Carrot Cake

So this is my SAD attempt for a Carrot Cake from scratch :( It took me quite a long time to prepare it, shred the carrots and get everything mixed up. So in effort to make a small round cake for our Anniversary and a square pan for some bars...it ended up a DISASTER!!!!! In my effort to surprise my wonderful husband with this great cake for our Anniversary, he comes home and says, "What's on fire"...there was clearly a thick layer of smoke still lingering, despite my efforts to air the house out :( He did surprise me with flower's and a very sweet card...even though it did have a very elderly couple on it...lol (He said he would love me when we were much older than them to infinity...lol) Very sweet though ;)

So all in all, the cake turned out GREAT, after I put icing on it and took that first bite....ahhhh, it was the best carrot cake I have EVER had :) So I highly recommend this recipe, however please bake it in the 9x13 pan they suggest!!!

Looks can be deceiving!!!!

Here's the link where you can find the recipe: (although I ended up using 1 cup sugar and 1 cup brown sugar and 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup regular flour)

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Carrot-Cake-III/Detail.aspx

HAPPY 9 YEARS!!!!

I really, really can't believe it's been that long, well in a way, but WOW...makes ya kinda feel old..lol

I am so thankful the Lord brought us together 11 years ago, in that time I never even could imagine the life we have had together. As I walked down that aisle 9 years ago and looked into your eyes, I knew we would have a lifetime of fun and happiness. You always know what to do and what to say to make me happy, it really is the little things that mean the most ;) Even now I still get butterflies in my stomach when I anticipate that phone call or right before I see you, you truly are the LOVE of my LIFE and my BEST FRIEND!!!!

HAPPY 9 YEAR'S BABY!!!!!

A whirlwind of a weekend

This was our "Weekend Away", supposed to be for our Annual Anniversary getaway ( we usually try to get away by ourselves) However this weekend was a little more than that, but we did getaway without the kid's...which is really the general idea. So we headed down to Ohio with some friend's of our's...ok, well it was my friend's husband, John and his Dad, Pete who are both HUGE Buckeye fans....these were the guy's Johnny went down with a few week's ago. So we get on the road around 9:30ish and we just get past Milwaukee, when there is a guy driving beside us pointing to our tire saying "LOW"....uh-oh!!! We pull off to the nearest gas stationg and sure enough it was a small nail, which the guy's felt was a slow leak, so they put air in it and off we went (checking the tire every 5 min the entire 8 hr trip...literally Pete would NOT let the tire go unchecked...he's got the same sense of humor Johnny does..so not sure if he was really that concerned about it or not, but he had a signal for checking the tire EVERY 5 min..lol We finally make it to John's uncle's house which is in Westerville (SMALL, SMALL WORLD...that's where I grew up the first 4 years of my life, where my Mom graduated High School, where my Grandparent's lived and where Johnny and I bought our first house...crazy) We arrive, try to decide on dinner since Aunt Karen isn't there this weekend (she was picking up her Mom and would return on Sunday) so yes, I was the fifth wheel girl...LOL Although it wasn't so bad and I really did have a Great time, despite random boredness here and there..LOL We went to dinner, then some shopping for Buckeye stuff (this was one thing I was totally excited about is that they LOVE to shop around for Buckeye stuff...so that would mean my Coupon binder had to go with me...hehehe) at Kroger, Walgreen's, Meijer and the Buckeye Corner. Thankfully, my new best friend WALGREEN's had some GREAT deals the week before so I racked up lot's of Register Rewards...so that was extra fun shopping there :) We ended up finding a few things for Quaid's room and tshirts and such, then went back to get some sleep before the big game the next day!!
Wake up and it's GAME DAY!!! We all get ready and head downtown to the game, now I haven't been to a game in goodness, I don't really know how many years..but I believe it was before Quaid was born. So I was really kinda excited to experience the whole game day spirit and fun :) Johnny and I go our seperate ways because we had different tickets than the guys. We head in to the stadium and thankfully don't have to climb any stairs (because we had front row seats in the end zone) We start heading to our seats and Johnny is like, "There's Buck-i-guy", Of course, I'm like, "WHO???".."Buck-i-guy" as he points to this ridicuoulsly dressed guy. "Oh, ok that's cool"...Then he goes on and on about how this guy goes to EVERY game and is Famous for being the "Buck-i-guy"...yeah exciting huh?? LOL Anyway, we follow him and realize we are sitting right beside him..."HOW COOL??" The game was still 30 min away, so we of course got our pic's with "Buck-i-guy" (by the way he has personalized Jordan's with "Buck-i-guy" customized on the tongue of the shoes...lol It really was amazing how many people came over to get their pic with this guy..just boggles my mind (maybe I should dress up and throw a big flag over my back and be "Buck-i-gal") Then "Brutus the Buckeye" (in case you don't know...it's the Buckeye's mascot) comes out and starts running around in front of us, then out of no where he climbs up and starts getting pics with people, so of course I jumped over there to meet him too :) After that, I take off to hit the bathroom before the game starts and come back and "Buck-i-guy" was gone!!! Johnny was a little upset because he thought "Buck-i-guy" was our SURE opporunity to get on TV...lol But it seems he had the wrong seats..lol OH well, we still had Awesome seats and really, really enjoyed the game and WE WON!!!! We even stayed after the game was over, just taking it all in...it was really one of the best game experiences ever!!!

The game is over, we meet back up with the guys and head back to Uncle John's. By this time I was WIPED and went downstair's (we had our own lil suite..kinda nice ;) and took a lil nap, until Johnny yells down they got pizza. Not just any ordinary pizza...DONATO's pizza!!! YUMM-O!! We never really appreciated this pizza until we moved to Wisconsin and don't have the luxury of Donato's :( So I go up and eat, of course the guy's are watching football. After dinner I really didn't just wanna sit around and watch football all night, so I went down to our lil suite and got Uncle John's laptop and plopped down in front of the tv and had some "ME" time :) Then around 9ish...I really, really wanted something sweet, however Uncle John literally didn't have any food!!! (I forgot to mention he was one of the lucky Ohioan's who lost power for a few days from Hurricane "IKE") Thankfully, John spoke up and said he would take us to get some ice cream at "UDF" aka United Dairy Farmers...mmmm, another southern indulgence...(I know you'll appreciate that one Laura..lol) We get back and then the totaly unexpected happens...I take my daily pills for the evening and head downstairs to read before bed, about 20 min later..I start getting this really odd feeling in my chest, then a little in my neck. I take a few drinks of water thinking, maybe I didn't get enough to drink with my pills, that didn't help, then I take some Maalox, thinking it's just heartburn. It only get's WORSE!!!! So Johnny hops online trying to diagnose me or figure something out, finally after about 30 min, I tell him to call my dr. He talks to the triage nurse and tells him immediately to dial 911...well I didn't want him to do that, since we knew where the hospital was and it was literally 5 min down the road. So off the the ER and the pain is NOT getting any better, a little scared, but thinking maybe it was my meds or something...I just had no idea what could be causing it. Thankfully they got me back within a few min and ran an ekg right away, get me checked in and back to a room. The Dr. comes in and starts trying to get an idea of what's going on, then order's bloodwork, chest x-ray along with an aspirin right away with some Nitro pill I had to put under my tongue every 5 min. As soon as both of those kicked in, I was feeling much better!!! But that really wasn't good, was it?? Because if those helped relieve it then, it couldn't have been heart burn or indigestion?? So they continued with the other tests and hours went by...it was finally 2am and the Dr came back in to tell me that he wants to keep me overnight and have a stress test the next morning...by this time, I'm trying to hold back my tears...thinking, there is REALLY something SERIOUS wrong with me?? OH MY WORD!!! Then I say, well "we're supposed to head home to Wisconsin in the morning and we didn't drive" Which I'm sure we could have figured out something, but he did make it a point to say that he thought maybe it was my new allergy medicine "Allegra D" that has alot of sudafed in it, that could have caused the vessels in my heart to contract, but he really just wasn't sure what it could be. However he did say he felt comfortable enough since I did respond to the aspirin and he really didn't see anything LIFE THREATNING on the ekg or the chest x-ray (however that did show my lung's were inflammed) that he would release me as long as I contacted my Dr first thing on Monday morning and had a stress test done and if I started having any symptoms at all...go straight to the ER! So we finally made it out of there around 2:30 and both crashed when we got back. Then were quickly awaken at 9am, that we needed to get on the road...OH MY...it seemed like we had just gotten to sleep :( Thankfully though I was feeling ok, we quickly got ready and go on the road. I was starting to feel some pressure though and a little pain in my chest when we got down the road, so we stopped and I got some aspirin and took a nap, feeling better when I woke up only to find we still weren't through Indianapolis yet...lol It was a loooong trip home, but we made it around 4:30ish!!! It was sooo nice to be home and see our kid's...it really is nice to getaway, but it was GREAT to get to hug my kid's!!! Especially after the whole ordeal I had gone through, which was still weighing on my mind, however I hadn't really had much pain or pressure since we got back, but then again I was taking Asprin ever 4-6 hrs ;)
The next morning, I call my dr and schedule an appt, then after I got off the phone, I started thinking that maybe the receptionist misunderstood me, because she just made an appt with her at the office?? Would they do a stress test at the office?? I was a little confused and my pain started coming back, so I called back and this time the receptionist got the Dr for me. She reassured me she didn't think at all that there was anything wrong with my heart, she actually laughed when I told her what the ER Dr told me about the Allergra. She was thinking it could be a number of things, but maybe try some pepcid or Zantac, something along that line. I happended to have some, so I took 1 and had no relief, took another (not to exceed 2 in 24 hrs) and still no relief :( Johnny suggested I just take another aspirin, since that seemed to be helping me, until the morning...when I could get in to see her. Actually my appt was in the afternoon, but if I still had the pain, I was going to call and see if I could get in that morning. It started to come back, but only after I was trying to get some stuff done around the house, cleaning and laundry. I literally had to take a break and my breathing was a little heavy. So, I go in to see my Dr, which she had already recieved all my med records from the ER and went through the symptoms with me again, overruled a few things, then she checked me out and came to the conclusion it was Pluersy. (again I was holding back tears...because it sounds sooo lifelong?? I had no idea what it was, all I heard was that there was some disease I had) She called it Plueritis and reassured me it would go away with an anti-inflammatory and I should be 100% in about 2 weeks :) WOW....alll that grief for something like that...I'll tell ya, I try not to worry, because I know God is in control and whatever his will is for me....it will be done and He doesn't want us to live worrying, but this time was just one of those times!!! So Praise the Lord it's nothing serious!!!
So yes, that was our Great Weekend AWAY!!!! lol Up until the ER visit, I really had such a great time and am so thankful for Grammy & Grampy...for keeping the grandkids for the weekend :) It was definitely a much needed mini-vacation!!!

Thankfully I am starting to feel much better, however still have a few moments here and there, but hopefully will be 100% SOON!!!!

R.I.P Bologna 8/1/08-9/12/08

We didn't even think he would last this long (being a fair fish and all) but poor Bologna has passed away :( Of all times for him to go he went last Friday night when we had Quaid's best friend's family over for a cookout....all the kid's come running in and Quaid said, "Bologna isn't moving, he's just on his side" So sure enough he was gone and Quaid didn't take it very well, he cried and cried because he wanted to keep him forever :( Hmmmm....wonder if you can get fish stuffed?? lol Either way, Quaid finally the next morning, said his goodbye's and he was on his journey down the toliet..lol

So Goodbye "Buckeye Matthew Bologna"....this was his full name Quaid came up with ;)

lil Bailey

I'm really enjoying my alone time with my lil girl this week...it's been nice to just get to spend one on one time with her and I absolutely LOVE this stage she is in...SOOO FUN!!!! The thing's she comes up with just crack me up or just amaze me. Here are just a few of the thing's I jotted down from our day...lol


*Bailey has yet to grasp the concept of days, she will always say "Yesterday" even if it was months or a year ago...lol



*This morning after breakfast she say's:
"It's just me and you, MOM" "It's just me and you"....sooo cute ;)







*When she got her snack:
"These raisin's are just gonna get eated"







*"I always have the radio on KLOVE during the day (it's sooo encouraging and lifts your spirit) today, I hear Bailey singing away, "Holy is the Lord, God Almighty"....oh my how she melts my heart ;)



*The kid's always race to see who can get to the door first and open it when we go outside or leave somewhere, so yesterday we were going out to play and she says "It's my fault to open the door"...LOL SILLY GIRL!!!



*Today we were decorating for Fall and Bailey thought it was sooo cool, and kept asking me when we were getting the Christmas tree out, then telling me where we need to put it. I had to continuously tell her the Halloween, Thanksgiving then Christmas. Our Christmas tree is her favorite though and last year when I was taking it down...she was literally crying and asking me to keep it up.



*Her fav thing to do outside....jump on the trampoline!!! It's just her size too ;)

*She's such a little Mommy too, always putting her babies to sleep...here I caught her "Uh-Oh's" taking a nap together...sooo sweet ;)




*This was something sooo funny that I noticed last week, we were at a store and she heard a little girl saying "Hula Hoop", so Bailey kept saying it too, everytime we would see this girl. The little girl thought it was cool that Bailey was saying it and kept telling her Mommy, "Did you hear what that girl said, Mommy??" So now everytime we see a little girl while we are shopping, she shouts out "Hula Hoop" thinking it's that same little girl...LOL Sooo funny ;)



*Last but not least, here is our Princess reading her fav book :) Usually when I grab the camera she will stop, because she doesn't want me to record her, but this time she didn't even notice me till the end....sooo sweet! Last week she told me that "Grammy was her girl"...lol

Monthly Wrap

WOW...time is flying and we've been SUPER busy!!! I'll try to give ya a lil summary of what's been happening in our family lately :)



*The kid's and I took a lil road trip to our HOME state...the home of "The Ohio State Buckeyes". It's typically a 7 1/2 - 8hr drive with a few stops here and there for potty breaks, however this trip turned into our WORST time ever...10hrs and 8 stops!!! I know crazy, huh? Well I know all you Mom's understand, but seriously...it was a VERY frustrating trip! I did learn something though along the way....I remember on our family vacation's when I was a kid, my Dad would always tell us to be quiet and NOT to talk to him while he was in traffic....WOW, I FINALLY GET IT!!!! Chicago traffic, Indianapolis rush hour and a little girl sitting right behind you just talking away to you in her little voice just as sweet as can be, when you really can't even think about what she's saying and just agreeing with whatever, "Uh huh", "Yes, Bailey"...when all of a sudden you hear, "Hey Quaid, Mommy said we can go to the park today".......OH MY!! Then on prob our 5th stop after Indianapolis traffic, I get Bailey out of the car and she has a BIG orange something in her hair...only to look closer and YES..it was GUM!!! Good grief and we just so happened to still be about 3 1/2 hrs away from Grandma's house :( Thankfully though, we arrived safe and sound to Grandma's and immediately got a piece of ice and managed to get the gum out without having to cut her little goldilock's!!!

So yes, that was definitely an interesting and long trip, but it was sooo nice to be in Ohio and knowing that I was going to get a whole 3 day's with NO KID's....ahhhh, PRICELESS!!!!!! Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my kid's and love spending time with them, however this Mama needed a BREAK...lol And what better of a break to take with my Best friend to reminisce, catch up and just relax :)

We did just that too, along with a trip to King's Island for a few (notice I said a FEW...yeah that means 2!!!) rides!!! It's funny how your body changes when you get older and some rides that you LOVED as a kid, just arent' as great anymore :( I literally wanted off this one ride that was a big circle and took you from side to side....REALLY, REALLY high too, I just wanted OFF!!!!!! Then we did one other coaster we all loved as kid's, but just wasn't anything too exciting anymore. After those 2 rides, we were ready to just hit the waterpark and cool off!!! We headed back to the van to have a picnic before we went in to the waterpark and the temp outside was 106!!! We quickly ate and headed off to get cool in the wave pool...lol, we're such the kid's at heart, huh? Actually that was Steph's plan for her bachelorette weekend was that she wanted to be a KID again and just have fun with her girlfriend's. Well not sure about the kid thing, but we did have TONS of fun...who doesn't when they are with their girlfriends for the weekend? Here's a few pic's from our weekend and Bailey in her "Weddding Dress"...lol She is the flower girl in Aunt Steffie's wedding and is soooo excited, when we got home, the first thing out of her mouth was, "Daddy, I got my wedding dress and we brought it home" WOW....to hear those word's from our lil Princess...oh my, I really hope that doesn't come tooo quickly!!!



*Soon after we got home from our trip, Johnny got offered a ride to the Home opener for the Buckeye's and he would be leaving in 3 days...I know, WHY did we come home again??? We were just there and I prob would have stayed if I had known he was going to be going right back down there!! Oh well, we spent 2 nights together before he left...because he was also going to the Packer's game the Thursday night before he left the very next morning for Ohio. It was fine though, my sister and I got to have a girl's weekend!!! She had been in Georgia for the past 3 wks, so it was nice to catch up with her and the kid's were SOOOO happy to have her home...I was getting tired of answering them when they asked a few times a day..."Is Aunt Haylee home yet?"...lol Funny how kid's just don't get the concept of time.



*Labor Day was fun!! Daddy got home on Sunday afternoon and we went to our friend's for a cookout, then finished up our Back to School shopping...I procrastinated BIG time on this!!! We managed to find everything though and the very next morning, my little boy would be on the bus off to his first FULL day of 1st grade :(



*First Day of School.....was ODD!!!!!! Prob not odd for Quaid, but odd for Mommy and QUIET! Bailey and I had our usual Tuesday storytime @Starbuck's, then did a little shopping of course ;) Then home for a quiet afternoon. Strangely though it went by really fast, of course I kept busy organizing coupons...lol Then Daddy actually got home before Quaid got off the bus, WOW...both my boy's come home the same time...YES that's ODD to me ;) Actually though Quaid's bus was running a little late and didn't get home till 4:45, when it was supposed to be there at 4:15, I know it was the first day...but still, it kinda felt like he was never going to get home!!! He had a GREAT day and said his favorite part was eating lunch...lol Of course he had to tell us all about his friends and who was in his class from last year, ahhhh...how I remember those days :)

Her Baby had to go to sleep before the bus came...LOL

My Boy's

*Later in the week we got a chance to go see the NEXT President, John McCain and the 1st Woman Vice President, Sarah Palin!!! The "Straight Talk Express" was headed to our town, so Bailey and I along with our friend's Jill & Trent headed downtown early morning to try to get as close as we could to see them. As we headed downtown, things weren't looking good as the line that we saw was prob 4 blocks long, but as we were getting to the end, we decided to head over on the other side and managed to get right up to the security gates...however it wasn't moving very quickly. We did get in about an hour before they arrived, but were still behind the bleacher's and behind the PRESS...like they should get special treatment or something...LOL j/k I did manage (not sure how my arm is still connected to my body...lol) to video tape the whole half hour, even though it makes you a little dizzy watching some part's where my arm was starting to give way...LOL It was fun though and just AWESOME to be a part of :) I didn't get any pictures of them on stage, because I was taping the whole time...but my brother was in front of them and got really GOOD pics...so I'm waiting on those to be emailed over soon!!! GO PALIN, GO!!!! Don't ya just love her??? ;)

*Last but not least....SHOPPING!!!!!! You knew it was coming...lol Yes, I have been getting the deals even more than EVER!!!! It's been truly crazy and just makes me sooo giddy, I'll just start laughing as I'm putting away this stuff or as I'm showing Johnny...it's just sooo AWESOME!!! As most of you know, most of our stores here don't "Double Coupon's"...except for 1 local grocery store that will only do it on Wed and there are RULES...they will only double up to $1 and there is a limit of 5 coupons doubled and your purchase has to be at least $25 before coupons. So I have taken advantage of this EVERY Wednesday and am definitely going to miss it when it ends this Wed :( However I have gotten some pretty cool deals, although this past week I went to 3 different grocery stores, just to get these great deals and use as many double coupons as I can!!! Then I had heard that certain Kmart store's were participating in "Super Double Coupons", where they were doubling up to $2 and the limit was 75 coupons....I was psyched!!!! Then I called the store's around us...and they weren't doing it :( Then one of my friend's found one that was about an hour away, immediately I knew it was time for a road trip!!!!!! lol So we packed up the kid's after the Rally for McCain/Palin and headed to Kmart. After having everything all planned out and all 75 of my coupons out and ready to go, we still spent 2 1/2 hrs in that store...LOL Thankfully I only had Bailey (and she's my lil shopper mini-me) so it wasn't too bad...we came out of there with $130 saved and spent a whopping $25!!!! It was sooo cool to see that total go down, down, down and down more....SOOO AMAZING and the hard work/drive had defnitely paid off :) Then I wake up Sat morning and get the mail, my Kellogg's coupons came from Ebay!!!!!! I had ordered these earlier in the week after I found out about a great deal on Pop Tart's at Target, they were on sale $4/9, Kellogg's coupon was $1/2, then Target had their web coupon's out there for $.50/1, and if you bought 4 boxes you got a $5 gift card...well this meant they were FREE!!!!!! Let me just tell you, I have a hard time letting FREE things get away from me...LOL So while Daddy and Quaid prepared for their big Buckeye game, Bailey and I took off for another day of shopping :) A grand day it was....we got 48 big boxes of Pop Tart's all for FREE!!! Sooo soooo cool!!! I have already given some away, but we will definitely be stocked on Pop Tart's for awhile....lol

My Kmart Super Double Coupon trip :)

POP Tart's ANYONE????