Check back today!

So lets see!!  I am a blogger failure I think!

First I get excited, then I start to feel sorry for myself when I realize I only have about 30 people who read and it isn't growing that I know of, then I get busy with life, then I wish I was writing, then I start again....

Am I a pain?!  Yes! 

However I was discussing with hubby one of the problems is I can't write at home, with the chaos!!  So we have agreed to let me go somewhere with free wifi to write a few times a week.  So lets see if this helps.

This week I intend on writing about:

Little girls and their images (body) and to be aware of it
How to have the perfect barbie party
End of school fun-ness
and TBA  :)

Hello, Hello, Hello....it's meeeeeee...showing you a Marshmallow Shooter! DIY

AGAIN!  Yep I am giving it a go again.  I swear someday my crazy princess filled life will allow me to do the 5 posts a week that are my goal!  But for now, thank you for being a faithful reader!

And my motivation.  Brooke, a friend, needed the how to on how to make these!  So here ya go Brooke!!

I wanted to give you a neat "craft" if you will, today.  It isn't all that girly either! 

Alia needed to make something for Market Day at school.  And she wanted to not only attract the girls for customers, but the boys as well.  She settled on a marshmallow shooter.  And then tested it out.  It was awesome, super easy and super inexpensive!!  A great hit at school as well.

To make your own I will post what I did here.  I got the original idea from the all mighty Pinterest.  It is actually a blog I really enjoy following.  Come Together Kids.  Her post is here.

Soooo to make your own, here is what you need to do:

Marshmallow Shooter

You will need:

Marshmallows
Cups 
Balloons
Pom Poms if you want

Yep that's it!!!






First you want to take the cup and cut the bottom off.  I would suggest using a little bit heavier duty cup.  Don't make it the huge Solo cups because their brim is too wide, but the smaller ones seemed to work perfect for me.  If your cup is too flimsy it will buckle under the pressure of the balloon.

Once it is cut, take your balloon and cut the tip off.  I figured it is about 1/4 of an inch. 

That's it.

now you take your balloon and tie the end just like you would if you were tying a balloon. 

Once that part is tied you stretch the cut part over your cup, just like these...

Now you're ready to go shoot.  The marshmallows (tiny are best) go the farther.  Pompom's are safest in the house however. 

To get the furthest distance out of your shooter you put the marshmallow right in the center of where the balloon is tied.  That really give it a chance to "pop".

Try shooting them straight up in the air, shoot them as far as you can and make it a game by drawing a line and trying to pass it.

 See how far the kids are?  That was where this marshmallow, and a few others landed!

There ya go.  A quick and simple way to keep the kids buys and convince them to go outside!!

Let me know if you ever try it out!

How do you convince your kids to go out when they don't want to?

hAPPy sunday!!

Cheesy right?   Well what do you expect from a mom of three little ones?

This weekend was incredibly envisioned to be productive and was exactly the opposite.  So I'm kinda bummed, however tomorrow is a NEW WEEK!

That being said I thought on Sundays I could share some of my favorite Apps, since with three kiddos a tech hubby and myself I have plenty of opinions and apps to share.  :)

The first one kinda compares with the almighty Pinterest...however, there is one little catchy that makes this one even more of a gem in some ways.

If you are like me you are not always where you can use 3g or Wifi, like the airplane etc.  Well if you mark a web page to "read it later" by using this app. It downloads the page, stores everything, you tag and sort it and it is all there for you.  Connection or not!  how great is that?!  I LOVE it, and it has been super user friendly.  So much in fact that they revamped it from "read it later" to "pocket" and it has a whole new interface that I just LOVE.

 See there's all my pages with a picture, though you can choose list view if you want. 

 You can choose what to do with the page and favorite it if you want to find it fast.

 You can even tag em with anything your little heart desires.  Pretty darn effective if you ask me.  So you can search by type, ie, jpg, video, web page etc.

 So there ya have it.  My lil blurb about one of my favorite apps. 

Try it out.  FREE is always a good price!

What is a favorite APP of yours?

Weekend Review

Ok so who here would like reviews???  I love giving my idea on how something worked and I thought the weekend would be a good time....

So let me know if you think it is a good idea...

I'm gonna start with Kings Hawaiian

My hubby introduced me to these a while ago and they are amazing.  They are a sweet roll, but they have the most amazing flavor ever! 

So recently he went on a business trip and they just happen to  be one of his customers.  LUCKY him got to visit the plant and he hinted strongly at wanting to bring some home.

the Guy apologized that it was only a new product, the hot dog buns.  He was like hey a sweet roll is a sweet roll.  I'll take it!  So he brought two bags home.  And alas they lasted less than a day!!

 

These little things are ingenious too!  Instead of being puffy on the top and nothing on the bottom and cut so your hot dog can fall out, they cut them right down the center top.  How amazing is that?

 

SEE?

 

Ok I know I know one needs a life if hot dog buns excited them.  but hey it's the small things!!  Anyhow they are WELL worth your trip.

you will usually find them not in the bread section but in the bakery section.  Go try em!!

Have you had em before?  What did you think?

Am I back? I have a new name tho......

Phew!!!  Wow that is a long break isn't it?
Are any of you still there with me???

I fell, not off the face of this earth, but into the my life is too busy and no one cares conundrum.  Yes I admit it, I was feeling a tad tiny bit sorry for myself.

there I am done!

And I will start back off with our trip back to Salt Lake. 

I have received a new name, not only from my hubby but my mother in law, even my friend Lisa, my neighbor, really anyone who knows me....bet you're wondering what it is hu?  He calls me the black widow of travel.  Yep isnt' that nice?

Problem is it may be the teensy bit true.  But don't tell him!!  Ok so he reads this so there honey I admit it, ONCE in a while WE have bad luck....

So we were all ready to get back home after a weekend in WI with family.  Things went swimmingly from Madison to O'hare.  Then we landed....

Our flight was a speedy 35 minutes.  Our time on the runway, a torturing 45 minutes!  As the nice attendant was making the announcement for people who don't have close connections to stay in their seats so others could get off, well I guess the WHOLE plane had pressing times, because by the time we got off the runway, into our gate, and off the plane to check the board; it said, "CLOSED" meaning we weren't breaking onto that plane.

Hubby coolly walked over to the United customer service counter to file his complaint. 

See how deliriously happy he is about this?

 In the meantime KK was being such a good trooper, not a peep out of her!

 

  As he was discussing his options with them, they were saying we couldn't get home before afternoon, where he coolly informed them Delta had a flight and he will be on it!  After all that got worked out she tried to tell him he had to call the hotel himself.  Good thing I have a hubby who travels a lot cuz if it were me I woulda just been like oh ok. But he said uh, no that is your job.  So after assuring him three times that his tickets were good and Delta, he gave her and myself a smile and the poor Kbean was almost asleep by this time; we were on our way.

 

An expensive dinner with cheap vouchers later we were in our room and praying for sleep since we had to awake at 5.  We wondered, not really, if the airlines would pay us for our scramble to find overnight care for our daughters at home, also someone to ready them in the morning and get them to school, added onto the cost of the car in the lot over another night.

Sweet dreams!

We arrive the next morning at the Delta counter only to find that..here it is...something you won't hear me say often....MY HUBBY WAS RIGHT.  The tickets weren't released to Delta and we had to walk to another terminal to get them released and then back to Delta.



Finally on our new flight home, all was smooth until we arrived...and found to our NON utter shock, the car seat didnt' make it as safely.  It was still sitting lonely in the Ohare Airport.

Not to worry because Delta gave us a loaner and delivered it later that day.  But OY it is GOOD to be home!

And good to be back to blogging.  I missed you guys!  Hope you missed me too!

They take over!

Have you ever looked at where you keep your cookbooks?

I bet, you have at least a dozen recipe type things or books there and I bet you hardly look at any of them.  Am I right?

At least that is how it is with me.  I mean I have this family to feed.  I have fabolous sounding books too!  Freezer ones, baby food making, sneaking veggies in, slow cooker, chocolate only books, cake mix books.  And I love every single one of them.

However I. Am. Boring.

Yep there I admitted it.  Or is it more I. Am. a. Procrastinator.?

I guess it is a bit of both.  I really like my staple meals, some of which I shared here, hey I guess I am due to share another one too hu?  But I am learning.  Today now with Pinterest I dont use cookbooks very often.  However I love them.  They have such pretty pctures.  And I love paper.  I love touching it, turning the pages.  So someday I plan to sit down and make a list out of those cookbooks on things I want to try.

I also am starting to learn how to meal plan.  That would be to help the procrastinating part.  I tell ya, I tend to wait till 4 and then wonder why the heck I can't figure anything out when all the meat is in the freezer and even my crock pot can't save me!  I'll let you know how that goes.  But I figure that will hellp wtih the use of my stash.

Maybe I'll even share that I cleaned that cabinet someday, but don't get your hopes up.  Hahaha, if it is hidden, it is clean.  Right?

See???

Told you I loved em! The magazines too!  

How about you?  Do you have an evergrowing, unused stash of cookbooks?

Miscarriage ~ What you dont hear about...helpful advice for coping...

Hopefully.

I wrote a majority of this last week.....
The blue italics are what I wrote last week.  I also put a line below if you wanted to skip right to the advice and how I coped....

I'm not sure if I'm ready to write this...Nope don't believe I am...........................so I'll start and maybe I'll finish another day.

Loss.  Something everyone one of us has had to deal with one time or another. 

I had intended on writing this great post on marriage, and I will write it someday, but I feel like a cruel and unusual punishment is mine for the taking at the moment.

Most of you know, but  for those of you that don't, I suffered my first miscarriage last Monday.  So I now have an angel in heaven.

Logically I know there is nothing I did wrong, and nothing I could have done.  However trying to tell your heart that when it is breaking in a million pieces is a totally other story.

If I can impress one thing upon you it is, no matter what YOU think of someone else, when they are going through something, whether you think it is dumb or just blown out of proportion, please take their thoughts into consideration.  What they are feeling is REAL no matter how silly it may seem to you.

I have had three beautiful daughters, hence the name of the blog.  but that doesn't make the loss of my fourth baby any easier.  Even if he/she was only 6 weeks along.  God had already had them in his mind.  Many years ago at that.  The beginning of time in fact!  My baby was just that, a baby, his/her heart was going to start beating this week, the spine was forming, as were many other things. 

This was "Quatro" as my hubby lovingly called him/her.  We were excited to add another member to our amazing group of little ones.  We may get stressed from time to time, but we sure do adore being parents.

This weekend we needed a break away.  We were forgetting that we were more than just parents, so we went away, sans kids.  It was amazing and we had a great time, however, as we were heading home, I started to spot.  Nervous but not thinking the worst we went on our way.  Finished our day out. 

Unfortunately the night brought pain and more convincing evidence.  And by morning it was clear.  All day Monday I was in a daze, a daze loosing my fourth peanut.  A much anticipated peanut. 

The worst part of it all. the person I called my doctor, the one I put my health, trust, faith and emotions into, was nothing of the sort.  Not once did I get a sorry for your loss.  I actually even got accused for a moments time of lying about being pregnant, and i got jerked around for the better part of 36 hours.  That was the worst 36 hours of torture I could ever go through.  I can't even begin to describe to you the things this nurse told me, that were un-called for and inappropriate in this time I was going through.

But I CAN tell you something else I learned.  I learned that God truly does have our backs at all times.  Because as many of your know, from time to time I miss home, and I feel lonely and wonder if I left the only good thing I could find back there.  I left such a great network, that I just wondered so early in my new journey here if I would ever find the same thing.

I found it, but I found it triple fold.  My friends out here are AMAZING.  And THAT is an understatement!  I have had people bring me flowers, dinner, lunch, and offer to watch the kids.  I have had calls and texts, and countless well wishes and hugs.  I can't even begin to tell you what these people have meant to me.  To my body, to my baby, to my healing, to my faith.  You all are amazing and I will never be able to repay you for what you have given me.  I just hope that if you read this and you know who you are, that you have affected my life forever and I will never for get it and will always be grateful!!!

It is now a week and a half later, I am through the worst and ready to head back for the best.  I am ready to pick up and start again. That being said, I found there are some things that just aren't talked about, and I wanted to share, in the hopes that my loss can help someone else grieve.

One thing I found, that as early as I miscarried, we are left with the idea that maybe we shouldn't be as sad as we feel.  You will hear it is a chromosome thing, it is a genetic thing, the baby would have had many problems.  While all this is well and true, and I am thankful that he/she won't have to go through a painful life, it doesn't make the fact that you are loosing him/her any easier.  So we feel that we aren't supposed to be sad, for a day much less more than a week or more.  We feel like because there wasn't even a dr appointment we should just push the feelings away and focus on the positive.

While the positive is good, you need to focus on your pain.  If even for a moment.  I was told by a friend here, that even though my girls are here and yes I need to be here for them, don't let it take away from the fact that I do need time, to myself, to grieve my loss. 

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So I am here to tell you, whether far along, or not at all, please let yourself grieve how you need to.  You are NOT alone in this!  

I cried.  I still cry once in a while.  You don't hear of how the emotions will hit you.  You think you have had your good cry and then out of the blue you start bawling.  It is NORMAL.  Not only are you suffering a loss you are suffering crazy hormones.

Your body will go through amazing changes too, I had a hard time finding out if it was normal to all of a sudden bloat like I was 5 months pregnant.  But I did.  And it is normal, It will go away in about a week to a week and a half.  As will the physical pain.  One thing that has held on a bit longer but is tapering away is fatigue.  Your poor body has gone through so many changes.  You will find that each day it feels like you hit a brick wall.  You are SO tired.  Don't let others tell you that you are depressed (unless it is several weeks after and you can't get out of bed at all) because again your hormones and body have been totally shook up.  The tired is normal.  If you can, rest!  Let the kids watch TV if you have others, let them color, play and make a mess with out you.  You are NO less a mom!!  

Lastly I wanted to show you what I did, that really helped me.  For me I feel I need something tangible.  Something to hold and look at.  That is hard to do when your loss is so early.  But it can be done.  

Some people told me they have a memorial service.

I made a memorial tin.

I took a dollar store tin (or Altoids) and took some cute scrap booking paper.  I traced the tin on the paper and cut it out, then sprayed the paper with Elmer's spray glue.  I then put paper on top and bottom and found some ribbon to wrap around the side to make the color right.

I added a few stickers and a heart inside.  I also added a name, as hubby and I always make "fun" names for the baby while it is in my belly.  If you didn't.  You still can. It might help to have a name for him/her.

 

Then I added the test I had saved, and I had some pictures of the actual digital one.  I also had my first belly picture (yes I was super excited to start documenting growth) and a picture of hubby and I before I lost him/her.  I just put those in there, and am writing a letter to my baby and adding that. 

Now I have something that sits by my bed, and I can touch, look at, and hold it as often as I want.  and When I am ready it can go in a drawer by my nightstand.

 

Please if you want someone to talk to, have any questions, or just want a shoulder to cry with you.  PLEASE leave a message here, and I can email with you!   

I really hope someday somehow I can help someone through this pain.  I wish it on no one and no one should have to go through it alone!