From A to Z

F.I.V.E.

2012-02-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

So the news on the street is we have a five year old now. Excuse me while I lock myself in my room to cry. We had kindergarten night Monday night. Kindergarten night! I can't can't can't believe it. If this child turns out to be a girl I don't know what I'm going to do with them because I put together legos all day and point out garbage trucks while driving whether Reagan is even in the car with me or not! I had to convince him this week that he couldn't bring a 3-foot wooden sword to Sofie's volleyball game. Last night he asked us what bad guy heaven is called? Zach said hell, then he asked what they do all day there and we were stumped. (Burn in a pit of fire? Sit alone in darkness? Hell is not as fun to explain as Heaven.)

We decorated his bedroom the night before, then waited in the hallway outside of his door the next morning so we could see his reaction when he woke up (nerds.) After that I took him to ~~Krispy Kreme~~ The Doughnut Factory to watch donuts being made on the assembly line (so cool!) and then we took them into his class for snack (birthday treats are hard to come up with when they eat them at 9:30 am.)

We had a mac n cheese bar (per his request and thanks to pinterest) that night with buffalo mac n cheese, beer mac n cheese, and then plain with add ins like ham, bacon and hot dogs. Then he asked for a vanilla cake, with vanilla frosting and vanilla ice cream. I made some marshmallow fondant and then gave him food coloring pens to draw on the top of it with.

Thank you to everyone who wished him a Happy Birthday!!!! He had a grrrreat one.

I also need to make myself a note to reread the end of this blog on raising boys like twice a day. And this one too.

Fun morning

2012-01-24T11:37:00.000-08:00

We went this morning for our biggie ultrasound, everything checked out just dandy.

Cletus the fetus at 21 weeks....

And nope, we didn't find out the gender =)

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still on subject but from a while ago...

once upon a time, i was feeling very chubby. my regular pants were too tight/uncomfortable and so I succumbed to the pressure and busted out my maternity pants. Trying them on did not make me feel any better but I decided to make due with a pair of flairs that hit me at or slightly-above the ankle. Not attractive. I was also feeling lazy so I just turned them inside out, put them on, pinned on down my leg (starting a little above the knee,) took them off, and sewed on down the pinned area.

See I told you I was being lazy, I didn't even bother to change the thread color in my machine. Meh, it'd be inside out anyway is what I reasoned.

Then trimmed the excess...

And voila, skinny pants. Literally took me 15 minutes.

(me- 15 wks) My hair only has eyes for you Sam.

Life with Reagan

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

I forgot to include Zach in my last update, so let me slip in a quick one... work and working on the house pretty much occupies alllllllll his time. He starts a new job at SF next week, he's looking forward to that. I don't know if this is a testament to our oneness or a new low but we definitely ran into each other in the McDonald's drive thru this morning. Judgment free zone in this case then?

-----------------------

We had our first big snow of the season this past week. Jeez, about time! Reagan and Petey l.o.v.e. playing it... but Reagan might equally love getting the hot chocolate afterwards.

After spending a week at the lake with Grandpa Meiner he developed the habit of saying "oh dear" when something goes wrong. He says this like 15 times a day.

Today, he came up to me and said "You know what my favorite part about you is?" ... "sometimes you let me have food."

Last week was an eventful week at preschool. One of the days they had a field trip where they went bowling and another day was "pancake & pajama's day" (see picture below.)

Sometimes the words he uses makes me do a double take at who I'm talking to. He woke me up last night and said "may I have a refreshment please?" And the other day, we were having dinner with Luba and he asked her "is your car electric or gasoline?"

His favorite books in the entire world are his Busy Town books. If you've ever read them then you know why we refer to them as the long-busy-towns. They've taught him a lot of things.
A. what hobos are
B. that lawyer's settle arguments. So now if someone disagrees about something with him he threatens that he's going to get his lawyer.

Petey finally got a tag, watching it being made seriously made Reagan's morning. He is such a machine/tool man.

If you ask him if he's going to be a brother he'll tell you I'm "president" not fat.

The biggest number he knows is "69" so he's constantly saying things like "I love you 69 miles" or "I am going to eat 69 jalapeño cheetohs."

I asked Reagan a few questions about me:

1Whatis something Mommy always says to you?  to listen
2What makes Mommy happy? when  I listen  

3Whatmakes Mommy sad?  when I don’t listen 
How does Mommy make youlaugh? "What’s there on your shirt?" game ( he means when you trick someone to look down then then tap their nose) 

Howold is Mommy?  12  

6Howtall is Mommy?  50 inches
Whatis Mommy's favorite thing to do?  to play with me
Whatdoes Mommy do when you're not around?  clean the house and makedinner
What is Mommy's favoritefood? vegetables
What makes you proud of Mommy? When sheparks straight, daddy too (he thinks I am totally awesome if I pull straight through a parking spot when there's not a car parked in front of me)

1 If Mommy were a cartoon character, whowould she be?  Belle from Beauty and the Beast
What do you and Mommy do together?  play
How are you and Mommy the same?  we both have butts and same skin (he's become very observant of people's skin colors)
How are you and Mommy different?  Ihave a peepee and you don’t
How do you know Mommy loves you? Because Jesus made me for you 

Announcement

2012-01-13T08:58:00.001-08:00

Reagan received a "lizard egg" from Emily and Ryan for Christmas. We "laid" him in his water the next day and waited very very patiently for the next couple weeks. Checking it daily, replenishing its' water as needed, and contemplating performing a cesarean when the 72 hour timeline had passed. But we stuck it out and we are very pleased to announce the arrival of Lizardy the Lizard at approximately 8:02 this morning!!

Lately

2012-01-09T19:54:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas' were awesome! Unfortunately I didn't really take any pictures to document. =(

Finished this book, loved it. Saw the movie, both are really really good but as usual- book is better. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a mom and I'm supposed to.

I've been working for the Vericella's at the boutique two days a week (it's really fun, I love the way it's decorated in there- i just want to live in it) and usually Reagan is at preschool while I'm there. Over his break he tagged along with me... I could not ask for better people to work for, I hesitate to even call it "work" more like play with pretty things/talk to fun people/read a good book.

18 weeks

Petey is doing well, I even took two pictures of the dog without a person in them! I swore I would never do this and now look at me, even posting them on the blog and everything!

I've been eating a lot of avocados. Like cut it open and spoon it straight out of the shell into my mouth. This is embarrassing to admit but I even had to call Sam for her to walk me through cutting an avocado open ("do they need to be steamed first?")

I developed a couple of theories:
1. Girls don't shower as much as they claim to.
2. You can tell how old someone is by whether they like their pizza with thin crust or thick crust.

A few things I'm good at:
1. Eating breakfast everyday (bewildered as to how people don't do that!)
2. "Forgetting" to turn the fan on while taking a shower (but it makes it so warm when I get out!)
3. Timing it so that my gas light dings while Zach is driving my car.

Look what Santa brought....

2011-12-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

Reagan was very quick to clarify he wanted a real dog for Christmas whenever someone asked. Pretty lucky boy he is!

Found out the gender pretty quickly....

Already bff's! Reagan promptly/thoughtfully named him Jingles. Then with some urging renamed him Petey the day after Christmas. Petey he shall stay =)

~~Grandpa~~ Dr. Meiner came to trim his nails today. He had just had his eyes dilated but luckily there were no amputations. (Petey is 12 weeks old, from the Humane Society. Big shout out to my in-laws Luba and Victor for keeping Petey in hiding until Santa could deliver him.)

So far so good!

One month later...

2011-12-27T01:24:00.000-08:00

So we've been in possession of the house for a month now. Considering our main labor sources (Zach and his dad Chris) also work full-time jobs, we've made a lot of progress! Warning, this is about to get real wordy and long up in here.

ATTIC

The biggest change so far has probably been the attic. It wasn't insulated or anything so we were constantly losing heat to it while trying to heat the rest of the house.

Zach and Chris framed, ran electrical and cable and insulated it up there. It was definitely not the easiest task because, as you can see with how Zach has to stand, the ceiling is pretty low up there.

Then the drywall went up.

Then Zach's mom Kristi & his grandma Darlene painted everything in this ostrich feather color I picked out, ooh la la.

My Grandpa Meiner put the sconces up last week and then came back to take down a few light fixtures in the main areas so we can paint the ceilings. We thought sconces would be better with those low ceilings than anything hanging overhead.

Zach and Chris added the trim the night before the carpet was delivered last week. Still needing to be done: trim around windows and railing on stairway.

TRIM

Speaking of our paint slaves, Kristi & Darlene have also painted pretty much ALL the trim in the house as well. Yeah, they are amazing. Their plan of action is to do the ceilings next, then the walls.

All this trim was freshly painted, but nothing done to the walls. See the huge difference???

BACK STAIRWAY

My Grandma Shadoan is our resident wallpaper expert. When they decided to come up from South Carolina for Thanksgiving I planned to tackle the back stairway around their visit. This stairway goes from the kitchen to the basement and then at the landing it also goes out to the backyard/garage/breezeway. The previous wallpaper had been up for roughly 50 years so we ordered some fresh stuff to replace it (oh we had to replace it with more paper instead of tear it down and paint it because the plaster underneath was in super poor condition.)

Then Zach and Grandpa Shadoan took down the railing and coat hook. We scored, and sprayed, and peeled, and sized. And Drew shop vac-ed up all our mess.

And then Grandpa puttied and sanded.

And then the three of us hung it allllll up. It wasn't really a lot of paper but because it was a stairway there were lots of odd angles we kept having to cut. This hallway is really hard to get pictures of. I promise better ones when it's all said and done. Still needing to be done in the stairway: replace carpet, paint ceiling and below chair rail.

YARD

Since it took two months to close on the house (September - November) and no one lived in the house for a bit before that the yard had not been raked all fall. We have a few mature trees in the front, so the leaf situation was a mess. Reagan and I worked a couple hours a day for a week to make a decent dent in it. Then my parents helped out a few times too. The best part of yard work is that our neighbors stop by while we're outside to introduce themselves. Everyone has been so awesome so far!

DINING ROOM

This has probably been the third largest endeavor. The ceiling was in bad shape so we did dry wall up there. Then the plaster walls also weren't the best so Zach came up with the idea to add the wainscoting. Zach and Chris meticulously measured everything and hung it all.

Chris added grooves in the top piece of moulding for plates and such!!

Darlene, Luba (more for pictures sake) and Victor caulked their little hearts out.

Chris & Zach putting up the crown. Everything from the plate rail down will be painted white and a different color painted on the walls between that and the crown moulding.

(if it helps it'll look kinda like this when it's all finished)

Still needing to be done in the dining room: finishing crown moulding, painting moulding, ceiling and walls, and hanging chandelier.

Upstairs stairway

You can see the bottom of this stairway when you walk in the front door. The plaster here wasn't so hot either so we decided to keep the same look from the dining room up the stairs and to the landing. As I type, Zach & Drew are working on finishing cutting and putting up the rest of the moulding. It'll be capped at the top like the dining room and then obviously painted white from there down, with another color above.

Still to be done here: finish wainscoting/trim then caulk it all and sand, paint the bottom half (and doors) white and the top a color. Replace carpet on the stairs.

KITCHEN

This has probably been the second biggest challenge so far and I'm sure once it's fully underway will rocket to the #1 position. Originally we were just going to replace the 1950's countertops, maybe paint the cabinets and replace the hardware. After pulling the countertops off to measure for the new ones, our handymen (z & chris) noted a few cabinets were rotted as well as the floorboard. Dun dun duuunnnnn. We couldn't just replace the damaged ones because they don't make those beaut's anymore. We juggled finishing unfinished ones from Menard's or Lowe's ourselves. Then a customer of Zach's that manages a cabinet store offered him a great deal and we jumped on it. I think Zach and Chris will lose a lot less hair by not having to do yet another project themselves.

(when disconnecting the drain, Chris found a bevy of silverware in the pipes)

Another customer of Zach's who owns a flooring company offered us an amazing deal on flooring. A little tit for tat aye. The carpet in the attic and other stairways are included in this deal and so is this tile that will go in the kitchen and bathrooms (that Zach will lay.)

And so in it's current state, this is what our kitchen looks like right now. Daunting much?

The pink toilet and vanity Zach ripped out from the bathroom next door in order to lay the tile. Oh our pink bathroom is just fabulous... this won't be a project for a while down the road however =) I actually don't mind it because my great-grandma's bathroom was pink just like this so it's fine by me if it stays for a while.

still to be done in the kitchen: everything under the sun and then some.

whew!!! sorry that was so long-winded! I really need to work on taking better pictures to document things, the camera phone isn't technically high-def.

Goodies

2011-12-23T13:59:00.001-08:00

Reagan and I made a bunch of these treats this morning... Mmmm.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas!!

Decorating with the Williams'

2011-12-01T16:08:00.001-08:00

We're not technically sleeping in the new house yet, but the time clocked spent working on it makes it seem like we're living there... Anyway, since we can't decorate yet we are living vicariously through my in-laws :) Chris, Kristi and Sofie invited the three of us and Luba and Victor over last week for snacks and decorating. Their tree always turns out so pretty... Im not jealous or anything...

Family Pics

2011-11-25T15:44:00.001-08:00

My cousin Emily was nice enough to brave the awful weather and take some pictures for us, here are a few of my favorites =)

Christmas card time!

11-18-87

2011-11-18T12:41:00.001-08:00

What your birthday looks like when your old...

5 am- son wakes you up because he's completely soaked, first time in I don't know how long he's had an accident. Maybe someone didn't make him go to the bathroom before bed?

6 am- husband leaves to start insulating the attic in the new house with father-in-law Chris & bff Tony.

8 am- take opportunistic shower while son eats/watches a show

All day long- do laundry, washing sheets that were wet and throwing in ours because I fell asleep eating chocolate again.

Lunchtime- take Chik-fil-a to the hardworking fellas thanks to my connected mom

3 pm- think about if I want to get Zach a present for his birthday today

6 pm- eat pizza and ice cream cake with our rents and siblings at our new house on lawn chairs and picnic blankets

9 pm- bedtime

My mom tried to have the house on the cake look like ours! Even though the stick-figures make it look like it's an african american family moving in, we're still white.

Loved it, and def wouldn't change a thing! I'm excited to be 24. I also like saying my husband is 24, it makes him sound older/more distinguished (ha.)

One more year 'til we're quarter of a century! Collar!

Get it? Like, holla! Yep still white.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-07T18:44:00.000-08:00

The post to document halloween activities:

We carved pumpkins at the Leake's a while ago...

...aka kids participate for 5 minutes and dads finish the rest.

Reagan's is on the far left

Then Reagan had his Halloween party at school (he is in the first row, second from right.) I helped with it a little and thought it was cute but he was disappointed because there wasn't dancing.

That night we trick-or-treated in Ironwood

Pirate Reagan

anticipation

2011-11-07T18:04:00.000-08:00

WE CLOSE ON OUR HOUSE ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!

Sorry I didn't mean to shout

This is what I'm doing right now:
calling nicor
calling ameren
calling town of normal
calling usps
calling all doctors
calling the bank
eating too much halloween candy

A while ago when the weather was nice we took the constitution trail to our house, weeded a little and played us some bball. Then our realtor said we needed to stop buying weed killer until we legally owned it. psh!

Important to know is the backstory on the house. It was an estate sale, so the owner died and its in a trust to family that live out of town-- therefore no one is living in it... which is why we've been all over that thing for the past 2 months.

I'll be back with pictures once we're in and making progress!

Katie/Shain wedding

2011-11-06T10:12:00.001-08:00

A couple weeks ago we went back up to the burbs for Katie's wedding (my lovely friend from school.) They were SUCH a good looking couple, we kept drooling over how gorgeous Katie looked. It was so nice to catch up with the newly "Sheehan's" and the rest of my xray-ers who were there. Everyone is already working up a plan to spend a weekend down here in our new house! Cant wait! Here is the link to their "sneak peak" prof. pictures... Green Seed Photography

The Sheehan's at 1 month wed

Us at way long wed

Our bouquets were gorgeous, and that little clutch I'm holding were our gifts from Katie.

CUMC preschool pictures

2011-10-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

Hair aside, we're pretty satisfied with how this kid's school pictures turned out!

Radar's

2011-10-17T07:49:00.001-07:00

Since moving back we've been able to reconnect with our high school friends the Leake's! Reagan and Braylyn are only a few months apart and get along really well. A little while ago, Whitney and I took the kids to Radar's farm and they had a blast. I'd never been out there before so I was just as excited as Reagan was, it was so cute! Definitely need to get season passes next year or something.

It's combine time

2011-10-16T16:17:00.001-07:00

I took Reagan out to Colfax and Aunt Fleta's last week because Grandma & Grandpa Meiner were going to be at the farm and Reagan has a crazy fascination with all things tractor.

He was in HEAVEN when Lonnie pulled up in the combine. Him and Grandpa climbed up the ladder and then they were gone!

The whole way home he jabbered away about riding next to Curt and getting to push the button to unload the corn into Curt's trailer. Then he declared that he was changing his go-to answer of "what he wants to do when he grows up" from pilot/engineer to pilot/engineer/farmer. He prayed once before dinner for the combines and then again for the combines before bed.

So yes, an experience to remember!!

The Delgado's

2011-09-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

Zach's sister Luba got married this weekend!!

Reagan did a great job carrying those rings.

I asked him if he had fun and he said, "I thought the pillow would've been bigger."

Grandma's Kristi & Sheila

My brother & mom; Drew and Sheila and us

The beautiful cake cutter Hillary

And we danced, and danced, and danced....

"Totya" Luba

Can't wait to see the photographer's pics!

We're soon to be homeowners, pinch me

2011-09-25T16:18:00.000-07:00

Sooooo..... a couple weeks ago we bought a house!!! The feeling was similar to how it felt when we brought Reagan home from the hospital:

"You're really going to let us take him?... you're not going to stop us?... okay we're really doing it... (walking slowly and looking over our shoulders) no really, we're getting in the car now.... now we're driving away.... "

It's off of Normal Ave. in Normal. I can't make these things up!

We drive by it only like every day. And funnily enough we keep running into Zach's parents during our drive by's because they live a couple blocks away and like to spy on it as well.

Lots more details to come! If everything goes as planned we're set to close November 14th.

A theraputic trim

2011-09-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

By the end of summer our little fish's hair had officially turned green. This was something foriegn to Zach and I who are chestnut-y year round.

In a strange turn of events, Reagan (who loves having his back rubbed) fell asleep while having his hair cut. The lady at great clips commended herself for having "the softest touch." yikes

Shower power

2011-09-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

When I was in my radiography program something must have been in the water because out of the 11 girls, 5 either got engaged or married during our program. Beth's wedding was last night (we were lame and couldn't make it to it) and Katie's is next month. We had the parade of showers before the weddings though.

At Beth's Shower:

Casey, me & Katie modeling our shower game prizes (bracelets obvs)

Katie's shower:

The bride and I

some of her maids

Later I found this self portrait of our photographer/father of the bride

Lake 2011

2011-09-10T17:24:00.000-07:00

Alright, here is your forewarning that this post has a lot of pictures!

Paddle boating

Drew, Evan, Dad & Zach

Evan

See the green football?

Lifejacket diaper

Air guitar extraordinaire

Drew- wake boarding

Reagan tried skiing, I was really proud of him for trying. True to form, he didn't nail it on the first try and got mad at his 4 year old self. Zach much?

Baths in the lake

"Oven" & Reagan

Evan & Aunt Debbie

Debbie was introduced to her new vice: Rummikub... and of course we played it on the deck as to achieve our golden bronze tans simultaneously, however there was the time a tile was dropped between the deck and grandpa had to take off a whole board to retrieve it for us.

My hair looks like this 97% of the time on vacation. I don't even think I packed a brush this trip. attractive.

Tubing his little heart out...

Awesome trip, ready to go back!

1st day of preschool down

2011-08-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

Reagan started preschool this morning!

Yesterday I took him to get his physical. He insisted on holding his pee the whole time in case they might make him pee in a cup.

His teacher "Ms. Herren" seems very sweet. He'll go 2.5 hours a morning a few times a week, so we shall see how this goes!

Crow Wing County Fair

2011-08-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

I don't think the boys ever thought we were coming home from the fair! Between the 4-H exhibits, rides, deep-fried oreos and amazing people watching opportunities... we had more than enough to occupy our time.

Debbie recounted all of her childhood 4-H horror stories to us ;)

I need to wrap up these lake posts, the next one might be a bit of a beast to make it the last.

Earl "Eddie" Bruce

2011-08-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from the Minnesota posts... last week Zach's Great Grandpa Bruce (reagan's great-great grandpa) passed away. He was 95 and so excited to see Heaven!

We made this decision to bring Reagan with us for the whole day (visitation, funeral, burial & dinner.) And we made sure to explain everything to him before hand which wasn't as weird as I thought it might be since we apprently talk and read about Heaven pretty often. He took it all in with sort of a matter-of-fact attitude.

Going down in the quote book:

preface: In the car on the way to there, Zach and I had a conversation with each other about getting new bodies in heaven.

Which semi explains why Reagan proclaimed during the (open casket) visitation: "Take a good look, it's the last time you'll see him like that!"

Everything was really nice, it was so good to see everyone and the dinner at Eastview afterwards was really tasty too.

Here was his obituary:

NORMAL — Earl Edward Bruce, 95, recently of Evergreen Village, Normal, died Friday (Aug. 12, 2011) at Heritage Manor, El Paso.

His service will be at 2 p.m. Monday at Calvert & Metzler Memorial Home, Bloomington. Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery, Waynesville, with the Rev. Jim Smiley officiating. Visitation will be 12 p.m. Monday at the memorial home.

Memorials maybe made to the Eastview Christian Church sports program.

He was born May 31, 1916, in Lincoln, the son of Eddie T. and Lila Shobe Bruce. He married Carol M. Hudson on Dec. 11, 1937, at Kahoka, Mo. She died June 29, 2006.

Survivors include two daughters, Darlene Loy and Barbara Teuscher, both of Normal; one son, Terry (Val) Bruce, Groveland, Calif.; 12 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents; two grandsons; two great-grandchildren; one brother; and three sisters.

Earl had farmed in Logan County and had worked at Lincoln Developmental Center, Lincoln, as a firefighter for the state of Illinois for 22 years prior to retirement. He was a member of Eastview Christian Church, Normal.

Earl was a former semi-pro baseball player in Springfield. His son, a grandson and a great-grandson all played at one time for The Pantagraph All-Star baseball game. He was a lifelong Cardinals baseball fan.

Fishing

2011-08-25T06:37:00.000-07:00

Fishing off Bobbie & Billy's dock shortly after waking up (shout out to Bobbie!!)

Pajamas need not match at the lake.

Drew, Evan and my dad went golfing early one morning (as to not miss any afternoon time on the lake of course!) and so Grandpa took Zach out fishing. Debbie grabbed these two morning-fog pictures while I might have been still sleeping.

And here's Reagan posing with what they caught... one lonely fish =)

Debbie and I took Reagan out in the fishing boat, with her waving off all of my apprehension. Turns out she does know how to drive it! We made it back, but even if we couldn't drive it back... the wind would have drifted us in seeing as how we didn't bring an anchor! Fishing pros we are. We also proceeded to take really flattering pictures of each other and so those won't be surfacing the internets.

Yep still fighting the smile battle.

We thought fishing off the dock would suffice for the rest of the trip... it was much more lucrative and that way Reagan could also run down to show "his neighbors" his catches (shout out to Curt, Vicky, Rosemary & the kids!)

One evening the boys took Grandpa out fishing and Debbie, Grandma, Reagan and I went to the county fair (that post to follow!) Drew & Dad caught these plus a few more...

Nisswa Turtle Races

2011-08-14T19:31:00.000-07:00

The turtle races were of course on the to-do list on vacation last week. The concept is: you rent the turtle and then race it. It was something that we always went to growing up, even though we were never victorious. Past highlights have been catching one from the lake to bring in, a three legged turtle, and such turtle fails as ones that do not move at all.

Turtle races = place to be... man was it packed!

Americana bandana's gave us no luck =(

Drew's birthday! The last real important one! Just kidding!

2011-08-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

Last week when we were up at the cabin Drew had his TWENTY-FIRST birthday!

We cerebrated with ice cream cake, the casino, and a homemade anatomically-correct birthday card (the last one was from Reagan.)

Dad stayed back with Reagan while the rest of us went to the casino...

Once we got back to town, mom took us to lunch at Destihl to celebrate!

Don't you love when you benefit from someone else's birthday?? =)

Breaking News

2011-07-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Recently, a friend of mine brought to my attention the fact that I have turned into a centaur.

I have reacted with mixed emotions. This is exciting, as I really enjoyed the centaur-filled Disney movie Hercules. Unfortunately... where should I shop for pants at?

-------

I'm sorry our blog has been so boring lately, it's not because we've been bored- quite the opposite- we've just been super busy. We leave for the lake this weekend so your picture withdrawals shall soon be quenched! ha

eighty-niner

2011-07-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

Last week was Zach's great-grandma's 89th birthday! She's known as "Grandma Sugars." We celebrated with his parents at Joe's (neither Drew nor Evan was working- sad face) then with cake and ice cream.

Gone!

2011-07-18T18:12:00.000-07:00

I donated aalllll of my old dance trophies last week. It felt really good because they were sort of becoming more of a burden then something fun/nostalgic.

But wait, wait, wait... they weren't all dance trophies...

Yes, a Parkside Jr. High Office Monitor plaque. Be impressed.

Somehow I was awarded for roaming the halls aimlessly and delivering fake notes to my friends who were in real classes.

Lessons

2011-07-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

Reagan's been keeping busy with swim & golf lessons lately. I'm one step ahead of you, golf lessons? Yes. The plan was to have him do soccer and t-ball but we moved here too late and everything was full but golf.

My family is mildly golf-obsessed so they were fully supportive in this endeavor. Good news: he tolerated it!! No really, I was worried about how long he would last but he paid attention/followed directions for a good majority of the time (at least after I corrected the teacher and said his name wasn't Raiden and also after I told him sternly that putters couldn't be made into guns.)

The last few weeks he's also been taking swim lessons! These have been hilarious to watch. And since Drew lives so close to this pool he walked over to watch today which was fun.

Happy Birthday America!

2011-07-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend consisted of pedicures thanks to my mom, swimming thanks to neighbor Cathy and verrrry delayed fireworks thanks to Fairview/Normal Parks & Rec.

(my dad & Drew watched the fireworks with us)

Then R fell asleep during the finale... he can officially sleep through anything!

love this face

2011-06-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

Epiphany Carnival

2011-06-17T21:36:00.001-07:00

SO SO SO much fun!! My stomach hurt I was laughing so hard. R was fearless and insisted on "no-hands" for all the rides.

Look at the way I'm standing? I mean no, don't look.

I still can't believe he went on the "egg" one, he looked so tiny in there. But Zach said it didn't phase him at all, he was all about making it flip more. His favorite was the tilt-o-whirl, which is coincidentally, MY favorite as well =)

I love carnivals. Reagan (and def us too) had a BLAST!

No training wheels!

2011-06-17T21:21:00.001-07:00

I'm a little late to report this but Reagan has made the big move to strictly a two wheeler!! You better believe it. Here is an amateur movie of our shaky home videos, please enjoy the iMovie music. It should also go without saying to ignore any comments made by me, the audience (my mom) and the teacher (who was understandably, very proud that it only took his son two days to learn.)

Reagan :: Age 4 :: June 2011

Still on the agenda:

- learning how to stop

- not lying and saying you can't hear us when we yell for him to stop

Reflections

2011-06-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

Now that we are ~~basically~~ all settled in at my mom's house for the time being and I've passed my registry exam, I feel like I can breath and reflect a little on the past few years. We've lived on a college campus in pretty much one way, shape, or form for pretty much our whole marriage, so this next stage of our lives is going to take some adjusting.

I griped about Judson a ton but it really did treat us well and we wouldn't have met so many great people if it weren't for them so I'm glad we choose to go with JU in the end. It's hard to believe that we were 20 and had a 1 year old and moved to a totally new place where we didn't know hardly anyone.

Scratch being just glad, I'm definitely happy we did it and even though it was hard, it made us a better family so I wouldn't change anything.

Some things I'll miss...

Campus walks. This campus was so pretty no matter what season. Here's a photographic depiction of one of our daily walks taken last fall...

(That big orange building was the library and was directly behind where we lived so you could probably see the top of it in a lot of our pictures from our backyard.)

Moody Bible radio. Probably one of my most favorite things about living near the city. And once I realized I could download their app, I listen to it about twice a day. You know I love me some talk radio.

Things I will not miss...

Carrying flu saturated laundry down two sets of exterior stairs in winter blizzard conditions. And for that matter, I will never ever. ever. miss constantly scrambling/saving quarters. Plus the basement itself was just super creepy. For instance I found this in it once...

Carrying outside toys up and down basement stairs every time we wanted to play with them thanks to our new non-child friendly neighbors (of which Reagan kept referring to as "big momma.")

The kitchen. Mostly the oven that cooked everything in half the recommended time, had no light, no timer and no window.

The hill in our carpet Zach put in our first week there by trying to run cable to our bedroom. Two years later it's still there.

Proud:

Increased driving capabilities. Just a reminder, our first trip up Zach made me drive to "practice," which resulted in me crying and us switching drivers on the interstate. Now I'll drive anywhere at anytime with minimal panicking.

Made new friends. And really great ones at that =)

It's good to be home!

Excitement!

2011-06-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

I passed my boards!!! Pretty much everything I've worked for wouldn't matter if I didn't pass my registry exam so needless to say I'm SUPER excited and mostly relieved. Thank you to everyone who's congratulated me, definitely couldn't have done it without everyone's help =) Katie, Casey and I's tests were at the same time so we went up to Schaumburg together and all passed! It was nice to have someone to share the nauseousness feeling with pre-test.

Actually, this picture isn't from that day, it's from when we went to try on bridesmaids dresses and then we stopped by the restaurant next door to the bridal shop where our fellow classmate, Emily (middle), was working.

So glad it's over!

Happy Anniversary!

2011-06-08T01:18:00.000-07:00

FOUR YEARS!

I'm really glad I get to live life with him.

That face...

2011-05-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

When I looked back at all the pictures from graduation, these made me laugh out loud. Oh Reagan, how we love you.

Okay, promise this was the last post regarding graduation!

Ceremony

2011-05-27T08:06:00.000-07:00

So last Friday, May 20th, was our graduation ceremony. I don't have a picture of all 14 of my group but here's the 4 of us girls.

Beth, me, Casey & Katie

Zach was down in Blo-No getting the house ready for us to move into and so these 4 came over to decorate our caps the night before and Katie & Casey spent the night. I think they turned out pretty darn cute! When we spotted our teachers in the crowd they were giving us the evil eye but I know they secretly loved them.

Close up of mine... (A for Ashley, not necessarily my average grade)

Zach's parents, Chris & Kristi and his sister, Sofie

My parents, Sheila & Steve

My brother Drew

No one should ever take pictures standing by themselves. It's always awkward looking.

Then afterwards we were all hungry but everywhere was closed so we went to McDonalds, which is where I would have rather gone anyway because my body works best when it is fueled with grease and fountain Dr. Pepper.

Grad dinner

2011-05-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

We had our graduation dinner a couple weeks ago! It was held at the restaurant the culinary arts majors work in at our college. I think everything turned out really well! My camera charger has been MIA so once again I only had phone pics. The nice non-blurry ones I stole from Casey.

We played it classy and brought Reagan a grilled cheese from home since they were serving salmon, but the staff ended up being super nice and bringing him out some chicken.

HOW CUTE were the desserts they made for us!

Reagan really wanted soup so he wrote it on the other side of his place card. And he took it very seriously.

My mom was able to come up! Unfortunately my dad got sick and wasn't able to make it =(

Reagan definitely passed out halfway through and slept through everything. Thus proving my point he can sleep through anything, including us full on changing his entire outfit. The hard part is to just get him to go to sleep.

Fun night!

LAST...

2011-05-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

Last day of clinical!

These pictures didn't turn out very well, and we are missing two people from our St. Joe's group. We had a really fun day, everyone brought food and we had a "Hot Dogs w/ the Works" theme. We also played "how well do you know your students?" and everyone had to answer questions about us. I also found out I could still do a scorpion, by doing it in the lunchroom. FYI this is a scorpion. Awesome, a proud day in my life that wasn't embarrassing at all.

Last day of class!

Pictures taken purposely sitting in our personal seats for the past 2.5 years.

Don't start me on how weird it's going to be not seeing these girls every other day.

Reagan's last day of school!

This was emotional for me, the school here has been where Reagan's gone since I've been in school. It's been the only place he's gone besides Grandma Darlene's. It was hard being in a place where you had no family nearby and trusting other people to take care of this little person for you. Everyone there was so great and smart and accommodating and best of all they genuinely loved Reagan, which is something I loved them for! Over the summers when Zach was away playing ball they were always more than willing to help out, especially to encourage me to take extra time to study or anything I might need. Reagan loved eating breakfast with Ms. Lisa and Ms. Karin the days I had to be at clinical before the crack of dawn. I learned so much from all the teachers and was really sad to have to tell them goodbye.

Instagram basically sponsored this post

2011-05-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

I think it'd be more fun to just dump the pictures off my phone then type out a long update on us... I'll get around to doing that sometime after this week of finals, graduating and moving commences.

For Mother's Day we cooked out at Zach's parents then us "moms" went on a bike ride on the constitution trail. I love how close Chris & Kristi live to it, it's awesome! What's not awesome is the unflattering shirt I'm wearing.

I made Reagan try rollerskating again. It did not go over well and boy did he let me know.

Last week I got rear ended (no damage) then a couple days later I paid it forward to someone else (mucho damage.) The car in front of me was all, "not so close, I'm not that type of car." Then the next day I locked Reagan in the car at the mall for about an hour, while also wearing another unflattering shirt. It wouldn't have been that big of deal except that he was asleep and so he couldn't unlock the door. Who knew his awesome trait of being able to sleep through anything would come back to bite us. Don't worry, I just threw a bag of quarters at the window until he woke up drenched in sweat.

Drew & Zach hate getting into the car after I drive. We made banana splits on the grill= chunky PB + mini marshmellows + choc. chips

A family photoshoot.

a regular kat von d

2011-05-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

Zach has had his done for about 4 years now... and we finally got around to getting mine done. It took approximately a minute and a half. This is probably the only time you'll see it because my ring completely covers it (a factor I was very adamant about.) Tony came up one weekend and met us in Blo-No and through a series of hoops he got his first tattoo at the same time.

So there you go, my first and probably last tattoo.

Just want one normal family picture.

2011-04-27T17:18:00.000-07:00

We're going through this painful smile phase with Reagan right now... we took these series of pictures for Easter.

When Zach and I weren't closing our eyes...

...Reagan was shooting us these faces. (Check out the hand action he works to concentrate on his smiling)

This has officially been the second post revolving around Reagan's eyebrows.

ps. I couldn't remember his name so I literally typed this into google "flamboyant man actor beard throws confetti" and Rip Taylor popped right up.

Easter #intheO11son

2011-04-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

sorry charlie, left my camera at home so these are all iphone pics. love us through it.

Williams

Meiners

Ooo that one's hard to reach!

Drew: HASHtags, HAshtags, hashtaaags...

NEONS

2011-04-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

When we went back home this weekend I cleaned out my closet and found these gems from my childhood. Of course I made Reagan try them on.

eggs

2011-04-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

Here and there

2011-04-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

All this talk about the "Royal Wedding" made me think of an earlier "Royal Wedding." And sigh... basically Grace Kelly is just beautiful.

Why was I not raised in this era? Rude.

But to my delight my grandma has saved some of her clothes for me. Sometime I need to dedicate an entire post to the all the awesomeness she has gifted me with. Seriously, with every visit she pulls out another beauty she "just happened upon."

Also, Reagan decided it was due time to shave his upper lip the other day. Consequently and almost immediately, he received his first nic as well.

Thirdly, I need these swimsuits.

Here: Here

Also, Kidlark's monthly desktop calendars are always gorg. And I'm mad at myself for abbreviating that.

Lastly, my grandma collects old Reader's Digest books and I'm having her save them for me so I can put them on my hypothetical wall of white book shelves in my fictional house. Once you take the jackets off of them they have the most beautiful hardbacks in these fantastic colors. Well after the fact, I saw these pictures from here, then patted myself on the back for coming up with the idea all by my-average-self.

In hindsight, I'm not sure why I thought any of this was blog-worthy?

Grilling out

2011-04-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend we took advantage of this awesome weather as much as we could. Today, Andy & Erin, Nick & Ashley and Jason came over to usher in the new season with some grilling. I made this amateur iMovie of phone videos from today because I like to avoid doing schoolwork.

They'll all graduate this year (just a few weeks!) and we discussed how crazy it is that they've known Reagan all his life. All three boys were at his first birthday party back at Heartland and in my first Mother's Day picture, I've hemmed all their pants many-a-time, and Erin used to bare through all those windy cornfield games with me. So glad they ended up here at Judson since we're pretty much guaranteed to run into one of them everyday. =)

In other news, Easter is in a couple weeks and we can.not.wait. to come home!

SB 2011: (final) round 3

2011-04-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

Last post I promise!

And I am well aware these are all majorly Reagan-heavy.

Sorry I'm not sorry.

Act surprised when you see him wearing this same thing for Easter =)

SB 2011: round 2

2011-04-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Grandma & Grandpa's upcoming birthdays with some red velvet cupcakes! Mmmm...

Reagan got his own bicycle this time and did awesome! I was so proud of him.

SB 2011: round 1

2011-04-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

My Mom, Reagan and I went down to Pawley's with my grandparents last week. I guess it's the one part of school I don't hate, still having a spring break! Zach had to work and missed out on all the fun but we still video chatted with him a bunch. And as always it was so good to see Grandma and Grandpa, plus the weather was great! The day before we left Pawley's Island to head back to their house in Greenville, they took Reagan back in their car and my mom and I were able to spend a few hours in Charleston. For some reason I got no pictures that day? We definitely need go back there though-- so pretty! And I died over the houses.

Pictures from the archives

2011-03-31T22:14:00.000-07:00

While we were visiting my grandparents I asked my grandma to find me some old pictures of them and boy did she deliver! She showed me some really great ones from when they were little (I hadn't really seen very many) and some fun newspaper clippings from their golf escapades. I was able to scan a bunch and save them to a CD so now I have copies of my very own!

For example these two from their honeymoon in Myrtle Beach...

Kind of awesome, right?

Barbershop 2

2011-03-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

We just got home from spring breaking it in South Carolina, we had so much fun but I'm too tired to do all those pictures. I do, however, have these from my phone from before we left! (I had just gotten this polaroid app so I apologize if you get annoyed that they're all in this form.)

Shaitie invited us over to Shain's house for some dinner and then I begged Katie to school me on the art of hair cuttery. Zach and Shain both needed cuts so the timing worked out well. I'm so glad she's patient.

After dinner we threw on a movie to distract the child and then got down to business.

She even decked us out in authentic apparel! ("its the worst when hair gets in your bra")

Doing it to it.

Striking a pose afterwards... anyone notice the Paul Bunyan shirt?

Reago my ego

2011-03-13T16:23:00.000-07:00

It's been weighing on me that I never wrote anything special for Reagan's 4th year of life. I jotted down a few things that Zach and I obsessively adore about him.

I love Reagan. Like where-in-the-world-would-we-be-right-now-without-him kind of love. I'm sure I'll feel the same way whenever we have another baby but right now, that's just hard to fathom. Zach and I talk about it all the time, but he has been the biggest blessing we've ever received and we feel really lucky/humbled that we've been entrusted to raise him. Us really? He's been our test child and although it's been hard it's been way more fun this way!

A few things I want to remember about Reagan from right now:

He is super observant.

He has an amazing memory (he gets this from Zach.)

He has great spatial resolution, he can really see something out of nothing. Ex: V's upside down A's, H's are sideways I's, hanger as antlers....

He is very gassy and he totally owns this.

(on our walk today to feed the Geese)

Needs his pillow to be cold, has me flip it for him all the time.

Can be very bashful! When his class sang Happy Birthday to him, he refused to stand up, make eye contact with anyone or even break a smile.

Wants a brother or sister really bad and is always picking out things for his nonexistent future "baby."

Gives great compliments.

If you have boobs he'll probably try to poke them. They must be foreign to him or something because I'm no help.

Can navigate through my iphone at the same level as me.

Asks really great/challenging questions about Jesus. Also makes really awesome comments about him like; "Jesus put a seed in my poop to make it grow big." Ahhhhh, boy to the core.

American Legend: Paul Bunyan

2011-03-11T18:49:00.000-08:00

I found these old Disney cartoons from the 40s and 50s about American Legends on YouTube... (think Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Johnnie Appleseed, etc.)

Reagan loves them all but his fav is definitely Paul Bunyan.

Little did he know that, until the age of 15, I made an annual trip to...

wait for it...

the Paul Bunyon Land of Brainard, Minnesota!!

The theme park was only a little ways away from the cabin so every summer during our trip to the lake, we'd have to stop by and pay tribute to Paul.

Paul back in the day...

Shortly before the park was torn down... to be replaced by a Sears.

The boot picture was mandatory. How did he always know our name?!

I'm so glad I was smart enough to buy Zach a t-shirt before Paul was torn down, he started coming up to the lake with us that next summer. That shirt was a great buy seeing as how he still wears it at least once a week. In the picture below, where Drew & I are babies, I'm sporting it... the best part, where it's tied on my hip most likely with a scrunchie, is cut off.

Barbershop

2011-03-08T14:55:00.000-08:00

Zach decided that this child really needed a hair cut...

So he turned our teeny bathroom into our very own ghetto little barbershop...

Garbage bag-make shift cape? You know it.

Looks so old now... sigh =(

A post that drags on about nothing really

2011-02-15T20:10:00.000-08:00

I saw these yesterday driving through the mall, they were amazing up close!

One night a while ago, our electricity went off while Reagan was taking a bath. Thankfully my flashlight app saved the day and lead to a really creepy looking bath experience.

More about apps; that night the electricity was off forever and so I demanded people to play me in my favorite app "words with friends for free," basically scrabble. I'm so glad Katie introduced me to this in class, such a productive use of our time!

Anyway, I really love beating my Mom. And Katie. =)

I'm all about pinching a penny but I've come to the conclusion through experience, that sometimes it's worth it to choose quality. I've compiled a list of things you should splurge on and things you can fake it with.

Splurge:

Saran wrap
French Onion Dip (Lay's in particular)

Fake it with:

store brand milk (I came in contact with a fellow shopper at the grocery store who said she grew up on a dairy farm and they filled up the Dean's jugs right next to the generic jugs. And since we go through about 2 gallons a week I appreciated this tip)
some pops (a certain Dr. Perky is darn near close to Dr. Pepper)

I've also made a list of things I excel at...

I'm good at dropping food on the bottom of the oven

And I'm good at spilling the communion cup on myself in church

Reagan is really good at touching his tongue to his nose

And in true V-day fashion, I've compiled a list of things that I like about Zach and I's relationship.

-The other night we entertained ourselves before bed by timing each other to see how long we could hold our breath.

-I fondly remember an evening where Zach was awayon a baseball trip and I admitted to him that I was bored and had watched all of Reagan's birth video that night. He reassured me that instead of going out to dinner with the team, he had stayed back to finish a puzzle.

-Recently I had Zach read aloud a text to me and he finished with "lots of laughs." It took me a minute but then I asked him if he just read "LOL" aloud to me. Then I asked him if he thought LOL stood for lots of laughs? He did. It was a month ago and I'm still "laughing out loud" as I type this.

-And a quote I hear quite often from him: "Stop purposefully itching my back bad so I'll tell you that you don't have to do it anymore."

Picture to the left circa 2005? Picture to the right circa 2011 (courtesy of Reagan)

Birthday happenings and other fun things

2011-02-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

First of all, we have a four year old now and even though he seemed four anyway, it's still hard to say aloud!

Secondly, the last week has been busy. Luckily I did a fair job of documenting it!

Last weekend was the Christmas party for one of the hospitals that I rotate through (because its normal to have it in February.) I assure you we all had our men with us, they just don't appear in any of the pictures.

My size twin Katie & I

Me, Casey & Katie

Me, Katie, Beth & Casey

My mom & max graciously came up to celebrate a little early birthday for Reagan and do a little babysitting for us too.

The Hambo's were in Chi-town last weekend so we got to hang out with them a few times. We miss them but what's new. I still can't get over Locy being a little girl and not a baby.

Monday was Reagan's birthday and he had school so I brought in treats. I let him pick whatever he wanted. We went to the bakery and checked out cupcakes, sugar cookies, and brownies, then I took him to look at maybe ice cream sandwiches.... and what do you know, he insisted on chips and french onion dip! So I made these little super Reagan bags with chips, dip and flavored water boxes and they were a hit. I kept wanting to add more things to the bags but Zach kept reminding me that Reagan wasn't a girl.

Zach had Monday and Tuesday off so we drove down to visit Tony at his new house in Quincy. Tony got a new job down there around the first of the year and we haven't been down to see him yet. I know Zach was missing him just a smudge. I don't think Tony has missed a birthday of Reagan's yet, so they figured it was only fitting that we spent it in Quincy? (Side note, I was telling someone the other day that the list of people who can pick Reagan up from school is really odd since we don't have family close by. For a while it consisted of baseball coaches and their wives, aka Reid & Sam... and a random-no relation college student, aka Tony.) Anyway he made us a nice caesar salad and a darn good birthday cake!

On our way back home, we stopped in Blo-No for lunch with the grandparents and Sofie. And I even agreed to meet at Chuck E. Cheese. Because I'm weird, I've never let Reagan go before.... however, I'm sure you'll all be glad to know we survived. =)

Expected snow post!

2011-02-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

Reagan and I's snowman the other day, complete with corncob pipe!

The flu's been going around our house but Zach was feeling a little bit better yesterday and wanted to make a big snowman for Reagan utilizing all of our blizzard snow. Reagan and I watched from the window above and Zach threw snowballs at us every once and a while (see picture.) The pictures don't really accurately represent the dimensions of the snowpeople, the tallest one is about 6 ft tall. I would have expected nothing less from Zach, haha, and it seemed like it took him about a month to finish.

p.s. Add making a snowman to the list of things that are harder to do than you remember. It joins flying a kite.

Reagan makes me laugh

2011-01-27T05:46:00.000-08:00

He kind of wants glasses and so he often pretends this mask is spectacles.

I woke up one morning to find Reagan contemplating the world.

New pillows

2011-01-26T18:03:00.000-08:00

I hate getting my sewing machine out and putting it away and then getting it back out again, so while I had it out to do some the projects I finally got around to sewing some pillows for our couches. I want to show these pictures to Grandma Shadoan and my mom because they both helped me with the first one, and thus get the ball moving on the rest, over Christmas.

We bought the couches (there's a love seat and arm chair in addition to this sofa) when we got married and so if my calculations are correct, Zach has had to listen to me gripe about these awful pillows for about 4 years now. I couldn't stand them but was always too lazy to recover them.

For Christmas my mom got me a few pillows, that I might have suggested, and then she and Grandma helped me pick out fabric and get started. I'm glad I had them to get my butt moving because I really love how they turned out and wished I would have done it sooner. Plus my Grandma is like a fountain of knowledge when it comes to sewing so I'll always take a chance to learn more from her.

(I put an arrow to the three that were bought, all conveniently from TJ Maxxxxx)

This one turned out to be my favorite but I hate the amount of time and tedious work it took to complete.

Title

2011-01-20T17:47:00.000-08:00

Started my last semester this week! Before we went back to school here's a few things we were up to:

We organized our nasty storage unit in the basement? Our unit looked like it had vomited on all the other units.

After:

I know it doesn't look like much but Zach and I could not stop praising ourselves and giving each other ~~butt slaps~~ high fives.

Okay, we have been doing a few more exciting things...

For instance, we basically visited the set of Twilight.

It was magical and rainy, just as I dreamed.

This is going to be an understatement but Olympia, WA is absolutely gorgeous. And beware, the trees and mountains of Washington, literally kick a$$ and take names.

I was horrible at taking pictures but interestingly, I got the most pictures at a place called Dirty Dave's Gay 90s.

Me, Reagan, Reid, Locy, Sam, and Reid's mom Karen (Zach had to stay back home and work... wah-wah)

We really missed them. Like, whoa.

Reid was only on drugs for a little bit of the time we were there.

Reagan and I had incredibly gracious hosts... and in all seriousness we love them so much and are truly thankful for their friendships.

Also over break, I hemmed the baseball pants again this year... and while I had the sewing machine out I made a few of Reagan's pants into shorts. He has this awfully boyish habit of tearing holes into his knees. I wanted the jeans to fray a little bit so I didn't hem them like I did the cords, I just surged the ends a little to keep them from fraying too too much.

I also made ice in our ice cube trays. This is monumental... Since we both hate this task, it only gets done about once a month. Therefore we have ice about 5 days out of the month. Your welcome to our home any time for a glass of lukewarm lemonade.

A birthday shout out

2011-01-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

Today is my Grandpa Meiner's birthday and I thought the UofI alum might like these pictures of Reagan =)

2010 mini-reflection

2011-01-05T18:19:00.000-08:00

I can't wait for school to finally be over, I can't wait until I can spend my time doing things I want to do. One thing I can't wait for is to be able to read books-books, and not text-books. Over this little Christmas break I have, I declared (silently and to myself of course) that I would do more craft projects and read a few books that I had heard were good. I started with Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist.

It was supposed to be about getting past the sucky parts in life and embracing the everyday tiny joys (paraphrasing here.) I don't get into sad stuff here on the blog, but if I'm going to use this as a place to look back on later than it needs to be said that this year really sucked. There were peoples divorces and almost divorces. Too many new beginnings to wrap my head around. Lots of stress for various different reasons. Towards the end of the year Zach & I had a miscarriage and subsequent surgery, that also I'm still trying to wrap my head around. By the time December hit, I was begging for 2011 to start. I have the tendency to be bogged down by the negative things and this book was good at showing me the contrast between life's vastness and minuteness (word?). On the whole, I wasn't totally in love with Cold Tangerines and it's definitely not a book I'll read again; but she did make me feel like I was chatting with a friend and I did find myself writing down a few tidbits and tabbing a few chapters that would be good to go back and read again.

Some of those tidbits that are really good to be reminded of:

"Today is enough, God is enough." "Everything is interim." "I can't live there in the disappointment anymore. I've missed whole seasons of my life. I look back and all I remember is pain, or I don't really remember at all." "A friend really, and truly, from Jesus." "Choose Joy." So true! mothers' prayers go "please, please, please.... thank you, thank you, thank you..." and something I really want to grasp: "being thankful for the complicated joys that come from loss."

Turkey leftovers

2010-12-31T07:31:00.001-08:00

After Thanksgiving and now after Christmas I've been using these two turkey recipes a lot.

Brown Rice Turkey Soup

1 cup diced sweet red pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup sliced celery
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons butter or stick margarine
3 (14.5 ounce) cans reduced sodium chicken broth
3/4 cup white wine or additional reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cups cubed cooked turkey breast
1 cup instant brown rice
1/4 cup sliced green onions
Directions

In a Dutch oven, saute the red pepper, onion, celery and garlic in butter for 5-7 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add the broth, wine or additional broth, thyme and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in turkey and rice. Bring to a boil; simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes or until rice is tender. Garnish with green onions.

I like making soups because I can get Reagan to eat a ton of vegetables that I normally wouldn't. He's not a bad vegetable eater, just not good at opening his vegetable horizons sometimes. I threw in some extra celery and lima beans to this soup. I also used regular brown rice, not instant, so it absorbed a lot of the chicken broth and I ended up adding 2 more cups of it the next day when we had left overs. I almost think it was better the next day!

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Turkey Tetrazzini (from Taste of Home's Complete Guide to Country Cooking)

1/4 cup margarine

2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup half and half cream

1 tsp parsley

1 tsp salt

1/8-1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp pepper

3 tbsp dry white wine, optional

3 cups cubed cooked turkey or chicken

8 oz. spaghetti, cooked and drained

3/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese

additional parsley

In a skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Cook mushrooms until tender. Still in flour; gradually add the broth. Cook, stirring constantly, until sauce comes to a boil. Remove from the heat; stir in cream, parsley, salt, nutmeg, pepper and wine if desired. Fold in the chicken and spaghetti. Transfer to a greased 13 in x 9 in x 2 in baking dish; sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until heated through. Garnish with parsley.

I tried a few different tetrazzini recipes and now this one is by far my favorite and go-to. I think it's the nutmeg. Zach and Reagan both really like this one too.

Top Moments of Christmas Twenty-Ten

2010-12-27T19:14:00.000-08:00

We got to spend lots-o time with family!

Reagan got roller-skates. In one word: hilarious.

Christmas eve morning (hence the no make-up), before we started to cook away, Grandma brought my mom and I two aprons she made for my great-grandma 40 years ago =)

Emily and I got our very own copies of the family tree! (Ignore my uni-bang)

My Grandma Shadoan helped me recover some pillows. I've been wanting to do this for ooh about 4 years now. Whole post on this to follow!

Chris & Kristi got Reagan... and Zach... and Drew nerf guns. It's been so much "fun" picking up all those nerfs!

Reagan got a suitcase and he wears it/pulls it constantly. At this moment it is "packed" and hanging on the front door to go see Reid (for next week.) Don't you dare call it a backpack, it's a "suitcase on his back." And yes, it's Toy Story... don't judge.

And other random pictures...

Ugh your so annoying Dad... (I have about 5 more pictures from here of Zach doing this and Reagan being unamused)

Handy trick! Tell your child the wall is falling and we need their help holding it up. Gets them to a.) stand in the same place for a period of time, b.) stop touching everything in sight.

Santa stuff!

"Yes! French onion dip!"

Friends in far places

2010-12-18T06:10:00.000-08:00

Hey remember when this little person was born?

And Reagan and I got to spend lots of time with her?

And play airplanes with her while Reagan stole my camera?

And I got to converse with her mother on a regular basis? And it didn't matter that we were both really successful with answering our phones because we'd see each other IN PERSON within 4 hours anyway.

I mean, I guess I miss them.

Lately

2010-12-17T15:49:00.000-08:00

You better believe it, I'm updating! I was a major slacker for the month of November/December. Partially because I've misplaced my camera. Then I had finals. And I could give you about a 1000 other excuses too but here's my make-up/catch-up post instead:

Reagan has been busy being Reagan. We went to the Baby Fold's Festival of Trees this year and got tickets for "Breakfast with Santa." The trees were beautiful as always. Santa however was struggling a bit, suffered a heat stroke and was transported to receive medical attention before Reagan could see him. Luckily a Santa still made an appearance before it was time for us to leave.

Awkward for both parties involved. He wouldn't even touch him with a stick.

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Funny story! Last week in the car I think Reagan meant to ask me to "turn around" but instead he yelled "bend over!" lol

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Zach has been working AHHHlot.

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On to me.... ONE MORE SEMESTER UNTIL I GRADUATE! We went as a class to the RSNA convention downtown at McCormick Place one day. It was huge, nerdy, crowded, freezing, rushed and sometimes very interesting. Here is the only picture I took and it was of Beth and I putting our make-up on when we were riding in on the train.

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One weekend was Zach's dad's birthday. We met them at Olivet in Bourbonnais (half between here and Bloomington) for lunch and then they took Reagan swimming for the afternoon/evening while Zach and I went to the Colling's wedding (Zach played with Phil at ONU way back when.) Here's Zach and lady laser eyes and then of course the grooms cake.

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Grandma and Grandpa came up to see us one day.

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And one day Reagan woke up with a huge scratch on his lip and I thought he was looking a little My Best Friend's Wedding-y.

Feeding an addiction

2010-12-17T02:53:00.000-08:00

LeDrew James

2010-11-28T17:41:00.000-08:00

I know the quality isn't that great, but I thought a few people might like to see this of my brother Drew, I cannot stop laughing about it.

(This was from today's ISU basketball game and he's obviously the one in the yellow shirt.)

Warning: content is very boring

2010-11-16T16:20:00.000-08:00

Firstly:

I came across this recipe for homemade dishwashing detergent a little while ago. I waited until we were out of what we had to try it. To my surprise I was able to find everything on my first try, and at Meijer.

via

1/2 cup of borax

1/2 cup of washing soda

1/4 cup of citric acid (you can also substitute 5 packets of unsweetened lemon kool-aid in a pinch)

1/4 cup of kosher

salt

I tried to find the citric acid but had no luck. Word on the street is that you can get some from your local bars? I used the lemon kool-aid, then when I needed to make another

batch I didn't have more kool-aid so I skipped it all together and I don't think it really made all that big of a difference, they probably just weren't as "shinny."It looks pretty cute stored in the mason jar I use. Oh, the distilled vinegar is for your rinse cycle.

Final say: I liked it! And it's cheaper. And I like having borax and washing soda on hand now. You know for the day I decide to banish electricity from our house and make Zach wear coveralls.

Secondly:

Who's is this??? We've been sleeping with it for about a year now and I still haven't figured out where it came from.

Now for my rant about quilts: They are the best!!! They don't pill. They are the perfect weight for sleeping. Who notices if they wrinkle. And the nostalgia factor is through the roof!

So down with fancy Bed, Bath, and Beyond comforters that you feel drawn to register for at your wedding, use them for a couple years, then realize how quickly they disintegrate. Go quilts, take my word, they will not disappoint.

Pictures just because

2010-10-31T20:36:00.000-07:00

Playing outside yesterday climbing trees...

Then running into the tree and crying. Talent: Reagan is a fantastic pouter.

All Hallow's Eve

2010-10-31T18:03:00.000-07:00

I know I got this post up pretty fast but at exactly 6:43 pm I had already received this text from Drew "We want pictures of Reagan!!"

This year Reagan was a cowboy for Halloween and his costume was majorly inspired by these two pictures of Zach:

Chris and Kristi kept the shirt to the left and we found the rest.

pretty soon he was over pictures and literally ran away from me (but what's new?)

Thursday was his party/parade at school. Zach and I were both able to go and were in total heaven watching him interact with all his friends, its seriously like a sitcom with no commercial breaks. And unfortunately for his future high school teachers we let Reagan know how hilarious we think he is... talk about ego feeding. Shall I mention how many times I've been pulled aside by the school's director and her assistant letting me know how hard it is to discipline him without cracking thanks to his comebacks and snide remarks? (because of course he's already been sent to her office on numerous occasions. And has been known to sometimes ask to just go and hang out with her? Weird.)

Our sweet sweet angel =)

True story: most of the parade was spent macking on the ladies. Scariest part of Halloween for Zach and I!

The man behind me in both of these pictures is an assistant in one of the classrooms. This genuinely perplexes Zach.

They wrapped the parade up with a little party that included snacks, pin the nose on the pumpkin and a little gourde painting.

Between carving the pumpkin, doing carmel apples this week (i'd post pictures but Reagan is in his skivvies and the way he's posed in a lot of them unfortunately don't leave a whole lot to the imagination,) the whole school parade/party extravaganza and making other festive halloween treats... it totally felt like Halloween was over by the time Sunday got here. We were lazy parents and didn't do the trick-or-treating thing this year and it actually worked out awesome because Zach had to work tonight and so Reagan and I just got to chill out, sip some apple cider, watch It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and make "mummy hotdogs."

Have I never posted child pictures of Zach on here? Just do this; post date every picture of Reagan by 20 years and slap Zach's name on it. That's what he looked like =)

I'm posting this one in addition just because it is very "Reagan."

Fall evening and late shift dilemma

2010-10-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

Thursday we had the perfect fall night. Crock pot filled the house with the delicious aroma of a big juicy pot roast, we carved pumpkins, and then I cooked pumpkin seeds for us to eat while we had a family movie night!

This week I was scheduled to be the PM shift at the hospital for clinicals. The shift goes from 3 pm - 11:30 pm. I don't like it for a multitude of reasons and now I will share those reasons with you:

The obvious: you get home at midnight.

You might have no exams for 2 hours and then 20 minutes before it's time to leave the ER will explode with things like a gun shot wound to the hand. I can't be just be like, "oh I know this women was beaten unconscious with a baseball bat and it would be a really good study for me to observe but I have a test tomorrow on quality management so I want to go get some sleep."

I'm always scheduled the week we have tests! Clinicals are Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then class is Tuesdays/Thursdays. So the morning after I work at night is class/annoying test day.

On my way to my car in pitch-darkness: I have to find Omar the security guard to walk me to my car, have 911 already punched into my phone ready to be alerted, or be talking to Zach on the phone if he's still up.

Good things about the late shift

At 8 o'clock, eat all the food vendors leave to seduce departments to buy their products.

My husband surprises me with these for when I get home

Mom's Birthday

2010-10-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

My mom's birthday is Monday and according to Reagan she will be age 4 and a half, "like the kids in the big kid room!" She came up here to spend the weekend and we filled it with lots of eating and shopping, two talents we naturally possess. Zach had to work pretty much the entire weekend, but Saturday morning he had free so he watched Reagan while us girls went out and about.

Being regal (left) :: Sushi snacking in the car, maybe contradictory? Also if it looks like she is super strapped into the car it's because my mom is sporting her "seatbelt" purse which she has been known to confuse with her own car seatbelt. (right)

Maybe we should start having Reagan stand for pictures with my mom because they are literally the same size now (see picture on the right please.)

Zach was working, but I wanted a picture so naturally we handed the camera to our 3 year old.

The mastermind managed to capture this beauty of us:

Links to previous birthday posts about her here and here.

A couple weekends ago was ISU's homecoming and Sheila had a Corphyee mini-reunion with some of her dance team girls! I told her I'd post some on here so Grandma Shadoan could see them =)

They all even brought their jackets! lol freshly dry-cleaned

cute, huh?!

Hope you have an AWESOME birthday Mom/Grandma!!!!