Mom Week Day 1: Matthew's Birth Story

Hey Guys! This week I am doing Mom week. As I am sure you know yesterday was Mother's Day, so I chose this week to be Mom Week. Today I am going to share with you Matthew's birth story. This is a story about the day my life changed FOREVER. I became a mom. It was the greatest day of my life. I wrote this just a couple days after he was born on an old blog of mine. I am editing some bits and pieces of it because of typos. I hope you enjoy.

I had my last doctor appointment on Friday, November 20th and they decided to induce me on Monday, November 23rd. I went the whole weekend mostly in bed to make sure that I didn’t go into labor on my own.

When Monday arrived, Matt, my mom and I showed up at the hospital at 5 AM. We were all excited, and I was extremely nervous. I was already dilated to 3 cm when we got there, so we were kind of hoping for a faster labor.

Within 2-3 hours I was dilated to 7 cm. I got my epidural and my pitocin and was just trying to rest. They also broke my water around 10-11 AM. But as the day progressed and they continued to check me, they noticed that Matthew still wasn’t dropping down low enough and that I was still at 7 cm. I also came down with a fever of around 102 degrees, which of course meant an infection.

After 15 hours of labor, 12-13 of which I was at 7 cm, they brought up the dreaded “C” word. I was terrified. A C-Section had been one of my biggest fears. I worried about what it would mean for Matthew and was terrified that I wouldn’t heal correctly. But, I was reassured and told that it truly was the best thing for Matthew and I. At around 9:30 PM they wheeled me into the little tiny OR. I had the shakes horribly from the fever. After a couple of minutes of getting set up they brought in Matt.

At exactly 9:47 PM on November 23rd, 2009, Matthew Dakota was born by C-Section. As soon as I heard his sweet little cry I started crying hysterically. I finally had my son, it was finally real. They brought him around to show him to me and he was so adorable. But of course they quickly took him over to get him checked on. Matt left me to take pictures of him and to take him to the nursery. As soon as they had him out they started pumping pain medicine into me. So after me getting to see him one more time before they took him to the nursery, I don’t remember much of anything.

At 2:30 AM, I finally got a chance to hold my son. I only held him for around 5 minutes because I was so drugged up and it was difficult for me to sit there without feeling like I was going to pass out. So, I sent him back to the nursery. But, he was just as adorable as the first time I saw him. In fact, he might have actually been cuter. Every time I see him I fall more and more in love with him. He is the greatest thing I have ever accomplished in my entire life.

Matthew was born at 9:47 PM on Monday November 23rd. He was 8lbs 5 oz and 21 in long.

Our Easter: Part 2

Hey Guys! Welcome to part 2 of our Easter Celebration! You can check out the last post on the blog to see why we celebrated early and what we did on day 1! For day 2, we went to Church as a family with my Mom and Step-Dad. Then, we went to JP's Mom and Step-Dad's house so Boo could do an egg hunt and open his Easter basket there!

JP got this awesome picture of Boo and I!

And I took a few really good pictures of the greatest boys EVER!

 

They got Boo a HUGE monster truck, a big pack of sidewalk chalk, an egg laying chicken (or pooping chicken as we call him) and some candies. He was super excited about everything he got!

And he had a really great time hunting for eggs the second day as well!

 

So there you have it! What did you do to celebrate Easter this year?

 

 

Our Easter: Part 1

Hey Guys! This year we had to celebrate Easter the weekend before Easter actually got here. Matthew will be at his Daddy's on Easter weekend, so we made plans to celebrate with him the weekend before. Our Easter will be posted in two different posts, one today and one on Monday. The post today is what we did on Saturday 4-12. We went to my Mom and Step-Dad's that day to do an egg hunt with them and to open Boo's Easter baskets.

First he got his basket from his Dranny and Bob Bob. He got a Power Rangers toy, a Rescue Bots memory game, Ninja Turtles bubbles, a light up cup, etc.

Then he got his Easter basket from JP and I. We got him Ninja Turtles balls, an Angry Birds game, learning games and candy!

 

And last we had the egg hunt where he proceeded to find all 47 eggs.

 

He had a great time and these are only a small few of the 155 pictures I took in just a couple of short hours. Don't forget to come back Monday and check out the pictures from our second day of Easter celebrating!

 

Top 5 Thursday: Valentine's Day Food Ideas

Hey Guys! Welcome to another Top 5 Thursday! This week I wanted to share some of my favorite Valentine's Day food ideas! Most of these are perfect for kids!


The first one is this super cute heart shaped sandwich. I love sandwiches and these one is easy to do, but definitely gets the Valentine's theme across.

Casey Rollins's pin on Pinterest.
This one is a perfect snack option! It is really easy! Just slice your apple, and then use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out the core. Next fill it with peanut butter, oatmeal, raisins, etc. Yummy!

Casey Rollins's pin on Pinterest.
This next one is another snack idea or it would be a great "dessert" idea for small kids. It is simply a couple of cereals and some yogurt bites. It looks so good! The pink makes it very Valentine's Day.


This one is a yummy little heart shaped calzone! You can fill this with all kinds of things for a yummy Valentine's Day dinner!


And the last one is a delicious heart shaped breakfast! Eggs in a hole is one of my favorite breakfast meals anyways, but using a heart shaped cookie cutter to make the hole is a great idea for Valentine's Day. If you are worried about the egg just being cracked into it whole like that, you can do what I usually do for Matthew and scramble the egg and place it inside the hole.

And there you have it! Lots of really simply Valentine's Day food ideas! What kind of treats do you like to make for your loves on Valentine's Day? If you try any of these, please let me know!

Holiday Home Tour

Today the Holiday Home Tour is going live on my YouTube Channel! YAY! It is my first video that I have posted on there. It isn't anything super special, just a slideshow of the pictures of our home décor. But it is there none the less!

For the blog today I am just going to show you a few of my favorite items in our décor.

This is in our living room. We keep the tray out with candles on it year around, but I knew it needed to be more festive! I purchased the 'NOEL' candle holder at Walgreens for $2! Then I picked up the pinecones at Walgreens as well for $2 a box (I believe there were nine pinecones to a box). I love the glow it puts off and the pinecones just make it really rustic which fits us and our home.

We purchased this ornament from a stand at our local mall. I've seen them in several different malls around here. I am not exactly sure how much we paid for it, but I love it! It has an owl for each one of us and it just makes me super happy!

I purchased this cute jar with the ribbon for only $1.99 at Walgreens. I knew it would be perfect for our kitchen table. I found the chocolate covered pretzels at Dollar General for $1 a bag.

I got this wood deer candle holder at Walgreens for only $4.99. These are the same pinecones as the table in the living room. I also picked up some flexible garland at Dollar General for $3. The candle in this is a gingerbread jar candle that I got for .97 at Walmart. It smells up the room so quickly and is AMAZING!

This is the same garland and the same pinecones that I mentioned previously. The wood 'Happy Holidays' came from Walgreens and I believe I paid $4.99 for it as well.

 

So there you have it! Those are a few of my favorite décor elements in our home! Go check out the video on my YouTube channel to see all of our Holiday Décor!

Top 5 Thursday: Christmas/Winter Decor Ideas

Hey guys welcome back to another Top 5 Thursday! Sorry I have been kind of MIA this week. I will explain that in tomorrow's post. Today we are going to talk about my Top 5 Christmas/Holiday décor ideas.



kentbrew on Pinterest.
I love this so much! It is so "wintery" instead of "Christmasy" so it is something you could leave up for the whole winter season. It also uses simple trays from Dollar Tree!


kentbrew on Pinterest.
This is so beautiful and so simple. Just several pillar candles on a cake stand surrounded by berries. This is another "wintery" décor idea.


kentbrew on Pinterest.
This is so rustic and gorgeous. I love how they use the wreath to be the 'O' in 'Noel'. And I love the white and greyish coloring.


kentbrew on Pinterest.
What I love about this one is how they incorporated the cheaper Christmas bows and the perfect holiday candies. It is really simple, but has a huge impact!


kentbrew on Pinterest.
I love the idea of adding some holiday décor to your every day décor like this. Just adding the ribbon, small wreaths and letters makes such a big difference to the mirrors.

So there you have it, my top 5 Christmas/Winter décor ideas. As you can probably tell, I am more into the wintery décor so that I can leave it up even longer. I really love the simplistic and rustic looks as well. What are your favorite holiday décor ideas?

 If you want to check out more of my favorite Chrismtas/Winter décor ideas you can check out my Christmas Décor board on Pinterest.

A Bit of Thanksgiving

Hey Guys! I meant to get this post done last week, but with my shoulder injury and then forgetting my camera at the other house, it got put off. Oops!

I was so excited to get a real full Thanksgiving this year! I haven't had a real Thanksgiving since before Boo was born. This year, we got to have two Thanksgiving meals. We had lunch at my grandmother's and then dinner at JP's Mom's house. I really just wanted to share a few of my favorite pictures.

At my grandparent's house we are all really competitive (there are a lot of boys in our family). For some reason my cousin's started competing about who has the better blood pressure. I was still eating so I didn't get pictures of anyone getting their pressure checked except JP. Then my medically trained uncle decided to teach my very not medically trained uncle how to check my grandmother's blood pressure. It was quite amusing.

 

These are just a few random pictures that I took while we were at my grandparent's house. My favorite is of course the one of my son picking his nose. Very classy. :) I love the look on my grandmother's face!

 

 

After my grandparents, we went to Jason's Mom's house. Matthew got to open his birthday gifts from his Grandma. He was so excited and loved everything. Then we ate dinner, which was AMAZING.

 

 

After that, lots of play time. Matthew absolutely loved playing with his Aunt and Uncle on JP's side. He even got to play with JP's Grandma for a bit.  

 

 

And nothing says Thanksgiving quite like horse rides from everyone!

 

It really was one of the best Thanksgivings I have ever had. I am so grateful to my family for letting us spend it with them. And I am even more grateful that I got to spend it with my two favorite guys! How was your Thanksgiving?