Before last Wednesday, we had one of those old school faucets that in probably every home that has not been remodeled since the 1970s, you know, the plain basic chrome ones. It was ghetto-fied with a PUR water filter attachment that one could turn on and off depending on if you wanted filtered or unfiltered water. Besides the ghetto-fabness of it and the fact that I would prefer a new faucet and separate spout for filtered water, all was fine and dandy until the seal on the PUR broke the weekend before last. God forbid, we had to drink unfiltered water for more than a week, which quickly motivated me to call my cousin Scott who very conveniently is a plumber.

I told him we wanted a new faucet and told him which one we were looking at on overstock.com. He told us to buy one of three high-quality brands of which none were on overstock in the model we wanted. When I talked to him again telling him we would go with a more boring looking one from a high-quality brand, he said he had looked at overstock and that with the prices they were offering and the good reviews they had received it was worth a try. So a few days later, we had the new faucet in a box in our kitchen and Scott promised to come by that afternoon to install it and the new water filter.

Sun Valley poster girl

After a horrible night of sleep, Sunday quickly redeemed itself with incredibly beautiful sunny weather lighting up a winter wonderland created the day before by many layers of snow blankets. Before grabbing lunch and heading back to Boise, we decided to drive up to the Sun Valley ski resort with the girls and ride the gondola to the top of the mountain to take pictures.

Once we arrived and realized the gondola tickets were $20 for each adult (kids free), we almost backed out but the day was so beautiful we paid the money and resumed our planned excursion.

And even though the family photo is not perfect (it seems impossible to get one where Belén is cooperating these days), almost every other photo was.

I continue to get the standard, “’How are you feeling?”question every time someone sees me. I have recently become a little torn about how to answer this question because I have a hard time giving the canned answer, “Fine.” “ Great.” “Good.” when it is not entirely true. Now I am not one of those people who is going to dump a load of problems on an unsuspecting casual acquaintance, but I also am pretty transparent with how I am really feeling and think the whole “Good.” response when it is not true is kind of pointless.

But probably most people don’t want to hear about how my antibody screening for pregnant mothers with Rh negative blood types came back positive which may mean, that somehow the Rhogam shots I have received multiple times post/during pregnancy may not have been enough to trick my body into not knowing I could be carrying a baby with an Rh positive bloodtype. And that if this is in fact the case, my body is essentially attacking our baby’s blood which could potentially lead to mild to severe anemia causing the need for blood transfusions either through the umbilical cord or immediately after birth and possibly pre-term labor. I went in yesterday morning for another blood draw to see if perhaps the last test was a false positive created by the Rhogam shot being administered five minutes prior to the blood draw but lets just say that I am skeptical.

We anxiously anticipate the results from this test to find out where the antibody levels are at and if our baby is in danger. My only information on the situation thus far has been from the nurse, babycenter and this site. I won’t let myself stray any further into the scary depths of Dr. Internet. According to the nurse, our doctor seems to feel this situation is manageable (and the websites agree), but we do not see him in person until next Friday at which time I am sure to have 176 questions to better understand/assess the situation.

Awesome photo at Sun Valley

Ozzie the Cat and Sassy the Dog. Each joined the family before it even existed as the companion and roommate of younger versions of each half of the couple when we still had apartments of our own. Ozzie, adopted from the pound by Andy and Sassy purchased from an ad in the paper by me.

I still remember the first night Andy had Ozzie (Andy and I were dating at the time) and the poor kitty sneezed all night long from some nasty bug he had picked up at the pound. Sassy caused immediate drama on her first day as well by eating the base of the water heater in my apartment. I also vividly recall when Andy and I moved in together and we put the two of them in a room together and closed the doors until they worked it out and figured out how to get along. The horrible noise that Ozzie made when backed into the corner combined with a few scratches to the face promptly showed Sassy who was ultimately boss and they have more-or-less gotten along ever since.

In the years to come, they mellowed, created and responded to other drama, had more trips to the vet than I could possibly recall, welcomed and said good bye to other pets and adapted to our no (okay little) nonsense approach to owning animals.

We are back from a fun weekend in Sun Valley, Idaho with our friends the Campbells. This sunny, beautiful morning we rode the gondola to the Round House on Bald mountain and the toddlers saw skiers for the first time. There were collective “Wows.” After a long gondola ride, we were not even close to the top of “Baldy” and the world famous Sun Valley Ski Resort, yet the views were already incredible. In our opinion, all of the hype around Sun Valley in the winter seems totally deserved…

It’s a little after 4am and I am waiting for water to boil.  ”Why?” you may ask.  Because I am making raspberry tea.  Which could compel you to ask “Why?” again.  Because I read a blog last night that reminded me that it good for uterus health and ultimately can help your uterus shrink quicker [...]

One such chore that constantly needed to be done was to wash our placemats. We have cute polka dot fabric placemats from the Pottery Barn which worked great except every time I dribbled the salad dressing or Belén set her juice on the table and it spilled, at least one of them would have to be washed. Not a huge deal but more laundry and more hassle.

So when I saw these round WIPEABLE placemats on sale at our favorite nursery/garden center a few weekends back, I surprisingly talked Andy into buying them much easier than I anticipated (apparently washing placemats was on both of our annoying tasks lists.) And let me tell you, oh my goodness, every time I wipe off drips I want to sing it’s so easy. I know, not rocket science, but these new placemats make me happy in the simplification kind of way. Like even if they had not been on sale, they would have been worth it.

Now…think back to that list of thing nagging you and ask yourself what you can do to remove one of the items from the list altogether forever. If you came up with an idea, I beg you to take action. I PROMISE you it will be worth it!

When it is all said and done, you may even find yourself wanting to sing like me.

Meet Rebecca.  She is the daughter of Andy’s cousin Scott and his wife Laura and the newest member of the Hoobing family. One year ago, she was living in an orphanage in rural China with a cyst in the back of her head the size of a softball that formed before her skull closed so [...]