family vacation

We're getting back into the swing of normal life around here after being on vacation with both of our families for a total of 10 days.  First we went to Brown County with my fam and then Branson with Chad's.

There are many fun highlights of the trips that I will post about, but of course there are always a few negatives that I must mention too, just to make sure I don't sound like everything was perfect. :)

The downfalls (but none really all that bad):

+ sleeping in the same room as our kids - worrying about Beck waking up Creighton, Beck getting out of bed a million times at night and wanting to get into bed with us, having to be quiet and maneuver in the dark after the kiddos are sleeping... you've probably been there too and understand.

+ having oddly gray/rainy weather.  there were only 2 completely sunny days the whole time... although the cooler weather felt great and it was nice to not have to slather on the sunscreen

+ taking Beck to the ER at 9:30 one night... turned out to not be anything serious

+ getting caught in construction traffic late at night on the way home, delaying our trip by a good hour (which is a big deal when you just want to get the kids to bed and the car unloaded!)
+ Chad had to work during my families trip to Brown County, but still stayed with us and was with us in the evenings.

Some highlights:

Brown County

+ Meals made on the grill at the campsite.  Lots of yummy grilled meats and veggies were consumed.

food prep.  it was fun to have great gma and gpa furrer on vacation with us.

+ Playing at the indoor water park.

cute little Keaton 

giving the cheesiest "cheese" face.

+ Playing at the playground during meal time.

Beck LOVED wagon rides and it was always a fight to get him to eat his food before running off to ride in the wagon.  Although Braden isn't much older than him, he was usually the one pulling Beck!

+ A visit to Oliver winery, complete with a tour and wine tasting, and then a trip into Bloomington for dinner.

There is much more to Oliver Winery than this picture shows.  I guess I thought this captured everything since it's the only one I took. :)  The landscaping is beautiful and it would be a fun place for a date of wine tasting and an outdoor picnic.

 + Pony rides for the kiddos.

 "Uncle Lukie" leading Beck on his pony ride, which he loved.

We decided to break up the trip from Brown County to Branson with a stop in St. Louis.. which turned out to be a great idea and very fun.  We took a little walk along the river to find some food and then ate on the grass close to the Arch.

Branson

+ Boat rides and water sports

driving the boat with uncle Blair and feeling like pretty big stuff! 

+ Driving the quarter operated school bus.

We only let him ride once (I know, so cheap and impatient of us!), but I'm pretty sure he would have done this over and over!

 + Putt-putt!

Beck has asked to putt-putt several times since we got home... it may have to become a vacation tradition of ours!

 + A trip to the ER... ok, maybe not a highlight in the "fun" sense, but we decided it was a bonding experience.
Oh yes, you want to know why we were at the ER at 10pm (with a bunch of questionable looking people who didn't seem to need to be there)?  Beck was playing with Creighton on the bed when he fell over and I heard a pop.  He was crying and crying that his arm hurt and wouldn't let us touch it or move it.  We decided to take him in and found out that it was just nurse maids elbow.  The Dr. just had to pop his arm back into place and he was good as new, but the whole experience took a couple hours.

A rare moment of smiles during our ER visit when Beck realized that the fruit snacks would stick to his chin. :)

 + Dinner along the water at a fantastic gourmet Mexican restaurant.

being super silly with cousin Dela and eating way too many chips!

+ Pool time! (despite the cloudy weather)

And many other fun times with family that I didn't capture since my arms were often full with a baby... and if they weren't, I was just enjoying the moment.  :)

oh, chevron

I hope the homeowners after us like gray and white chevron.... as I am in the process of lining all of our kitchen cupboards and drawers with gray and white chevron paper.  Let's just say it has been a big improvement and has added a fun, subtle pop of color and freshness to them.

We have white cabinets (which I'm a big fan of white cabinets), but they are a cheap material and stain easily.  The insides of the cabinets have all sorts of gross marks and stains from 15+ years of use (and not being cleaned great).  So I got sick of looking at it and decided to cover it up!  I started the project while I was pregnant and have just picked it back up since Creighton has been born.  At first I was just going to do the bottom ones that I see the most, and then realized that the inconsistency would drive me crazy and would probably be annoying eventually, so the top cabinets are getting a makeover too.

My overall verdict on the project has been pretty positive.  It's a cheap and easy way to give something a fresh and updated look.  It is a little tricky to get the paper laid in the drawers straight, that would be the most frustrating part... but the more you do in a row the faster you get.  It seems to clean well and doesn't absorb water.. which I was a little nervous it would get wet and soggy, like a normal sticker.  Not sure how well it would remove, which is why I hope the next owners like it, for their sake. :)

Here's a pic of the cabinets without the paper:

see the yellow spots in the bottom left corner?  and those aren't bad at all... most spots were much worse than that!

And one of the new and improved cabinets:

I'm definitely going to have some paper left over... any ideas what to do with it?  I'm thinking maybe line a dresser?

mystery solved...

I know, two posts in one day is a little crazy for me, but I just had to share with you that I solved the mystery of the missing cell phone (as I know you are all beside yourselves wondering what ever happened to my phone?!).

Well, the news isn't great.  It was stolen.  What, stolen?  How did that happen?!  My thoughts exactly.  I guess I did take it on my stroller ride, but did not put it in its nice secure pocket that I normally do, and it slid off an into the grass (I'm assuming that if it would've hit the sidewalk, I would have noticed the loud noise).  Then some unfriendly, no nice deed doer in our neighborhood came along and decided it was their lucky day, pocketing my phone.

Yea, I know... your second thought is how it took me so long to figure that out.  I'm not sure either.  It all just didn't make sense to me and I didn't think there was any way I lost it on the walk, so I wasn't really investigating the 'stolen' option.  Plus, we activated the 'lost your iphone' feature, so I figured that if someone was using it we would find out (we later learned that if someone logs out of your itunes or whatever connects you to that app, the app doesn't work, which we are assuming is what happened.... and why my phone registered as "offline" on the find my iphone app even though it was being used).  But when I suddenly decided to call it and it rang, I realized that it had to be charged and that someone had it.  Then we had the brilliant idea to check the activity report online and obviously saw someone else's activity.  Just typing this is bring back the negative emotions I have been trying to get over the past couple hours.

Then I panicked and realized that they had access to our personal information through my email, and that our identities are going to be stolen and our lives are over (my mind never goes to the extreme ;)).  Chad calmly talked me out of that, but it hasn't left me 100% yet....

I was telling Chad the hardest part about all this for me is the break down in my thought process.  I hate  it when I realize that I haven't been making smart, logical decisions and tell myself "why in the world didn't I think to do that."  It's just weird to me when my brain doesn't work like I think it should and I really don't like it... like I don't know how to fix it and it might not work right again.

Sooo... now that I need a new phone, if anyone has an old iphone laying around that isn't being used, I'll buy it from you.  Seriously.  I learned that a used iphone 4 is $400 to replace... although amazon has them cheaper.  Not fun.  Now I'm just hoping I don't have to get a new number...

And there you have it.  Case closed.

coffee ice-cream

I have a secret to share.  A secret about making the best homemade coffee ice-cream.  Now you're curious, right?!

.... it's using real coffee grounds.  Maybe some of you have already figured this out, but if you haven't and you like coffee, you need to try this.

There's no real recipe to the coffee ice-cream I made.  You can use any kind of milk/cream/yogurt/sweetener combo you like, making the amount of base your ice-cream machine can hold.  My ingredient list looked something like this:

+ 1 cup whipping cream
+ 1 8oz. container vanilla bean nonfat yogurt
+ some melted vanilla ice-cream (is it cheating to put store-bought ice-cream into homemade ice-cream?!)
+ a little bit of vanilla almond milk
+ some 2% milk
(total was enough milk/yogurt to get me to 4 cups of milk base)
+ 1/4 c. sugar
+ 1 T. vanilla
+ ~1 T. Starbucks coffee grounds
+ chopped chocolate chips

Stir together and pour in an ice-cream machine and let church until frozen (I add the chocolate chips when the ice-cream is almost done).  Enjoy before it melts!

Oh, and I have learned something about making homemade ice-cream.  The base tastes sweeter than the finished product (which makes sense, due to the air in the ice-cream)... so keep that in mind as you make your base.

And if you don't have an ice-cream machine but want something that tastes like this?  The fast version is to put some vanilla ice-cream in a glass, sprinkle in some coffee grounds and chocolate chips, pour in a little milk and stir.  It makes a thick milkshake consistency and it's delicious.

it's a mystery....

So let's talk about the mystery of the missing cell phone.

It all started the day I lost misplaced my cell phone... oh wait, that was yesterday.  It is quite a mystery because I was home all day and only left the house to take the boys for a walk.  I'm very puzzled and am still hoping it will be recovered.  Here's the facts:

1.  I used my cell phone to txt a friend in the morning, I checked the weather before our walk, and took a picture of C right before our walk.
2.  I had the thought that I was going to take my phone on our walk b/c I always do, but can't really remember putting it in the stroller.
3.  I got a water bottle out of my car for our walk.
4.  I did not use my phone on our walk.
5.  I do not remember taking my phone out of the stroller after our walk.
6.  I folded up the stroller and put it away shortly after our walk.
7.  An hour or two after our walk I remembered my cell phone and realized I didn't know where it was.
8.  I checked the stroller first.  Not there.  Humm... weird, but I'm sure it will show up.
9.  It rained all afternoon (oops if my phone is outside).
10.  Chad drove the route of my walk when he got home and didn't see it.
11.  I ran the route of my walk around 9p after church and didn't find it.
12.  We have looked all obvious places and lots of not obvious ones.  No luck.

So.  There you have it.  The missing cell phone.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Any missing cell phone experts out there?  Has anyone thought they lost their cell phone only to find it in a very random location?  I'm starting to get a little discouraged.  How long to I hold out before I dub it lost??  This is kind of driving me crazy...

And if you need me in the meantime, an email might be your best form of communication.  :)

things I dislike

So after I wrote that warm fuzzy post about all those things I like, I started thinking about things I dislike (very productive of me, I know!).  I'm sure there are more than this, but these are the things that came to mind first.  Am I alone on these things?

• wire hangers.  frustrating little things.  they go in the trash as quickly as possible after they sneak into our house from the dry cleaners.
• changing the crib sheet.  although this has gotten better with practice.  but talk about an aggravating task.  I think babies know this, because it seems that Creighton spits up in his crib shortly after I change the sheet.  thank you sweet baby, thank you... you might just have to sleep in that spit up a couple times.  :)
• people that drive under the speed limit.  I always suddenly wish I was in a bumper car and I could ram them from behind, letting them know they need to speed up!  I cannot for the life of me figure out why people drive too slow.  
• paying $ for mediocre food.  nothing like ordering food at a restaurant and thinking that you can make much better food at home.  I haven't had this happen too much lately, but I can safely say that I do not enjoy my meal when it does.
• sunburns.  I mean, who does, right?  they are uncomfortable and bad for your skin.  but there is something about getting a sunburn and knowing that you could have prevented it by just applying more sunscreen that eats away at my brain until it goes away.  just apply more sunscreen next time Heather, how hard is it?
• nubbies.  those bally things that you get in the armpits of a sweater, or babies get on the fronts of their pants from rubbing the crib sheets... the pillows in my living room have them (they were cute but a bad purchase).  hate them.  they are gross and I have to refrain from throwing things away the instant they get nubbies.  ok, they can be removed with razors or other little gadgets, but who wants to do that?  and they will just come back, right?  oh the nubbies... 

3 months

The 3 month mark has come and gone already.  And why is 3 months significant?  Half way to being done breastfeeding! (well, my version of it, which is pumping and bottles)... if I make it to 6 months, which is the goal.  That was my goal with Beck, so it's my goal again.  And I think babies come to life around 3 months too.  Creighton's smiles and babbles are so adorable, we have conversations about life all the time.  ;)

Other than the smiles and coos, he's not doing much.  Some kicking, clasping his hands, all those normal things.  No rolling... I think we are still a ways from that.  Much more interested in his toys on the play mat, which keep him entertained for a little while.  Overall, every month that goes by I enjoy him and being at home with the boys more and more.  I'm thankful.