25 Weeks

well today I am officially 25 weeks and 1 day along on this journey. Sorry about the lack of posts but this week has been crazy for me!~ It totally hit me that I need to get on the ball with this baby thing. Up until this point I have been casually collecting clothes and items but Justin and I haven't really done any serious shopping for the baby or nursery. The other day I was sitting in the office and it hit me that once I hit 7 months (on week 27) I am in my third trimester!! And I am not ready for this baby to come!! lol. So Justin and I are planning on making some purchases this weekend for the nursery.

By this week Avery is is approximately 1.5 pounds and just under 13.7 inches long. It's at this point that babies start to take their own pace in growth. When I was born, I was a teenie tiny baby weighing in at 6lbs, while Justin was a gordo baby weighing in at almost 11lbs. He was so large that they had to break his collar bone to get him out!! yikes! SOO.. lets just hope the little guy gets my genes in the baby growth pool, he can have Justin's after he gets out of me, but I just hope he's a small newborn!!! otherwise we may start to have some issues with delivering him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway- to sum up the week so far I did have a tramatic day on Tuesday. I was driving to work listening to the radio and they were discussing the H1N1 virus and going through some of the local horror stories. Of course, this has been something that I had struggled with for the best part of the last month and a half. I turned off the radio and started praying for peace about the issue of whether or not I should get the vaccine. It has been such an issue weighing on my heart!

So- I get into work and I was not there for more than an hour when my Doc calls the office and tells me that she wanted me to come down and get the vacinne-NOW. I instantly start to freak out and panic and I told her that I was not sure that I really was ready to get it, and I had questions, and doubts, and fears. She again, went through some of the local pregnancy horror stories and long story short- I ended up going down and getting the vaccine. I cried all the way there. I even had one of the pastor's call a family member who works as a nurse and she said the same thing- "Go." BUT- now that it's done and over with I think I can rest a little easier. I pray that God will protect me and baby and I just hope I made the right choice!

Read more...

Tired Monday

It's Monday and I had another one of those can't-sleep-at-all-nights!!!!! I seriously think I may have found 2 hours of rest last night. On the way home from church last night I started to feel this extremely sharp pain in my shoulder and then in my side. It was so sharp and painful that I was sure that something was wrong, a heat attack, a stroke, it was bad! Justin was suggesting detouring to the hospital, but I thought that maybe some googling a good rest would help it out. I came home and started googling and sure enough it's a common symptoms at 6 months pregnant. I guess for some people, when the baby gets to a certain size it is easy for the baby to lay in a way that may pinch a nerve or two. Regardless I was miserable!

Justin convinced me to stay up for a little while and watch a movie with him- A very scary movie, mind you that I will not mention here because it freaked me out too much. lol. So I did,and FYI -watching a scary movie does not help you fall asleep when you are already having pain! Bad idea!!!!!! Every time I would doze off I would have this evil scary image in my head and I'd wake to the already throbbing part of my body. So let's just say that I hope that this day goes by quick!

Anyway- I did want to show some pumpkin carving pics from the weekend. Unfortunately my camera was down but luckily Emily has some that I am stealing! Here ya go. (ps- excuse my homely look that I have going on. haha)

Read more...

Pumpkins Pumpkins Pumpkins!

TGIF!!!! AND It's Pumpkins season in the MacQuarrie house starting tonight and I am super duper excited. Tonight we are planning on carving out our pumpkins for the season, baking the seeds, and eating pumpkin rolls until we are about ready to pop. (Will try to get some good pics up of tonight's festivities!) But I love fall! I really do. It is officially my favorite season of the year. Growing up, other than our regular trick or treating we really didn't have any fall traditions, but last year Justin and I had our first MacQuarrie Pumpkin Day where we spend the entire evening carving/ eating tons of pumpkin desserts, and seeds and it has since become one of those things that I looks forward to as fall approaches! It's weird how traditions are formed like that.

Tomorrow, if weather permits, we will be heading up to Circleville to take part in the annual Pumpkin Festival where we will be doing our regular taste testing of pumpkin chili and pumpkin pizza, and pumpkin ice cream, and pumpkin EVERYTHING! I don't know if it's because I am pregnant or if it's just the time of the year- but it sounds so appetizing!

Read more...

Pregnancy Week 24

Week 24 is here which means I am officially 6 months pregnant! (technically tomorrow). I obviously am starting to look the pregnancy part too which is fun and weird at the same time. I haven't had too many belly rubs, but I have however noticed that random people in grocery stores or walmart will stare and smile at me- which is fine with me. I just wish I knew what to say to them!

During this week our little Avery weighs about 1.4 pounds and will gain nearly 6 ounces this week as his body finally begins to fill out. This weight will mostly consist of muscle, bone mass, and the growing organs and tissues. His little ears are now fully functional, and I have already noticed that he is responding to sound! He seems to wake early to the buzzing alarm even before me. Forget hitting that snooze buttton! When you are getting a swift kick in the side at 6 am it's a little easier to wake up.... maybe that's a sign of whats to come! yikes!

But in any case we are excited. I finally got the shipment of clothes that I ordered from ebay and spend the evening organizing all the clothes we had by size. Fun times!

Read more...

Monday Monday

Justin and I had a nice weekend. We took a break from the house maintenance to head down to Portsmouth to visit with my side of the family on Saturday and then we had an action packed Sunday which consisted of church, football games, pumpkin roll making, and some Mexican food! It was good times but like all good things--it came to an end way too early.

I had a to do list that I didn't even get to touch with 'Get a Flu Shot' at the top of it. I am so stinking hesitant with getting a flu shot since I haven't had one in years and the last time I got one I ended up with a a 4 day flu-like thing. It stunk! But with all of the illness going around and with feeling the pressure about being pregnant, I feel like maybe I should just bite the bullet and do it. Also, the whole H1N1 thing is something that I have been asked on a daily basis."Are you going to get the vaccine?" My answer right now is "I have no idea!" It scares me to death to inject something into me that nobody knows for sure what effects it has on the baby. I have been really praying about this- and I still do not have a peace about it one way or another...

So now it's Monday and I have a major case of the Mondays. I am going through some stage of this pregnancy that causes me to wake at the slighted sound and to not be able to go back to sleep- so I have been going since 3:50am this morning. What a night! I am sooo exhausted.

Read more...

What's in a name?

Naming this little boy has been the most perplexing issue I faced as a pre-mom. There have been about five names that I grew up loving and dreaming about since I was a little one, and then bam- I'm pregnant and none of these names feel right! OR my wonderful husband hates them all with a passion.With this pregnancy I'd say none of the physical changes or adjustments compare to the gut wrenching attempt in finding the one name that is going to identify your child for life! It's crazy! Looking at naming web sites filled with thousands of ideas was the most boring task in the world. I needed a word that grabbed me. Something special.

And then I went through the stage of "what if my baby hates the name?" I didn't particularly love my name. It didn't seem feminine enough. And then there were about 7 other Amber Nicoles sitting right next to me in class. I remember thinking "if only my name were spelled 'Ambur' or 'Ambar', or I had a cooler middle name". Maybe everyone goes through that stage as a kid, I don't know. But I started to remember all of those little details as I was trying to think up the perfect name. So I knew that it couldn't be just another run of the mill 'John' name that's on the top 10 of baby names.

If you know Justin with this whole baby naming issue he avoided it like the plague. Our roles in baby naming was for me to come up with the lists and for him to pick from the list, unfortunately he never liked my lists so it was a vicious cycle. He didn't want to sit down and look at books or websites he just wanted to be the one who makes the final choice.

With that being said, A couple of months ago we took a drive to see my parents in Portsmouth. I knew that I had an approximate hour and a half of solid undivided attention from Justin so I took the opportunity to pack the car down with the top baby naming books and printed sheets from baby naming websites so Justin would have no other choice but sit there in the car and listen to the names that I was reading aloud..It was a genius plan.

So it began, and I went through a good solid 10 pages before I reached the point of frustration when Justin could not even consider one of the names in the book... So I decided to stop reading out of defeat.

We then just started talking about our plans for the weekend while we were down visiting my family. I mentioned visiting my grandma- and then somehow that led me into a story about my time as a little child visiting with my grandma and Grandpa Avery. If you know anything about me, it's that I am extremely close to my grandma, and was also close with my grandpa before he passed in 95. I would spend weeks visiting them as a child. At that moment as I am storytelling, Justin stops me and goes "What about Avery? I like Avery for a boy!"

I must admit though, at first I was hesitant with the name Avery for a boy because it has become one of those unisex names that I have seen little girls with, but I knew that 'Avery' was a special name, a family name! THE name for our little boy! Justin loved it, I especially loved it... But we did decide to hold off on making a final decision about any name until later in the pregnancy-At least until we knew what the gender was. On Oct. 1st after finding out that our little Mac was a 'He' it was the first response out of Justin's mouth "Avery." So I knew right away what his name would be.

We later picked the middle name 'Grant' as it seemed like a strong male name..And Avery Grant seems to flow together nicely. Also Avery is far from the top 10 of boy baby names, it actually sits at the modest ranking of #216th for a boy.

So I am happy to announce that the future little Mac's name is Avery Grant MacQuarrie.

Read more...

It's Chicken and Dumplings Wednesday!

Can you believe how cold it is right now? It is seriously 40 degrees! What the heck happened to my wonderful sweater perfect fall weather?? yuck!

With Justin working night shift over the past week and a half, I have spent very little time cooking. It's just not as fulfilling to spend hours in the kitchen to have nobody to share it with,(even if you have new appliances to cook with).

But yesterday when I got the weekly weather report and found out that today was a high of 42 degrees I knew that tonight had to be chicken and dumplins night. I spent the entire evening last night cooking the chicken and making the broth so the process would be a lot quicker tonight when I make it (also catching up with the my new favorite TLC show 18 kids and counting).. But anyway, now I am super excited! Talk about comfort food. I found this recipe online and have tried it a few times and I love it. It's suppose to be a copycat version of Cracker Barrel's Chicken & Dumplings but it's been so long since I have had cracker barrel that I don't know if it actually is. In any case, this is a keeper for me!

Cracker Barrel Chicken and Dumplings

3 quarts water
1 3-4 pound chicken cut up
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 small onion sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and quartered
1 bay leaf
4-6 whole parsley leaves
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Dumplings

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

1. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot. Add the chicken, 1 teaspoon of salt, onion, celery, garlic, bay leaf, and parsley to the pot. Reduce the heat to simmer and cook the chicken, uncovered, for 2 hours. The liquid will reduce by about one third.

2. When the chicken has cooked, remove it from the pot and set it aside. Strain the stock to remove all the vegetables and floating scum. You only want the stock and the chicken, so toss everything else out.

3. Pour 1 1/2 quarts (6 cups) of the stock back into the pot (keep the leftover stock, if any, for another recipe-it can be frozen). You may also want to use a smaller pot or a large saucepan for this. Add coarsely ground pepper, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and the lemon juice, then reheat the stock over medium heat while preparing the dumplings.

4. For dumplings, combine the flour, baking powder, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, and milk in a medium bowl. Stir well until smooth, then let the dough rest for 5-10 minutes. Roll the dough out onto a floured surface to about a 1/2 inch thickness.

5. Cut the dough into 1/2 inch squares and drop each square into the simmering stock. Use all of the dough. The dumplings will first swell and then slowly shrink as they partially dissolve to thicken the stock into a white gravy. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until thick. Stir often.

6. While the stock is thickening, the chicken will have become cool enough to handle. Tear all the meat from the bones and remove the skin. Cut the chicken meat into bite-size or a little bigger than bite-size pieces and drop them into the pot. Discard the skin and bones. Continue to simmer the chicken and dumplings for another 5-10 minutes, but don't stir too vigorously or the chicken will shred and fall apart. You want big chunks of chicken in the end.

7. When the gravy has reached the desired consistency, ladle four portions onto plates and serve hot. Serve with your choice of steamed vegetables, if desired.

Read more...

Ebay buys

So I won some awesome things off of EBAY- but for some reason I cannot save the pictures so I will have to wait to show what an awesome shopper I have been. But I will give a summary...

- the cutest ralph lauren baby polo onsie that is yellow and navy blue striped for a whopping $5.00 after shipping (valued at 25.00 bucks new).

- a baby ralph lauren sweater for $8.00 (valued at way too much $70.00!)

- and then I won an entire lot of name brand baby boy clothes consisting of an adorable red baby gap jacket, a cute baby gap sweater, and about 9 complete outfits from other stores (tommy h, ralph lauren, carters, etc.) Some with tags still attached! All for a whopping $16.00 dollars!! I was pretty proud of myself! (valued at ALOT more than 16 bucks)

I have realized, though, that Ebay can be quite addicting! I think I will take a break for a few days.

Read more...

Pregnancy week 23

So as of tomorrow I am a full 23 weeks pregnant and I thought I would start to use this blog to log this pregnancy journey. As of this week our little mac is now the size of a small baby doll you might purchase. That's pretty impressive considering he could fit in the palm of my hand just a few short weeks ago. Baby mac is also about 11 inches long. It's amazing to me that at this point if were to have to give birth to our little guy he would have a 10 to 70 percent chance of survival! That's crazy because I just don't feel like I have been pregnant nearly long enough to have a baby that could survive- but that's how God does it!

Here is a picture of last week. I feel like I look larger in the picture that reality. I don't know if it was the shirt or what, but you at least get the idea. Also- Sorry, about the quality it was a phone pic.



It has been fun and exciting, and I feel like Justin and I are so blessed already. Friends and family have showered us endlessly with tons of baby clothes, toys, furniture, and even maternity clothes to use!~ Since being on the Dave Ramsey budget it's been wonderful to feel so many people willing to help us out. After finding out it's a boy, I finally was given the okay to do some shopping for our little guy and I have been an Ebay freak! I love that people sell their name brand baby clothes in large lots for so stinkin cheap. I have a couple auctions ending tonight and will be sure to post some pics of our new buys!

Read more...

How UN-awesome..........

So, here's my vent. We are settling into this life in our new house and then bam- Justin get's the call that he's going on night shift for a week.. "Ok. Whatev." I thought. So last week he began his week leaving around 4:00 and not getting home until 6:00am. Mind you- I do not even get home from work until 5 and I am up at 6:30 getting ready to go to work, so we basically missed each other the entire week. It stunk!

I was so anxious for the weekend when this hideous schedule would be over and we could finally settle into a new normal with the move, nnd then Friday evening comes along and Justin calls to inform me that he was scheduled for yet another week of hell...AKA night shift..... seriously.I was devistated.

 A: I hate hate not seeing Justin for an entire week, and B: Who likes staying by yourself in a new house at night especially 5 1/2 months pregnant???? NOT ME! And what's worse is that there may be a possibility that this new night shift is our new normal.. How un awesome is that? I have no idea how this new schedule is going to pan out with a new baby on the way, so for now I am just going to pray that this not what it seems..

On a side note- we did try to make the best of the little amount of time we had this weekend to work on the house, and we painted the entire kitchen! Yay for us. Pictures to come!

Read more...

Intelligender Test

Has anyone ever heard of these intelligender tests??? If so- and your pregnant, or plan to be someday, or your wife is, let me warn you of these little things.

It all started about 3 months ago when I was sitting on the couch watching the nightly news when they began the story on these peculiar little gender tests. Basically, these tests are designed to tell the gender of your baby at the ripe age of 10 weeks pregnant. I thought that the idea was crazy, but what was more crazy was many Asian countries had banned the test right off of their shelves because the women who were taking the tests were actaully doing it to find out the gender of the baby- and if the baby was not the gender that was desired (boy) they would abort the baby at this early stage of pregnancy. I had never heard of such a test before! And sitting on the couch at 10 weeks pregnant I was so intriged by the possible accuracy of the results, and being the impatient person that I am I ran to the nearest CVS that very week just to take a look at one.

I could not beleive that these tests were 90% accurate like the news and other adds had claimed.. That began my infatuation with finding out the gender of baby Mac so early. I begged and begged for a solid week for Justin to give in and let me buy a gender test (that cost 30 bucks!). Finally after much persuasion he gave me the O.K.

So we purchased the test to find that Intelligender predicted us a little GIRL... It was exciting! According to my good friend Intelligender, there was a 90% chance that we were having a little girl!

I tried not to take it to heart, but I did...So over the next 3 months I did nothing but plan out the little girl nursery, the little girl clothes, the little girl everything! Of course Justin wouldn't let me buy anything that wasn't gender nutral until we got the 100% from the Doc. But I was sure of it...

So the day comes, Oct. 1st...the big day when we get to officially find out that it was a little sheMac... We get all prepped for the ultrasound and you could hear pin drop when they began. The tech leans over "do you guys want to know the gender?" she said. "YES!" we said at the same time....... "Boy!" she said...Now I would have loved to have actaully seen my face, because I was for sure in shock there. "Are you sure????" I kept asking her... Finally the tech said "I am 120% sure that this is a little boy."

there you go! A little HeMac.....A Boy!

SO, for anyone who has seen and is planning on doing something stupid like an Intelligender Test- Run! They are a big fat waste of money.

Read more...

mower

Have a Huskee 15.5 HP with a 42" cutting deck. new battery, new blades, recent oil change. We do not use this mower very much and are in the prcess of moving so we would like to sell this ASAP. We are asking $400 or best offer. If interested please call 937.205.3883 or email this account.

Must be able to pick up, and we will only accept cash. No check/ money order/ cashiers check.

Read more...

Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions

So I recorded the MTV Movie Awards and got to see the whole thing for the first time last night. There were some pretty funny things. Here's one of my favorite highlights. Will Ferrell is the man.

Read more...

Happy Birthday Justin

28 years ago my wonderful husband entered the world, and today we get to celebrate!! Wasn't he the cutest little guy?

Read more...

What makes a Super Hero?

Seriously? What makes a Superhero. Is it the ability to fly, or shoot super webs, or acquire super strength? I guess I have always assumed that it takes more than an average joe trying to “clean up the streets.” But I was wrong!

For those of you who may not have saw the recent news two days ago, did you know that Ohio has its own Superhero?? It really does. ShadowHare is cleaning up the streets of Cincinnati right now as we speak. It’s amused me to the point that I HAVE to share it with you.






So back to the question, what makes a Superhero…

A SUPER costume! And acts that are SUPERB!

Read more...

Trust

We all know too well the downturn that the economy has been in. Fortunately, We are finally seeing the spark of hope or the light at the end of the long tunnel in many areas of the economy..For the past several months Justin and I have felt as if we were walking on eggshells financially. On one hand, we both have jobs, we are stable and doing just fine. We feel that we are at a point in our lives that we want to invest in a home. On the other hand-- there was the tyranny of the what if, "what if one of us lose our jobs, what if the economy plunges even more, what if prices of groceries, gas and everything under the sun becomes too much to handle." What if.

For Justin and I, its hard not being behind the control panel of our lives. Recently, our church went through a series "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality" with Pete Scizzaro. It was extremely revealing of our hearts, our motivations, and fears. For me, I came to a point where I had to accept that I am not in control of my life, and accept the outcome of our future whether it makes no sense in my mind.

With all that being said, Justin went in to work. For those who may not know, he works for Norfolk and Southern Railroad . He was hired on a little under a year ago, which puts him (ranking wise) as a peon. Norfolk- like most companies have been hit pretty hard by the economic downturn. In any case, Justin went into work this past week and found out that chances are they are going to do some more layoffs. He may have missed the layoffs once, but there would be no way for him to miss them again.

It's hard trying to see God's big picture through a little peeping hole. We always try to figure out why things in our lives happen, when in our minds it makes no sense! This one of those situations where we have absolutely no control.

We can only trust and know with every part of us that God's ways are so much higher, and His ways are so much better for us than anything we can fathom. For now, we will hope in the fact that God is behind the control panel of our lives and he is a just God.

"And they who know Your name [who have experience and acquaintance with Your mercy] will lean on and confidently put their trust in You, for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek (inquire of and for) You [on the authority of God's Word and the right of their necessity]."Psalm 9: 10

Read more...

Jimmy Needham

Justin and I have quite a bit in common. It was one of the obvious things that attracted us to each other. BUT the one thing that we could never ever agree upon was music. It seemed that when it came to music, we were on two totally different worlds. I love county, southern gospel, and slow coffee shop type music, where Justin loves the rock groups, and even some of the screaming music. For me, when he plays his music it hits a nerve. I can't think straight!

With that all said, this past week Justin found an artist, Jimmy Needham and we BOTH love his music! I have been listening to him nonstop. I don't know much about him other than his music is amazing! The music has a very old feel to it and his lyrics sounds straight out of a personal journal. Very intimate. His music is very reminiscent of Shuan Groves, and Shane and Shane, two groups that I absolutely love.

If Justin can like this guy, anyone can. Great music that is defiantly worth a listen.

Read more...

TGIF!

Thank goodness it's Friday! I have no real plans other than my FINAL Upward game tomorrow, and that is very intentional. This weekend I am going to make it a priority to do absolutly nothing! :) :) :) Upwards has been great and I have enjoyed doing the cheerleader coaching thing, but my mind AND body are ready for a vacation.

Read more...

Moments in Time

So I have realized that our lives are defined by moments. I realize that more every single day. Justin and I are young, newly married (just over a year), no children, and are still trying to figure out some of the big things in life. Our calling, house, kids, etc.. Everyday we are still asking God whats the big picture, Do you want this? Is this it?

I guess in my own mind I have always figured that God is going to make this huge entrance and send his angels down to say" This is it, this is what I have saved you for. This is my plan" The angels would be saying this to us all while handing us the scroll filled with the details of the golden timeline of our lives.....

But, it's obviously not the case.

I have realized that Justin and I have already made some huge decisions. We asked Christ into our hearts. We went to CBC. We dated. We married. We quit our jobs in C-ville. We moved here. And in each situation, they were triggered my small unnoticble moments. It is the moments, the forks in the road, the decision to stop, the decision to speed up, the choosing the wrong direction or the right direction that defines our lives. And they happen like a flash of light- gone before you realized it had arrived.

A phone call.

An accident.

A meeting.

A hurtful comment.

A moment.

And those God ordained moments, those mind/opinion changing spaces of time have the most sensitive triggers. One minute your living your life as you know it, and the next your on the phone with someone you havent spoken with in years (whom you eventually marry). They take on a life all of their own. Moments. They shape us, define us..

But each one has made me who I am and placed me where I am today. So I guess, In my futile attempts to find the golden timeline of God's will, He has quietly been working through these moments. And I guess in this point of our lives, its hard to not beg God for a glimpse of the big picture. It's hard. But I am realizing that His plans are far beyond me and anything I can comprehend, so for now, I will just trust, and wait for the next moment.

Read more...

Marley and Me

Last night Justin brought home a couple of movies to keep me company while he went to the church board meeting, one being "Marley and Me". I guess I didn't read the reviews extensivley enough to realize that it was going to break the floodgates open the way it did. I was definatly not in the mood to be sitting in the dark living room, eating brownies, and sobbing, yes sobbing uncontrollably. But thats what ended up happening.

Justin came home long after the movie had ended. By this time I had recovered, and was enjoying a nice episode of "The Biggest Loser" . He walked in the door, "So, how was 'Marley and Me," he asked. I began to explain the movie, and in mid explanation I began sobbing AGAIN! Geesh, talk about a train wreck. lol.. I do not think I had cried that much since Leonardo died in the Titanic.

But, In all honesty, I don't think the movie was that heart wrenching- it's just been a weird week.

Read more...