28 and 30 Weeks!

26 weeks

A New Niece is Here!

I would never have thought that when Tim and I went down to Branson for a visit we would come back home with a new niece to brag about! Sarah, the little stinker, got pre-eclampsia and had to go a little over five weeks early. To make a long story short, within hours of us arriving in Branson, Gemma Jaye was born and is doing great! I had to show her off a little. :)

Her big cousins love her and they just couldn't get enough when they came over to play one afternoon while Ryan and Adrian went on a date.

Just Keep Growing!

I've been trying to take pictures every two weeks since I was sixteen weeks just so that I could see the difference. It wasn't much at first, but I think our little munchkin is growing by leaps and bounds now!

Week 16

Week 18

Week 20

Week 22

Week 24

The funny thing to me is that everytime I'm going to take each week's picture I think, "Boy! I'm really big now!" Then after I see the picture I'm amazed that I don't look quite as big as I think I do. :)

What a Project!

Recently Tim and I decided it was time to get a little german shepherd puppy because we both really wanted one. We also knew that when our little one gets here we're not going to have nearly as much time to spend training a puppy. When August rolled around the opportunity came for us to get our puppy, Maverick. It was a little crazy trying to move into a new duplex and work with a puppy all while being pregnant, but somehow we managed. :) Not long after moving we saw that a dog house would be in order for our pup. Talk about a project! Tim loves working with his hands and this was the perfect thing to do! I won't say much about it, but just looking at the pictures you'll see that it turned into a bit more time and effort than was first expected. That could be due to the immense size it ended up being. All I can say is, Maverick ought to have PLENTY of room and stay really warm.

Here's the little guy we made the house for. He's already a lot bigger than that, but I love this picture, so I had to put this one up. :)

Finally Back on Line

So much has been going on since the last post I made. That's been quite a while. Since then we've moved, gotten another puppy, gone on a Toliver family vacation, got to see our new little niece come into the world (well, I did), and received super exciting news that we're going to be the parents of a precious baby girl! It's kind of crazy to think that we're going to be responsible for a little life! I can't wait! I haven't even started getting her room ready, but here pretty soon I'm planning on it. I have so many pictures that I want to share, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum. We'll see. :)

I have so many more pictures. I think I'll have to just stop there with a preview of our vacation and show the rest a little later.

Time for a Haircut

It was time for Lucky to have a haircut for the summer especially since we're heading out to camp in a few days. I looked into taking her someplace and pay to have it done, but to be honest I guess I'm kind of a cheap skate. I thought it was just a little bit silly to pay more to get the dog's haircut than I pay to get mine cut. Having determined that I was going to be the stylist I looked online to figure out how in the world you go about cutting a dog's hair. It really didn't look all that though and I felt up for the task. It didn't turn out too bad. I thought I would show some before and after pictures.

Here's the before picture.

She really did a good job holding still. At first the clippers scared her cause they kind of vibrate, but she got used to it in no time.

As if she could get any smaller looking...I think she does look littler now!

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen...

I'm sure you've heard the saying, "Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth. In this case for me it was "Too much salsa in the blender dirty's the clean kitchen." Everyone has those days where it would just be better off if they didn't set foot in the kitchen. This evening that was so true of me. I thought it would be a nice surprise for Tim when he got home if I had some homemade salsa with chicken tacos. It was the perfect plan until...I decided to use too high of a speed to blend the salsa and neglected to put the lid on top. I'm sure it's not very hard to imagine the disaster that followed soon after. Salsa quite literally went everywhere! It got on me, the counters, the linolium, the carpet...I don't know if it got on Lucky cause I'm sure if it did she happily licked it off. It reminded me of a horror movie when you can see it all happening as if in slow motion and yet there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. I'm pretty sure it took me longer to clean up the mess than it did for me to chop everything up and make it. Here's a sample of the mess that ensued...

I didn't take a picture of the floor, but you get the idea.

Sushi Night with New Friends

We didn't have church this last Sunday, so a group of us from church decided to make it a sushi night and we had so much fun. The food was pretty good too! After sushi we all went and made italian cream sodas which were fabulous!

It took a long time to get this picture cause the waitress couldn't figure out my camera.

Our food came by on a train! We were just supposed to grab what we wanted and they counted the plates at the end

My man is the one at the end in case you were wondering. :)

Enjoying our italian cream sodas...Yum!

Chicken Florentine

I tried this recipe out the other night and Tim told me that it was a "masterpiece". I think he kind of liked it. :) I had to share it...
Ingredients:
~2 10 oz. packages frozen chopped spinach (I could only find 16 oz. bags so I got one of those)
~1/4 cup butter
~1 clove garlic, crushed and minced
~dash dried basil
~dash ground thyme
~1/4 cup all-purpose flour
~1/3 cup half-and-half or whipping cream
~5 cups cooked chicken, sliced (or cubed)
~3/4 cup half-and-half or whipping cream
~3/4 cup chicken broth
~slat and pepper
~6 thin slices of ham
~1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preparation:
Cook spinach according to package instructions, drain well. In a skillet, melt 1 tablespoon butter; add minced garlic, basil, and thyme. Cook over medium low heat, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon flour and blend well. Add 1/3 cup half-and-half and the spinach; simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Put spinach into the bottom of a lightly buttered 2-quart casserole or baking dish. Cover with cooked chicken slices. Over medium low heat, melt remaining butter and blend in remaining flour, stirring until smooth. Gradually stir in 3/4 cup half-and-half and 3/4 cup chicken broth; continue cooking and stirring until thickened. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cut sliced ham in strips. Add to sauce and pour over chicken. Cover all with grated Parmesan cheese. Bake at 400º for 20 minutes, or until cheese is lightly browned (It took less than 20 minutes for the cheese to brown for me). Enjoy! Serves 6.

Lucky...The Cowardly Lion!

I was given these outfits that someone had used for his dog when it was a puppy and I had a ball putting them on Lucky and taking pictures. I laughed so hard. As you can see she did not find it as humorous as I did. :) I can just imagine what she was thinking...

"Do you really hate me that much?"

"Fine I'll stand here for the picture, just PLEASE take this off when you're done!"

Tim's Little Helpers

Tim and I were able to go to Branson a few weeks ago and when we were there he was going to go and get firewood for Mom and Dad. Nolan and Cy decided they were going to help him. As you can see with this first picture they had a little bit of fun with their work. After they were finished they volunteered Tim to pull them around in what they had used to bring in the wood. I think Tim was having just as much fun as they were.

Here's Cy walking behind Tim and Nolan carrying his own piece of firewood. As you can see it's huge! :)

Nolan was a big help handing Tim the wood. I was surprised with how much he could actually lift.

It was a team effort. Way to go boys!

This was what Cy did most of the time. The pieces were a bit to heavy for him, but he lifted what he could. Mostly he just tromped around.

Here's Nolan getting all excited to go get the wood.

I love this picture of the boys all dressed and ready to get the wood. They all have cheezy grins.

Okay, so Maya didn't help, but I had to put this picture in cause she's just so adorable!

Frisbee Golf Pros...That's Us!

Well, I am not really a pro, Tim isn't either I guess, but we sure had a lot of fun throwing the frisbees and trying to get them to go the right direction. The hardest part was that they kept wanting to curve and then we would end up searching for them in the woods. Not Tim's really, but mine. :) A couple of times we had to fish mine out of the creek nearby. It wasn't all that bad though because the water was down. Good thing. We were able to bring Lucky along and she had a great time running around and sniffing everything. What a good hunting dog she'd make...okay, maybe not, but it was funny watching her jump around and play. Then, towards the end of our game I squatted down to pet her. Not a good idea with a pair of jeans that are old and well worn. When I say well worn I mean WELL worn! They tore right on the seat of them. Yikes! Fortunately it was cool enough outside that I had decided to wear pants underneath my jeans for some extra warmth. So much for the extra warmth.

Look at him go! He's pretty good at it...a great teacher too!

I think I look a little on the girlie side...it's a good thing I am a girl! ;)

I just couldn't resist his charm.

My handsome prince and our hunting hound going for a run.

Oops! Thank goodness for wearing two pairs of pants!