Valentines Day 2014

Slowly catching up on a few posts here and there. The nausea and fatigue with this pregnancy was so severe..I sort of went a-wall for a while :)


HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!


Valentines day was great this year. It was Morgans first year of being able to pick out a card for daddy and telling him Happy Valentines Day {even though she doesn't know what it means yet}


We celebrated by making mini hamburger sliders for dinner and valentine brownies for desert.

I frosted the brownies with pink cream cheese and the kiddos decorated the entire pan. Then I used heart shaped cookie cutters to cut out hearts. It was cute. They were very good. Rich but good.

Tyler helping me with the "clean up". This is usually daddy's duty, but he wasn't home so he missed out.

Our cute little valentine brownie hearts :)

Morgan showing daddy his card. The cute thing about this was...I think Morgan thought it was hers. It was adorable to see her give this to her daddy.

I also received a valentine...from kale. WITH my favorite candy. Twizzlers. I was actually very surprised because we promised each other this year.. no surprises! But he did it anyways. 

I'm laughing really hard because he bought me one of those comical cards...ya know the kind that you read... in the middle of target...trying not to pee yourself as you laugh hysterically as if your the only person in the store but in reality everyone is staring at you and thinks your nuts...YEP.. It was that kind of card. 

Surely enough...I died laughing and almost peed myself. THANKS babe!!

It's always the small things in life!

~ The Shank Family

My Kidney Bean - 8 weeks

8 Weeks with Baby Shank

Here is one of our sonogram pics from March 28th! Our precious little one...so small and tiny.

This photo was taken at 7 weeks and 6 days

Baby Update:

Heart rate was fast and strong at 165 bpm. Everything checked out normal during our sonogram.  I took a bunch of baby tests and that was it. We were so excited to meet our baby!!

Mommy Update:

Starting Weight: 130lbs

I hit the gym nearly 5 days a week in preparation for this pregnancy! I weighed around 148 after the Holidays and seriously needed to lose a ton of weight before we got pregnant. My pre-pregnancy weight with Morgan was 128. I feel great losing the weight and almost made it!! But 130 is better than nothing!

Weight Gain: 3 lbs 

Maternity Clothes: Not yet, thankfully, but I know it will be much sooner than with any of my other pregnancies. Jeans and capris are getting tight! The "bump" you see obviously is not baby yet. It's bloating and 3 lbs of weight gain :)

My favorite moment: Meeting our baby and spending the whole day with Kale.

I really miss: running and working out. Almost the entire pregnancy so far has been nausea and fatigue. I have been unable to do a lot around the house let alone work out.

I also miss: Being tan!! I think I mentioned this with Morgan as well. I stopped tanning the about a week after having the inkling I was pregnant. We confirmed at home and now I am as pale as a ghost. But I'm o.k. with that :) I am looking forward to warmer weather so I can get somewhat of a tan!!

Cravings: Not anything out of the norm. The only weird thing I have craved was around 3 weeks of pregnancy before we confirmed with home test and dr. test. I had decided one day (right in front of Kale) that I needed to eat sour cream right out of the container. Yep. WEIRD! I opened the fridge, started humming a little, grabbed a spoon and stuck a huge glop of sour cream in my mouth! IT WAS SO GOOD. I totally knew that I was pregnant. The look on Kale's face was priceless!

Sleep is good. When I hit the sack...its over. There is no waking me up. period!

Fatigue and Nausea are at the extreme. For two entire weeks (8th and 9th week of pregnancy) I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was totally incapacitated with sickness. I felt like a truck hit me and I needed to get out my sickness but couldn't. It was absolutely terrible. I can't even explain how terrible I felt. I had to literally eat all day long to keep something in my stomach. It was terrible. My diet consisted of toast, crackers, water and soup.

Daddy Update:

He's excited :)

again!!!

Kale is happy and excited. He is acknowledging faster when I'm tired and don't feel good with this pregnancy. With Morgan, I had to tell him how I felt (after he hinted around a little unsure. I think after going through our pregnancy with Morgan, he has learned the signs. This makes me happy because I don't have to talk. I can just look at him and he already knows.

He's been extremely helpful. Over this past two weeks he has worked his 12 hour days, cleaned the kitchen, washed all the laundry and sort of kind of cleaned the house. Man standard. lol.

He is preparing for baby already. He has made a few purchases and has encouraged me to make purchases each week for baby shank. It's a lot of fun. We did this with Morgan and even though in the end it all costs the same, it helped us to not have to come up with a ton of baby money after we had her.

Plus...I really like to shop so this pacifies me until baby does arrive :)

I promised myself that we would only buy necessities until after we have a baby shower!! IF we have a baby shower!!

Kale's favorite buy this month...probably for the whole pregnancy...was this BOON thing. He wanted one of these after we had made our purchases for Morgan. He despised the little bottle holder I purchased for her stuff. He decided 2 years ago that the next time we had a baby...it was going to be this BOON thingy all the way!!

Kale's Baby Buy

We are looking forward to another appointment on the 24th of April. More importantly, we are just happy that baby is healthy, great heart beat and that we are so blessed with another pregnancy.


Oh...and for the record...we are VERY confident that this will be our last pregnancy! I have known for a very long time that I wanted to have 4 children and am blessed beyond measure that the Lord has blessed me with 4 kiddos!!! I couldn't be more excited to fill up 4 bedrooms with beautiful children! I know life will get tough...but we are overjoyed!


~ The Shank Family

We Proudly Announce...

Our little miracle!! We are so excited to finally announce that we are expecting baby #4 November 8th !!!!

We had our first baby appointment today. Everything checks out with mommy and baby.

Baby was measuring spot on: We are 8 weeks pregnant

Baby's heart beat was also good at 165 bpm

Kale and I are overjoyed!

After our baby appointment, he took me to lunch at one of our little spots. 

The waitress was so super cute. We had her take a photo of our date (because I document all of them for memories sake) and I told her about our good news.  After we were done enjoying our meal she brought me this!!!!

At first I was confused. I thought maybe Kale was playing a birthday prank...but then I noticed the blue and pink candles. I was like going to cry or something. What a thoughtful waitress!

It definitely got rid of any sweet tooth I had during our meal!

We love you all. We constantly pray for a healthy growing little Shank. We are so incredibly thankful for this blessing.

~ The Shank Family

Happy #8 Tyler Shank {part 2}

Dad's birthday surprise for Tyler was dinner and an Icemen game as a family! Tyler was super excited.

We hadn't eaten at Red Robin I believe since last year. It was definitely overdue :)

Can you say ICEMEN??

One of our all time favorite things to do is go to the hockey games in Evansville! It's such a treat to get out of the house as a family and see some real fun action. Tyler and Colten LOVE the icemen! Colten is not with us at this time and we sure did miss his reaction to going!

We weren't sure how Morgan would react to the game either. It was one of those nights where we had to decide ahead of time if we would fight her to stay or just go ahead and leave if she got fussy or scared around all the people. Well, needless to say...she is definitely my daughter. SHE LOVED IT!

Morgan was screaming and dancing and talking to everyone! It was so much fun to get our minds off life for a bit and enjoy ourselves.

Tyler really enjoyed this special surprise!

Here is our 2 year olds reaction to the Icemen Hockey Games!

Who knew Morgan was so funny? WE did!!

Happy Birthday Tyler Shank!

~ The Shank Family

Happy #8 Tyler Shank

{January 5, 2014}

HAPPY #8 TYLER SHANK!

We celebrated Tyler's birthday in the same fashion as we did Morgans this year. We decided on a homemade cake by mom and a special birthday surprise. That will be coming up in our next post :)

Tyler has had one heck of a year! He has gotten taller. He has gained weight. He has gotten smarter, wiser and messier too!

Celebrating Tyler's birth was fun. We had no birthday party and no distractions. We focused on JUST Tyler.

We woke up the morning of his birthday and I made him the breakfast he wanted...pancakes with strawberries and whip cream! He was in heaven...

Later that night we made a cake for Tyler. O.K. It's a little cheesy for an 8 year old but I tried :)

We sang to him just like we did with Morgan!

I left the birthday surprise up to Kale this year. He said he would "handle it"

I asked him several times what he was planning. He totally wouldn't tell me. He said in about two weeks we are gonna have some good fun. Stay tuned for the "handled it" post!

~ The Shank Family

509 Ruston {part 4}

After 7 long months...this flip home is finally starting to look like a home. 

Here are some updated photos that I took the last time I visited this home to see its progress.

It's lookin good and we are almost ready for it to hit the market.



These are the photos before we got in and painted:

 

The next set of photos are after we started our two man painting party:

In the middle of us painting...we had the appliances delivered...this was really exciting. Appliances means the house is SO close to being done!!

The sunroom is not yet complete and the walls were wet..but it belonged in this post..

Then...the carpet arrived as well. We were about done with the painting but we made sure that all the rooms that were getting carpet were painted. WITH the exception of the upstairs bedrooms. We still have this funny curved ceiling to deal with in regards to creating a line with paint.

The discoloration is from light coming in the windows

The kitchen was the most difficult to paint. Given our timeline of cabinet install, arrival of appliances, and carpet installation...our project went a little backwards. We should have painted FIRST. But of course not. Our heads were turning with all the small projects and to do lists, we totally got sideways and painted after a lot of things were complete. Everything turned out fine and we love it BUT if there is EVER a flip house #2....we will paint first!

We are looking forward to showing you guys our finished project. This was an interesting one at that. NOT sure there will be a flip house #2 but I will say this:

WE. LEARNED. SO. STINKIN. MUCH!

~ The Shank Family