I'm so behind!

I'm so sorry I haven't had time to update my blog since my specialist appointment. It's been a little busy here to say the least. The husband has been on vacation since the 5th of December (and doesn't' go back until the 2nd) and we did a lot of running around getting ready for Christmas and enjoying our time together. The kids got out of school on the 21st and it was a whirlwind of cooking, baking, wrapping and BAM Christmas was here. So I guess I need to back up a little...

December 18, 2012 - 12 Weeks 0 Days
I had my appointment with the fetal maternal specialist. It just so happened that Ben came down with a fever the night before which meant Riley would have to stay home with Ben since he couldn't go to school. We hated to ask my MIL to keep him because she had spent the last two weeks sick and I hated to take chance with her getting sick again. So she went with me instead. The appointment was super long. The first person we met with was the geneticist and she went over all of my history and possible birth defect risks. Afterwards they put me in a room for the sonogram and that's where I met Dr. T. Both babies were measuring right at 12 weeks and were both approx 2 inches long. He said everything was looking good. He said at my next appt. Jan. 29th he's going to do an ultrasound to check my cervix. He said if it's not closed he will take me to the OR for a cerclage (pray that it's nice and closed!!). I will be 18 weeks at this appointment and we will try to see the genders!!! I'm so excited to find out what they are!! He told me he didn't want me traveling more than an hour from home and that I'm to pay attention to any pains or contractions as I get further along. He did say, "You do realize that you won't have a July delivery?" So it's looking like we are aiming for the second week in June. He said that he didn't see a line on my sonogram for the heart shaped uterus so if the babies are in the right position they will let me try for a vaginal delivery but if they aren't it will be a c-section. Guess we will see what these babies do. Also, that night morning sickness started that night.

December 27, 2012 - 13 weeks 2 days
Ahhh, morning sickness, mid day sickness and evening sickness. Yup I've had it all. I've had some bad headaches and if I've gotten sick I've had a headache to go with it. I'm pretty sure they are sinus related as my bp has been good and a certain tooth hurts that is usual to my sinus issues. As long as my head doesn't hurt I haven't been sick. I've had more headaches than I can count though.  I'm not really showing. I can still wear all my pre-pregnancy shirts. Everyday this gets more exciting!! Cravings are funny. I haven't really had any Christmas cookies or candy. All I want is Popsicles.

11 weeks 2 days

My OB appt went good this morning! I can't express enough how much I really like my doctor. He said he wanted me to have peace of mind so he went to check with the ultrasound tech if she had room to squeeze me in. He came back and said she had five people waiting so instead he grabbed the small ultrasound machine. The picture quality isn't nearly as good but the most important thing is we could see their heartbeats and them!! We saw two sweet babies that were moving all over the place and their heartbeats were good! I told him how on Tuesday I "thought" felt them move because I felt small popping. He said that he wouldn't be surprised as much as they were moving around on the screen. He told me to bring my kids back in three weeks and he would do another sono so the kids could see the babies! I go back on January 3rd. I asked him about seeing the specialist on Tuesday. He said I would definitely have a big ultrasound with Dr. T on Tuesday and that he would be looking for that report. I am so excited I can't wait!

Riley and I have just been having the best time! Yesterday we went to Texas de Brazil and had a fabulous lunch! Our lunch came with free dessert so we opted for the Citrus creme brulee for lunch and then took home a Brazilian cheesecake for later. Later it was too when we dug into it and devoured every bite! Today we had our Dr's appt, finished up some shopping and then stopped at this hole in the wall pizza place. I had a fire baked artichoke, black olive and pepperoni pizza. It was amazing!!

Tomorrow night Brit had her ballet parent special. I can't wait to see her dance! Our sitter is sick so we are going to take the boys with us and then stop at Momma Mia's for an Italian dinner. Great start to the weekend!!!

Look on the sidebar!

I put up a poll for guessing the twins gender! Go vote! Today I am 11 weeks 1 day! Tomorrow we have another check up with our OB. I can't wait! Maybe we will get to take a sneak peak at them again. The last few visits I have been to the Dr, he has said, "Let's go take a quick look." I like that! Then my specialist appt is Tuesday and I "think" will have a more detailed sono then! Not sure when we will find out the genders but still thought it would be fun to guess. Everyone keeps asking me what I think. I keep going back and forth and I really don't know. One minute I am just convinced it's two boys. Then I like to joke with Riley it's two girls. He is convinced it's one of each. Guess time will only tell. Of course we will be excited with whatever they are but a little girl would be fun since we've never gotten to shop for an infant girl. I know Brit would have a blast!! Ok, I'll update tomorrow sometime about our appt! :)

10 weeks 2 days

I am sooooo excited to be into the double digits :) I am feeling so very blessed to have made it this far!!! We are less than two weeks from our goal of 12!!!  I have to admit this is the scariest thing I have ever done. It's hard to not get ahead of yourself and think about their delivery and HOPING and PRAYING I can get them as far as I can (even though it's really out of my hands). So I have to remind myself to take each day one day at a time and enjoy every moment of knowing right now everything is good! Everything has been good too!! I've not had any morning sickness (the two times I got sick, was so mild and drainage related), my blood pressure is stable, the sleepiness is wearing off, and if I do get tired I'm able to rest. My only complaints thus far have been my boobs are super sore and my hips ache after waking. I have been doing some light walking and stretching to work out the soreness. It's super weird not to have any children home during the day but it's awesome to be able to lay down when I need too!! I've not really having any food cravings although I am loving peaches with cottage cheese and the other day I was dying for fish sticks with malt vinegar. Fish sticks cracks me up because I haven't had those in years! Oh and let me just say they were great and the malt vinegar hit the spot, lol!

We managed to get our Christmas decorations/tree up last weekend. We didn't put out as many as we normally do but enough to make everything look festive.  I didn't want Riley to have to put up a ton of stuff by himself if I wasn't feeling well when the time came.  Honestly, I can't believe it's already December 6th. It feels like when I found out I was pregnant that time stopped and I've been a hase. We are so behind on Christmas shopping. Normally I am done but this year I will have Riley to help me! Riley's last day of work for the season is tomorrow (whooohooo) and we will have two weeks to ourselves until the kids get out of school!! We've got some shopping planned and some fun lunch reservations! We also have two doctor appointments, one the 13th and the next with the maternal specialist on the 18th . Hoping we get to see our babies!

I don't know how people go a full nine months and not find out the sex of the baby.  I wish I had a little window so I could see what they are RIGHT NOW! Lol!!! I keep having dreams I am having twin girls but I think it's because my good friend has twin girls and I see their pictures on FB. My MIL is dying too. We go into stores and swoon over all the cute little mary jane socks and pink/purple lovelys! Just a few more weeks and we will know something. I might need to put a poll up!! :)

All the kids are doing great! This weekend my MIL and I are taking Brit to go eat at the Cheesecake Factory and then some shopping. The plan is to eat dessert FIRST! Normally I make her a cute little outfit to wear for Christmas but I haven't had any time. So today while I was out I hit Old Navy and found her a pair of denim leggings and a pink sequin top (I got pink so she could wear her Hello Kitty pink glitter shoes). I'm loving Mr. Ben's Christmas list. He wants a purple Monster Truck (purple is his favorite color) and a new My Little Pony. He has so many ponies and it's a hoot to watch him play with them. He takes them in the car, for show-n-tell, sleeps with them in his pillow, puts them on the table beside him when he eats, and gives them a ton of kisses. He also has them carry on little conversations among all the ponies. Oh how I could bottle this up. It's adorable! I know he also won't always think ponies are so cool. He told me last night during tuck in that he has three babies in his tummy. Then he always wants to look in my mouth so he can see if the babies are coming out. I don't have the heart to tell him that it doesn't work that way! Brady is doing good too. He is in a running club sponsored by Nike at school. So far he has earned a metal and then a t-shirt! He's having some trouble at school doing a writing journal so I talked to his teacher about letting him bring it home. His problem is he is very technical (hands on, like building legos) but not creative with writing. So we sat down and worked on a writing web and then a paragraph about what he would want to talk about for his writing. His teacher wrote back and said he actually finished his work in class yesterday with the writing we did and that he was ready to publish his work and illustrate. He came home with such confidence!!

Lastly, I wanted to add. I've had lots of people ask me what I did to get pregnant. I have a long history of PCOS and not ovulating. Even on fertility drugs back in the day I didn't ovulate. Well, first I believe it was God breathed but I also believe Shaklee helped me! I had been reading articles on a product called Vivix helping PCOS and had even posted them on my FB wall. I started taking it in July (and honestly only 1/2 tsp opposed to the full tsp) as well as the Vitalizer vitamins. Well, in September I must have ovulated because as you know I am pregnant! I really believe it helped and I'm excited to share it because infertility is so devastating and maybe it can help someone else. If you want to check it out feel free to check out my webpage and if you have any questions feel free to message me on FB or through blogger. :) ****my side pictures will also take you to my website or my FB wall.

Milestone Tuesday

Every Tuesday is a new milestone! Today is 9 weeks!! My next goal is 12 weeks, then 24 and hopefully we can go to 36-38 weeks!! One day at a time though! I feel really good and have only had two experiences of morning sickness. One thing I have to keep in mind though is even if I feel good, to still take it easy. Yesterday I was feeling great and decided to do a little light Christmas shopping. By the time I got home, sat for a minute and started dinner...... I hit a BRICK wall and spent the rest of the evening feeling bad. That wall was HARD!! I made sure to take a nap today so maybe tonight wouldn't be the same. A friend asked me what my cravings are and they are nothing what I thought they would be. I normally LOVE sweets and crave mint chocolate ice cream. Instead though I crave the craziest things!!! Tuna fish sandwiches (my dr said I could eat one every two weeks, torture because I want one every day), tangerines, lemon water, and breakfast burritos. Sweets actually don't sound good at all, except for Popsicles. 

On Saturday we took the kids to pick out their annual Christmas ornaments at Hallmark. Brit picked out a Barbie Ballerina, Brady a 1960's Ford Truck and Ben a Chuggington train. Afterwards we ran to Kohls to look at the maternity clothes. Talk about disappointment!!! They only had a small wall of clothes and nothing I could even fit my right leg into. By this time the babies were telling me it was time to EAT so we headed to Chipolte. I could eat Mexican food everyday not pregnant and pregnant well EVERYDAY for EVERY MEAL! lol. There was a Babies R Us down the street so we ran in to look around and see what we needed. We are trying to keep things on the most needed list for the time being since our house is quickly going to be smaller when the babies get here. I've had a lot of people ask me when we are moving or adding on. Neither of which will be happening! We will be staying put and def. not adding on for a while (well not adding on but going up, as we have a room upstairs we can finish out and put in a staircase). We've also been asked how we will arrange the rooms. I really have no idea right now. A lot of it because we don't know what the babies are yet. If they are one of each, it will be more manageable but if it's two boys or two girls, then that's were things get a little crazy. Then we prob. won't do any of that until the babies are much older. Ben spent the first 18 months in our room and I'm ok with that for these babies as long as they sleep good. Ben loved to sleep, but again something I won't know until they are actually here. Also, my SIL had a great point, if one's a girl, how will Brit feel about sharing a room with a five year old when she is 16?? I don't know, I've never had to do this before. All I know is that our family will make it work and God must have thought we would handle such a task. I have to admit though I get a little stressed out when I think about house space (even though  my house is 2200 sq ft and I only grew up with a family of five in approx 1600-1700sq ft), having to purchase a new vehicle and purchasing two of most things. I'm thankful I started Shaklee because the extra I make will def. help with buying baby stuff. Thankfully too the money that I have saved for Port Aransas (which won't be happening this year) can go towards supplies! Speaking of vehicles we will prob. wait until March or April to purchase a vehicle. I told Riley I wanted to have everything purchased and ready to go by April. That way we could rest and enjoy the kids last month of school before the babies come.

 I can't wait to find out what the babies are! I want to shop so badly (even though it's still early) but since I have no idea what they are, I hate to buy anything. Although if truth be told, I did buy the cutest pair of pink booties that I couldn't resist. I figure if they end up being both boys, I will hold onto them for a baby shower gift.  Oh and I went ahead and purchased Thirsties due wraps and 60 cloth-eez prefolds (cloth diapering). The sale was too good to pass up and if something happens I can sell them as a set. I clothed Ben and thankfully saved my diapers! The plan is to use pampers while they are newborns and while we are getting breastfeeding down. Then once we get that down move to the cloth diapers. It will really save us a ton of money!! As soon as the holidays are over I plan to get started on nursing pads and then once I find out the sex of the babies making burp clothes and baby shoes!! I can't wait, I'm so excited!!! The kids are so excited too. A few nights ago when I tucked Brady in he said, "I love you babies" to my tummy. Awwwww, I could have melted!!!

7 weeks 6 days

Today I had a sonogram to check on the babies. Given the fact that we have waited so long for this pregnancy sonograms are an exciting and scary experience for me. I have to keep reminding myself a few things...
1) this is a huge big gift from God and he didn't give us this to abandon us
2) Just because I was an infertile for so long doesn't mean that I can't carry a baby.
3) I haven't had any problems or cramping thus far (YES!!)
4) I am getting plenty of rest and I have lots of great family support in getting it!

So anyway leading up to the appointment I could feel my anxiety rising. Riley kept reminding me that he wasn't going to except anything less than GREAT! I'm glad God gave me such a great husband because he keeps me feeling safe when my heart is scared.

Today's appointment was nothing less than AMAZING! Great isn't even a good enough word! I didn't get to see my doctor because he got called into a delivery BUT I did get to see my two precious babies. I can't help but cry every time I think about it because this is all just so surreal! My due date got changed again and this time it's my birthday, July 2, 2013. The babies are measuring good at 7 weeks 6 days. Baby A had a heart rate of 160 and Baby B had a heart rate of 158.

Finding out I'm pregnant!

Thought I should go backwards a little bit before I go forwards. Most of you know our infertility struggles and our decision to adopt. Adoption was (and still is) the most wonderful thing I’ve ever done in my life. My three children have taught me so many things about myself and who I am that I didn’t know existed until they came in the picture. While their adoption brought the thing I wanted most, to be a mother, it’s always hard to swallow that you can’t get pregnant. I’ve been an infertile for so long that it’s still sinking in that I am actually pregnant, lol. The thing I LOVE most about this pregnancy is that my three beautiful children get to be a part of it! They get to witness seeing my tummy grow and then getting to love on two sweet babies. That’s so important to me considering we did CPS adoptions, showing my children the right way to love and protect something. These babies will be a great learning tool! 

So going backwards…. What made me even take a test in the first place? Well, leading up to the positive test, I noticed that I was super emotional. I would drop Ben off at his new school and cry almost the entire way home. I felt so lost and sad because my baby wasn’t at home. Then we sat down as a family to watch a movie and I got up 8 times to pee in 45 mins. We were about to go camping and according to my iperiod app on my phone my cycle should start right before we left. Since I don’t have “regular” cycles (vary from 28-50 days) the app would average when it thought I might start. So after dropping Ben off at school I thought, “Hmm, I wonder if I should stop at Target and buy a test?” I made the stop, got me a latte, put a test in the basket and then got sidetracked by all the Thanksgiving and Christmas items they were placing on the shelves. Then I looked at toys and made plans for Christmas gifts. Finally, when I got to the check-out I remembered I had put a test in the basket. I checked out I made my way to the family bathroom with my basket of groceries. I figured it would be negative and then I could go about my day and not look back. It only took a second to pop up positive and there I was in Target bawling my head off because I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it! October 29^th forever changed my life. 

Shut the front door......

Last time I wrote I posted HERE about our pregnancy. It was such a shock! The next step was getting to meet my new doctor and get my first ultrasound. Well, let me just say that God had some amazing plans for us because.....

Here is my facebook entry....

 How it all went down: Today I had my first ob appt with my new doctor (last week my appt was with his nurse). Riley met me there. We spent a lot of time going over my labs and talking about my lack of a thyroid, pituitary tumor, and high blood pressure. I had to change ob’s because mine literally delivered her 

last baby two weeks ago. She is doing more cosmetic and only gyn care now. So I was really

 nervous about meeting the new doctor but he seems really nice and I will trust him to take on my care. We talked about my betas. My first one was 2910 and my second one five days later was        17, 575. He said first let’s make sure through ultrasound that the baby is viable and then we will go from there. He took me first down to ultrasound and then would bring Riley and Ben down to be with me. That is when I started crying and I knew he was a good doctor when he grabbed my hand and said, “It’s all going to be ok” and didn’t leave my side through the entire sonogram. Riley and Ben were there but kinda of up against the wall because the room was SMALL! Riley was saying, “Baby it’s a God thing, it’s ok.” When my sono popped up on the big tv screen I INSTANTLY saw the two sacks and said, “OMG RILEY WE ARE HAVING TWINS.” My doctor said, “Yes ma’am you sure are.” That is when the water works broke even more and Riley is going “What, what, OMG, YES, we did it!” Ben says, “Mommy are you ok, are you sick?” because I was crying so hard. Both babies had their own sacks, fetal poles and we heard both their heart beats. I am a week behind what we though. So the babies are 6 weeks and 3 days. Riley is just beyond himself excited and I think he has texted everyone in his phone. My neighbor texted me and said he did a dance in the driveway! Lol. As soon as the appt was over I called my brother and my SIL to tell them. Then we drove to Riley’s parents to show them (they had to pick up the older B’s since our appt ran over). We asked the kids how they would feel about two babies and they didn’t really understand. We showed them the pictures and the boys were like, ok and ran off. Brit looked star struck. My Inlaws couldn’t believe it but they are so excited. I can’t believe it myself. Shocked is not even the right word. I need a day to wrap my brain around this. God is good. I learned a very powerful lesson. He ALWAYS provides and he always answers prayers just in HIS timing. Oh and after ALL this time seeing doctors and fertility specialists (back in the day) I found out I have a heart shaped uterus. Wow, interesting! Which took my already high risk pregnancy to extra extra whole new level. :)

Our Journey to happy....

I'm sorry I've been away from my blog for a few weeks. It's been a little hectic because we pulled Ben from a two day a week program and put him in real pre-k. He is doing fabulous at the new school!! He was only in school one week when this surprise was given to us...

Looks like after almost fifteen years of marriage and three adoptions later we are expecting our 4th baby!! I have been to my ob and I am 7 weeks and 2 days today! God is soooo good! We are so excited and honestly still very shocked!!! Please rejoice with me as we continue this new journey!!!

Halloween

I thought since I mentioned Halloween in my last post, I would finish showing our decorations. When you have children they get so excited to see the decorations come out. I got everything decorated while they were at school and let me tell you it didn't go unnoticed!! I love giving the kids something fun to look forward too! Last year was the first year I ever decorated for Halloween that wasn't just pumpkins and fall leaves. You can see the decorations I did last year here...

This is this years decorations!!

 Here is my table! I took these pictures with my phone so I apologize if they are a tad blurry. I cut out scrapbook paper in different patterns for the pastry stands. The little pumpkins are super glittery in person and remind me of little pastrys. The black pumpkin was another Dollar Store purchase, spray painted and then a chalk marker to draw the face. Have you ever used a chalk marker? It's so awesome because you can wipe it off and draw something else!

Found this great spider web at the Dollar tree!

The bottles are just bottles I had laying around. Did you know Pinterest has some great Halloween printables... that's where I got mine. Just type in Halloween Labels and you can create your own "potion" bottles!

 

Got this great subway print from this blog last year! I just downloaded it to Walmart and printed it as a 8x10. Go to this BLOG to get your own print!











The top of my tv cabinet!

 

Then I was inspired on Pinterest to make this wreath out of pipe insulation, dollar store finds, duct tape, tulle (not pictured) and a little spray paint!

Living Room Tour

I think it's always so much fun to take a peek into other people's homes! So today I am going to show you how my living room re-decorating is going. We still need to paint (hopefully in Oct) but so far it's coming right along. I'm excited that I've made alot of it and saved myself some $$$!

This is before!

After searching forever for curtains.... I could never find the fabric online or in stores that I liked. If I did like it I did NOT like the price.  So enter in these SHEETS! Yes SHEETS!!! A bargain at $9.99 a package because each twin sheet made two panals! A little serging down the side, a little sewing at the top and I had six panals ready to hang!! I love the pattern and I love how they let in the light!

Finally my rug came in from RUGSUSA (it was on backorder!) and it's just what the room needed. Amazes me how a rug lightened up the entire room!! Here is the after!! Don't you think the Tonka Garbage truck on it makes the entire room?!?!? :)

I fell in love with a Chevron pillow at Joss and Main but decided to make my own to cut costs! Hobby Lobby had grey and creme Chevron and they are the only place I've been able to find it locally (as in Joann's and Hancocks didn't carry it!!). Matching up patterns on pillows is hard!! If you decide to make your own Chevron pillow really watch your sides when you sew it up! I'm in love with it!

They also had the soft green/blue chevron at HL and covered a chair pad it in.

I had this bench my MIL had given me. It needed a face lift too. A little coat of paint and some fabric! Good as new!!
Before:

After:

 

In the middle of re-decorating, got side tracked by Halloween :)

What Livingroom makeover is complete without a bat pillow? LOL My kids loved that!! I made it with felt!!

 What would I do without the Dollar Store? Painted this pumpkin black, sprinkled with glitter and then used a Chalk Marker to write on it!

 

Thank you so much for visiting my site and I hope you enjoyed a glipse at my livingroom! 

Burlap Pencil Bags

Hi Ya'll!! Lots of things have been going on around our house. My youngest started preschool, planning my boys camping carnival birthday, attempting to redecorate my living room (pics to come soon) and working on my Shaklee business. I wanted to stop real fast though and show you a simple item I put together for the fall teacher gifts this year. Target....oh how I love you! You always have the best $1.00 section around! This year you did not disappoint! When I first spied the pencil burlap bags I grabbed a ton of them and then later went back and bought a ton more! These are great to have on hand for a fast gift! Holds lip gloss and a mini hand sanitizer perfectly! I had no idea what I was going to do with them at first. Millions of ideas swirled in my head.... do I stencil you, add felt, stamp you, add a sparkly pin, make fabric flowers....see the choices are endless!!

Then I decided a simple felt flower would be just the ticket for these adorable bags. One of my favorite felt flower patterns is HERE. Craft felt is super cheap! You can buy a sheet usually for .33 cents and it comes in a huge array of color choices. They also make adorable headbands or clips! For these particular flowers I did sew them on and then hot glued the edges down. So these babies shouldn't come off!! I added a rhinestone for flair!

Now RUN to Target and get some of these bags before they run out! I bought the last that my Target had. lol. These little felt flowers will work on any little bag though. Enjoy!

Organization

I love to organize. A trip to The Container Store or Ikea sends me into a fit of happiness. Yes, I know it's a sickness, lol. It seems in my house though there is always something that needs organizing and just recently I needed to re-do my kids tooth brush drawer. I wish I had taken a picture but I tackled it without getting one. There was a mass of new toothbrushes (we just went to the dentist) and we had more dental floss than I knew what to do with. So a trip to the Dollar Store, my handy label maker and some re-purposed Crystal Light plasticware completed the job!!!

Now everyone has their own toothbrush holder. The plastic bins were 3 for a $1.00 at Dollar Tree!  I put a little label on each basket and now even dad knows whose toothbrush is whose. They like to change colors from time to time and that throws him off. Not anymore, lol! As long as they get put back in the right spot. lol.

I couldn't bare to part with these Crystal Light containers because I just "knew" they would be good for something. Turns out they are perfect for holding extra dental floss and all those new toothbrushes!

How to clean a straw cup!

Do you have a straw cup? I LOVE mine UNTIL it's time to clean the straw, lol. I drink protein shakes out of it most of the time. I try to rinse it right away so nothing sticks to the inside but sometimes in all the busyness, it sits on the counter for a few hours. Then that sucker is hard to clean and doesn't clean well even after going through the dishwasher. Ewwwww! So one day I spied some chenille pipe cleaners left over from a party and decided that would be the perfect straw cleaner! Now my sink drawer is never without one! After I am finished I wash the pipe cleaner, let it dry and reuse it again and again! The pipe cleaners work well with straw sippy cups too.

Did you know Shaklee offers FREE MEMBERSHIP with our Vitalizer Vitamins?!?!?!  Thats awesome!  Now is the perfect time to sign up to get 15% off your entire purchases through Shaklee for life. Your membership never expires, why pay retail?  Let me know if you have any questions. Just place everything in your cart then go to "join now" and check out! That's it!! Click below to visit my Shaklee website.

www.journeytohappy.myshaklee.com

 

Blue Cheese Bacon Wrapped Chicken

This recipe has prob. been done a million times/ways but this is one of my husbands favorite ways to cook chicken (besides another chicken recipe I'll share soon!). I thought I would share it because it IS very tasty and super simple. I also love it because the ingredients are simple and it can be cooked on the grill or in the oven! 

In this particular recipe we used Blue Cheese. You can do any kind of cheese you want to use. We have done Pepper Jack, sharp Cheddar Cheese and even Monterrey Jack. Sometimes I like to add red bell pepper slices or purple onion too.

Ingredient List: 

Boneless/Skinless Chicken Thighs (I like them better than chicken breasts), Bacon, Blue Cheese, chopped Garlic, Garlic Powder, Season Salt, Pepper, toothpicks and optional chopped Basil or Parsley (not pictured)

After rinsing and patting your chicken dry, spread some garlic and blue cheese over the chicken. Then wrap with bacon and secure with toothpicks. It's ok if you need more than one toothpick, I do.  I cut my bacon in half and use one going one half going one direction and use the other half to go the other way around. Keeps the cheese locked in!

Continue until they are all wrapped. Once you get to wrapping it goes fast! See how pretty they look!

Once wrapped sprinkle with your seasons! YUM! 

Next, I threw them on a hot grill BUT first I wiped a sheet of tinfoil down with olive oil and cooked the chicken on top of it. This will keep the grill from catching your bacon on fire. I grilled it until the chicken/bacon was a nice golden brown.

 

 Look at this chicken goodness!!!

Enjoy!! If you make the recipe I would love to hear how you liked it or changed the recipe!!

The Dirt Edition: Getting Red Wine Out!

Today I want to show you something that just absolutely amazed me in this Dirt Edition!!

My friend Michelle was telling me about how at her wedding reception she accidentally spilled red wine all down the front of her wedding dress. That the dress was sitting in a closet at her MIL's house and never got cleaned. They felt it was a lost cause to try and get red wine out of it. I told her if she wanted to try Shaklee I would bring over some Nature Bright and Basic H. I had no idea if it would work on a stain so old but that I knew both would get out red wine. Most wedding dresses are made from satin, silk, polyester, crepe, etc, which might be easier to get out opposed to cotton. So she contacted her MIL and within the next two weeks we had the dress to try our experiment on! The first thing we did was take before pictures and place towels between the layers of the dress so nothing soaked through to the other side. Here is my friend in her dress at the wedding (I marked her face out since this on the web).

Then we mixed up a solution of Basic H and Nature Bright in water to spray.

 Here is the before:

As we started spraying the stain, it really started just breaking up and disappearing. Nature Bright has natural enzymes in it that break up stains (but is also color safe!) We were jumping and up and down with excitement over getting this stain to break up so quickly!

Here are the during pics:

After about 15 minutes (all we did was spray and lightly rub with our fingers) the stain was gone. No yellowing, no solution residue, and no stain! 

Let me tell you I have one happy friend! To think for 4 years your dress is ruined and then in 15 minutes have it back white and KNOW you did it yourself....priceless!!!
Now how is that for a GET CLEAN Edition?!?!?!

If you would like to check out GET CLEAN for yourself, go to my website at www.journeytohappy.myshaklee.com  They sell the products individually or in kits. If you will please consider following my blog! :)

Labor Day!

Loving the three day weekend we have had. So sad that tomorrow it all ends!! Saturday we decided we needed to finally get a wireless Blue Ray player for our bedroom. The kids tend to watch Net Flick movies in the den on the game system and we tend to watch them in our bedroom (which is next to the den). We were tired of hooking up the laptop to watch a movie or tv series we were catching up on. So a fast internet search and a quick run up to Best Buy and we were in business!! Afterwards our tummy's were growling so we decided to stop at Taco Casa for lunch and then The Burger Box for ice cream. When we got home we were full and ready to sit and watch a movie!! Great way to spend the day! Curled up and relaxing!!

Sunday, we found ourselves still wanting to be lazy. So while Riley watched some shows I worked on some PTA stuff. Other than eat, snack, rest and watch tv we didn't do anything. LOVE days like this, they don't come often.

Which brings us to today, Monday. We decided a family breakfast out to let the kids use some certificates from school was in order. I love this bunch so much!

After breakfast since Ben is starting preschool I needed to grab him some new tennis shoes. So a fast trip into Stride Rite and he was the proud new owner of light up firetruck shoes (should make Uncle R proud!). Aren't these cute?!?!?!? I LOVE Stride Rite, they last forever and come in wide sizes for Ben's cute pudgy feet!

Since we were in the area, my husband wanted to go run into The Virgin Olive Oiler. At Mother's Day he had given me the best Balsamic Vinegar and Garlic Olive Oil. It was so good we have already used it all and he wanted to get me some more (and I let him). If you ever are in Fort Worth/Hulen area stop in! Amazing flavors of all kinds in vinegars and olive oils! Would make a great gift to the person who loves to cook...and eat, lol. You can view their website HERE!

Now we are back home and doing what we do best.... relaxing....before the busy week starts up again! :)