Girls' Night

Yesterday, I found a note from Josh on my desk with 3 movie tickets under it. The note told me to be at the movie theater at 7 and that two of my friends, Meredith and Rachel, would be meeting me there for a girls' night!

Our husbands are attending our church's men conference this weekend, so Josh called the girls this week to see if they could get sitters and go to the movies while the guys were at church. I didn't know about any of it and thought it was such a sweet surprise! Josh's parents were coming up so that his dad could attend the conference with him, so he arranged for his mom to keep Brody.

We went to see When In Rome. It was so cute and so funny! There were parts that were cheesy but we still laughed so hard. I enjoyed getting out of the house with just the girls. It's hard to do that as moms, but it is so needed.

Thanks, Josh, for the fun night out!

Also, Date 2 of The Great Date Experiment has been posted! :)

Double Doozies

Each Wednesday night, a couple from our small group is responsible for bring snacks to our house for Bible study. A few weeks ago, Tracey brought these little jewels over and our life hasn't been the same. I am sure I have had one somewhere before, but not in a while. Our group devoured them in a matter of minutes. I decided to make some this afternoon while I was cooking for two families with new babies. I thought these might be a good dessert to send with their meal. I noticed Great American Cookies has started to sell these at the mall recently. Not that I would go near the cookie counter at the mall to know that they were selling these (insert sarcasm). :)

All you need are the following 2 ingredients: I had to use some SERIOUS self control to not eat one or to not eat even one square of cookie dough. It was hard work! I may be heading back to the store tomorrow to make some for our house. :)

Oh, one more thing. These are totally fat free and sugar free. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

Messy House

Usually I am too proud to show my house when it is a mess, but in all honesty, my house is very rarely not a mess! Usually from about 8pm-8am my house is picked-up but anytime in between, it is a disaster. Here are a few pictures of a typical day around here!This picture of the kitchen is actually a clean day. It usually has plastic containers, plastic spoons, spatulas, etc., all over the floor!The pillows from the couch are NEVER left on the couch. It's like he knows I like them lined up in a certain order because as soon as I walk away he runs over, throws them all on the floor and yells, "Uh-oh!"

Look at all the random junk on the coffee table. He dug that ice cube tray out of the pantry. I used it to freeze his baby food in when I used to make it for him. Now it's a new toy! :) I also like the funnel on the floor. He likes to put it up to his mouth and scream through it. This is walking into our bathroom and it's my favorite. There is a ball, a bulb syringe, a plastic drink pitcher from the kitchen, a broom handle, my rain boots from my closet and other random things. Inside my rain boots, we found a golf ball, his tooth brush and the lid to my hairspray.

While I maybe be able to control how "clean" my house is, it is never picked-up for long. I wouldn't change it for the world though. Brody has so much fun making a mess and I enjoy watching how good he is at doing it! I know 20 years from now, my house will be picked-up, there will be less laundry, I will probably have a ton of free time, but I know I will miss these kind of days where I can't get a thing done and my life feels like chaos! These wild days are a blessing!

Headbanging

Brody has a new obsession with headbanging! I'm not sure where he learned it, but it wasn't from me or his daddy. :) Sometimes we like to peek in his room while he is playing in his crib because we usually find him doing this. I think it's his form of dancing. That, or he just like to shake his brain-up! :) Here is a short video from the other night. He really gets going the last 3 or 4 seconds!

The video has music so make sure your speakers aren't too loud or it will wake up your sleeping babies! :)

Shannon's Baby Shower

Today, I helped host a shower for Shannon at Katie's house. Baby Westin is due at the end of March and we can hardly wait to meet him! We are so excited for Shannon and Cody!The Hostesses with the Mommy-To-Be

Jill, Helga, Lindsey, Shannon, Katie, Me, Desty and AbbyAll the yummy food! We always have great food at our showers! :)The cute petit fours with baby booties, rattles, and "W"s. These were soooo good! I ate one and took one home. ;)
Katie had 3 cute jars each filled with a different candy. Each person was to guess how many of each candy were in the jar. The person closests without going over won the jar of candy! The other 2 jars had sour patch kids and blow pops. I loved how cute they were decorated!
This was the CUTE hostess gift Shannon gave us! I love it! I can't wait to hang it in my kitchen this spring.

Shannon received so many wonderful gifts, but I was too busy talking and eating to take any pictures! :)

I thought I would share the recipe for the apple dip I made for the shower. It is sooooo good! I actually got the recipe from Shannon after she made it for several small group events. It's one of our classes favorites!

Apple Dip

1 jar (7 oz) marshmallow cream

8 oz cream cheese (softened)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 bag Heath and Chocolate bits

( Walmart doesn't carry the Heath and Choc bits so try your local grocery store)

Mix the marshmallow cream and cream cheese, then add in sugars, extract and bits. Serve with apple slices.

Random Things

I go to Bible study at church on Tuesday mornings. This week after we left church, Brody and I went on a little lunch date. We don't usually eat out just the two of us, but we decided to this particular day. It was so much fun. I love that he is talking more and more each day. He just babbled words to me all during lunch. I understood a few, but most of the time I just nodded my head and tried to talk about what I understood. We had great conversation! ;) I forgot to mention my new necklace yesterday on my post, but I got this cute necklace and matching headband from Jill for my birthday. She ordered it from sweet, Susy! I love both the gifts so much and have had so many compliments on them. I am thinking I may need a purple necklace next! Check out Susy's Etsy store here!
I sometimes let Brody have a pen and piece of paper to draw on while I check my email, etc. This morning, he was sitting right outside the room with his pen and paper. When I glanced over I saw him drawing on himself! It was hilarious!
I took the pen away from him...which obviously made him mad!Here is his artwork. Too bad in a matter of minutes it will be coming off in the bathtub! He was so proud though. He cracks me up!

We don't have any big weekend plans for once this month, which is nice. Josh and I are going tomorrow to get a couples' massage. It was our Valentine's Day gift to each other. It should be fun and relaxing. I'm excited! Sunday, I am helping host a baby shower for my friend, Shannon, who is due in March. I love baby showers! I will be sure to take pictures and post them next week.



ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!

The Great Date Experiment- Date 1

Sunday night, Josh and I participated in The Great Date Experiment through our church! If you aren't sure what it is, I blogged about it here.

We had such a great time together. It was fun to have someone else plan our date and to provide some fun questions for us to discuss while we were out.

Our first stop, after dropping Brody off at church, was Mimi's for dinner. According to the date "rules" we were supposed to let the waitress choose our meal. We could give her one stipulation, so we told her we wanted breakfast. I was so nervous and the entire time I kept thinking about how all I really wanted was their waffles. Guess what I got??!!!WAFFLES! I almost hugged her because I was so happy!! Haha!

She ordered Josh the crab and avocado omelet, which he really enjoyed.

The best part of the entire surprise dinner was when she brought us this little treasure.....It's their seasonal banana chocolate-chip muffin. It was heavenly! Point One was probably my favortie stop of the entire night!

Our next stop was supposed to be somewhere that we could do an activity and talk. One of the suggestions was bowling. We never go bowling and we sure don't go bowling on a whim, so we decided that since we were just a mile from the bowling alley, we should go! We bowled one game and had such a fun time! We took our set of questions in with us and talked about them while we bowled. Look at that form! Haha! I was a little nervous when he bowled because he would throw the ball wildly. I just prayed it wasn't going to go backwards and knock me out! ;)

Clearly, we have mad bowling skills.Look who didn't wear leggings and grandma socks this time! I was so proud! I did wear boots but at least I had jeans on this time!Yay for fun at the bowling alley!

Our last stop was at Wal-Mart to buy each other a surprise dessert. We each had a $2 limit. We split-up and agreed to meet back at the front door when we were finished. Clearly, we know each other well, because we both ended up on the ice cream aisle! Haha!

Josh hunting for ice cream for me!

I got him a little container of Ben and Jerry's. It was a flavor he had not had yet. Yes, I am holding peanut butter. We were out and since we were at Walmart, I grabbed some. Ha! Always multi-tasking.

We left Wal-Mart and went to pick Brody up at church, then headed home to eat our dessert! It was such a fun night! We are looking forward to the next 5 dates. I encourage you and your spouse to participate. There is not a timeline for these dates so you do them at your convinince. Let me know if you participate and what you thought about it!

This was just a funny picture from when we got home after our date. Our child is talented. He must take after me. :)

Happy Thursday!

Another Potty Post

You know we can't go a week without having some kind of incident involving Brody and the toilet. :) Yesterday, was no exception. I had been carrying laundry from my closet and Josh's closet to the laundry room, and in the process, I left the door to the bathroom open. The toilet seat was down but that doesn't stop our little man these days.

While I started a load of laundry, Brody threw every single object he could possibly get his hands on into the toilet. He was so quiet and sneaky. It really is amazing how good he is getting at that. When we walked back into our bathroom, I found a lovely collection of things in our toilet. Brody was no where is sight though.

I thought at first it was just tissue paper from a gift bag, but after lifting the first layer, I found more.

There were notes, more tissue paper, small plastic bags and a new bottle of shampoo that had been on the counter top.

I swear, it was like Mary Poppins' bag...I just kept pulling things out!

I think Brody likes to keep me on my toes! :)

Birthday Weekend

First, THANK YOU so much for all the sweet comments on my birthday post! It made my day to get so many sweet messages from my wonderful blog friends. I thought the post from Josh and Brody was super sweet. Josh is getting better at blogging and even knew how to change the font colors this time! Before long he will be blogging for us! :)

I had a wonderful birthday weekend! Josh did so many sweet things to insure that my day was extra special!

Friday night, Josh's parents kept Brody while Josh took me shopping and to dinner. After we shopped, we went to eat at PF Changs. I am so glad Josh made us reservations because the wait was 80 minutes and we were so hungry! Our dinner was really good! We got Cold Stone for dessert and then headed home and watched a movie. It was a great night!

Saturday, Josh and I woke-up on our own at 9:00. I'm not for sure the last time that has happened. We finally had to wake Brody up at 10 so that we could go eat breakfast at Rick's. I'm pretty sure he would have slept until noon if we had let him! My breakfast dates! Brody was still in his pajamas!

We just hung out the rest of the day. I got to take a nap for as long as I wanted, so that was a great and much needed birthday present! :)

That night, we went to my parents' house for birthday dinner with my family and Matt and Julee.

The cake table with all the cute Valentine's day decorations!The cake! It was so good!My mom ordered On The Border fajitas for dinner. They were sooooo good! We had a lot of food for 8 people but we also ate a lot of it! :)My mom got a balloon with my name on it! Haha! It was cute!Half-way to 50!!! :) This picture cracks me up! I asked Brody if he wanted to help me blow out the candles and as soon as I did, he started to reach for the fire, so I quickly blew them out and apparently, looked very scared in the process! Matt took this picture! I think Julee has an even better one on her camera. Julee, Me and Jill- We can't convince her to go blond with us! Haha! ;) Dad, Brody, Jill and BrandonMe, Mom and Jill

My parents gave Brody his V-day present while we were over there that night. They got him a vacuum cleaner. He has a thing for my parents' vacuum cleaner and loves for my dad to push it around the room, so they got him one of his own. He has been vacuuming all over our house. If only it really worked! :)His hair doesn't usually look this crazy, but when we got home I tried sticking it up all over his head! He loved it!

Hope you are having a great Monday!

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

Happy Birthday, Mommy!!!

Your boys love you very much and are SO thankful that we have you to take care of us!

Jen, you are such a blessing to me and I feel so privilaged and blessed to be the man who gets to be called your husband. I am thankful for every morning that I get to wake up next to you. You are a fantasic mother to Brody and a wonderful, loving wife to me. I am so thankful that you are a strong, God-fearing woman who doesn't waiver from her faith and who loves unconditionally. Thanks for choosing to do life with me and making Brody and me the two luckiest boys in the world!

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

XOXO

Fun Weekend!

I am so excited about the weekend! I feel like we have a lot of fun things planned, most involve eating, which is always fun to me!

Tonight, I am going out on a date with Josh. We are going to eat and then he is taking me shopping for my birthday (It's not today, but it is this weekend!). It's much easier for him to do that then try and pick out things for me. Plus, we have a lot of fun shopping together. :) I am so excited about some time with him. Tomorrow night, we are eating at my parents' house. I think we are having fajitas and of course, a Rick's bakery cake will be involved which makes everything better!

Sunday, I get to celebrate Valentine's Day with my boys! I just love them both so much and I am so thankful for both of them. Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays. I love doing sweet, fun things for Josh. He has totally won the Valentine's war this week though. I have gotten gifts each day from him. At first, I thought he was it was just because, but they gifts have been coming daily, so I figured it out! He is the sweetest guy! I am going to try and do a few things for him today, so hopefully they will turn out cute. You never know with me. My craftiness is so inconsistent. One thing might be cute and the other hideous. I like to keep him guessing like that! Haha!

Sunday night, I get to go out with my #1 Valentine and do The Great Date Experiment. We are really excited about it! It's not too late for you to join in as well!

Do you have any fun Valentine's Day plans?????

The Great Date Experiment

One thing that Josh and I committed to one another while I was pregnant with Brody was to continue to have date nights and make each other and our relationship a priority. After 16 months, we continue to have almost weekly date nights...just the two of us. I LOVE our time together. I can't imagine how greatly our relationship would suffer if we did not make a conscious effort to set aside time for each other each week.

One of the challenges we face with weekly dates is coming up with new, creative date nights that we look forward to as a couple. Don't get me wrong, dinner and a movie can be a great date night, but not every week! We both enjoy adding a little spice to our dating life. Are you the same way? Then check out this video!

Ryan is our young couples pastor. His wife, Rachel, is the photographer who took the bridal pics of me the other day! :)

To print off the First Date, click HERE! To find out more information about The Great Date Experiment, visit our church's website.

I hope you and your spouse will participate! I am going to blog after each of our dates. You know I will have pictures and maybe even some short videos if there is anything really fun and crazy that we do!

If you have any questions please feel free to email me! My email address is on my blogger profile.

Also, if you and your spouse chose to participate in The Great Date Experiment, I would love to hear about it! Email me or leave a comment on my blog letting me know if y'all enjoyed it. :)

Happy Dating!

The Night Our Cars Were Towed

Let me preface my story by saying I never raised my voice at the man. And I know I parked illegally. I just feel like I need to clear the air before I tell my story. :)

Josh was meeting with a few guys at church for a discipleship thing and my dad was studying for school, so my mom, Brody and I decided to go to Q'Doba for dollar taco night. It's a super great deal and we love to go. I met mom in a parking lot that we always park in when we go to Q'doba and I go there almost weekly. I have been going there weekly for 2 years and never once have I had the experience I did last night.

Yes, there are 2 large signs in the parking lot that tell you not to park there unless you are a customer of the gym, the bookstore, or the laundry mat. People do it daily...probably hourly. And honestly, I would guess 80-90% of the cars in that parking lot do not belong to someone at one of those places. Seriously, how would they ever know that you weren't at one of those 3 places? The answer is they wouldn't unless someone called the tow company and told them. Oh yes, it happened to us last night.

Mom and I went in to eat and about 45 minutes later we walked out to the spots where our cars should have been but our cars were not there. I thought I was having a mom moment or even a blond moment so I looked around thinking maybe I forgot where I parked, but oh no, I was where I parked but my car was not! Oddly, the cars that were on either side of my mom and I and the one in between us were all there. Actually, the entire lot was full of cars and just 2 cars were missing. My car and her car.

What's a girl to do? I called Josh, who was with his group at church. He didn't answer the first time, so I immediately called back. That's the universal sign for "we have a problem" if I call over and over. The second time I called he answered in a whisper voice. I started crying telling him what happened. He was just sooo sweet. He is always sweet but I love that in stressful situations, he is so calm and level headed. I, on the other hand, am not. He told me he would leave church and call the towing company. Their number was posted in the parking lot. He told me not to worry at all, that we would have the cars back in no time and that it wasn't anything to worry or be upset about. Thanks goodness for him saving the day.

A few minutes later he called me back and told me the man who towed our cars said an employee at the gym watched my mom and I park and walk away from our cars into the restaurant and then called and had our cars towed. To top it off, he only had 2 cars towed in the entire lot. Can you guess whose they were???

Really? There were a a ton of people parked there that were eating in the restaurant with us and he had us towed. What do you think I did? I marched my little self over to the gym to talk to the man who had us towed. He picked a bad day to mess with me because I was hormonal. You know that feeling?

I walked into the gym and was greeted by some little sorority girl. Oh my word. I know I was a college sorority girl not that long ago, but for the love of everything good. If she told me one more time that I parked illegally, I was about to jump the counter. I told her that the tow guy told us someone from the gym had us towed and the random guy who was cleaning the gym equipment told me it was him. He said he watched us parked and waited for us to walk in and then he called on us. Then, he topped it off by saying that he couldn't have any of the other cars towed because he didn't watch them walk in, but since he watched us he just had our 2 cars towed. I looked out in the parking lot and counted 33 cars. There were 4 people in the gym so 29 cars were illegally parked and he had 2 towed. 2 cars.

Here's the deal. If every illegally parked car in the parking lot was towed then I wouldn't have been complaining. I know we parked illegally. And if we all had been towed then we all deserved it. That wasn't the issue. But we were the only two people he picked on. While I was talking to him, I watched 6 more cars park illegally and so did he, but he didn't call on a single one of them. Is anyone else seeing the problem here?

I basically told him in as calm of a voice as I could exactly what I felt about the situation. I didn't chew him out, but I told him how ridiculous it was that his idea of "enforcing the parking rules" was to have two females' cars towed, and one of them had a baby. He just looked at me. And little sorority girl kept saying, "But you parked illegally!" Oh my word sorority girl. Go tease your hair.

I asked him why he didn't just come ask us to move if he watched us park and he said that people have cussed him out for doing that so now he just has cars towed. Super.

I then thanked him for causing me to have no way to legally go get my car since we only have one convertible car seat and it was towed away. I thanked him for turning dollar taco night into $272 taco night. I thanked him that my son was sitting in poop because his diaper bag was towed away. I thanked him for choosing to pick out 2 woman and have their cars towed when I watched at least 10 different men park in the parking lot at the same time as us.

And then we left. Got our cars. The only two cars at the towing place. And paid $0 to get them back. Thank you, Lord.

I will never park in that parking lot again.

Bridal Shoot

Rach posted the photos from my fun, snow bridal shoot yesterday! Click here to see them. She is SERIOUSLY so good!

In case you missed my post yesterday and you are concerned about why I had bridal portraits after being married over 2 years and having a baby...then read here! :)

Rachel wants to know which is your favorite picture from yesterday, so please leave her a comment ON HER BLOG and vote. It will help her in the next few months as she becomes very busy taking pictures of all her summer brides!!

Hope y'all are having a great Tuesday!

Fun Monday!

The snow overnight didn't stop Brody and me from having a fun, busy Monday! I love this kind of snow where it covers everything EXCEPT the roads! Yay! We were able to go and do just like we would any other day. I was very thankful for that!

This morning, I got a text from my friend Rachel. She is a photographer and wanted to take a few shots of a bride in the snow, so I pulled out my wedding dress and headed to meet her for a little shoot. It was so fun to be back in my dress! Rachel is such a great photographer, so I am excited to see some of the pictures from today. She did post one on her blog that you can check it out. I will make sure and post the link once she gets a few more up this week!

It was snowing so I went prepared with my boots under my dress. My feet were nice and warm! I looked so classy dressed like this. :)


I headed back home to change out of my dress and then headed to pick Brody up from MDO. (I didn't think it would be a good idea to get him from church while wearing my wedding dress!)They closed MDO early thinking the roads would be getting bad, but they were still very clear, so we headed to see Josh at work, then made a run to the hospital to see Heather and Jonathan's new baby girl, Hailey. She is just PRECIOUS and looks like her big brother did as a baby! I forgot how little newborns are because I am used to carrying around Brody!

Jill's work is close to the hospital so we stopped by to see her on our way home. Brody made a mess in her store! Sorry Jill!
I love this "did I do that?" face that he is making! Such a stinker! As always, I had to clean-up the mess! I will be glad when he can completely clean-up his own messes. I bet he will not make near as many when that time comes. :)

We are home now and I am getting caught up on a few things. I am meeting 4 girls from church tonight for dinner. We are about to start a Bible study on Monday nights together that I am really excited about. I think it's going to be a great study and some great girl time each week!