AZ Baby Shower

The first week in March, Ashley and I flew to AZ for the weekend for a baby shower with my friends and family out there. We had such an amazing time. The shower was so incredible! I couldn't believe how much time, effort and details my stepmother, sisters, aunt, cousin and best friend put into the shower. I was overwhelmed to say the least. The food was perfect, we had more people show up than anticipated and the games were hilarious. We couldn't be anymore blessed to have the family and friends that we do X 2!

Happy 60th Birthday Tom!

Yep, today is our dear friend Tom's birthday today. He is the BIG 6-0! We hope you have an amazing birthday because you definitely deserve it. You are so kind, thoughtful, genuine, generous, always put others first, and you are spoiling our child before he is even born! LOL

Happy Birthday Tom! We love you and wish we could be there to celebrate with you!

Ice Cream Waffle Sandwich

When I was a little girl and I would spend my summers in KS, my Aunt Sharon would serve my cousin Tanya and I breakfast in bed. My favorite was (and still is) the infamous ice cream waffle sandwiches. You can make them with any type of frozen waffles and any type of ice cream or yogurt. It is like a little piece of heaven first thing in the morning. :-) To this day, I still make them and always smile at the memory of my aunt giggling as she walked in knowing how excited we would be at the sight of this delicious treat. Ahhh, childhood memories!

24 Weeks!

Baby Blanket

My amazing Grammie had made a baby blanket for each one of her 7 children and all of her 20 some grandchildren. The above is my Aunt Judy's blanket that Grammie had made for her. Mine was green, but very similar. When we found out that we are having a baby, I really wanted to carry on this tradition for our baby. I spoke with Aunt Judy and she agreed to help me get started. After searching through many patterns online and in the store, we ended up finding one of the exact patterns that Grammie used. I knew that was the one! In fact, I think this is the pattern that she used for my blanket (I would check, but it is in a box up in the closet all packed away). So when we were home for Christmas, Aunt Judy and I got the supplies and ironed on the pattern onto the 12 squares that will be used for the blanket. I got off to a slow start, but I have completed 6 of the 12 squares (see below). Halfway there! Once I finish embroidering all 12 squares, Ashley (hopefully future sister-n-law) is going to help me sew the blanket together. I think it will be great for Thomas to have a piece of his great grandmother w/ him and I honestly think of Grammie all the time while I am working on it. I think she is proud and watching me from above.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Found this recipe browsing around on Pinterest just before Valentine's Day. I thought, what a perfect sweet to make for my hubby. His 2 favorite cookies in 1. Wow, are we glad I found this delicious desert (my weight isn't, but we are)! A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Especially right out of the oven when the Oreo is soft and warm too. I took some to our community church group for Valentine's gifts and saved the rest for Randy. I asked him last night if he wanted me to save all of them for him and he said "YES". Normally I try to send sweets with him to work for his coworkers. Not this time. Enjoy!

Happy Valentine's Day

Woke up this morning to a scavenger hunt created by my amazing sweetie. I searched in the freezer, the closet, the pantry, under the chair, in the blinds, in a book, and ending with a pretty, little box (with BEAUTIFUL earrings in it) behind books of the bookcase. Totally unexpected because we weren't supposed to be doing presents, but totally appreciated! Hope you all have a wonderful day of LOVE! <3

Ready for a Stroll

Got Thomas's stroller last night! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! I was so excited to see it, I had to open it last night and put it together all by myself today. :-) I love it when things look even better in person than they do online. Of course, this is the highest rated infant car seat on Consumer Reports. Only the best for baby Mars!

Yes, Precious had to be in the picture. I got her to tilt her head by saying "grandpa".

What a deal!

We have this amazing consignment shop here that carries children's and maternity clothes. Yesterday I stopped in and got a pair of maternity jeans for $1.38 because they were 75% off. They are trying to get rid of all their fall clothes and having this 75% off sale until they do. I got to thinking last night, maybe I should get Thomas some fall/winter clothes for next year. So, today I went in and got 12 pieces in 6-9 months for $13.18! I was shocked when she gave me my total and happily pulled out cash for this purchase. LOL Some of these clothes even have the tags left on them! I will definitely be making trips to this shop from here on out.

Great Quote

"Do not ask the Lord to Guide your Footsteps if you are not willing to MOVE your Feet"

Author unknown

Halfway There!!!!

We had our 20 week appointment on Friday where they do the full check up on Baby Thomas James via ultrasound. The US tech said that he looks perfectly healthy! Yay! It was funny though because he was moving around like crazy, she had a hard time getting his measurements. In fact, he was the most active yesterday than I have felt so far. Needless to say, he has been pretty calm today. I think he pooped himself out. Ha Ha So cute, we love him to pieces already!

In this picture you can actually see his chin, mouth, nose and eyes. Absolutely beautiful!

Belly Shots

Pictures of my growing belly :-) I tell Randy that

my stomach has never looked so tight. LOL

It's a BOY!!!!

Monday I had to go in for a couple things and they mentioned that they might need to do an ultrasound. I started panicking because I couldn't get a hold of my hubby at work and if they did an ultrasound, we may be able to determine the sex. Ok, so I thought about it after and I guess I could have turned my head so I wouldn't see the US screen. Luckily, as the ultrasound tech was walking me back to the room, Randy walked in. Thank God because almost immediately we got a shot of our little boy's genitalia. I thought about posting a picture of the ultrasound, but it doesn't seem right posting a picture of our son's private parts online. :-) You'll just have to take our word for it. It's a BOY! We still have our 20 week appointment on Friday where they do a full ultrasound check up. I am sure then we will have a cute picture of our little boy w/o private parts.

Soon there will be FOUR!

Yep, we are expecting our very first baby around June 8th! :-) I should say human baby because you all know that we consider Precious our little baby (which is why I say four). We are now 18 weeks along and super excited! We get to find out if our baby is a boy or girl on the 20th, 13 more days! This ultrasound is from 10 weeks so I am sure the next one at 20 weeks will be even more beautiful. I have been feeling great with no morning sickness. I was one of the lucky 25%. I have however been super tired all the time with very little motivation (the house, laundry and cooking has been slacking quite a bit). Poor hubby. :-( Luckily, he is super understanding. Family is very excited as well. We also have a cousin that has a baby due on June 10th! June is going to be an incredible month. More to come soon!

Also, God is so amazing that Randy and I were baptized together the week before we found out. We had no idea that we were pregnant and that there were three of us being baptized. What a true blessing this baby is!

Butterfly Cupcakes

A friend of ours asked me to make cupcakes for a baby shower that she was hosting.

She needed 40 cupcakes that were strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting. I thought

I would need to figure out a 'baby' theme type cupcake, but she wanted butterflies and/or

flowers in pinks and browns. So off to the Internet I searched!

I found this idea for the butterfly cupcakes, which was amazing! They look impossible to make,

but they were pretty easy. The only thing is that they do take a good chunk of time. I made the butterfly wings, flowers and the cupcakes (3 boxes) on Friday and made the frosting and

put them together on Saturday morning.

I tried to use this idea for the flowers, but mine did not come out as pretty. The

foil was to help us to pull them out of pan. They are not the design. LOL

I enjoyed the butterflies. :-)

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

Today is my hubby's birthday, but we had his big dinner with the family on Saturday.

Since his favorite cookies are Oreos, I figured why not make him an Oreo cupcake for his birthday dessert. Ashley sent me this recipe and to say that they were delicious is an understatement. You actually put an Oreo at the bottom of the cake batter (I used double stuffed Oreos). :-) The frosting was an amazing cream cheese frosting that I will definitely be using for other flavors of cupcakes. Thanks Ashley!

Couple things about this picture:

Yes, Randy is holding Precious on his lap. I think SHE is the love of his life. LOL

No, his dad is not texting. I was late grabbing my camera so he was looking for his camera on his phone.

Yes, that is football on the TV on a Saturday night. Football, in fact sports in general, will ALWAYS be on when the Mars men are around. :-) Gotta love them.

Since when?

Did people start celebrating divorce?

It is very hard to see but this car has 'Just Divorced!' with married between the words and crossed out, on the back windshield. I saw it at school and tried to get closer so I could take a better picture, but didn't have the nerve. I thought it was very sad. :-(

Mike and his girlfriend (hopefully our someday sister-in-law), Ashley, made this awesome picture for my birthday. I had mentioned, ok I asked her, to make one for us when she had time. I had always seen pictures like this that say 'Love', 'Faith', 'Family', etc. and love them. The only problem is that they are pretty pricey. I remembered that Ashley is an amazing photographer (among her many other talents) so I asked her to make us one with our last name. It turned out fantastic! She also printed out the pictures in black and white so we could switch them out if we wanted to. She may custom make and sell them on Fairview Place (which is her online store). You can also check out her blog Stick Baby and the Snail to see some of her amazing work .

We are extremely lucky to have her and her talent in our family!

Lemon Cupcakes

For my birthday this year I had asked for a cupcake frosting kit. Not only did I get a frosting kit, I got a bunch of stuff to make and transport fancy cupcakes.

I was super excited to make my first batch of cupcakes and luckily we celebrated our birthdays this weekend. I asked Ashley, Mike's girlfriend, what his favorite cake and frosting flavors were and she said lemon and cream cheese frosting. Funny thing is that I would have never thought to make lemon cupcakes, but I was up for the challenge. I did some research for recipes and found this recipe http://www.carrottopmom.com/?p=764 . I think they turned out pretty delicious. The frosting was super sweet though so I may have to play with that a little. They sure did look fancy though, didn't they? LOL

Blessed another year

Ok, I need to brag about my honey for a moment. Since I have been dating Randy, I have kept my recipes that I have printed, cut out of magazines, or had pulled off food labels in a big ziploc bag. This was kind of a pain when I actually needed to find some of my favorite recipes in the ziploc bag. This drove Randy (Mr. Organized) nuts anytime I pulled that bag out (which was pretty often). So for my birthday this year, he bought the binder (above), took clear sheets and put the recipes in each sheet, labeled the dividers, and printed out a cute cover. Luckily Eve was in town to help him because it turned out to be a couple hours of work. Isn't he extremely thoughtful? I absolutely love it and it has already made finding recipes MUCH easier.

Eve came into town for Labor Day weekend to visit and spend my birthday with us. We had an amazing time relaxing, drinking wine, catching up on girl talk, going to The Revolt for dinner, going to Virginia Beach to visit the family, and relaxing some more. What an amazing birthday to be able to have my very best friend come visit me. I truly hope that we live in the same state one day. I really miss her, but know that I am so blessed to have a friend like her.

Randy also made my birthday very special. He spoiled me with lots of gifts including the book above. Also, for dinner, Randy had dropped off champagne and an ice cream cake at the restaurant earlier for us to celebrate my birthday. Again, super blessed!