My House Guests

Being a Mom, or a parent really is an adventure. It's an adventure that while I believed I would have, I never understood until now, and I'm sure there will be more understanding yet to come.

Life around my house is definitely an adventure. Kira is a precocious kid, she is obviously an only child and get's a lot of our time. And while she gives me a lot of grief she also brings me a lot of joy. The main one lately is her imaginary cousins.... well that is to say, she has cousins, they are not imaginary in the general sense,they are just imaginary here, in Las Vegas. Cousins Natalie and Kyla have been here at our house for about a week now. So far they have also gone with us to the library for story time and our walk today.

Imaginary friends are pretty common amoung young kids. But I still think I should find her some real ones but while we are working on that (with some community groups and such) the imaginary cousins may stay ..... cause I love them as much as she does...

"Mom MOM!! I want to make Orange Juice!"

I am a Disney girl. I grew up watching Disney Channel, I love the Disney Junior now. Mickey Mouse Club house is a staple in the mornings and I LOVE Kira yelling "OH toodles!" I like Jungle Junction and even Chuggington is kinda fun. The only one I'm not really a fan of is Special Agent Oso.... it's just kinda silly and Oso is portrayed as kinda a dumb little thing, but it's in the mix of all the other ones and Kira likes it so it's on.

So the other day after Oso got his digi-medal Kira runs up to me and tells me that she wants to make Orange Juice. I told her we had Orange Juice in the fridge but she said, "NO, I want to make it like Oso does" and then explained to me how to do it. Then she told me in "3 simple steps!"

1! - Cut the oranges in half

2! - Twist the oranges on the juicer

3! - Pour the Orange Juice in the glass

I thought okay...... she wants to make Orange Juice but I don't have a juicer. I don't even have the little old school one where you twist them yourselves. Then the other night on our rare date night Jacob and I found ourselves in front of Sur La Table - aka kitchen heaven and so we went to check them out.

Our options were

- the Kitchen Aid electric juicer for 59.99 (but 50% off so 29.99)

- an old school glass one that either she or I (most likely me) will break within about 5 minutes for $7.00

- an OXO good grip manual in plastic (which is more practical but double the price of the glass one) $15.00

And then we thought, 15 bucks isn't going to break the bank but this is Sur La Table - maybe they would be cheaper somewhere else... then I thought as we drove back to Henderson to pick Kira up that I should ask our friend Shelly if she has one - because what if I buy one and then Kira doesn't like doing it and I have been married for almost 6 1/2 years and haven't needed one so why spend the money on something I don't need - and she did!

So tonight before bed we made real Orange Juice -

I tried to get some before and "in the process" pictures but I think my camera may have died... (back to Sams Club it goes)so all I got was the finished product and it was WAY super yummy but I'm glad that I didn't add any sugar like Kira insisted.

And that was just one of our weekend adventures - I'll post about our Saturday when Jacob loads the pictures from his camera...

'til next time

Happy Valentines Day and other stuff....

Valentines Day is often fun for me. In addition to normal Valentine stuff it is also my aunt and dad's birthday (they're twins!) This year it was fun for me because this is the first year Kira really knows about Valentines Day. It's been on sprout and she was very excited about making a card for her daddy. We started out at the Dollar Tree - may favorite store for kids crafts and we bought two pieces of poster board, I cut one in half, gave Kira some paint I had laying around and let her go to town.

And above is what she made for her daddy. She spent 3 days over all on it.... part of that was because of drying time. Then she added some foam stickers and some doilie hearts and she was ready to go! She was so excited to give it to him and he loved it! She took the picture too!




This year I got some flowers from Jacob as well as a Kitkat (my new favorite candy - again) a cookies and cream hersey bar and 4 - YES 4 2 liter bottles of Mt. Dew... man does he love me or what?

No dinner, we had plan on Saturday but they fell through. We're hoping to go this week maybe. Jacob got a gift certificate to I {heart} burgers. They are located in the Palazzo on the strip. Check out their menu. I can't wait to try it!!!

We also received some pretty good news, I haven't let a lot of people know recently, and even when I write here not a ton of people will know because only like 5 people read my blog but we decided last year that it was time to grow our family. We were planning on June to start but when my birth control pills went up to 60 bucks a month in April we decided that 2 months wasn't going to make that much of a difference. Well things haven't gone how we planned and after some testing it was determined that I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). Which I know a lot about since a lot of my friends have it in varying degrees. Anyway, along with that the dr. was concerned about some of my hormone levels and ordered a Cat Scan to see if I had any unusual things going on. Turns out I do. They found something on the 4th and on the 14th I had my appointment with a specialist. He seems to think that it's just a fat deposit on my adrenal gland (which sits on my kidney) this is good news because as any of you who know me well, my brain went all over the place and was imagining that I was going to have to go the rest of my life without my kidney (cause I am an over-exhadurator). Anyway, he wants to do some follow-up things but I'm hoping that we can get on with the baby part of this plan instead of the "figure out what's wrong with Tennille" part of the plan.... because as it turns out I'm not super interested.

So with this PCOS diagnosis I have started to do a lot of research about how to manage this syndrome and how I can make myself be the best "ME". Turns out I may not EVER be a good weight, at least the weight I want to be. Part of PCOS is an insulin resistance. There are things I can eat that make it easier for my body to more efficiently use the "sugars" I put in my diet but being the size I was 8 or 10 years ago probably won't happen. As it is my blood pressure is excellent and with a lot of work on my part i should be able to at least feel better if not loose a little bit of weight. I'm lucky that I have a husband who likes a little "meat on my bones" and he has NEVER EVER made me feel bad about myself, which is good since i do enough of that to myself. SO, my goal is to just be healthier and if the weight goes down, then it's just an added bonus (which probably means I should give my "skinny" clothes to the DI/goodwill)

I'm doing a lot of reading to find out what those foods are and how to find a good balance. Turns out that it's not as restrictive as I thought it would be. It's really about making better choices with what I buy for my family so I have good choices in my home. It's not even a "low-carb" diet. I'll be focusing on the low GI foods... They look something like this. So places like I {heart} burgers would be a once in a while thing. I'm hoping that the new eating plan (since it won't be a diet) and the exercise I get with walking 3-4 times a week and the wii zumba will help my body start to feel better. I'm hoping for the wii fitness soon so I can start adding that to my routine too!

The reason for the sharing I guess, since it's not really what this post is supposed to be about is that if you all know (yeah, all 5 of you) then I hope I'll be more accountable for it. So anyway, that's what's going on here. I'm off to get ready for the puppet show at the library and saying Hi to the cow/bull/bovine in the lobby!

'til next time

Chinese New Year in Vegas

This year Jacob had Chinese New year off. Not because it was a holiday or even because he asked for the day off. Work has been slow lately. With that said, we decided to use the day to our advantage.... Namely... go celebrate Chinese New Year. We started out at the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace where we saw a presentation given my Meadow's School and the Mayor and his wife were there. The current mayors wife has announced her bid for Las Vegas mayor... here she is below.


Here is Kira, she really enjoyed it when the kids sang songs. They told us all kinds of things about the Chinese New Year celebration and all the people born in the year of the Rabbit... the only two I can remember are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. (Only cause I thought it was a weird coincidence)

After Caesar's we jumped in the car and drove to the Pallazo where they had a HUGE, and i mean HUGE bunny in the lobby near the bottom at the Shoppes. I'm pretty sure the pictures didn't turn out because we don't have one (Jacob's camera is dying a slow death and has become quite stubborn)

Below is a picture of us at the Encore, where their little garden was all done up for Chinese New Year.

One of my favorite things about Las Vegas is all the cool stuff you can check out for free. Other than gas this family day cost us nothing and we had SO much fun!!! So Happy (late) Chinese New Year. We have great hopes for our New Year and hope you do too!!!

Not much to report

Things here have been pretty slow lately. ( I do need to post about Chinese New Year but the pictures are on the other computer) Jacob's truck is not behaving so Kira and I haven't seen out much since he's taking my car to work now. SO, i thought I would post some pictures from when we went to the cupcakery when "Auntie" Korie was here. Korie has been wanting to go there since we moved here but we have never been able to stop there when she's here cause... it's frankly out of the way. But this time we made a special trip and Kira was VERY excited! At 3 bucks a pop we were expecting some SUPER SUPER FANTASTIC cupcakes and i for one was not disappointed.

Kira and I both got the Boston Cream Cupcake and it was GREAT! Jacob got the Red Velvet and he enjoyed his too! So next time you're in Vegas, hit the cupcakery!

Other than that, there's not too much going on. Kira gave her first talk in primary last sunday and did fantastic! She was so excited all week, asked her daddy to help her and she did great! Then she has talked about it off and on this week about how she got to talk in the "Mirophone"! She has been cracking us up lately! We got rid of the crib earlier this month, it was just done and so every morning she comes and gives us a cuddle to wake up and tells us about her dreams. (usually about princesses)

She's SO wanting to start school and can't wait until her birthday when she thinks she's going to get a backpack so she can take it to school with her... even though she's not starting for another 2 years! She often comes out of her room now to ask Jacob and I to "keep it down, because she's trying to sleep!"

We play Eye Spy almost anytime we go outside. She usually spy's trees, clouds or the street... oh and stop lights!

Anyway, that's our February so far. She made some great Valentines Cards for her daddy and herself so I'll talk some pictures of those tomorrow to share.

Have a Happy Valentines Day and Happy Birthday to Papa Mike and Auntie M!

The Library Cow

Our library has a cow... or it could be a bull... do cows have horns? Anyway, the first time I took Kira to the library I showed her the cow,that hangs out in the lobby area . She was a little thing (18 months old?) and she loved it right away. Now we have to go say "Hi" to the cow EVERY WEEK... and while I often times think it's a little silly, I still wanted to document it for Kira's sake.

So here is "Princess Kira" with her cow. (notice her snow white dress AND her purse.... such a girlie- girl!)




In actual fact, the cow is pretty cool. It's beautifully painted with scenes from Las Vegas. It has our beautiful mountains with all the great colors of the sunsets here on one side. Kira especially likes the little bunny on the cow's ankle.



On the other are the artist's renduring of our "beloved" strip. Kira likes to tell me about how this side is "Las Vegas"! This coming from the girl who thinks that Las Vegas is in California. I'm not sure how she got that idea... especially since she has spent more of her life in Las Vegas than she ever did in Cali.



Anyway, so that's our Library Cow.... what's cool at your library?