MilSpouse Friday Fill In -#40

I'm following along with http://wifeofasailor.com/ and her military spouse friday fill in. I'm coming in as they are already on Friday #40 but still think it will be fun to do.

Friday Fill in #40

1. Which was the best day of your life - wedding day or homecoming day?

Our last (and first deployment) happened so fast after he enlisted that the whole year was a whirlwind. While him coming home was an amazing day our wedding by far out beats it for being the best day between them.

2. Were you part of the joining the military question or did you sign up for the relationship when your man was already in the military?

I was a part of it. DH had never even hinted or said anything about joining any branch of military. Then one day when our oldest son was just about 2 months old he said he was thinking about joining the National Guard and had talked to a recruiter about it. We talked about it and prayed about it for about a month without telling anyone what we were thinking of doing. He told me that it was my decision, that if I said no he wouldn't and that would be that.  Saying yes was one of the hardest decisions I had made up to that point. He signed his enlistment papers 12 days shy of our son's 3 month mark, 5 months later he was in bootcamp & ait and gone for 4 1/2 months, then just 10 months later he was on his 1st deployment.

3. What is your favorite Disney movie and why?
I've always loved Beauty & the Beast, I love the message behind it and it's one that whenever it comes on I have to watch it.


4. What is your favorite family activity to do on the weekend?
CAMPING, my whole family (boys included) love being out at the lake, camping, on the boat, fishing. It is just a great way to get out and away from it all.

5. Where do you secretly wish you could be stationed with your SO's line of work (realistically speaking, not everyone can be stationed at NAS Fiji)?

One big reason DH choose the guard was so that we wouldn't have to move around. But had he chosen active army I would have loved to be stationed in Germany or Italy, I think the cultural differences would have been so neat to see and experience.

Rain Rain Go Away

I thought the saying was April Showers bring May flowers but it seems that mother nature has it all jumbled up again and we are seeing a lot of rain for May. Our yard had finally dried out from the last soaking a few days ago then a few hours ago it hits us again. Since it's been raining nonstop for a few hours now it's been enough to flood most of our yard.

Bread in 5 minutes a Day - Recipe & Review

A few weeks ago I ordered Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day & Healthy Bread in 5 minutes a day. I had seen the YouTube video from the authors showing how easy it was to bake fresh bread even for those who bread challenged (which I am lol. Baking bread has been until now my "downfall" in my baking. I love to bake from scratch or add extra ingredients to box mixes to make my cakes, cookies and brownies taste their best and have been baking for as long as I can remember. However when I would try to make bread or biscuits they would be more like weapons then food. No matter what I did they would be hard one or more of these - as rocks, taste like chalk, burnt on outside, dough on the inside. No matter what I did, what recipe I tried I just couldn't get it right. Until I got these books and dug in. My first batch of bread was their base recipe that you can find on YouTube Artisan Bread In Five.  It only took about 10 minutes to mix up the dough and refrigerate it. The next morning I made two small loaves and crossed my fingers. They turned out amazing, my kids & husband loved them. The outside was crusty, inside was dense a really basic but great french bread. My oldest thought it was the neatest thing that I could make bread lol. So yesterday I decided to try another recipe this time for a Challah which is a sweeter dough that could be used to make a softer crust bread (along with cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls and a long list of others). If you have the book the recipe is on page 180, if not you can find it below.

 
Challah

1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tbs granulated yeast (or 2 packets)
1 1/2 tbs Kosher salt
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup melted unsalted butter or vegetable oil
7 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
egg wash - 1 egg beaten with 1 tbs water
poppy or sesame seeds for the top  (I omitted the egg wash & seeds as my kids wouldn't have eaten them)


Using a 5 quart bowl with lid (not airtight) mix the first 6 ingredients together

 Then mix in the flour WITHOUT KNEADING, using a spoon, one cup at a time

Cover dough (not airtight) and let rise for 2 hours, it will have doubled in size and then this dough can be used as is or put in the refrigerator and used over the next 5 days.

I chose to make 1 loaf now and refrigerate the rest for later, for my loaf I did the traditional Challah braided rope. Starting with about a grapefruit size ball of dough (approx 1 lb) Dust the ball with flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, roatating the ball a quarter turn as you go. Then divide the ball into thirds, roll the balls between your hands one at a time streching to form each into a long rope. Braid the ropes starting from the center and working to one end. Allow the bread to rest for 20 minutes if fresh dough is used (40 if from refrigerated dough). Preheat the oven to 350 about 10 minutes before you add your bread.

once the bread has risen pop it into the oven, 25 minutes later your bread will be nice and golden brown and have a soft pillowy consistency similar to white bread.

Well that's it, I hope you enjoyed my first time writing a recipe & review.

Welcome to Living & Loving Life One mess at a time

Hi Ya'll! If you're here you probably already know me IRL or from Facebook. But for those that don't. My name is Summer. I am 27 years old. I am married to my high school sweetheart Darin and we have two amazing little boys Walker & Jordan.

I've had a family blog since 2003 that is very personal and has a lot of photos and information about my kids so I have it set to private to protect my kiddos. However the last few months I have really enjoyed "blog hopping" and have decided to not only have our private family blog but one that is for me. I will be posting random things from things that interest me at the moment, recipes I'm trying, craft/art projects I've done or want to do, my weight loss journey, being a mom, wife and a National Guard family. I also will be doing reviews, giveaways and spotlights on blogs & things I love. I also still plan to share photos & things about my family & home but not as in depth as on my family blog. I plan to take an hour each night after my kids have gone to bed to take some time for myself and just blog about whatever.

Artscow.com - Review

For those of you that haven't tried it yet check out Arts Cow they are a great online photo place. You can order prints & lots of photo gifts. Personally I have ordered hundreds of 4x6, 5x7 & 8x10 prints from them. I've also ordered some photos gifts that turned out way cute - photo mouse pad, custom playing cards, key chains & photo dog tags. The best part is when you sign up for FREE you get 1200 free prints & lots of free gifts (you just pay shipping). My last order of FREE prints totaled $25.67 for 100 4x6 prints, 50 5x7 prints, 10 8x10 prints & 40 wallet prints! They are a company based in Hong Kong so it does take about 8-10 days for the prints to get here and about 14-24 days for the photo gifts but most times I get them sooner then expected (unless you order to close to Christmas then it seems to take twice as long). If any of you have gotten holiday cards/invitations from us they were printed from Artscow (except for my Shutterfly cards Christmas 2010).

Anyways go check them out!

You mean donuts don't come from canned biscuts??

This was my 1st try at scratch yeast donuts (I normally cheat and do the can biscuit donuts lol) they were pretty easy to make and only took about 40 minutes (with 30 minutes of that to rise) I did 3 kinds a chocolate glaze, a regular glaze & cinnamon/sugar - Darin said they were really good but next time to maybe add a little more sugar to the dough as the dough wasn't very sweet. I used this recipe

http://www.food.com/recipe/incredible-easy-raised-donuts-203062

the glaze was a simple 1/4 cup water, 1 teaspoon vanilla & 2 cups powdered sugar

the chocolate glaze was 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips, 2 tablespoon corn syrup, 1 teaspoon vanilla, melt in microwave at 30 second intervals till smooth

Monkey is ONE!

Today Monkey turned ONE! We had his birthday party a few days ago (post to come) looking back on his birth I wanted to post his birth story that I copied from our private blog.

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 Wednesday morning started off pretty normal. I had woke up at 3:40am and couldn’t go back to sleep so decided to get ready for the drs since we had to leave around 8am. We head to the drs for my 8:30 am appointment, we get there and my bp is fine, I was feeling pretty good that morning and had been the last week except for I had been having steady but not painful contractions, back ache, insomnia and throwing up almost daily all lovely typical pregnancy pains. For the last 3 appointments we had been taking our bags & car seat since I had been having painful contractions only to be sent home so this time we didn’t take anything cause I was sure we would be sent home lol Well the dr checks me and I was 5 cm dilated and 75% effaced so he said well looks like it’s time to have this baby. So he sent us over to the hospital and at 9:30am we were admitted. It took us about an hour to get settled in (IV's and blood work) and than Darin left to take Walker to my parent’s house, pick up my mom and get our bags. While he was gone my bp went up to 180/98 so at 11:38am the nurse gave me a bp med through my IV that went into effect within 10 minutes and was down to 156/76, no side effects or anything. (The meds she gave me wasn't magnesium thankfully! I had been on magnesium with Walker's birth and it was HORRIBLE, had to have a catheter, made me feel like I was on fire and kind of loopy) at 11:48am they started my pitocin and informed me that when Darin got back the Dr would be in to break my water. The nurse said that once my water was broken things should move pretty fast since I came in at a 5 and the longest part of labor is getting from 1cm to 5cm and that she predicted Jordan would be here before dark. Walker told us he would be here at 4pm, guess we would see. Darin arrived with my mom just as the dr was coming into my room, he set everything up and broke my water at 12:30 and I was still at 5cm. The contractions started coming but were not bad, on a scale of 1 to 10 they were around a 3 or 4. Around 1:30 nurse Jennifer checked me and I was at 7cm dilated and my pain level had gone to about a 6. The contractions started picking up and getting faster and faster and when she checked me at 2:30 I was an 8-9, I had wanted to have a pain med free delivery and up until this point thought I was handling it pretty well but the contractions were coming so hard and so fast I didn’t get a break in between them and kind of think I lost it a little and wasn’t sure I could do it. Of course by the time you hit an 8 you can’t get pain meds so even if I had convinced Darin that I really wanted them (he knew I really wanted to do it pain med free) I wouldn’t have been able to get anything. I had heard that contractions with pitocin where stronger but I had NO idea how painful they would get. At 3pm the nurse started checking me about every 15-20 minutes and said my cervix still had a lip left and I had 1cm to go. About 30 minutes later I started feeling a lot of pressure and wanting to push but was told that I needed to wait for the dr as if I pushed with that little lip still there I could tear or cause my cervix to swell and cause things to stop progressing. At 4pm I was fully dilated and really really wanting to push but the Dr still wasn’t there yet, the nurse got the nursery nurse Kim in the room to get things ready for Jordan and nurse Jennifer started setting the room up, she said that since this was baby #2 that once Dr Doughitie got there he could probably move the lip out of the way and I’d be ready to deliver. The next 30 minutes of labor were the worst pain I’d ever felt, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it but my mom and Darin were such a HUGE support, Darin held my hand and kept telling me I could and mom kept saying that this was the worst pain I’d feel, that once Jordan was out I’d feel 100 % better. Dr Doughitie finally arrived and I kept telling the nurse I needed to push now and no one believed me, no one even checked until my mom looked down and said hey Darin want to see Jordan’s head? About the time she said that my body just took over and there was nothing I could do, I pushed one time and Jordan pretty much flew out on his own with the Dr just barely catching him in time. He didn’t have his scrubs all the way on or his gloves. Mom was right and I immediately felt better (didn’t even hurt when the placenta was delivered). No pain or anything, I didn't even tear or need stiches :). So after 7 hours of labor Jordan Ezra was born at 4:43pm, at 36 weeks 6 days, weighing 7 pounds and was 19 ½ inches long. He was perfect! He had some bruising on his face from coming out so fast and they had to suction him 3 times to get everything out since he didn’t have the help of slowly being pushed out to get everything out. But he had no breathing problems or anything. He was a little jaundice but the nursery nurse said that was completely normal for his age. They cleaned him up and handed him to me; it was amazing holding him for the first time. He looked just like his daddy & big brother. Once we had some time alone mom took Darin to the waiting room to get Walker and Darin brought him in so just the 4 of us could have some bonding time before the rest of the family came in. Walker was so excited to see HIS baby Jordan. He kissed him and just looked at him with a big smile on his face. After a little while alone Darin went back out and got the rest of the family. Jordan got to meet my dad, his aunt Kim, his cousins Aries & Oreha and of course Grandma again. After a little while Darin left to go get some dinner for us as neither of us had eaten and Papa took the kids out of the room and mom went to make phone calls leaving just Kim & I with Jordan so that I could try breastfeeding for the first time. He latched on like a champ and nursed for about 10 minutes each side. I wasn’t able to do that with Walker so it was amazing getting to do that with him. Around 6 it was time for Jordan to go to the nursery to get checked out so Darin, Walker and my parents went down there with him so that they could say goodbye before my parents & Walker took off. While they were gone it hit me all that had happened, how fast it went, the I got my pain med free birth while on pitocin, didn’t have to have a catheter or get an epi, was able to keep my bp in check and pretty much have as close to a natural birth I could. It was an amazing feeling and I had so much adrenaline and energy that even though I had been up since 3:30am I just couldn’t sleep. The nurse came in around 8:30 to bring him back to us and he had passed everything with flying colors. He was ready to eat and the whole night the nurses were shocked with how well and how much he was eating being borderline early. We were released Thursday around 6pm and he is doing amazing. I’m feeling surprisingly great. Having some cramping and after contractions but nothing compared to all the crap I went through with Walker. Darin is being amazing and taking care of everything, cooking, cleaning, Walker…. so I can just relax, bond with Jordan, concentrate on nursing (which he is making way easier than I ever thought) and get to feeling 100%. The last few days have been a whirlwind but I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m enjoying having Jordan here and being a mommy of 2 little boys. Can’t wait to see what is in store over the next few days, weeks, years.

** when we came home he weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces and preemie clothes fit him, his newborn stuff is too big. **

To see all 75 photos of little Jordan click HERE

To view his web365 first photos click HERE (and family if you want to order any feel free, we aren't ordering any to send out but I will be taking pics for his birth announcement and sending those out in a week or two) if it asks for a code or password it is 248533008