It's a.....

BOY! 

Saturday was filled with great fun as we had our big gender reveal party!

Friday, my mom and I ran a few last minute errands for the party…one of which was super important….dropping off the sealed envelope to Party City so they could fill the box with the appropriate color of balloons. We also dropped the dogs off at the groomer, and as a pregnancy present, my mom hired her old house cleaning crew to clean my house before the party. It was a wonderful present and the house was spotless! While we were out and about, a company called All About Doody came to clean the dog poop out of the back yard. Yes, I hired a company to come do that! They did a great job and deodorized the yard. Then Friday night, my sister came over to help me set up the table, and write on my chalkboards……even though I was a teacher, my handwriting is terrible and I ask Tam to help anytime something needs to be written!

Saturday morning came and I was able to sleep in. I made all the drinks for the party, and then relaxed for a little bit before it was time to get moving. My parent's picked up the big, sealed box of balloons from Party City since it's so close to their house, and then the cake was delivered to our house. Mike did the yard that morning and of course, it looked great!

The photographer I hired for the party came right before our guests began to arrive and the party got started! At 3:40, we moved the box of balloons to the backyard, all our family and friends came out, and we cut open the box. It was such a fun moment that I will never forget! Out of the box came BLUE balloons…and a Mickey Mouse balloon. We feel so blessed to have had our wonderful family and friends there to celebrate with us! Here are a few pictures I took, but can't wait to see all the photos from our fabulous photographer!

our entry way table where our guests could vote

the sealed box of balloons....just waiting to be opened!

old wive's tales....I was pretty much split down the middle

mike and i before the party started

sweet & salty food table ready to go

adorable cookies made by Hayley Cakes & Cookies

beautiful and yummy cake made by Hannah Joy's Cakes

after the big reveal

special thanks to my sister for all her help!

sneak peek at some of the photos our fabulous photographer, kayleigh kannady took......she and i were on the high school  drill team together and thanks to facebook, i was able to see her wonderful photography skills....it was great catching up with her!

Our precious pups were in our bathroom for the beginning of the party. After the reveal, we got them out and took some photos with them too! Once everyone left, they were zonked! It was a lot of activity for them, but they're excited about having a little brother!

Sunday morning we drove across town to see my grandparents. My grandmother has been in the hospital since Tuesday, and because we were out of town and had the party to prepare for, I hadn't been able to see her until yesterday. For some reason, her blood pressure hasn't been right at all…it's been extremely low, which is so dangerous. They increased the dosage of her medication, and by last night, her blood pressure finally was rising! Praise the Lord! We keep praying that it will increase more, the doctors will find out the cause, and she can be on the road to recovery! They are so excited about Mike and I having a boy…..my grandfather called it, and he thinks having a boy first means we'll have a girl next and it'll be great for her to have an older brother.

I'm looking forward to relaxing a bit this week and being home for longer than 3 days, after traveling this past week and the week before! I'm also super excited for my sister's trip to Disney this week with her fiancé….they'll finally get to pick a wedding date and start some planning for their magical wedding!

Have a wonderfully, blessed week!

pups & kisses,

  Tiffany

BABYMOON

Mike and I got away for a quick trip to San Antonio to celebrate our BABYMOON and for Mike to relax without work for a few days. Last time we went to San Antonio, we stayed at La Cantera…which was nice and in a great area for shopping, but I didn't care for their pool or restaurants. This time around, we stayed at the JW Marriott Hill Country Resort and absolutely loved it! We ate at three of their restaurants…all of which were great, and spent time in their 6 acres of pools, which included a nice long lazy river. Our last day, we had a couples massage..of course mine was a prenatal, and pedicures. Then we enjoyed the private pool at the spa for the rest of the day. It was the perfect get away and we would definitely go back. Here are some pictures from the past few days.

Homemade buttermilk biscuits with strawberry jalapeño jam.....WONDERFUL

Mike's strawberry jalapeño margarita

I ordered a virgin strawberry daiquiri, but after a few sips, I wasn't truly sold on the fact that it didn't contain alcohol.....so Mike drank it for me

Pretty area by the huge pool

Dinner our last night was at 18 Oaks, the resort's steakhouse. I LOVE steak, but refuse to eat it cooked anyway but medium rare and can't since I'm preggo.....so I instead ordered braised short ribs, which we heavenly!

Duck-fat parmesan fries...quite yummy! I've actually cooked with duck fat before.....I'll have to make that recipe again and post it sometime soon!

De-constructed s'mores......a nice, light dessert. We got a piece of Reese's peanut butter cup cheesecake to go too....Mike ate it for breakfast the next day!

My 20 week baby bump! I think it doubled in size just since Monday!

Mike and I after our last dinner

One view of the resort and the TPC golf course

This morning, we have our 20 week anatomy scan with the high risk doctor. We'll leave there with our sealed envelope with the BIG reveal inside! BOY OR GIRL????? We'll find out with our family and friends on Saturday! Can't wait to hear the news!!!!!!!!!!! And YES, it will be very hard not to look at that envelope, but it'll be worth the surprise on Saturday.

pups & kisses,

  Tiffany

South Padre

 Thursday my mom and I left for South Padre Island for a weekend with all my mom's family. We were also celebrating one of my 15 cousin's high school graduations. I woke up that morning feeling pretty good, so I didn't take a zofran. In fact, I thought maybe I was past my nausea.... Until our flight took off! I popped a piece of ginger gum and then took out my zofran and quickly swallowed! I didn't end up getting sick, thank goodness! The descent when we arrived in Harlingen wasn't very friendly to my stomach either, but oh well! I guess it's a good thing I don't plan on taking any other flights while I'm pregnant!

Two other aunts and their families were on our flight, so we followed each other towards the island, picked up a few groceries at HEB, and then headed to the condo to check in. 

We had a fun time visiting for the two days we were there. One of my uncles put together a slide show of pictures of our entire huge family from over the years. It was so great to see pictures from my childhood I haven't seen in forever! It made me want to recreate some of those same pictures with my own child..... Like the way my grandparents held me in the hospital when I was born, I want a picture of my parents holding our baby the same way. There were also a few pictures from our wedding with my cousins dancing with me. It was fun reminiscing with my wonderful family...we missed my grandparents not being there, but I'm super excited to see them this coming weekend!

The sun didn't come out until the late afternoon, but we still got some color!

All my mom's siblings and a few spouses.

Three of my cousins... Including Montana whose graduation we celebrated!

It started out good...

Our weekend started out good, but didn't end so well. Friday night Mike got home and we began to put together our patio furniture. When I ordered it, I never saw anything that said ASSEMBLY NEEDED. A 170 pound box was delivered on Thursday and I knew immediately that we were going to have to put 4 pieces of furniture together. Thank goodness Friday evening was a nice, not too humid evening. With the ceiling fan going and the light breeze, we barely broke a sweat while assembling the furniture. After about 2 hours, we had our patio set up!

Saturday morning I woke up early and went for a walk. It was a beautiful morning! I met my good friend Traci for lunch at Cheesecake Factory and then came home to get ready to attend a BBQ at Mike's new boss's house. It was a little warm and most people were outside. I stood for a while and tried to stay by the fan to keep cool. After a while, I went inside because I couldn't take the heat anymore! When we left there, we went straight to the pavilion to listen to the Houston Symphony perform the music of Michael Jackson. It was a free event and was a lot of fun.

And then Sunday came and this is where it all went down hill! We woke up early because we had 10:30 brunch reservations in town with a friend of Mike's who was in town from London. I woke up with a headache and just thought it was because I was hungry. While we ate a fabulous brunch, my headache went away for about 20 minutes, then it came back and continuously got worse throughout the day. When we got home, I laid on the couch upstairs with ice packs on my head. I fell asleep for a bit, but my head continued to pound. It became a terrible migraine which caused me to feel nauseous as well.  By the evening, I was in tears because it hurt so bad and I'm so tired of not feeling well. I know pregnancy is a blessing and we cannot wait to meet our little one….I would just LOVE to start feeling better, no more nausea, no more migraines, no more taking extra meds because I'm not feeling well! In the middle of the night, I got horribly sick and I'm pretty sure nothing was left in me!

This morning I was able to see my chiropractor and get an adjustment and acupuncture to see if that will help with my headaches, allergies, and overall well being. So far, I feel much better than yesterday, thank goodness! 

LESS THAN 2 WEEKS UNTIL WE FIND OUT IF WE'RE HAVING A BOY OR GIRL!!!

pups & kisses,

  Tiffany

Shout out to my precious pups

I haven't talked about my pups in a while and they deserve a much needed shout-out!

Carly has always been super sweet, tail always wagging, and always wants our attention. We've always known Carly wouldn't harm a fly! She's grown up a bit and at night time instead of running to try to get under our bed to hide, she realizes when it's getting late, and trots into her kennel on her own to go nite nite. 

Pasha, while I love her to pieces and she's a good, smart dog, she's always had some attitude. However, she's changed a lot over the past few months. I'm not sure if it's because she's getting older, I'm home full time, or a combination of both. She has become the most cuddly dog, with such a sweet demeanor. It's not that she wasn't sweet before, but she went through about two years of what I now wonder was a bit of doggie depression. Maybe it was getting used to Carly being around, maybe it was the move to the new house, maybe she didn't like being locked in a kennel all day while we were at work. Whatever the cause may be, she's like a new dog now. She wags her tail almost as much as Carly…..those who personally know Carly, know that's a lot of tail wagging! She takes full advantage of anytime by herself with me. If I'm getting ready and taking my much needed breaks in between drying and straightening my hair, she's laying right next to me on the bed during that break. She'll climb all the way into my lap, like any lap dog would do…only she's 24 pounds…not 7 like her sister! The sweetest thing lately is when I ask her "Where's the baby?" I squat down and she comes and puts her nose right on my belly! She's so smart! There were those days not long ago when I was still getting sick multiple times a day and she'd wait for me to finish in the doorway, like she was checking on me, making sure I was okay. I love these changes in Pasha and hope they don't change when our baby comes. Truth is, she was the only dog for a while and we didn't expose her to other dogs at all, until we came home with Carly. We were a little worried about them getting along…so were others, but she's always treated Carly wonderfully and that's how I think she'll treat the soon-to-be newest member of our family.

Here are a few pictures I've taken of the dogs lately. By the way, they are in much need of a hair cut!!!! It'll be a few more weeks though. They're going in the day before the gender reveal party. The before and after pictures won't seem like the same dogs!

Carly cuddling with her daddy

I was taking the sheets off the bed to wash them, and threw a pillowcase across the bed and Carly got twisted in it.

I caught this hilarious tired Pasha while I was getting ready one morning. She was laying down, then started moving like she was stretching, and them plopped over like she was soooo exhausted! What a tough life!

pups & kisses,

  Tiffany

Baha Citrus Chicken

Today we are exactly 18 weeks! Two more weeks and we'll know if we're having a girl or boy! We can't wait for that day! It's hard to believe that we're almost half way through our first pregnancy and before we know it, we'll get to meet our precious blessing!

We have some good friends, who used to live next door to us. Anytime they had a get together we were guaranteed great food! Well, for the Kentucky Derby, they had friends over, and once again, had great food! One dish that stood out were the chicken skewers. I kept raving to our friend about them, so he sent me home with some of the seasoning packets he bought and told me how he made them. While that was a month ago, I pretty much remember what he told me and decided to make it for dinner tonight. 

INGREDIENTS:

For chicken:

1 package of boneless, skinless chicken- sliced into chicken tenders

1 package McCormick's Baha Citrus Marinade

(Marinade calls for 1/4 cup oil, 2 tablespoons water, 2 tablespoons vinegar)

For pico:

1 medium white onion- chopped

2 large tomatoes- chopped

1/4 cup minced cilantro

1 lime- juiced

1 can whole kernel corn- drained

1 can black beans- drained and rinsed

salt and pepper to taste

Cholula sauce: The Mexican version of Tobasco sauce

DIRECTIONS:

Prepare marinade, place chicken in marinade, and refrigerate for 2 hours or more.

Combine all pico ingredients together in a large bowl, cover, and refrigerate for 2 hours or more.

When ready, grill chicken until done. Plate some pico and place grilled chicken tenders on top. Drizzle Cholula on top and ENJOY!

pups & kisses,

  Tiffany

Looking forward to tomorrow

*Before I get into my actual blog post, I wanted to mention a sad day the city of Houston suffered this past Friday. The Houston Fire Department, while fighting a motel fire, lost 4 firefighters…more than in any other blaze in the history of the department. I watched most of the breaking news coverage and never have I seen a fire so strong, nor have I seen so many firefighters at one scene. There is such a family unit amongst the HFD. While it was such a sad scene and sad news that 4 firefighters lost their lives and 13 were injured, several critical, there was also a sense of unity amongst the city. This past August I attend the retirement party of my cousin's husband who dedicated more than 30 years to the Houston Fire Department. In a huge ball room, there was standing room only, and it was incredible to listen to the stories these men and women shared not just about my cousin's husband, but about the department and it's members. These firefighters risk their own lives everyday for the safety of others and Friday showed that some make the ultimate sacrifice. Prayers to those families who lost loved ones on Friday, all those injured, and to the entire Houston Fire Department.

Our weekend was pretty low key, which was wonderful!!! We spent time by the pool, had a nice dinner out, I did a little project for our gender reveal party, Mike did some work, and that was it!

This morning I spent some time cleaning up our patio. I mentioned a few weeks ago that my sister and her fiancé had helped me clean it, but I did a bit more today. I took all the screens off our back windows, cleaned them, and then cleaned all the glass. There were A LOT of dead bugs and I felt covered in spider webs when I was finished, but the windows were sparkly clean! This had to be done because we have new patio furniture being delivered tomorrow, which I am super excited about! Our patio has never been too exciting and we have a pretty nice patio that's covered and has a ceiling fan. It'll be so nice to get some decent furniture out there and add some character to our backyard. It'll be even nicer when the fall comes and it's cooler!

I WILL be back to posting recipes this week. I know it's been a while, but with my headaches and still dealing with nausea, I'm not cooking real exciting meals lately. However, for my own sanity, that needs to change!

pups & kisses,

  Tiffany