My foot surgery

I have been having foot problems for years. I have Plantar Fasciitis and a bone spur in both feet. A few years ago I walked down some stairs and ripped the Plantar Fascia ligament in my left foot. Luckily it was if I had surgery without the surgery and I have never had a problem with that foot since. Well over then past 3 years, my right foot has gotten worse and worse. I have basically exhausted all my options for trying to fix it without surgery. Multiple cortisone shots, a night splint, and shoe inserts. It was so bad that I would walk the kids to school and the next few days I could hardly walk on my foot. So since we had maxed out our insurance this year having Monica, it seemed like the perfect time to go ahead and get the surgery. The kids have 3 weeks off for Christmas Break, so it's good that we can all just relax and home and not have to worry about having to take them to school and whatnot for a while.

Here is my before X-Ray.

And here is my foot after. I had the surgery on the 21st and I have to be on crutches for the next 6 weeks. Let's just say that the past 3 days have been a huge eye opener as to how much I am not going to be able to do. I am kind of a control freak in my own home, so it's going to take a lot to let other people help and hope that the kids don't destroy the house. But I have faith and the house is still standing today! Already I have had some great help from friends. I must brag that I have the best friends ever. I could seriously not ask for better friends. You would think that with this being my second surgery this year they would be sick of helping me, but I am so lucky to have these amazing women in my life. And I have to give major props to Akoni. He has been the greatest Dad and Husband. I could not have done this without his support. The kids and I have had a few minor breakdowns while we are figuring this all out, but I think we are going to make it thru!!

So wish me luck for the next few weeks and if anyone wants to come and vacuum, do laundry or just talk, my door is open!

Look what I did!!

I always do this and it was about time!! It seems like every time after I had a baby I cut my hair. Well I held off for 5 months this time! But everyone was getting sick of finding my long hairs all over the house and yesterday I finally got fed up with it too. I called a friend at 8 this morning and asked if she would cut my hair today. She came over at 5 and it was done. I love it. It is so nice to not have the long hair. I do miss it, but it was waaaay too long. It's going to take a while to get back into the groove of styling short hair, but it's kind of fun.

My Bone Spur

This is why my foot hurts sooooo bad! Under the spur is a huge bursa sack that gets poked every time I step on my heel. I have to do three rounds of cortisone shots, very painful, and see what happens from there.

I was Featured!!

Check out www.spearmintbaby.com I was featured on Friday July 8th!

Baby #4 is coming today!!

Wish me luck, I'm having a c-section today at 12:30!! Baby did not want to turn, oh well. We'll see if it's baby girl or baby boy in a few hours!

Mother's Day

I had such the best Mother's Day!! It's funny to me how on the one day that is there to celebrate Mothers all I want to do is NOTHING that has to do with being a Mother!! Well I take that back, I still loved on my kids and husband, but they did all the cooking and cleaning, it was Awesome! I even got to take a nap after church. What a life, it was a great day. The kids made me jewelry which I will cherish forever, cute cards and I got a new phone! None of the buttons were working on mine which was getting really frustrating, so Akoni took me to the store on Saturday and I got to pick out a new phone! I have been putting it off forever, I love my old phone. It's been thru a lot, even the toilet and the thing has held on! Now I have a new gadget to play with and it's kind of fun.

I hope all of you Mother's had an awesome day!!

Here are the kids in their Easter outfits, but I had them wear them for Mother's day. Don't they look nice....

and my real kids....

Quick Baby update

My due date is in 5 days technically. But when I went into my appointment on Wednesday the baby had flipped and is now breech. That means that the feet are down and if the baby doesn't flip then I will have to have a c-section. So my days are now consisting of laying with my bum and feet up on an ironing board that is tilted against the couch to try and get pressure on the baby's head so that it will want to flip, or sitting with a frozen bag of veggies on the top of my tummy as to chill the baby's head so that it will want to flip! Yeah strange things, but they are supposed to work, so we'll see. Wish me luck!

Girls night out!

I can't believe that I took my camera and didn't get any pictures! Anyway, last night I got to use my gift card to go and get my pedicure. 2 other friends came along and it was so much fun! I really think that I could get used to doing that more often.......Anyway, then we met some other friends at LaLla Grill for dinner and went to frozen yogurt after. It was such a fun night and much needed. I feel today like I got a recharge. I've been having a tough time with the kids lately and feeling so uncomfortable being so pregnant. It was great to be able to just unwind for a few hours and not have to worry about anyone or anything. And apparently the kids put themselves all to bed!! I asked Akoni how it went and he said that Adriann came to tell him goodnight and when he went back to tuck her in Kenyon and Kamden were already asleep! How awesome was that?

37 Weeks!!

I had an appointment today and was told that the baby hasn't even dropped yet! What? How much lower can this baby get? I sit down and my legs go numb! Oh well, I still technically have 3 weeks left and I want to go 1 week longer than that, I know I'm crazy, but I need the baby born closer to the end of school. Soooo I guess it's good that the baby still has a ways to go.

(Edited) I need the baby to come closer to the end of school because of the time Akoni can get off for work and then I will have to run the carpool after he goes back to working!! So the less days I have to do it, the better!!

My 32nd Birthday!!

My birthday was a few days ago and I had such a relaxing day. Akoni got me this purse while he was away working at the Master's in Augusta. I love it!

The kids made me this candy gram and got me a gift card to get a pedicure and manicure! I am so excited to use it.

There is this Paris Bakery in Monterey that makes these To Die For Angel Food Cakes!! Angel Food Cake is my favorite kind of cake and this is the second year that Akoni has gotten me one from this bakery. He is the best!! And so is the cake!

Akoni also made some really good steak fajitas for dinner. It was a fun birthday and I loved it!

Prego pictures

My friend's husband took some family pictures for us, (kcknoopphotography.com) notice my new heading picture, and then did a quick pregnant session after. I have never done one before and it was a ton of fun. It feels weird to post these pictures of just me, but I really liked how they turned out and since this is my last (it better be!) baby, I wanted to remember this time. You know when I actually wasn't sick or sore or anything like that. I felt really good this day and it was nice to have it be all about me, well and the baby, for 30 minutes!

Where all my Flour is going....

I have been making a lot of bread. And I am sooooo bad at it. I can't get my bread to rise. I can get it to wonderfully rise in the bowl, but then I punch it down, put it in the loafs and then it could sit there all day, seriously, and not rise above the edge of the pans. I have tried sitting them under lights, in my front room by the window, in the oven with a pan of hot water and even putting them in the pans before I punch them down and they won't even rise then! The bread turns out tasting great, but it's short and no good for sandwiches which is what I wanted it for. Oh well, at least it looks pretty and tastes good!!

And slap some homemade strawberry jam on it.....DELICIOUS!!!

I also got a recipe from a girl at church from the Pioneer Woman's blog, and it is to die for!! These cinnamon rolls are the most delicious thing I have ever made and they are SO EASY! It's basically a one pot wonder recipe. And it made 8 pans of rolls! It was perfect to put some in the freezer for later. I did however have to use a different recipe for the icing. She uses brewed coffee and since I don't have any of that, I found a delicious cinnamon roll icing recipe and used it instead. Just so all my local friends know, you will be getting these rolls next year for Christmas, and you will love me for it!

32 weeks

Had to get a belly picture on here before I explode! Well the baby dropped a few weeks ago, so here is the bump. It feels a lot bigger than it looks...... I'm due May 11th and we aren't finding out what we're having. It's been an interesting pregnancy. I am at the end (hopefully) of my second bought with the flu. Well who knows what it is this time. I keep getting fevers and chills and my head feels like it's gonna pop. I also can't taste anything so eating has been a challenge for a few days. But luckily the kids are surviving and Akoni's been great to let me rest and sleep with 6 pillows propping myself up at night so I can breath! I guess my body is just getting ready for all the sleep that it's not gonna be getting in a few short weeks......

Jam and other things...

The price on strawberries finally went down and no one will eat the jar of store bought jam that has been in the cupboard for a while, so I happily have been making jam!! This is batch #6 in about 2 weeks. I can't stop, it's so good that I don't want to run out.

And this is my other project that I have sitting on my table to make. What could it be for? You'll have to wait and see! (BTW, those huge bags of flour are only $2.99 at Grocery outlet right now!)

Quick closet fix!

Embarassing photo of our closet, but it's a before picture so I don't mind as much. The floor of our closet has always been a disaster. But it has always seemed like shoe racks or organizational things are so expensive. So I have been putting off doing anything about it and just kept shoving shoes and 72 hour backpacks and who knows what into the closet.

Well I needed a new project, so after our Relief Society class on Organization I decided to tackle the closet.

Here is the After picture of the floor of our closet now. All I did was buy a $10 piece of wood, painted it with some paint we had in the garage, and set it on some food storage cans, and voila!! Don't mind the bag in the middle, those are Kamden's birthday presents that are not there now, so there is actually way more room. Everything is much more organized. I know it's not much, but it works!

Bench and Shelf together at last!

I FINALLY finished the Shelf to go along with my Bench that I made forever ago. I would put a link in here for it, but I don't know how to do that. But it's in the bottom picture, so just look there. So here in the shelf before I painted it.

And the finished shelf hanging on the way, thanks to my wonderful husband that hung it up for me after going to Home Depot and buying hooks and putting those on also. Without him, it would be sitting my garage forever because I had no idea how to get it up on the wall once it was finished!!

These side hooks were also Akoni's idea. It's so nice to have the keys up there because then we aren't losing them on the desk, except that I keep forgetting they are up there and run around the house trying to find them until I remember where they are!

And the finished project, Bench and Shelf together at last!!

Finished my bench!!

I made this!

Yes, I probably should wait till it's painted and completely finished, but I am just so excited that I made this!! It's for our front hall. Bins will go in the cubbies and then that's where we will hide our shoes! I can't wait till it's done and in the hall!! I'll post pictures of it when it's done.