Sonoma....adults only!

 We have been planning this trip with the Bell's for a long time!!!  Well, we had been planning "A" trip with them for a few years now but either Sharon or I was either pregnant or nursing a small child so we finally decided to take the plunge this Spring Break.  We decided to go to Sonoma in California because the first time we were in that area, I was freshly pregnant with Cole and so extremely sick.  The second time we were out there, Finley was about 2 months old and nursing so I couldn't quite partake in the festivities.  

This time, however, it was just the adults and nobody was pregnant or nursing.  Well, Sharon technically is still breast feeding but she was such a trooper and just pumped whenever she got a chance.

My parents were so kind to drive down to Texas for a couple reasons.  1.  they had to deliver our new kitchen table.  Yes, we live in Dallas and couldn't find a kitchen table but of course found one when we were home over Christmas at my parents favorite furniture store.  And 2.  They were going to watch the kids for a couple of the days we were gone.  It was so nice to have them here for a few days and I so wish we could've had more time together.  

Since I have been on my crazy diet lately, I had not gone out to eat in almost a month so we splurged a little bit and went out for some yummy pizza one night they were here.  I did cheat and had one small piece of pizza...oops :)

 Finley absolutely loves Mimi!!!  She wanted my mom to hold her all the time, it's adorable!!

 Papa and Cole....ahhhh!!!

 

 Nick and I flew out Monday afternoon.  I was sad to leave the kiddos and my parents, this was the longest I had been away from them.  But, it was so nice to just have some alone time with Nick and our good friends.

 

 AND, Nick upgraded us on the way there.  It was a 3.5 hour flight so we thought we might as well upgrade.  We had free food, drinks, bags, free movies...it was fabulous!  I had two glasses of sparkling wine and was loving every minute!

 We worked it out with Chris and Sharon that we all arrived within minutes of each other so once we picked them up we spent the afternoon/evening in San Francisco.  We had an excellent dinner and then drove up to Healdsburg, where we rented a house.

This house was adorable!  It took some crazy (scary) roads to get up there but the views were amazing.  

This is from our porch the first morning we were there.  It's always a little foggy there but quickly burns off.

 We also had a bit of a hike to get to the front door.  That is Nick waaaaay down there....

 Our first morning we didn't waste any time.  We hit up Freemont Diner, which apparently is pretty popular and the food was to die for.

 After breakfast we hit up 5 winery's.

Our first stop....Gloria Ferrar

 Then St. Francis

 We had to stop at Paradise Ridge because this is where Blake and Emily got married.  It was as beautiful as we remembered!!

 This is where their ceremony was

 And, what was so cool was that after we did our wine tasting, Nick looked over and saw Blake and Emily's wedding album on one of the tables.  Their photography was advertising and we thought it was so cool that it was Blake and Em's!!!

 The four of us with their album :)

 Next stop....Ledson

How cool is this place!!!  Amazing building!

 After we were done with day #1 wine tasting, we just hit up a pub in Healdsburg and went back home, we were exhausted.  The house we stayed in had the best porch.  We sat out there almost every morning and night and the weather was absolutely perfect.

Day #2:

We did about 4 winery's the second day and our favorite was Twomy.  Chris and Sharon even joined their wine club.  That was definitely one of our favorites!!

Day #3:

Our last day of wine tasting, again, we hit up about four.  I think day 3 was probably my favorite.  Now, I was a little sick of wine at this point but I loved the places we went.

Ferrari Carrano

 Pretty Sharon :)

 Bella...this was my all time favorite!!!! 

It was a small winery and the tasting room was in that cave.

 What it looked like walking into the cave...so cool!!!!

 Their wine was my favorite and we definitely bought some bottles!  Like I said, by the 3rd day, some of the wines all start tasting the same so when I tasted Bella's wine and it had such a distinct taste, I knew I loved it!  We really debated on joining their wine club but since it's a good investment we decided to sleep on it.  Well, I've slept on it for 3 nights now and I still want to join the club, ha!  I think we probably will...at some point.

We always had the best lunches while we were out wine tasting.  The last day, we went to this adorable store in the middle of nowhere and bought cheeses, meats, chips, crackers, olives and bought a bottle of wine and just sat out in the garden at Lambert Winery.  The weather was divine and that is definitely a perfect day!

 We were out there just the perfect amount of days.  We certainly were so excited to see the kids and sleep in our own beds but we truly had the best time with the Bell's!!!  They are so near and dear to our hearts and just one of those couple's that we love traveling with.  Can't wait to do it again with them!

 I do have to share this picture that my dad sent us while they were babysitting.  Cole was so excited to go hit some golf balls with Papa and he was nice enough to send us this adorable picture.  I'm sure it was such a fun day for my dad!!!!

 My parents had to drive back to Colorado Wednesday morning and then Nick's parents finished out the week with the kids till we got home on Friday.  We are so thankful to both grandparents for helping watch our hoodlums.  It's so nice to not worry about them and know they are in good hands.  

However, while we were gone, Benson figured out how to get through our wrought iron fence in the back so Nick spent all day today putting some mesh stuff on the fence so he can't get out.  Dumb dog...that's exactly how we wanted to spend our Sunday :)

Happenings Lately

 We have been busy getting our house in order the last few weeks.  I'm sure it doesn't take the average person to get through every box as long as it took us, but I guess we've been procrastinating.  So much junk sat in our garage so it was kind of the "out of sight out of mind" thing.  We finally got sick of having both cars parked in the drive way so we spent all day yesterday cleaning out the garage and going through every box and boy, did we throw a TON of stuff away!!  Nothing makes me happier than throwing things in the trash!  

We have tons of trash bags ready to go to Goodwill and lots of baby stuff ready to pass down.  It was so exciting to finally pull my car into the garage and everything be organize...yay!!

The kids had fun hanging out in the garage/front yard while we organized and Finley even tried to help as much as she could :) (by "help", I mean undo everything we had done)

What!?!  This girl being naughty!!!  Never!!!

 Saturday morning after our chiropractor appointments, we had to go pick up a mattress from Nick's parents house.  It wasn't even that close to lunch time but both kids ended up passing out in the car.  Luckily, they both transferred to their beds and took pretty good naps.

 Saturday afternoon, Roxy was outside just hanging out in the yard.  Finley whined at me till I let her outside to be with Roxy.  Finley just sat their with Roxy and pet her.....

then gave her hugs.

 This girl....has an absolute love for her puppies.  If we'd let Roxy sleep in her crib with her, she would be the happiest toddler ever!  I'm pretty sure Finley is Roxy's favorite person too because Finley shares all her meals with her...and then when we throw Roxy outside for eating her food, Finley gets mad at us and cries. :)

 I also did some grocery shopping this weekend and found this beauty....

I can eat spoonfuls of this stuff!  I've been on a bit of a "raw" diet lately so when I'm craving a little bit of sweet, this stuff is outstanding!

My chiropractor has put me on a pretty strict diet to try to help with some inflammation I've been having.  I can't have sugar, carbs, gluten, grains, only raw dairy, 100% grass fed meats and limited fruits.  You are probably wondering what CAN I eat.  The first couple weeks were hard, just trying to find things to actually eat but now I'm really enjoying finding new recipes and being creative.

This is basically what I've been eating the last 3 weeks:

Breakfast:  pick one from these options and alternate them

Scrambled eggs with whatever veggies are in fridge, sprinkle raw cheddar cheese on top.  Seriously, there are more veggies than eggs in my omelets!!

Plain greek yogurt with strawberries or raspberries (the only fruit I can have is berries and granny smith apples)

Hard-boiled eggs

Smoothie:  spinach, blueberries, 1/2 banana, coconut milk

Black coffee with coconut milk cream - the only coffee my chiro has approved is Organo coffee, which works perfectly b/c my family started drinking that coffee last year and it's our favorite coffee!!

Lunch:

Organic tuna with veganaise, celery and pepper

Salad (I'll make a big salad on Sundays and will last most of the week)

Mash up a couple hard-boiled eggs and add veganaise and pepper

Or any dinner leftovers

Dinner:  (these are some of the things I've made lately)

Zucchini boats

Chicken Marsala

Chili

Basic meat/veggies

Lots of salads

I eat raw almonds/cashews, couple slices of cheese, granny smith apple with almond butter as snacks

I certainly do miss some of the "comfort foods" and being able to eat whatever I want but if I had to choose to eat whatever I want or physically feeling bad again, I would stay on this diet, no questions asked!!  I have been feeling so good lately and so much energy!!  I do have a couple rough days every once in awhile but overall, I feel amazing!

I'm going to stay on this diet till we go to Sonoma next week and I'll try my hardest to eat as good as I can while we are on vacation but then when I get back, I'm going to get back on the diet along with a detox and then after that, we will slowly introduce a few things and see if there is anything specific that triggers my pain.  With our family history, I wouldn't be surprised if it's gluten...but we will see.

Also, my waistline is loving the new diet!!!  :)  Although, my weight is not even hardly an issue, as long as I'm feeling well...but it is a nice bonus! :)

My parents drive down on Friday to stay for a few days.  They still stay with us over the weekend and then when Nick and I leave for Cali, they will stay with the kids for a couple days and then Nick's parents will finish out the week with the kids.  We are so lucky to have the best grandparents!  The kids are going to have so much fun with both grandparents!!

This week needs to zoom by....we cannot wait for California!!!

Oh, Finley

 This post is a little bit about Finley, our move, carpooling...crazy stuff, I tell ya!

First off, we finally got moved into our new house almost 2 weeks ago.  It just happened to be on Nick's birthday so unfortunately his actual birthday wasn't as glamorous as usual.  I mean, he's getting a brand new house but the process of getting into the house is tiring and stressful.

We are celebrating his and Emily's birthdays this weekend (without kids, whoop!) so we are pretty excited about that.

The house is great, I haven't taken any pictures of it since we moved in because y'all would be horrified at the condition of it :)  Moving this time around is a tad different than our last house.  We are slowly getting there but have a long way to go.  Once things start to look half-way decent I will post some pictures.

Plus, our vacuum has died on us.  Nick tried to perform surgery on it but there's no hope for it.  As much as we love the wood floors on the main floor, they are definitely trickier to keep clean.  The dogs are constantly dragging in grass plus Roxy is shedding pretty bad right now b/c she's super long and needs to get groomed...and with the vacuum not working, the floors are a bit of a disaster right now.  We are planning on purchasing a new vacuum this weekend but holy moly those dang things are expensive!

So, Miss Finley, what have you been up to lately??  What's that....you have decided to stop taking naps during the week?  Wow, that's awesome, especially at 21 months.....said no one ever!!!

She will just play in her crib for 2 hours if I let her and maybe will get in about 15 minutes of shut-eye but that's if I'm lucky.  She started doing this several weeks ago, skipping a couple naps a week and I thought she'd grow out of it but nope.  Still going strong with not sleeping.

Since we have moved, we have now started carpooling with my friend Jen.  It is so nice to be able to carpool now and has been a life saver.  Plus, I've had tons of doctors appointments this month so Jen has been able to just take Cole home with her.  Huge help!

The one day I was in charge of picking up the boys, I didn't have enough time to go home and "try" to get Finley to nap so I just drove around for awhile and she did fall asleep....for 20 minutes.

Ain't she sweet....and those lips crack me up!

 We also weren't sure how we were going to fit 3 car seats in my car, but we have managed to do it.  They are squished in there and I have to be in some awesome gymnastic positions to get their seat belts on and I'm sure people walking by love looking at my rear end plastered up against the window.  Motherhood is so humbling :)

Even though I still have 1 million more boxes to go through, we have still taken some time to enjoy the park while the weather is nice.  We have been blessed with awesome weather lately, but deep down I am a little sad we haven't gotten our normal February freeze.  Hope this doesn't mean our summer will be brutally hot!

We have met some great neighbors and I am just in love with our neighborhood!  There are so many young families and everyone is always outside.  We love that we are a short walk to the park, especially when your son yells from the slide, "mom!!! I have to go poop!"...awesome Cole :)

We can't wait to meet more neighbors and get more settled but so far it's all been great!

Oh, and Happy Valentines Day!!

Cole's Birthday

 I have been so behind on blogging lately and am 2 weeks behind on Cole's birthday celebration.

Cole turned 4 on January 29th!!!!  Where have the last 4 years gone?

With us getting into our new house we decided to not have a party this year for Cole.  We have kind of decided that we will have parties for the big birthdays....this every year stuff is stressful!  We still wanted to do something special for his birthday so we asked him who he wanted to take with to have an afternoon of fun...and of course he said Reece!  Luckily Reece and Cole attend the same school so Nick and I picked up both boys from school and had a great afternoon.

The boys were so excited when we picked them up from school!

 We took them to Lego Land in Grapevine.  We had never been there and it was pretty dang cool!  We spent several hours there and were even planning on doing the aquarium too but ran out of time.

They even had a 3-D lego movie that was so fun.  Cole got a little scared at the things coming at his face and quickly ended up on my lap but overall he loved it.

 The coolest part were these go-cart type things.  What was nice about the time of day we went is that nobody was there so the boys had the go-carts all to themselves.  Reece was a little pro at steering the cart.  Cole....he needs more practice :) ha!

 Way to go Reece!!!

 After Lego Land, we met up with Gigi and Finley, Uncle Blake and Auntie Em at the Magic Time Machine for dinner.  It was a pretty cool place that is great for kids.  Cole opened presents and had such a great time!

We even got to celebrate some more with some ice cream.  

How sweet are these two??

 I still can't believe we have a 4 year old but we couldn't love him any more.  He is such a joy to be around and is the most caring, sensitive, compliant child.  I don't know how we got so lucky but I couldn't thank God enough for the sweet boy he brought into our lives!

We love you so much Cole!

We are getting there!

 We are so close, can almost see the finish line....well, we can see the finish line, but it's just right at our noses!  Less than two weeks and we can finally start using this little beauty!

 Nick and I had our walk-thru/orientation for the new house last Friday.  There are so many cool, new things that these new houses have these days.  Tank-less water heaters, better A/C units, pest control unit that is outside that just shoots the insecticide throughout pipes around the house, so they don't actually have to come in and spray the inside of the house anymore, pretty cool!

Our walk-thru took quite awhile and but I think everything should be ready to go to close Friday.

Friday was a gorgeous day and I just had to take a picture of our backyard.  Nick and I are so thrilled that we picked the lot we did.  I know the dogs will bark their brains out but I love not having anything behind us.  We are also the only house on our little street that chose to put in a gate so we can access the walking path.....best decision, I think!

 See these lovely chandeliers?  Yeah, we didn't pay for those :)  We paid for just the basic chrome light fixtures but they accidentally installed all these nice oil-rubbed bronze light fixtures in our house and they asked if it was ok to just leave them because it would save time.  Uh....gee, sure you can leave those much nicer light fixtures in our house...we'll let you :)

Pretty much our whole first floor of the new house is wood floors, which we are so excited about....but wood floors means area rugs....which means, $$$$$$$!!!!!!

I had been looking for nice, inexpensive area rugs for the longest time and finally came across rugsusa.com.  Right after Christmas all their rugs were 65% off.  We got these three rugs for under $300 and are so thrilled with how they turned out!  I am so excited to use them!

 Saturday mornings are our "family day" at the chiropractor.  The kids and I always go together and Nick goes at different times during the week but we go all four of us on Saturday mornings.  The kids were so excited, as usual.

 I have been feeling amazing the last week or so, a little sore after the first couple adjustments but I haven't been feeling like an old lady with arthritis anymore.  I feel so healthy and have more energy.  Now the kids.....wow!  Again, after Finley got adjusted while she was sick, she immediately started acting like her normal self.  She has been so happy, goofy and it just seems like there is this new pep in her step and same with Cole, just seems happy, more compliant....I can just tell that my kids feel good.  Makes a mom happy!

 Saturday evening we headed over to Beau and Stacey's for dinner.  Stacey is ready to deliver baby Walker about yesterday so we took them dinner and hung out for the night. 

I really don't know how that baby fits on Stacey's body but isn't she the cutest pregnant girl!  Just this little women's-sized basketball.

I don't know what it is, but when Cole and Grayson get together, they are absolutely hilarious.  They always want to have pillow fights and wrestle.  Usually Cole doesn't do stuff like that but him and Grayson play so well together and even though they are wrestling, they are pretty gentle and have so much fun together.

 From the time Cole was itty bitty, he has always loved being at Beau and Stacey's house and even asked the next day if we could go back. :)

I didn't have school yesterday so the kids and I ran a few errands.  Had to go buy 23 gallons of paint so Hector can paint the inside of our house next week.  I'm not even sure how we are going to fit 23 gallons of paint into our car!

We ended the weekend with some yummy milkshakes and some happy kids!

Happenings

 So much has gone on in our household the last couple weeks, I've been horrible at documenting it!  We've had major sickness, then healing, then black eyes, then houses almost getting finished, new doctors, whew!!!!

First off, I had to post this picture.  This is just our typical Cole.  He loves to wear my sunglasses and he must get his mama's sensitive eyes because he's always complaining about the brightness.  My poor parents had to replace all the lights in their house when I was younger because I'd always complain that they were too bright.  So I totally get it, Cole!!!

 What a diva he is!!

 Speaking of black eyes....these pictures don't really show it too well but a couple Sunday's ago, we were headed out the door to church and Nick and I were running in different directions and all of a sudden Finley is crying.  Normally she falls, cries for 2 seconds then is fine.  Poor thing cried the whole way to church so I knew whatever she fell on was pretty bad.  Nobody saw her fall or what she fell on so we had no clue how to help her.  When we got close to church I finally started to see her shiner appear in the corner of her left eye.  Good thing she didn't get hit IN the eye!

 This also shows how sad she was because she never has her paci anywhere but in her bed and that is the only thing that would console her.

Hate Sick Babies:

A couple weeks ago, Finley started getting a runny nose...no big deal.  She was happy as could be!  Well, a week ago Sunday, she woke up at midnight and was crying.  Usually I can just go into her room, lay down with her and she'll go back to sleep.  She wasn't going back to sleep.  Next thing I know, she threw up (yes, on me).  With how congested she had been the last few days I really thought it was just drainage.  She continued to throw up a few more times that morning.  

I was so thankful to Tracy for staying home with Finley those couple mornings because we just started back at school after Christmas break and there was just no way I could take off.  Between Tracy, me and Nick we had to tag team a lot that week.

This is what I did all afternoon for a couple days....poor baby!!!  Nothing worse....

 I decided to take her to the doctor just to make sure it was nothing serious and to make sure that it's normal for them to throw up when they have drainage like that.  The doctor looked at her throat and was pretty certain it was strep but the test came back negative but she gave us an antibiotic anyway because she was pretty convinced it was strep.  I gave her a dose of medicine and she couldn't keep it down so I stopped giving it to her and she was just getting worse.  She then started getting high fever, was so lethargic, wouldn't eat or drink and I was so scared she was getting dehydrated.  I was about 2 seconds away from taking her to ER to get fluids.  I'm pretty certain she had the flu but we never checked for it.

This is what she did all week.  She'd sleep, wake up for about 15 minutes and cry, then go back to sleep.  It was absolutely heart-breaking!

 I think Thursday afternoon she finally started to turn the corner, woke up in a little better mood and actually walked around a bit.  She had not touched her feet to the ground in almost 4 days, she had to be carried around.  She was even in a good enough mood to put some accessories on and play with her toys a little bit.  My heart was so happy that day!!!

 She still was not eating and drinking much, had very little energy but was definitely getting better.  

Friday evening, all the guys in our life group headed to Austin for a guy's weekend and all the mom's and kids decided to spend the weekend together.  Friday we all met up at California Pizza Kitchen and enjoyed a nice dinner. 

Cole and his bestie Reece

 Some of the moms and kiddos

 Friday night, Finley still was not herself, still very weak and tired, very cuddly (which I love!) so I was getting kinda nervous that our Saturday plans were going to fall through.  All the mom's and kids were going to get together at Jen's house and have a big slumber party.  It was going to be so fun but if Finley was still feeling crummy, I wouldn't have taken her.

Our new "Power's On" chiropractor:

Earlier in the week, a friend of Nick's recommended that we try out their chiropractor because he really thought it would help Finley.  I was willing to try anything at this point.  Finley and I had a consult with Dr. Krystal, gotten xrays and by Saturday morning I was pretty desperate for Finley to get an adjustment.  I had a school competition so I was unable to take Finley to Chiro so Tracy was nice enough to take her for me.  I hated to miss her first adjustment but I'd rather her go than not go.

She had a morning appointment, she came home and took a nap and when she woke up.....no lie, Finley woke up a completely different child.  She was starving, thirsty, happy, running around, sassy...I loved it!  I could not believe it!  I definitely attribute it to our new chiropractor.  More about that in a minute.

So since Finley was so much better, we all headed over to Jen's for the night and boy did we have a good time!  The kids were in heaven!

We just put a giant table cloth on the floor and all the kids ate on it.  Way easier to dispose of everything that way!

 Finley and Addie playing with baby Berkeley

 Cole, Finley and Zachary

 James and Katie...pretty sure he was trying to pick his nose :)

 Morning mimosas :)

 Even though we had 13 kids (8 and under) and only 6 moms, we still had such a good time.  These women are such a blessing to my life and none of us can believe what a great group we have.

Dr. Krystal:

I have been going to a chiropractor for years.  It has always helped during my pregnancies so I've always been a believer in chiropractors.  So when I heard about Dr. Krystal and their beliefs, I was excited to give it a try.  She isn't your typical chiropractor, she's part of a organization called Maximized Living.  It's a Christian based organization and they really promote healthy living and she is actually a neuro-chiropractor.  They do more than just crunch your bones, they do therapy, strengthening, talk about diet, toxins, etc.  

I'm one of those mom's that hates vaccines, hates medicines, hates anything foreign going into the body and they practice a lot of that so I knew this was the place for us.  

Plus, I have never seen so many kids in this office in my life!!!  I was laughing so hard yesterday when I was doing my wobble ball exercises and I was the only adult in this room, with about 8 kids....I loved it!!  Cole is even able to do some of the therapy and he and Finley love going there!

Finley, look excited, will ya!!!

 This is what Dr. Krystal walked in on the other day...we both laughed :)

 Right now, Nick and I and the kids are going 3 times a week but after a couple months we will take that down.  Eventually we will just go every other week.  

I could go on and on about the science behind all this but I won't bore you with that but I truly believe this will keep my kids healthy and keep their nervous system functioning properly.  We are excited!

House news:

 We have landscaping, a fence, appliances...woohoo!!!  We have our walk-thru tomorrow, then we close the following Friday, the inside of the house gets painted right after we close, then we move shortly after that!  Cannot wait!  Plus, the kids are getting so excited, they absolutely love going to see the house and running all over the place!

It will be here before we know it, yay!!!

House Update

 Yesterday Gigi's house was getting cleaned so the dogs and I took the kiddos to Ms. Sheryl's for the day and then we headed up to see the house.  We had a couple hours to kill so I thought that would be a good time to go take a good walk-thru the house.  Usually we go up there when we have the kids in tow and it's hard to really get a good look at everything when they are there.  So, yesterday was the perfect time.  

It was a little messy and muddy trying to get into the house and I know the guys working next door were getting a kick out of this girl trying to get into a house without getting her feet muddy....:)

We are so pleased with the way things are coming along and I finally took a few pictures of the downstairs.

Here is the kitchen...remember how the cabinets were stained a lovely coffee color awhile back??  They finally got them to where they are supposed to be and I love the way they turned out.  

 They installed the granite a few weeks ago but the backsplash was new and it's perfect!!!

 The backsplash

 This is looking from the kitchen into the family room

 The little desk area by the kitchen...I love this!

 Standing in the breakfast/family room area looking into kitchen

 Family room

 Yesterday during my day off, I also spent an hour at Ace Hardware picking out our paint for the house.  That's not even the time I've spent online looking....sheesh it's a big job!!!  We are meeting our paint guy at our house this weekend so he can let us know how much it's going to cost to get certain rooms painted.  Like I've said before, Nick would rather poke out his own eye than paint but we have to cut costs somewhere so we will have the professionals do the harder rooms like the kitchen, etc.  We are going to try to get everything painted before we even move in...hopefully!!

As of now, we are closing January 22nd but this is also after about 8 date changes so we won't be surprised if it gets pushed back again.