Mini St. Geezy Trip

Hey blogger, you sick of me today? Micah had some work visits to make in St. George this week so the fam and I tagged along for a quicky visit.. So while we drove down & during his store visits I updated a ton of posts and wrote a bunch of entries too. Sorry for the overhaul of your feed!

Thursday

We left Herriman on Thursday morning just as it started snowing at our house... Seriously Utah?! Uuuugh I've been dying for stormy days and snow and NOW is when you deliver? Typical. 

Anyway, it turned pretty sunny as we headed south (seriously depressing). Micah had some work calls to do so I blogged and did some Pinterest "work". 

 

Zoey tried the ENTIRE drive to get onto our laps.. Kill me, she's such a big dog now!

Yep that's totally gonna work for you Zo. 

We got down to St. George around 2ish and Micah had to do a store visit right away, so I just hung out with the kiddos. Once he was done we checked into the Ramada & I started sewing. Yep sewing. Right before we left for St. George, I got a bunch of Christmas orders that I needed to make and send out that night to ensure they arrived before Christmas. So little ol' Gertrude came with us. Or Gerty as I call her.  ;P

I finished up just as we were all getting a little hangry & we popped over to the Chili's right by our hotel. 

Olive immediately became an ambidextrous artist while we waited for the chips & salsa. 

All artists are starving, right?

I love Micah's spider hand trying to stop her hahahaha!!

Our dinner was delish and we finished off with a yummy cookie skillet. So many calories but soo good! 

After dinner, we hopped over to the post office so I could mail my packages. Poor Liv was asleep before we left the Chili's parking lot.. Unfortunately she was wide awake when we got back to the room though! We tried laying her down in the pack n play when we first got into the room around 9:30pm (already 2 hours past her bedtime) but she was super pissed and was screaming her little head off.. So we let her wander the room and she just got insane! Our crazy babe was wired and giggly til we tried laying her down again at 11pm.. Seriously! She finally fell asleep around the same time we did too. 

I think the mixture of getting a tiny nap in the car, plus being in a new setting, and being back in a crib-like bed really threw her off. Poor thing. 

Friday

The next morning Micah had an early store visit.. he tried to sneak out the door without waking Livi up, but once the door lock unlatched, Olive sat up, looked right at him and says "hiiiiiiiii!" Super happy and wide awake! Awesome. 

So he left and I snuggled Livi in the king bed with Zoey for a little while. I was still SO tired! This pregnancy has killed me lately.. I've felt really good and not uncomfortable, but man, I get tired at like 9pm now. I've fallen asleep on our couch more times than I can count lately! 

Anyway, Micah called me around 9:30am and said he was coming back to get me to grab breakfast with Ben & Ali (bro and sis in law). I was totally not even ready yet.. Neither was Olive!

So I leapt up from watching some Disney somethin with Livi and got ready. Micah showed up like 5 minutes later & got Livi ready. 

Ben & Ali were waiting for us at The Bear Paw Cafe where we had a suuuuper yummy breakfast. Pretty sure I didn't eat lunch because it was so filling. Pancakes & bacon. What more could a girl need? 

Olive was uncharacteristically cranky during breakfast. She didn't want anything to eat, just wanted to play on my phone and walk up and down the ramp leading into the restaurant. 

She was exhausted unfortunately. It was 11:30 (past her normal nap time) and she only got 8 ish hours of sleep in comparison to her normal 12-13 hours. My child is a zombie. Love her.

We hurried over to our hotel to pack up our crap & get Micah over to another store visit. Liv was totally helping pack up. 

Again for his store visit I hung out with Liv & Zo and updated my blog & social media crap. 

Livi took a really good nap for once. 

And Zoey joined in. 

Once Micah finished up his store visit we headed to Tonaquint Park to get our girls some much needed exercise and to stretch their legs. 

Zoey pretty much sprinted around in a circle for the first 20 minutes. Poor girl was SO sick of the car!

Liv was stoked to play all over the park & chase Zoey. 

I can't get enough of those baby blues. Love her. 

I tried to get a group picture right before we left but... I ended up kinda smacking Zoey's head into Olive's. Poor kiddo was having a blast and then Zo's thick skull crashes into her face. Ugh. Worst mommy ever. So we promptly left the park.  :(

Micah's last store to visit was in Cedar City, on our way back home. So he hopped into the store and we waited in the car. Liv ate a disgusting sounding lunch/dinner... Avocado with Chex cereal. In her mouth at the same time. She'd get two Chex pieces in her mouth then then to me with her mouth wide open, totally asking for avocado. Yuck. But she ate the whole avocado & almost the whole tupperware of cereal! Whatever works. 

I then let her crawl all over the car & she loved life. 

She was ready to go home!

Micah came back to the car & we stopped over at Cafe Rio for dinner and Liv had no interest in food.. Just in ice. Weirdo. Although I don't blame her; their ice is pretty amazing. 

A quick gas fill up & bathroom stop and we headed out of Cedar. Homeward bound!

Liv and Zo fell asleep within 5 minutes of driving.. Poor things. 

We left Cedar around 6:30pm and made good time, got home around 10pm. As nice as it is to get away for a little break, there's just nothing like home. And your own bed. Holy crap my bed is incredible. 

Enough blogging for me, adios!

xoxo

Mandi

Lights, curtains, & trees... oh my!

Quick post to update some fun new editions to the Russell Casa!

First one that I'm most excited about.. 

We have curtains!!!

When Micah and I built our house, we never planned on getting blinds on our family room windows. The land behind our house is protected by some wildlife pathway conservation so no houses will ever be built obstructing our view. Yahtzee! So we always want to be able to enjoy the view. However, it gets pretty hot during the day. And I get super cranky when I'm hot. Soooo.. Curtains are the best option to give us an open view and also provide shade when we want it. Love. I found these gems at IKEA for only $39 for two curtains. They're a bit thicker (which I wanted) but IKEA has some for only $19 too. 

And true to Russell tradition, we literally drilled them to the wall mere hours before my Festive Favorite Things Party!

But they went really fast thank goodness and didn't require too much effort. Well, no effort for me, poor Micah.  ;P  

Olive wanted to help 

The only annoying effort was having to move our couch so Micah could fit the ladder by the window. 

The curtains were hung within 30 minutes of Micah and I starting on them (not including me washing & drying them the night before.. They were really creased and I hate ironing) and I totally love how they turned out with our style home. 

Second most exciting part:

We finally got our Christmas lights up!!! Last year, Micah and I couldn't agree on what color or style to do (I wanted multicolor, but like old school incandescent and he wanted white). We settled on incandescent white hahaha and I love how they turned out! The Holiday Depot or The Christmas Ligt Professionals had the best offer for us -- $100 for a custom fitting to our house. Buying them in boxes and having random strings ending in weird places would've been about $120 from Walmart so we totally scored. And they are spaced out how I love them (12 inches apart) so you can actually see each bulb individually, not just jumbles of lights. 

We also finished decorating our tree and I totally love the end result. I need this kinda tree from now on. 

The bulbs are from Hobby Lobby, tree skirt from Walmart & the red pearls are from Target. 

xoxo

Mandi

Baby Bump #2

I'm pregnant! 

Since 5 weeks I've had Micah take belly pics for me so that I can track this pregnancy a little better than I did when I was prego with Liv. So far is has been way easier than my pregnancy with Olive.. No nausea or vomiting, hip pain is much slighter (thus far), and I really feel good. Totally loving these last 5 months!

Here's the belly progress:

I will be updating this post every 3 weeks with pics. I'm terrible at keeping an active journal so.. This is as good as it gets!

Tiny update: my due date is April 8th and at my 33 wk appt I was scheduled to be induced on April 3rd!! 

xoxo

Mandi

Festive Favorite Things Party

Tis the season for parties!

My good friend Brittany and I threw a favorite things party with a holiday twist... 

In case you aren't familiar with "favorite things" parties, here's my first party I threw & I explained what they are. 

So for our party, we added a Christmassy flair to all of the details and it was perfect! I totally want to do this every year now!

I made the invites with my go-to favorite app, Rhonna Designs. 

I whited out my address & our numbers and it somehow made my image really grainy. Again. 😣 Ugh whatever! We decided to mail out the invites instead of doing a FB or email invite -- Kinko's was the cheapest option for printing off the invites, then we just dropped them in the mail. Between the two of us, the invites were less than $15. 

Anyway, the night of the party, Brittany came over early and helped do the final prep. She made a SUPER yummy chicken enchillada soup/stew/chili (I can't decide what to call it... Porridge? Hahaha!) and I made my fave green salad (strawberries, goat cheese, pecans, & strawberry vinaigrette dressing) & some festive cake pops. I have an addiction to cake pops, seriously! 🙈

We stuck with the red & green theme, getting matchy matchy plates, cups, & straws. Thank you Target for all your cuteness! 

Micah crashed the dinner before leaving with Olive to do some Christmas secrets. 

The sweets and treats were all set on the desk in my kitchen and were sooo sugary sweet & tempting!

When people arrived we had them write their names on slips of paper (three times) and drop them into a bowl. That's for later, for the gift exchange. They also picked up the quizzes and filled them out after we ate. 

Ps I also made the quiz on the same app

Again blurry and lame. Stupid internet. 

So we ate (a lot!) & just chatted. We had chips & queso, salsa, and spinach dip to munch on, plus rolls for the soup/stew/chili/porridge 😝 and lots of soda options. Dr. Pepper for me, of course. 

About an hour after everyone arrived & ate, we went into my family room and went over the quiz answers. 

Some people's answers were hilarious! Especially about finding out about Santa.. Totally killed me! I learned when I was young ish and snooping for gifts (which I still do.. Poor Micah) with my bro and we found gifts that later came from Santa, with my mom's handwriting. Talk about heartbreaking! And some had to be told when they were older, as in middle school aged.. No names haha but I feel for ya fellow naive friends! 

As we ran through the questions, Olive got back with Micah so she and my friend Lindsey's baby Bailey played together, drank milk, and took some selfies. 

Hey everyone, come see how good we look! 

The most unique Christmas person was a tie between Misty & Maegan and after a quick Christmas trivia hunt for a tie breaker, we gave up and went with the "rock paper scissors" method and Maegan ended up winning the prize: a mistletoe stamped burlap table runner I made & a cute drink set filled with chocolate. Omm nom nom!

We did the gift swap next and we each came away with some seriously fun goodies! To name a few gifts, they were candles, books, bubble bath sets, cozy socks, gift cards, lotions & perfumes, inspirational cards & mints, etc. 

It was SO great to get together with such an amazing group of girls! We stuffed our faces, exchanged some amazing gifts, and got to play catch up and chat a ton. 

If you are looking for a fun and inexpensive way to throw a holiday party, I highly recommend doing a festive favorite things party. Amazing combo of my favorite things -- no pun intended! 😜

xoxo

Mandi

Small Miracles

Today was a surprisingly emotional day for Micah and I. It started normally, nothing too exciting. Olive turned 18 months today -- I can't believe my little babe is already a year and a half.. Goodness! 

So Livi's 18 mo wcc came up today with her amazing doc Dr. Duffy and I had a couple of questions about toddler life: 

• how to introduce more meat into her meals (if this girl could survive on veggies and fruit alone she totally would.. Which isn't a bad thing haha just not super protein-rich)

• how to prep her for her baby brother's arrival

• and if her little pokey back was ok. She's got this tiny nub on her back when she leans forward that one of the spinal columns sticks out a little more than the rest. I wouldn't even care/bother to ask about it, but when I was in middle school and the "nurses" were checking for scoliosis, they had to check my back twice because I've got a slight curve in it.. Which makes my hips hate life. 

So anyway, among the regular chit chat, when my doc checked her back, he laid her down on the bed and was checking her spine along with her tummy. He asked me if her stomach was always tense like that and I was really confused. Granted, she was screaming her head off, but I've never noticed her stomach feeling hard. 

So after the rest of the checks, Dr. Duffy said he wanted to run an X-ray to check on her tummy as well as the spine. I didn't think anything of it, said sure, and the MA came in to give Liv her flu shot. 

She hated life, naturally. 

They wanted her in a gown for the X-ray so I buttoned her into their adorably huge gown and had to take a picture.. 

Mean mommy I know.. Poor thing. 

So with a screaming Livi on my hip, Micah and I wandered through the office to the X-ray room. I couldn't go in the room because I'm pregnant so Micah had to take Olive from me.. Which brought on a fresh round of screams and tears. 

My heart broke just a titch having to listen to her cry from the hall and be unable to hold her.  :'(

Once she was out of there, & done with that torture, we went back into the room and got her dressed.  Dr. Duffy came in looking a little stressed, but it was a Monday so I didn't really think much of it. 

He then shows us the X-ray and starts explaining what is going on with Livi. 

Her stomach is being distended because of gas, but not just a little.. It's pushing all the way down into her large intestine, which is totally backed up with poop. 

That's a super horrible pic because I didn't want to ask to take the pic.. They typically don't let you anyway.. So it's awesome quality. 

But if you can see, there's a white blob with the white line that separates her stomach from the intestines, and it's pushed way huge. It's supposed to be very small and black (empty or full of food) but hers pushes past her ribs and into the large intestines. And if you can see, the dark swirls is her large intestine full of poop. 

Dr. Duffy was scared because at first glance, it seemed like a big mass, a big tumor. Big scary C word potential. So he called the pediatric radiologist at Primary's and had him look at the X-ray to give his diagnosis. Amazingly and thankfully it is only air and poop. 

I'm sure Olivev will kill me for posting this when she's older, but I had to share my incredible gratitude towards this news. We went into the doctor today for a well check up, a happy visit with a healthy child and could have received so much worse news. To even think or consider what our steps would have been if the X-ray showed a tumor.. World changing. More X-rays, blood work, ultrasounds, surgery, chemo, radiation... My little baby, my world, would have to undergo so much at such a young age. But that isn't in her future. She just needs to clean out her system with a little help from Miralax and keep living life the same. With so many people that I read about, hear about, and actually know going through big health concerns and surgeries.. It just makes my heart swell with gratitude and brings tears to my eyes that we don't have to undergo that trial and hardship. I'm not saying our lives will are trial-free or that we don't have hardships, but that in this instance we had God's hand watching over us and protecting my sweet baby from that pain. 

I'll be holding miss Olive extra tight tonight.

xoxo

Mandi