What We Ate Last Week - April 2017 Week 1

Can you believe we're a quarter of the way through the year already?!  Time sure does fly - and the older I get, the faster it's flying...

Brent only has eight more weeks of classes and then it's off to an internship or a job!  He's been applying for jobs as a dialysis biomedical tech, but there's not a whole lot of openings on the West coast unless we want to live in the LA area, which we don't.  So, he's been applying for a lot of jobs back east:  North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, etc.  He hasn't heard anything back besides the automated rejection reply, but we kind of expected that since he still has two months of school left and we're all the way on the other side of the country.  Last week he did hear back from a regional recruiter for one company though who wanted to talk to him about a job here in Washington.  After a day of phone tag, he talked to her for a bit last week and she said she'd pass on his info to a hiring manager out here and that he'll probably have an interview in the next week or two.  We're still waiting to hear back on the interview, but still!  We got a bite and it's exciting - especially since it would mean we could stay in state.  We're definitely willing to move where ever the right job is, but since the majority of both of our families are here it would be really nice to stay in Western Washington.

Also on the (potentially) exciting news front - we bought big boy underwear and a toilet insert for Calvin...he's not super interested yet, but he's starting to show interest and tell us when he needs a diaper change, so I'm pretty sure potty training is coming up soon for us.  Wish us luck!

Here's our menu for last week.  Brent finally kicked his cold and my back is feeling much better, so we actually stuck pretty close to our plan for the week.

Monday 4/3

Breakfast:  Leftover Muffins, Yogurt and Fruit

Lunch:  Grilled Turkey Patties and Salad

Dinner:  Salad and Baked Potato

Tuesday 4/4

Breakfast:  Yogurt and Grapefruit Yogurt Coffee Cake - This was okay.  It's a little underwhelming though.  The grapefruit flavor could be stronger and/or it could be a little sweeter.  I think if you upped the grapefruit it wouldn't need to be sweeter and if you upped the sweetness you wouldn't need to up the citrus because it would taste like cake.  I think I'd prefer more grapefruit.  I wonder if reducing the juice down would help...

Lunch:  Salad and Leftovers

Dinner:  Fruit, Chips, and Pesto Avocado Chicken Salad Sandwiches - These were so good!  I used butter lettuce instead of arugula since it's what we had on hand and arugula isn't my favorite.  It would probably be good on these sandwiches though.  I ate the leftovers the next day in a whole wheat wrap.  These will definitely make an appearance on the menu this summer when it's too hot to cook. :)

Wednesday 4/5
Breakfast:  Fruit and Avocado Toast
Lunch:  Tuna Sandwiches, Chips, and Salad
Dinner:  Salad and Migas - I forgot to get cilantro and jalapeno, which are key components of this recipe.  So sad!  We love these though.  Make them! :)

Thursday 4/6
Breakfast:  Yogurt and Grapefruit Coffee Cake
Lunch:  Grilled Turkey Patties and Salad
Dinner:  Fruit, Salad, and Leftovers

Friday 4/7
Breakfast:  Scrambled Eggs, Fruit, and Grapefruit Coffee Cake
Lunch:  Tuna Wrap, Chips, and Fruit
Dinner:  Salad, Fruit, and Avocado Tuna Cakes - We've had these before and they're tasty!

Saturday 4/8
Breakfast:  Fruit and Whole Grain Pancakes - The usual Saturday morning breakfast, made by Calvin and Brent as usual. :)
Lunch:  Fruit and Broccoli Pizza - We ran out of time for these on Saturday since we needed to go get some interview clothes for Brent.
Dinner:  Salad and Leftovers

Sunday 4/9
Breakfast:  Fruit and Pancakes
Lunch:  Sandwiches
Dinner:  Gunnell Family Dinner

There ya go!  I hope everyone had a great week!

Keep giggling,
Michelle

In Which We Show Gratitude for 2016

Here's our Gratitude/Blessing Jar entries for 2016:

~ Calvin is two!! (June)
~ October Temple Date:  Sealings on our anniversary with our original sealer! ♡
~ I worked at Coach Outlet for the Holidays (November - December)
~ Calvin's speech & signing are really taking off! (mid. April)
~ Dad & Tracy were sealed/married! 3-12-16
~ March temple date (Dad & Tracy's sealing)
~ I worked at the Puyallup Fair (September)
~ We had a Christmas Elf send us money. - Around Christmas, we received an anonymous card in the mail with some money to help us have a merry Christmas while Brent was in school.
~ My dining room chairs went on super-duper clearance at Fred Meyer!!! :D
~ Brent's last day at ACE Parking! 3-11-16
~ January temple date! :D
~ Calvin had fun in nursery at church with nursery leaders Sisters King and Strauss!
~ Play dates with Heather and Logan!
~ Mom & Jonathan moved to Yelm - now they're only an hour away! (April)
~ We're approved for basic food assistance and WIC checks while Brent is in school.
~ We've had Nessie for a year! (December)
~ 5 years of marriage!!! 10-22-16
~ Brent (miraculously) started the Bio Med Tech program at Bates! (March)

In Which We Show Gratitude for 2015

A few years ago, we started a Blessings Jar.  It sits on a table, in our front hall, next to a basket with note cards and markers waiting for us to fill it.  In theory, we write down blessings or things we're grateful for as they happen and then put them in the jar.  Then, on New Year's Eve, we open the jar and look back over all of the good things that happened to us over the last year.  In reality, we rack our brains at the end of the year to remember all of the blessings we've seen, write them down and then stuff them in zippy bag labeled with the year.  I also had the idea to put them in a blog post so they'd be easier to find if we ever wanted to look at them again.  

Since I've been MIA on the blog for the last couple years, I've got some blessings to catch-up on...  So, in no particular order, here's our Blessing Jar notes from 2015:

~ Pantry Shelves! (August)  - Dad and Kyle built us some shelves in our pantry!

~ Nessie came to live with us! (December) - Sarah left for school and we took her cat in. :)

~ Dad and Tracy got engaged! (December)

~ Brent's last Holiday Season at ACE Parking!!!!

~ Mom watched Cal so we could go to tea for Valentine's!

~ Girl Scout Cookies!

~ Church at 1pm!! :D

~ We bought the CR-V! (September)

~ Brent took a stay-cation the beginning of February.

~ Calvin got a highchair!

~ Calvin turned one!!! (June)

~ All of the Gunnell siblings in town in July & August!

~ Gunnell family sealing team at the Seattle Temple!

~ A new battery made "Joe" reliable again! - Joe is Brent's '97 Civic

~ "Thanks for hosting us!  We love you! <3 Andrew & MB" - Andrew and Mary Beth stayed with us when everyone was in town.

~ Walking Baby!!  Eeek... (August)

I'm positive there were more things we could've included, but those are the things we remembered.

Oh Boy!

Last night was the first of two baby showers that have been planned for Calvin and me!  My wonderful visiting teachers, Amber and Lindzee, planned it and hosted it at Amber's.  It was so sweet of them!  I forgot to take pictures when I got there, but they decorated it so cute!  Everything was yellow, grey and different shades of blue.  There were lots of little sail boats on the banners and signs posted all over.  I'll add pictures later of the decorations they gave me to take home, but until then here's what the invite looked like:

How cute is that?!  The decorations and colors for the party pretty much followed the same theme. :)

There were about a dozen ladies from church who showed up to help celebrate Calvin's upcoming arrival.  We started the evening with a yogurt and donut bar - yumm!  They had these cute little paper bowls with blue or yellow chevron patterns on them that we used to build our own yogurt parfaits.  There was plain and vanilla yogurt that you could top with granola, toasted coconut, sliced almonds, mini chocolate chips, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and black berries.  Yogurt has been one of my "go to" pregnancy snacks - especially vanilla Greek yogurt with fruit and cereal - so I LOVED having a yogurt bar there last night!  There were also little homemade lemon and chocolate donuts that were so good - I think I ate like half a dozen of the lemon ones... :)

After we all chatted and enjoyed the goodies it was time for some games!  For the first game, Amber took me out of the room while Lindzee handed out a questionnaire to everyone asking questions about what I was wearing.  Once everyone was as finished as they could be with that I was allowed back in the room and we went over the answers to see who got the most right.  The winner this round was my wonderful mother in law!  Way to go!
The next game we played was a guessing game of sorts.  There were brown paper bags set up as a banner that read "BABY SHOWER".  Each bag had one of those letters on it and then an object inside that started with that letter and had to do with babies.  We passed all the bags around and made our best guesses as to what was inside each one.  After we were all done writing down our guesses, Lindzee opened the bags so we could all check if we were right.  Briana and I ended up in a tie, but she guessed the most difficult of all (O for Oral jel) so she won the tie-breaker.  That was a pretty fun game and I'll definitely keep it in mind for any baby showers that I might host in the future!
We also played the game where everyone gets a pacifier necklace and if you get caught saying the word "baby" you have to give up your necklace to the person who catches you.  Elizabeth ended up winning that one, I think she ended up with 6 or 7 necklaces!  She was all over that one! :)

After games it was time for me to open gifts while everyone else filled out little slips of paper with their wishes for Calvin!  I got so many wonderful things for little Cal - he is so loved! :)  I'll come back later and post some pictures of the cute things he got!

It was a great evening and I'm so thankful for the wonderful ladies in our ward who took the time to plan or attend the shower last night to show their love for our little boy!

I have another shower tomorrow morning, and I'll try to be better about getting some pictures from this one so I have some pictures to share!

Keep giggling!
Michelle

Getting Up to Date!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I'm not very good at this blogging thing...and I'm willing to bet that my blogging frequency is not going to drastically improve anytime soon.

For those who don't know (which should be nobody since anyone who reads this is probably also on facebook or is family), I'm pregnant!!  Brent and I are expecting our first child in June!  Calvin Barrett Gunnell should be joining our family sometime around Father's Day - my due date is Friday, June 13th.  I just hit the 34 week mark on today, so only about 6 more weeks until we get to  meet our little boy!  We are so excited - and slightly overwhelmed!  There is so much we still need to get done to prepare for his arrival...it makes my head spin sometimes, or maybe that's just a symptom caused by all these extra pregnancy hormones?  So many random things are explained away by hormones...stuffy nose, carpal tunnel, forgetfulness, the list goes on.  It's all worth it in the end though, right? :)  Here's a few of the pictures that I have so far (I didn't take very many at the beginning since I was so sick...nobody wants to see how pathetic I looked anyways, I promise...).

We announced our pregnancy to my extended family (and then Facebook) with delicious cupcakes!  Who doesn't get excited about cupcakes AND babies?! :)

We've had the name "Calvin" picked out for a long time, so when we went in for our gender ultrasound we brought Hobbes with us, just in case!  Good thing we did, he certainly was happy to help us announce the exciting news! :D

This is my most recent bump picture.  April 11, 2014 - 31 weeks!!

Other than growing a human being, I haven't really been up to much the last 7 months or so.  Brent, on the other hand, has been working super hard in school and at his job!  He's pretty much amazing. :)  He's been at his job since March 1st of last year and he's worked his way up a little on the totem pole.  He is now the night shift supervisor/team captain.  He still does valet, but now  he mostly is the cashier and directs things on the drive at the hotel.  This position came with a little bit of a raise and is full time!  Full time = insurance = we can have a baby! :)  He also just had his annual performance review and pretty much rocked it!  He got a small raise and was told that if he's interested in moving up into management in the next year or so to just let his bosses know!  Way to go, Brent! :)  He works so hard for us and we are so blessed to be able to get by on his income alone!  Heavenly Father has really been taking care of us and helping us to start expanding our little family. :)

I'm almost to the Dr's appointment every week phase of pregnancy, so we do lots of trips up to South Hill for that.  We started our Childbirth Preparation Classes (or as we like to call them, Baby Poppin' Classes) 3 and a half weeks ago.  We meet every Tuesday evening at Valley Medical Center with about 14 other couples.  It's a seven week course with a reunion after all the babies are born - probably sometime in late July or early August.  I know a lot of people say that the classes aren't worth the time or money - the baby is coming out whether you're prepared or not - but, I'm really glad we've been able to work Brent's schedule around this so we can take them together.  It's nice to be able to at least pretend that we'll have any idea what's happening when we head to the hospital, lol.  So, that's where things stand for us right now.  We're just making sure we're registered for all the things we think we need, I'm getting ready for my baby showers next week and we're just working on getting things ready for Calvin's arrival!

Keep giggling!
Michelle