Wow, a lot happens in 8 months...

Life keeps happening in spite of the fact that I haven't blogged about it in about 8 months. I'll give a quick overview and then "hopefully" I'll be a bit more diligent in my blogging.

In September, Savannah started 1st Grade. She is a good student, and mostly enjoys school. I'm praying for the opportunity to homeschool her, but until that time, I am confident that God will use her (and my) time at that school for His glory.

In October, our baby girl turned 6! She had a doggy themed party. All her guests came dressed as doggies and she had a doggy shaped cake made with love by Grammie. I spent the entire week before the party redoing her room.


November was a time for celebrating family and being thankful for all God has done for us. We had TWO Thanksgivings! One the day before with my side of the family, and then another one on the day of Thanksgiving with Wayne's side of the family.

It was pretty quite around here come December. Wayne had his celebration of Christmas with Savannah. It was a pretty quite day at our house. Just the way I like it. ;)

Savannah also received a Student of the Month award in December, for Responsibility.

January was pretty uneventful. Not much to report.

In February, Savannah performed at her school's talent show with three of her friends. They were gummy bears! She did such a wonderful job. Not only did she remember all of her moves, but she performed wonderfully too! It reignited her desire to dance, so we re enrolled her in dance. So, now she is dancing (tap, ballet, and jazz) and doing gymnastics.

February also brought a surgery to my door. During my yearly "girly" doctor appointment, my ob/gyn found a large fibroid on the posterior of my uterus. He said it was rather large and wanted me to have an ultrasound done to see exactly what it consisted of.

Well, during that ultrasound, the tech found no fibroid, but she did find a large cyst on my right ovary. I have known about this cyst since my ultrasound almost 7 years ago, when I was pregnant with Savannah. I had also seen a picture of it from when I had the laparoscopy three years ago. It didn't concern me too much, until they started throwing around words like "complex" cyst and "solid components."

Due to the fact that it was no longer just a simple cyst but was now a complex cyst with solid components, they ordered a pelvic MRI. After my doctor received the results from the MRI, he referred me to an oncologist. I wasn't too concerned, at this point because of all the research I had done. Plus, just as with the Asherman's Syndrome, I knew God would receive the glory and that He had a plan for this situation. (By the way, only about 1% of ovarian cysts are cancerous, and statistically they are in women 50 years of age or older.)

To make a long story short, I saw the oncologist and showed him the picture of the cyst that I had from the laparoscopy and he too, did not seem concerned. However, due to the size of the cyst, he did say it would need to be removed.

A few weeks later, I went in for surgery and the removed the cyst, which was the size of a grapefruit. It was so large, that it was actually nestled in my colon. It was also a dermoid cyst. The "solid component" was a ball of hair. I've had this cyst my entire life and only really felt its existence when I ovulated. It's a strange feeling to be pain free during ovulation for the first time in my life.

Which brings us to March. This month brought a new mile stone in Savannah's growth. She lost her first tooth! She also had her 1st Grade performance at her school, which had a patriotic theme. Her class sang The Star Spangled Banner and a few other songs.

There are a few other things that I want to add, but they are recent enough to warrant their own posts.

The "Fruits" of Our Labor

It's been nearly three months since we planted our garden at Grammie and Papa's house. We received a call that it was "time to harvest." And boy was it! It was actually overdue on the zucchini's. There were about three of them that are uneatable because they grew too big.

We harvested all of the carrots, because the pumpkin had no place to go. I picked it up off the ground (where I can see it had already received a tasting from some little critter) and placed it where the carrots had been.

I'm pretty sure that we won't have any cantaloupe. Th

ere just isn't enough room! Next year, we are going to make our planter box MUCH bigger, and plant MUCH smarter.

We may or may not get a watermelon. The

plant seems to be getting big, but as of now, it's only flowers. It may be too late in the season, and they may have been overtaken by the zucchini, which is way out of control. Zucchini bread, anyone?

Here are the pictures from today. We will go back in a couple of weeks to check on more zucchini. I'm sure that more will be ready to pick.

Gardening at Grammie and Papa's

Last year Savannah and I planted sunflowers, pumpkins, and watermelons at my parent's house. The only thing that ever grew was the watermelons. The rabbits and ground squirrels ate the sunflowers as soon as any green come up out of the dirt and the pumpkins flowers never had a chance. The only reason we were able to grow watermelons was because Papa covered the foliage with chicken wire!

This year, we are going to outsmart those little varmints. This year Papa build a planter box. It's about 10 or so feet long, 3 or so feet high and about 3 or so feet wide. Papa drove the tractor while Wayne and I filled the box with dirt.



We added vegetable planter mix (not organic unfortunately) and Savannah helped to til it together with the native soil.



Here is a picture of us planting the sunflowers. We put them at the back of the planter box where they wouldn't shade the rest of the fruits and vegetables.





Next we planted watermelon, zucchini, cantelope, carrots, and pumpkins. It's probably too much for that little area, but we just couldn't make up our minds!





Last year, Grammie bought Savannah her own gardening tools. She had fun using them for their practical purpose!



The height of the box would keep the squirrels and bunnies from eating our garden, but we wanted to make sure that nothing would even think about approaching. A mini-sized scarecrow should do the trick! (Um, notice the adorable dress Savannah chose to dig in the dirt with? She said, "Mommy. You can always wash it.")



We're very optimistic about this years crop. We're just sad that our yard doesn't get enough sun to have the garden at our house. For now, we're grateful for Grammie and Papa helping us out and letting us grow our garden in their yard!

Making Pretzels

Savannah and I love to bake. Last year, Wayne got soft pretzel mix from his friend at work. We had such a good time making them. In fact, I believe I blogged about it. When Savannah brought home her fundraising packet from school, I saw that they had soft preztel mix. I was even more excited to find out that it was organic soft pretzel mix! Here are some pictures of this years batch of pretzels.

Look, ma. Organic!



Pouring the mix into the bowl.



After adding the water, oil, and yeast, mix, mix, mix.



Kneading the dough is fun!



Daddy lending moral support.



Separating the dough into equal sized portions. (Yes, my daughter is a dork... :) The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.)



Rolling the dough to make into the pretzel shape.



Fresh out of the oven. We've got your typical pretzel shape, a butterfly, a heart, and the figure 8 for one of Savannah's favorite shows "John and Kate Plus 8." In fact, she kept calling it her "John and Kate Plus 8" pretzel.



The finished product. I only made two with sea salt on top. The others were made into cinnamon 'n sugar pretzels. They were very yummy.



I was just looking at last year's blog about making pretzels, and I'm surprised that I made them at all this year!  I now remember what a hard time we had.  We didn't have ANY of those problems this year.  Of course, it was much warmer this time than the last time, so that may have contributed to the ease of this batch of pretzels.

Weigh in....

I lost 5 pounds this week!  I'm currently 165 via my home scale.  And honestly, it wasn't even that difficult.  I love this not dieting just eating right thing.  :)

Confession: I didn't move my body everyday, but I did stay away from fast food.  (Well, I had Bob's Big Boy on Saturday, but that was after my brand new Sidekick phone got stolen.  It was an emotional weak point, which I realize is one of the big reasons I overeat.  I chalked it up to a learning experience and vowed to be good the rest of the week, which I was...)

Temple of God

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

I have to humbly admit I've let my temple go.  I know how it happened and it's something I've struggled with since probably high school.  I remember going on my first diet around my sophomore year.  It seems like ever since then I've had trouble keeping my weight in check.  And honestly, it's just because I have such unhealthy eating habits.  Not to mention the fact that I'm lazy.  I don't want to claim that, but I do have to admit it.

So, I'm officially changing my ways TODAY!  I'm hoping to update weekly with what I've done (or haven't done) to adopt a more healthy way of living for me as well as Savannah.

First: No more fast food.  The only fast food I will allow myself or Savannah to consume (Wayne is on his own) is In-N-Out and that is only every once in awhile.

Second: Some sort of exercise every day.  Even if it's just a walk around the block.  This body will be moving.

I'm considering these next photos BEFORE photos.  I want to post progress pictures, but I think I'll do that monthly instead of weekly.  We'll see.

*deep breath*  Here they are...







These may not seem all that horrible to you, and really they aren't.  I am blessed with legs that work to go hiking, great friends, and a beautiful daughter, but I am honestly 30 pounds overweight.  I currently weight, by my home scale, 170 pounds.  I'd like to be around 140.

With the help of the Lord, I will be an overcomer.  See you in a week!

Gymnastics

A little known fact to most people is that I used to be a competitive gymnast. I started when I was about three years old, I think, and quit when I was in the fifth grade.

Anyway, I recently signed Savannah up at the same gym I went to as a child.  I knew one of the coaches there from my time on the team.  After a few classes she approached me and asked if I wanted to coach gymnastics.  I thought she was kidding.  I said, "I haven't done gymnastics in a long time."

Her reply, "So?"

I asked, "Are you serious?"

"Yep.  Do you want an application?"

So, I filled out the application figuring, what do I have to lose?  The next night I did a try out period co-coaching with her and I loved it!   I prayed about it and felt that the Lord was releasing me to make my own decision. So I decided to do it!

I have to admit, I was a bit nervous at first.  These girls were doing things that I haven't done since high school (I took a couple of classes in high school to freshen up my abilities for cheerleading.) A lot of the terms have changed, but it was kind of like riding a bicycle.  It all came back (to my head NOT to my body.  I'm old!) pretty quickly!

Plus, I haven't had an official job since Savannah was born.  I now have a boss and fellow employees.  Weird.  It's only once a week though.  For now.  ;)

I haven't officially started, but I've got a safety course under my belt.  I actually start on Friday.  I have a group of "babies" as they call them, which are 3-5 year olds and then an older class.

I'll let you know how it goes...  :D