Darn my Uterus!

Oh I knew I would get your attention with this post name!!! I think I'm taking after my girl at Little Toes and Cheerios (check out her today's post and you'll understand!). Actually my son's here and said, "Uh, Mom is that really how you spell utters?" Oh I died laughing!

Well let me just tell ya about my darn utters, I mean uterus. I went in today for what should have been a simple 10 minute appointment to hear the babies heartbeat. I had my 10 week and first prenatal check up two weeks ago and the nurse couldn't get the heartbeat with the little hand held thingy. She assured me I shouldn't worry and that it was still a tad early. Well I prayed about it, gave it to the Lord and got on with my life. I would be lying though if I said I wasn't the least bit anxious about today's appointment.

Since the miscarriage last year I guess I've been a little more cautious this time around. Even though I dared not to admit it to myself or anyone else, I secretly told myself, "Don't get too excited until you hear the heartbeat." I still trusted God with whatever the outcome may be but it's like I put on this steel armor for the last two weeks in order to not be too disappointed. Does that make sense?

Anyway, so I get into the doctor's office (finally) and she got down to business with the little hand held thingamajig. She slowly and patiently scanned my belly for any signs of a really fast swishing sound. After what seemed like an eternity, still nothing. As I was laying there I prayed, "Lord, I know your ways are not mine and help me to understand your will. Help me to be at peace and to trust you Lord. Please help me to see what you want me to learn from this however this ends up turning out. I trust You, Amen."

The nurse then asked if I knew if my uterus was tilted and I replied no, not that I knew of. She then said she just could not find the heartbeat and would get me in for an ultrasound down the hall. The cutest and sweetest (David and I met her already when we had an ultrasound at 6 weeks because of bleeding) little ultrasound tech welcomed me in. As she was scanning my tummy I turned my head so if what I feared had happened I did not want to see right away. She then turned up the volume and I heard music to my ears, the most precious sound, a wonderfully fast little heartbeat! I immediately burst into tears and thanked God. The ultrasound tech told me to stop because I was gonna make her cry. Seriously, I really had to stop crying because every time my belly moved the baby moved making it difficult for her to get measurements! The baby was so sweet looking with their little hiccups and all! It looked like a little jumping bean!

She then discovered the culprit to our heartbeat hearing difficulties... Yep you Guessed it, MY Uterus! It's tilted towards my tailbone and therefore made it difficult to hear the heartbeat but it should work itself out as the baby gets bigger.

I'll continue to keep you all posted on baby updates as I get closer to our little ones arrival.

New Favorite Appetizer Recipes

I was curious, did any of you try new recipes this Christmas that are now mainstays? If so, it'd be so cool if we could all share either by comment on this post or post your own on your blog. Just link back to me so I can come check it out! I'm always looking for new recipes to try!

I don't know if any of you visit Kraft Foods for recipes. It's one of my favorite sites. All their recipes usually use ingredients I already have or are easy to get and for the most part they're pretty quick and simple. Quick and simple is crucial in this house!

So for Christmas I wanted to have some appetizers while the rest of the Christmas dinner was baking but I needed something simple but tasty and I found two!

Creamy Crab Dip and Spinach & Artichoke Dip. They were both sooo good. You'll have to go to the Kraft website to get the recipes but I'll share with you my substitutions and omissions.

Creamy Crab Dip
The only changes to mine were omitting the shredded cheese, switching out the green onions with 1/2 cup regular yellow onion, and using imitation crab (not by choice, price won) instead of the canned stuff. I was skeptical about the Grey Poupon at first but it really gave it the zing it needed. Oh it was sooo good. We served this with the Town House Toppers Garlic & Herb crackers.

Spinach & Artichoke Dip
We made this just as is but served it with tortilla chips. I was craving the dip from TGIFridays and this was definitely a very close runner up!

I hope you enjoy these as much as we do!

An Ode to My Christmas Decorations!

So like I said in my previous post... I Love Christmas! I love the excitement and anticipation that comes immediately after Thanksgiving. I love the feeling of giving back to others (which I should do more often anyways not just at Christmas!) and finding new a creative ways to share the love of Christ. I love coming home from a long day of work to getting that warm and cozy feeling while being surrounded by all our decorations and lights. I love the swirl of outreach events our church participates in. I love looking at all the lights. I love all the food, the family visiting, sharing gifts, and the list goes on!

However, what I do not love is the break in my routine that the busyness of the Christmas season creates. Now I know this is my partial type A (I'm not a full-fledged type A, thank goodness) personality coming out along with a lot of selfishness. But I admit it, I am so looking forward to getting back to normal mode it's not even funny. I had to work the Friday after Christmas after having 6 days in a row off and I was really thrilled to get back into my old routine! So one of my attempts to "Get Back to Normal" is taking down the decorations, which I hope I can finish by Wednesday. We're going to Ohio to have Christmas with my husband's family and the last thing I want to do when we get back from our long drive is pack up stinkin' decorations! So I'm sharing some photos of my Christmas decor before they meet their demise!

Good Bye Christmas TreeGood Bye Nativity

Good Bye Kitchen Shelf Decorations

Early spring cleaning here I come!

Christmas Happenings

Well it's been a busy couple days! We had my mom, dad, sister, bro-in-law and their two kids, and my brother and his little girl over for dinner and presents. This is probably the best part of our Christmas routine because we don't have several houses to bounce around from. We can stay in our jammies all day if we wanted! Everyone seemed to have a good time. My hubby is going to kill me for posting this photo of him playing Santa but I just can't help it!!!


Here's my son with one of his presents, an apron. A friend of mine is super talented at sewing and quilting and she was nice enough to throw in this project in the midst of all the others she does this time of year! Thanks Ruthie and show her some love by visiting her blog. Eian's taken an interest in cooking this year. Not just cookies, brownies and other fun stuff but actual meals. So I figured I better nurture this new passion of his before it's too late!


Here's my niece with one of her new toys. Imagine that, it's another baby doll!!! She was sooo excited to see all the presents under the tree when she first got to our house that she tried to go straight to opening them when we hadn't even eaten yet.

We then went and visited with my uncle on my mom's side Friday night to see family we hadn't seen forever. G'ma made a yummy wiener chili and tons of desserts. My nephew wanted to spend the night with us at first but then didn't want to leave my uncle's. I wonder why... all the guys were found in the basement watching iron man on awesome surround sound and playing pool! A man's paradise!

We didn't get home too late Friday night but Eian had been dying to play his new Spiderman Monopoly game (thanks a lot Stace!). So we started at around 9:30 and didn't finish until shortly after midnight! Boy it's hard to count your money and net worth when you're dozing off let me tell ya!

Then Saturday morning it was off we go again! We had my Dad's family Christmas at Noon. Eian was so excited, heck we all get excited to visit my Dad's family! We all just have such a good time catching up, eating, and stealing family bags! Yep we don't do gifts for everyone anymore. Our family has grown to nearly 50 people if you count all the great grandkids and spouses so each family brings a bag. We then either do trivia or some other game to get the bags but you can always steal a bag too. There's always one bag that everyone fights over. The kids just love it!

I wanted to share some photos but I have several so keep on scrolling. This first one is of us getting ready for the gift bag swap. Yep, I told you we had a big family and so big that we've outgrown my G'ma or Aunt's house. So we have it at my Grandma's church's rec hall.

Yep that's me in the jean jacket and pink top but I'm not sure what I was looking at.
My sister and brother-in-law, aren't they cute?


Here's Grandma Cathryn. She's my inspiration! We always put her front and center and make her open her gifts first. You can tell she hates all the fanfare! She's such a humble woman, gotta love her.

And here's a photo of my sweet little niece (the green sweatshirt) who's not so little anymore, actually she's now a sophomore in college, but she'll always be my baby. I took a pic with her and our cousin Kay. Such pretty girls!

And finally to wrap it up, here's a pic of my cousin Jenny with her cute little guy. He's a sweet little cuddle bug too! Well hope you enjoyed my photos. I know there;s a lot but it was too hard to choose which ones I wanted. Don't worry... there will be yet more photos to post when we have Christmas with my hubby's family in Ohio next weekend! I love Christmas but I am definitely ready for normalcy!

Merry Christmas!

Here it is nearly 10 am and my boys are still snoozing so I thought I would take advantage and wish all of my family & blogging buddies Merry Christmas! This has been one of the best Christmas' and ironically it's been our lowest budget one so far. Funny how becoming humble and not having what you're accustomed to can actually be a blessing! My husband, son and I have learned a lot about trusting the Lord and helping and appreciating one another more. Thank you Lord for NEVER leaving us nor forsaking us and providing for us this Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone and I Love You All!!!

Living Nativity

It never ceases to amaze me that God blesses our church's efforts to reach out to the community through our Living Nativity. It's our 18th annual and each year the number of people who come to hear the gospel message gets bigger and bigger. I am by no means posting this to be boastful but simply to praise God for His faithfulness.

You can enjoy our nativity two ways. One is to drive through which is of course the warmest option but also the longest. The wait for drive thru's last weekend was 1 hour! The other option is to walk thru. This is the one I prefer because you get to be up close and personal with the cast and animals. The best part is going through Bethlehem and having the little "street kids" begging you to buy their fruit and the Roman guards asking you for taxes and if you have your papers! Too fun!

It was about 30 degrees last night which isn't brutally cold but it feels like it when you're out there for any extended length of time. With that said we still had over 400 people walk through and over 600 people drive through. God is just awesome! Every year we enjoy being a part of this ministry.

I posted a link in the beginning of this post. Feel free to visit and get the schedule for this weekend. We are however cancelling the nativity on Sunday night due to the windchill factor will be well below zero. Brrrrr!

I'm Still Alive!

Okay so I don't have much time to blog but I have received several emails wondering why I haven't blogged and if I'm still alive. Well I am happy to say that I am very much alive and living a full life. So full, that my blogging has gone by the way side.

There's a few reasons to my bloggy quietness...

One, we had my niece come back to live with us again. She's two, need I say more?

Two, it's Christmas and between baking cookies, volunteering, church activities, school programs, shopping, and visiting family there's not a whole lot of time left in the day right now.

Three, I'm pregnant! Yep, the baby is just a tiny thing at 10 weeks today but the little guy/gal is causing their Mama grief which means sleep had taken precedence over blogging.

Four, it's the season to get caught up in the busyness of Christmas and forget all the blessings God's granted us and made us accountable for. This means I have been trying to make a conscious effort to slooowww down and sit with my son to drink hot cocoa and watch a Christmas show or watching some classic cartoons as a family or going to look at lights or giving my niece extra kisses and hugs while I rock her when she's having a rough day. These have become precious moments to me that I just can't let blogging, or any other earthly thing for that matter, take away.

So I hope all of you gals understand my absence. I promise to keep in touch more often once Christmas and New Year's are over. My big sissy's coming in from Florida this weekend with her family so I'm sure she'll keep me busy. As if I wasn't doing a good job of that myself!!!

Take Care All & Have a Blessed Christmas!

Stef