.  It’s been awesome watching him get into something that he is so passionate about.  He as always loved being board games and I do too.  Hes been into for a couple of years now and I really have gotten into it the last year and a half.  I picked out two games that I really wanted and actually watched reviews on.  They are Gloomhaven and Harry Potter.  I really enjoy playing both of these games and I kind of hope that maybe I’ll be a guest on the show and I can talk about them.  lol

God Bless and take care,

Angela

Does anyone else feel like Christmas just snuck up on them this year?  I feel like yesterday was December 1st and bam today is the 21st and only four more days then its Christmas.  Its so crazy to me how fast it arrived this year and I feel like our Elf Cookie just arrived only a few days ago.  And speaking of Cookie, man for some reason it has been hard thinking of places for him to hang out or thinking of little tricks or activities for him to do over the course of his stay.  You would think it would have been so much easier now considering we live in a bigger home then we did last year and last year I ran out of spots and ideas fast.  I have a few more ideas up my sleeve but there are messy ones and I just cleaned my house again and sadly don’t want to make it dirty.  In the picture below is one of the hiding spots and little trick that Cookie had pulled and the boys thought it was soooo funny.  He also left an activity for the boys to do, it was to add water to a circle of skittles to make a rainbow.  The rainbow turned out so bright and beautiful and the boys were amazed that just adding water caused a rainbow.

Lets talk about wrapping gifts for a moment, does anyone have all the gifts wrapped already?  This lady as only a hand full wrapped and those are for Sunday when my family is coming over for Christmas.  This is the first time we are having Christmas with my family at our house.  My mother normally has Christmas but this year she ran into some health problems you can say and hasn’t taken care of her home due to it.  I don’t have any gifts wrapped for the boys or the hubs and I’m oddly okay with that.  I figure I have four more nights to get some wrapping down but I don’t know about you but by the time nighttime comes I am so tired I have no desire or energy to want to wrap them BUT tonight I will.  At least I keep telling myself this hahaha.  Lots of high fives to those who have there gifts wraps and are relaxing and enjoying the last four days tell Christmas comes.

God Bless,

~Angela

Last year at Christmas the hubs had gifted me with a cook book called 301 Venison Recipes The ultimate Deer Hunter’s Cookbook.  I haven’t used it at all and this morning I took out some ground venison and in some recipes like tacos it can taste gamie.  So I thought I would bust out that cookbook and see what I could find.  I found a recipe called Big Game Pie and it turned out yummy.  I did however change some stuff up more to our liking and I’m happy I did.

Ingredients

• 4 large potatoes (mashed) or instant potatoes                       
• 1/2 c celery, finely chopped
• Sour Cream for mashed potatoes
• 1 tablespoon chopped onion
• 3 tablespoon flour
• 3 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 c milk
• 3/4 c beef broth
• 2 -1/2 c venison, cubed and browned
• 1/4 teaspoon browning sauce
• 1/4 c grated cheddar cheese

****  Changes I have made were:

• 1/3 c celery, finely chopped
• 
• 4 shakes of minced onion
• I didn’t have canned beef broth, so I used boiling water and a beef bouillon
• 1 pound ground venison
• no browning sauce-I didn’t have any
• 1 bag frozen mixed veggie-cooked

Instructions

Step 1:  prepare mashed potatoes and per heat oven at 400 degrees.

Step 2:  In a skillet saute celery and onion in butter until tender NOT brown.

Step 3:  Blend in flour and gradually add milk and broth.  Cook and stir until mixture thickens and bubbles.

(I was afarid to stop stirring the mixture to take a picture, I didn’t want to burn in)

Step 4:  Put mixture into 1 1/2 quart dish and top evenly with mashed potatoes.

Step 6: Sprinkle with cheese and bake for 20-25 minutes.  Serves 4

God Bless,

~Angela

I’m 35 weeks and I went back to work yesterday and boy oh boy I was tired last night.  I was with the three year olds and didn’t do a too much due to my dang pants not fitting good.  Which was weird because I have worn the pair with both boys but they didn’t work this pregnancy so it was very uncomfortable to move.  I still got some stuff done.  It felt great going back to work but so strange at the same time, I missed sitting at home and cuddling with Robbie and speaking of Robbie trying to leave yesterday morning without him was horrible.  I cried, cried, and cried all morning that I was leaving and cried some more when I actually was trying to squeeze out the door.  I had to call the hubs to come help me so I could leave on time and to be honest I cried.  It broke my heart that he was that upset but it makes total sense, I have been with him for 3 weeks and we’ve done everything together.  I don’t get much time to myself child free or time outside the house child free so whenever I want to work on something in my craft room they both were or Robbie was in the next room playing which is the play room or they were in my craft room next to me.

A rant is below………..you have been warned lol

I spent all day on Sunday cleaning the bottom level of the house which really needed it.  I had been cleaning and such well I was off but you know how some room or certain chores get ignored because you such don’t want to do it, well that happened to me.  That’s how I feel about sweeping and mopping.  Sweeping should be done every other day in all three rooms that do not have carpet and all the room are HUGE.  I also think part of me was in nesting mood which helped and filled my tank to keep going or to get so much done.  I cleaned the kitchen top to bottom including mopping the floor, I cleaned the dinning room top to bottom but didn’t mop the floor only swept.  It has original wood and I’m nervous about mopping it, and I cleaned the living room which is the biggest room of the three also top to bottom.  I did squeeze cleaning the bathroom in there well two of the floors were drying.  They looked sooooo beautiful when I was done and I felt awesome about it.  Cleaning all three room took me about 3 to 4 hours give or take.  I came home from work yesterday evening and was devastated.  I bomb had gone off in the living and there was coloring stuff everywhere.  We all know the golden rule, “if you want to color, you color in your room on your desk or at the dinning room table”.  My hubs was soooo busy playing bolt action with his brother that he let the boys do what ever they wanted.  Along with the coloring explosion, there were big boxes and little boxes from me opening the stroller and car seat box the night before and I didn’t care the boys were playing on it but I at least thought the hubs would have picked up some of it, boy was I wrong.  I came into the kitchen and my once clean counter was filled and is still filled as I’m writing this with dished, and the dinning room isn’t too bad thank goodness because I probably would have for sure lost my shit and told the hubs off in front of his brother.  I calmly walked up the steps to our room, shut the door and just cried.  I”m not a big crier but with these hormones and all crying is how I let anger and everything else out.  I cried for a good 10 to 15 minutes and then headed back down to hang with the boys.

Did I clean up the messes you wonder?  Hell no, when I leave today to go to work I’ll text him ever so nicely and give him a to do list of all the stuff that needs to be cleaned up before I come home.  Thank  you for listening to my rant, I feel so much better getting it off my chest.

How long does your house stay cleaned for?  Mine is a day if I’m lucky lol.

God Bless,

~Angela

I survived my 2 1/2 weeks off with Robbie and family.  It was trying at times but thats to be expected considering it was a new routine for everyone but especially Robbie.

Well I was suppose to have my appoinment on Wednesday but due to the nasty weather that was falling onto the ground I found it best to reschedule which they were totally cool with.  By doing so I wasn’t able to have my normal OB saw someone else.  We discussed how I have been feeling since the last time I was seen and I was totally open and honest.  I had been feeling some contractions here and there when I have been too active and need to sit then for about a good two hours and they go away.  With telling her all that and stuff she felt like I was in the clear to go back to work but she gave me a restriction of no lifting of a child or children who why more then 25 pounds which is what most 2 year olds weigh.   I also have to be aware of how my body is feeling and if I’m having any contractions and if so I have to possibly stop working AGAIN.

I feel good about going back to work but I also really enjoyed staying home and being able to stay on top of all the house work and spending some quality time with Robbie before the baby comes.  I need to spend some quality time with Dominic but its so hard to do when Robbie is around but I will figure something out before baby comes hopefully.

Baby has been doing great, moving up a storm all day and night.  She barley rests in their and her heart beat was 140/150 today so thats good.  I wasn’t able to see her on the hand held ultra sound device today because the OB didn’t show me which I thought was strange.  At first I thought the device wasn’t working but that wasn’t the case, she just didn’t show me.  I never had an OB do that before, granted I only have two other OB’s thus far in having children but it kind of made me sad.  Good thing I don’t have again for any other appointment.  Ugh it just dawned on me, wouldn’t it be horrible if she was the doctor on call if I were to go into labor before my induction?  I think I would for sure cry.  I know that sounds kind of mean but I really LIKE my current OB and have become attached to her lol.  My other OB who had delivered both boys was pretty awesome and right after I had Robbie she moved out of state.  I cried, I blame that on hormones.

We are slowly getting our ducks in a row at home with getting some last minute baby stuff and getting the nursing slowly set in stone.  Its a lot of work but needs to be done ASAP.  We have a swing that needs to be set up, pack & play, car seat in the car, and pack the good old hospital bag.

I can’t for the life of me remember what I all packed the last two times I had babies or what I ended feeling was really needed compared to the stuff I had packed.  I blame this on mom brain and pregnancy brain.  I’m going to jump onto Pinterst and search around but PLEASE if you have any suggestions on things I should pack please leave a comment below.  I would love any help.  Thank You

~God Bless

Angela

Hello all, here’s the recipe for the week and one we really, really love!  These energy balls we make sometimes last 2 days but most times they only last 1 day hahaha.  Its a good snack and filled with semi good ingredients and could be healthier, I just know my family probably wouldn’t eat them and I would be left cleaning the bowl which may or may not be a bad thing!

I stated making these balls about three years ago right after I had my second child and I stumbled across them on Pinterst but under a different name.  It was called Boobie Bites.  I was looking for some good snack food that were high in calories and healthy that would help my keep my breast milk supply up.  The only different between the two is the Boobie Bite recipe calls for brewers yeast which is really good for keeping up milk supply.  Over the course of supply my little guy with breast milk and was slowly stopping I adapted my recipes and discovered that they balls I was making were more like energy balls.

Here’s the Bobbie Bite recipe;  (…and yes, I feel a little strange just typing that!)

1 cup of old-fashioned oatmeal
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1 cup shredded coconut
1/3 cup of honey
1/2 tablespoon Brewer’s Yeast
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Here’s my recipe;

• 1 1/2 c old-fashioned oatmeal
• 1/2 c peanut butter or almond butter
• 1/3 c ground flaxseed
• 1/3 c honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 c or 1/3 cup chocolate chips (the amount may very depending if a child is helping me)

Step 1:  Add the dry ingredients to a medium size bowl and mix them together.

Step 2:  Add peanut butter or almond butter, honey, and vanilla to the dry ingredients and stir it all together.  I use a spatula and you want to mix it really good so all the dry ingredients are sticking together.

Step 3:  Cover the bowl with tin foil and place it in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Step 4: After the hour or however long you leave them in for you can now roll them into small rolls.

***As you can see I do not add coconut to my balls or to the boobie bits, I am not a big fan of it.  You can keep the brewers yeast if you would like but I took that out because I wanted my supply to decrease and eventually dire up.  Also, if your family is like mine, I never have an opportunity to roll the mixture into balls, it stays one big ball. 

God Bless

~Angela

I don’t know about you moms and dads but dang can my boys eat snacks.  I feel like we

buy lots of snacks when we go grocery shopping like granola bars, grapes, apples, a couple of boxes of crackers, breakfast bars, energy balls, and the list goes on and by the end of week one boom they are gone.  Or they are so over what is left like grapes or apples they go into melt mold and through a HUGE fit.  I’m going to be honest here, the energy balls are so good that Tim and I eat them before they boys know they are around or we just don’t tell them about it.  Hahaha.  I know great parenting but some times you need something for your self that doesn’t involved going to their “treat bucket” and eating the candy.  The treat bucket is filled with candy from Halloween, like to the brim. (picture of energy balls from Pinterest)

It probably hasn’t helped that Robbie and I have been home for almost two weeks now and he’s at that stage were snacks are his jam and meals are not.  We still encourage him to sit and try every meal but shortly after we are done like maybe an hour later he is HUNGARY.  Dominic on the other hand is finally at the stage were he will eat every meal even if it’s something he doesn’t like he will blow right through it.  He too an hour after dinner will ask for a snack and we have them wait at least hour and half and then we will give a snack and encourage them to drink at least 3 swallows of water.

My goal with snacks is to try and steer away from the boxed snacks like granola bars, crackers, pop tarts (yes pop tarts, they are my hubs favorite thing), others and try to encourage more fruits and veggies or homemade snacks like the granola or granola bars.  I know some boxed snacks aren’t going to hurt them, they are just filled with lots of sugar and some ingredients that aren’t necessarily good for you.

What is your and your child(rens) favorite go to snacks?  Please share in the comments!

God Bless

~Angela

When I was home from the hospital that half week my appetite took a BIG hit.  I wasn’t feeling hungry or thirsty which isn’t normal for me.  I am constantly eating throughout the day but not then.  My appetite didn’t come back tell Sunday, I actually felt hungry and thirsty.  I drank 5 24 oz bottles of water which felt AMAZING and truly enjoying food again was such a relief.

When I wasn’t hungry and basically forcing myself to eat I had old thoughts rolling

from Google

through my head.  Like “I could be losing so much weight right now”, “to bad I couldn’t be working out right now, I would lose so much more”, and the worst one of all “I hope my appetite doesn’t come back”.  I feel so horrible sharing this but it’s 100% the truth.  In those moments when the thoughts were being said in my head I was trying to battle myself with saying more realistic thoughts like “your body needs food”, “Your baby girl that your fighting to keep inside longer, needs food”, and “think of that baby girl”.

I am so happy I didn’t listen to those disordered thoughts and forced myself to continue eating and drinking.  That right there is how an Eating Disorder works.  You can be so many years on the road of recovery but when there’s a “weak moment” so to speak that’s when it rears it’s nasty head.  Self talk is so important to help yourself get through it and having a safety system set in place in case the self talk doesn’t work.

Good Bless

~Angela

It’s that time of the year again, as the weather has turned colder and making soups has become popular.  I love making soups and grew up eating a fresh batch of soup at least once a week and having left overs during the week.  I played a ton of sports growing up and soups were easy to make on the weekends so there were left overs during the week for me to eat seeing how I missed a lot of dinners at home due to practices or games.

My soup making skills are still coming together as I get older and I’m excited to try different soups that I have found on Pintrest, like stuff pepper soup and taco soup.  I haven’t had those growing up and they sound and look so yummy.

This weekends soup was a beef veggie soup, were I literally dumped in veggies that we had on hand and needed to be used up.

Ingredients

• 2 containers of beef broth                         
• 1 cup water
• 1 bag frozen peas
• 1 whole yam
• 1 whole zucchini (removed the seeds)
• Minced onion (couple of shakes)
• 1 can of green beans & potatoes)
• 1/2 a bag of frozen corn
• black pepper (couple shakes)

Steps

1.  Grab crock pot and place on counter.  Fill the pot up with both containers of beef broth and I had a cup of water.
2.  Dump in the canned green beans & potatoes, frozen peas, and frozen corn.
3.  Cut up yam into nice size cubes and add in.  Cut the zucchini length wise, scoop out the seeds, and then cube it up to the size you like most.
4.  Shake in minced onion and black pepper.

*****  If I had carrots and celery I would have added those as well, but my husband feed them to the bunnies the day before. You could also add rice or noodles.  My husband wasn’t a big fan of this soup but he didn’t grow up on soups and the boys tried it and weren’t impressed lol.

God Bless     ~Angela

We had a bit of a scare over this last weekend were I woke up Sunday morning around 7 am with contractions.  This was a first for me and I thought maybe it was Braxton Kicks for I had had those with both boys starting around 32 weeks.  As the morning went on the contractions become stronger and more often and hot dang PAINFUL.  I have never exsperinced contractions on their own before if that makes since, I was induced with the boys so I feel like those contractions are different maybe.  I don’t know if their is truth to that or not but in the end contractions hurt either way.

So around 11:00 I called the on call nurse and after telling her everything so sent us in.  We dropped off the boys at my brother and sister-in-laws house and made our way to town.  The drive wasn’t too bad, the hubs was distracting me by telling me silly stories and such, bless his soul.  We got to the ER they sent us up to the birthing center and monitors were strapped onto my belly.  One for the baby who did wonderful through this entire experience and the other was to monitor the contractions.  I was given a pill to stop the contractions and a nice steroid shot in the thigh to strengthen baby’s lunges and had to get the second dose of the steroid the following day.  The pill “normally”  helps with the first 30 minutes and the contractions begin to less but that wasn’t my case.  They stayed consistent and strong for a long time and I ended up needing to be transferred to a different hospital that as a NICU in case she came early.

Twenty minutes later I found myself climbing onto an ambulance cart, strapped in, and heading for the elevators.  Once we reached the other hospital I was checked and had the monitors placed on my belly once again.  I had meet with the doctor finally and because the pill didn’t work like hoped we decided on doing a magnum drip for 12 hours.

On Wednesday I had met with my doctor and she decided it would be best if I were to take two weeks off tell 34 weeks and we would meet again to see how things are going.  I was silently hoping to be told to take time off but when she confirmed it and handed over a doctors note I become anxious and worried.  First off this was serious and could happen again if I don’t reduce my activity level and take it easy and secondly I wouldn’t be making a income for two weeks possibly longer.  I totally understand money isn’t important but baby girl sure is and if I can’t work so she can stay cooking longer to be stronger and bigger then by gully I’m going to do whatever it takes.

Good Bless

~Angela