Little Girls and their...Trains?

Chucky Sue had a play date with her youngest cousin, Dorita, a little bit ago. She, her mom and dad, and her visiting aunt all joined us at our awesome perfectly toddler sized zoo to spend a fun Saturday together.

Dorita is a climbing expert, and has no fear about falling or animals gobbling her up in one bite. After visiting the big city zoo out in Oregon she was a pro at this.

And even though Chucky Sue is 10 months older, she prefers following instead of leading.

I love that the zoo is small enough that we can let the two toddlers drag us around and not have to worry at all about getting lost.

Chucky looks very grown up in this picture, I think it's her sassy attitude!

I love these pictures of Jake and Chucky Sue together, but to tell the truth I was taking photos more to prove to Jake how dangerous it was to have her up on that ledge!

 

The zoo has this cellphone text campaign, where you can win free rides on their dinky train (normally $2 a person so we've never ridden it!) Thankfully our large family got all the texting done for us and Chucky Sue and I got to ride for free! Chucky loved the ride once it started, but was a little sad that Jake had to stay with the strollers and diaper bags.

I had left the camera (D'oh!) in the stroller, so you can't quite see the anger and sadness she was expressing in the iphone photo.

 

I absoultely love watching Chucky Sue and Dorita play and interact with each other. They are going to keep us on our toes their whole lives the little scamps!

Family Summer To-Do

In and effort to keep from melting into nothing this summer in our un-air-conditioned house, Jake and I wrote up a list of fun summer-y activities to do with Chucky Sue this year, here is just a sampling of our ideas:

Go Camping*Visit Natural Bridge*Walk the Greenway*Blow Glow-in-the-Dark Bubbles*Roast Marshmallows*Make Ice Cream*Play at Smith Park with Cousins*Go Swimming at Splash Park

Look at Stars*Have a Sleepover*Pick Flowers*Take New Family Photos*Go Shopping

Find a Farmer's Market*Go To Mill Mountain Zoo*Visit Mamaw

Call Nonie and Papaw*Make a Blanket Fort*Give lots of kisses

Watch a sunset*Ride Bikes*Bake Cookies*Go to Story time*Fly Kites*Stay up late

I think we're well on our way to a fun summer!

Where Did Tracy Go?

What a poor neglected blog.

We've been in a rut since Easter. We haven't done anything interesting, just lived our lives day to day. No one wants to see posts about me cleaning my toilet or Jake working an extra shift.  So I'm slapping up some photos from my Instagram.

Maybe I should let Chucky Sue write some posts for me...

Hopping down the Bunny Trail: Easter Egg Hunts in Roanoke

Instead of driving down to our normal egg hunt (Missed you guys this year!) we stayed in town to get to know our community better- our neighborhood hosted one huge egg hunt, and a local cupcake shop held a much smaller one a few hours later. As much as I miss Radford, I love our new neighborhood!! You can walk easily to so many different places. We packed up our trusty stroller in the morning and headed out to hunt some eggs.

The larger one was run by volunteer teenagers (I think they were a youth group from a local church) so it was a little scatterbrained, but still enjoyable. They had lots of games set up for the kids, a few bunnies to pet, and a HUGE egg hunt. Chucky Sue just wanted to get the 10 closest eggs to her and be done. She gets that from both me and Jake- we don't like huge crowds either.  The eggs were filled with mini chocolate eggs and stickers, a huge hit for Chucky Sue.

We walked to a really yummy restaurant for lunch, then to the cupcake shop for the smaller, yummier hunt. 

They had chalk set out for the kids while the workers hid the eggs everywhere. Chucky Sue was so mad that she had to stop coloring to hunt those eggs. We only made her get a handful before letting her go back to coloring the sidewalk. Of course the best treat was the free cupcake coupon we found- Chucky Sue and I split her favorite- the oreo cupcake!

Once we got back home, we had to break out the chalk Nonie sent us! Chucky Sue decorated our back steps with beautiful scribbles, had me draw some of her favorite animals and I sort of taught her hopscotch- she really just runs up and down the squares yelling "jump-jumpy!"

Today was the "fun" side of our easter celebration. Tomorrow I'm going to try to focus on the religious side, remembering the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for me, my family and every soul on this earth.

"Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

- John 11:25-26

Anna Malls!

Jake whisked me and Chucky Sue off on a mystery date this morning. While he got Chucky Sue dressed, I was told to prepare for lots of walking and to bring our new camera. I had no idea where he was bringing us, but he had a sneaky smile so I knew it was going to be good.

The mystery date was to our local zoo- Mill Mountain Zoo! I was so excited! This zoo has been on our list of things to do in our area for years now, but we have never gone until today. It's literally 5 minutes from our driveway to their parking lot, but in that short drive we climbed a steep mountain road lined with beautiful blossoming fruit trees. The drive alone was gorgeous enough to merit a day out with the family. I don't know how we kept putting off the zoo with it being so close- It's definitely a go-to activity for us now!

The zoo is small, I knew that from online reviews, but it is a perfect size for little kids. It's not overwhelming or easy to get lost, I think the actual zoo covers 2 acres, if that. They don't have very many large animals- no elephants or giraffes- but lots of smaller mammals and birds. They also have a reptile house, but I only lasted long enough in there to snap a picture of a frog! Chucky Sue didn't stay interested in any one animal for a very long time, but really enjoyed saying "Hi" and "Bye" to each one- sometimes asking them if "They okay?" or "Where they go?". She loved the trails and stairs all over the place. This is a girl who loves going outside to walk up and down our sidewalk. She just really digs paved walkways!

Even though the zoo is small, they offer the same things the larger zoos offer- educational stations, zoo tours, a train ride, a playground, special event nights- concerts or visiting animal tours.  There's also a free park right across the parking lot with the Mill Mountain Star- the mountain can certainly be a day long event for a family with older kids.

We spent $14 for the whole family for about three hours, and would have stayed longer if Chucky Sue didn't need a nap. So locals, stop putting off going to this zoo- it's definitely worth a trip!

(Yes mom, click the pictures to make them bigger!)

Happy Birthday Chucky Sue!

Let's just move past the complete and utter disbelief that my little teeny weeny preemie is now a big strong TWO YEAR OLD, and go into a party recap shall we?

can't believe she's TWO!

sorry, that one slipped out.

The party was just a family affair, I'm not quite ready for friend parties yet- let me get used to doing all this for people who are stuck with me no matter what!! I apologize for the iphone photo quality, I had planned to use our point and shoot, but it died the morning of the party! We're looking into quickly solving that problem. (Remember you can click on any photo to make it bigger!)

The decorations were fairly simple- pink and purple balloons, rainbow colored pasta layered in glasses, and a pinkie pie on my chalkboard. I covered our table with butcher paper and had crayons out so the kids (and silly grown ups) could color on it.

I also made a crayon melted rainbow thingy. I had wanted one for her room for a while, so for about $5 I made this as a dual purpose decoration!

Coloring the pasta was a lot easier than I thought. A few tutorials on Pinterest had me worried about finding time to heat up the pasta to keep the color from bleeding. But after a few tries, I found that mixing the pasta with food coloring and a touch of vinegar then letting it dry completely before playing with it was just fine. Chucky Sue has played with the rice a few times since the party and unless she truly slobbers all over it, she comes out of it clean as she went in.

nice bright colors, forgot to put purple in before snapping the pic though!

This cake. Oh. This. Cake. Jake has been hearing about this cake since AUGUST. That's when I first joined Pinterest and saw my first rainbow cake. (There are so many of them on there now!) I spent about 5 hours over two days making this dang thing and I was very pleased with the results. It was my first time using anything but buttercream to decorate a cake. I rolled the fondant a little too thin because you can see the blue and purple layers through the white- but I covered it up with all the other decorations. Coloring the white fondant was easier than I expected. The internet experts had warned me that adding liquid to the fondant would just make it a horrible sticky mess. I was able to color them just fine by adding a little powdered sugar and kneading the dough a lot.

The pony toys are from Wal-Mart, they were perfect for my pony obsessed little girl. I didn't fancy having to make my own pony out of modeling chocolate. I just used a little frosting to hold down each statue (yeah we bought a lot- we gave them out as favors and They happen to be my favorite MLP toys.)

Rainbow Dash chilling with Rarity and Gardenia Glow

Then came in the inside of the cake- that's what took the longest, baking two layers at a time took a lot longer than just baking two 9 inch cakes. The cake was delicious, it didn't dry out even though it was baked two days ahead of time. The fondant was nasty to eat, but I put a lot of icing between the layers and on the dirty ice layer so it wouldn't be all play dough tasting.

with a side of rainbow sherbet!

All in all, we had a great time! Chucky Sue absolutely loves her cousins. She even shared her toys pretty well with Dorita (seen here trying to climb up the popular slide.) We played apples to apples, pin the tail on the pony and just chatted. The food was nothing spectacular, just a buffet of Chucky Sue's favorite foods- hot dogs, gold fish, chips, pickles, apple juice and cheese! I got what I wanted out the party- Chucky Sue's face lighting up at everyone who came, playing with her new toys and eating a giant piece of cake!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Such a Grown Up Thing to do!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and for the first time, Jake and I are hosting a family event. My mother  and sisters-in-law always host our weekly sunday dinners and family birthday parties. I'm even cooking the main part of dinner- everyone else is bringing sides or desserts. (Chicken Pot Pie, for those of you wondering)

It's ridiculous how much it's making me feel "grown up". It's like I have a list in my head of things you have to do to become an adult. Or maybe it's more like Bingo- and I've finally got my five across! (Turning 18 is the free space right?)

I've decorated the house, cleaned everything, and prepared billions of dozens of cookies. Jake's family acts out the nativity each year- and I made silly felt costumes for the angel, Mary, the wise(wo)man and a shepherd.

I hope you all are having a great holiday season! I have two-three more holiday posts lined up then back to regular scheduled randomness!

Next Two Weeks: Budget Blessings

Clever readers of this blog may have noticed that I didn't do  a second update on our thin budget after the first installment. I had one all planned out,  showing the next few "cheapie" meals I was going to make and talk about how we're all doing. But then something changed- and the whole course of this blog series was turned upside down.

Instead of going out, Jake and I spent tuesday cleaning up the house, we dug out boxes that have been packed since our first move. In one of the boxes was all the memories from my trip to France from high school (Yeah, I went to France. It was pretty sweet.) in among the sugar packets (Yeah...I don't know.) old metro tickets and tourist maps, was over 50EUR!  I kept a few coins for memory purposes and we're depositing the rest.

So, adding what ended up being $70ish to our account took a LOT of the stress off. I knew my kid would have diapers, we wouldn't need to eat ramen for 5 days straight. I was feeling pretty good. I even wrote a little "p.s" segment to put at the end of next budget post.

Then I was checking my emails and goofing around on blogger (did you notice my new color scheme? I'm still tweaking it- tell me what you think!) and I got an email from app.socialspark.com- one of my advertisers. I had been paid for my past three sponsored posts- giving me $28 in my paypal account! We used $14 for some "extra" groceries and the other half for gas. I also have another $15 coming my way next week! So instead of budgeting a whole two weeks on less than $25- I've gained over $100!

Jake was also blessed- he managed to get extra overtime shifts at his everyday job, plus a  translation job from his on call gig. While we don't get that money right away, it will help very much in us "bouncing back" from this week. On top of all that, my mom sent us a care package with a hamburger helper dinner kit, some muffin mixes, and most importantly- a new water filter for Chucky Sue!

While I know we would have survived if all these things hadn't happened, they were such great blessings. I know 100% we got these blessings because we decided to pay tithing first, even though we knew it'd be tough. We're now enjoying this week, instead of just living through it.  Heavenly Father made it possible for us to find/discover/earn this extra money this week specifically- letting me know that He does indeed love me and care about even my smallest of problems.

So this who series took on a whole new turn- and I think it's become something even better than it could have been before.

Our Newest Visitor

Just a few short days after saying goodbye to Nonie and Ooogie we had a new visitor, of the unwelome sort. 

(No this is not an actual photo- you think I had time to take a photo!?)

While playing in Chucky-Sue's room I heard her say "Meow?" and looked up to see what she was pointing at.

it was a HUGE rat crawling on her radiator.

After much shrieking, frustration, jumping up and down, creative cursing and "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh"-ing, Jake was able to capture the nasty thing and GET IT OUT  OF MY HOUSE. 

Chucky-Sue thought it was the funniest thing ever and would jump up and down when I did. We then camped out in the living room together because I had to psych myself up just to walk PAST the room, let alone allow my child to SLEEP in there!! I'm doing better today, I let Chucky Sue take her nap in there and she survived. But every little sound that this old house makes puts me on edge. 

This is a long about way of telling you that you all need to leave comment convincing Jake that we need to adopt a cat.

31 Days of Halloween: Day Three

1

Halloween is Jake's favorite holiday, this man has more costumes, accessories than any grown man should have.

maybe that's one of those things I shouldn't share with the internet...

this is the very first photo I ever took of my husband to be, at a college halloween party with our friends.

he had to find the wasabi peas in the glop of mayonnaise for a fear factor style eating competition.

to this day, he still can't eat either.

Warning: Cute Photos Ahead

We took a walk for FHE at one of our favorite parks, so favorite that I believe there's been two other posts of photos from there!

She wasn't a fan of the heat or sun, but she loved all the flowers look at and people to flirt with! Now, I may have a biased opinion but geez louise, my kid is cute!

She is such a fun little person. She's definitely got the Sassy-Girl gene going STRONG. She's still a daddy's girl, every photo taken with me results in this kind of face:

But Daddy? He get's great smiles like this one!!

And when she's done with the photo session she lets me know it.

It is crazy to think that in a few weeks she'll be HALF a year old. I think a cupcake may be in order, at least for me anyways; for surviving that ambulence ride 6 months ago ;)

1979: The Year of Jake

Jake turned 31 erm, "29" this month. We celebrated by driving to Pigeon Forge in a hail storm! Fun! We're here for AdventureCon, a pop-culture convention. (Basically the lame little brother of Comic Con in San Diego.)

In Honor of his birthday, here are some "Back in 1979" facts!

In 1979 a gallon of gas cost $0.86 (HOLY COW.)

In 1979 a Sony Walkman cost $200, that's more than an iPod.

In 1979, YMCA was suing the Village People for ripping off their name. They lost.

In 1979, Pink Floyd released their album "The Wall" (which was my lullaby album in 1988, Chucky-Sue has only listened to "Another Brick in the Wall")

Strangely, in 1979, Trivial Pursuit debuted, and in 2010, Jake DOMINATES this game.

Jake shares a birth year with Katie Hudson, Heath Ledger and one of his favorites, Jennifer Love Hewitt

And why do I bring this all up? To remind Jake that I wasn't even a twinkle in my daddy's eye when all this was going on! Happy Birthday you ole fogey! I love you!

Snow Day

Flakes.
Dusting.
Drifts.
Ice.
Powder.
Flurry.


Whatever you call it, I like it. Snow is my favorite weather condition ever, even as an adult when I have to deal with people getting to and from work, shoveling the icy walkways, or digging out our car. It's beautiful, fun and comes in all different types. Jake and I have spent the day snowed in watching DVDs, eating yummy snacks (Well, HIS are yummy, I'm on my 3-day gestational diabetes pre-diet. No sugar for me!) and just talking. It's nice to take a break from real life and just be with each other. :)

Image from: Bryant Altizer Photography

Lifestyles of a Human Oven.

I know you've all been on the edge of your seats waiting to hear from lil ole me. :)

My UVA appointment went well. We met my OB/GYN team, the Pediatric Cardiologist and the NICU doctors/nurses. Jake, Grandma and I got to take a tour of the NICU and the PICU (The NICU sends any heart patients to the PICU during recovery, it's also where Evelyn will go for any future surgeries)

After meeting and talking with all these medical professionals, I've come to a conclusion about doctors:

They charge you a lot of money to say "I don't know, we'll have to wait and see." They can't tell me anything definite about the leg/lower surgeries, as they've never dealt with it before. They couldn't tell me a definite amount of heart surgeries because the heart reacts differently to each surgery. They couldn't tell me how long Angelina would be in the NICU as everyone recovers differently, and they may or may not be able to do the actual surgery when they want, etc. etc. etc. Basically too many variables for anyone to plan anything. So that means we have to plan for everything!

Heartwise, Angelina is doing remarkably well for her problems. The doctor didn't notice a whole lot of stress or a lesser blood volume in the heart. However they still couldn't tell which artery went where (to the lungs or to the body) because she has such a strange anatomy. We do know it will be at least two corrective surgeries, possibly three. Even with these surgeries she'll still need to limit her physical activity and be a bit more careful than the average person while exercising. Fun little fact, that until she has her last heart surgery, she'll be a bit blue because of the mixing of oxygen rich blood with carbon dioxide blood. "Our little Smurf" Jake has decided to call her.

The doctors have decided that they much prefer me to go into labor and then do a c-section if necessary (I could go naturally, but baby A would have to decide to move head down, and that doesn't look like it's happening!) They want to let them both grow as much as possible before taking them out. This could change if Angelina's fluids get dangerously low, but she's been pretty good so far with 7cm of fluid instead of the normal 10cm, but it's not an emergency till it gets down to 5cm.

The next UVA appointment is on the 8th of Feb, where I get to have my 506932th ultrasound! Hopfully we'll have more about the kidneys and legs then!

After the UVA trip, Jake and I started to pack up our ever-expanding pile of stuff. We have about 100 million books, enough clothes to stretch from here to california, and more dishes than I know what to do with. (I still can't part with my crepe maker!) How do two people collect so much STUFF? None of it we're able to easily part with. (Why yes, I do need a box full of souvenirs from my Paris/Nancy trip. No I will not throw away my metro tickets or music box.) Half the time I'm tempted to just throw it all away and start over in the new apartment.

As painful as packing is (I can't reach the floor, so often I get to ask Jake to pick something up so I could put it in a box. He's not as amused.) I'm very excited to get our apartment ready for the babies. And to have a washer and dryer. I may be more excited for that than the nursery.

In general news, I've gotten huge. And just when I think I can't get any huger, POP the babies grow and make me feel like I'm stealing lead filled basketballs. They are both very very active, Chucky-Sue (the lower Baby A) likes to do barrel rolls and somersaults, while Angelina is perfectly content to give me heartburn and kick my lungs. (I've noticed she kicks more when I talk more, is she already telling me to shut up??) Other than th stretching pains of being a giant, I feel good! I'm not as stressed about the babies as I was last month, both the doctors and church has helped me calm down and see the bigger picture(s). Now If I can just survive moving, I think we'll be all set for the home stretch to April!!

Double your pleasure, Double your fun

At my high risk ultrasound yesterday the tech gave us the BIGGEST shock ever. I was VERY lucky I was lying down when she told me because I was close to fainting. Jake and I are having TWINS.

In case you misread that, that's TWO BABIES.

I'll let you have a moment to drink that in.


Ready? okay.

I am constantly see-sawing between deliriously happy and scared beyond all belief. We had just hammered out how we were going to afford the one baby, and it was going to be tight but right now caring and raising two babies just seems impossible! Not to mention the fact that we have a hard enough time keeping a single baby in my uterus long enough, let alone two. Our heads are just swimming with all this new information. The ultrasound said everyone was growing just fine, they each had their own healthy placenta. Baby A is a girl, and a VERY active one. She wiggled, danced and squirmed during the entire ordeal. Baby B was very modest and refused to give us a good shot, so we don't know the gender yet. S/he was much more laid back and didn't want to move around much (possibly because her/his sister was going nuts!)

Thankfully I do have an aunt who had twin girls just before Jake and I got married, and we have friends in our ward who've had twins and just warning you guys- We'll be bugging you for advice, information and tips A LOT.

Two. Deux. Dos. TWINS

I heard a funny joke today...

Uterus: Knock Knock!
Tracy: Who's there?
Doctor: A Baby!
Jake A Baby who???
Ultrasound: A Baby Girl!!!

Isn't it funny?

Happy Birthday Jake

so what if it's only for another 15 minutes :)

My old man turned 30 today! We spent the day feeding the neurotic Jasper and the rolypoly Farley, then to the longest job interview ever (where I hid in the car away from the biggest dogs ever. it was at a correctional camp) A quick hop over to Big City for some  window shopping* and topped it off with a movie night. (Angels and Demons, the book was better.)

Now I'm going to go snuggle him and remind him to take his bengay and call the AARP back. :)

Happy Birthday Jake!

*= us wishing we had the extra funds to buy those cute clothes, interesting books and nifty gadgets

IheartFaces

This week's I♥Faces challenge was Silhouettes, which means I get to show off a cool picture that was a complete accident.

There's a tunnel in town that connects two parks, I'm sure the locals know of it. During our springtime photoshoot, I had tried to take a photo of Jake in the tunnel with a bright flash, but it was too dark for it to look good. As we're walking out, I was holding the camera up, and just holding down the button until we were out of the tunnel, and I got this cool photo:

(Note: The little boy was a stranger, I tried editting him out, but it looked weird, and since you can't see his face, I left him in.)

There's lot of great silhouette photos over at iheartfaces.com, come on over!

I am such a baby

Especially when I don't feel good.

if you're looking for Tracy, you won't find her. Instead you'll find a whiney, snivelly complaining shell of a human being. I can't believe Jake hasn't kicked me out of the house yet ;)

I don't know what's up with me, we're guessing mono- but that's the ever "trusty" online diagnosis. If it gets worse I'll be finding my way to a doctor. Until then let me tell you what I do on an average day now that I'm sick

- Sleep 14+ hours a day

-take my tempature

- drink my body weight in water and juice

-  nibble on some toast or waffles

- update my facebook status melodramatically.

-take my tempature

- call Jake for him to bring home medicines/crackers/ freezer packs

- re-watch every season of every TV show we own

-freak myself out with scary "you're going to die" medical websites

-take my tempature

- calm myself down

- check the blogs to see if anyone's written anything that will entertain me (and you guys have! lots of posts lately)

-take my tempature

- Take some medicine so I can sleep again

-wake up due to headache

- take a cold bath in the dark (and then forget that I did the next morning when Jake makes fun of me)

-take my tempature (just did, holding steady at 101.4)

I'mma gonna go whine to Jake then pass out. just wanted you to know I'm alive- who knows for how long ;)

Edit: The doctor says I have strep, I have medicine and my fever has been gone for almost 24 hours now! I  had forgotten how to feels to only be 98.6! Thankfully the strep is only on one tonsil and my throat doesn't hurt much at all. I'm still deeeeaaaaaddd tired, but the doc said after a few days of meds my energy should come back :) I'm very much looking forward to not being sick!

The American Dream

So I had our lives planned up until Jake's graduation. Everything we did was to get to that point. Now? We have no freaking clue.

We found out yesterday that ETSU rejected Jake, no other school has even contacted him either way. He was turned down a job a ways back and yesterday, after hearing the Air Force recruiter go on and on about how it will change our lives and all the benefits that come with enlisting, just to find out that the cut-off age is 28.  He could still apply to be an officer, but they only hire 10% from civilians, and it takes over a year to be accepted or rejected.

It's completely frustrating to go from Plan A to Plan B and all the way to Plan X and still have no idea what we're doing next year. The Air Force in my mind was our absolute last resort, I do not have the personality, spirit or faith to be an Air Force wife. Now I have to change gears and get on board with the possiblity of being an army or navy wife too? Aside from my fear of Jake with and around armed weapons, I could not handle if the army sent him overseas and I was stuck in some lonely base in middle of nowhere Minnesota.

 I guess I was seeing the world through rose-colored glasses before graduation. I just assumed that of course someone would hire him immediately and offer him the benefits and job he wants in the location we want and near the school he got into.  I've gotten to the point where I'll go anywhere he's accepted, wether it be an elisted soldier in the Army, or a 7-11 district manager. I have no standards, no limitations or stipulations. Just get my honey a job.

Also, I've been job hunting, for anything I can walk to or easily get a ride (within a mile or so of the Faz etc.) and I laugh. If a college graduate with loads of work experience can't get a job, how in the world is a high school graduate with some on and off work experience going to get a job? Even the "lowly" fast food jobs are being filled by college grads. One advertisement even put a college degree in their requirements to be a WAITRESS!! 

So if you're reading this Obama, my family would really like a bailout.