Texas

At the end of February we went to Texas to meet some of the family on Ryan's mother's side that I have not met yet. Tessa has not met any of them! So we decided that we should go and so Tessa can also meet her Great Great Grandfather. 

Here she is sitting at the airport drooling and waiting

We went out to lunch with everyone. Theses are Ruth's (Ryan's mom) sisters and her (Missing one sister Amy).  We did eat a lot of yummy food there. I really wanted to go near the coast, but we didn't have enough time. 

Ryan and his cousin Sean. He is an awesome guy! 

I think these girls would be Tessa's cousins? They are Tessa's great grandma's brother's son's kids. They are so sweet. They just wanted to sit by Tessa. They even fought over who gets to sit the closetest to her.

Her first time at the wheel. While we were there we rented a Ford Flex. It was a really nice car to ride in. Will I ever drive one? Prob not (Ryan pretty much drove the whole time), It was a very large car. 

Meeting Papa for the first time (great great grandfather). I think he is in his 90s now. Can't remember now old he is. He is still quite alert, age has caught up to him and he is very tired and hard of hearing. 

She was exhausted 

The 5 Generation picture

Ryan has a uncle mike that lives on .....a lot of land. He has long horns and they are just so fun. They have tons of little calves running around. 

I could not help but admire their house. 

Mike's wife made some volcano cake? it was delish...I know it looks like Tessa really wanted some, but I think what she really wanted was the silver fork I was using.

It was beautiful up there. I want to live there.

They had a garden that I just loved. I know it does not look like they have a lot growing, but we got to taste some of the turnip that they grew and it was awesome!

Tessa and Nana (great grandmother)

It was such a good visit and I hope to go back again. Tessa did great on the flight as well. Only fussed a little bit and no screaming. She did so much better then all the other kids on the same flight.

Painting a table

There are so many ways of painting a piece of furniture. This is what I picked for this particular table. With any furniture that you would want to repaint, please do yourself a favor and take the time to sand it down!!!

After sanding I started with a coat of Ivory. I almost always use spray paint because it is much easier especially around those decorative legs. 

After the Ivory coat dries I painted my last coat. The purpose of the Ivory coat is just so when I sand down the brown the Ivory will peep through.

Here I have the Brown all done above. Below you can see that I started to sand it down.

Here is the finished piece in my living room. Big mistake that I have made was the direction I spray painted and sanding. I should have spray painted length wise because that is the direction I was sanding. Oh well, Not going to sand it down and redo again. Still looks great!

Next project...painting those curtains you see on the windows. 

Family Fun

I know, it is kinda wrong of me to say family fun when all the pictures I have is of Tessa. She is just so cute, we love to watch her and sometimes laugh at all the funny things she does. We had our first little outing in our back yard yesterday on Ryan's day off. 

 First Tank top of the year!

We had a little picnic out too...she was the only one eating though. :)

Strawberry Cake

I love this strawberry cake recipe. Every time I make it before you know it, it will be all gone! (Sorry no pictures. I would take one, but I already ate half of it)

Ingredients:
half package of vanilla cake
1 package of cream cheese
1 tub of whip topping
1C powder sugar
1lb of fresh strawberry hulled
1tub of strawberry glaze

Bake cake according to package in a 13x9 pan (preferably glass)

Soften cream cheese and add in powder sugar. *Mix very well. Then add whip topping to the cream cheese mix

Chop strawberry to little pea size pieces

When the cake is cooled spread the cream cheese mixture on top and add the chopped strawberries (spread it around) then add the glaze (spread that too)

Refrigerate for a few hours and it is done!

I have made my own whipcream instead of buying the whip topping. It is still delish, but it does not firm up as well. You can also make your own strawberry glaze if you chose to.

Enjoy!

Photos

Yes I know I promised photos 2 posts or so ago and I still have not posted them. Well it is 8:33 at night and I am ready for bed. Lucky for you I just found my camera! I think I left it at my friend Megan's house. Anywho....this is what we have been up to the last week (I will back track a little later).

 We went to the Chinese New Year festival over at the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix. Here are baby Tessa and Olive.

Here are the dads

Here is Ryan and I at the garden. There was tons of people there and it was a good time. 

Megan and I. 

We hung out later that eve as well with the Nelsons and our other neighbor the Ayers. So this is what happends when we get together. Everyone is just hanging out and Ryan is off by himself playing video games. Silly boy. 

This week we have nothing really going on, but I will for sure post more pictures now that I found my camera (Thanks Megan!). Will post updates soon of the house...

The best steak tacos

So as most of you know I have been married a little over 2 years now and for the last 2 years I have been perfecting my cooking skills. Poor people Chinese food is what I am actually pretty good at but it is not the most delish to the average people and it does not always look fantastic. So since I married Ryan I have been branching out to other things and making some yummy yummy delish food.

Steak Tacos (or whatever else you want to use the steak to make)

Story: My friend Emily posted on her blog about Backyard Mexican. BM is actually not a restaurant but a family cooking in their backyard every weekend and you can go and buy food and sit in their backyard to eat. Delish Mexican food might I add. Well, I learned how they cooked their meat and I have not been back since. They used just steak and salt, but I added a few other things. Here is my version.

Steak:
Thin sliced chuck
Sea salt
chili powder
garlic powder
cumin
smoking chips (I think mesquite is best but I use hickory cuz it was what I had)

Rub the chuck with sea salt, chili, garlic and cumin. I would go easy on the cumin because cumin is a really potent spice. Let it sit over night in the fridge.

BBQ the meat till the edges is a little brown and crispyish or to your liking. Remember the wood chips*

Chop up the meat to small pieces for serving and serve with pico, guac, chopped up cabbage, hot sauce, etc.

You can use this for tacos, steak salad, tostatas, I don't know...whatever you want.

My recommendation for tortilla is use the uncooked ones and cook them fresh when serving. It is totally worth the work!!!

Mommyhood and Why can't I see YOUR blog?

So I am trying to stalk blogs and I realized that I have now lost access to half of the blogs I stalked.Seriously? If you are on my list of blogs to stalk please add me on your private thing-a-ma-jig so I can stalk your blog!

So now about mommyhood, I love it! I love my little cheekers. Today I went on a date with Ryan for our little valentine outing and I miss that little bon bon like crazy. The way I describe it so Ryan would understand was to try and leave his iPhone at home for a couple of hours and tell me how you feel. Yeah, he would go absolutely insane. Not only does the child have to go through separation anxiety, but so does the parent(s).

There are so many little moments of joy with Tess I can't even count them. She is so amazing and learning so fast. Here is a list at no particular order:

• I love the way she squeals
• I love how strong she is (she was able to push herself up at 5 weeks?)
• I love how she just learned to blow bubbles with her mouth
• I love the way she tries to talk
• I love it when she rubs her eyes when she is tired
• I love it when she would laugh at the weirdest things...
• Freedom makes her laugh
• noise a paper makes sometimes makes her laugh
• bouncing up and down makes her laugh
• tickles
• me laughing makes her laugh
• oh there are so many things that makes her laugh
• I love it when she tries to swim on the floor
• Her smiles are heavenly :)
• She will make funny faces before she starts to really cry

I can't even list everything there are so many. I love being Tessa's mom. She is so perfect!

Wow Long Time!!!

Seriously, how long has it been since I posted...yeah about 6 months ago. Where have I been? I have no idea. Can having a baby really take up all your time so you stop blogging? I will answer myself, that will be a NO. I just have not made blogging a priority.

As I was, and still, making dinner I came across a few thoughts that maybe someone as bored as you would like to read about. So there I was chopping cabbage for the mouthwatering Mexican meal that we will have tonight I noticed that my feet hurts standing there. Then I realized that I needed to balance my weight better and put more weight to the front of my feet so my heel will not hurt so bad. SO HERE WAS THE REAL THOUGHT. Old ladies all have the crusty heels...OMG I am getting old. I just thought that they get the crusty heels because they don't take care of their feet, but no, I take very good care of my feet and I can keep it up so it does not look absolutely gross. End of that thought.

Tessa is so old now, before I know it I will be helping her move to her first apartment and I will be heart broken that I can't keep my eyes on her 24 hours. I just love those chubby cheekies to pieces!! She is maybe 17lbs now and she is tall. I forget how tall she is but she is in the 85% tile for hight. Her favorite thing to do right now when she is bored is to blow bubbles with her spit. She can sit by herself and roll as she wishes and she LOVES Monkee see Monkee do.

We repainted our living room...yup it has only been a little over one year since we moved in and we are repainting. Ryan actually accidentally made a hole in the wall so I used that excuse to redecorate (shhhh... don't tell him). We also put up crown molding in our livingroom. I will post pictures...I am just too lazy to find the camera, go in my messy office that I have been putting off cleaning, and sit there. Tessa has issues with not seeing me and the office right now is no place for baby. :(

I love you guys and I have not stalk any blogs lately, I need to hop on that and see what everyone is up to.

More thoughts on motherhood in the next post, don't want to bore you with too much all at once. xoxo

Tessa Lynn Biggs

Oh where do I even start? It has been so long since I wrote a blog. Bad Sunny, bad!

It felt so long but it came so quickly, before I knew it I was at the hospital. It all happened on the 21st. It was about 2am in the morning when I was woken up by a contraction, I never went back to sleep after that. Since I was already awake I thought I might as well go to the bathroom and that was when the confusion started. For the next 5 hours I was not sure if I actually lost my mucus plug and if I was leaking amniotic fluid or I just lost control of my bladder and I couldn't hold my pee. Well long story short my water broke and so we worked on getting to the hospital, of course we took our sweet time. I started to get dressed and pack stuff for Freedom because she was going to stay at Ryan's family's house for a night or two. Here we are:

By the time we got to the hospital it was 11am. So water broke at 2am and we didn't get to hospital till 9 hours later...don't ask me how I drugged it so long but I did.

Hospital- First we went to triage things were good there till I needed to get the IV in. It was a guy that did it and my first impression of  him was not the greatest. At first I thought he was kinda "slow" just from his speech, not long after I started to get nervous because his entire ora speaks NERVOUS. I am not afraid of needles, I am a regular blood donator, however he scared the crap out of me. I know this for a fact...I have large veins, no nurse EVER had a hard time finding my veins, he did. Then after he got the needle in blood might as well squirt out cuz it was EVERYWHERE! To make it worse, after he was finally all done he went and tripped over the tubs that was connected to my IV. Sigh...poor soul. Don't worry, it didn't pull my IV out when he tripped over it. During triage it was the only time that Ryan felt sick...he did great through the rest of it.

That was pretty much the worst experience I had there. I wanted to try to have her with out epidural but I'm telling you now that did not happen.  When I got in I was only dilated at 1cm. So they gave me pitocin. Pitocin gave me worst contraction pains then I had imagined....I guess I can't really compare to not having pitocin but it was painful and I only lasted 4 hours of heavy contractions that happened every 2 mins. After the 4 hours I started to tear and I couldn't handle it anymore so I asked for epidural. At the end of the 4 hours I was dilated to a 4. Epidural is amazing! not only it took the pain away it helped me dilate so much faster. An hour later I was dilated to 9. I pushed for about 1hour 45 min and baby Tessa was here.

Tessa Lynn Biggs

7lb 7oz

21 in

7-21-10 10:53pm

She has been a joy to have and it is def an adjustment to have a baby at home. But we just love her to death. 

Long time no post

So what is new lately you ask? Well, lots! No particular order but here it goes....I had my babyshower thrown my my besties...They are wonderful and it was so much fun!

Next...I think this was when I was 30 weeks? or it could have been 29 weeks...

I have been working on several projects as well since I dont think I will have time after Tessa pops out So here it goes...first is my office (messy I know, don't judge)

Next is my master bath...that is just the sink area, I changed the shower curtain and rug to match as well

I also have been doing lots of spray painting and I painted these frames gold that I got from good will for like a buck each, and a bench black that is not shown, perhaps another post.

Last but not least Ryan and I enjoy our time at home and we are very bad at taking pictures of the both of us so here are the loves of my life...

I love my iMac

I just love my desktop! Ryan and I decided that we would get an iMac for our Christmas present for each other and it is seriously the best purchase ever. This thing has been so useful and helpful with our life and my aspiring business. Thats right, my business. I have been always had a love for interior design and I think now that I don't have a job it is the best excuse to get over my excuses in pursuing my dream of owning my own business in interior decorating. So far everything is in the works, just got my business card and my site should be up by Friday....busy busy person I have been!

Talking about my own business Ryan has been more then supportive. I am thankful for such a great husband, how can I live my life with out him now that I know he exist? I can't. Having him gone for a night with boys is kinda torture :(

I did mention I will be posting pictures....I will save that for next post when I actually remember to take pictures in the day time. As for now, Good night.

Been so long since I have post

Wow it has been so long since I have made a post about me and my family. So what has been going on? Well, I am still pregnant. I am at 25 weeks now coming up on 26 weeks this friday. Here is a picture of me at 23 weeks.

Sorry that picture is not very good. :(

My pregnancy. So far the most important thing right now I guess. Honestly, I really enjoy being pregnant. Besides some of the difficulties with sleeping it has been an adventure and I really like it. Tessa is kicking a lot now (probably because she is getting bigger and space is limited). I like to think she already has a little personality already in the belly. I love her.

As for how Ryan is dealing with my pregnancy he has been super supportive. Life is good and it is so much fun to watch him being a dad already starting with Freedom (our dog). Just tonight he was teaching Freedom how to like the vaccume cleaner (haha). Needless to say that was fun for me to watch.

As most of you already know. I have no job and Ryan is the only one working. Cross your fingers that I get on AHCCCS.

What have we been doing lately? Home improvment actually. We have done a lot with our house. We got our yard done and Ryan has been so handy. He built me a desk for our office and planter boxes for our back yard and a work bench for his garage. I will post pics sometime soon hopefully.

Love you all and I know this is a lot to read so I will save some other stuff for another day.

Home made Laundry Soap

Here is the best thing in the world!!!

I love this detergent, it gets smells out of things it is so amazing (Ryan and I don't stink that bad, I am talking about Freedom's bed that I wash). Here is the recipe:

1/3 bar Fels Naptha Soap
1/2 C Washing Soda
1/2 C Borax Powder

You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size.

Grade the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. now add your sop mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use about 1/2 cup per load.

*Advisory- The mixture will separate, shake before each use.
*It will be easier if you already have a gallon of water on hand while making this recipe.

She is kicking like crazy!!!

I can't even experess the happieness I feel when I feel Tessa kick. It makes me giggle every time. I already feel like she has a little personality already and she gets fussy when I don't wear things that makes her comfortable. I can't wait to meet her and see that little face of hers. BTW, She totally has Ryan's nose, it is amazing how they look like us! haha. Sorry no pictures lately, I have been unemployed and lazy with taking new pictures. Once all my projects are done I will sure to post some.

For now I am just working on decorating my home and make sure it is ready for Tessa to be here. Check out my other blog when you get a chance.

My poor handicapped Freedom

This is her Sat evening :( My poor Free Free did something with her back paw nails while we went on a walk and she snapped it! It was bleeding all over the place. Good thing we were not too far from home so I carried her home and placed her in the bath tub cuz blood was DRIPPING! It got on Ryan's leg, my pants, on the floor...etc. Eventually we cleaned her up and was able to super glue her nails and wrap it up to prevent it from snapping again.

Poor Freedom has pretty much spent her days on our bed just laying here all the days since sat night. I think she might be just taking advantage of the situation, that or she just don't like the sticky tape and gauze   that i put on her leg. She looks so pathetic.

Make-up Menu of Services

Sorry , You will have to click on the image to view the prices to the right. :)

It's.....A GIRL!!!

I know it has been a while now but i am a bad blogger and I am working on it. So most of you know who are FaceBookers that we are having a girl! We can't be more excited for this little bundle of joy pops out. Ryan is already dying to have a little baby to hold.....look below.

This is one of the things I love in life. I think I have the cutest little family. Ryan is trying to hold Freedom like a baby. Not sure if she liked it but she stayed there for a while :) She loves daddy attention.  

Story: Last night I was making dinner with the back door open cuz it was nice outside and so Freedom can run in or run out to her desire. Close to dinner time she knows Ryan is coming home soon. Ever time she hears a car outside going Vroom Vroom she runs to the front door and looks out the window expecting Ryan's car pull up. It was cute and things like that warms up my heart even though she is just a doggy, she is after all my child for now. 

Guess, Boy or Girl? 18 weeks

Alright, so I have provided here pictures of side, back, and front view. I know these pictures are not very  *flattering* but i am too lazy to get all dressed up and do my hair for pictures. These are my first set of pregnacy pictures because I have simply forgotten to keep a record of my first pregnacy. 

So, what do you think? boy? girl?