My Very Own Pot Roast Recipe

Well, I wanted pot roast...and bad! I did my usual search and scan for recipes but nothing was "suiting" this pregnant craving of mine. I decided to "invent" my own recipe and it turned out pretty awesome. The only thing I might do different next time is add a teed more salt. I just wanted to post a quick blog for my future reference regarding the recipe. Feel free to use for yourself.

I started with an almost 4 lbs Beef Chuck Pot Roast (boneless) that was thawed completely. I wanted to slow cook this all day for that "fall apart tender" look and taste. So I put 1 chopped onion, about 15 baby carrots chopped into thirds, 1 package of mushroom gravy mix, 1 can mushroom slices, and 1 can of cream of mushroom with roasted garlic soup. I stirred all that to mix well. Meanwhile, I took about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and heated it in a pan until really hot. I seasoned both sides of the roast with salt, pepper, and cummin. Then I added that to the hot pan and seared the roast on all sides to seal in flavor. After that was done, I added the roast to the crock pot. I then added about 1/4 cup water to the hot pan and worked all the bits of drippings from searing the roast into the water. I poured that over the roast in the crock pot and turned it on low for about 8 hours.

That roast was so tender I used a fork to break up the meat and the gravy was awesome over my mashed potatoes.

It's A Boy!

I finally had the "big" ultrasound. You know, the one where you get to find out the gender if you want to know. Of course, we wanted to know! I am THRILLED to announce it's a BOY!  Oddly I kept feeling like it was a girl, but really really really wanted a boy! I mean after all, Kristina is 19 and will be leaving home soon and Kenton is only 5, he needs a playmate! Seems everyone in the family was happy about the news too!

We got some great shots of the baby, too. In the top picture, he's looking right at the camera and his eyes are WIDE OPEN, and you can see his little fist right at the top, too. The bottom three pictures show him from primarily his left side. First showing him with his ankles crossed and arm/fist up by his head. He kind of has his face snuggled up into the placenta. The second picture is almost a double image. It shows a semi-great face shot, but then he moved so his fist is partially in the way. The third picture shows him kind of rubbing his eyes with his fist and you can see his lips, cheeks, and ear.

We are still deliberating over names but have it narrowed down....we really like the "K" tradition that we have going on. However, it's been sooooo hard this time around finding a name everyone agrees on, or that we can find any middle names to go with. This baby is our last and we really want to make it unique after all we've been through. We found a name that means, God has been gracious and shown favor. How awesome is that given the road we've been down? The name we are leaning most towards is Jaxson Kole Naval...we'd call him "Jax". We think this baby won't mind his "K" name being his middle name with such an awesome first name, and if it does really bother him, he could always switch and go by Kole later on. Other names still in the pool vary between Jaxson Raylan or Rayland Jaxson. Both of these derive from the main characters of TV shows we LOVE and they represent some pretty "billy badass" characters. We think Jax will be a perfect fit in our world of K's.....

Kenton Starts Swim Lessons!

Kenton finally started Swim Lessons. I was beginning to think the boy was always going to hate pools, but he started showing an interest finally so we signed him up! He started liking the pool a couple months ago on a random trip. So to test it out I took him to our local indoor waterpark. I knew he was ready when he started trying to "dog paddle" in the big wave pool! Success! So I contacted the base and found out when the next round of lessons would be and signed him up. We only had to wait a couple months and it's only $45 for the month. Not too bad, so we dived right in. He has five other kids in his first class and all boys. He seemed to really love it and is very excited to go back for the next class. He'll be going twice a week for the next month. This is great for him! If he's anything like his dad or mom, he should be a regular fish in the water. I'm really excited for him!

Honey Lime Tilapia

Yesterday my son Kenton asks me, totally out of the blue, to have fish for dinner. My guess is because we've been watching a lot of Food Network and he is really LOVING trying to make things he sees. Anyway, I knew we had some frozen tilapia, so I promised him we'd have it the next night (tonight) after I could thaw it out. This was an unusual request from him because he doesn't like fish normally. I only recently got him to try (and he loved it) shrimp. In fact, the only real fish eater in the family is my husband, Kyle. I do occaisionally like halibut, a basic white fish - nothing too fishy for me!

Anyway, today my mission was to find a tilapia recipe I could both pull off and hopefully win Kenton over with. I wanted his "fish experience", particularly since he requested fish, to be a good one and one to set a precedent for him for liking fish because it's a healthy choice. I went to my old faithful Pinterest boards and searched through tilapia recipes. I chose the one I chose for several reasons. First because the picture made it look pretty good, second because the blogger said her husband wasn't a big fish eater either, and he loved it, and third because I had all the ingredients on hand and it just sounded like it might be pretty tasty!

As soon as I realized this recipe called for a marinade I started preparing it. I had about 2 hours before it would be time to make dinner and according to the recipe it only needed a minimum of 1 hour to marinade. Thank God the fish was thawed at this point!

Here's the recipe, from Pinterest. I didn't have any lime or lemons on hand, but DID have a container of Lemon Juice. I just used it instead of lime juice and simply omitted the lime zest. Also, the recipe just calls for honey. Living in Alaska, I had some special Alaskan Fireweed Honey on hand so I just used that. It's just a lighter colored honey with great flavor. I'm sure that any honey would be just fine though. After I got the marinade ready and fish in it, I just put it in the refrigerator and flipped the "bag" about every 30 minutes and marinaded it for just under 2 hours. Lastly, I don't really know how to make fish very well, but I followed her directions exactly regarding 3-4 minutes per side without disturbing it much. My fish came out perfectly done! It is a delicate fish after it cooks though so be careful with it and use a spatula to get it out of the pan so it doesn't fall apart.

Honey Lime Tilapia
Serves: 4

Ingredients

For the fish and marinade:

4 (4-5oz) tilapia fillets (thawed if frozen)

Juice and zest of 1 lime

1 Tbsp olive oil

1½ Tbsp honey

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1/4 tsp garlic powder 

 

 

 

 

 

For dredging and cooking:

½ cup flour (I tried both white flour and whole wheat pastry flour with good results)

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1-2 Tbsp olive oil

 

Instructions

1.    Assemble marinade by combining lime zest, lime juice, olive oil, honey, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a gallon-sized zip-top bag or shallow container with a lid. Add fish and marinate in the refrigerator anywhere from 1 hour up to 24 hours*.

2.    When ready to cook, combine flour with salt and pepper on a plate. Remove each fish fillet from the marinade and dredge lightly with the flour on both sides (just a light, light coating).

3.    Heat 1-2 Tbsp olive oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Cook fillets 2 at a time for 3-4 minutes per side or until opaque and browned (this works best if you don’t disturb the fish much while letting it cook).


Notes 
*If you want to plan this meal in advance, you can prepare the fish and marinade in a large freezer bag and keep it in the freezer. Move frozen fish and marinade to the refrigerator the morning you plan to serve the fish and allow it to thaw in the refrigerator. It will marinate while it thaws!

Is there such a thing as Asian Comfort Food?

These chilly, wintery nights make me yearn for some old Southern Comfort food. However, that's not always an option. Tonight I was trying to figure out what to do for dinner as the winds picked up outside. My daughter had asked for meatballs again, "like the ones I made last time". Those aren't homemade, or even mine for that matter - these are just simple frozen meatballs from Costco. They are a chicken Teriyaki & Pineapple meatball. Last time I made them, I made them in chicken broth wth ginger and served with rice. But I remembered the sweetness of the pineapple and teriyaki not being as smooth of a taste as I liked.

Teriyaki & Pineapple Meatballs

That being said, tonight I decided to jazz them up a bit and maybe make them a bit more "home-ey". My son is coming down with a cold and is losing his voice, so I knew the chicken and ginger would be good for him. Plus, last time I made them he LOVED those meatballs and I knew this could be a good way to get some "ginger remedy" in him.

This time I wanted to stay along the same lines but wanted something "thicker". Tonight I used Cream of Chicken soup as the base. Then I added two chicken bouillon cubes with a cup of water, a tablespoon of chopped garlic, a tablespoon of parsley, a tablespoon of butter, a teaspoon of ground ginger, and a small can of mushroom pieces and set the meatballs to simmering while I got the rice going. After about 20 minutes, that sauce smelled like heaven - and tasted amazing too!

Teriyaki & Pineapple Meatballs

I gave my son a taste and he tried to act like he didn't like it, but I saw him grinning and licking his fingers too! After the rice was ready, I drizzled some sesame oil and soy sauce over the meatballs and stirred that in to the sauce. That really gave it a nice smokey flavor. I served it up with the meatballs & sauce over rice and stirred well. That was the closest thing to Asian Comfort Food I've ever had or made...best of two worlds and a hit with the kids (Kenton ate every last little bite of his)!

Pinterest Is Awesome

This morning I decided my sewing room need a little TLC and "winter cleanup". I found several projects awaiting my return. I was able to complete 4 of them, LOL! The biggie was patching jeans... When I went in there, I saw and remembered these jeans my husband has been hounding me patch up for him. There were 4 holes that needed patching and I'd tried patching the 2 big ones previously. Unfortunately I'm not the queen of "mending" things and my little sewing machine has a hard time with heavy duty materials.

Anyway, I searched Pinterest (which is my new habit for tips & ideas) a while back and came across this jean's mending blog. This lady is awesome. I put her tips to test this morning and it worked out great! For jeans, the style seems to be that anything goes for the "look" anyway. This tip used fusible backing as a stabilizer to hold the hole together and allows you to do a up & down motion to fix the hole and yet continue the "distressed" look of the jeans that is fashionable anyway. I was leary but it worked, even for me and my unskilled sewing self and machine!

Jean's After Patching

These are Kyle's yard work and utility jeans anyway, so if they came out screwed up, it would still be better than paying huge amounts of money for new jeans to work in anyway. Here's some pictures of the final product. I was quite happy with the results for "work" jeans and being able to extend their life. Thank you Pinterest for providing yet another invaluable tip!

Jean's After Patching

Kenton Gives To Those Less Fortunate

Kenton - job well done!

Today has been a pretty special day for us. Kenton learned about those less fortunate and stepped right up to the plate to share some of his good fortune. Over the past few weeks I've been noticing his room is looking more and more consumed by "stuff". Toys, magazines, books, cars...you name it, this boy had it! The sad thing is that he never touched most of it anymore, and it was just eating into his play area.

This morning I decided today would be the day to talk to Kenton about donating his older, gently loved toys to little boys and girls that don't have anything - or only have very little. A few months ago, he was super responsive about donating some of his older clothes that were too small for him for the same cause. Surely, this should go well too...but my secret fear was that it wouldn't and he'd have issues with this. Shockingly he could hardly wait to get started!

This morning I sent him into his room right after breakfast to "pre-screen" those toys. "Sort them into piles of what to keep, what to donate, and what to throw away" is what I told him to do. I told him if there were toys that were broken or missing parts they needed to be thrown away, and if he didn't play with certain toys anymore maybe some other child would just LOVE to play with them! He ran into his room and jumped right in to it! After a few minutes, I joined him with the sorting. All I had to do, was hold the trash bag and he told me what he wanted to do  This boy even gave one of his favorite teddy bears to my unborn baby. His room looks SO much bigger! He was SO excited to do this and kept talking about how happy the other kids would be to get those toys.

He even helped me to load the bags in the car and take out the trash. My heart swelled with pride - my baby is GROWING UP!! We drove the stuff to a donation center and I rewarded Kenton with lunch at McDonalds! All in all a great morning - 'tis the season and it feels great to "give".

Garlic Butter Shrimp - It's What's for Dinner!

Garlic Butter Shrimp

I love it when I head into the kitchen with an idea in mind, and no recipe to follow, yet dinner comes out perfect! Thanks to my mom, I think I have a pretty good palate and that gives me a good sense of creating recipes.

Tonight, I knew I wanted to make something simple involving shrimp and pasta. I had no cream to make an alfredo sauce and nor did I really want a cream based pasta. So I decided to saute up some butter, olive oil, chopped garlic, salt, and lemon juice. Then I added in the shrimp and eventually the angel hair pasta cooked in salted boiling water. Topped it all off with parmesan cheese, and boy was it tasty! Even my son loved it and finished everything on his plate.

All that was left now was to decide what to have for dessert. Mainly because Kenton had a great day at school and deserved a treat, but secretly I wanted something a little sweet too! Kristina convinced me to get some lemon bars last time we went to grocery store. I thought that make a nice clean finish for dessert. As I write this, it is chilling in the refridgerator!

The ultimate test will be when Kristina gets home from work and eats. I'll know it was a hit if there's hardly any leftovers after she's done in the kitchen.

2012 Recap

I decided since my hiatus caused a disruption in posting all the big things that happened this past year, I wanted to post a "review" to highlight some things from 2012.

Most of my friends and family already know, I retired from the Air Force medically in Jan 2011. Since then I've pretty much been a stay at home Mom, enjoying my days with my son Kenton. That year FLEW by. That took me to 2012, which has been a bitter sweet year.

In Spring of 2012 my daughter graduated high school! I can't believe it - already?  My heart shattered, yet soared with pride at the same time! She was very happy to be done with high school and is ready to move on.

My beautiful daughter with her diploma.

She was just glowing that day.

In Fall of 2012 my son started Kindergarten! Another "I can't believe it - already?" moment for me. Kenton has really enjoyed Kindergarten so far. He loves riding the bus to and from school. I think his favorite thing might be "show & tell" each week.




With big sis on first day of school.

 

Here is Kenton with Kristina on his first day of school. If I had been thinking properly I would've used a better camera to capture the moment. He was very excited to go to big boy school that day!

 

I was really impressed with his school. They had a Back-to-School Picnic a few days before school started to welcome everyone back and to orientate new students. He got to meet his teacher, see his classroom and school, play on the playground, meet new friends, and they served hamburgers, hot dogs, salad, cookies, brownies, sodas, juice, and water - all at NO cost to the families. It really set the "positive" tone for him!

 

The next thing they impressed me with was for parents of Kindergarteners. They had a Tears & Cheers event the morning of the first day of school in the cafeteria. These parents could meet up, and have coffee and cookies and share their joys and sorrows for a couple hours as their "babies" started school for the first time. They never had anything like that when my daughter started Kindergarten.



Cell phone didn't take such a good pic here.

Kenton is learning Spanish this year in school as he was selected for the Spanish immersion program at his school. This is done by a lottery system and he was quite lucky to be selected. There is something so adorable in hearing him say his Spanish words!

 Maybe it's because I'm older, maybe it's just because they are different children, but Kenton is so much more excited about school than Kristina was at that age. I feel sometimes like I'm living vicariously through him. His enthusiasm and excitement is contagious and endearing!

Kenton turned 5 years old in July. It seems time really is flying by. He wanted a round cake that looked like a piece of candy this year, so that's what he got. For the first time, he was able to blow all his own candles out. It's been quite the year of firsts for him.
 
Just a few days after his birthday passed he lost his first tooth! It scared him at first, because he thought "the sugar bugs hadn't gotten it", but once I clarified it for him, he was super excited to see what the tooth fairy would bring him! Then a couple weeks later he lost his second tooth! That one didn't scare him - he was anxious for the tooth fairy to come again!


Kenton loses his first tooth!



This summer was also a bit of a sad time for the family and Kyle left for training in Mississippii. He is supposed to be there until the end of March of 2013. This was not a good time for that to happen, because we found out that we were expecting another baby in March 21, 2013 in July and this would mean Kyle would miss everything. The entire pregnancy and the delivery. He did however get to see the baby on ultrasound and hear the heartbeat before he left though! After all we've been through with pregnancy losses and complications, it looks like this baby is going to make it just fine. As of writing this, I am a little over four months along. We still don't know if it's going to be a boy or a girl yet though.

3 Different ultrasounds, about 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks along.

We are looking forward to Halloween this year. Kenton wanted to be a scary ghost. So we got him a costume that fits the bill. He is very excited to put it on and go trick-or-treating this year. We also painted pumpkins for the season, rather than carving and he LOVED that!

He now asks me if we can paint them more because he loved it so much. I'm thinking I'm going to have to get some more pumpkins for him to paint.

Hear are some pictures of him painting his scary pumpkin with a spider, bats, and polka dots!

 

 

All in all 2012 has been a FAST moving year with lots of firsts! I wish I had been better about keeping this blog up to capture all of them, but hopefully this post captures some of the good moments!

 

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this 2012 recap to date.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Blogging Hiatus - Discontinued...hopefully

Wow - ee - wow, it's been A WHILE!! There's no excuse other than, well, life, for my hiatus. I've been gone so long that I forgot my blog site's address. It was while reading other friends' blogs that I remembered my own, neglected blog site. I am going to try my hardest to remember it now. There are just too many things that happen in life, with family, society, and technology to NOT be blogging about them. It is afterall, like an online journal as well. In thinking about it, I'd like my kids to have some "record" of the things that were important enough to me to write about. Maybe one day they'll get a kick out of it, or treasure my posts.

So, give me some time to reaclimate myself to the blogging world and the changes that go along with it. Then, I hope to be blogging away again happily. 

To be continued...

John Edwards "Crossing Over" Psychic Medium

Last night I went to see John Edwards here in Anchorage. The show only lasts about 2 hours, and he spent about 20 min on 2-3 groups of people. I figured time was up for me and I wasn't getting a reading. He randomly gets "pulled" to people to read as their loved ones come through. He asks that if he comes to you that your entire party stand up with you. I was the last person that he "sought". Interestingly, he didn't have to weed me out of a group of people to figure out it was me he was looking for. I was surprised that it was actually me, but had been somewhat expecting it all night. Then he asks me, when I was coming over here, you knew I was coming to you...how did you know that? I told him that my friends and family tell me, and I know, that I am intuitive. He goes on to say that he is there with a "father-figure" of mine. I'm not sure who he's getting at, because my fathers are both living. He clarified it was a grandfather type. He then asks me if I had lost babies. I immediately tear up and think of the twins. I tell him yes, I lost twins in November. He says well they were here right? Compared to all your other losses? I say yes, I had to deliver them stillborn. He says they were girls? I say yes. He says the father figure has my girls and they are fine. He asks if they were my 5th or 6th loss...I say yes, they were my 6th. He then goes on to say, oh, you are pregnant now? I say yes, and he says how this one going? I tell him it's not looking good though. He asks why and if they've figured it all out yet. I tell him not quite and they can't see the baby. He tells me a story about how if you see a stray dog and fear it, he will know and use it to control you (the dog that is). He tells me that I am being that way with fear about my pregnancies...and I need to relax and just be optimistically cautious. He asks about my other kids, and tells me when my son is 4, that I will have my baby. He goes on to say that all my babies that I've lost are there and waiting for me. I told him that I was just going to ask him that, he laughs and says well I just answered it for you. Then he tells me someone around me is pregnant, my sister is currently pregnant due any time. Then he tells me that he is worried about my health, rather than the pregnancy or baby. He asks me if I have high blood pressure, and I do. He then says I need to be prepared and cautious for gestational diabetes with either this pregnancy or the next one. He wraps this up by telling me, you are moving soon? I explain that yes, I am in the military and due to move in May. He says, Texas? I say, I don't know, but I am from Texas. He asks if I'm from the South Central part, and I say yes, San Antonio. It was pretty amazing...he knew things he couldn't have known if he weren't for real. I was VERY impressed! It was just awesome. If I ever doubted him before, I know now that he is for real, and won't doubt him again. This reading is just what I needed to put me at ease a little bit.

We Lost Our Rainbow Baby

Today was another one of those awful days where you feel like you just had to have been having a bad dream. I went in for my OB appointment and ultrasound, and learned that we'd lost the baby. I was about 9 and a half weeks along. There it was, plain as day on the ultrasound. Before he even said anything I knew, it stopped me dead in my tracks and mid-sentence when I saw there was no heartbeat and no movement. I will be going in the hospital tomorrow to have another D&C since nothing has passed on its own yet. Please pray for us. I'm petrified because last time we had this done I was hemorraging and had a near death experience. They made me sign consent forms for a blood transfusion today, if necessary. I've never signed those for a D&C. Then today they had to draw blood for some kind of specialized blood typing tests so they could have blood on standby for me, if necessary. It's in my records what my blood type is, and again, never had this done before. While she was drawing the blood, it was like watching someone suck through a straw at the bottom of an empty glass. There were tons of air bubbles, and my veins had clamped down and they were DRY. She told me this was because I was in shock....imagine that! They ended up having to stick me like 4 times because after she "forced" it out, the blood was damaged or something so they couldn't do the specialized testing and had to repeat the draw. Drama and trauma....think this shall me my new mantra.

First Camping Trip 2009

Well, we finally made it! Our first camping trip, in the camper we bought two years ago! The weather held out for us, and we made our escape to Lake Eklutna. All went well, with the small exception that the nights were slightly cooler than we'd expected and our our battery didn't last the whole night through to keep us nice and warm. That's okay though, we had tons of blankets and good sleeping bags with us!

Kenton had a great time exploring the wilderness and watching the camp fire. Here he shows us his pine cone that he found, and promptly tried to eat!

Kristina had a good time hanging out with our friend's son that went with us. We even got in about 3 small hikes - two on Saturday and a good long one on Sunday. Here's a couple pictures taken along the hike. Check out the water as it is still partially frozen over!

Lots of people were out hiking on Sunday we noticed, and apparently a few saw some black bears and their ever present "scat". We didn't see either (though we walked right by where they supposedly were at least twice), but we were making lots of noise since we had Kenton and Kristina with us.

On Saturday evening we took a small hike up to a meadow at the bottom of a small mountain and played a bit. Kenton decided he wanted to get a sneak attack in on mommy and tackled me! We all just really had a great time at this spot.

Kenton helped us get the camper all packed up on our last morning camping. Here he is getting "his" gloves on to help out! He is looking too adorable and growing up WAY too fast!

All in all, it was exhausting, but we made some good memories and got a few good pictures. It was just nice to get away! Enjoy the pics!

Moose Sighting

This weekend while we were out running around, we got stopped at a red light. I looked up and saw this moose strolling through the gas station, right past on the patrons pumping gas, and right out into this busy highway! These are some of the very real dangers of living in The Last Frontier, as we encroach more and more into "their" space. Amazing creatures though, and soon there will be many, many moose babies running around to watch out for too!

Other Updates and Goings-on

Kristina had another track meet this past weekend, and she took 3rd Place (in her heat) for the 100 m that she competed in. We are so proud that she's sticking with this and having fun with it. Personally, I think she's just doing it for the sun tan she's been getting at the meets! LOL -her freckles are already blooming again!! She's doing good though and really enjoying it! She will be out of school on the 22nd of May and done with track for this year. She's already on the count down because she's really excited to leave for Texas for the summer with her dad and for their trip to Disneyland in Florida. I'm just a little bit jealous, I have to admit!

And of nothing to do with this story, just wanted to share the "rock band" pictures for everyone to enjoy!

Summer is Here!!!

As you all know, I've been raving about our gorgeous weather these past few weeks. I mean, it's like my very first summer up here. We hit the mid-70's the other day and we weren't even out of April yet! In case you didn't know, that's almost unheard of for Alaska!! Anyway, good weather up here, after a very long winter and two pathetic excuses for summer, just BEGS to be enjoyed. Here's a picture of Kenton helping me get my planter boxes ready for this year's flowers.

He is just LOVING being outside! Every day when we get home from daycare, he will just fuss and fuss until we take him outside! One night we even had to pull his high chair outside and let him enjoy dinner on the porch when he didn't want to come in to eat! This past weekend, we were able to take him to the park in town. He loved the slides, but wasn't so sure about the swings! In other updates, Kyle finally got the yard thatched and we should have a beautiful lawn very shortly. Kristina and I went shopping at some local nurseries for flowers. The choices are varied and all the flowers here are SO vibrant and colorful this year. Here are some we settled on after Kristina helped me get them in the planters. The pictures just don't do them justice, but ah well.

Unfortunately, with all this great weather we're having, the mosquitos (or AK state bird!) are out in full force already! So each evening we enjoy the weather, we are batting off the bugs at the same time! To make it all worth it, Kenton got some new water toys to enjoy. He got a toy lawn mower that blows bubbles when you push it, he LOVES the bubbles! He reminds me so much of Daddy when he's out there "mowing the lawn"! He also got a slip-n-slide, and a beach ball that sprays out water. We are looking forward to many fun days this summer with these, since last summer was too cold and rainy to enjoy! A camping trip is in the plans for next weekend, if the weather holds out! Look for more blog updates with those stories once that happens!

Baby Naval Update

We finally had our first OB appointment, complete with an ultrasound. Found out that this time, there's only ONE baby in there and it has a great, strong heartbeat running about 118-126 bpm! It was such a relief to see that and to get such good news. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little bit bummed that there weren't two babies in there, but I am certainly thankful that everything was alright though. Simply because I'd worked myself up so bad - I was so nervous before that appointment. I mean, the last time I was in that situation it wasn't good news and that's a memory I will never, ever forget. The baby was measuring right on at 6 weeks and 4 days, which is where I was at that appointment. The due date remains the same for now on 20 Dec 2009. Our next appointment andultrasound is scheduled for 20 May 09 - can't wait to see how much this little jelly bean grows between now and then! Enjoy the picture, sorry it's A LOT grainy, but it's a picture of a picture.

Alaska & Photography

I'd forgotten how beautiful Alaska was. Last year ended on a very rough note for us...and I'd simply forgotten. I pretty much gave up on seeing the beauty in anything after losing the twins and lost my drive to take pictures. My husband, being the rock that he is, must have sensed my "fever" as the days get longer and the weather gets warmer and warmer. He took me out and bought me a camera and then took me out two days in a row to get me "snapping pics" again. I love this man SOOO much!


When you live somewere as beautiful as Alaska, if you like photography, you couldn't ask for a better back drop. I wanted to post some of my newer pictures on here for you to see. Stay tuned, as I "get my groove back" I will post some more! This will be our last summer in Alaska, and I plan to really live it up! We will doing lots of camping and hiking, which will surely entail lots of great pictures.

Sunday Ice Cream Run

The weather here was BEAUTIFUL today, and boy do I have Spring Fever! I simply could not take another day sitting cooped up inside our house, so I begged hubby to get us all out of the house. We ended up doing our once infamous Sunday Ice Cream Runs. This is a beautiful drive, about 1 hour south of Anchorage, down the Seward Highway. This drive runs along the coast line the entire way, and we get to see glaciers and ice chunks moving in the ocean along beside us. Today though, the tide was out, and we got to see the mud flats with chunks of ice beached! It was pretty awesome to see.

We saw a few dall sheep as well, but they were just too high to get a good picture of. Overall though, it was just a great day to spend hanging with the family enjoying the sites. I tried to get Kyle to do some family pictures by the water, but it was really windy and he thought it was too cold.....gee, it was only about 45 degrees.... that's a heat wave for us! Anyway so only Kristina and I got some pictures, she's my little dare devil!

The ice cream was delicious at our turn around point! I had the "polar bear", which was a coconut...that tasted a lot like the coconut snow cream I make myself out of snow! Kenton and Kyle had the sweet black cherry, and Kristina had a blueberry cheesecake and cookie dough - odd combination! Kenton literally savored the flavor of his for the next 15 miles home!

Just couldn't have asked for a better day! I love my husband, I love my kids, and I love Alaska scenary on perfect weather days. Summer is coming and I can't wait!