Fab-ruary Day 13: Dream Big

For today's prompt for Fab-ruary Day 13 by I Will Bloom it's "Dream Big". When I think dream big I think of things like a person hoping to win the lottery, or become successful or powerful.  What seems to work on my brain for some reason is thinking of it as Big Dreams.

 

I came across these photos the other day. They're from when my kiddos were definitely wee ones and probably from about 5 years ago. I love the Spring and newness in these pictures - my daughter & I at Easter with tulips, and my kiddos in front of our flowering crabapple tree & Annie's little garden.  So that's part of my big dreams...early Spring! I know I'm like a broken record but I swear I'm obsessed and all I can think about is feeling true warmth from the sun and smelling dirt and grass and growing things. As I type this I'm listening to this if that gives you any idea of my big dreams right now. 

 

But my true big dreams go with that photo of my kiddos. My biggest dreams are for them. I guess it's kind of like my prayers for them each day. I want them to be healthy, happy, successful, fulfilled, well-rounded, good people in this world.  My dreams for them are as big as they want to dream for themselves.

 

 



Weigh in Wednesday + Fab-ruary Day 11(& give-away!)

Sorry I am posting so late today dear Friends! 

 I was a busy Gal all day with my Mom-in-law and the appointments she had today. Plus errands I needed to run for a big event at my daughter's school tomorrow. I'm on the PTA there and involved on several committees. I feel blessed to be a SAHM and have the time to be involved in both my kiddos' school lives and activities.

To weigh-in this week I wanted to share that I've been pretty good (not as much as I'd like yet though) with my exercising. I actually have to dash again soon to play wallyball (a sport where you play volleyball in racquetball court and can bank the ball off the walls) with a group of gals that I organize. It's so much fun, yet a tremendous 2 hour workout!! I have been wearing my fitbit more, drinking my water like a good girl and being more active. I'm still not working out total as many days a week as I'd like, but I'm getting there. This ties in a bit with my linking with Helen at I Will Bloom for Fab-ruary Day 11.

My answer to when I feel most alive would have to be when I'm being physically active.  I LOVE how I feel after I've expended all that energy at wallyball. Or when I've done a good hard workout on my treadmill. But most of all when I'm outdoors. I love taking walks, running around with my kiddos and our dog Ruby outside. That is definitely when I feel most alive! The beauty of the outdoors just energizes me and how just breathing the very air out there is different than when I'm stuck indoors. God makes some pretty darn beautiful stuff out there and it speaks to my soul.

this is from several years ago after playing outside in the snow together

I also wanted to share a couple of other things with you. I'm also weighing in to share that I've been taking more time for my crafts and scrapbooking too. It's amazing when you turn of the t.v. a little more how many other things get done! Lol One craft I'm starting to toy with is a journal that I would love to do as a give-away to one of you dear folks. I'm still quite new to this blogging world but you all make it such a joy for me and so easy to want to visit this space every day. Here's a little peek:

I've been collecting lots of fun bits over the past several weeks....some new bits and some old bits I already have around - that I would like to use to embellish this brand new journal.  It's a romantic month so I'm using romantic pretty papers, linen tags, twine, flowers etc.... I know a lot of us use our blogging space as a type of journal, but I figure that's why even a hands on journal might be a fun thing to give away as we're obviously a journaling kind of people. It would be a lovely place to write thoughts, blog post ideas, sketch pictures, paste memories. Possibilities are endless (I just love a good journal!) I will be working on it over the course of the next week or so and then give you a real look at it and post the give-away plan and date and where you enter to win. What do you think?

 

I also wanted to leave you with an early Valentine from my pretty Ruby. She had her "haircut" recently and they always doll her up after. My Mom-in-law was with my that day and Ruby was giving her lots of kisses!! Lol 

On that note I must go - but I'll try to get around to as many of you as I can later tonight and say hello. xo

 

Fab-ruary Day 8: Favorite Feel Good Films

The prompt for Day 8 of Fab-ruary is my favorite feel good films. It's so hard for me to narrow this down as I just love movies so much that there are too many to name. So I'm just going to go with a few that pop in my head right away:

During the holiday time of year my 2 favorite feel good films would definitely have to be Elf and Love Actually! I always have to watch them and I always feel so happy after them.

The movie that pops in my head as one of my favorite movies of all time (even though it ends sad - the rest of it makes me so happy) is Moulin Rouge. I just love that movie...it makes me laugh and it makes me cry - all in a good way. I just love the music and the performances and visually it speaks to me.

And I LOVE love love old movies. The good old black and whites and the ones brought into technicolor. I love musicals like 7 Brides for 7 Brothers or The King and I.  But I love romantic witty old movies especially Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy movies. My favorites of theirs are Woman of the Year (their 1st one together where they fell in love) and Adam's Rib. I also love Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn movies and my favorite of all time that has me in stitches laughing is Bringing up Baby! If you haven't seen this movie - you need to...it is so clever and hilarious!!

An old Spencer Tracy movie I also love is called A Guy named Joe and they did a modern version of it in the 80's called Always. I love the story and love both of those movies for feel good time as well.

I could go on and on - but there I'll stop and link with Helen for Fab-ruary at I Will Bloom

Fab-ruary Day 6: the Coolest Thing I Ever Saw (& why)

 

 

 

For my Fab-ruary post today Helen gave me the perfect prompt to share my special story. I've been cautious about wanting to share it as my situation was different than many folks' typical situation, and it's so special to me that maybe I've been worried about being judged or something.  But I'm ready now.

The Fab-ruary prompt is what is the coolest thing you've ever seen. Well for me it is the birth of my daughter because I got a front row seat to the whole thing. How is that possible do you ask? Well here's my story - buckle up it's not short:

When I was pregnant with my son almost 15 years ago I had several complications. I wish I could say the day he was born it was joyful and wonderful, but it wasn't. It was actually kind of a nightmare.  He was born almost 7 weeks early and I almost died...a few times.  Then even after he was born I still had several complications, suffered depression and anxiety, had to be on medication. Basically his first year of life was kind of a blur. However, there were many good moments in there too. I felt so blessed to have him - that we were both alive - and to have such wonderful support from medical professionals, my hubby, and our families. It turned into a very happy ending.

Until I was told that with fair certainty that I should not do that again...meaning  I would have no more children. This was harder for me than anything. There was a lot of leaning on my faith, a lot of prayer and soul searching, some very hard dark days. Then my hubby's brother and his wife approached us that they would like to carry a baby for us. At that point my sis-in-law had only had one child...although in about as wonderful and easy a fashion as you can have a baby. She's also about 10 years younger than I am & I was 29 when I had my son.

My hubby and I felt we couldn't ask that of anyone so we declined and said we would adopt. We felt blessed to have our son and I felt so blessed that I was at least able to know what it was like to be pregnant and have gone through that - even with the difficulties at the end. As time went by we discovered a new complication - we could not agree on our adoption plan. I very adamantly wanted to do domestic adoption and know everything about the child's health and background - even get to know the birth parents. My hubby very adamantly wanted to adopt internationally in a very far off country with no connection or knowledge of birth parents - EVER.  So more tears, prayer etc. At this point my sis-in-law had their 2nd child...again in an incredibly easy fashion. And they approached us again. This time we listened and talked for hours over every scenario and talked to our families and got their thoughts. Everyone thought it was wonderful and so supportive. So we started going to a fertility clinic and after a lot of not easy events (my SIL and I had to do injections in our abdomen daily and other fun things) - including 2 failed attempts our daughter Annie was placed in my SIL's womb - and took! So she is our biological child but, as we've always told Annie her story, her Auntie "cooked" her for us.

The day she was born was absolutely amazing! My SIL made it look so incredibly easy. My hubby bought us both large bouquets of roses - the room smelled like flowers, we were all joking around and had to tell my SIL to stop laughing so she could push and literally 20 mins later there was our daughter. I was able to be present, feel good, and witness every second with a front row seat. Through my blurry tears I was able to cut the cord. It was the coolest, most beautiful, precious moment I have ever seen in my life. My BIL and SIL, the fertility clinic folks and medical professionals are all angels to us and were so amazing!!

Now 8 &1/2 years later our daughter is healthy and still just our miracle. My SIL has gone on to deliver 3 more kids of their own (so they have 5 now!) and everyone lived happily ever after - except when Annie and her big brother fight. Lol! So that is my special story and the coolest thing I've ever seen. I think the why is pretty obvious. Thanks for letting me share.  Here's some photos but I took them quickly out of the baby scrapbooks so please excuse them if they're not the clearest:

My son was a preemie and weighed only 4 pounds when he was born and at his smallest was 3 pounds 9 ounces. You can see he fit right in my hubby's hands.

 

 

After implantation my SIL had to be on bed rest for 24 hours

 

 

Here's some belly shots. My favorite is on the bottom of my son hugging the belly.

 

 

This was at a baby shower for us. My SIL and I often joked that at doctor's appointments we must look kind of like a lesbian couple. To be funny sometimes I would joke to people as I rubbed her belly "she's having my baby" - but then of course explain. Lol  Sometimes humor is the best way to get through difficult and awkward moments, right?

 

 

 

We did it!! Whew!!!

 

 

 

Big brother Aaron making sure his baby sister is "working right"

 

 

 

One of my favorite photos after we brought Annie home. Those boys didn't know what to make of her.

I'm linking with I Will Bloom for Fab-ruary Day 6.

Zesty and Sweet Taco Meat (&Fab-ruary Day 5)

 

 

 

I wanted to share our family recipe for taco meat - as I think it's quite a bit different than typical taco meat. Growing up in my family we always had the traditional more dry taco meat in our tacos. This is a family recipe from my hubby's side and how they always eat tacos.  The first time I had it I thought it was so different, but realized how much more I liked it and have never looked back!  It's a wetter, almost sloppy joe style, taco meat.  And they always add a little bit of ketchup....yep you heard me correctly...ketchup at the end to give a little sweet with the zesty. If you don't like ketchup but want the little bit of sweet add a tiny bit of brown sugar. You can use easy jarred ingredients - or if you have homemade salsa throw that in for a more fresh taste. If you don't have pre-made taco seasoning than throw in some garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder and cumin as an easy substitute. I think of the taco seasoning as pretty salty - but you can salt and pepper your meat as you go as well. Adjust to your taste!

 

 

 

I always make a pretty big batch (3 pounds of ground meat) of it, as I cook for my in-laws too. If you wanted to make a large batch you could easily freeze some of it.  You could also halve the recipe without a problem too. My hubby likes it on soft tortilla shells...I like it on hard shells and we both love it on nachos!! Here's a closer look at the recipe on the card I made for another page in my daughter's personalized cookbook:

 

 



 

I'm also relating my post today to my Fab-ruary Day 5 link up with Helen at I Will Bloom about what makes me smile.  There are SO many things I could list here...and the top being my family. However, I know I expressed the importance of my family in yesterday's post. So I want to share that my love of cooking makes me smile!

 

I love making a meal, or baking, for my family and my in-laws or my Mom or other family and friends. It just brings such joy to be able to do something that is every day - yet special for them. In my family we always joke "food is love" - but I think that's pretty true.  When I cook for loved ones it's just another way to show them my heart. And that makes me smile.

 



 

Fab-ruary Day 3: Things I'm Excited About

Today I'm linking with my friend Helen from I Will Bloom for Fab-ruary Day 3 about things I'm excited about. Sorry I missed Day 2 yesterday but ended up having a crazy busy day!!

When I start thinking about things I'm excited about a flood of things comes to mind, so I must try to get it organized in my brain and pick some top items. So here goes:

image from plow and hearth website

I'm definitely excited about the outlook for Spring! Our WI groundhog said that it will be an early one for us and I SOOOO hope he's right! I've never had a true garden due to the wildlife being so prevalent in our neck of the woods here. I have some flowering bushes and I plant pots of flowers but that's it.  I've had troubles with deer eating my lilies (come right up against our deck) and they'll walk right into my daughters little fairy garden and eat the pansies or other flowers.  I think I may order a garden planting table like above for this year, however, and give gardening a go this time. I've seen these also with a screen cover for the top (which I would need).  I think it'd be wonderful to dig in the dirt with my daughter and plant some seeds and watch some little veggies grow for us! Yep, definitely excited about that idea!

image from plow and hearth



Related to this idea something else I'm excited about is doing some landscaping around the house (along with finishing up the renovation inside). And also sprucing up my daughter's fairy garden. We have some little shrubs we've planted prior, but some have not made it through the years, or look pretty rough. I think I'm going to hire someone to consult with that knows what will grow well in which areas and tidy it all up. Maybe add some nice decorative solar lighting too. Come on Spring!!

 

 

Some future events I'm excited about include a trip to Las Vegas and a Celtic Thunder concert.  I'll be doing a trip to Vegas in the future with my hubby which is always nice for some grown-up one on one time.  And then my Mom and I have tickets for Celtic Thunder coming to our area soon.  We've seen the Celtic Women before and they were so good, so thought we'd try the boys this time. Lol!

Some items worth mentioning that I'm excited about too include:

*a movie date night with my hubby hopefully soon. We want to see American Sniper as it looks good and we've heard good things about it. I have a brother in the military so may hit close to home, but I'd still like to see it.

*Continuing the movie theme my daughter and I would also love to see the Paddington movie. And I finally got a Spiderwick DVD Helen! Yay!! So my daughter and I have that to look forward to watching as well.  Hopefully I can get her into the books eventually as well.

*Due to some complications we didn't have our girlfriend belated Christmas time together so we are rescheduling. I'm so looking forward to this time with my dear Gals - many of whom I have been friends with since grade school, and they were all in my wedding. We make the effort to make sure it happens every year and I treasure every minute when we do get together and catch up!

*Also looking forward to all of the good books I've been stock piling to read and enjoy!!

And before I ramble on and on I think I'll stop there with those items being front on the list of things I'm excited about.  I can't wait to read every body's lists today! Thanks for hosting Helen!!