Playdate with Carson

So this was a couple weeks ago but figured I would post it anyways. Sorry, these are kind of out of order. I guess I did have a lot to talk about! Carson and I went to the Discovery Center and played, for what seemed like forever! He could go ALLLLLL day!! No joke. Love spending time with him though.

Just checking the oil, ya know, it's what guys do.

Puppet show

Building a car...

Painting a masterpiece

And to end the day with a movie...

 

 

Karla's Baby Shower

One of my besties is pregnant. Here's a few pictures of her shower. I didn't want to take a bunch of pics of her opening presents, that's boring! So, here's our pretty packages, wine for us, and a group photo. :) Haven is due April 2nd. Does she not have the CUTEST baby bump EVER?!

My mad wrapping skills.

All of my lovely friends! And that cute baby bump!

QT with Carson

  Nick and I took Carson to Sunday School this last week and spent some time with him before his baby sister arrived, and, so his Mom could get some stuff done before going to the hospital Monday. Here is our day....

After Church donuts! My boys!

Their up in there! I don't know who had more fun. :)

 

So glad we got to spend this time with him. He has no idea what's about to happen to his little world. We love you Carson Cole. You will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Baby Ella is here!

  My new niece finally made her appearance early this morning! 12:37 to be exact! Gabriella Rose. She weighed in at 6lbs, 11 oz and 18 1/2 inches long. She is the most chill baby I've ever seen! Nothing like her Momma, but everything like her Dad! Hoping this sticks around. I will let the pictures tell the story. My sister ROCKED this delivery and my Mom's Doula training was such a great help to her!

Momma playing the waiting game!

My mom encouraging Carly to walk off the contractions.

 

Sitting on the ball.

Contractions are getting pretty hard to deal with.

It's time to go!

Here she is world!

 

Proud Momma!

 

She was SOO alert! It was awesome!

 

Look at those legs!

 

:)

Proud and tired Auntie!

 

So glad I got to be there for this meeting! I picked up my little man and brought him to the hospital to meet his baby sister for the first time.

 

Grandma, Carson, and Ella

Nick meeting Ella! He's dying for one of these!

 

Practice makes perfect right?!

 

 

Circus is in town!

The Shriner's Circus was in town this last weekend! Thanks to Nick's grandpa, who's a Shriner, we scored front row seats!! Here are a few pictures of our fun time! (Super sad my nephew couldn't come, he had the tummy bug)

Can't go to the circus without getting some crazy light toy!

                                                                     Liam and Ali

Chris, Abbie, and Kamryn

Poor Abbie got pulled out to dance with Jonnie Rocket!

                                         He was trying to get her to kiss him on the cheek.

                                       She knew what he was up to, he wanted a kiss on the lips!

Elephant ride! Nick and MacKenzie.

The elephants were the BEST! But stinky. Ewwhatsthatsmell!!!!

 

LASIK eye surgery

  Sorry I've been gone for SO long! I haven't really had much to talk about till the last couple of weeks. Last Thursday I had LASIK eye surgery! Let me tell you, best money I've EVER spent! It still hasn't sunk in yet. I can SEE without contacts or glasses! I've had glasses since 4th grade. It's kind of bittersweet.



Last picture with my glasses!

   So last week Kansas got hit by a GINORMOUS snow storm aka Blizzard of Oz! I think we ended up getting somewhere around 10 to 11 inches. It was just plain NUTS! Nick and I anticipated this hitting Thursday morning, the day of my surgery, which was in KC. So, we booked a hotel room 2 blocks from Cavanaugh Eye Center, and drove up Wednesday and stayed the night. The next morning was like something out of a movie. The snow was blowing sideways, you couldn't see jack. Thank goodness we weren't far from the eye center.


This is what we woke up to! Just plain CRAZY!

  We arrived in one piece and the nerves set in! I IMMEDIATELY asked for Valium. I was going to need something to get through this. I was escorted to an exam room where I went over what was about to happen with one of the 'nurses.' Not sure what their actual job title is, so we will just call them that! She told me she need to redo one of the tests, I have no idea what it was for, but I went along with it. It equated to me looking into a machine at a red dot, while she did whatever she does. We then went back to the exam room. She was making me super nervous because I could tell something wasn't right. She then walked out into the hall and started asking Dr. Cavanaugh some questions. I could hear him say, "Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal." But, at this point I'm FREAKING out! These are my EYES people! I took a couple, ok maybe a handful of deep breaths and just rolled with it.

Nick after pushing all the snow off our car. I just love him!

 

Poor guy had already been through one snow storm Wednesday!

 

Almost go time!

  This was especially hard for me because this is what I do 3 days a week! I get people ready for surgery, not the other way around! I got moved into the lazer room and got positioned on the table.

                Sorry. This picture is not very good, but Nick took it and 'says' they looked at him funny!

  Nick got to watch the whole thing. They apparently videotape it or something because it was on a monitor he could watch. He said it was weird and gross! So, at this point I'm crapping my pants {Ewwhatsthatsmell}, ok not really but it was SCARY!! They taped down my upper and lower eyelashes to keep them out of the way. Let me tell you that felt awesome! Now, I'm about to have a full blown meltdown. No Valium in the world could help ya at this point. So they put some sort of retractor on your eye, from what I could tell it kind of looked like a spring of some sort. Next he put what felt like a suction cup on my eye. And by meaning put, I mean PUSHED pretty hard! something right onto my eye. Oh, by the way, I received numbing drops prior to going into the lazer room and periodically while this is going on, so it didn't hurt, there was just a lot of pressure. He then used some kind of wand that looked similar to a q-tip but softer and dried my eye off. Next, they moved the machine over my face and tell you to stare at the red dot. Ok, easy enough, right?! Yah, until she says, now tell me when your vision goes black! UM, WHAT!? Deep breathe Tiffany, deep breathe! So, it goes black, I tell her, and it comes back pretty quickly. Meanwhile there is another girl in the background running the actual lazer machine. She starts rambling off some nonsense and the lazer starts going. I think the first round was like 13 seconds. It stops and then goes again for maybe another 10. I can't remember. All I'm thinking at this point is that I have to do this AGAIN for the other eye. Ahhh!! And then that was it! The right eye was done. It took probably a little over a minute. Now, the left eye. YIKES! So, I think that now I'm more aware of what's about to happen and it made it more difficult. The 2nd eye hurt a lot worse. She kept adding more drops which helped but I just wanted it to be over at this point. I NEVER would have made it through this without that girl standing next to me talking me through the whole thing. She was my hero. And then I'm done! I sit up and sit down at an eye exam thingy, the doc looked at the flaps to make sure they were in place and out we go. I get a few more rounds of drops in my eyes and we were outta there. :) Easy right?!

  Now, to battle the blizzard, which is much worse now, especially when you cant see! My vision was like looking through a steamy shower door. So, not the best. There are cars stuck all over, in just the short 2 block drive, one of which is blocking the entrance drive to get to the hotel. We have to enter through the exit, praying no one was coming. Again, more cars stuck along this road. Nick gets me up to our room and settled in.

                                     Aren't these hot?! Ew! excuse my pepperoni face.
  
  Nick goes back out and helps push several people out of the snow. He comes back at some point to check on me. All I want to do is rest my eyes, they say to go home and just sleep, that's kind of hard to do when your husband is out in the weather, and your not in your own bed! I doze off for a little while and Nick returns soaked head to toe. We decide it would probably be best if we stay another night since it's still nuts out. This was fine, except we had NO food, and obviously no one is going to be delivering in this crud. So what does Nick do?! He walks to the grocery store that's across the street and comes back with some goodies! He's the best right?!
 
  Now to try and get some REAL rest since he's finally in bed with me. I slept for a good couple hours and felt MUCH better. I was feeling pretty miserable there for a while. My eyes were just scratchy and just plain uncomfortable. I about had a meltdown, but Nick kept me calm.

                                           I get to wear these bad boys for a week. :(

  After our little siesta we discovered the snow has subsided for now. We debated on venturing out to get back home, which we both wanted so badly, or to just stay put. Well, we decided to make a run for it! Probably not very smart, but we wanted to be home in our bed with our pup!

                                            Thank you Marriott, we will try!!

  Let me just tell you, US69 and I35 were AWFUL! And I mean awful! I don't know how we made it to I70. There were cars blocking on ramps, semi's clogging up 3 lanes of highway, snow so deep tow trucks and plowers were stuck and stranded. We're dumb right!?

                           Yup! Blocking the entire highway!
 
  Well we made it home safely, in one piece, and actually only had one close call as far as getting stuck. The Denali was a beast! We picked up our pup from the Dude Ranch and headed home.

                                                           He lovey the snow!

  Here I am almost a week later and I'm seeing GREAT! It hasn't hit me yet that I don't just have contacts in. It's been pretty awesome. I have a little dry eye, which is to be expected, but doing well. Yah for LASIK!!!





 

Our "1st" home

When Nick and I met back in May 2010 he had just purchased his first home and was getting all settled into his first place! I had been living in mine for almost 2 years. I never thought I would meet a guy who had his stuff together, let alone own his own home! Funny how things work out. Obviously we started hanging out more and hit it off! He proposed November 18th, 2011! One day after my birthday, in front of all of our friends and family! It was TOTALLY unexpected!


Obviously I said YES

Nick brought the cake out and set it down in front of me. I was SHOCKED!!! And obviously VERY happy!

 

Ok, back to the house business. So, we got engaged, and we're living in two separate homes! Let's just say things got complicated trying to figure out who's house we were staying out, having to have a bag constantly packed, worrying about chores at TWO houses etc etc. (Yes, we lived in sin. So sorry) It was exhausting! We decided in March of 2012 to put my house on the market. My house was A LOT smaller than Nick's and didn't leave any room for us to grow. Plus, Nick got the amazing government tax credit and couldn't sell his house for 3 years. That left us with one option. Sell mine. :( This was such a bittersweet moment for me. My house on Medford was something I did all by myself. My first big purchase after starting the big kid job. It was very scary but has been so fulfilling. I will NEVER forget that house and all the memories I created in it. Let's just say the last few weeks there were very emotional for me. Nick thought I was crazy I'm sure! My house sold in May. So thankful it sold relatively quickly because we had a wedding in 3 months! Here are a few pictures of my pride and joy!

 

Isn't she cute?!

Living Room

Dining Room

French doors into the Master

                 

Did I mention how SMALL it was?! There is a finished basement with 2 more bedrooms, a bathroom, and a little living room. But, still SMALL! I still drive by my first home every once in a while. I like to see what the new homeowner has done with the place. When I sold the home the newly single mother of grown children was starting over and this was the perfect place for her. Perfect. And I mean that too. She wanted EVERYTHING in my house. I'm not joking! Everything! I didn't move a single thing out except for what was in the cabinets. Everything on the walls, the furniture, the knick knacks, everything stayed. Kind of weird. But, she wanted it all. Made it nice for me because I didn't have to move anything out. This also left me with a dilemma. I was now moving into a new house where NOTHING belonged to me. This is a very strange feeling. I struggled with this for quite a while. To be honest, I was worried if something happend with Nick and I, I would be left with NOTHING. Not a thing. I never thought Nick and I wouldn't make it but it's hard to not think about the 'what if's.' So, I moved what I had into Nick's house and tried to make the best of it. Thing is, Nick's house is a complete bachelor pad. Everything is dark, and manly! Something I'm not used to. I'm a brown hue kind of girl and his house was black and grey's. What do I do with that?! I felt like I was living in HIS house with HIS things for a loooong time! It was hard! Sounds stupid but it was. It didn't feel like OUR house. So, after the wedding I was on a mission to make it a little bit of me too. It's been very hard but it's finally coming around. Here are a few pictures of the house and the new changes!

EW! Ugly brown! Sorry, I didn't get a picture before they caulked it all. You get the idea.

                                                                             AFTER! Soooo much better!!!

 

So, with all of the black leather which I didn't particularly care for there was this red chair. It's cute but all the colors in this room are so harsh.  I needed something different.

No more red chair! This helped the room out A LOT! It's starting to feel like home!

 I painted the fireplace wall yellow...why on earth did I do that?! I kept it for a few months and decided I HATED it. It had to go. So, this past weekend it went back to grey. As well as the dining room wall.

I love the suttle stripes, but the yellow wasn't doing it for me. So, grey it went too.

It's amazing what curtains do for this room! It's going to take a while to get used to this.

 Another view during the day. Sorry, it's kind of bright. And I'm on a mission to find a cute dresser I can repaint a light rustic blue to put under the TV to hold our entertainment speakers and such. It's been rather hard to find!

                                                                  ....and my chair! I love this chair!

 

The living/dining room is coming along. I'm planning on pulling in some pretty blue accents to bring it all together. This house is starting to feel like home!  More to come when I get some new stuff. :)