Sandy Downs and Yummy Food

The weather is finally looking beautiful!!! I have had the itch to be outside like you would not believe! Rob took pity on me last week so we loaded the puppies and headed to Sandy Downs for the first time this year. This is Athena’s first time ever being there, and we were wondering how she’d handle the water (Bors absolutely HATES it and has to get thrown in if he’s going to get wet at all). Well we got there and were getting everything sat up and whatnot…and she jumps right in! I think once she got in she realized how cold it was, and didn’t love it so much, but she was so cute! She’s definitely not terrified of water like Bors, and that helped him not be such a pansy as well. The first day we went Rob and the puppies got in the water and played. We decided to go back the very next day and after much begging and pleading Rob talked me into swinging out on the rope swing. The conditions were that I would do it, but I didn’t want to get wet so he promised he’d push me out, and grab me when I came back. He wasn’t allowed to push me in, or get me wet WHATSOEVER. Well…You can see how well that worked out :P

He decided he needed to make the swing better...so he climbed the tree

...Athena tried to follow him :P

My super cute toes that Danielle and Katie painted for me :P

yeah...soaked

Supposedly as he was taking the picture he didn’t have enough time to put the camera down and grab me…so I ended up hanging over the middle of the water until I finally let go. He got in trouble…but only a little bit :P

Overall it was SO MUCH fun though! Sandy Downs in probably one of my most favorite places to go. There’s usually no one else there, and it’s just so chill!!!

Now for the food. I decided I wanted to try something different for dinner last night, so I got online and found what looked like a possibly delicious meal… meatloaf wrapped in bacon. Yummy?! Rob’s not a huge bacon fan, but I tried it anyways and he LOVED it. He ate all of his, the leftovers of mine, and still went back for more :) It is one of the easiest dinners to make and clean up afterwards that I have ever made as well, which gives it even more bonus points! Here’s the recipe…

BACON WRAPPED MEATLOAF

2 beaten eggs

¼ cup ketchup

2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce

4 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

¼ cup finely chopped onion

2 TBSP parmesan cheese

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

2 lbs ground beef

12 strips bacon

Combine everything in a large bowl except the bacon. Mix together and shape into two log shapes, about 6 inches long. Lay 6 slices of bacon side by side and set one beef roll crosswise on bacon, roll up meat with bacon. Carefully move to a 9x13” baking pan lined with heavy foil. Repeat with remaining bacon and log.
Bake at 375 for 45-50 minutes. If bacon doesn’t looked browned enough for your taste after 50 minutes, turn to broil for a minute or two, or until satisfactory.  

The recipes says this is a serving size for 8… but Rob and I ate almost one whole log…so I’d say more like 6 depending on who is eating and how hungry they are :P 

Rob's BiRtHdAy!!!

Robs birthday was on Saturday! Yep, he’s officially an old man!!! 24 years old heheh can you believe that?! For his birthday he got two guns…yes, TWO. He’s only kind of spoiled :P He finally got the pistol that he’s always wanted, and he upgraded his Ruger Mini 14 for a cooler one. So I guess technically he only got one…but there were two new additions by the end of the day :P We spent the day running around buying ammo, and then we went shooting with a bunch of his college buddies. And our puppies of course. Athena is not a fan of the guns… we’re still trying to work her into it, but she did ok. After we got back from shooting we went to a buddies b-day party…yep, they share a birthday! We ended up staying there until after 1 in the morning! We’re such party animals! Ok no but really…that is REALLY late for us to be out :P Besides the guns Rob got socks, a drill, and all the Mission Impossible movies. I think he was fairly pleased overall with the outcome. :)

The next day, we took Dano shooting. She mentioned that she had never shot a gun before, and Rob was NOT about to pass that opportunity up! She shot them all, from the pistol to the new Mini 14 that is too heavy for either her or I to hold up by ourselves. She loved it! Rob was so proud he got to be a part of that experience with her!

Now for Weston: He continues to grow! I’ve been sulking the last few weeks because I STILL hadn’t felt him… and then suddenly last Monday as I was sitting on the couch doing homework…it hit me. Literally. For probably three weeks I had been feeling these tiny little…pops in my stomach, and just figured they were air bubbles and that my tummy was doing more weird random pregnancy things that I didn’t understand. But this time was different…there was NO WAY that was JUST an air bubble pop…and then he hit me again :) softer this time, but then I knew it was him. Those past few weeks I had been feeling him the whole time, and for whatever reason had be convinced it was something else! It is amazing getting to feel him move around inside me. Rob is so patient with me since every time Weston even thinks about kicking I freak out and make Rob keep his hand on my tummy for at least 10 minutes…just in case Weston wasn’t really done moving :P Now that I can feel him, it has basically overtaken my life. I’m already used to the times of the day that he’s more active and the times that he usually doesn’t move at all...and if they get switched around for any reason, I panic just a little bit worrying that something’s wrong. It all feels so much more real now that I can actually feel him, and seeing him on the ultrasound, was amazing. Seeing him move around, his little heart beating, all of it was just amazing! I am BEYOND excited! I have a feeling these last 4 months are going to go by way too slowly, but I shall try to be patient :) 

It's a...BOY!!!

Well, that’s what I get for listening to the internet! I was kind of…beyond shocked when we went to the ultrasound and the tech said that without a shadow of a doubt we were having a boy. We are BEYOND excited though! We're pretty much set on the name Weston, we're still playing around with middle names though. Thus far our top picks are Owen or John. We really like Kai as well, but that one will probably be saved for the time being. Here's a pic of little Weston!!!

My thought processes have completely changed from tutus and headbands to ties and fedoras :P I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a baby to keep a fedora on his head though…we’ll have to work on that. He’s pretty much going to be adorable though. Thanks to Pinterest I have this vision in my head of this ridiculously cute preppy kid :P Here’s the vision

 And then there’s the nursery!!! Oh my good heavens there are SO MANY options!  Right now I’m loving the idea of a pirate theme. NOT a sailor, blue and white theme… but PIRATES. The two nurseries I’ve found that I like are below. I think it would be kind of adorable. Rob’s wanting to do Calvin and Hobbes. Could that be the cutest thing ever? ...yes. Yes it could. So we’re torn for the moment because I really love both. Here are the ideas…

The house…is still slowly coming together. For the most part all the boxes are unpacked, and it actually looks livable now. I don’t want to put pictures up yet, because we still need to paint, but I am having the hardest time in the world coming up with colors for paint! We loved the tan/brown we had in the old house a lot, but do we want to do the exact same color in this house too? And I am still in love with the red we picked for the kitchen…but again, do we want this house to be the exact same??? I keep thinking about different shades of blues and greens…but I think I’m terrified to really try anything. Sigh…I’ll have to get some courage and just make up my mind! Here are some colors I have saved because I love…I just have to get the guts to actually do them!

REALLY love this color

LOVE THIS COLOR.... but i'm scared to death to actually do it

The one thing I need to remember about this house; if you don’t lock the windows closed, it is VERY easy to break in. My mother and I learned this when I thought I left my keys at her house. She basically lifted me through the back window. It worked pretty well…minus the fact that I got the giggles half way through and couldn’t move :P It was sure an adventure…especially when I realized my keys were with me…. Haha oops :)

More good news…. Our puppies love each other!!! They went in for surgery last Thursday. Thursday night we introduced them (we figured that would be a good plan since they were both still WAY out of it, and were too sore to move) and they were quite content to coexist around one another. Friday we let them play for about an hour, and on Sunday we through her in the backyard with him…and they have been having a ball! They love having someone there to play with all the time, and even though I can tell they still have their moments of annoyance, for the most part they are doing VERY well!

Here’s a few pics and videos. Some are from the drive home from Washington, the rest are just fun stuff around the house!

..we really have no idea how she managed to climb up there

They do love each other!!!!

Washington trip!!!

Our life is always an adventure! We move into our house on a Friday night, buy a puppy the next morning, that following Monday I finally start seriously unpacking, and then Tuesday morning I get a call from my dear husband that basically said I needed to start packing everything I could because he was on his way home and as soon as he got there we were leaving for Washington for two weeks. Umm…what?!?! Needless to say, because we JUST moved, I ended up having to pack a lot of dirty clothes, and seriously felt like I was just throwing random clothes in a bag praying that I got all the necessities. Then it hits me, we got a puppy like 3 days ago! What are we supposed to do with her?! I called a couple people to see if they could watch her, but nothing was panning out, which started a slight panic attack on my part. Could I really leave a 10 week old puppy locked in a bathroom all day with my mom dropping by 2 times a day to let her out for a little bit? That just seemed SO CRUEL…but I didn’t want to stay JUST because of the dog! Rob came home, and even though we were packed, I was still a wreck. We loaded all of our stuff up, and then all of a sudden he puts Athena in the back of the truck and I was going ‘…umm, what?’ he responded with ‘oh I didn’t tell you? My amazing sister Lanae is going to watch her.’ YAY!!! SO excited! So we hit the road after getting Nate to promise to watch over Bors while he house sits. The trip actually went REALLY well. Between me and Athena we had to stop like every two hours for potty breaks, but Rob was very patient with us, and we still managed to make the trip in around 10 hours. However, surprise to me, we ended up keeping Athena in the hotel with us for the rest of the week. With Rob’s work schedule he was just way too tired to make a 4 hour trip just to drop her off, so Athena and I got a LOT of bonding time VERY quickly. Although a puppy is definitely not meant to live in a hotel room, for the most part we had a lot of fun. The first night she slept in the Bathroom, but after that she ended up on our bed...every single night...right next to my head...cuddling with my hair. Needless to say, it got kind of really interesting a few times.

 By Saturday we were MORE than ready to take her to Lanae’s : ).  Rob managed to get off work on Saturday fairly early, and we were able to make the trip down to Enumclaw, drop the dog off, and then spend the weekend with Rob’s family, which was SO much fun. We got to go to church on Sunday (thanks to Twyla since she let me borrow church clothes :P)  and then had a really nice dinner with the family, grandparents, and an aunt and uncle : ). For Easter Rob got a remote controlled helicopter from the Easter Bunny, and he LOVES IT. His dad has one, and a few others in the family, so he really enjoyed getting to mess around with it while he was at his parents.

On Monday Rob left Enumclaw at the early hour of 3:30 to make it back in time for work at 6:30. I got to hang out with my dear mother-in-law for a few hours, and then Twyla swept me away to go shopping at the Super Mall.  I’ve been procrastinating going maternity shopping, but Twyla made it such a fun experience. I got a lot of stuff, and the best part is they really don’t look like maternity clothes. They can definitely be worn anytime, which I REALLY loved. And I FINALLY bought my first baby item!!! Twyla was talking about this amazing diaper bag she had when Ben was little, and how convenient it was…and then we found the exact same bag basically! It was a great deal, so I got it! The whole day was SO much fun, and I really enjoyed all the time I got to spend with everyone and hopefully we’ll be able to go back down this next weekend for a day or two as well, which would be SO perfect. The break has been a really nice distraction from all the craziness going on at home, needless to say I am not ecstatic about going back to a house still in boxes.

Oh, one more fun note, we find out what baby is in only a week and 3 days!!! Fingers crossed we get to find out the first time!

Here’s some pics of silly Athena, and the ride up to Washington :P

For the most part she just sprawled out and slept the whole way

But when she was awake, she didn't like feeling left out...

...so she kept licking dad hoping he'd let her in the front

haha she kind of loves him :P

Athenas silly sleeping position

She thought she was a parrot?

another cute Athena sleeping position on the ride

we bought her this dress thinking it would drive her nuts and it would be funny...she didn't mind it being on at all though

haha we know it's ridiculous...but she IS really kinda cute :P

Diaper Bag :)