March 10th... Never gets any easier

14 years ago today... I woke up and knew. After an extended hospital stay, and every intervention known to medicine. I just knew. The delivery was scheduled for 10am. I was scheduled to have my tubal ligation just after his delivery. But I knew that these were my last moments.

Logan Thomas was born via c-section and lived 32 minutes according to his death certificate. He was a perfect little baby on the outside, 3lbs 4ozs and looked exactly like his older brother looked when he was born. My biggest preemie boy, but the sickest one too.

Not a day goes by, that I dont miss my boy. One thing I've found, about death, no matter who tells you it will get easier, it never does. No matter who tells you the pain will fade, it doesn't. You hear these things from well meaning people, but you can always tell, they never lost a child

An angel in the book of life wrote down my baby's birth,

Then whispered as she closed the book,

"Too beautiful for Earth"

-Unknown

Thinking of You with Love
We thought of you with love today,
but that is nothing new.
We thought about you yesterday,
and days before that too.
We think of you in silence,
we often speak your name.
All we have are memories,
and your picture in a frame.
Your memory is our keepsake,
with which we will never part.
God has you in His keeping,
we have you in our hearts.
A million times we`ve wanted you.
A million times we cried.
If love could only have saved you,
you never would have died.
It broke our hearts to lose you.
But you didn`t go alone.
For a part of us went with you...
the day God called you Home.
~Author Unknown

Tears
If tears could build a stairway,
and memories a lane,
I'd walk right up to Heaven
and bring you home again.
No farewell words were spoken
no time to say goodbye
you were gone before I knew it,
and only God knows why.
My heart still aches in sadness
and secret tears still flow,
what it meant to lose you,
no one will ever know.
~Author Unknown





Remembrance Jewelry 

Baby Shower Planning 101 for Dummies

I need this book. Okay well they don't make it, maybe by the time Im done planning and executing this shower, I can write the book! I did stumble across what appears to be a good book on Amazon called Planning the Best Baby Shower Ever! I ordered it today, hopefully with Amazon's lightning fast service it will appear in my mailbox this week. So my oldest dd is having a baby. It's not her first, but this is the first I have planned a shower for. In the past her mother in law has given her a shower, which amounted to their side of the family being invited. So this time Ive done the unthinkable... I posted an event on facebook, invited all the people on my facebook that know both Sam and I, then I hacked into her facebook acct and invited all her friends too. To be proper, I did post that I wanted to send invitations in the mail, but am limited on addresses, so if people would kindly either post their mailing address, or send it to me via email I will mail invites. Whew. Phase 1 accomplished. I spent hours yesterday pouring over websites to find the perfect cake topper. I came up with 3, not sure which I will go with yet. I ran a poll on Support On The Homefront asking others what they thought. When all else fails and you cant make a decision, ask your closest internet friends! So these are the toppers...

I am really partial to the last one (the bassinet baby in pink). But am still not quite ready to order yet. I plan to make my first (well second) rolled fondant cake. The first will be a practice run LOL Ill probably try my hand at it at the end of this month. The second... will be the shower cake. Im hoping for something that resembles this one:

Maybe not exact colors but similar. I am waffling between 2 different plate/napkin/cup designs as well. The more frilly and Pink, the better.

I bought a book with shower games and spent a good hour googling baby shower games as well. So many good ideas out there, but of course everyone wants money to even view their ideas to see if its something that is compatible with this particular shower. I suppose there is probably a book out there with shower game ideas too. Hmm

Low-Carb Cheesecake and My Helpers

Here it is, the low-carb cheesecake pictures!

My helpers in baking and cooking:

Low-Carb on a Mission

So for just over a year (give or take a few cheating days) I have been doing a low-carb diet with the supervision of a physician. My starting weight was 234. Yes you read that right 234. For most of my life I have been 140-150 with little to no effort. After bouts of depression, loneliness, an accident that left me virtually immobile for months, and good southern cooking I reached that peak weight in December 2009. I started weight watchers (which I had done previously with some success) and was disappointed that after 2 months I had lost 2.5 lbs. Not the type of success I had achieved on my previous venture with weight watchers.

So I contacted a physician in late February 2010. Within 10 months I had lost 80lbs. Maintaining the loss was a bit difficult over the holidays, and with a few too many indulgent days and traveling... I had gained about 14 of the 80 back. So I am now back on my new lifestyle diet. Over the past 3 wks I have lost 5 lbs and its definitely a start. It helps now that others in the family have decided to change their eating habits with me.

So today I went back through my recipes that I had previously posted on Support On The Homefront and dug up my cheesecake recipe :)

Crust: 6 oz crushed pecans, 3 tbsp smart balance 1 tbsp splenda

Press on bottom of spring-form pan.

Filling: 2-8 oz pkgs Philly Cream Cheese
3 eggs
1 cup splenda
1tsp flavoring (almond, vanilla or lemon) your choice

Mix until creamy batter, pour on crust and bake at 350 for 30-40 mins. Let cool, put in refrigerator. You can use sugar free jello and make a sauce to give it a fruit flavor to top it.

it has: Carbs- 4g Protein- 8g per 2x2 slice

It's in the oven, I used a 10x13 pyrex pan instead of a springform (works better for me to cut it in squares)
Pictures to come!

Spring Cleaning.... has begun

Spring cleaning has begun! Okay well really I started it back in February, but didnt get very far So last night we went and bought a box of huge black trash bags (we dont keep them on hand) and we filled up 14 of them suckers! I had probably 30 empty feed bags in my feed trailer, yard trimmings from last fall boxes, boxes and more boxes from Christmas and who knows what else, and we had tons of newspapers, magazines etc that I had full intentions of recycling... except that I used to take them to walmart where they had bins for recycling but the bins are gone Recycling isnt a big thing in this area yet, we tend to be about 10 yrs behind the rest of the civilized nation when it comes to just about everything.

The first Saturday of the month is free dump day, so we loaded up the truck with our trash bags full of junk, as well as some broken toys, 2 broken umbrella strollers, and a microwave that was KIA. Our total weight when we got to the scale was 4140 that's truck, people and junk. When we left the scale read 3780 so we had 360 lbs of junk/trash etc

so... bring on the sun! Im ready for spring, planting flowers, and a garden... getting baby chicks and ducks and everything else that comes with spring

Anyone in Kaneohe Bay Hawaii??? Anyone?

Of my 25 followers and hundreds of lurkers :) Anyone in Kaneohe Bay Hawaii with access to the Marine Corps base?

One of the companies I work through is looking for someone to secret shop some stores. There are 5 jobs for March, each pays $10 plus reimbursement for purchases.

If you or someone you know are interested, send me a message via email APRYL'S EMAIL Ill hook ya up!

Waste of money? Possibly! Review of N.E.W extended warranty program

So as many of you know, my $500 Nikon was having issues for the second time. I sent it off 10 months after I bought it to Nikon as it was still covered under the warranty. The flash had died, and I would get a lense not attached error when I tried to take pictures about half the time. Nikon was semi fast at getting it fixed and sent back to me. The repair lasted 1 yr. By this time the factory warranty had expired, but I bought the 2 yr extended warranty on the camera.

I sent it off February 2nd, and received it back February 15th. I have taken about 100 pictures with it since I got it back. I noticed that it still does not respond well in auto focus, it should automatically take a picture as soon as you press the button. I know this because this is what it did, not only when I bought it, but after Nikon fixed it for me. It doesnt do this. In fact about half the time it does not want to auto focus at all. It just sits there. It has done this since I got it back. This leads me to believe they didnt fix anything. The paperwork doesnt say what they repaired, which Nikon does tell you exactly what they have done to fix your issues.

Tonight I turn it on and the dreaded lens not attached message appears. I have requested repair again, but have little hope that this off the wall camera shop in Illinois knows how to fix it. If they did, wouldnt they have fixed it the LAST time I sent it in?  Im beyond frustrated at N.E.W extended warranty, and apparently there is no actual customer service number with a real human being. Stay tuned. I may have N.E.W extended warranty on blast soon.