I'm a liar.

So I lied to everyone - we did NOT get the table & chairs. I guess the lady's husband already promised it to a co-worker and didn't tell her about it. I was pretty bummed - so now we're back to looking for something cheap again! It wouldn't be that big of a deal if DCFS wasn't all over me about the table/chairs we have now possibly hurting a daycare kid. DCFS....don't even get me started on them......

Oh and I also lied about going to the tractor pulls! They canceled them due to poor track conditions so that was another bummer!

Looks like we've got some HOT weather coming over the next week! I've been trying to get my daycare kids outside in the a.m. when it's still decent, but the past couple of times the kids have been complaining of the heat and asking to go back inside where it's cool.

Here's a chicken tip: I have a lot of recipes that call for chicken that's already been cooked and shredded. Usually I pull out the George Foreman Grill and cook them in there and shred them up, but I read in one of my daycare newsletters to cook a couple of whole chickens and have that on hand. So I bought a couple and after throwing up in my mouth while taking the nasty stuff out of the inside of it (neck bone and giblets), I put them in the crockpot with a cup or so of water and let them cook all day. By the evening, I could hardly get the chicken out of the crockpot because it was just falling off the bone! I picked it all apart and put it in freezer bags in 2 cup portions so now when I need already cooked chicken, I can just pull a bag out of the freezer! One chicken gave me about 6 cups when shredded.

New craving!

Some of you may know that I am in love with The Food Network - there are very few shows on there that I don't like to watch. I do have my favorites and Paula Dean is definitely one of them - there's nothing better than good southern cooking. Sure it's not the healthiest, but that's what makes it so good! Anyway, the other night she made a Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich - I was craving it immediately! She puts honey and cinnamon in with the peanut butter and then dips the sandwiches in cinnamon & sugar after they're fried. Of course we were out of bananas so I picked some up the next time we were at the store and fried up a couple of sandwiches for me & Kiegan. His first reaction was "Yuck!" until he tried a bite - we are both addicted! I want to eat one for every single meal and between every single meal! Here's a link to the recipe in case any of you want to be brave enough to try one - the recipe makes 4 sandwiches:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/paulas-fried-peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwich-recipe/index.html

No other news this week - I've been sleeping in Lexi's bed while she's at her dad's because SOMEBODY is having some serious snoring issues this week. I never knew how uncomfortable her bed was!

We also broke down and bought a dining room table and chairs - it's from back in the "olden" days (the chairs are all slingback chairs), but it was only $50 and should do the job until we can afford to buy something nicer. Plus it seats six which is what we need! The table and chairs we have now are just falling apart everywhere and I don't think there's much more Travis can do to keep it all together - Gorilla Glue and nails can only do so much.

I think we're going to the tractor pulls at the McLean County Fair tomorrow night. It's dollar day so Travis thinks you get in for $1 and everything costs $1. Cheap night of entertainment other than the gas it'll take to get there! Travis was wanting to see the demolition derby, but it's Saturday night at 7:00 which is when the dinner starts for his 10-year class reunion (he's getting so old!). I'm sure I'll be the DD that evening. :o)

All for now!

Future Golf Pro?

You just might be reading the blog of a future golf pro...........YEAH RIGHT! :o) We broke down this past weekend and bought a set of golf clubs for me and broke them in Saturday morning at Wolk Creek. It was a really fun and relaxful morning for us (even though neither of us are that good at it). We signed up for the St. Mary's Golf Outing on August 9th so we thought it'd be a good idea to get some practice in before it rolled around. The kids were hitting some balls around in the yard and really seemed to enjoy it - Kiegan even said he'd like to learn how to golf so we'll see!

Our whole weekend was pretty relaxing. Travis & I rented some movies yesterday afternoon and just stayed home all evening watching them and eating and eating and eating some more. It was nice to just be able to sit and watch an entire movie with NO interruptions! We would both recommend Mr. Woodcock - FUNNY MOVIE!!

Ok - off to bed so that I'm ready for Monday morning....

Baby Update

We had an appointment Wednesday afternoon. Everything's looking great! Oddly enough I weigh less than I did BEFORE I got pregnant - which is ok I guess. :o) Lexi & Kiegan came with us to hear the heartbeat - they thought that was pretty cool! We go back on August 14th for our 20 week sonogram and hopefully we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl. We're not real sure if/how we'll post the "results" of the sonogram - we don't want Grandma Carol to find out before the baby's born!! ;o) Then our next monthly appointment is the week after. Once I hit 20 weeks, I'll have Lexi take another picture of my belly for me to post.

Lexi's Home!

We got Lexi home last Saturday afternoon! She was happy to come home and we were happy to have her back home - it's strange not having her around for such a long time. Travis and I don't think we'll be sending her back to camp next year and after hearing her stories, Kiegan no longer wants to go! (In fact, the first words out of Lexi's mouth were "I don't want Kiegan going to this camp.") I think she enjoyed the activities that they had going on - she said they went trail riding on the horses, had an all day hike where they saw all sorts of cool things, learned how to shoot guns and more.....BUT the other girls at the camp sounded awful. I realize that there are girls like this at every camp, but I was honestly expecting a higher caliber of young ladies to be attending a church camp (especially with as expensive as it was). Lexi said there was stealing, bullying, yelling, fighting and she also came home knowing more about a certain ADULT topic than I care for her to know about which I have a serious problem with. My understanding was that there would be a camp counselor sleeping in each cabin with the girls, but apparently they all slept in a seperate cabin. I'm hoping they send home a survey or something for me to fill out, but I've already decided that if they don't then I will be sending them my thoughts anyway! It was hard to hear her talk about how she would cry a lot at night because she wanted to come home. SOOOO we learned our lesson, but now she's back home. :o)

We have movement!

So I've been feeling these little movements in my belly lately that feel more like gas bubbles, but this morning I CLEARLY felt baby movement on the left side of my belly! This is the part of pregnancy that I love the most. I still can't feel anything on the outside of my belly, but it's exciting that I can feel it all going on inside. Oh and best of all - I think the sickness is completely gone! I don't even feel sick in the mornings anymore! My biggest complaint now is that I pee just about every time I sneeze. Our kids really get a kick out of that....

We had a good weekend - Friday night Travis & I ate at Olive Garden. He's so funny when he's at a "fancy" restaurant. He had a rough time pronouncing a lot of the stuff on the menu (he said he's use to just saying he wants a #2 Super Sized), but we both loved what we ordered! Afterwards, we went to Home Depot to check out the showers they had. We found a couple that we liked, but decided that first we need to tear out the old shower and fix the walls and the floor first. So we'll see when this all happens.

Sunday morning we took Lexi to Bloomington to meet her camp bus, she was not the least bit hesitant to tell us bye and hop on! They don't let the kids call home unless there's an emergency or a bad case of home sickness; so I'm assuming things are going great because I've received no phone calls! We've sent her a couple of notes this week and I know a few of you have also sent her notes which I'm sure she is just loving all the mail!

We have Patrick all week and I think the boys are enjoying having Lexi out of their hair. In fact, I really don't see them much during the day - their bedroom seems to be where they stay. The daycare kids are always asking me when 'the two boys' are going to come down to play.

Not much is going on this coming weekend - I'll just be excited to have Lexi come home! Maybe I can convince her to post something on the blog about everything she did at camp? Or maybe she'll at least narrate something to me and I'll do the typing for her. :o)

Pictures!!

Lexi had a great idea to take a new picture of my growing belly every month. So here is a 16-week belly shot!

And here is what the kids THINK my belly is going to look like because "Travis' big baby"is growing in there. :o)

And THIS photo is Lexi's fabulous make-up job on Travis while he was sleeping. You can't really tell in the picture, but his beard and mustache are FULL of black mascara. He was very purty and he took the shock of his new look very well. :o) Oh and yes, he does have pink lip gloss on too - he's not one of those lucky people with naturally pink, pouty lips.

Here are a couple of pictures of Bruiser and one of our cats, Hailey. (Delicious is not a very picture-friendly cat.) As you can tell, they have pretty rough lives! Bruiser spends most of his day sleeping - unless he's being poked at by one of the daycare kids. We don't usually see Hailey during the day, but when we do she seems to like sleeping on top of the dryer or INSIDE the dryer. So I've learned to always look in there before throwing clothes in!

Weekend Plans....

Is it Friday yet? Today has not been one of the best daycare days. First of all, I woke up at about 2:00 this morning with a super sore throat and a stuffed nose which has led to one of my awesome headaches that I seem to get just about every day now. On top of that, one of my daycare mom's brought her son (who I watch a few days a week) along with her other four kids (who I never watch) without even bothering to call and make sure I was ok with it. Which if she would have called first, I would have told her 'no' because having all five of her kids was not what I agreed to and it puts me WAY OVER the number of kids I'm allowed to have. So I didn't say anything when she dropped them off, but I will say something when she picks them up! I was suppose to go with Joanne, Aunt Janet and the kids to see the play "A Jungle Book" in Pontiac, but instead I think I'm going to go to bed. I'm exhausted, my brain feels like it's going to ooze out of my ears and it's only 1:15 in the afternoon.....

Our only major plans for the weekend are to take Lexi on Sunday morning to meet her camp bus in Blm. Friday night, Travis & I are going to Blm. to eat at Olive Garden and then to shop around Menards for a new shower. The one we have now is literally coming apart from the wall and drywall is falling out into the shower. The entire bathroom needs a lot of work from the flooring to the walls to the shower; so we'll see what we find and what we can get done!

Camp Ondessonk

This coming Sunday Lexi leaves for church camp down in Southern Illinois near Ozark (www.ondessonk.com). She is SUPER excited and I am too, but I'm also a little nervous. She's going to be pretty far away from home! We meet the camp bus in Bloomington at 9:00 Sunday morning and she's on her own from there until she comes home the following Saturday afternoon. This year I signed her up for the all girls camp and they'll do things like horseback riding, hiking, swimming, etc. I bought her a couple of disposable cameras so hopefully she'll take some good pictures of some of the stuff she'll be doing and the friends she'll be making. If anyone would like to send her a note or a postcard, here's the address:

Lexi Ziegler
Girls-1
Camp Ondessonk
3760 Ondessonk Rd.
Ozark, IL 62972

Update on Baby Sancken

This coming Sunday I will be 16 weeks already! The morning sickness has been getting better - it seems to happen on Monday mornings (explain that one) and nights that I stay up way too late. So that's better than every day! My belly seems to have really grown the past week or so - I definitely can't wear my regular clothes anymore.

Our appointment last month went well and my due date looks to be December 28th. The doctor is concerned that I keep getting these horrible headaches almost daily - she thinks it's my body trying to tell me I need to rest more. So I try to sit when I can during the day, but that's not easy with a house full of kids! She would actually like me to cut back on my hours/days because she doesn't like that I'm on my feet for 15+ hours a day, but I'm not ready to do that quite yet. Travis has been doing a good job of taking over the laundry and keeping our kids entertained in the evenings so that I can sit or lay down early. Our next appointment is July 23rd and our next ultrasound will be around 20 weeks and we should hopefully be able to find out what we're having! If the baby's anything like it's father, it probably won't cooperate. ;o)

My cravings are apparently sweets which is not like me at all! It seems like I am always baking or making something that's a sweet. Today I made party mix covered with melted white chocolate....oh....my....gosh is it GOOD! The only problem is that I'll probably have it all ate before I can get it off the wax paper and into a bowl!

So overall, things are moving along fantastically!

So it's been awhile....

Ok - so I've failed miserably on keeping our blog up to date. It seems as though my daycare kids go home, I make dinner, we eat and then I go to bed. Tired, tired ALL the time!

We survived our vacation to the indoor water park in Indianapolis. In fact, I think the kids have found themselves a new home! All of them at one point or another said that they wanted to live there. :o)

We started our Saturday morning with the breakfast buffet at the hotel we were staying in. All of the kids could eat free so we figured it wouldn't be that expensive for us 5 adults to eat - boy were we wrong!! The bill was around $90!! The buffet itself was ok - I mean it had a good variety of food, but it was certainly not worth $90. And of course this whole weekend was my mother-in-laws treat so she wouldn't let anybody give her money to help cover the cost of anything.

After breakfast we headed to Castleton Mall where Libby Lu's and RIDEMAKERZ were located. The girls took off for Libby Lu's where they could change into dress up clothes, get their hair done in whatever style they chose, get their nails painted, get their makeup done, etc. Afterwards, they were asked if they wanted to put on a little show which they all agreed to until they learned that they had to do it in the middle of the mall! Then they quickly changed their minds (I would have to).

The boys were taken to RIDEMAKERZ where they could design and build their own remote control cars. This place was AWESOME! They could customize everything from the body of the car to the decals to the tires to the rims. They had an awesome time! Tyler, my sister-in-law Tracy's youngest, was so attached to his car that he didn't let anybody else carry the box it was in even though the box was almost bigger than he was!

So the bummer thing about the girls getting their hair and makeup done that morning was that afterwards we were heading back to the hotel to hit the indoor water park. Bye bye hair and makeup!! But obviously none of them were too upset about it. The indoor water park was a BLAST and believe it or not I actually put on a swimsuit and went swimming too! I loved the lazy river of course and I even hit the water slides with Lexi & Kiegan. Two of the slides you have to ride down on your back - one was faster than the other and Tracy & I didn't care for either one. We both felt as though we were going to have panic attacks! They are completely enclosed so you have no idea which way you're gonna turn or when it's gonna end and it's so hot and humid that it's impossible to breathe. BUT the 3rd slide is one that you can ride a tube down and you can even ride a double tube down with someone else so the kids and I hit that one quite a bit!!

We got home Sunday at a fairly decent time and all in one piece, except for the van! It ended up getting a flat tire, but we didn't really notice it until we were already home. :o) So all-in-all it was a great trip and everyone had an awesome time! If my computer loaded pictures properly, I'd put some on here, but guess what....it doesn't! Sorry!