wordless wednesday. my first snow blowing experience.

nick talked me through starting it over the phone. phew! had shoveled about a third of the driveway before he was able to get in touch with me! was worried i was going to have to shovel the whole thing. might have been easier. my carpal tunnel is not a fan of the snow blower!

those tracks belong to the fed ex truck. i did not have the balls to try to get little miss hybrid over the snow plow hump and through the 10 or so inches to the garage! and nick had made a quick pass before we left for the morning. lake effect snow is bananas.  but hooray for this much light at 5pm. ;)

 {iphone photos 1.21.14}

ten on tuesday. 12.17.13

- i am in love with this chapstick. that's saying a lot. i'm not a big 'chapstick' brand girl.

- have a new favorite shot: pineapple juice, grenadine, and vanilla vodka. so good.

- got a ten year present from work. didn't realize i received my coworker's. had the wrong engraving on the back. oopsie. guess i was super excited to open that ipad air!

- ben is so excited for christmas. he's counting down the days now that we're in single digits!

- think i need to start collecting gloves/mittens for ben. he lost one today. it was on mitten clips and he only walked outside to go to pee wee sports. not even for recess!

- it was snowing this evening and my mom was going to finish her christmas shopping. showed her amazon. she was done in 5 minutes. and she said i'm her favorite daughter. {ha!} ;)

- as much as i hate the craziness of december, i love that i'm getting to spend time with friends that i don't usually get to see. so thankful that everything fell on different weekends for the first time in years!

- i need to purge my closet. again. just did it when melie was born. think i'm going to start a home organizing/cleaning project in the new year. seemed to work well when i did it a few years ago.

- melie is starting to laugh spontaneously. so fun.

- cookie exchange and pot luck at work today. why do people call it a carry in? any who. my taco dips were a hit. made two hoping to bring some home and they were both gone!

wip 11.2.13

friday:
hung out with monkey butt. she is sooo close to rolling over!

not the most attractive or flattering pictures... trying to capture how she has earned the nickname 'bubbles!'

got lots of cleaning done and had peapod deliver.

she loves sophie. so cute that she is figuring it out.

why did you take her mom? give her back!

mah! i love you sophie!

good night.
she always covers her face with her blanket. always.

saturday:
nick had a volleyball tournament. the plan was for us to head out there in the afternoon so ben could watch him play. however, they lost and were out much sooner than we anticipated.

our timing was all whackadoodle. so ben, amelia, and i headed to a birthday party and nick got home a bit after and was able to enjoy some peace and quiet.

ben love the batman jumpie.

then he found the air hockey table. could not get him to leave.

group photo. happy birthday isabella.

someone found a new friend. he was playing subway surfers which has piqued ben's interest in playing that on his phone again.

came home and watched monster's university. nick had been patiently waiting to watch it!

sunday:
nick went to work. my kid lost his pj bottoms. oh well, at least he was doing some activity books. 

tried putting his pants on. had em backwards. couldn't help myself.

check out this cutie pie!

so beautiful outside. we enjoyed some fresh air.

we actually have leave producing trees! hi house! ben wanted to go on a walk. he took the bubble wand and fending off bad guys along the way. ;)

chalk fun.

amelia is clearly entertained with our shenanigans.

love how chalky he always gets.

headed out again in the evening. ben and i played frisbee. couldn't help myself and had to go get nick when ben's throw ended up in the tree. just like his daddy!

we had a frisbee throwing contest. i usually one. until nick brought out the disc golf discs. then he won and almost hit our neighbor's house.

i came in to cook and the boys did some raking.

it got dark. quick. it caught nick off guard, hence the darker picture.

ten on tuesday 9.24.13

- i hate admitting this. i did it. i caved. i downloaded candy crush!

- i think miss melie has inherited her dad's 'donkey face.' aka stank eye. she has a pretty mean look! watch out world.

- ben asked me to read him a story during bedtime one night. so i started a 'once upon a time story' and made up a good 5 minute story. at the end he said, 'no mom. i wanted a story. not a fairy tale.' smarty pants.

-  3-0 in fantasy football. yay me! i play nick this week. here come bragging rights.

- i had just vacuumed the living room and came back in like 5 minutes later and there were goldfish crumbs every where! asked ben what happened and he said, 'the goldfish were jousting. sorry mom.'

- did our second pint ride last night. went well. loving my new bike. however, bike shorts {with that fancy crotch padding} take a lot of getting used to!

- hear that you could add pumpkin spice to your coffee and make your own flavored coffee. nick tried it this morning... but he added it to cold coffee. that didn't work so well. gonna have to try again with hot next time!

- miss melie has worn out the batteries in her swing. quite impressive. ben hated that thing. she loves it!

- so tired today i put my wallet in my lunch bag. oy. took me like 5 minutes to figure it out too.

- cleaned our dishwasher. ah-mazing. totally do it. will be doing this regularly! 

wip 6.8.13

friday:

spent the day tidying up a bit.
sent nick this picture and asked if he really wanted me to take his playstation out with the recycling! ;P

my mom and dad came over to babysit ben and nick and i headed out for our 10 year anniversary dinner. went to lighthouse. didn't really want to do anything too adventurous considering my meal options are limited with this pregnancy. {kinda why we celebrated with a mexico trip last year. knew that a baby could be in our future. hoping for an eleven year getaway too! gonna need some us time after all!}

an after dinner photo op.

went and saw the internship. was funny. not as funny as i had hoped for, but that's okay.

while we were out, my dad planted my garden beds! awesome. i had tomatoes and herbs sitting on our deck for like two weeks. just couldn't find the motivation to go plant them.

saturday:

woke up to a text from john telling me they would be late to breakfast... what?! it was 857 am! we had plans for sunday breakfast. i have a heart attack. double check my texts and realize i am right, john was confused. phew. good thing too, because nick was just getting out of bed to hop in the shower and head to work!
ben and just hung out. love nap time with him. hoping i can work it into the weekend routine when baby arrives. linus headed upstairs. <3

after our nap, nick was home and we headed outside to enjoy the weather.

my newly planted garden. yay dad!  8 tomato plants. 6 strawberry plants. those damn bunnies better stop eating them! some basil and i forgot what other herb and maybe a cucumber and a zucchini plant.

ben wanted to play bubble bad guys. such a great way for him to run off some energy! 

i think he got tired of running... he asked to play at his sensory table. love that he calls it that. daycare has really rubbed off on him!

rounded up some of ben's old shoes. sorted some for steph and dave and some for robin's shoe drive. 

we got ben a basketball hoop for his big boy room. he was so excited he couldn't even get dressed after his bath to play! had to play naked.  i'm sharing the blurriest photo, so it's kinda like i edited out his bottom!

sunday:
met john and bill and the girls for breakfast!

then stopped by robin's shoe drive and visited with everyone for a bit.
ben ran into his cousins and they all hung out in the car with their leap pads!

then wynnie and braiden joined in on the fun!

everyone did so good with sharing. super proud of them all!

target for a few odds and end after the shoe drive. love that ben is now such a good helper!

couldn't decide if we wanted to nap or head straight out to the graduation party we had to attend. decided just to bite the bullet and go to the party. hope we could keep him up after we left and get him to nap for a bit when we got home!

cute cookies!

ben was obsessed with the tree house and the momma and baby birds.

silly boy.

cute and easy centerpieces. loved the vases.

some of allie's memorabilia.

he's pretending that he's asleep. but i love how he was sitting...

after nap, we played abc mouse and took it easy. was a crazy morning and early afternoon for us!

cereal for dinner. i am so not a cereal person! but with this pregnancy i have eaten quite a lot of it!

piles and piles of laundry. seriously. i could so do without laundry and dishes. ;)

and just like that only a month behind!