Baby Shower

Mary, Sara, and Penny threw us a shower this Sunday! It was sooo fun and cute and a blessing!! Sara and Penny did an AWESOME job with the decorations.  The theme was The Adventures of Baby Sullenger using characters like The Lone Ranger, Peter Pan, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, and others.  So creative! Mary was a wonderful hostess as usual, she really has a gift for making people feel welcome and comfortable in her home!  A huge thank you to them and to the others who contributed food, Kristi, Cindy J, Cindy M, Julie, and Mom :)

Entry Way

 

When Jonathan was a baby someone gave him a plaque type thing made with buttons.  Years later it finally fell apart.  They used some of those buttons to make this "M" The other buttons were part of my grandmother's collection.  I love decor that has a story!  

 

Such a cute idea for putting thank yous!

 

All the cupcakes had characters or books in them.  Lone Ranger graced the place of honor at the top! 

 

The character in the middle on the bottom is a steam engine.  It's from a book that was my dad's favorite when he was little and that my grandmother used to read to us when we were little too.

 

Penny made these and told me that if I didn't want them she liked them so much she would keep them! haha

 

 They made blessing/prayer/advice cards for the guests to fill out! I loved that! I've only seen that at weddings or wedding showers and thought it was a great idea for a baby shower too!

Got to be a "lets talk about how big the belly is now" moment!

 Homemade baby blanket for our little Aggie! Thanks Tina!  We also received homemade receiving blankets from Gunnar's grandmother that are so sweet!  Can't wait to use them!

Thanks everyone for the gifts and blessings! We feel very loved and supported in our new adventure in becoming parents!

The cutest stuffed donkey ever!! Thanks Iris!

Books from Great Aunt Joni :)

Aunts, great aunts, grandmothers, and great grandmother! 

Thanks Uncle Reb!

Texas and A&M socks! So cute! Thanks Terrals!

We really needed newborn to 3 month clothes and got quite a few! It was perfect! I actually got them all washed and ready to go yesterday! Just waiting for a little cutie to dirty them up!

 

A HUGE thank you to those who helped with the shower, brought food, gave gifts and generally showered love on us!! I'm 36 weeks and a few days so it won't be long before Monte will get to use all the gifts he received!  THANK YOU!!!!

And seriously, my sisters are amazing event planners! They should seriously start a business!  It was all so perfect! Sara has a real gift for knowing the person she's planning for and creating a theme that fits them perfectly! Down to every last little detail! Penny took and edited all the pictures! So great to have a photographer in the family! Everyone should do it! ;)

I got to have a shower rerun later when I showed Gunnar the gifts!  Our living room was a major obstacle course for a day or so! haha

Monte is one blessed little boy already!!

Nightstand Makeover

 

When my grandmother passed away back in October I got some of her furniture.  Just a normal "assemble yourself" nightstand and dresser.  I had had several ideas for redoing some furniture so I decided to try one out on this piece. 

First I removed all the hardware and drawers.  I wanted to use things I had on hand in case this project totally bombed so I used some blue paint I had on hand from Leakey.  It was probably the last time I'll use it... it seemed a little old and gloppy but it worked great for an experimental project.   A decorating blog I follow talks about mixing some plaster of paris with paint when painting laminate furniture.  It supposedly causes the paint to stick without having to use primer first, so I tried that.  We'll see how it holds up or if it starts chipping off anyway. 

Got it painted...not my best paint job by far, pretty much just slapped it on there but it got the job done haha

Here comes the fun part....the drawers!!!  I bought spray adhesive and covered the drawers with fabric!  So easy! I would recommend NOT using striped fabric as it took me several attempts to get the stripes perfectly straight but it was what I had on hand and I didn't want to go buy fabric only for it potentially to not work.  I just cut a big piece, stuck it on the drawers and wrapped the ends over then cut off the access. 

This was the picture I had originally seen on Pinterest that gave me the idea but there were not instructions or anything with it so I decided to try spray adhesive and it worked great!  It is SUPER hard to get off your hands afterwards though so if I ever do it again I'll probably wear latex gloves or something while doing that part!

I happened to have some blue spray paint on hand so I gave the hardware a couple coats and wah lah finished project!  (sorry the picture's a little blurry) I'm not sure where it'll end up permanently.  Probably in Monte's room when we move and he actually gets a room! haha but for now it's by our bed.  If I ever decide to redo it or do this project on another piece of furniture it would totally be worth investing a little money for fabric or paint since I know that it works and is easy to accomplish!

 

Now to get the dresser I'm remaking into a changing table done before the little guy gets here! *fingers crossed*

34 Weeks

So I've kinda exploded in the last week or two.  Before my belly pretty much hadn't caused any problems or been in the way that much. Not anymore!  I almost asked Gunnar to put on my shoes the other day! haha

 

Weight Gain: - 28-30 lbs. depending on the time of day and how much I've eaten haha

Symptoms: Still minor legs cramps, trouble falling asleep, a weird burning sensation on the top right side of my belly, involuntary grunting, can't eat much anymore but then I'm hungry 10 minutes later.

Name: We'll let ya know...

Baby size: 4.5 - 5.8 lbs and 17-18.5 in. long (according to the pregnancy apps... who know how accurate those things are!) 

 

Movements: Moves ALL the time! He loves kicking my right rib cage! Have I mentioned that I've fractured those ribs twice before and I don't think they've appreciated the extra jabs much?!  

Position: He's been LOA (his back is in the left front portion of my uterus) for several weeks now, which is good, not great for my ribs, but the best position for labor supposedly.

Cravings: Still none really...


I started another baby afghan.  I'm thinking that I might like this one even better than the first one I made.  I might not finish this one before he arrives but that's ok.  I did give myself a goal of 2 rows a day (which actually is 4 rows because each row of color takes two rows of crocheting) So if I stick with that I'll finish providing he doesn't show up super early! I'm also working on converting one of our dressers that was in need of some TLC anyway into a changing table type piece.  We'll see how that goes and I'll blog about it later if it turns out well! 

I'm definitely getting excited to meet this little guy! I already feel like I know him.  We've been doing a Birth Boot Camp class and I think that has helped me be able to visualize what it might actually be like to some degree, or make it seem more real, not that it wasn't real before...I don't know! haha I just know that him coming seems like an event I can actually picture happening soon and not some abstract event that will happen WAY in the future!  And I'm going to stop now.... ;)

Ski Apache!!

Last weekend the Criner Clan went to Ruidoso for our second annual family ski trip! While I didn't get to ski being rather pregnant and all it was still a great trip.  I think I'll let the pictures do most of the "talking"

 The person who bought this puppy lives in NM so it worked out well that we could take him instead of them driving 7 hours to come get him.  He was a great travel buddy and honestly the only one I've been sad to see go.  I think he went to a great family though!

Getting all geared up the first day!

Jonathan and Gunnar tried boarding for the first time Saturday.  I think they both liked it besides all the crashing! They were hurting pretty bad after that first day and were glad to go back to skiing!

Love him!

We parked right on the bunny slope so I hung out at the vehicles and let me tell ya, people watching is quite entertaining!

The whole gang!

Jonathan, Sara, and Wyatt

Penny and Gunnar

Sunday I took the gondola to the top of the mountain and met everyone up there. Gunnar stayed and hung out with me while everyone else skied a run then met back up with them.  So baby Sullenger has made it to the top of a mountain. 

33 1/2 weeks Baby Bump!

Dad was taking a picture of all the "kid" skiers the second day and then caught this process!

Trying boarding the first time!

Jonathan stylin'

I'm pretty sure they got Wyatt down a black before the trip was over! 

We kinda like each other :)

We didn't get any pictures at the lodge but we had lots of fun playing tripoly, eating, hanging out in the hot tub, feeding mule deer, and relaxing in front of the fire place.  The only downfall of the trip was the drive home.  We basically drove home inside the old school screen saver where the stars are flying toward you!  It took us 8 1/2 hours to get home instead of 6! Literally could barely see the lines in the road the snow was so heavy!  I volunteered to drive in Roswell since I hadn't skied all day and wasn't as tired as everyone else.  I'm so glad Gunnar said he was ok and was driving when the storm hit!  But we all made it home safe and sound!

Freezer Cooking

I wanted to get several crock pot freezer meals prepared before the baby arrived so even when I'm out of commission for a while or just too tired to fix anything we will have well balanced healthy meal options instead of Chicken Express or cereal!  Sara had gotten a new crockpot for Christmas and I know she gets home late from work sometimes so I figured she'd like to do it too!  Together we made over 120 meals in about 4 or 5 hours including grocery shopping!!

I'll include the meals I did at the bottom of the blog if anyone wants some good ideas.

After getting home from HEB we organized our groceries and starting cooking the meat and veggies so they would have time to cool before bagging.

Some of my goodies!

Part of Sara's stash!

Pounds of ground meat (fortunately for me I had just ground about 26 pounds of venison and had it in the freezer so that helped my cost factor) and veggies!

We labeled what freezer bags we needed, both with the name of the recipe and cooking instructions.  If Gunnar is the one who ends up getting any of these ready he would have no clue! HA! 

We chopped A LOT of veggies!!

We ran out of counter space so we had to let some of them cool in the spare bedroom on the floor! 

Pork Roast (I think…this was Sara's) YUM!

Sara made some kind of italian sausage recipe with celery and I don't remember what else but it looked GOOD!  I'm going to have to try that one next time!

Starting the bagging process. I did four different recipes each three times totaling twelve meal bags.  Two chicken recipes and two ground meat recipes so I bagged all the ground meat recipes at the same time and all the chicken recipes at the same time.

All done and ready for the freezer.  We both double bagged the meals. Not sure if that is necessary or not but we did it anyway.  

We only spilled one can of enchilada sauce, broke one plate, spilled a little chili into the dish water, and dirtied 138 dishes!! But over all it was very worth it (I hope)!  Together we made 20 bags, totaling over 120 meals.  We figured that we could eat each meal at least three times making each bag at least 6 meals multiplied by 20 and you have 120!  It'll probably be more than that because one of Sara's recipes was A LOT and she will probably get 8 or 10 meals out of those bags.  I think I figured it out to be $1.54 per meal for my meals and that was with buying organic produce and chicken (it did help that I already had my own ground meat). That also included buying several spices I was out of that I normally wouldn't have counted into the total price.   I'm not sure what Sara's ended up being per meal or if we even figured it out. 

The recipes I used were:

• Chili

1-2 lbs. ground meat - browned with garlic salt, onion powder, salt, and pepper

2 cans diced tomatoes

2 cans pinto beans (sometimes I use ranch style beans instead)

1 onion - chopped and sautéed with garlic salt, onion pepper, salt, and pepper

1 green bell pepper - chopped and sautéed with garlic salt, onion powder, salt, and pepper

1-2 cloves of garlic - smashed

1-2 tablespoons chili powder 

Cook on low 3-8 hours. May need to add water and/or chili powder.  This chili is very simple and that's why I like it.  No nonsense, easy to throw together, and great on the taste buds! (I never put in enough chili powder and have to add more at the end. I always think "THIS time I'll put enough!" Then it looks like I put way too much so I stop then have to add more at the end because actually it wasn't enough haha)

• Taco Stew

1-2 lbs. ground meat - browned with garlic salt, onion powder, salt, and pepper

1 small onion - chopped and sautéed with garlic salt, onion powder, salt, and pepper

1 green bell pepper - chopped and sautéed with garlic salt, onion powder, salt, and pepper

1 can black beans - drained and rinsed

1 can corn - drained

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can chicken broth

1 packet taco seasoning

1 packet ranch

Cook on low 3-8 hours.  Sautéing the veggies is not necessary but I think it adds more flavor and makes the whole dish tastier.  

• Cream Cheese Chicken Chili (say that 5 times fast!) 

2 chicken breasts - still frozen

1 can rotel tomatoes 

1 can corn kernels - do not drain 

1 can black beans - drained and rinsed 

1 pkg. Ranch dressing mix 

1 tablespoon cumin 

1 teaspoon chili powder 

1 teaspoon onion powder 

1 8-oz pkg. cream cheese

Cook on low 6-8 hours until chicken is done.  Shred chicken before serving.  Can add water or chicken broth if you need more liquid.  I sometimes add chopped and sautéed onion and peppers too.  Serve with cilantro, avocado, chips and salsa or whatever else suits your fancy ;) 

• Paleo Chicken Chili

Here's the link to the recipe.  I found it on pinterest and have made it several times! Simple and yummy!

One more thing to note is that I make and use my own chicken broth so that adds to the health and flavor of the recipes and is actually more cost effective, even when I use organic chicken, because I get the broth plus the chicken.  

Birthday Hunt and Some Problematic Heifers

Gunnar and I needed some more meat to put up before hunting season was over.  The last weekend of hunting season, Gunnar was going to be gone with his dad and brother hunting so I decided I would go by myself and get a couple does.  The thing is I can't lift a deer at my current stage of huge bellyness so I had to wait til Sunday afternoon (the LAST afternoon of hunting season and my birthday) to go so that when I got something Gunnar would be coming back and could come take care of the deer.  I ended up borrowing a gun from my dad since Gunnar had his and the other rifle we have hadn't been shot since we moved so Gunnar wasn't positive the scope was on.  Jonathan ended up coming with me.  I offered to let him shoot a deer if I got one first.

We were hunting at Gunnar's parent's place in Sherwood and Sid has three replacement heifers there.  I had forgotten about the heifers and so had Gunnar so there was no plan for if they showed up at the truck or feeder. Well of course they were at the shed we park at when we got there and followed us to the blind.  Jonathan tried to scare them off but they just thought he was great fun and crow hopped around enjoying it!

We decided to just get in the blind and hope they'd go away before the feeder went off…. no such luck! They hung out right under the blind until the feeder went off.  Right away we had two does and three yearlings/fawns come into the corn.  I was thinking "Great, here's the two does we need and we'll be done! Perfect!"  Yeah that's not what happened.  Before the deer had come in far enough for us to have a shot, one of the cows started headed down toward the feeder.  Soon another cow followed and they were both at the feeder and scared the deer away.  Wonderful… NOT!  Fortunetly the deer didn't run off far so we could still see them and possibly thought we could get a shot on one of the does if she came out into a little clearing to the far right of the feeder.  We would not be risking accidentally shooting a cow! Did the doe come into the clearing? Nope! Did all three yearlings, multiple times? Yup! So by now the cows are just hanging out under the feeder, not eating corn, not really doing anything just chilling and keeping the deer away. Darn heifers! At one point, I looked over at Jonathan and whispered, "what do we do?" He look at me and said, "I don't know, I've never been in this situation before! Its a new one to me." haha

We could have shot a doe at one point over the backs of the cows, which obviously we would never risk, but other than that never had a chance.  At this point we were brainstorming what to do, just wait, get out and try to make the cows follow us back to the truck and try to feed them (that meant we would run off deer and who knew if any more would come in), yell at the cows, we were texting my dad updates and he suggested shooting them haha.  FInally, the cows actually ran at and chased the deer completely away.  So at this point we have two cows under the feeder and not a deer in sight.  I finally decided to try to whistle at them.  I knew Sid does a cow call when he's there to feed them but I didn't want to do that and scare off all the deer so I decided that whistling could possibly work but wouldn't be as loud at yelling.  What do ya know?! Worked like a charm, they came RUNNING back to the blind!

The deer were so focused on the cows, that they never even looked at us.  If we were ever too loud they would just look at the heifers!  So now we have the cows back at the blind but no deer.  We contemplated getting out and setting off the feeder again but decided to just wait.  Finally one of the two does that had been in earlier came into the corn but was so skittish because she could still see the cows. I was planning on making a neck shot so I wouldn't ruin any meat but she was just too antsy for me to feel comfortable to make a good shot.  I told Jonathan "the second she's still I'm shooting her, watch the cows and make sure they don't start heading back!" Well not only weren't the cows heading back they had decided to try a new form of entertainment, rubbing the blind legs! I thought we might get tipped over at one point (ok it wasn't that bad but it does present a problem when you're trying to make a good shot and have a cow shaking the blind!) Finally she gave me about half a second broadside and I took the shot.  She humped up like she'd been hit, jumped and kicked and ran off. I was pretty sure I'd made a good shot but we never heard her go down so I wasn't positive.

I felt better, at least we had gotten ONE deer despite the cows!  After that they started to head back down toward the feeder again.  I tried whistling again but I guess they had called my bluff and weren't interested.  Fortunately they veered to the right and the last we saw of them they were hundreds of yards away and not causing anymore problems!

At this point it was starting to get dark and we were running out of time to get another doe.  Fortunately more deer started coming in so we were hopeful… well for a little while.  A old buck who had already shed its antlers, three yearling, two nubbing bucks and a doe, and a little 6 point came in…Nothing to shoot!  We watched them until we were just about to get out of the blind.  We had about 5 minutes left of shootable light left.  We see a doe, she actually comes in! She FINALLY gives Jonathan a shot, we were running out of daylight here! He went for a neck shot and missed… She ran off up the hill, passed the feeder and stopped perfectly broadside.  I asked "can you shoot her that far?" He, being very ticked off at himself at this point says "I'm going to try!!" Shot and dropped her like a rock!!

We did it! Two doe down despite some problematic heifers!! HA! We had to blood trail my deer for probably 250 yards before we finally found her! I had blown out both lungs and she still ran that far! Animals are amazing!   Jonathan tricked me twice, once on accident, thinking he actually saw her, and once on purpose to be "funny" that we had found her.  So when he did actually see her I didn;t believe him. Darn brothers!

Jonathan's deer was exactly where he shot her. Apparently instead of going for her shoulder he went for her spine and nailed it! Jonathan was a gentleman and drug my deer all the way back to the truck and even gutted her! I kept telling him Gunnar would do it but he insisted.  He started gutting his then we realized that you could pull her hair and SKIN off with your fingers.  NOT normal! No one can figure out exactly what was wrong with her.  It was just on one side and it the front but she was not worth risking to eat.  We ended up calling the game warden after Jonathan, my dad, Gunnar, Gunnar's dad and Reb all looked at her and had no idea what was wrong with her and dumping her in a brush pile.

Fortunately Gunnar, Reb and Sid had all gotten a deer on their hunting trip and gave us two of them so we got enough deer to fill our freezer despite shooting a sick one.  So weird!

It turned out to be a funny and fun memory with my brother and successful on top of that despite some pesky heifers trying to ruin our day!

With our trophies! 

Some Christmas

Just a few Christmas pics off my phone.  We had a fast and furious Christmas doing Christmas three times in three days at three different houses, but it was fun and we are glad we got to see so much family!

Jonathan and Gunnar turned the "Williams Christmas" in a Nerf War mostly between the grownups! Ha it was entertaining to say the least..

We also enjoyed a hike through the leaves!