boo bash

h a p p y

h a l l o w e e n

we went back to longview for halloween,

for the third year in a row.

its so cute to watch the parade of kids

and the neighbors do a really great job

of decorating their houses.

plus i get to spend the evening with 

three of the cutest girls in the whole world.

 

my dad stayed home and gave out candy.

he didn't get one trick-or-treater.

what's up with that?

  

and i get a gold star for the day.

i dressed up at work

(three blind mice)

AND

with my family.

(little red riding hood, grandmother and the big bad wolf)

 

trick or treat, 

smell my feet,

give me something good to eat 

your damn candy.

 

hope you had a fun night

with lots of chocolate.

and yes, those are full-size snickers.

apparently some people are ballin'. 

halloween 2013
halloween 2012
halloween 2011

applebutter

every few years my whole family gets together 

to make applebutter.

i can't share the recipe because the 

elders in the family have not past it down... yet.

but i would never make it on my own anyway

because for real, it takes a couple if witch's kettles,

silver dollars, a weird homemade wooden paddle,

40lbs of sugar and like 7 bushels of apples.

who has that lying around?

its a big group effort.

lots of peeling, coring,

stirring and canning.

but its so worth it.

besides, it gives us a good excuse to hang out together,

carry on a family tradition and get in a little day drinking.

what's better than that?

 

that's not even all the apples.

  
B downing a WHOLE apple while watching us peel.
 

a little cooler racing.

 

 

 

time out from beer pong so mimi could change eden.

 

 

arm candy and paper cup wine.

 

 

 

pepsi pong.

 

 

and at the end of the day,

every family was able to take home

T E N jars.

and yes, i do take bribes.

 

progress - month one

 even leia is ready to move in, but

things are going a little slower than i would like 

at our homestead. 

we have a wall knocked down to open up the 

kitchen to the dining room and

we have the popcorn ceiling scraped off. 

we have also torn down the huge light in the kitchen,

added cans and a fixture over an island,

that has yet to be ordered.

a guy is at our house right now spraying the ceilings and 

ronnie hopes to have them painted this weekend. 

the day before yesterday we ordered flooring and it should

be here in a few weeks.

in the mean time, we would like to get the upstairs trim painted,

take down the wallpaper in brette's bathroom

and get brette's room painted. 

then we can have the carpet and wood floors installed

and (fingers crossed) move in.

that still leaves us with painting the kitchen cabinets,

installing a kitchen island, painting all the trim downstairs,

fixing/painting all the rooms downstairs and tiling the laundry room.

 whew.

i have to keep reminding myself that

its a marathon, not a sprint.

these are the wood floors we ordered.

we are saving $$$ by having ronnie install them.

i would have preferred to just have a team of guys come in a knock it out,

but i can't argue with a better price tag.

our original idea was to replace all the carpet in the house, 

but since the previous owners had just replaced two out of the four bedrooms,

we decided to just match their carpet and finish the other two rooms.

the grey carpet to the right is the one we are matching.

this is the wall that came down.

it separates the kitchen from the dinning room,

which also flows into the living room.

so by opening this up,

i can see all the way through to the front of the house.

 same wall, from the other side.

i'm now standing the dining room

 cale and ronnie just getting started.

 

 it ended up being a bitch to take down

because there was electric, plumbing and return air in the wall.

of course, i pick the one wall that has all three.

ronnie loved me.

 and here it is all done.

we still have to wrap the beam in cedar to make it match

the beams in our living room,

but it made a huge difference in the house already.

the huge light below we took down.

it was my job and fairly easy.

it really opened up the height of the kitchen.

we also took down the pendant in the bay window.

its supposed to go over a kitchen table,

but we have opted to add an island instead.

we're adding different pendants centered over the island 

to allow the kitchen to feel bigger and more open.

good thing i know an amazing electrician. 

we are having a bit of trouble finding an island to order.

they are either crazy expensive,

too big for our space or 

are not made to eat at.

if you have an idea of a place to look, send it my way.

i want something rustic looking. 

we are planning to paint our cabinets green,

so my dream would for it to look like reclaimed barn wood.

 these are two of my favorites, but one is expensive and the other

you can't eat at. wah wah.

so anyway, 

that's where we are at.

i promise to keep the updates coming,

s l o w l y  but surely.

my buddy

the cutest thing has happened.

brette has made a special friend,

duckie.

for those of you that know me best,

or came into contact with me between the ages of 1 to 25,

know have MY OWN special friend, willie.

he's the best.

as in, brette is not allowed to touch him.

i don't want her ruining my bff. 

back in the day i conned my aunt mickie into giving

 him to me when i was brette's age.

i slept with him every night,

he came on every family vacation,

i took him to college,

(stupid andy, circa toy story 3, has nothing on me.)

he moved into ronnie and i first home together

and is currently back in his old stomping grounds,

my childhood bedroom.

 and have no fear, he will be coming to our new home as well. 

i secretly hoped that brette would latch on to a buddy too.

someone to talk to,

keep her company,

make her dark room feel more friendly

and someone to snuggle with.

but i didn't think it was going to happen because

 brette didn't show any interest in her dolls

 including the perfectly new cabbage patch doll we provided. 

picky. picky.

until we went shopping in florida.

we were walking around a store conveniently named duckies

when she spotted him and instantly gave him a hug and
 would not put him down.

she suckered ronnie into buying him for her.

(he's a real softy)

and she's been sleeping with him ever since.

it is adorable.

she gives him the biggest hugs.

i'm so happy she's found a buddy.

let's see if this one lasts as long as willie. 

i can't find a picture of me with willie as a youngster, even though my mom swears there is one. so unfortunately the one i'm using is when my college roommates hung him from my ceiling fan when i went home for the weekend.  they were asking ransom until i returned. i tried to crop out the horrible scene, but you can kind of tell he's hanging from a noose. wth. poor willie.

in an instant

you never really know what goes on behind closed doors,

but this blog helps me share what happens in our lives
and i'm going to open our door a little wider today.
it's taken me awhile to share,
but i have found talking about it helps.

ronnie and i decided we wanted another baby.
and we started trying in july.

we found out we were pregnant on july 29th.

i was so excited.
once again ronnie and i scored big within the first week.

i literally thought the timing of this next baby was perfect.

20 months between this little one and brette.

i due the very tail-end of march on the 28th.

wahoo, let the countdown begin!

a few weeks later i went to the doctor and they confirmed the pregnancy.

we were picking out names.

discussing the sex.
i had a feeling we were having a boy.

and i was designing the nursery.
i even took our picture to go with the ones
i had from brette.

i started counting down the days until i could

share our wonderful news with family and friends.

i am always super careful not to tell people before my first

trimester because of the possibility of a miscarriage.

after week 12 the likelihood goes down by a ton,

so i knew i needed to make it until mid-september.
i was waiting for my birthday.

i made it so close.

on saturday, september 6th,
i started bleeding.

shit.
i was 11 weeks,
this isn't supposed to happen now.
i was scared.

it was a saturday, so i had to go to the emergency room.
i arrived at 2pm and waited.

ronnie met me there after brette woke up from her nap,

at 5:30 we were still waiting so i told ronnie

to leave and take brette home so they could have dinner

and put brette to bed.

finally at 6pm - - four hours after arriving - -

i was taken back to see a nurse.

they started an IV,

took my blood

and did an ultrasound.

around 8pm a doctor came in to share the results.

we had lost the baby.

the tears and questions came.

the egg had not been fully fertilized.

it never stood a chance to develop fully.

in fact, it never made it past six weeks.
"nothing you could do. a genetic defect with the baby."

why? why. why.

so i was not carrying a 12 week old little baby.

i only made it six weeks, so

it was a small sack of cells and tissue.

i don't know why,

but that helps me with the loss.

it also helped that i didn't have to go through a d&c

and i could let my body naturally run its course.

 it took me a few days to come to terms with the difference

between what i thought i had,

and what i actually had.
and it took me a few weeks to physically recover.
that's rough.
its a constant reminder that
you were supposed to be pregnant.

now my desire to have another baby is 100 times amplified.

of course, i have to let my body heal

and give it time to recover,
but its hard to wait.
and i feel like e v e r y o n e  is pregnant.
i'm surrounded by people due in march and april.
i wish i was still a part of that.

i'm so sad that i don't get to give our family another little baby right now.

i wanted it so much.

i'm staying positive that it will all turn out just the way it is supposed to.
and i really believe that if i'm meant to have another baby,
then i will.
and if brette is all we get,
then i still have something so crazy wonderful that
i don't dare question why i might not get more.
what a blessing my girl is.

but as my sister-n-law pointed out:

it's a sad reminder that nothing in life is guaranteed.

hold your babies tight and

keep this little family of mine in your prayers.

MARCH

the long road home

after such an amazing vacation

our trip back was hell.

right from the start, things were doomed.

when we arrived in florida ronnie and i 

used an airport car service to take us to the beach house.

we couldn't use a regular ol' taxi because 

we needed a rear-facing carseat.

it was a bit pricey, but mandatory,

so whatever.

the day before we left i called them again

to schedule our ride back to the airport.

our flight left at 5:15 and they recommended

being there one hour in advance.

we were 45 minutes away from the airport so 

i scheduled our pick-up at 3:30.

(yes, 3:30 in the morning.  heinous.)

they were supposed to call me when they were 15 minutes away.

at 3:20 i called them.

they said they would be there at 3:45.

annyoing, but i could live with it.

at 3:45, they are still not there.

at 4:00, still no one.

i called again.

at 4:10 we woke up my parents and had them drive us.

at 4:18 they called me back.

i was livid.

and then we missed our flight.

those sons-a-bitches.

the airport lady helping us was a dear 

and rescheduled us on the next flight out at 7:20 with no extra charge.

thank god.

we had breakfast and played with brette who is already tired.

we finally get on a plane and start out to the runway 

when the captain comes on to tell us we are delayed 20 mins.

then we are delayed until 9:00.

try sitting on a hot plane with a 16 month old that has been up since 3:45.

they finally tell us that they are going to take us back to the airport 

so we can get off while we wait out a thunderstorm. 

BUT the freaking thunderstorm hits before the plane makes it from 

the runway to the airport.

the captain comes back on to tell us it is unsafe for the grounds crew to 

be out in the lightning so we have to continue to 

sit on the plane while we wait out the storm.

it was like a bad dream.

finally THREE HOURS after we boarded the plane 

we were allowed off for TEN MINUTES before we had to 

be back on so we could take off.

of course by now we have missed our connecting flight to KC

so once we hit atlanta we then have a two hour layover.

sweet.

we get food, let brette crawl around, change her diaper 

and prepare for our next flight.

it takes off no problems and isn't full,

so we moved rows to give brette her own seat.

it was the first good thing to happen all day.

i notice that brette is tooting (tmi?), so i thought i'd run

her to the toilet before she poops because i honestly

don't know where you are supposed to change a diaper on a plane.

well, i didn't make it in time.

i'm trying to take her diaper off in the smallest bathroom known to man 

and it falls off.

shit.

no, literally, shit.

on the toilet and her foot.

so i'm trying to hold miss poopy-butt

and get out wipes,

keep my balance 

and not get poop everywhere.

it did not go well.

when we returned to the seat ronnie whispered that we smelled like shit.

we started searching and sure enough, its on my jeans. 

for real, this happened.

lets just say by the time we made it to kansas city 

(5 hours later than our original itinerary)

i was done.

and so was ronnie.

and so was poor brette.

i blame the car service.

they should be glad we're not in the same state

because i would for real cut someone.