Thankfulness Day 24 - A Beatrix Potter Baby Shower

 Around this time last year, my DH and I went back to our hometown for Thanksgiving, thinking it might be the last chance we would have to see family before we headed off to Italy. During this time, my grandmother graciously let my mother and sister take over her house as they cohosted a baby shower for us, and it was awesome! My mother and sister, as with most of my family come to think of it, do nothing half-baked and always go above and beyond when committing to something. Most often their generosity borders on absurd and insane, and this event was no exception as they single-handedly furnished the baby nursery! They also spent countless hours decorating and planning, and as such, I am going to show off the fruits of their labor below.

            The main theme was Beatrix Potter. I have been a huge fan of the books and movies ever since I was little and have always wanted to theme the baby nursery as such, regardless of the gender. However the color scheme of blue and green worked particularly well for the garden/Peter Rabbit theme as well as our baby's gender. (yay for little boys!) 

          My mother and middle sister both work, and due to the holiday season they had particularly long hours and decided that they may need help decorating. I love decorating and was more than happy to come and assist, and it was easy because they already had all the supplies needed. 

  

    
          As you can see in the picture to the left, even the dining room joined the happy theme! We hung the balloons from the ceiling at various lengths to add dimension. A marble inserted into each one helped them stay in place. We also mixed plain with polka dot and had different colored ribbon tied to each. This took a lot of teamwork and we had an assembly line going to be most efficient. My sister would insert the marble (so the balloons would hang nicely), while I blew them up and tied the ribbons to them, and then my other sister would hand them up to my tall hubby who was on a ladder and attaching them the ceiling. It looked great and was really fun to walk under! Snippets of the curled ribbon decorated the floor so nothing was left untouched for festivity.


I was also in charge of lemonade! With a little help from my family and friends of course ;) I found some unique lemonade recipes online and my hubby and sisters helped me make them. They were sooo good!

Squeezing the lemon juice! So many people pitched in to help, thanks everyone!

We tied cute/themed ribbon my mom found around the mason jars.

I made the mini labels so people knew what they were getting into! The Honey Vanilla Lemonade was the very best of them, which I had not anticipated. 

Food! Family also brought delicious dishes to share. yum! back when I was allowed to eat anything and everything... ah those were the days ;)

My mom made these delicious dirt (oreo pudding) cups complete with fake flowers and gummy worms. 

And of course it's a carrot cake because it was a bunny/garden party

We played a lot of fun games and won plants as prizes. Here people filled out cards of advice for us as parents. Most of them advised us to "get sleep!" (And yes, I still have the cards. They are tucked into the baby book)

Such a beautiful toybox!

Family on both my and my hubby's side showered us with gifts for our upcoming little one, and we really have been in need of little as far as baby supplies go. A year later and I still have unopened bottles of baby soaps to work through! We managed to transport it all back to our apartment in Arizona, where it was packed up by movers the next weekend and shipped off to Italy. Just over two months later, in mid February, the shipment arrived (all in one piece! and less than a day before the baby made his appearance! What timing!). After the weeks in various hospitals for his PKU, we finally got to be home and set up the nursery. Although it's changed a fair amount since the spring, here are the pictures we took when we first got it set up:

This picture was taken before we learned how to hang things in the concrete walls, so the pictures, cross stitch from his great-grandma, and beautiful mobile my mother-in-love made aren't here.

  




Today I am thankful for family and good memories, for the one's who help you and celebrate with you. We are very blessed!

Thankfulness Day 16 - Thankful for Teachers

I could be wrong, but I’m guessing your thoughts probably go directly to schoolteachers. I am thankful for those people as well; we need teachers and it’s a big undertaking I’m not sure I would want to do, so I’m glad that others do. However, the sort of teachers I interact with currently aren’t necessarily designated teachers. Everyone has skills and talents unique to them (or at least, unique to a smaller group of people) and I appreciate when those people take the time to share their knowledge and help others learn. Perhaps it means more to me because it’s not their designated job, and they are freely giving of their own time in order to teach someone else how to improve. 

            Today the photography club organized a pin-up style photo shoot in order for photographers to practice their skills and have some fun. The people in charge of the club don’t get paid to be there, but they have a passion for the craft and they choose to take time out of their day to teach their skills to others. And I certainly learned a great deal from their shared knowledge! I also had fun playing with the photography accessories they were eager to share.

            The shoot was good fun, and we had various models arrive and they were done up by several makeup and hair stylists. The models then kindly let the photographers then got to boss them around and ask them to pose in various locations. We started in the studio and then went outside to explore an abandoned building next door. I find I much prefer shooting outdoors and interacting with a more live setting. Here are some of the shots I took today.

Working in the studio. We got to practice with the various umbrella flashes, posing, and use of backdrops. 

Here we had moved to the abandoned building next door. 

This shoot also gave me the opportunity to explore ways to edit photos.
Not sure how much I like this soft/glow sort of edit, but it's fun to mix it up.  

This is really just a shot of her hair. I like the styles! If only they weren't so time consuming to do on oneself...

Certainly not professional by any means, but it was neat to get the opportunity to experiment with new settings and people. And bonus, my hubby got some quality time with our LO at a nearby park while I shot.

Thankfulness Day 15 - Thoughts on Time...

This is supposed to be one of my days of thankfulness, but my thoughts have been concerning time. Cancer is a race against time. How fast can you heal and battle it before it consumes you? How quickly can you get a hold on it before it is too far-gone? Having been diagnosed with cancer at the last possible stage, time is truly of the essence for me, and there is no room to be lax. No matter how much time I have left, I am so thankful for the time that came before, the time I have been given on this earth.

I got married at 22 and had my son at 23. My husband and I had a lot of support in our decision to marry young, but there were also some nay-sayers. I had a good handful of people tell me no, don’t get married. You’re young, go and live life. (Because having a family isn’t living life?) Have a career and make something of yourself before “settling” down. (Because without a career you can’t make anything of yourself?) No, don’t move overseas to Italy. Stay near to the people you already know. (Should I never meet anyone new ever again?) You have plenty of time to travel. (Did I? Do YOU?) And for heavens sake don’t have children so young! Wait until you’ve both worked for awhile; save, prepare and plan for the perfect time. (Because life is so in our control that we can schedule perfect times for things like that…)

For some reason time has always been on my mind, even before my diagnosis. I knew our time on earth is uncertain, and I knew what I needed to do. As such, I knew they were wrong, and I am so glad I didn’t listen to the nay-sayers! I have lived a life of great adventures and chased after my dreams. Yes I married straight out of college at 22 and had our Little One at 23 and somewhere in there I moved halfway around the world. But who would have known that at 23, I would also be diagnosed with the most advanced stage of cancer? Turns out all those people who had to put in their two cents were wrong. Turns out I may not have had the time to marry, may not have had time to have children, and may not have had time to travel the world. And see that’s just it, NO ONE knows how much time they have left. So what are they waiting for? What are YOU waiting for!?

YOU ARE DYING! You, yes you reader. All of you and everyone else is currently dying. Some slow, some fast. Some know, some don’t. Perhaps I am the lucky one. I may know when. You don’t. You may think you are in good health and life is lovely and rosy, however you could hop in your car tomorrow and never arrive at your destination. You could go to the airport and some crazy shooter will decide your life is worthless and end it in the blink of an eye. Or you could be like me, and a darkness will seep inside and slowly eat away at your life and health before you can catch it. No matter the cause, you are currently closer to dying than you were when you started reading this post.

             

So why isn’t everyone seizing the day and living life to the fullest?! (And no, please don’t think I am advocating YOLO. What could have been a very positive trend seems to have become an excuse for the poor life choices of the youth…) And no, I don't mean you should marry whomever you're with right now or procreate at this very moment, obviously one must utilize some wisdom... I mean more of a perspective shift. I know it sounds totally cliché, but if you were to live like you were dying, would you be on facebook, or reading to your child? Would you watch tv, or go walking with your friend? etc etc. If it wasn’t a perspective you were living with before, it will certainly change and redirect your priorities now. What really matters will sift to the forefront and I believe you will be doing the things that truly make you happy and fulfill you. Prior to having cancer I would wistfully wish I had more time to hang with God, to study his word and meditate, etc. Well now that I have cancer and sit on the couch for my electromedicine therapy three hours a day, I now spend three hours in study and prayer. It's awesome! Somehow, I now have the time... where was that time before??

The thought of leaving my loved ones behind isn’t a happy one, but the idea of never having them at all is even sadder. (Rather like, “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”) So I am thankful for the decisions I have made, I don’t believe I would have done it differently if I had to do it over, and I am thankful for the time I have been given.

Now I bid thee adieu, for although I like to keep everyone updated on the blog, someone small is awaiting snuggles. Good night. (Priorities! ;) ) 

Yes, all the right decisions <3

Thankfulness Day 14 - Thankful for Creativity and Talents (Bonus: Muffin Recipe!)

Today I am thankful for creativity and talents. Every Thursday I make something for my hubby to take into his workplace for the following day and share with his fellow Airmen. It's rather like a "Congratulations, you made it to Friday!" This weekly food sharing serves multiple purposes; I get to use my talents to serve others, I get to keep my skills sharp through these weekly endeavors, his coworkers serve as my guinea pigs and give me feed back on what they did and didn't like which means when big events come around, I already have a list of tried and true recipes that I can be confident will go over well in a group, and I think it also helps make my hubby look good. (Wins all over the place!) Today it gave me the added bonus of offloading an oversupply of ingredients! Our generous landlords gave us a wee crate of apples, and I've been trying to add them to everything I make in order to use them up before they go bad.

They collected many crates of apples from the trees in our yard. Here our landlord picks some off the ground where the crate tipped. The landlady makes marmalade and all sorts with them (which they share with us!)

     I wanted some form of apple bread or muffins for my hubby to take in, because the guys need a finger/snack type of food with minimal pieces that could get taken into work and not return home... (So gooey pies in my nice pie dishes is a bad idea because chances are high the pie pan won't return home...) However my google recipe searches were depressing me. Most apple recipes called for applesauce from the store or instant apple cinnamon oatmeal packets. Really people? where is the authentic scratch made apple stuff? Many other recipes had poor reviews as being too dry or bland or not tasting like apple, etc etc. I repeatedly thought "no, this isn't what I want..." "Nope, not this either..." as I would rephrase my search hoping for better results. Then the flitting thought came dancing across the forefront of my mind and said, "Then go make what you want!" Why of course, how silly of me. I was looking for a recipe that fit what I wanted, but if I knew what I wanted, why not just do it myself? (Someone's become a little too dependent on Google me thinks...) 
      I haven't really invented a recipe before, but I decided the flitting thought had a good point, so I went for it. This endeavor was made doubly difficult by the fact that NONE of the ingredients are in my diet so I couldn't taste the batter as I went along to see how I was doing! Amazingly, they turned out SCRUMPTIOUS!!! (As told to me by others) My hubby loves them and they were approved by my friends as well. Score! I decided I can put my name in the title, since it was my concoction and all. ;) Here is the recipe I made today!!!

Om nom! You can also make this into a
bread loaf to save on muffin liners. 

Shiloh's Apple Breakfast Muffins 

Ingredients: 

-       ½ Cup Softened Butter

-       2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

-       ½ Cup White Sugar

-       ½ Cup Brown Sugar

-       2 eggs

-       1 tsp Vanilla

-       ½ Cup Sour Cream

-       2 cups Flour

-       1 tsp Baking Soda

-       ½ tsp Salt

-       1 heaping tsp ground cinnamon

-       ½ Cup Oats

-       1-2 cups worth of apples (about 2 large apples) – peeled, and grated

Optional: raisins, dried fruit, and nuts. (I added walnuts to these)
Also optional: the addition of ½ tsp each: ground cloves, ground ginger, and nutmeg. (But beware, these strong spices will detract from the apple flavor)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (or 175 degrees C) and prepare a baking pan or muffin tin through greasing or lining. 
2. In a large bowl, combine all wet ingredients, save for the apples. 
3. Add all dry ingredients into the wet and stir.
4. Grate the apple directly into the bowl and fold into batter.
5. Pour into prepared muffin tins. 
6. Optional: I mixed a 1/4 cup of oats with some cinnamon and brown sugar to sprinkle on top, for appearance sake. Now they look healthy even though we both know how much sugar we put in them... 
7. Bake for 20 minutes (or until toothpick comes out clean)
8. Eat, share, and enjoy ^_^ 

As you can see, I have many more apples to figure out what to do with...  anyone have recipe suggestions?

This recipe makes 19 muffins. (At least, it did for me. I didn't account for those who get to sample the batter along the way, resulting in fewer or smaller muffins from the batch... ) I also added some Walnuts to the batter when I added the apples. I sent them through the food processor until they were very small, because that way they are hardly noticeable and add an overall walnutty flavor to the muffins versus a large nut people can easily pick out and then not notice it's missing flavor. Let me know if you made them and any adjustments/improvements you might have made! 

I am super excited for when my crazy vegetable/cancer diet ends and I can eat baked goods again... These may be the first things I make myself. This or fudge... 

This is what happens after hours when my little one has fallen asleep, leaving me model-less. 
I start posing my food. It's a problem... 

I had good fun simply diving in and adding ingredients at my whimsy. It was also a huge confidence booster to realize that I've finally done enough baking to be able to improvise and substitute things and have everything turn out edible! Further kitchen experimentation in certainly in my future. That is why I am thankful for the ability to be creative, and for the talents God has given me that allow me to have fun and give me the opportunity to use them to serve others.