Jaidyn, Lots of Food, and, of course, Reese!

Just wanted to post so I could say I posted. Haha! Our weekend was good...

We watched this sweet little girl on Saturday for a couple of hours. She had the best time playing in the pool and also playing with Reese. The child has no fear! She walked right into the pool down all four steps and right into my arms. She wanted to jump off the side of the pool and "slide" down a raft. She loves Reese (probably just because he is a dog, haha) and kept talking about "Reese's kisses." So cute! Here she is with a sweet bow that I tied real quick on a bobby pin and stuck in her hair because I thought it would be cute:
I think it was!

Jamane and Jaidyn returned to our house later in the evening for dinner and social time :) They stayed with us that night, and Jamane and I stayed up until 2am talking! We had a great time. Sunday was church, and after missing a week, I was glad to be back! We had our Father's Day lunch with Ryan's family at the Olive Garden, and it was yum yum yummy! I had the Chicken Gnocchi soup. Sunday evening we had Kabobs at Omi's and it was sooo good too. Lots of food on Sunday. We also ate at Cheesecake Factory on Monday night for Lisa's birthday--MORE food!

Over the weekend, I was actually looking forward to work this week and not completely dreading it. Just to be clear...I NEVER dread my OnlineFormals job. I really don't dread my other job, either--it's just that I get reallllllly stressed about it on Sunday nights sometimes. The week so far has been smooth, and I only have a few more hours tomorrow until I'm done with that for the week.

Tonight we had one of my new favorites for dinner--Poppyseed Chicken. Here's a picture...

Here's the recipe, in case you're curious: http://kellyskornerrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/12/poppyseed-chicken.html...I highly recommend!

Off to bed now...but here's a picture of Reese to round out the post:

Can you tell he loves his new Frisbee??? :)

Good Week

It was a pretty good rest of the week! Things that happened included the following:
-I went to the Williamsburg Outlets with my mom and sister on Wednesday and bought some really good work/church tops, a cute dress, and some clearance jewelry. I was sooo happy because it seems like every day when I get dressed for work I can never find any tops to wear. So, yay for some new clothes!
-Thursday night, I went with Ashley and Danielle to a friend, Sherry's, house to help put together wedding favors and welcome bags. She invited several girls/women to come over to help with these things and more to get them all done. We had a good time and got a LOT of work done. Ashley and I are coordinating things for her wedding and decoration her reception venue for her. It will be fun and interesting.
-Yesterday I went to the dentist. Not exciting. No cavities or anything like that, but I have a piece of a root in the back of my mouth that they think is left over from my Wisdom Teeth. They have told me a couple of times that I should have it taken out because it can lead to an infection, but this time she basically said that I need to do it. So I scheduled the appointment, and I'm freaking out a little. Ugh.
-Last night, we went to a new Mexican restaurant called El Taco Loco. It's over near our parents' house by Sam's Club. It was soooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. I had the a Taco de Carnitas (pork) and a Taco de Camaron (shrimp) with Spanish rice and refried beans. Did I mention it was soooooooooooooooooooo good??? We saw at least ten people from our church there, which was kind of funny. I cannot WAIT to go back! Here's their website: www.eltacolocova.com. They have the menu on there.
-Yesterday, I took Reese to have his hair cut, nails trimmed, etc. Here's the before:

Cute, but a little shaggy. Now, here's the after!

So cute with his new ball! I also bought the new f-r-i-s-b-e-e for him that I mentioned in the last post. I hope he likes it--I'm pretty sure he will. Oh, and here's another one for extra cuteness:
I know, I know...he's the cutest dog ever! :) I love him so much.

We already had a caravan of visitors this morning that stopped by to say hello (use our facilities). Haha! We always make fun of that when they come. It was nice to see them all this morning!

Okay, I am out for now. I think I'm going to make some of the yummy White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies. I'm going to be babysitting Jaidyn, my sweet friend Jamane's little girl in a little bit. Hopefully she is happy to see us today! I will try to get at least one cute picture and update later.

Bad Blogger

I have got to get with it on the blog posts. I've been inspired to post shorter posts but more often. Starting today, this will be the norm! (Haven't I said that before? :) This weekend, Ry went camping with his BFF's...here's a cute picture of them:

I wish I could have been there! I always have such a good time with them, but it was boys weekend, so whatever. I went to see George Strait with my very good friend Jamane and her husband Jesse. We had a great time and stayed out until almost 2am! I haven't done that for several months, and I was soooooooooo tired!--But we had a great time. I stayed at Hotel Schroeder that night, and my accommodations were wonderful :) The next day I attended a bridal shower for another friend, Megan. It was one of the nicest showers I have ever been to. Here's a picture of the gift I put together for her:


I thought it turned out so cute! The tall black thing in the back is a wine carrier that says "It's Wine O'Clock" in hot pink letters. There were also four wine glasses from her registry, two of my favorite stoppers, an opener, some really cute stem markers, and Godiva chocolates to round it out! Oh, and two bottles of wine, of course :). Danielle and Ashley went in with me on this gift, but I bought it and put it all together. I LOVE doing gifts like this (kind of the same way i LOVE putting together my flower pots). Watching people open their presents at showers is one of my favorite parts, anyway.

On Saturday night, I went to Ashley and Shawn's house for dinner. It was soooooo yummy--she makes the BEST mashed potatoes. We also had some wine and played Scattergories, which was fun. I love playing games, and those of you that have ever been to a small social gathering with Ryan know that he does NOT like to play games. It was nice to play one of my favorites! Again, I was up until about 2am. This time I stayed at the Neronski Inn, of course. Both nights I only got about five hours of sleep. Since Reese slept with me, he woke up pretty early and would start licking my face. I actually woke up both days pretty early on my own but was forced to get up because of the face-licking.

Ryan came home on Sunday and we had a nice lunch that I prepared and then hung around the house until we went to Omi's and sat by the pool before eating dinner at her house. We brought Reese with us. He looooooooves to run around like a crazy dog in their yard and chase the frisbee. Here is what Reese did to the frisbee my Mom bought for him. This took about half an hour to destroy:


The dog is soooooooooooo crazy! I am going to get him this one probably tomorrow--



We've had two other toys made of the same material that have been soooooo durable, and he loves them. This should last at least two hours..haha.

Last night, I went to a semi-reunion with my Young Life leaders from high school, Matt and Marisa, and two old friends, Amanda and Jake. We met at Rita's for ice cream, and I had SUCH a good time. Marisa is having a baby in August, and Jake and Amanda are getting married in October! It was great to catch up with them--I can't believe it's been seven years since I saw them on a regular basis. I arrived at 745 and didn't leave until about 1045. I couldn't believe it had been three hours. Needless to say, we are going to try to keep in better touch after such a long break in contact.

Okay, that's it. I have learned my lesson. If I had written daily posts or even posts every other day, this could have been prevented. I will do better from now on! Ry is leaving me tomorrow for the night. I still might decide to go with him. We'll see....................

Super Saturday

Today was great! I started off the morning by doing my second day of the 30-day Shred, a workout program with Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser. I highly recommend this to anyone that wants to lose weight. It's 20 minutes of circuit training. There are three circuits that include three minutes of strength, two minutes of cardio, and one minute of abs in each circuit. There are three different levels in the program. You go from Level One to Two to Three within the 30 days. I think I'm going to do Level One for 10 days, Level Two for 10 days, and then Level Three for the last 10.



I did it a few months ago and didn't even do it daily like you're supposed to and noticed a difference pretty quickly. I am going to try to stick with it daily for at least 30 days to see how I feel. I gained a few pounds back of the weight I lost a couple months ago because the PA told me not to do any serious exercising because my ovaries could have twisted when they were enlarged. I have learned that I have to exercise to maintain the weight I want. So since the cysts are basically gone, and the ovaries are back to normal size, I am going to get back on the program. I am definitely in major pain after only doing it two times so far, so I know it's working!

This evening, I tried two new recipes. One was a hashbrown casserole that sounded sooooooo good but wasn't that great when I made it. It's probably because I used all "light" ingredients instead of the full-flavored ones. The second recipe was a new one that I really enjoyed, but Ry said he wasn't too crazy about it. Here's a picture:

It's called Strawberry Pretzel Dessert. I used a sugar/artificial sweetener blend, light cream cheese, sugar-free Jello, and light Cool Whip instead of the full-on ingredients. Yummy! (Again, Ry wasn't too crazy about it and basically asked for me not to make it again, but I would recommend it!)

After making this dessert, I decided that it was time for a new blender. The one I have was cheap cheap cheap. It looks like it has several speeds, but it only has two---reallyfast and reallyrealllyfast. I can't remember if I registered for that or bought it as a cheapie myself, so if you bought this for us, please don't let your feelings be hurt! :) I've been using it so much lately that I have noticed it's flaws and felt that it was time to make an investment in my cooking/baking future. We went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and bought this beauty:
It's the Kitchen Aid 9-Speed Mixer. I went in the store wanting the same thing but 7-speed, but they were out of them. Of course, I had a 20% off coupon. There was also a $10 rebate on the 7 and 9-speeds. I went ahead and got the 9-speed but might get the 7-speed sometime this week from a different BB&B. Do I need 9 speeds? No. Do I even need 7 speeds? Probably not. I wanted a nice hand-mixer, though, and that is what I got! I'm hoping I won't have to buy another one for the rest of my life. I actually can't wait to use it. Okay, off to mix up something good! haha..just kidding--off to bed! Nighty night!

Working Weekend

I will make this a pretty quick post. For those of you who don't know, I acted as a pseudo wedding coordinator this weekend for one of my mother's co-workers. I helped coordinate the rehearsal, set up all of the decorations for the reception, got everyone down the aisle for the ceremony, and stayed for the reception to make sure everything ran well. I was compensated for this, which was nice. I could get used to it! The only bad part about doing that as a job would be the working on weekends part. Hmmm....we shall see what the future holds. Here are a couple of pictures--they were taken on my new Blackberry, by the way.

An example of the round tables. I loved the decorations--these were my wedding colors, too!

In this one you can see some of the almost 120 bows I tied! Again, I did enjoy this--it was just a lot of work!

Last night, Ry and I hooked up my old Nintendo and played some Super Mario. We've been talking about it lately and "singing" the tunes from the game...it was exciting to actually play. It's funny how neither of us has played for at least 10 or more years and we still both remembered some of the "hidden" things in the game, tricks, etc. It was so fun! Here are some pictures of this adventure:

...Ry trying to get it set up...

Haha--we had to rig it so that it would actually work. Keep in mind--this took us about 30 minutes total to get completely set up.

Screen shot! It ended up getting clearer than this by the time we were done.

As a quick fertility update, I had an ultrasound Friday for Katie to check my cysts. They have all become much smaller, and she said everything looked good. She prescribed Provera for me to take in about a week, which will cause me to start a new cycle in about a month. At that time, I will begin giving myself injections again to start a new treatment cycle. Since the cysts are smaller, I can also start exercising again! I need to, that's for sure.

I'm going to try to post more often, but just in case.........Have a great week! :)