HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MAMA!!

Last Sunday we celebrated my Mom's birthday with our first barbecue of the year. It was amazing!! It was my Step Dad's idea and it turned out to be so much fun! Here's a super cute picture of them.It really got me excited for all of the future barbecue's to be enjoyed this coming summer! The food was delicious..especially the grilled corn. Yummy! Here's the birthday lady and Porter enjoying the nice weather outside. Porter loves this exercise rope thing. It has been one of his favorite toys at Grandma's house since he was super little..haha, silly boy. After the barbecue, my Mom opened her presents and got a lot of fun stuff. She then blew out the candles and we all enjoyed delicious ice cream and carrot cake. We all had a wonderful evening and we were so happy that my Mom's cousin Kjetil and his daughter Mia were able to come. We don't get so see them very often, and it was so much fun spending some time with them. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY! We love you so much and hope you had a wonderful birthday! :)

Happy St. Patty's Day

St. Patty's Day is such a fun holiday!! Every year my family gets together to celebrate St. Patty's with the traditional Irish Corned Beef and Cabbage! This year, we had our St. Patty's party the Sunday before St. Patty's Day and Paul and I had the party at our house. My Mom is so amazing and volunteered to make 3 big crock pots full of the corned beef and cabbage. She is absolutely amazing!! Here's the food and all the guests enjoying the delicious meal. I made icecream jello for dessert. It didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted it to, but it was still pretty yummy. Next time I will definitely add more ice cream. Here is the recipe for the jello ice cream if anyone is interested.

ingredients:
2 large packages (6 oz each) Jell-o (any flavor)
1 packet of unflavored Knox gelatin
4 cups boiling water
half of a container of vanilla ice cream about 3/4 quart (next time I am going to add about 3/4 of the box.)

In a large bowl combine the Jell-o, unflavored gelatin and the boiling water. Whisk until dissolved. Now you want to quickly add the ice cream until it is melted and combined. I’ve found that exactly half of a container works well. Now, they’ve changed the size of these things, believe it or not, so one container of ice cream is now actually 1.5 quarts, it is no longer a half gallon!

Once mixed well, pour into a 9″ x 13″ pan. Refrigerate overnight, cut into squares and serve. If you are doing this for a party, I suggest putting the cut pieces into cupcake liners.

The ice cream will magically float to the top of the jello.

And here's our cute little leprechaun. And here are some pictures from the party. After dinner, we watched a slide show of pictures from our family trip to Norway last August. Everyone had given Paul their pictures and he made a slide show from them. There were so many pictures from the trip that we only made it through Paul's and my pictures so we will need many more parties to be able to see them all.
Thanks so much for the fun evening everyone.
On the actual St. Patty's Day, March 17th, I made green eggs and rainbow pancakes for breakfast. Porter thought the pancakes were pretty fun, and he ate the blue one all gone.
And then I made St. Patty's Day Pesto Chicken Alfredo Lasagna. It sounds wierd, but it was actually very good. Porter even loved it.

Here is the recipe for the lasagna. You should try it. We loved it.


ST. PATTY'S DAY PESTO ALFREDO LASAGNA

• 1 pkg lasagna noodles
• 1 10oz pkg frozen spinach
• 2 chicken breasts--cooked and diced up
• 2 jars alfredo sauce
• 4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 pints ricotta cheese
• 1 container pesto
• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350degs. If using regular noodles, cook in salted water until al dente. If using oven-ready, lay first layer in pan. Cook spinach according to package directions, drain well.
Pour each jar of alfredo sauce into a separate bowl, and divide pesto into each bowl. Mix well. Add the chicken into one of the bowls. Mix together the ricotta cheese and spinach.
If using oven ready noodles, add about 3/4 cups of water to he alfredo/chicken mixture.
In your 9x13 pan, layer your noodles, then all of the chicken/alfredo mixture. Sprinkle 1 cup of cheese over it. Layer noodles, then spinach/ricotta mixture. Pour half of the second bowl of alfredo over this, then another cup of cheese. One more layer of noodles, the rest of the alfredo sauce, then the rest of the cheese.
Bake for 50-60 minutes.

Hope you all had a HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY!!

Same Kind of Different As Me

I just finished this book for Book Club and 'Same Kind of Different As Me' is hands down one of the best stories I have ever read. I would recommend this book to anyone. This amazing true story tells how God brought two very different people in the most unlikely way, how their relationship evolved to the deepest of friendships, and the woman who brought them together changed both their lives forever. It's also the story of how God can bring us through the most painful circumstances with His limitless love. I shed a lot of tears as I read this book, but by the end, I was in awe of how powerful love and friendship really are. The book is co-authored by Denver Moore and Ron Hall.

This is how the publisher described the book:

A dangerous, homeless drifter who grew up picking cotton in virtual slavery.An upscale art dealer accustomed to the world of Armani and Chanel.A gutsy woman with a stubborn dream. A story so incredible no novelist would dare dream it.It begins outside a burning plantation hut in Louisiana . . . and an East Texas honky-tonk . . . and, without a doubt, in the heart of God. It unfolds in a Hollywood hacienda . . . an upscale New York gallery . . . a downtown dumpster . . . a Texas ranch.Gritty with pain and betrayal and brutality, this true story also shines with an unexpected, life-changing love.

I just love this book and it is full of all sorts of incredibly wonderful quotes; especially from Denver Moore. Here are a couple of my favorites:

“I found out everybody’s different – the same kind of different as me. We’re all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or something in between, this earth ain’t no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless – just workin our way toward home"

"Our limitation is God's opportunity. When you get all the way to the end of your rope and there ain't nothin you can do, that's when God takes over."

"If you is fishin' for a friend you just gon' catch and release, then I ain't got no desire to be your friend. But if you is lookin' for a real friend, then I'll be one. Forever."

Missed Miscarriage #2

Ok, here is our story! I want to warn you that I am going to mention every detail about this ordeal because I am using my blog as a journal and want to remember everything. So I apologize about that.
We first found out that we were pregnant on Valentines Day (cute huh).
At exactly six weeks pregnant we went in for our first doctor's visit. The doctor told me that they could see a gestational sac, but that it measured only about 5- 5 1/2 weeks. He said that I probably just ovulated late and to come back in a week and 2 days. I thought that was a little strange since my periods are always right on track and I had tested for pregnancy 5 days before my missed period and I had tested positive. That week I started having some a lot pains on my lower left stomach and started getting very dizzy, and super tired. The dizziness and tiredness were the only pregnancy symptoms that I experienced. That next Friday, at 7 weeks 2 days, I went into the doctor again. At this appointment, my doctor said that my gestational sac had doubled in size and that they could also see a yoke sac. They still couldn't see an embryo, but he was very optimistic that it was probably still a little too early to see the embryo and it was good news that everything else was progressing the way that it should. I still thought it was a little odd that an embryo couldn't be seen at over 7 weeks, but I wanted to retain hope. I can't even begin to tell you how horrible and frustrating it was to be told again that they still didn't know for sure if there was a growing baby and that they kept telling me that we had to wait another week. Not fun! I went for my last visit a weeks later when I was 8 weeks 2 days (Last Friday). They again did a vaginal ultrasound and an embryo still couldn't be seen and my gestational sac had begun to sink a little. He told me that I had another missed miscarriage. They drew my blood to see what my HCG levels were and they were as high as they should have been for how far pregnant I should have been. He said that an embryo for sure should have been seen by how high my levels were.
At first he told me that a D&C wouldn't be needed this time since there wasn't an embryo and he just wanted me to wait until I miscarried naturally. He later called me at home and told me that he wanted me to start on medication Misoprostol (also called Cytotec) to get the miscarriage started. Saturday, I started the medication! YUCK!! Within about 20 minutes of starting the medication, I started feeling super nauseous and started cramping and bleeding like crazy. After the 2nd pill I started throwing up. Not fun! I had to take 2 pills every 6 hours for only 24 hours (thank goodness). My OB told me that when we start trying for another baby, he will put me on the hormone progesterone and baby asprin to use as a blood thinner. Hopefully this will do the trick.
So that is our story in a nut shell. It is so amazing what kind of curve balls life throws at you sometimes. I could never have imagined going through 2 miscarriages in a row before. I have know been pregnant for about 20 weeks with this pregnancy and my last one, and have gained 20 lbs.. UGH!! We just have to remember that again, this is all in the Lord's hands. For some reason it just wasn't time for us to have another child yet. This is so hard to think about, but I know that when it is time.. we will be blessed with another beautiful baby. So until then we will keep loving and squeezing our incredibly beautiful little Porter. I can't even begin to let you know how much we have been blessed by his sweet spirit in our home. I don't know what I would do without him. I love this little boy so much!! And I realize this now more than ever. I also have been thinking a lot about getting back in shape before trying to get pregnant again. I think I went into some kind of depression with the previous miscarriage and have been extremely lazy and not motivated to do anything. I am going to sign up for the Bear Lake Marathon in June and hopefully training for this can help me refocus and get some positive endorphins that I greatly need!!! I am so thankful to have such an incredible husband. He has such an incredible calm focus and understanding about life. I just love him to death. And a big thank you to all of you for all of your love and support. Life isn't easy sometimes and I really appreciate all that you guys have done for us! We are so blessed with such incredible family and friends in our lives. I love you all!

Sugar House Park

Last week we had a HUGE snowstorm. Since it is already March and spring is soon approaching, we were pretty sure that this could be the last major snowstorm of the year. So, my friend Emily and her cute son Ander, and Porter and I spent the afternoon last Wednesday playing in the snow at Sugar House Park. We went sledding, made snowmen, and Porter and Ander especially had a BLAST splashing it up in the mud. Man, the things parents let their children do sometimes.. :-) It definitely kept them occupied for a while while Emily and I built these fabulous snowmen! :-) Notice the garbage collected throughout the park used to dress the snowmen..haha! We had such a blast. What a super fun day we had! Thanks so much Emily and Ander. Porter and I LOVED it! :)