Rough...

Have you ever let your house get so messy that it causes you to go into a depression? Have you ever just felt so overwhelmed, that you don't think you can ever crawl out a this funk? Have you ever just not wanted to get up and move?

That is where I am right now? I know that I need to get my butt up off the recliner and do something, but things are so chaotic right now that I just can't do it.

Please pray for me... it has been a rough weekend and I just need to get out of this funk. We have so much to be thankful for(more on that later...) and I should be so happy and thrilled, but I just can't be. I feel like... yuck!

Pray... please pray... and while you are praying... please remember Gracie, and of course sweet baby Stellan and MckMama and Prince Charming and all the MSC. They need your prayers!!!

Much love...
C

Update

So, we took Grace to the Ped office this morning and her Dr said that she wasn't extremely concerned, but she was a little worried. She said that normally when a child hits their head, they have a hard knot on their head, well, Grace's was actually soft more fluid like. She said that Grace could have a skull fracture, which a lot of kids can get, but they wanted to rule out a depressed skull fracture, which is when the fracture is pressing against the brain. She said that she didn't think it was that, but again, just wanted to rule it out. So, we had to take Grace over to Children's Anderson location and have a skull Xray.

OK... so we got a call back from the Pediatrician and she said that Grace has a skull fractrure and the soft lump is an hematoma that is actually from where the fracture is healing(I hope I am understanding that right.... so much was going on I hope I got that. Steph, does that sound right?). I didn't get to talk to the Dr, but Doug did, so that is all that I really know. The Dr said that it looked ok and that we just need to watch her close until the swelling from the hematoma goes down. We also have to take Grace back in 2 months for another scan to just make sure that it is healing ok.

I am still so nervous, and upset, and completely anxious and just want to cover everything in pillows and not let Grace do anything, but she is too adventurous. They say that this is kind of common, and sometimes kids have fractures and they never know it, we just know because of this hematoma. So, it should start going down over the next couple of days, and then hopefully things will go back to normal. I would be more worried if she were showing some signs of slowing down, but to no avail... she still wants to run, climb and jump! :)

Please continue to pray for her and her speedy recovery. I am so thankful to God that this is something relatively common(I hope that is right!), and that we have amazing pediatricians with awesome weekend hours! I am so thankful right now. THank you for your prayers and concerns! I will be sure to keep you posted!

Much love!!
Candace

Prayer Request!

Can you please say a special prayer for Grace this morning? Doug was giving her a bath getting her ready for church this morning and he found a weird lump on her head right above her right ear. It is kind of soft and spongy, but we have never noticed it before. Last Saturday she fell out of a chair at church and bumped her head pretty hard, but I don't think this has anything to do with it. Of course, Doug is panicking and I am trying to keep calm, but that is not easy with him flipping out. Anyway... we are taking her to her pediatrician this morning at 11 and please just pray that the Doc says that it is just a typical kid thing!

Thanks and much love!

Candace

Baby Stellan

Please continue to pray for this precious little baby and his mama and daddy while they take care of him and put their trust in God. If you are not familiar with MckMama, please head on over to her website and read all about their precious baby Stellan. God has big plans for this precious child. He is a true blessing.

Scrapbooking pages

These aren't in any specific order, but this is what I got done at the crop this past weekend.

These are my very favorite pages that I have done.... ever. Her 6 month pics.

These are some others that I was really proud of. So cute... she was so little!

And this one is hilarious.... and so true!

New Pics...

Ok, I have promised some new pics of Grace, and here are just a few to suffice. :)

Cougar Crop!

This past weekend I got to do something that I have not done before. I spent an entire day... scrapbooking! It was soooo much fun! My girlfriends, that I lovingly refer to as the Phat Girlz(me being one of them), invited me to come along on this all day crop... hence the title of my post, Cougar Crop. The crop was a fundraiser for the school that my friend Micki's kids attend. It is a Christian school, and this is like the 4th or 5th crop that they have had. It was awesome! There were 5 rows of tables set up across an entire gym, and there were 130 ladies there scraping, cropping, and working on different kinds of crafty projects. Of course, the girls that I was with were all about scrapbooking. We had such a fun time! I am so thankful for this group of girls!

So, while we were there, they fed us 3 meals and we had everything that we could have wanted. They even gave away some awesome prizes! One of which was a Cricut Diecut machine, that my friend Mindy won. They were not only giving away scrapbooking gifts and giveaways, but they also has a huge table with 8 other prizes. They gave everyone 2 blank tickets for us to put our names on. We then got to take our tickets up to the tables and they had a bag numbered to corespond with each giveaway gift. They had prizes that ranged from big Gift baskets full of yummy looking food, to (the thing I wanted the most) a Victoria Jackson Survival Kit including...

The Survival Kit with eyeshadows, lipstick, blush, eyeliner, lipliner, and mascara!

Bronzing Brush

Perfectly polished Lip Balm QuartetAnd this really cool pocket Palette.

The funny thing is, I had just been at Sam's 2 days before with my mom and muttered to her that I have always wanted to try this makeup. Does anyone remember the infomercial back in the 90's? I am sure that my best friend Terah will, but does anyone else? I remember getting ready for school in the morning and almost every morning, that infomerical played, and every time, I watched it! I loved it! I never did get that makeup back then, but wanted it bad! Well....

As we were sitting there waiting for them to call the names for the 8 prizes, right before they got ready to call the name for this gift pack, I looked over at my friend Marshan and said, "This is the one that I wanted..." No sooner had the words come out of my mouth did the Announcer call, "CANDACE MCCLAIN"! I looked at Marshan and I squeeled, adn she yelled! LOL! It was awesome! I still haven't used it, but I will.. and when I do, I will share a picture of my before and after! LOL! Anyway... the day was great! Here are some pics from our ultra fun Saturday!

This is a picture of the entire gym.

This was at the end of the day, but it was packed!

This is my friend Micki,


And her niece(I put that in there for you Marshan! LOL) Mindy,

Marshan...

And our other friend Angie! :)

Here is my messy work station.

This is the infamous koosh ball that everyone wanted through the day. What happens is when you finish a page, you get the koosh, but when someone else finishes, they come and find it and so on... however when they call for whoever has the koosh ball, and you have it, you get to go up and spin the prize wheel. I got the koosh several times, but they only called once while I had it. I got some really cute rhinestone stickers. :)

Here is my friend Mindy again... with her Die cut machine!

And here are the bloggers of the group: Mindy, Me and Marshan! :)

As for the scrapbooking part of the day... I feel like I was very successful... I got 12 full pages done! That is a lot for me. Sometimes I have a bit of scrappers blog. I will try to post some pics of what I did here soon! :)

Pickles

Do you like pickles? I do... I love pickles. Not all pickles of course, just Kosher deli style pickles. Mmmmm.... my favorites are the Izzy Pickles that you can bu in the store. Does everyone know what Izzy's is? I never knew what it was til a few years ago, but I love these pickles. They are soooo good. You know what my favorite thing to eat pickles with are?

Grilled Cheese!!!

Oh my good gracious... I love me some Grilled Cheese and pickles! Lawdy... that is good! Of course... you gotta have a Diet Dr Pepper and another one of my favorites.....

White Cheddar popcorn!

Seriously... besides grilled cheese and pickles, is there anything better? Well... of course, besides chocolate marshmallow ice cream and Mint Chocolate chip ice cream (with Magic Shell!). Do you know what Magic Shell is? If not... please let me know... and I will be happy to educate you. Anyway...

Seriously... can you tell who is off their diet this week? Although... right now, none of this actually sounds good... feeling a little yucky at this point... maybe it is because I have actually eaten this for dinner and it just doesn't sound good anymore, or... could it be for another reason? Hmmm..... naw... just full! LOL!

Stay tuned....

PS: Next post... Some ADORABLE pics of Gracie coming... :)

I have a WINNER(S)!

Update: I am still waiting to hear from the winner of the first prize. Please contact me by Monday morning at Noon EST, otherwise I will have to pick a new Grand Prize winner. Thanks!

Original:
YEAH!!!! I finally have drawn a winner... whoops... Winners! You read it right! More on that in a second...

So, with no further ado... here is the

Grand Prize Winner of my

"200th post Giveaway" is(drumroll................):

Michelle at AuntieThesis

Congratulations!

Please e-mail me at itsallgood1226@msn.com with your home address so I can get you your prize. AS a reminder you will be receiving a brand new copy of Twilight, along with a $15 GC to Target, and a bag of Dove Chocolates. :)

I also need to know... Milk or Dark Chocolate???? :)

Thanks for playing and hanging out with us here at

Gracie's Momma's Blog!

Now... onto the fact that you see the word... winners up there at the top. So... Michelle informed me in her comment that she had already read Twilight, so... since my 200th post doesn't come around every day, and I really want to bring the joy of Twilight to someone new that has not seen/or read it yet, I have decided to pick a second prize winner, who will receive Twilight and also a Dove Chocolate bar!

And the winner is:

Ethan, Zach and Emma's Mom at The Mommy Diaries

Congratulations!!! :)

So... again, please e-mail me at

itsallgood1226@msn.com

and

Please leave me your full name and

address and your chocolate preference:

Dark or Milk?

Thanks again for all of your patience!

By the way... if you didn't win this time... stay tuned. I might... yes, I just might, have another giveaway at the end of this month in honor of Twilight being released on DVD! Keep your eyes posted! :)

Words...

So, my daughter's vocabulary seems to be growing more and more each day. It is so funny to hear something come out of her mouth that is new and you haven't heard before. And then you wonder, when did she pick that up? It is amazing the learning that goes on with a little one.

So... here are some of the words that are in her repertoire:

Mama

Dadda

Yeah!!!!!(and that is exactly how she says it too...)

baba(which actually means her sippy cup)

Mine!(again... where did she come up with that one?)

And... of course, my new favorite:

NO!

(I know exactly where that one came from! LOL!)

Oh... and about the giveaway! THank you for everyone that entered... I am going to have a winner announced this evening! :) Good luck to everyone!

Extended deadline...

Ok, I just want to give everyone one more chance to enter the giveaway... I am going to allow entries through this evening at 11 pm! So... if you have not yet entered, please enter now! You don't have to leave a comment on my original post... just right here. And... don't forget, I am giving away a brand new copy of "Twilight"(which I just got done reading for the second time and have started on the second book, and it is better the second time around!), a $15 GC to Target(who doesn't love TARGET?) and a bag of Dove Chocolates(And... who doesn't love chocolate???).

And... as an added bonus... if we get 2 more "friends" to my blog, then I will add a little something extra as a surprise! So... come on over and comment! That is all ya gotta do! :)

Talk to you soon!
Candace

PS: even though I haven't gotten many comments about the recipe, I am going to post about it anyway. :)

Oh my goodness gracious...

Could Grace get any more ridiculous?

Let me just fill you in on a few things that my 18 month old baby girl has picked up/learned to do in the last few days. Of course, you already know about her climbing out of her bed, but luckily we have cut that off at the knees(now... we didn't cut her off at the knees... I actually laughed at myself there! LOL!) Some of these things are adorable... and some are not so adorable! Oh well... gotta take the good with the bad, huh?

So, over the past week or so, Grace has definitely been fine tuning her tantrum skills, but this evening, it was a classic moment! So, to set the scene, we had just gotten done eating dinner and Doug decided to, instead of letting our precious little girl dictate what movie she wants to watch by us showing her a DVD case and her yelling "YEEEESSSS"(which is another something new that she has picked up, the yelling anyway), he wanted some peace and quiet, so he unplugged the TV. Well, let's just say that this did not go ever well with the princess Gracie. She made this face....

And... it was pretty much the exact way you are seeing it... this face, with absolutely no sound coming out of her mouth. Although... this face is pretty much her new tantrum face, the face she did when she realized that her TV was not working... was even worse, and funnier for me at the same time. You see... I have quite a few nieces and nephews... so I have seen this face before, but for some reason, I find it a little comical watching my girl do this. So... that was a first. :)

So... then tonight, after the TV drama, I decided that I had to go to the bathroom(don't worry... this is not heading into a TMI situation... I promise). So, as I am sitting there... I hear this little, "knock, knock, knock". So... of course I open the door, and there stood Gracie, smiling as big as you please. She would come in(yes, while I was on the potty), take something of insignifigance (like a piece of TP, a hair bow, a small mirror) take it to her daddy, I would shut the door and the entire progress would begin again. We did this about 4 times before I finally decided that I wanted a moment of peace while using the potty. Well... Grace knocked... knocked again, then finally... after a good minute of her knocking... I saw the door know slowly turn, and then the door opened and then again, she was there, laughing this time! Seriously... did she just open the bathroom door???? Apparently! Of course... I called my mom and she said... "meet your clone". Supposedly... Grace is as smart as her momma was(yes... was, I can not claim to be that smart these days!) at that age. It is funny... and she was so proud of herself. Too funny!

Well... that is it for now... my crazy brain can't really think of the other new thing that she has started doing recently... I am sure that it will come to me. I need to go through and document her accomplishments and then post them here so that I can remember years from now, but I just can't seem to get my thoughts together enough to do that right now. :)

One final thing... Thank you for all of the sweet comments about my new layout that I have up. Yes... I did make my own collage for my header, but the background is from The Cutest Blogs on the Block . I just happen to make the banner first, and then lucked into the background. :) I really wish I could find a background with daisies with those colors, but I like this one a lot, so I think I will stick with it for a little while. :)

Also... if anyone is interested(and I am going to see how many comments I get on this...) I was thinking about posting a recipe for my favorite Chicken Stuffing casserole. Would anyone be interested in this? If so... I will try to post it tomorrow.

Finally....(yeah, I know I said one final thing two things ago), don't forget, tomorrow is the last day to enter my giveaway and I will be drawing the winner tomorrow evening after 8 sometime. :) So... you still have time to blog about it, and enter if you have not done so. :)

1 point Haystack Cookie recipe

So... this is my first attempt at sharing a recipe. If I don't do a good job, you could always head over to wwchicks blog and watch her video.

So... first things first, here is what you are gonna need:

You will need:

2 Cups Original Fiber One cereal

1/2 Cup Peanut butter(any kind... not reduced fat!)

1/2 Cup Chocolate Chips(semi-sweet) (now... this is just how I prefer to make them, but you can also use a cookie sheet lined in foil or wax paper)

18 cupcake wrappers in a cupcake tin

(the regular size, not the mini)

A microwaveable mixing bowl, and measuring cup.

If you have the measuring cup from Pampered Chef... it works GREAT!

Measure out 1/2 cup of peanut butter

1/2 cup of Semi-Sweet Chocolate chips

Stop to take a picture of your adorably cute little girl

who is laughing at her daddy!

OK... So I forgot to take a pic of the peanut butter and chocolate in the bowl before you melt... but just imagine it... Mmmm... the aroma of that yummy usually-forbidden peanut butter! MMMM....

OK... back on topic...

You microwave for approximately 1 minute(some microwaves take longer, but start out at a minute and then add 30 second increments if it is not melted enough)

This is what it will look like after 1 minute in the mic

So.. you will mix this together....

Until it is nice and creamy and the pretty chocolatey color.

Then you will add in the 2 cups of Fiber One Cereal

You will need to mix this all together until all of the cereal is fully coated

Like this:

From here...

you will just divide into even amounts into your cupcake wrappers,

until you have 18 equal size cookies.

Then, put them in your fridge

(hopefully it is not nearly as nasty as mine is... I am so embarassed!)

Of course... the funnest part of making these cookies...

is licking the spoon! Yummy...

sorry for the horrible picture... I had a long day! LOL!

So... Once they have chilled for a little while, and in this case,

while I was gone bowling last night... they come out looking like this:

Side note: To my pregnant friends... this is a great treat if you having that problem that most pregnant girls get... (you know... the not being about to "go" problem). They are packed with fiber and work like a charm! :) So...

Hope you all enjoy this yummy treat!!!

Prayer Request and a special something to tempt your tastebuds!

Hello everyone! I hope you had a great Monday! I know... Great and Monday in the same sentence seems a little bit like an oxymoron, but you know what I meant. :)

I have a few quick things to ask of you. Actually... a few prayer requests.

First... Please pray for my brother Brad. I don't know why I am just now posting this here (I already posted it on facebook, so I just forgot to mention it here). Call it a blonde moment. :) Anyway, Brad has been getting these really bad infections in his legs for the last year. Usually his leg swells up and get's really red, but then he will take some antibiotics and he usually gets better. Along with this infection comes chills, fever, and basically puts him in bed for a few days then he is fine. Well... last Tuesday he got a new side effect from the infection (at least we think it was from the infection, they are still doing some tests), he couldn't open his right eye, and has some weakness in his leg and arm. So... a few days went by, he went to Urgent Care and basically they said if it doesn't get better in a day or so, to go to the hospital. So, my parents took him to the hospital last Thursday night and he has been there since. Please pray that God heal his leg, and also help my brother deal with some issues that he needs to take care of for this infection to go away and stay away. Also, please pray for them that he is able to get back to work soon. He has been out since last Tuesday and they are on a very tight budget, as we all are.

Second.... I would like for you to pray for me today. I have some things that are going on right now that I can't really talk about yet, but please just pray that God has his hand in this, and that if it is his will... things will be perfect and I can share this with you in the coming weeks. Also, please pray for my family, as this will have an affect on all of us. Sorry to be so mysterious, but just consider this an unspoken request and pray! I would appreciate it greatly!

Finally... please pray for my momma! She has her shoulder replacement surgery a month ago, and she is dealing with aches and pains that go along with it, but please pray that God help her get the strength back in her arm that she so desperately desires.

Thank you for that... and now, onto something so awesome that I can hardly contain myself... I have a recipe to share... but for now, I am only going to tempt you with a picture of the final outcome to tempt your tastebuds to come back later for the full recipe!

mmm.... this treat is so yummy and you wouldn't believe it... but it Weight Watcher speak... only 1 point! I got this recipe off of TheWWChick's blog. She is a WW leader here in my area and I just found her blog. I love it! She has great tips and she also has a great WW testimony. She lost 80 lbs and have maintained that loss for the last 7 years! Wow! Anyway... These are so yummy, you are not going to believe how yummy they are! Anyway... I am going to post my very first recipe with pictures... later this evening! So... hope you all come back to check it out! You will be glad that you did! :)

Love ya's... and now, I am off to go bowling with my dad!