When will it end?

I don't remember saying this to my husband when we got married, BUT that's certainly what's happened to us. It amazes me how quickly our debt grew. I feel like it'll take forever before we're finally debt free!

A Hint of India

A good friend of mine from college got married last month in his home town of Fort Myers at this beautiful old house on the Caloosahatchee River. His beautiful bride did all of the planning, which actually surprised me because she's so laid back that I couldn't see her really getting into all of that. My friend (who I went to the wedding with) and I were curious to see how everything turned out and we were pleasantly surprised. The bride's mother is from India so there was a slight touch of India with the decor, food, etc. My friend and I got down to Fort Myers and realized that our dresses, shoes and purses were all the same exact color (bright red). We were laughing about going to the wedding together in our matching outfits, but it got worse when we noticed that the bridesmaids dresses AND the groom's mother were all in RED also! How were we supposed to know? Anyway, it was a great wedding and had a blast seeing the old crew from college.

Miss Piggy

It took me awhile to get my pictures from Halloween uploaded to my computer, but one month later I finally got it done. So here are the pictures of my precious little pig and my adorable little butterfly. I've alerady picked out their costumes and am counting down the days till Halloween 2010!

Save Kidneys. Save Lives.

I am participating in the NephCure Charity Walk for my boss’s son, Will Wellman. Will is only 26 years old and was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease called Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). This disease has no known causes or cures and is a struggle Will has to live with everyday, until it is time for him to receive a kidney transplant.

NephCure is an organization committed exclusively to supporting research seeking a cause and cure for Nephrotic Syndrome and Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). NephCure is the number one group supporting research and raising awareness about this disease, and is doing a lot of great work.

Will has created a team for the NephCure Foundation Charity Walk at Sand Key Park in Clearwater Beach on Saturday, December 12th. I'm asking you to consider supporting Will and this event by making a donation to NephCure and/or consider walking with us. There is no registration fee; walkers are asked to raise $100 - just get 10 friends to donate $10! Click here to make a donation on my fundraising page. Please click here to register as a walker – be sure to sign up as a walker for the team “Whelk Giggles.”


Thanks in advance for your support!

Growing Up Too Quickly

My sweet little baby girl is getting bigger by the day! She's almost 4 months old and smiling all the time.

Here Fishy Fishy Gone GATOR

A friend of mine took up sewing and has a monogramming machine (is that what they're called?) and make the CUTEST little outfits for babies. I'm always looking for personalized game-day outfits for my baby girls, so if you are too check out Sarah Boyd Designs on Etsy.com.

Chocolate Covered Preztels for Any Occasion

Who knew that you can buy molds to make chocolate covered pretzels for almost any occasion??? A co-worker of mine who is the last person I would expect to know about these types of things told me about them. She made them for Halloween and sent me the link:

http://search.wilton.com/?q=pretzel


There's so much crap out there for people like to me to buy, but I love it and am going to order some for my next party, celebration, etc. It'll be a fun project for my 22-month old...she loves to help Mommy in the kitchen. She says, "I cooking."

Chubbers

I was going through all of the pictures that I just transferred and had to post this one of my oldest daughter when she was about 6 months old (I think). How darn cute are those cheeks? Gotta love 'em. :)

Sweet, Sweet Baby

I just transferred all of the pictures from my phone to my computer for the first time. My phone had no storage space left and wouldn't accept messages or let me send messages. It was about time, but I didn't know how to get the pictures off of the phone and didn't want to delete them. I captured some good moments with that phone. Here's one of my favorite pictures of my sweet little girl right after she was born on July 29th.

Sesame Street or Gossip Girl?

I'm not sure if it's the recent time change or what, but my 22-month old daughter has been waking up earlier and earlier each morning. Like 5 a.m. early. This started just shortly after we got our baby to start sleeping through the night (she now sleeps till 8 a.m.)! My husband and I take turns getting up with her each morning cause she won't just lay in bed with us. She wants to sit on the couch and have her morning milk while watching Little Einsteins, Sesame Street or Barney. Well, Tuesday morning rolled around and I was dying to see Gossip Girl that I had recorded on Monday night. Our nights are hectic and I have narcolepsy so I can't ever stay awake long enough to watch an entire show. I was flipping through the kiddie shows on demand trying to find one that we haven't seen a million times already, but could not. SO I made the decision to watch Gossip Girl and my daughter didn't mind at all. My husband woke up (hours later) and asked our daughter which show she watched and I nonchalantly mentioned that we watched Gossip Girl. Big mistake! He was so pissed and thought it was a very selfish move on my part. I don't see what the big deal is. Is it that bad?

Yummy, Yummy Corn Dip

I rarely cook dinner for my family, but I really do enjoy cooking and entertaining. Last week/weekend was big for me. First of all, it was my first week back to the office after my 3 months of maternity leave. I had a hard enough time coping with that, but decided to host a Stella & Dot jewelry party on Wednesday night, a Halloween party on Saturday and a party after our youngest daughter's baptism on Sunday! I try to be as organized as possible so I planned the menus for each event in advance and tried to find recipes that could be made in advance. The corn dip was my favorite and was so easy to make that I made it for the jewelry party and again on Halloween. Here's the recipe:

1 chopped green bell pepper
1 bunch of chopped green onions (shallots)
2 cans of white shoepeg corn
1 can of chopped green chiles
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 cup mayo
1 tsp. cumin

The cumin makes the dip! Refrigerate for a few hours before serving. I used Fritos scoops with it...not exactly a healthy option, but it was darn good.

I also made homemade ginger snaps served with apple slices and pumpkin dip (pumpkin, cream cheese, powdered sugar, cinnamon & cloves). The pumpkin dip can be prepared in advance also. The ginger snap dough can also be prepared ahead of time to freeze, then bake whenever you'd like.

Vote for Tebow

http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/theheismanvote/2009/index

I have a huge crush on Tim Tebow so please vote for him to win the Heisman for the 2nd time!

Was this really one year ago???

My Girls

http://www.stacylarsenphotography.com/blog/baby-sister-south-tampa-photographer/

Too Much?

I got way too excited about Halloween this year and went a bit overboard...Is it bad that I dressed the girls up in these outrageously HOT costumes when they had absolutely no idea what's going on. It was probably 85 degrees on Saturday night while my sweaty little piglet and sweet, sweet butterfly paraded around the neighborhood. After circling the block, their fair-skinned cheeks were so red! I feel guilty, but every parent has to do this to their children on Halloween, right? Why doesn't anyone make cute costumes for people who live in Florida???

We are blogging now!

After recently learning all about blogs and how they work, I decided to create on of my own. I'm not exactly sure what I'll blog about, but hope things will come to me. For now, I'll post some pictures of the baby girls. Our oldest is now 22 months old and entering the awesome terrible twos phase of her life. The constant whining with the occasional crying fit on the floor of wherever we happen to be is so pleasant. Josh and I are hoping this doesn't last long even though we've heard it does. The baby, on the other hand, is so sweet and GOOD! She is now 3 months old and is smiling like crazy. She's also sleeping through the night and has been since 6 weeks old. She's looking more and more like Madelyn each day. They are a handful, but are so worth it. We are truly blessed and fortunate to have healthy, beautiful babies.