Meal Plan Week 3

A day late, but it's getting posted, so that is a win! We had company in town this past weekend so the meals on Saturday and Sunday were a little mixed around. I was still able to stick to schedule pretty well though! I really am loving having a plan for supper everyday. It's also helping with my spend less, save more resolution. Much less eating out and wasted food. Bonus I have awesome food for lunches with having left overs!

My kids on the other hand are not probably liking this as much as I am. They are all huge supporters of fast food and choosing what they get to eat. Having to sit at the table and be told this is supper, if you don't eat it you don't get a snack before bed, has been a harsh reality for them. I have been doing amazing at holding my ground against the whining though!

Here is this weeks menu. I decided I better put pizza for one night. I think my kids were going through withdrawal. I'm surprised Papa Johns hasn't called to make sure our family is okay since we haven't ordered in weeks!

Meal Plan Week 2

The first week of 2017 is over and I am happy to report that I kept up with my meal plan everyday except one. I ended up not making Saturday's meal, but it was only because we were invited to a dear friends house for supper.

Here is this weeks meal plan. We are trying one new meal I found on pinterest and I let Belle choose a new dessert to make. She wanted cake, but I talked her into cupcakes. We still have cake left over from her kitty party. More on that to come this week!

I was able to purchase all the additional groceries I needed last week when all three were in school, so that was a win! And I think I only threw a few additional items in the cart!

On a side note, I have been to Target 2 times this last week and I have walked past the dollar section both times with nothing added to my cart! That really is no easy task! Especially when they are putting out all the cute valentines things!! I love to decorate for the holidays!

Wish me luck on a second week of meals!

New Year, New Things to Attempt

A new year is upon us, a clean slate! Today is the day for resolutions right. I make some every year and some I stick to halfheartedly and others are abandoned within days/weeks of the new year. I won't say that this year will be different and I will stick with them for the full year, but it's worth a shot right!  All I can do is try!

One of my biggest resolutions this year is having a plan for meals. I have been terrible about cooking the last few months (full year maybe). Because of this my kids have survived on Mac and Cheese, PB&J sandwiches and whatever is found in the fridge that evening. There's been an occasional meal maybe once a week, twice if we're lucky. But this year I plan to change that. I plan to write up a weekly meal plan. I ordered a Meal Planner notepad from Shutterfly. I got it when it was one of their sales and for $7, hopefully the cuteness can keep me on track! With a plan I feel it will be easier to actually produce a meal for the table. And grocery shopping once a week. For this week I ordered the groceries online. It's cold here and the kids are all home for Christmas break and it was by far easier. I struggle every time doing this. There is always something I need that I can't find in the online catalog of food and once it arrives it seems I am always disappointed in something that came. I'm picky about fruit and meat and just need to pick it out myself! But alas for this week it was for the best and we will make due!

I also want to start cooking more because I have a cupboard (and some counter space) full of cookbooks and printed out recipes. These either need to start getting used or need to go away. So we will be trying some new recipes this year. Hopefully 1 a week. This week I stuck with tried and true recipes (except for the dessert the first day. I hope to make 1 dessert a week. I LOVE to bake! So this one is new.), we'll branch out more next week! I hope to post my meal plan here every week in hopes that it will keep me on track and I will be held to it! If you have any excellent recipes your family loves please share them!

That leads me to my next resolution. CLEAN out this house. We just have too much stuff here and I've decided it makes me crabby. I'm much happier when I can see the floor and the counter. So I hope to go through every closet and corner in this house over the course of the year and purge. Some things will be saved for a garage sale in the spring, some will be thrown and the rest will be donated! I really can't wait!

Along with the less clutter resolution is the spend less, save more! Now you may wonder what that has to do with less clutter, but let me tell you that Target dollar spot sucks me in every time and although I have gotten some very useful items there, most of the time it is stuff that we don't need and it just adds to the junk!

So here's to an amazing, clean and delicious new year!

And now we wait...

Once again, a lot has happened since I last posted about our journey. Contracts are signed and the "business" portion of the journey is out of the way and we can focus on the fun stuff. I finished all my Lupron shots and managed to get through them with only a small bruise on one side. Considering things I've heard about these, I am pretty proud of myself for this!

With those being complete it means we moved onto the big guns, the PIO (progesterone in oil). Those come with a large needle and go into the muscle in my backside. Yuck, right! I'm not going to lie I was dreading these shots, and really felt for all the couples going through this process that have to do these shots to have a baby. It's kind of like adding insult to injury in my opinion! Chris said he would help me with these ones, as I just wasn't sure I could jab that needle into myself. We received an email from the clinic that the egg retrieval would take place on 11/13/15, so I started the shots the night before.

The first night was not fun, we figured out the right location to inject and drew a circle on my skin so when we got around to the shot we knew where. There is a decent sized area where you can inject these, and I've heard it is best to find your sweet spot. If you find this is will hurt so much less! After about 20 min of going back and forth between Chris would do the injection to I would do the injection, and hormones getting the best of me with some tears. It was finally decided that Chris would do it and I just couldn't look. He just had to stick it in. After all of that it really wasn't that bad. I'm not going to say it was painless, but fairly close. I massaged the area afterwords and let a heat pack sit on it for awhile. It was starting to get sore, but that was supposed to happen right? That night I didn't sleep much due to the pain in my hip and got to get up the next morning only to have another shot right away. We switched sides and adjusted the area up slightly. MAJOR difference on that one! Since that first injection I have had very little pain with them after. We have the system down pretty good currently. I warm the PIO up under my arm while I brush my teeth and put my contacts in. Chris then injects it and I massage and use a heat pad. It's working so far. Maybe one of these days I will get up the courage to do them myself, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. 11 shots down and only like 9 more weeks of them.

Five days after the retrieval it would be transfer day! We flew to CT on the 17th and hung out in the hotel for a little while and then ventured out to the mall to kill some time. Once again I found a Target! And this one was two levels which meant that it had a cart escalator! I know, your thinking seriously, but they are really kind of cool! After some shopping and supper we headed back to the hotel to hopefully sleep. After all the next day was transfer day! We met with Colin and Tracey for breakfast at the hotel that morning and then all rode together to the clinic. 

 

Transfer was at 9:30 and we arrived at 9 so we were ready to go! Up until this point we were planning on transferring 1, unless the doc thought we should do two. I asked if anyone had heard with the embryo grade was and Colin mention that they were thinking of doing 2. It was probably a good thing I was sitting down! I was always willing to transfer 2, but in all the discussions the thought was just 1, so I had wrapped my head around that. So this came as a slight shock. Statistically transferring 1 would give them a 60% chance of having a baby, transferring 2 gave them an 80% of having 1 baby, so they decided to go for 2. In the end the embryo grades were both A's and the doc said they looked great!

I was taken into the procedure room and got prepped for the transfer and then Chris, Colin and Tracey came in and stood at the head of the bed. They had an ultrasound machine to see the embryos going in and a tv on the wall where we were able to see the embryos in the lab. The embryologist then brought them in and the procedure probably took all of 5 min. and was completely painless. IT still amazes me when I think about and what all happened in such a short amount of time! Chris and I headed back to the hotel after and just spent the day hanging out. Chris was able to work some and I watch tv and took a nap. Colin and Tracey had an 8 or 9 hour drive home so they took off right away to get a start on that. The next morning we got up and flew home. A quick trip, but a very important one.

So now we wait, and wait, and wait! I had some blood work done a couple days ago just to make sure my levels were where they should be and all looks good, so more waiting. The day after Thanksgiving I will go in for more blood work and we will find out if we are pregnant. 10 days is a REALLY long time to wait!!! So here

s to hoping that at least 1 took.

Halloween Fun

I can't believe it is already November?!? Wear did that last month or really the year for that matter go? We have been busy with lots of Halloween/fall activities this last month. From fall festivals to trick or treating the kids have had lots of fun and gotten lots of candy and treats!

For Halloween this year, my kids had a hard time deciding what to actually dress up as. Isabella and Corbin choose costumes at Costco back in August, but then would change their mind about every other week. 

Isabella originally picked out Chase from Paw Patrol and once purchased wore it almost daily for about 2 weeks straight. Even when it was around 90 degrees outside! I had my Rainbow Brite costume my mom had made for me in the 80's and I was really pushing for that. She did actually choose to wear that twice to events so I was happy! For her Halloween party with her friends she in the end was a monkey (very fitting). On Halloween afternoon she went back to Chase and that is what she settled on.

  

Corbin chose a superhero from Costco, we have multiple ones from the last few years with 2 boys that I don't actual remember what he picked out this time. In the end he went to 1 event as Black Panther (but wore a batman mask). For Halloween he settled on Spiderman. What he was last year, but it works! He had the most fun in the studio with his costume.

 

  

Jack didn't want a new costume this year and was just going to wear something we already had. I was fine with this, but was also more than happy to get him a new one. I continued to ask him what he wanted to be and one day he told me he had chosen what he wanted. A knife, because they're sharp. He definitely got Chris' sense of humor! I quickly shot that idea down and convinced him that being Steve from Minecraft would be just as cool!

 

My troop in the end!

On The Move.

 A lot has happened since my last post! We spent two very busy (but not busy) days in CT and DC. Thursday morning we got up and walked over to Target for a coffee. My girlfriends joked that I would be able to find a Target while on vacation! #Imaybeatargetaddict We had until noon to kill some time so it was a logical step considering it was right next door! After wandering around we headed back to the hotel room to chill for a little while until the taxi picked us up. Neither of us is used to that much downtime and so I'm not sure that we really knew what to do with ourselves!

At noon a taxi came and took us to the fertility clinic. We were able to meet with the doctor, and run a few tests. I've read stories about these, but they really weren't that bad. We also met with one of the nurses to go over injections! Yikes! I knew what I was in for (she did mention some people had no clue they would have to give themselves shots?!? To that I say you clearly haven't done your research!). We got the 411 on everything and were sent out our way. Pretty painless all in all. From there we headed to the train station. We had no idea how far it was, so we just went straight there. Big mistake on our part! It was of course in not the nicest part of town and we now had 2 hours to wait for the train. We were both hungry, but didn't really want to wander to far with luggage and things, so we camped out and snacked on a left over snack from the airport.

Once the train came, the ride was pretty uneventful, we were able to get some food and just sit back and chill. I finished 2 books on this trip due to all the down time. I can't tell you the last time I sat down and read more than a chapter? We arrived at Union Station in DC around 11pm that night. A taxi was lined up to pick us up, but was about 20 min late. We were some of the last people hanging out outside waiting. The homeless people were yelling at us and I felt like the Amish coming to the big city for the first time! I've been to DC and traveled plenty, but standing on the curb of a big city late at night with only 1 other person around is a little daunting!

We made it to the hotel and grabbed a quick bite from the make shift store in the lobby and headed to our room. I have to say our eating while on this trip was lacking due to times of things, but we made it work

The next morning we got up and met with our case manager for coffee to go over a few things and then she took us to the therapists office for our psych evaluation. I'm assuming we passed as we are moving forward! Once our portion was done we finally got to meet our IP's in person. Their names are Colin and Tracey and they are both so sweet! We had a quick joint session with the therapist and them and then it was on to lunch. Lunch was just the 4 of us and it was very pleasant. You never know how things will go with someone you just met, but there was never a lag in the conversation (although Chris was with us!) It was wonderful to get to know them a little better and discuss things that will be happening in the coming months.

After lunch we walked around the area a little bit and then parted ways. We had to get back to the hotel to catch our taxi to the airport. The flights home were uneventful and smooth sailing. Like I said busy, but not busy! It was a good trip and a lot was accomplished in a short amount of time.

 In the week following the trip, I got a call that by box of meds would be delivered. I was very excited when I received my box of "goodies" to get the process rolling. My box came with lots of meds and needles, all of which will help tell my body to not discard the pregnancy.

 

 I had done some research on how people store all of these things and keep them organized and found a good tip on getting a over the door shoe organizer. So that's what I did! A girls got to be organized right!?! I started my Lupron injections last week and those have been going well. They are injected into my stomach with a small needle and really aren't bad at all.

Onto this week and we are in contract negotiations. Which I expect to run smoothly and then comes the fun part. The actual process.

Fab Finds Friday: Muffintops and Tutus

Can you believe it's Friday already, and with that we are 2 days into October?!? No...me either! This week has flown by and I feel like not much was accomplished? How does that keep happening? Never the less it is time for another Fab Finds Friday! 

This week you get another 2 for 1! The boutique up for review is the amazing Muffintops and Tutus. But the owner didn't just stop at 1 wonderful boutique, she recently opened up a second equally amazing boutique, My Sweet Jules.

 

Both boutiques are on Facebook and etsy for your shopping pleasure. Muffintops and Tutus can be found on facebook here and etsy here. My Sweet Jules can be found on Facebook here and etsy here.

 

Both boutiques have some pretty amazing headbands and hair clips. My Sweet Jules focuses more on leather accessories. These are adorable for the little ones as well as older girls! The are simple, yet make a bold statement and we adore the ones we have!

 

Muffintops and Tutus has a wide variety or headbands and hair clips. They are a mix of flowers and bows made out of felt, glitter and lace. She recently posted the most ADORABLE princess inspired clips, they are swoon worthy and I think Miss Belle may need the collection! Another recent addition is some holiday 4 packs of felt bow clips, again, I want them all. I love the holidays as it is, but these will just make them so much cuter! I think I will order some for Belle and then hijack a few of them for myself!

 

 

The owner is a true gem and it has been a pleasure to work with her! And of course the product quality is top notch! You won't be disappointed in your purchase. This amazing boutique is also offering Chronicles of a Momager readers a special code for 15% your purchase! How awesome is that! Just enter fab15off at checkout and be sure to like and follow her pages to stay up to date on all the new sweet accessories you or your little lady need!

This post is written by me and all opinions expressed are my own. This is not a sponsored post.