Luckiest Nurse Alive!

I love my new job. What a great feeling to be able to go to work and LOVE what you do. I thought it would be incredibly difficult to leave my kids, since I've been a stay at home mom for 6 years. While I do miss them, it helps that I really love what I do and I feel like I am really making a difference in the lives of families.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to land a labor and delivery job as a new graduate. That's pretty much unheard of in the world of nursing right now. Out of my class of 30 graduating students, I think I'm only like the 4th to even work in a HOSPITAL, much less in labor and delivery, a specialty. I am currently training in post-partum. My preceptor is awesome and all of the nurses and doctors have been so warm and welcoming. That's what I love about L&D. It's like a big family and everyone is there for each other. I love going to work everyday. I get to hold babies and teach breastfeeding to new mothers. Surprisingly, my favorite part of my job is educating my patients.

In about 7 weeks, once I get used to post-partum and working a few weeks on my own, I will start the labor program. I get to work in the both in the vaginal deliveries and the c-sections. I still cry every time I see a delivery. I wonder if that will ever go away? I hope not, I think it's such a beautiful thing, bringing a new life into the world.

Another great thing about my job...I will be cross trained to work in the NICU, and in pediatrics. This won't come for a while because my main focus is working PP and L&D. What great about nursing is that every day is different and there are so many options. I love that I get to learn something new everyday and that I am making an impact in peoples lives.

I truly believe that everything happens for a reason. I have been through so many ups and downs in my life and I have pressed forward and kept going. Hard work and sacrifice really does pay off and I am reaping the rewards right now. It feels good. :)

Elf on the Shelf

We have had so much fun with our family elf! Elf on the Shelf is a fun tradition we started this year. "Buddy", our elf, was sent to us from the North Pole, along with a fun story and instruction guide. Buddy watches over the kids during the day and reports back to Santa every night. The kids are not allowed to touch Buddy because if they do, his Christmas magic disappears. Buddy can be a naughty elf! We got Buddy on December 1st. So far, he has thrown the boys underwear all over the Christmas tree, played in the "snow" (flour) all over our kitchen counter. He drove through it with Connor's remote control car and made tire tracks all over the kitchen. Not to mention, he made a marshmallow snowman to complete the scene. He was nice one night, he scattered Christmas candy all over my living room. The kids were very excited about that! Connor got to eat a candy cane for breakfast! Finally, Buddy pee'd and poo'd in our downstairs toilet.....I didn't know elf pee was Christmas green and elf poo looks an awful lot like raisins?? Hmmmm. Buddy had toilet paper stuck to his butt so I KNOW it was him!! He hides around the house in a different spot every night so the kids wake up every morning very excited to find out what sort of pranks Buddy pulled the night before and they love to find where he's been hiding. This is only our 4th night with Buddy so I'm sure I will have more fun stories to share!!

His latest tricks- Snow angels in sugar, a snowball fight with cotton balls against Buzz, Potato Head, 2 transformers, Tinkerbell and Ariel, a winter wonderland (He toilet papered our loft), ate a mini meal that consisted of a tiny piece of pizza, a baby carrot, cookie crisp cereal, a thimble of milk with a tiny straw and an elf-sized napkin. Last night he left each of the kids a pouch full of chocolate coins. I will update more as the days go on!

I'm a LABOR and DELIVERY nurse!!

Yes, you heard right, I landed my dream job and I start in the next couple weeks! So happy!!! More details soon!

Happy Birthday Connor!

I can't believe my oldest child is now SIX! Time has flown by. I am so blessed to have my Connor in my life. He's the sweetest, kindest child I have ever known. Seriously, not just saying that because he's my kid. Connor started kindergarten this year and has loved every minute of it. He's made so many friends and is so outgoing, which is surprising because both Bryan and I were shy growing up. He told me the girls chase him on the playground and he "likes it!" LOL!

So far this year, Connor has participated in Ice Hockey (and is doing well, skating faster and faster), and he's in running club. He runs 2 miles a week! That's really far for a six year old! He will also start coach pitch baseball in January. He likes to stay busy and I hope to keep it that way!

Connor chose to have his birthday party at The Play Factory in Chandler. The awesome thing about having a party there is that you can invite up to 25 KIDS and they don't count adults. We invited his whole class and knowing that they wouldn't all be able to make it, I got to invite some of our oldest, dearest friends as well. Connor had 20 friends come to the party, WOW! We decided to make this party a friend party and we had a family party separate on Thanksgiving for all of the November birthdays. We had 4 other birthdays in my family so it worked out well. Thinking I will make that a tradition!

The Play Factory has bouncy castles galore, slides, a jungle gym and a play area for little ones. There is a room with couches for the adults to sit and relax while still being able to watch the kids. We ate pizza and cake and opened presents in the party room. I loved the fact that I didn't have to do a thing. The employees served food, wrote down the gift list, set up, cleaned up and kept the party on schedule. All we had to do was show up and send out invites that they supplied. So worth it!

Connor loved playing with his all of his friends...old and new. He got some really great gifts but really, he just loved the fact that everyone was there and they were all having fun. Here are the highlights!

This digital collage made with Smilebox

Black Friday!

One of my favorite holidays of the year...LOL! Bryan and I make it our yearly "date" to do all of our Christmas shopping in one day. This was our 4th year and one of our biggest success stories! We actually didn't have to wake up early....or camp out like crazy people. (Although we have camped out in the past, just glad we didn't have to do it this year since it was the coldest Thanksgiving in 80 years).

The only place we really needed to go was Toys R Us, and they opened at 10pm Thanksgiving night. We kicked our family out around 7:30pm and hauled butt to TRU to get in line. We were running late! We ended up being about the 100th or so person in line. Thank goodness our kids aren't into the IPODS and other electronic items! We were in line for TOYS so we had that in our favor!

We always end up in line next to some really great people. Usually parents out doing the same thing as we are....getting massive amounts of toys for CHEAP. It really makes the time go by when you have nice people to chat with. Then there are always those damn line stalkers. They get there about 20 minutes before the store opens and they look for a place where they can cut the line. Pacing up and down or just waiting right in front of the door. Mind you , by now the line was at LEAST 1000 long. It stretched passed where the shopping center ended and wrapped around the side of the building. No parking at all in the TRU parking lot. Thank goodness for the kind police officers that kept the losers from cutting all of us that sat out there for hours. When the doors finally opened, they only let in 50 at a time. It made for a much easier shopping experience. When we got into the store, Bryan and I split up and ended up getting everything on our list plus some bday presents for some birthday parties we had coming up. In all, we spent less on all 3 kids than some people spend on just one and we got some massive presents! We just have 1 or 2 more things to buy for the kids and we are done! Here's our loot...

Full size play kitchen- $59
Push Around Buggy-$29
Kids Outdoor Picnic Table-$19
Dora Couch-$19
Lincoln Logs-$10
Bucket of Army Men-$9
2 Razor Scooters-$35
24 Pack Play Doh-$7
Fur Real Butterscotch Pony (last year) $100, normally $300
2 Free 64 packs of crayons
2 Free coloring books
Bday presents- Polly Pockets Roller Coaster set- $19 (normally $50) and a Crayola art set for $10.

Our big item for Connor is going to be his Polar Express Geo Track set. I'm hoping it goes on sale, it's $124 but it's something he REALLY wants so that's his present. Drew has been wanting a play kitchen so that's his big toy. The one we bought is normally $100, we just got it cheap. We need to get some playfood and that's about it. We already bought Taylor the "Beauty and the Beast" movie, a cute tutu skirt with leggings. I got all of their stocking stuffers by just picking up clearance things over the last few months at Target so that's done.

Now for the adults.....that's where things might get pricey! Happy shopping!

Thanksgiving

So, I got nominated to host Thanksgiving for my family this year. Not a big deal, I love having my family over, we always have such a great time together. I hosted Christmas last year and it went great. I was nervous over just one little thing.....I've never made a turkey before! EEEK!

I started making my preparations at the beginning of October, I figured one can never be too prepared, especially when hosting Thanksgiving for 20! I made my menu and asked that everyone bring something to share. I have one sister that makes the BEST salads ever and another sister that is known as the "Potato Queen". I wasn't about to mess with those dishes! I bought a practice turkey and cooked it a few weeks ago. It turned out okay...just a bit dry. I decided to make a few changes for my Thanksgiving Turkey. I went with the brined turkey. I got the recipe off of Food Network's "Good Eats". Let me tell you, the turkey was the BOMB! Super moist and the skin was nice and golden brown. DELISH! Some of the other dishes included my famous sweet potato casserole, sweet corn casserole, spicy cornbread stuffing, rolls, green beans, swedish meatballs, deviled eggs, chips, dip, a veggie tray, cranberry sauce and of course, desert! Pumpkin pie, German Chocolate Cake and my dad's homemade cheesecake (which, in my opinion, is WAY better than the cheesecake factory!) We were all stuffed!

After dinner, the girls hung out with the girls, the guys with the guys and the kids with the kids. This is typically how it goes in my family. The guys drank beer, watched football and sat outside by the firepit. The girls looked at the Black Friday ads, drank wine and chatted. The kids were upstairs, downstairs, at the park, riding bikes up and down the street, out in the yard playing football, in other words, EVERYWHERE and keeping very busy. My nieces even made up a dance and performed for the adults. It was very cute.

We have a fun family tradition that started just last year. We played LCR (Left, Center, Right). It's a dice game where everyone starts with $3. You roll 3 dice that are marked with either an L, R, C or a dot. If you roll a dot, you keep your money, you roll an L, you pass a $1 to the left, roll an R and pass to the right and if you roll a C you put the $1 in the center. Last person with $1 at the end, wins the entire pot. We had 20 people...even the kids played (Yes, my kids are gambling, LOL!) so we had $60 in the pot. We sat at my big long table, the game lasted quite a while but in the end, CONNOR won the giant stack of $1's. He was beyond excited and I was so happy for him. Guess I will be taking him shopping soon!

I was so relieved that Thanksgiving was a success. The holidays are really about spending time with family. I'm truly blessed and I feel so lucky to have so many people in my life to love.

Halloween!

We had such a fun October this year. We celebrate Halloween all month long at my house! The night before Halloween we went out with some friends to the McCormick Stillman Railroad park, then to dinner at ZTejas at Scottsdale Fashion Square (they make a mean margarita by the way) and then back to their house. We let the kids watch some Halloween cartoons while the adults hung outside by the fire pit. SO much fun! I'm so glad we are making new friends! It's so hard to find "couple friends". Normally, I will have a friend and then Bryan can't stand the husband or vice versa. Tyson, Christina and their little boy are a lot of fun and seem like a really good family.



The next day was Halloween. We carved our pumpkins that day and that evening I made a pumpkin chili and some "mummy dogs" for dinner. Bryan's mom brought over some "witches brew" and we roasted our pumpkin seeds...yummy! Then I got the kids ready for trick or treat! We love being in our new neighborhood, everyone really goes all out around here. Just about every house on our street was decorated for Halloween. People were playing scary music, there was a family that brought out their 50 inch flat screen TV into their driveway to watch the World Series while the kids Trick-or-Treated. Lots of fun. We sat outside on the driveway with our fire pit and handed out candy. I bought 5 of the BIG bags of candy and Bry's mom brought over 2 more. We ended up giving it all away that night. We have tons of kids in our neighborhood. There are 1000 kids at Connor's elementary school and the ALL live in our neighborhood....just to give you an idea. Once we checked through the kids' candy, we combined it into the same couldron that we were using to give away candy out of....it was full! It was like we just traded candy with the neighbors! LOL! The kids had so much fun and so did I! I love seeing all of the neighborhood kids with their costumes. My favorite holiday!



It's "Jack" from Nightmare Before Christmas! It's not perfect but I drew it freehand! Go me!

New Van!

I'm so excited that we finally bought a new car! It's been a long journey for us, deciding on what we wanted and what was practical. Originally, we both really wanted a Suburban or a Toyota Sequoia....then we saw the price and it was INSANE! We could afford to buy one as long as it was bare bones, no extras.....and I really like those extras! Plus the insurance and gas would cost a lot of money for us too. Even though we live much much closer to Bryan's work and the kids' schools now, we still drive a lot so the gas alone was a huge expense. It took us months to decide that an SUV was not a good choice for our family. It was a hard choice though, considering everyone in my area drives a ginormous, shiney SUV....and here I pull up in my minivan...as Debbie Downer (and Taylor) says...."Wah, Wah, Wah". I had car-envy.....bad. So when our van started leaking at 110K miles, we took that as a sign to hurry up and get a new vehicle!

We had a 2005 Town and Country Minivan. Not the most glamourous of cars but it was great for the 5 of us and it NEVER ever broke down or left me stranded. In the last 5 years all we have replaced was a set of brake pads, a battery and some sort of gasket that was less than $100. I think that's pretty good! That led us to make a practical decision.....another minivan. For about $10,000 less than a bare bones SUV, we bought a brand new 2010 fully loaded Town and Country. I love love love all of the extras! We have all leather, 3 rows of heated seats, automatic doors and trunk, remote start so my car can get nice and cool in the summer before I even set foot inside, camera in the back to help me back up without running into something, automatic seats, touch screen controls, Sirrius Satellite Radio, 2 over head screen dvd players and the front screen in the console can play movies too (if you are in park), wireless headphones for the DVD player, we can download all of our Itunes to the van, it stores up to 300 cd's so we never have to carry another cd again, capability to sync to my cell phone. I just tell it who to call and it calls it for me. Then I hear the voice through the radio speakers. Totally hands-free. The only thing this van didn't have was the GPS....that's ok though because my phone has it. It came down to either a model with GPS and no DVD player or a DVD player and no GPS. The DVD player was a requirement. I was getting tired of our ghetto portable DVD player in our old van. The kids were constantly messing with it and it drove me nuts. In this car, I just pop in the DVD into the front console and it plays on the the over head screens. Kids can't reach them! YAY!

Want to know the best part?? Our car payment actually went DOWN! On our last vehicle, we had to roll in a car we were upside down on so our payment was really high. Our payment on our new car is almost $200 less! Woohoo! I think in a couple of months we will go back and get Bryan a new car too! We're thinking Honda Accord.

Baking!

My re-discovered hobby. I have always LOVED to bake, I've just been doing it more lately because of my awesome new kitchen appliance! Good for my soul, not so good for the diet I am attempting to stay on! A friend of mine turned me on to the Pioneer Woman's recipe website and I'm in love. Such yummy and unique treats. These cupcakes are amazing...



Recipe made 18 and within the day, my family and Bryan's parents finished them off. YUM-O!

Last week I was in the mood for something different...not chocolate. I decided on these cupcakes made with fresh strawberries. So good!


I am going out of town soon on a girls trip. I was volunteered to make the dessert for one of the nights. I'm thinking of going with these......Can't go wrong with "Better Than Crack Brownies". With a name like that, they HAVE to be good! LOL! They are made with a brownie mix, peanut butter, melted Reece's cups, milk chocolate chips and rice crispy topping. I will update on how good they were!




I'm so glad we are making our way into the holiday season. The weather is finally starting to cool off and I'm in full baking mode. Trying to make my final decisions on what I'm going to make this year. Thanksgiving (for 20) is at my house so I have to make some yummy treats for my family!

Kitchen Aid

I have wanted a red Kitchen Aid since, well, forever! It's probably been a good 7 years that I have had one of these babies on my xmas/birthday list and I never got one because I just couldn't justify spending $250 on a mixer. I know, I could have bought the white one for less than that but I wanted red. In this case, white just wouldn't do. Plus, white totally clashes with my kitchen. Anyway, yesterday Bryan and I were walking through the Target by my house. I walked by the clearance rack and I saw a this perfect RED Kitchen Aid. Surely, this was a mistake! How could a Kitchen Aid be on clearance? Sure enough, I looked at the tag and it was no mistake. My $250 mixer was now a mere $150. Bryan put it in the cart without even thinking twice. I felt guilty and almost talked him out of buying it for me but in the end, he won. This is my brand new "graduation" gift. LOL! I love it though and I can't wait to bake this Christmas! (One of my very favorite hobbies). My festive RED Kitchen Aid! I love it!

Fall!

Jack Johnson

Was awesome! We had a great time at the concert. We hung out on the lawn with good friends. I even drank 4 whole beers. Go me! LOL! I was hung over the next day from 4 beers. Shows how much I drink! I forgot my friggin camera so I don't have any pictures to show but it was one of the best concerts I think I've been to. Bryan and I have LOVED Jack Johnson for so long, we even named our daughter after one of his songs. "Taylor" I think we're shooting for Hawaii for Christmas 2011. He inspired us!

More bows!

Just wanted to share more of my little creations!

Mother Nature's Farm

Decorating Pumpkins

My little pumpkins

Riding on his tractor!

Hay Ride

The farm animals

Baby chicks with my baby chick

Sweet Taylor

Tractor boy!

I just love fall...even in Arizona where we don't have leaves that change or cool, crisp air. It's just a feeling I get this time of year.....I'm happy, really happy during the fall.

Today was a fall kind of day. I woke up early and got the kids ready to play at the pumpkin patch. We were supposed to meet friends there later on in the day but I purposely got there early so that I could take pictures of the kids (before they were distracted by friends) and spend a little bit of alone time with them. It was such a beautiful morning. 75ish degrees and sunny.

When we first arrived, there was a little tiny chicken cage (later, Mason reminded me that it's a coop, not a cage). It was full of baby chicks. SO cute, the kids loved them and I was a little tempted to buy one and bring him home. Then I remembered that I'd probably kill it since I don't know how to take care of chickens. Fresh eggs would be nice though.

We sat on the tractor and took some pictures, played in the pumpkin patch area for awhile until our friends arrived. Then we did the bounce castle, hayride, play houses, pumpkin decorating, hay maze and checked out some farm animals. (The kid driving the tractor for the hayride was hilarious). It was such a fun day to spend outside in the fresh air. I love Mother Nature's Farm. We also are going to Schnepf farm again this year. I like to do both. Mother Nature's is less expensive and less commercialized. Schnepf is fun though too because it's bigger, has rides and a chile festival. Pictures to come soon from Schnepf!

My favorite part was watching my kids play with all of their best Casa Grande friends. We miss them so much and I miss their mommies, Jennifer, Kim and Carrie! Luckily we don't live THAT far away and we have some play days coming up so that means more time to chat with my best girls.

Tired! Today has been full of fun stuff. I purposely schedule lots of activities so that I'm not bored and the kids aren't sitting around all day, but it's tiring. We don't have a whole lot of down time around here. Just today I made breakfast and lunch to take to the farm, I took the kids to the farm for 5 hours, did 2 loads of laundry, unpacked and cleaned the car from the farm day, took the kids to the park next to the house to play with neighborhood friends, I'm about to cook dinner and then tonight Drew has gymnastics and all three kids need a bath. It's exhausting but it's all worth it. I have the most wonderful kids in the world! I'm going to miss them when they go back to school next Wednesday!

Disneyland!

We took the kids to Disneyland for part of their October Break this year. It was so much fun! I've never been to Disney during Halloween-time and we will for sure be making it a tradition. Halloween is my very favorite holiday, it was so much fun to see the park all decorated in Fall leaves, pumpkins, spider webs and skeletons. Even the characters wore Halloween costumes.

We spent three full days at Disney and California Adventure. On our first day, we decided to check out California Adventure. We had never been there before so we were excited to experience it for the first time. We were feeling pretty lucky that day, it was cloudy and it actually rained quite a bit but it was such a fine mist rain that it didn't get in our way at all. Rain is something we treasure in Arizona so we really enjoyed it. The reason we felt lucky was because there was absolutely NO lines for the rides! We rode just about every single ride at California Adventure, ate lunch, met the characters and played games in just under 4 hours. I'll take rain over lines any day!

Some of our favorite rides were the Soarin' California ride, Monsters Inc, and the Ferris Wheel. Our least favorite....Tower of Terror. Yes, we took both boys on that ride. Big mistake. So scary! Can you believe Andrew was brave enough and tall enough for that ride? Ugggh, makes me scared just thinking about it! You get into an "elevator", it takes you 10 stories up, opens the doors so you can see how high you are and then drops you 5 stories, opens the doors and drops you again. Just when you think it's over......it takes you to the top again and makes you re-live the terror. Okay, it was a little fun but I'll never do it again! Another scary ride was the California Screamin' roller coaster. I'm not a big roller coaster person but it was fun too! Bryan and his sister really enjoyed it!

The following day, we got to the park bright and early. Beautiful morning, clouds were pretty much gone and the park was once again, dead. No lines! We got to meet tons of characters and we took Taylor to meet the princesses too. Connor got to ride Indiana Jones for the first time. It's one of my favorites and he really enjoyed it too. He went twice, once with Bryan and me and once with Grandma. Taylor really loved the carousel, Pirates, Winnie the Pooh, and Small World. Drew's favorites were all of the rides he couldn't ride last year because he wasn't tall enough. Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain and of course, the Matterhorn. My favorite is the Haunted Mansion. They decorated it in a "Nightmare Before Christmas" theme, which I loved. It really helped to get us in the mood for our "Trick or Treat" night!

Later that night the kids dressed up in their costumes and we took them to the Trick or Treat event at the park. We had to buy a separate ticket for the event but it was SO worth it. We rode rides, went trick or treating, saw an awesome Halloween parade and a fireworks show. The kids had a really fun time dressing up as Buzz, Woody and Minnie Mouse. They got SO much candy, it was ridiculous! By the end of that day, we were all exhausted!

The next morning, we slept in a bit and had breakfast at the hotel. Grandma and Aunt Heather decided to skip Disney that day and head home early. We were sad to see them leave but it didn't stop us from going back for more Disney fun! That day was pretty rainy. We all wore our panchos to stay dry. It's funny because kids really don't care about weather like adults do. My kids never complain about it being too hot or too cold, too wet or windy. I never once heard them complain about the rain. They were just so happy to be at Disneyland and so were Bryan and I. That day we went to all the rides we missed the first day, then we decided to have each of us pick our favorite ride and then we'd go back to the hotel. Connor picked the Rockets (Because they were the closest), Bryan picked Pirates, I picked Haunted Mansion, Drew picked Splash Mountain and Taylor picked Winnie the Pooh. My favorite moment of that day was watching Connor and Andrew hold Taylors hands and help her walk up a hill. They were all three so happy. I'm so lucky to have them.

Now we're home.......just cleaned the house and finished all the laundry. The worst part about vacation. I can't wait until next summer when we can do it all again. I think we're renting a beach house though. Nice and relaxing!

Newport Beach

My Family

Cold water!

Handsome boy!

Having fun!

Running and playing

She's SO happy!

We took a vacation to California during the kids' October break this year. We had a 3 day hopper pass to Disneyland/California Adventure so there wasn't much free time to go to the beach this year. We did set aside half a day to enjoy the sand and water at Newport Beach.

This was not Taylor's first time at the beach but it was the first time she was really able to enjoy it and play in the water. She's just like her brothers...She LOVED it. It was chilly and cloudy that day but the weather didn't stop my kids. They dove right into that water. It was so much fun watching them run and play. It made me wish I was little again. I'm so blessed to have my kids and to be able to relive experiences like the beach through their eyes. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that day.