Things Making Me Happy

Free Splash Pads What fun! There are a bunch near us and we plan on exploring them all this summer.

Library Field Trips We've been to 2 so far, the fire department and a topiary garden, and they have been so fun.

Crochet Graphgan for Ollie The Weasley blanket has officially been made a side project. I will finish it one day, but those little squares are keeeeling my hands so I'm starting a whole new blanket for the first born's birthday in November. Hopefully he likes.

Homemade Popsicles I looooove making homemade frozen pops for the kids. We've done juice ones, Sprite ones and ones that had juice and gummy fruit snacks, which were a big hit obviously. My latest is pudding pops! These are literally just some pudding cups I had in the pantry, I spooned a little into my pop molds, added a little chopped strawberry on top, more pudding, most strawberry, finish with pudding and freeze overnight. The kids love them. Ollie said 'if you were on a cooking show you would definitely win'.

Summer Reading I wish I wasn't so lazy so I could go take a pic of the stack of library books we have. It can't be contained by our library basket (which is very large) and has swallowed our table. Loving it. We are reading all the books.

Last but Not Least- Babies We have a new niece and my BFF just had a baby not even 2 weeks ago so we are in baby land. Alice Mae is so in love with babies and wants to watch over them and pet them. She met the BFF's over the weekend and held him and a dream came true. All that kid wanted was to hold a for realz baby. She spent our older niece's birthday party watching over the newest niece and just dying to hold her. I can't even. I mean, what a great big sis she will be.

TTFN

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy birthday to meeeeeee!!!

 

It was actually yesterday. I turned 28! I don't feel any older. Maybe it takes a few days to kick in.

I am not a huge fan of my own birthdays. Family drama problems. For some reason, over the span of my entire life, my family has gone nuts around my birthday every year. Some sort of weird heat craziness maybe? But it always happens and so I have started to dread my birthday. If it were up to me I wouldn't even acknowledge it. But I have a beautiful husband who wants to make me feel special and he always manages to make me happy, even on my birthday.

Yesterday he stayed home from work so that he could be with us. It was really lovely of him. It was such a laid back day. Relaxation. We spent the morning lounging around and he made me a big lovely breakfast of grits and sunny side up eggs (just the yolks, my favorite parts!) and smoked sausage. The kids literally showered me with homemade cards. They had me lay down and the poured a dozen cards all over me. I loooooved it. They were the cutest cards! Ollie even drew me as a T-rex. Peter gave me my gifts, which consisted of a gorgeous pack of crochet hooks complete with their own case, new scissors and a pack of colored pencils and a pack of graph paper for help in designing my new crochet addiction- graphgans.

 

 

Then we went to this week's library outing which was to a famous topiary garden in our area. It was my first time going and it was beautiful! I had been looking forward to seeing it for a while.

And obviously there was a trip to the library. Because my perfect day always involves the library.

There was a delicious lunch of hollah bread spread with Dijon mustard, brie cheese, fresh tomato slices and red onion slices and then grilled. I forgot to take a pic but just use your imagination and drool.

Dinner was a winner. My favorite grilled curry chicken with sour cream curry sauce. I <3 curry.

And to finish out the day, I had ice cream cake for the first time! It was scrumptious.

 

I felt very loved and special. Happy birthday to me! I'm excited for a new year and new possibilities and to work on my 30 before 30 bucket list. Only 2 more years to go!

Clomid- How I'm Feeling

I documented my days actively taking Clomid so that I'd have something to look back on and see how it really affected me. This is what those days looked like-

Clomid so far-

First dose- No side effects. If anything, I was nervous and being super zen to avoid turning into the insane woman everyone promised me I'd be.

Second dose- I notice my moods are definitely much quicker to change, but not for no reason. More I am just quick to cry/be annoyed or whatever. I have HARDCORE hot flashes which is no good in 103 degree heat.

Third dose- Still noticing my moods change but not so much that I am moody, more that I am having the same moods I would normally have and can't control my shit as well as usual? For example- crying on the way home from a movie. It is not unusual for me to be a sentimental sap and tear up quite often or whatever. But this was full on sobbing over Peter being such a good dad and stuff that happened in Inside Out and then Ed Sheeran came on the radio and I LOST it and couldn't find it again. I also notice that my social anxiety is way down because I am more open to conflict?

Fourth dose- Definitely feeling more in general. It's not that I am moody, it's more that my moods want to stick around for longer and I feel them a lot more. But it's nothing drastic. No raging or feeling nuts or manic. Just normal feelings but slightly heightened.

Fifth and final- Same as day 4 but my mood shifts are even less. On the whole it is all extremely tolerable and fine.

I am now 2 days out from it and feeling totally normal. I went into this with a very positive outlook that things would be okay and they were. My daily yoga has definitely helped and I think just waiting so long to get this help has made me feel good about the experience. I'm glad that overall it was fine and now we are done with it this cycle and hopefully it's working some magic in there! Thinking happy thoughts.

Clomid

Last Thursday was my 3rd cycle day (because my period FINALLY decided to show up after almost 60 days, hello) and I went in for my Clomid appointment. It was easy and fast, just a quick pelvic exam to check that my ovaries felt normal and voila. Clomid prescription.

So how Clomid works- you take it for 5 days, usually days 3-7 of our cycle. It tricks your body into thinking that your estrogen is being lowered so that your ovaries get all excited and revved up and pop out an egg. Hopefully.

The plan right now is that I'll start off with 50mg. I took my last dose last night. I'll go for my 21 day blood work and see if I ovulated. There's no real way to know until then because I didn't temp this cycle. If I ovulated, I'll be on this dose for 3 months and if I don't get pregnant we'll rev it up to 100mg and try that for a few months and if no pregnancy after that I'll be referred to a doctor. Really hoping to avoid that and just get knocked up. If I don't ovulate this cycle we'll go ahead and knock it up to 100mg and hope it works better.

I'd read a bunch about side effects and it's pretty scary what you hear out there. The studies show that most women don't experience harsh side effects and get off pretty easy so it's interesting that so many women talk about how insane it made them feel. I even had some people try to talk me out of taking it because of how it made them feel. I went into this with a really positive outlook though. Thinking we'd try it for a cycle and if it was truly awful I didn't have to go through another cycle but we'd at least take the opportunity. I'll update later on my 5 days of Clomid. I have been doing a few things to help any mood symptoms I might have. Yoga every day, meditation (almost) every day, taking my pill in the evening so I sleep through most of it, taking time for myself and listening to my body, drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated and cool.

We're glad to finally have the chance to try Clomid. Really hoping for some magic to happen. It's hard to not get your hopes up. I know it's not a magic pill and there are no guarantees but we are hopeful.

Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day weekend was really lovely. Peter said he had a wonderful day and that's the most important thing. These little goobers were so excited to wake him up and tell him HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!! and give him their gifts. They each made him a sweet little keychain and we framed this adorable photo for him.

We fed him good, which is pretty much all he wanted for Father's day, hahaha. Big mushroom, ham and onion omelets for breakfast and for dinner I made a gorgonzola cream sauce over fettuccini, a Caesar salad and some garlic bread. Om nom nom. That pasta is AMAZING. (recipe here- we just didn't use the spinach because Peter hates spinach)

We also took our guy out to see Inside Out which is the cutest most adorable and special movie ever. I loved every second of it and Amy Poehler is my spirit animal. The kids really loved it too.

We are so lucky to have this man in our lives and we celebrate him all the time but having a special day for it just to spoil him is nice. We're pretty smitten. I made an ace choice in a partner. I can't imagine any Daddy being more sweet and loving and kind and strong. He definitely deserved his day. Love you, baby.

Summer Reading Challenge

I love reading, I love lists, I love children's books. So this is pretty much my heaven right here. A summer reading challenge for the kiddos! I saw this over at Sweet Turtle Soup and had to participate. It's pretty easy peasy. Check out the original post if you want to learn more.

We are a book loving family and summer reading is especially important. It helps your kids focus better when they go back to school, it helps them keep their skills sharp and it also instills a lifelong love of literature (say that 5 times fast). I hope one day they'll look back on our summers together and remember a lot of lazy cuddling in front of fans on hot days reading away.

We started off our reading challenge with some adorable animals in 'Found You, Little Wombat!' by Angela McAllister. It's just as cute as it sounds. Little Wombat wants to play hide and seek but doesn't have the attention span for it and gets himself lost in a storm. My kids loved this enough to read it every day this week.

Next up- some classic storytelling with The Princess and the Pea. Now, I am a stone cold feminist and I don't do well with classic princess stories because I don't think most of them send a good message to little girls and the Princess and the Pea is certainly one that seems iffy to me. So we followed this book up with the How It Should Have Ended version of the story, which is funny AND teaches a better lesson, I think.

Last for this week, we read Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin and I have to say, it is one of the cutest stories we've read in a while. It's funny, narrative, interesting and has very cool illustrations. My kids love it and think it's hilarious.

Our challenge so far looks like-

And that's that! We'll be back with more soon! And hopefully some fun reading activities.

Lately... in Crochet

Just some fun crocheting happening.


The Ruth Lapghan.

Preemie hats for bereavement boxes for the charity Mommy to Mommy. They are SO small.

A bee-utiful blanket for my best friend's baby.

More for baby Edwin. That kid will never lack in cute crocheted goodness. A bear hat to make my best friend's Pinterest dreams come true and a sweet little monster bib just for funsies.





I finally feel like I am getting out of my crocheting rut and it feels good to be working again. I have a few projects currently going on and a few fun new things happening that I can't wait to share, including 2 new blankets. Even in 103 degree heat I'm hooking up the blankets. That is hardcore.

Waiting

I feel like my whole life is spent waiting around lately. No matter how much I try to stay in the moment or spend my time doing fun things like little trips with the family and crocheting something new, in the back of my mind I am counting down cycle days and doing math to see how long since my last Provera pill.

It has been 9 days since I finished Provera. It was supposed to get my period started so that I could make the trip to the doctor for the fun internal examination of my ovaries and a possible prescription for Clomid. The nurse said my period would start 2-10 days later. I know I'm still in the sweet spot and it could start any second but as my 4 year old would say, waiting is hard.

I feel heavy all the time. Heavy with waiting and hoping and feeling like hoping is just dumb at this point. Even though I pray and hope and try to be a beaming light of positivity and unicorns and rainbow sprinkles, I really just want to give my uterus the finger or smack her around and tell her to get her shit together because this is just getting ridiculous. And why NOW. Why after I finally get to see the doctors? Wait until then to start being crazy. That's totally fine. Go ahead and bleed me almost to death and then go dry as the Sahara. I can finally get help but not unless my uterus decides to shed and she isn't having it.

Wishing and hoping and waiting. Nothing can keep me busy enough. Who wishes for a period? This girl. I want cramps SO BAD. I've got the Midol ready to go. Every wishing well I am throwing a penny in. Every eyelash gets a wish. I am anxiously waiting on my birthday next Wednesday because I am going to wish so hard. Harder than I have ever wished before. Please please please. Please make my uterus act nicely. Please make me healthy. Please fill this hole in our life. Please give us a baby.

My kid asked me on Friday 'mommy, are you having a baby?' and I said no honey and she just sighed sadly. I felt the little bit of hope in me crumble. I can't keep the faith alive if I can't even get my uterus to do what it's supposed to do. We can't go any further if I can't even get a period started. I feel like I'm failing. I'm constantly at battle with myself. That's something I think a lot of people don't understand about infertility. The intense feeling that you are so messed up and you can't do anything right. You can't even do what you are biologically meant to do. Most of the time I can push that stuff aside. But lately... it's right there all the time taunting me and making me feel awful about myself. I feel like a failure.

Waiting waiting waiting. Wishing wishing wishing. Please please please. To sum up-

Our Day in Charleston

Charleston, South Carolina is a gorgeous place. If you haven't had the pleasure of visiting, do! The great thing about South Carolina is that everything is just a short drive away. We can be at the mountains in 3 hours or the coast in 3 hours. This time we chose the coast.

Charleston is freaking gorgeous, y'all. And chock full of history. It's not just the beach you want to hit up, although every single beach is beautiful and the little beach towns are super fun. Visit the historical sites! For us, we started our day off at The Battery. It's a fortified seawall right where the Cooper River and Ashley River meet. Right behind it is White Point Garden- a huge garden full of giant oaks and oyster shell covered pathways.

After walking around for a while, Alice decided a potty break was of the upmost importance so we headed out. Not missing Rainbow Row, a row of perfectly colored gorgeous rainbow houses, on our way through town.

Next stop (for potty break and because it looked cool) was Candy Kitchen. Holy cow. This is candy heaven. Not only do they have barrels (yes, BARRELS) of candy and a whole wall of pick 'n mix but they also make their own everything. Giant candy apples, pralines, cookies, chocolate covered marshmallows. Anything and everything delicious.

We bought a bag of salt water taffy and a bag of pick 'n mix and we're still enjoying them now.

Next we walked through the Charleston Market and ate lunch at Bumba Gump Shrimp Co. I'm not a seafood liker but they had some non-seafood options and the chicken sandwich I got was amazeballs.

The trip ended at the beach where we spent a few hours hanging out, building a sand castle, looking for shells and mostly enjoying the huge waves and cool water. It was a hot day and that water felt awesome. This spawn of mine are definitely water lovers like their mama. Alice is fearless. She wants to go deeper and deeper into the water. I finally had to put her on Husband's shoulders to save me from a heart attack. Oliver spent his time 'diving' and trying to jump over the smaller waves.

 It was a great day with my little family. A good mini get away. Even if it was so hot that I felt like I might melt. But it's the south so it's about time to get used to that for the next 2 months. Yesterday's heat index? One hundred and ten. Ain't nobody got time for that. We'll have to go back for another dive in the ocean soon to cool off.

The Ruth Lapghan

My husband works in a little office with a lady named Ruth. Recently Ruth found out she had cancer (for the 2nd time) and has been going through radiation treatments and I wanted to make her a little something to show that we are thinking of her. The birth of the Ruth Lapghan.

The Ruth Lapghan

V-stitch with Picot border

Colors- Impeccable Loops and Threads in Aran, Soft Fern and Forest

Size H hook



It's just a V-stitch blanket. Super easy. I made it as wide as my lap and from the floor to my belly button to give plenty of room for stuffing it under her feet if she wants.

The edging is as follows-

Single crochet around the entire blanket, putting 2 SC in each DC post on the sides and (2 SC, CH 1, 2 SC) in each corner. Slip stitch to join when you've gone all the way around. Then repeat the following- chain 2, SC into the 2nd chain from hook, slip stitch to the next stitch of the blanket, slip stitch in next stitch, SC in next stitch and chain 2, etc.

I really love this blanket and these colors. Olive green is her favorite color so I wanted to include that. After starting I realized that Peter's blanket had similar colors and the next blanket I'm making will have the same greens and cream! Popular colors. But since they are so pretty, it's no wonder.