Friday Favorites: Surgery Edition

Thank you so much for all of your kind words, messages, notes and texts this week!

I had surgery on Monday and everything went FANTASTIC.

I'm still in a little bit of shock.  

After my surgery on August 3rd did not go as planned, I was feeling anxious and discouraged about a follow up surgery two weeks later on August 17.  I was stressed about the whole process - traveling out of town for surgery, hoping and praying my new doctor could take care of everything in one surgery, that I'd get some clear answers and simple solutions, 3 young kids to take care of and both Olive and Kevin headed back to school the very next day.  I'm very thankful I got in so quickly, but it made for a stressful August.

My original diagnosis of an ovarian cyst was totally wrong.  I spent the last year plus thinking this is what I had and coming up with a game plan for taking care of it after Leo was born. 

I actually had a rare Mesenteric Cyst (large cyst in the mesentery attached to my colon). 

Thankfully, my OB did not attempt to remove it during either of my previous surgeries (csection & first cyst surgery) with her this year.  My surgery with the specialist this week took a little over an hour and he said the removal went perfectly without any harm to my colon (something we wouldn't know until the actual surgery).  My surgery ended up as our best case scenario.  Kevin said he almost hugged him during their post surgery meeting.  We'd been told this doctor was the best and he lived up to that.  We are really thankful that Kevin's dad connected us with him since they both work at the same hospital.  

I got to go home the same night of my surgery and be there for Olive's first day of school.  Olive declared, "It's a miracle!" God was looking out for me throughout this whole process taking care of all of the details.  I'm so thankful to be able to look back and see the disappointments and discouraging news at the time were actually blessings.  

A few favorite take aways from the week:

1. Having to have surgery during these crazy COVID times is so lonely.  Most hospitals allow no visitors for surgery and it can be really scary when you're facing unknowns alone.  For this surgery, Kevin basically dropped me off at check in and picked me up curbside after I'd been dismissed from recovery.  He had to wait in the parking lot.  It was hard on both of us.

2. Family and friends praying for you, checking in on you and doing nice things for you means so much.  Cards, texts, messages and drop offs are so encouraging. 

3. Sometimes when things don't make sense - keep asking questions, seeking help and finding a specialist to help you.  My whole game plan and care changed when I got the help of a specialist.

4. Ask for help.  My parents came in town to take care of the kids and my mom stayed all week.  I don't like asking for help and usually try to take care of most things on my own.  She was a total lifesaver.  She helped so much with Leo, with all the household things this week and made sure that I got to take it easy so I could heal. 

5. Waiting for COVID test results is stressful.  I had no reason to believe they'd be positive.  I haven't been out and about much and was extra careful in the days leading up to my surgery.  However, waiting on my COVID test results was so stressful because I knew it would impact the whole family negatively if my results came back positive.  Thankfully they were negative, but my heart goes out to people who are stressing about their own COVID results.

HOORAY for the weekend and I'm so happy to report that I'm feeling great.  I've got lots of incisions to heal all over my stomach and a follow up appointment in a couple of weeks, but I'm feeling super optimistic.  I feel like I can take a deep breath and really relax this weekend.  I hope you can do the same :)

Playing the waiting game.  Trying to be brave.

Mimi & Leo.  He has gotten super grabby and loves to help you do whatever you're doing.  The big kids loved having her here and had a great time.

Lots of Topher snuggles.

Pre surgery walk around the hospital.

Here's to hoping the rest of 2020 is uneventful and kind to my family :)

Pulled Pork Burrito Bowls & Quesadillas

I have a really delicious recipe to share with you today.  It's an old recipe that I revamped for my family last week.  I started making this pulled pork when we lived in Utah.  It's reminiscent of Cafe Rio's pulled pork if you're familiar with that restaurant.  It's been a bit since I've shared a detailed recipe with you.  My whole family enjoyed this and Kevin requested it be a regular on our dinner rotation.

This is the easiest crockpot recipe that can be used so many ways - burrito bowls, quesadillas, tacos or eaten plain.  It's delicious!  The meal feels very fancy and is really easy to put together.  I could eat this every week.

 

Pulled Pork Ingredients:

3-4lbs pork tenderloin

1 2 liter of Coke

1 c brown sugar

2T bacon grease

1/2 c mild salsa

salt and pepper

Directions: Cook pork tenderloin in coke for 6 hours.  Drain and shred the meat.  Then mix all of the remaining ingredients into the cleaned out crock pot until they're well combined.  Add back in the shredded meat and let heat up together for another hour.  It's ready to serve!  

The meat reheats really well so it's the perfect meal to cook once and eat 2-3 times.

 

Burrito Bowl Toppings:

The adults love the burrito bowls and the kids preferred their ingredients separate.

Lime rice (white rice cooked with the zest and juice of one lemon or lime) 

shredded cheddar

black beans

corn

finely shredded lettuce

jalapenos

guacamole

sour cream

salsa

tortilla chips

Homemade pico (finely chop Roma tomatoes, yellow, purple and green onions, salt and pepper and the juice of a lime)

Quesadillas:

Pulled Pork, cheese, tortilla shells.

Serve with guac, lettuce, black bean hummus or salsa.

*Make your life easier and use your pizza cutter to cut up your quesadillas.  The kids and adults loved these.

Have you tried this Lantana Black Bean Hummus??  It's SO GOOD!  I love it with tortilla chips, sweet peppers, with tacos, on nachos, etc.

Would your friends or family enjoy this recipe??  Share it with them or make it for them!

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday!  I hope you have had a nice week.  We're gearing up for back to school (next week!!), having fun doing crafts together, trying new recipes, doing regular things around the house and doing our best to focus on the positives during these uncertain times.

I took a rapid COVID test on Wednesday because... I am having surgery on Monday out of town.  The COVID test was super quick, curbside and no big deal really.  I'm so glad to get a negative result so I can continue on with our plan for surgery.  I'd REALLY appreciate your prayers for everything to go smoothly for me and my family.  I'm trying to focus on all the positives (I am really thankful for my doctor and that he got me onto his schedule quickly) and not let the worries or unknowns get to me.  I'm working ahead to try and make things easy for my parents who are coming to stay with the kids and for myself as I'm recovering at home.  Both Kevin and Olive head back to school next week so, if you think of me or my family, please send prayers, well wishes and lots of happy thoughts our way!

Favorite parts of our week were:

Leo turned 4 months old!  He's so sweet and so loved!  Isn't he so cute in overalls??

He recently discovered his toes (one of my very favorite baby milestones) and has a lot to say every day.

I finally took the plunge and ordered a stack of personalized bracelets from my favorite shop - ADV Designs.  The earring lady that I recommend ALL the has branched out to make darling bracelets.  You can find her bracelets listed in her etsy shop - ADV Designs.  They're HALF OFF right now and only $6 each.  I just love this stack with all my kid's names on it.  The wooden beads are each unique and the bracelets are great quality.  There are lots of options - black beads, wooden beads, personalized and not.  Wouldn't this be a fun gift for a lady, mom, grandma or friend in your life??

 

 The cats say hello.  Topher is finally feeling better.  They've been extra snuggly this week.  I am jealous of all their napping.

Our sunsets have been so pretty!  We call them cotton candy clouds and we have caught some lovely views from our backyard this Summer.  The kids love running out in their pjs to check it out and watch the lightning bugs come out.  We've been going on bike rides and enjoying the view.

Leo is in the midst of a bit of a sleep regression.  He's not thrilled about bedtime, taking cat naps vs real naps during the day and he doesn't seem to mind one bit.  He must like the alone time with mom and dad in the evenings from 9-11pmish.  He's getting so big.  We'll just let it slide, snuggle him a little more and I'm sure he'll be back to sleeping like normal soon.

The clouds have been really puffy and fun lately.  The corn has also been delish in the Midwest this Summer.

Our hummingbirds and butterflies have been very busy.  We have had lots of fun watching them fight over the feeders on our kitchen window.

Leo had his 4 month well check.  He's the sweetest butterball.  He's growing, gaining weight and hitting all the milestones.  We're super thankful for a sweet healthy baby.

We went through the drive thru at our favorite donut shot - Square Donuts.  Lemon for me.  Square for Olive and cake donut for Fletcher.

Glimpse into real life.  Me trying to get some work done while holding the baby.  Big kids having a picnic lunch.  Art, fort building supplies and lots of baby gear nearby.

Dot's PSA.  Avoid the Southwest Style Dot's pretzels.  They are not good.  Kevin bought them on accident and yuck.  They taste like they're coated heavily in taco seasoning and are spicy.  It's like you opened a pouch of taco seasoning and took a big lick.  Stick to the Dot's Homestyle Pretzels for sure!!

 

Hope you have a good weekend!  I'll be enjoying the time with my family, prepping for surgery and look forward to coming back next week to give you a great update on how everything went.  Hugs to you!

 Linking up with Momfessionals

FREE Organizing Jars

I often see these posts offering the best organizing containers and they're usually pretty pricey.  The social media personality usually claims they're great organizers and offers affiliate links to shop.  Today, I'm going to share with you a really fun way to organize things around your kitchen, pantry and house without having to spend any extra money.  Yay!

I love organizers of all kinds, but I don't love paying lots of money for systems or brand name items.  My friend Alison got me thinking about this earlier this year and Kate from @naptimekitchen often repurposes free things around her house to help her organize.

I'm really excited to share a FREE organizing system with you today.  Many of you mentioned to me that you'd love to see more organizing posts from me in the coming year.  Yes, please!  That is one of my favorite topics.

Organizing Jars.  This system is so simple and won't cost you anything extra at the store.  Just buy the items you'll use and keep an eye out for great GLASS jars.  

I'll show you my favorites - they've got good lines, plain lids and the labels come off perfectly.  I have repurposed them all over my house.  They're great containers and I love that I've found a free system to keep things organized.

Let me give you a little jar tour around my house.  

 I use glass jars to hold everything from extra spices, chia seeds or flax seed (or anything I buy in bulk), chopped Butterfingers, pickled onions, yeast and tons of craft supplies.  I even keep leftovers stored in some of the larger glass jars instead of buying more expensive Pyrex containers for leftovers.  These are fun to use when you're taking meals to a friend.  The smaller jars are great for sauces, dressings and the larger jars are great for soups or sides.  These jars work for everything!

These are my favorite jars - they're green olive jars from Walmart or Meijer.  Their lids are gold with no printing or labels.  The Great Value brand label peels right off.

Atlas jars are great square jars and you can find them with pizza sauce or pasta sauce in them.  I currently use one as my grease jar in the fridge. 

Jam jars are always cute and fun to save.

Another square pasta sauce jar works great for housing water beads.

We go through a lot of pickles and green olives.  This pickle jar has been great for leftovers or for snacks when you've got half a package left and need to keep the cookies fresh.

 

Can you think of any ways you could save and use jars around your house for some FREE organization??

Weekend Rewind

Thank you SO MUCH for all of your sweet messages, emails and texts about my surgery and hard week last week.  It means the world to me.  It was a really exhausting week, but as with most things, given some time, we are starting to see the blessings in our circumstances.

We went on a short road trip to our hometown to see a specialist on Friday.  My sister kept the kids and Kevin went to the appointment with me.  My new doctor was wonderful.  He was very confident in my diagnosis, care and surgery plan moving forward.  We heard he's the best in the area and he lived up to the hype.  I'll be having surgery with him sometime later this month.  And while I'm not thrilled for a 3rd surgery this year, I am very thankful to have his expertise on my side.

We spent a coupe days with family and then zoomed back home.

We headed down to the river for a walk.  Leo was extra clingy after a road trip and a couple hours away from mom.  Look at all that fuzzy new hair coming in!

We looked through some baby pictures at my parent's house.  Baby Whitney below looks a lot like Baby Leo :)  And it looks like I found proof that I've always loved polka-dots and floral prints!

 A few more fun pictures from walking by The Ohio River.  We walked, Olive found four leaf clovers, watched boats go by and picked up pizza for dinner.

Nerf guns are life for Fletcher right now.  He traveled with one and it barely left his sight.

My MIL's flowers were gorgeous!!

Slow mornings and snuggles.

Handsome boys!

The ice cream truck came through our neighborhood on Sunday.

Hope you had a nice weekend :)

Friday Favorites (Despite a Hard Week)

Happy Friday!  This week has been a l-o-n-g one over here.

I had surgery on Monday.  It was supposed to be a fairly simple procedure.  I woke up thinking all went well only to find out things were more complex than expected, the surgery didn't happen as planned and I was being referred to a specialist.  I was SO sad to find this out.  I was really anxious to have it done and behind me after over a year of keeping an eye on things.  I am hoping the specialist I see comes up with a fabulous game plan for me, but right now, I'm a little nervous about all of it. 

I am very thankful that I didn't have a bad reaction to anesthesia this time (remember how sick I was for hours after I had my C-section!?!) and I felt sore, but no nausea post surgery.  That was a huge blessing!  Now we're on to working with a specialist and scheduling another surgery.  I get to meet with him this afternoon.  I'm optimistic that he's the best and will know how to help me. 

I'd really appreciate your prayers for me and my family during this process.  I know many of you are moms or busy ladies who understand that it's really hard to be out of commission when so many people are depending on you.  I also have one black and blue arm from an IV gone wrong and two blood shot eyes.  I look like I've been through the wringer.  I'm a literal picture of the chaos of 2020 - ha!

I would have never dreamed 2020 would involve me having 3 surgeries.  I'm a healthy lady and had never had surgery before this year.  I hope one major take away from this year is how important it is to take care of myself.  I'm learning to advocate for myself, schedule regular well checks and make sure my health is top priority to ensure I'm able to take care of my family.

Like many of you, 2020 has been one full of challenges for our family. 

I would have never believed it if you would have told me that life would involve the words quarantine, social distancing, school shut downs, wearing masks and so much isolation due to Covid.  I'm still getting over Fletcher being attacked by a dog and dealing with scars (his) and emotional scars (the rest of the family).  I never would have guessed I would have to have a csection or have health issues to deal with that required surgery.  And who knew back to school decisions would be so stressful?  I think we have a solid game plan for Olive and Fletcher to return to school, but nothing feels easy right now.

Leo is BY FAR the biggest blessing of 2020, but honestly, I could have done without the rest of the trials.  I realize that life has been hard for everyone so I just want to send you a virtual hug today and to ensure you that you aren't the only one struggling this year.  Anyone else feeling this way about the year?  I'm hoping to push fast forward to the remaining months, find highlights along the way and focus on the positives.

I'm praying for God's protection and guidance as we navigate the days ahead.  I am also listening to Rend Collective's Song Counting Every Blessing on repeat.

I am counting every blessing, counting every blessing.

Letting go and trusting when I cannot see.

I am counting every blessing, counting every blessing.

Surely every season you are good to me.

Speaking of blessings and positives, let's see what the highs were from this week despite some major lows.

Ready for surgery on Monday.  Kevin has been working from home for months, but I appreciate him rearranging his schedule time and time again for me to make it to various dr appointments.  Can't wait to put all of this behind us. 

A care basket from a friend was such a thoughtful surprise.  Something for the kids, for me and for the whole family. 

These 3 cuties.  They're so sweet together and I'm really thankful for them.  They've learned how to give gentle hugs, learned to do some more things for themselves and have been perfectly happy with all of our low key days at home.

My parents came up to stay with the kids while I had surgery.  The kids loved having them here and my mom texted me this picture after they left.  It's pretty accurate - Leo constantly surrounded by the big kids.

Olive requests pumpkin chocolate chip cookies year round.  I made her wish come true this week and we enjoyed some pumpkin cookies.  Here's the link to The Best Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Thanks for listening to me ramble today.  And thanks for be here.  Wish I could give all of you a big squeeze today and say better days are ahead for all of us!! 

I've got an appointment with a specialist this afternoon and I'm praying he'll be confident in my treatment plan, case and surgery going forward.  I have no clue what that means for scheduling, blogging and real life.  So I'll be back to blogging whenever I can and would appreciate prayers in the meantime for a speedy recover.  Lots of love to you!

Linking up with Momfessionals

Making Hello Fresh Work for a Family

We've been enjoying Hello Fresh meal deliveries for a couple of years now. 

They're delicious, challenge me to try new cooking techniques in the kitchen and are fun for this foodie.  They are definitely more work and make bigger messes than my go to recipes, but I love the variety they add to our meals.  They are a really fun splurge meal for us.  They're cheaper than getting take out or going out to dinner and getting a babysitter.  It's a fun service that my husband and I both love.

Our kids are growing and eating bigger meals every month.  We have always ordered the 2 person meals from Hello Fresh and can't quite justify the price of the 4 person dinner options.

I'm here to give you some tips and trick for stretching the 2 person meals to work for a larger family.  All of the meals I am showing you worked well for 2 adults and 2 kids under the age of 8.

Meal #1 Mexican Pork Street Tacos

These were delicious.  I rarely cook with ground pork and we loved these.  The lime crema was so good, too.  Be careful on the fresh jalapenos - they burned my hands taking out the seeds.  I love any recipe that calls for pickling onions or peppers.  It's a technique that we both love and one that I hope to incorporate in my day to day recipes.

There are 3 tacos per person.  It's easy to share or to add chips and salsa.  Our kids opted not to share this one so I made them some frozen Taquitos instead.  We all shared chips and salsa and had similar things for dinner.

Meal #2 // Balsamic Fig Chicken

This was delicious.  We loved all the flavors and ingredients.

Tip: Add lots of veggies as sides to beef up you meal.  Also, the kids love to help wash, chop and season veggies for roasting.

Tip: Add a fun bread as a side.  These Brazi Bites from Sams are a favorite as well as a loaf of homemade sourdough bread.

Trick: We usually divide the meat into thirds - one third for each adult and then the kids split the other third.

Meal #3 // Brown Sugar Bourbon Steak

We really enjoyed this meal.  The pan sauce and cut of steak was really delicious.

Tip: To simplify and multiply this recipe, I opted to roast the potatoes with the brussles sprouts and add broccoli.  That way I was cooking all the veggies the same way giving me less dishes to mess with. 

Have you tried a meal delivery service for your family??  Would these tricks work for you?