Heidi’s Birthday

Today marks 1 year since Heidi Michelle was born.  Josh and I baked the perfect cupcake for her.

This is for you Heidi.  We love you.

Heidi’s Heaven Day

Today is Heidi’s actual Heaven Day; the day that she went to go be with Jesus.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of my sweet, little Heidi in some way. Heidi was only with us for 19 weeks, but she made a very big impact on our lives, and will never be forgotten.

Heidi is a very special girl and has not one, but TWO special days to remember her by. Her Heaven Day (today) and her actual Birthday Day (01/31/09).

Heidi,

Your Daddy and I are so proud of you. You were always meant to be an Angel. You did such a selfless and brave thing by leaving us to allow for your sisters and brother to have a better chance at life.

There hasn't been a day that goes by that I haven’t thought of you or were reminded of you in some way, Heidi. You made such a big impression on our lives in your short amount of time with us.

I have peace in knowing that you are a perfect Angel, and will always be. We will all be together again one day, and it will be perfect. In the meantime, I have a feeling that you’d prefer me to think of you and smile instead of being sad, so I try and do that as best as I can.

Today is your day Heidi. Your Daddy and I are thinking of you and missing you always…

Happy Heaven Day.

Jeremiah 1:5

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;

Ouch!

On Friday I had to go back to the Dermatologist to have 3 more “dysplastic” moles removed.  My doctor thought these moles were questionable, so erring on the side of caution,  she decided to remove them.  The lab results ended up showing that the one on my forearm was pretty bad, so my doctor had to go in deeper to get clear margins.  The cut was so large, I had to get 5 stitches!  

 

I was very brave and endured the 3 numbing shots, and what felt like 10 minutes of stitching!  It was not fun at all; although, having this done is still a lot better than having melanoma! 

I’m learning the hard way, but now I always wear sun block.  My days of having a nice dark tan are over unfortunately!

If you think you may have any “questionable” moles (or even freckles), please don’t hesitate; get them checked out!  It’s all about prevention and a lot better to find out sooner than later!

The Sunset

I love looking up into the sky and seeing the sun shine through the clouds.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be a sunset, just any time I see those sunbeams shining through the clouds, I get a sense of peace.  It’s like God’s way of reminding me that everything is okay.  Seeing that immediately makes me think of my babies up in heaven.  It’s my little reminder that they are happy and having a great time in heaven.

I was stuck in stop-and-go traffic yesterday, and I looked over to my left and saw this beautiful sunset.  It was perfect, and had bright beams of light shining through the clouds.  When I saw this I rolled down my window and grabbed my phone. Traffic had me at a complete stop, so I snapped this picture!  It’s not the best quality picture, but it’s still pretty amazing that I was able to capture that perfect moment with my phone.

Meeting a New Friend

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting a blogger buddy of mine in person for the first time!  Ashley and I met over a cup of coffee when I was in town for work.  We had plenty to gab about.  It felt like we’ve know each other for years thanks to keeping up with each other on our blogs!  It is always comforting to meet other baby loss mommas, so we can share stories about our babies, or just chat about whatever.  It’s unfortunate the circumstances that brought us together, but I’m still really glad we got the chance to meet. 

I’m sure Little Nolan and my Green Beans are having a great time together up in heaven. :)

 

Tune up

Notice anything different??

I added buttons to the top of my page.  The super cool thing about them is that I made them!  Josh taught me a little about Photoshop and html, so I designed them and installed it on my blog!  So, if you ever drop by and just want to look up a recipe or a project or something, just try the button at the top.

Now that I know I can do some little things like that, I want to try more!  So, I’m sure I will be coming up with new stuff in the near future.

While I was fixing up my blog, I also decided to update the ‘My Story’ piece on the right side…

Welcome to my life… Over the past year it has been flipped upside down. I am 29 years old, and married to my hubby of two years, Josh. We have 4 beautiful angel babies, who are fondly known as our “Green Beans”. The first of my quads, Heidi, held on as long as she could and was born on January 31, 2009 after pPROMing at 17 weeks. A few weeks later, I pPROM’d with my sweet Lily. Lily, Paige, and Rylan were all born at 22 weeks on February 23, 2009. Just after being released from the hospital empty handed, I returned with a high fever and infection. Two of the nights I spent in the hospital that week, I honestly thought I was going to die. It was the sickest and most hopeless I’ve ever been. I’m pretty sure my diagnosis was a broken heart.

No one will ever understand why this happened to us. We are so deserving of a child to live with us here on earth, and I have high hopes that it will happen for us one day soon. After all I’ve been though, I came out of this having a better appreciation for life.

My life now consists of dealing with the ups and downs a tragedy like this brings. I get though every day by staying close to Josh, friends and family, blogging, and relying on God that my future will be bright. All the love and support I’ve gotten has greatly helped me manage……I am alive and well, and want to be my absolute best as a result of this. I hope to make the best of this situation, and to help others who will experience a similar loss.

Losing It

When I saw on Kelly’s Korner, that this week’s “Show Us Your Life” topic is weight loss tips and workout ideas, I immediately thought of Lose It!  Do you guys have this yet?  If you have an iPhone or iTouch you can download it for free.  It’s really easy to use and I recommend it for everyone...  People that want to lose weight, or just maintain their current weight, men, women, whoever! 

I don’t like to use the word “diet” because that sounds temporary to me.  The key to losing weight and keeping it off is to make those key lifestyle changes.  (Ha!  I sound like a commercial, but it’s true).  I already have a pretty healthy diet, so there weren’t any major things I needed to change in order to maintain my (almost) ideal weight.  For me, Lose It! has helped me manage my calorie intake so that I eat just the right amount for my size and activity level. 

I’m really staying true to the whole “Show Us Your Life” theme, and I’m going to show you my actual Lose It! log for this week…

 

 

This shows my “net” caloric intake each day.  That means that if you work out and burn 200 calories for example, you get those calories back to consume, if you want for that day.  It also totals up all your exercise and shows any weight changes for the week.

I try and budget calories and plan ahead when I want to indulge on something.  I also found a way to still enjoy the chocolate that I crave, so I keep mini dark chocolates in the freezer.  When I need some, I grab two and it satisfies my chocolate craving.   Two chocolates are only 90 calories, plus dark chocolate isn’t all that bad for you, so it’s a win win!

What workout and diet ideas do you have that are working for you?

Stars in the Sky

Look at this! 

Thanks to our friends Chuck & Kathy, our precious Green Beans will be forever honored by having their own stars named after them! 

I never knew this sort of thing existed, until I received the official paperwork from the Star Registry in the mail the other day.  Apparently you can register a star, name it, and dedicate it to a loved one.

Josh immediately located each star on Google Sky and then plotted them on this image.  They are all located around the Pisces constellation. 

It’s comforting to know that we can now look up in the sky to locate our very special stars…

Dining In Tonight

Josh and I experimented with making a Greek Pizza tonight.  We’ve had a similar pizza before with The Pernecky’s, but this was a first for us actually making it.  I originally got the idea from a Rachael Ray recipe, but we tweaked it a little.  It turned out so great, so I wanted to share the recipe with you...

You’ll Need:

• Pre-made pizza dough
• 1 medium onion - chopped
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• fresh spinach
• nutmeg, salt and pepper
• 1/2 lb. cooked gyro meat (we got ours from a local Greek restaurant, – you can also sub chicken if you like)
• 1 pint grape tomatoes
• feta cheese crumbles
• mozzarella cheese - shredded

Roll out pre-made pizza dough (we got ours from the Publix bakery) and bake at 450 degrees until golden brown.

While the crust is browning, sauté an onion and a few cloves of grated garlic and season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.  Then add in a few handfuls of fresh spinach until it wilts. 

When the crust is ready, pull it out of the oven and top it with Tzatziki Sauce.  Add the sliced grape tomatoes and the sautéed onion mixture.  Top with cooked gyro meat, and finish off with feta crumbles and mozzarella cheese.

Pop the pizza back into the oven until the cheese is melted.  (about 15 min.)

Here is the finished product! 

I made a side salad to go with our dinner, but the pizza was so good that we didn’t even touch the salad!  I guess I’ll have it for leftovers tomorrow.

Let me know if you try this recipe.   I know you will love it!

Enjoy!

Cow vs. Romie

Josh's tweet summed it up perfectly...

Cow vs. Romie. Cow won, but Romie is OK.

This past weekend at my parent's house, my little 10 pound, fearless Romes decided to hop the fence and join the neighboring herd of cows.

She's tried this once before, but I was able to call her back before she got too far in. Well, not this time. There were a bunch of people at my parents house and we were all standing around visiting. I looked over and little Romie was standing among 10 cows and started to taunt one of them (like she does with Seven when she wants to play). The cow then nudged her with his big head, and Romie rolled. Right as the cow was about to pick up his big hoof to kick her, Romie got on her feet, and made her way back through the barbwire fence!

She ran back to us crying and I thought that she had been seriously hurt and was still in shock. I was SO freaked out! She was whimpering and crying while Josh held her to give her an exam. After looking her over very carefully, she seemed OK, just really shaken up.

It wasn’t until 4 days later, that I noticed that Romie would whimper a little when I picked her up. It really concerned me, so we jetted off to the vet to get her checked out. I was so relieved to learn that Romie was fine after all. The vet thinks that she is probably just bruised and a little sore.

Now, Romie is taking some anti-inflammatory meds, and will be laying low for the next week. We are SO lucky that she is ok! I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if that darn cow had actually kicked her! From now on, I will be keeping a closer eye on Seven and Romie while we are around those cows!

*********************************************************

On a side note ~ I used Windows Live Writer for the first time instead of Blogger to write this post. Do you use this or Blogger? Which one do you prefer?

new years rockin' eve!

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a rockin' New Year's Eve party! We had 10 of our closest friends over to help us ring in the new year.

Here are the boys being boys!

Us girls!

Kelly and Holly being silly! Grrr!

No NYE party is complete without a potato gun and fireworks. Here's Doug shooting off the potato gun in the empty lot just behind our house. Our neighbors must LOVE us!

All the girls having a great time just after midnight!

Have you ever wondered, how many guys it takes to start a bonfire? FIVE apparently, and it didn't even stay lit!

The guys played craps and poker until the wee hours of the morning.

Despite how late we all stayed up, the kids still woke up promptly by 7am! Rise and shine!

Even the cousins, Romie and Dempsy, were pooped the next morning!

First kiss of the New Year for Cameron and Leah... How cute!

the new year!

The new year is upon us, and I have high, high hopes that it will be much better than 2009. We started the New Year off with a bang, and had a great house party with 10 of our closest friends, 4 doggies, and 5 sleeping babies. (I'll post about that soon!)

This year, I didn't make any New Year's resolutions. I plan to just continue doing what I am doing because I feel like I'm on the right track. I'm realizing that I have a long and bumpy road ahead, but I still feel that I've made great progress over the past few months in recovering from all that I've been through. So with that said, my plans for 2010 are to:

• Allow myself to completely trust in God, and let Him be in control. (That's a big one, and easier said than done, but I am going to try my best. I have nothing to lose!)
• Keep up the positive outlook on life, and keep hoping for the best.
• Take advantage of this time in my life (when I don't have living children) and focus on excelling at work having fun with Josh.
• Start using my Lose It app a little more strictly (since I slacked off over Thanksgiving and Christmas a little... oops!)

Did you know that at the end of this month, it will already be one year since my sweet Heidi was born and gone to heaven? Yep; a whole year already. With that said, what do I do? I want to something special on both Heidi's Day (January 31st) and the day my other three were born (February 23rd), but I don't know what. I don't want it to be a huge production, just something simple to honor their memory.

Do you have any suggestions? Please, send me any ideas you've got.