Happy 3rd Birthday Will!

It's a day early but I won't be able to post this tomorrow, so William Leroy, thank you for being so amazing. Thank you for letting us love you so much and for being such an awesome, sweet little boy!

Looking back at all the photos from when we had Will, I realized we didn't have any of Will and me. I think the best reason is I had a crappy camera back then. My photography increased dramatically about Thanksgiving after Will was born! This is a pretty fun picture of Will though, with new Daddy looking over his pride and joy.

It wasn't until we were home that I realized we hadn't taken a family picture yet. Hows that for a first family pic?! HA, you can tell we were lacking something pretty important.

Will's first birthday was cowboy themed. The little baldy has loved cake from the first bite!

I don't have many pictures of Will's second birthday either... I wonder why? Maybe I was busy with a new born too? Na, can't be it. Oh well, he had a puppy dog themed birthday for that and it was great. A party that was just for him after a new baby came in and took the time away from him.

 

Happy Birthday Buddy! We love you more than you can imagine! I love it when you tell me to kiss your hair, and then your cheek, and then your ear, and your noise. You make me laugh so much. We can just look at each other and start laughing so hard we have tears running down our faces. I love how you do anything in your power to make your sister laugh. You LOVE the outside. With summer coming soon you are wanting to play outside more and more.

A year ago today...

I will never ever, ever forget the day before Lillian was born. The debate to induce or not was constant before noon. Dad saying do it and us saying "We'll see..."

 

He went into surgery around noon and then we waited. My amazing doctor gave me her cell phone number to call to let her know how things were going as we knew so we could decide to have a baby the next day or not. After hearing the news that he got out of surgery well and was so far doing well I called Dr. Glynn. I told her I still didn't want to commit because the risk of something bad happening after such a huge surgery was still high. She told me if we wanted to plan on it but if something were to happen, just call her again and say 'never mind.'

 

A sight I hope to never see again is my Dad hooked up to all those machines and a breathing tube. We got to spend the next 6 hours buggin the crap out of Dad telling him to try to steady his breathing when he had that tube down his throat. Some of the motions he was making I think was him flipping us off saying 'you try to breath with this ****** thing!'

 

Leaving him was the last thing I wanted to do. He was out of the woods as he was awake and mostly breathing on his own again. We decided to go for it since he insisted on going through with the induction. I told him "Dad, your doing so well and your vitals are so good that I think we will go a head and give you another granddaughter."

 

That thumbs up make me start bawling.

 

We left the hospital around 11 and got home and to bed around 1:30 in the morning only to get up around 4:30 to head to the hospital.

 

 

I stalled out for a long time and the talk of a c-section was getting getting louder. I did not want to be recovering from a surgery myself when all I wanted to do was have a healthy baby girl and get back to my Dad ASAP!

 

Things finally progressed and she was born at 8:02 P.M.

 

Fun fact: She was actually born at 7:59, it was the weekend of time change and when the nurse changed it, it was 3 minutes fast. Dennis and I both noticed. Oh well...

 

 

Will fell in love with her from the start. He still is a big protector and loves her like crazy. I think his favorite thing now is to make her laugh. He is constantly doing silly things just to make her laugh. Jumping on his bed is a biggie!

 

 

This I think will always be my favorite picture of Lillian. Words can not say how blessed we are to have a cat for a dad, with 9 lives!

 

Happy Birthday Lillian Margaret, you are one special, happy girl. Even though you have been sick most of this winter, you still smiled, laughed and have enjoyed the family God gave you. We are blessed to have you and thank you for joys you bring us.

 

Happy Anniversary Dad! You are the best Dad we could ask for and we love you so very much, and so glad we have had another year with you!! Here's to another 40 years! (not saying your age but that does put you over 100 years old.)

Tubes

 

Friday, Lillian had tubes put in. We had our appointment at 8:15 to decide if she would get them or not. Having not been through this before I had no idea what to expect and thought she would be in surgery by 9 or so. Well, I was wrong. After her appointment we then went to surgery waiting room and waited, and waited, and waited. All while not being able to feed our baby girl. We were not really prepared to wait until lunch time! I was more upset because we hadn't fed her anything but water since the night before. I've had surgery around noon and remember being able to eat that morning but that was it. When she woke up at 5 wanting food, it was hard not to feed her!

 

She did great under the terms though. She took a short nap and chased a balloon around the hall ways and in the room we were in. Once she went back at 12:05 we grabbed a drink and waited. Only 15 minutes later they came back with her trying to wake up. After her vitals were taken she downed a 9oz bottle and I'm sure she would have taken more but I didn't want her to get a tummy ache after not eating that much so we didn't give her more. We got home around 1:15 and she slept until 4:15. Then I fed her what she wanted and had 2 7oz bottles! We picked up brother from daycare and made doughnuts at home.

 

The doughnuts were 'healthy' and pretty yummy.
3/4 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. sugar (I used splenda but if I were to do it again I'd use agave nectar because it had a spelenda taste)

1/4 c. cocoa powder

1 Tbs. baking powder

1/2 c. milk

1 egg

4 Tbs. coconut oil

 

Mix together and bake at 450 for 6-7 minutes.

For the frosting, I mixed dark chocolate with coconut oil and un-sweetened coconut flakes and topped it.

 

Are we finally healthy?

 

Will as healthy as can be, and you can see what is left of Lillian's pink eye and her snotty nose witch I am hoping is from teeth. The girl will be 1 in T-18 days and she still doesnt have any teeth!

 

 

A better picture of her pink eye. Trust me, this looks AMAZING compaired to what it was a week and a half ago!

Minney Mouse cupcakes

 

Yep, I'm quite happy with these little ladies.

 

 

Aren't they cute?

 

 

These too but I like the vanilla ones better. I need an actual bow mold, these were made with a leaf mold but I made it work.

 

 

And Lillian likes frosting. :) Pretty excited for her and her smash cake!

 

Just stuff.

The greatest picture made us both have double chins, I just love my little Blondie!



"Oh this is Brother Bear's? But, I want it."



Taking all the cushions off the couch to make a 'tent'. He wants me to hide under them too. Ya, Right.



Supper was so pretty, I just had to take a picture! I had chicken stir fry with all the veggies and strawberries on the side. Quite tasty and made me crave summer!

Home made Nutella

Recipe follows:

1 c. hazelnuts

1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 c.  powdered sugar

3/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. salt

4 Tbsp. coconut oil

 

I changed things up so read to see what I did differently!

 

 

My helper, processing the almonds. Yes, I said almonds. I had them and I didn't have hazelnuts. So, almonds it was.

 

 

Baby Puppy had to see too.

 

 

Add the cocoa powder.

 

 

And the rest of the stuff. I changed powdered sugar to splenda. It started to have a splenda taste so I did add maybe a Tablespoon of powdered sugar to finish off the sweetness without the taste.

 

After everything was added I found it to be very thick. Hazelnuts and almonds obviously have different fat content so I'm sure this is why. It would have made for a great 'cheese' ball of sorts. I added some milk to thin it out. If you want to be healthier you could add the coconut milk but I didn't want to open a can just for this.

 

If this isn't quite the consistency you want then just add more milk. If you make the un-healthy kind it would be much smoother as it adds melted chocolate.

 

 

 

I thought it made quite a bit for only a cup of almonds. Don't make fun of the jars, I couldn't find any lids! This alternative recipe has an almond taste to it but I love that so I don't mind.

 

 

My other helper was doing a great job at being cute!